Nigeria is bleeding. At a time of hardship, insecurity and deepening public frustration, our politics is becoming dangerously combustible. Political meetings are attacked, campaign vehicles burnt, billboards destroyed and citizens threatened for their choices. Every incident invites another grievance, another accusation, another promise of retaliation. We must act before the scattered fires become a national conflagration.
The disturbing scenes reported from Abuja on Friday, November 13, and the attack on an NDC gathering in Lagos the preceding day make this warning urgent. In Abuja, young men were heard chanting “Ba ma yi! Ba ma yi!”—an expression of rejection—as President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s convoy departed after Friday prayers. Reports that stones were thrown at the convoy have been disputed by presidential aides not minding several video clips circulating . This require transparent investigation. In Lagos, thugs disrupted an opposition gathering, attacking participants and damaging vehicles. These incidents differ in their circumstances, but together they demand sober national attention.
Let us be clear: citizens have the right to reject a president politically, voice their grievances and campaign against his re-election. Peaceful dissent is a democratic right. Throwing stones at anyone, including the President, is violence. Equally, citizens attending an opposition meeting are exercising a constitutional freedom. Attacking them is an assault on that freedom. Neither public anger nor party loyalty confers a licence to injure.
The President must be safe among the people he governs. The people must be safe when they disagree with him.
That is the democratic standard we must defend together.
I am deeply troubled by the hostility entering our public life. No responsible government should dismiss expressions of public discontent without examining their causes. No responsible opposition should celebrate violence because the person targeted occupies the presidency. When anger becomes an occasion for partisan triumph rather than sober reflection, we move closer to a danger that may eventually overwhelm us all.
Nigeria’s history offers a warning. The federal election crisis of 1964 and the violence surrounding the Western Region election of 1965 helped undermine the First Republic. Political rivalry hardened into intimidation, reprisals and bloodshed. Institutions lost credibility as confidence in peaceful remedies weakened. The consequences reached far beyond the politicians and communities where the quarrels began.
The circumstances today are different. But we should recognise the danger when political competition begins to make ordinary life unsafe. We do not have to repeat every detail of an earlier catastrophe before learning from it.
My concern is the safety of Nigerians and the survival of our democracy. APC members must be free to campaign and organise in every part of this country, and that same protection must extend to every other party. No electoral victory can compensate for the destruction of the country we seek to govern.
When reports of violence emerged from Kaduna, Kebbi, Nasarawa and Katsina, I raised the alarm. I condemned attacks against the ruling party, the destruction of APC billboards and the burning of campaign vehicles. I also condemned attacks against opposition supporters, including the reported assault on an ADC media convoy in Kebbi.
My position then was clear: “These incidents deserve investigation wherever they occur and whoever is affected.”
That remains my position today. The attack on the NDC gathering in Lagos deserves unequivocal condemnation. Any attack on the President’s convoy deserves the same. The standard must hold in the North, South, East and West. A principle that changes with the identity of the victim is merely a preference dressed in respectable language.
We must resist the temptation to explain away an attack as retaliation for violence elsewhere. Each incident must be investigated on its own evidence. An innocent person in Lagos does not become answerable for an offence committed in Katsina. A party member in the East does not inherit responsibility for the conduct of a thug in the North.
Once we accept that dangerous logic, every Nigerian becomes a potential hostage to someone else’s grievance.
We must also reject the reckless habit of assigning ethnic ownership to political parties. Labelling a party “Igbo,” “Yoruba” or “Hausa” can turn political disagreement into collective ethnic blame. From there, it is a short and terrible journey to attacks on people whose only connection to a dispute is a shared name, language or birthplace.
Nigeria has travelled that road before. We should have learned enough from its graves.
To those who question my motives because I am Yoruba, my answer is simple: my ethnicity does not suspend my conscience. I do not need permission from an ethnic camp to defend a Nigerian’s rights. Nor does my membership of the APC relieve me of the responsibility to condemn wrongdoing, including wrongdoing committed in its name.
Violence is the visible symptom. The deeper danger is the growing belief that opponents are enemies to be crushed, that public institutions are weapons to be captured and that victory confers ownership of the state.
That belief must be confronted.
President Tinubu bears a particular responsibility to lead this effort. As President, his duty of protection extends to supporters and opponents alike. He should urgently convene political party leaders and presidential contestants, with INEC, security chiefs and credible peace mediators present.
Such a meeting must produce more than photographs and handshakes. It must establish practical arrangements for protecting political gatherings, channels for resolving grievances and clear commitments against intimidation. Nigerians must see those commitments enforced.
The security agencies must investigate attacks promptly and impartially, publish credible findings and bring perpetrators and sponsors before the courts. A party connection must offer no immunity. Opposition status must attract no presumption of guilt. Peaceful protesters must not be treated as violent offenders, and violent offenders must not escape accountability by claiming to be protesters.
Political leaders must temper their language and take responsibility for the conduct they encourage, finance or excuse. Words spoken from a podium can become instructions in the ears of an excitable crowd. A leader cannot inflame supporters, wink at intimidation and then claim innocence when violence follows.
Government must also listen. Public frustration cannot be wished away by dismissing every grievance as opposition propaganda. Where policies impose hardship, those who bear the burden deserve a hearing and a credible response. Security measures may contain an incident; restoring trust requires fairness, accountability and visible concern for people’s lives.
Opposition leaders have an equally clear obligation: organise discontent through peaceful, constitutional means. They must restrain their supporters and condemn violence without calculating whether it damages the government.
This responsibility extends beyond politicians. Former heads of state, religious leaders, traditional rulers, labour unions, professional associations, civil society organisations, the media and concerned citizens must speak and act now. They should demand accountability, challenge inflammatory falsehoods and insist that every community remain open to peaceful political participation.
Silence from respected voices leaves the public space to those who profit from division.
I have suffered under military rule. I know the cost of losing the freedom to speak, organise and dissent. Some of us confronted dictatorship and paid with our liberty, health and years of our lives. We have no desire to watch another generation inherit that struggle because political actors cannot discipline their ambitions.
Those who imagine that disorder will consume only their opponents understand neither history nor the nature of fire.
I warned earlier: “It is not too late for us to quench this fire now.”
That opportunity remains, but we must use it. Every attack left unpunished weakens confidence in the law. Every threat rewarded with applause makes the next threat easier. Every grievance ignored gives bitterness more room to grow.
Elections must offer Nigerians a choice, not confront them with a threat. No candidate is indispensable. No party is entitled to perpetual power. No grievance grants a licence to maim or kill.
Our responsibility is to preserve a country in which we can lose an election and still belong, win an election and still answer to the law.
I call on every well-meaning Nigerian to act before condemnation gives way to mourning.
No political ambition is worth Nigeria’s destruction.
Babafemi Ojudu is a former presidential aide
