By Okoi Obono-obla
Inspired by a post by Onovughe Igwe on AI, fake videos, and the new politics of manufactured reality.
Nigeria does not have an opposition. Nigeria has a theatre troupe.
An opposition worthy of the name offers an alternative vision. It debates policy. It presents a better plan for security, for the economy, for jobs. What we have instead is puerile, Janus-faced and obsessed with inanities — an opposition that looks in two opposite directions at the same time, and says two opposite things with the same mouth.
Consider what happened in Calabar.
Last week, the convoy of Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, was attacked by miscreants around Watt Market Roundabout after a courtesy visit to the Obong of Calabar. Winds windscreens were smashed. Supporters panicked. All hell broke loose.
And rightly so. No Nigerian, in government or in opposition, should be stoned for campaigning.
But notice the narrative that followed. The impression deliberately created was that Calabar was unsafe because Cross River State is governed by the APC. The attack was instantly weaponised as proof of APC failure.
Atiku Abubakar, himself a presidential candidate, quickly capitalised on it. He went to Facebook to highlight reported burglaries in Ekorinim 1, near Governor Bassey Otu’s private residence, and argued, in effect, that the APC protects only highly placed Nigerians.
This, from a man who himself enjoys, by law, a security detail for life as a former Vice-President — armed policemen and an SSS Aide-de-Camp attached to him under the Remuneration of Former Presidents and Heads of State Act. Security is not a favour the state does for him. It is his statutory entitlement. Yet he lectures the nation as if protection is a privilege reserved for the ruling party.
That is Janus at work: one face crying for protection, the other face denying that anyone else deserves it.
Then came Abuja on 13 November 2026.
After Juma’at prayers at the Shehu Shagari Central Mosque in Area 1, Garki, President Bola Tinubu was booed by some youths, reportedly angry over security restrictions during his visit. Within hours, a video began to circulate claiming his convoy had been stoned. The opposition celebrated with relish. The alleged stoning — disputed and denied by the Presidency — was presented as final proof that Nigerians had rejected the President.
Let us be clear: the booing is not in dispute. The alleged stoning is. The Presidency has denied it, and there is no independently verified evidence that it happened as claimed.
But that did not matter. The same opposition that demanded outrage over Calabar was suddenly celebrating chaos in Abuja. When thuggery is against the APC, it is “the anger of the people.” When thuggery is against the opposition, it is “thuggery.” When violence touches them, all hell breaks loose. When violence is alleged against the President, it is a festival.
It is the height of banality for the opposition to use a very isolated incident in one neighbourhood in Abuja to conclude that the President of a huge country like Nigeria — with 36 States, 774 Local Government Areas, and numerous ethnic nationalities — is unpopular, or to use it as a parameter to adjudge popularity.
How can Nigerians take such a frivolous opposition seriously?
This is not politics. This is puerility dressed as activism.
And it is now being supercharged by a far more dangerous force: Artificial Intelligence.
We have entered an age where AI will give you the world you chose to see and believe. If you want to see Sokoto youths beating up the President in the Sultan’s palace, you will see it. If you want to see the same youths beating up Atiku in the same palace, you will see it. With evidence. With video. With conviction.
People will cry over what never actually happened. They will celebrate the downfall of an enemy who never fell. They will believe a rally in Gambia was a rally in Plateau. They will believe every Northerner wears a Kwankwasiyya cap. Every video online today is real if you suspend your brain.
A naked AI image can generate millions of views. People will masturbate over a mannequin video and call it reality. This is the future we are entering: a world where real is defined by what you wish to see and believe.
The opposition knows this. Lacking crowds at its town halls, lacking a coherent policy to sell, and fearing to waste looted funds on a dead ambition, it has resorted to the predictable, failed tactic of sponsoring noise to validate itself. Attack, film, circulate, celebrate. Repeat.
But sponsoring thugs to attack the President will not add a single vote to a clueless quest for one term. It will not build a road. It will not secure a street in Calabar. It will not protect a single neighbour in Ekorinim 1.
Nigerians are not fools. They can see the double standard. They can see that an opposition that cannot condemn violence consistently cannot govern consistently.
Proverbs are not for kids. As the Urhobos say: it is better to give birth to a thief than to give birth to a mumu.
A thief knows what he stole. A mumu does not even know what he has lost.
Nigeria needs an opposition with one face and one policy. Until then, we will keep getting Janus: two faces, two stories, and no substance.
