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Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed– Friedrich Nietzsche
Since 2015, Nigeria has been governed by the All Progressives Congress (APC), the second ruling party since the return to the democratic system in 1999 after decades of military rule. However, the trajectory of its electoral support tells a story of steady attrition rather than enduring strength. The party’s national appeal shrank significantly even as it clung on to power in the 2023 presidential elections. Far from building a solid foundation, the party’s incumbency advantages, which many analysts assume will be pivotal to retaining its power, may falter on Election Day. If anything was more than evident in the 2023 election, it is the fact that structure is just one of the many variables shaping voters’ choices. Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s (LP’s) candidate, won over 6.1 million votes and 11 states plus the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) without the control of any state, no legislators or councillors. This surprising outcome, which the former Governor of Ekiti State called “The Obi Hurricane”, raises the question of “QUESTIONABLE STRUCTURES”, what Obi himself described as the “Structure of Criminality”. In the face of biting economic hardship, this is an empirical reason to doubt the possibility of another APC victory in 2027 based solely on political structures.
President Bola Tinubu can have control over 30 states through the state governors but the numbers from 2019 to 2023 expose a party in decline, and current realities suggest this trend could accelerate
The Clear Pattern of Declining Votes
The result of the 2015 presidential election shows that the APC’s Muhammadu Buhari got roughly 15.42 million votes. In 2019, he captured approximately 15.19 million votes. These represented around 56% and 54% of valid votes, respectively. In the 2023 presidential election, Bola Tinubu got about 8.8 million votes, which was a sharp decline of roughly 6.4 million votes from APC’s 2019 share. His share of the total valid votes was roughly 37%. This was not a minor fluctuation; it occurred despite APC’s control of federal resources.
Analysts claimed that the PDP and LP did not win because opposition votes were fragmented. Hence, they lost the election. The simple arithmetic used was adding the PDP’s 6.98 million votes and LP’s 6.1 million votes, which totals approximately 13 million votes, 2 million more than the 11.26 million votes Atiku and Obi got under the PDP in 2019. If analysts’ conclusion that opposition votes where fragmented, then the combined votes of Atiku and Obi should total 11.26 million, but this is clearly not the case. What is evident here is that voters realigned with candidates of their choice, and if at all any party lost voters, it was the APC, as the combined votes of Atiku and Obi clearly exceeded their 2019 share by about 2 million, while the APC lost over 6 million voters. Could Atiku have won if Obi were his Vice-Presidential Candidate? I am unsure for three reasons. First is the resentment the PDP would have faced in the South East because of not zoning the presidential ticket to it, which might have caused lower voter turnout there. Secondly, most supporters of Obi may not have turned out to vote, given their stance that they will not support him if he is the running mate. Thirdly, the organic support that Obi received may not have been automatically transferred to Atiku. Thus, both Tinubu and Atiku probably had similar chances of winning in that scenario.
This brief yet revealing analysis suggests that the analysis of voting results and patterns is far more complex than the simple formula of adding Atiku and Obi votes. Two questions that beg an answer are: (1) where did the 6.4 million votes APC lost in 2023 go, and (2) what is the guarantee that APC will not lose more voters in 2027 in the face of economic crisis and public outcry following heightened insecurity that has seen, for example, the kidnapping of school children and teachers in Oyo and elsewhere? Voter turnout plummeted to a historic low of around 27%, reflecting widespread disillusionment but was it only the APC voters that were disillusioned? If that were the case, we would have seen higher voter turnouts in PDP-controlled states. That was clearly not the case as voter turnout was low across the board. My view is that while some former APC supporters simply stayed home, many others shifted to alternatives like the LP under Peter Obi, especially in the North Central. Most of the PDP supporters in the South East and many in the South-South voted Obi. The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) also took a chunk of the APC votes in Kano.
Thus, the decline in APC votes was not a random event; it mirrored growing public frustration with governance failures under Buhari. Tinubu has now performed even worse than Buhari. Under Tinubu, the economy has tanked, skyrocketing prices and persistent inflation amid unemployment have created a cost-of-living crisis. Surveys and reports as of mid-2026 indicate disapproval ratings as high as 70%+, with citizens citing hunger, insecurity, and eroded purchasing power
Why 2027 Could Be Worse for APC: Structural Advantages vs. Reality
If APC votes fell sharply from 2019 to 2023 amid already poor performance, why would the situation reverse in 2027? Economic indicators remain grim. Inflation has fluctuated, but consumer prices for food and essentials stay punishingly high. Unemployment and underemployment continue to alienate youth, the same demographic that powered the 2023 “Third Force” shift away from APC. Soaring costs of living translate directly into voter anger at the ballot box, or more likely, into abstention. Several dissatisfied voters who once supported the APC are now eyeing opposition platforms. The African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) have emerged as potential destinations. Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso have joined forces in the NDC as Presidential and Vice-Presidential Candidates. Even if this opposition remains fragmented as many analyses claim based on the simple arithmetic I have dismissed above, it offers protest outlets for voters tired of APC’s track record. A unified Obi/Kwankwaso opposition could further siphon votes from the APC’s traditional Northern bases. The APC primary result in 2026, where Tinubu purportedly received almost 11 million votes, merits deep doubt.
Evidence of irregular counting, rapid jumps in tallies, and votes surpassing possible mobilisation amid national hardship undercut any claim of organic strength. Such figures appear more like internal incentives at work than evidence of broader voter opinion. Inflated primaries rarely guarantee general election success when public discontent runs high
APC defenders will point to incumbency: control of many states, federal patronage, and the ability to deploy resources. These factors matter in Nigeria’s clientelist politics. Yet they did not prevent the sharp 2023 decline. Low turnout historically favours organised incumbents but sustained poor performance risks even lower participation or backlash mobilisation against the ruling party. With economic reforms yet to deliver visible relief for ordinary citizens and protests springing up over failure in insecurity, by late 2026, APC’s “structure” may prove brittle against widespread electorate’ fatigue. Therefore, betting on an APC victory in 2027 requires ignoring the empirical evidence of declining support since 2019, the deepening economic pain, and the availability of protest alternatives in parties like ADC and NDC.
Nigerian elections have often defied pure merit, but trends this clear, millions of votes lost, rising hardship, and eroding trust make a repeat performance far from assured. The party’s claim to have a solid grip on power increasingly looks like a holdover from past momentum rather than current legitimacy. Nigerians disillusioned by the last decade deserve better than another term justified by inertia
Dr Nwankwo is a Lecturer in Political Geography and Electoral Studies in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka
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The Public Administrator And The Trajectory That Has Shaped Her Career
Opinion
The Public Administrator And The Trajectory That Has Shaped Her Career
Published
2 hours ago
on
July 9, 2026
By
NewTimes
Prof. Tunji Olaopa
By Tunji Olaopa
In this piece, I want to extricate who and what a public administrator is within the context of public service and the governance process. This is a timely discourse given that it is the public service that humanizes the responsibilities of the state and complements the fundamental essence of democratic governance in ways that make it visible to the citizens. In other words, without an effective and efficient public service, we cannot make any sense of what we call the dividends of democracy. The way we see public administration therefore reveals who the public administrator is, and what we need to expect from the public service in the furtherance of productivity and democratic governance. The further point is that it is the public administrator and the public service she supervises that reveal the efficiency of a state as a developmental entity.
We all confront the public services daily in our routines: the police on the road, the nurses and doctors at the federal hospitals, the teachers in public schools, the local government workers, the internal revenue officials, the customs and immigration officers, and many more. Most often than not, when we confront government, it is the politicians that we engage with on the pages of newspapers, and on social media. It is the politicians that we burden with the working of the state and its governance objective. It is the politicians that are saddled with articulating governance policies that are meant to transform the lives of the citizens. However, it is from the backroom of policy implementation that politicians get their legitimacy; and it is the public servants that are responsible for this.
While politicians agitate over the policy decisions to be made—the who gets what and when—it is the public servants that are concerned with the nitty gritty of the how. And in the backend and frontend, they get their hands dirty in the unenviable tasks of hammering out how the policies are to be implemented in ways that respond to the many challenges of making policies answer to the different constituents that make up a state. This is even more complicated in a state like Nigeria that is fragmented along ethnocultural, religious, regional and gender lines. This puts the public service directly at the forefront of the execution battle in terms of planning, coordinating, directing, organizing, and controlling the policy operations, and aligning them with the public interests. It is therefore the public administrators who actually do government businesses by managing scarce resources and delivering public good and services to the citizens.
At the very epicenter of these administrative operations is the figure of the public administrator whose responsibility is to coordinate and oversee the effective and efficient operations of the public services in delivering public good to the citizens. She is the one saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that the public service solidly backstops the developmental and governance objectives of the government
Within the Nigerian government context, the public administrator is at the core of the operations of the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to facilitate the efficient operations that implement government policies and deliver the services to Nigerians. In this regard, the public administration oversees not just the policy implementation operation but also the human resources dynamics and budget management. The public administrator is expected to function in four major roles: (a) expert—advising the government on policy decisions, (b) regulator—oversight over outsourced and externalized functions of government, (c) engager—shaping the larger issue of the public good and how it affects the community, and (d) reticulist—identifying new skills and expertise and bringing them together to achieve good results and outcomes.
In this position, the public administrator is conceived traditionally to be responsible to the public. And she supervises a transactional framework that enables her to gauge and regulate the pulse of the public service. In other words, in this context, the public administrator acts as the thermostat for regulating the administrative temperature, especially when standards are not met. This bureaucratic leadership prides itself on its problem-solving capacity through rational planning processes. Its transactional dimension involves the exchange of valued things between leaders and subordinates that serves the interest of both without leading to an enduring relationship.
However, over the years, the role of the public servant and of the public administrator has been subjected to myriads of transformations that commence from the Weberian traditional frame. The two most significant factors that have instigated changes are the new public management (NPM) and the changing role of the state in governance and administrative matters. The NPM is the term for the managerial revolution that insists that we must begin to take stock of the efficiency and effectiveness of the public service, and the status of the public administrator and the public servant, from an entirely different perspective. This new perspective is dictated by the private sector. Unlike the public sector which operates according to the logic of publicness, the private sector possesses an organizational, structural and institutional logic that makes it conducive to performance and productivity. Again, to use a Nigerian example, the Nigerian public service, founded on the traditional Weberian management system, operate a business model that has been struggling to achieve a capability readiness that will power productivity and hence the Nigerian democratic governance. The failure has been due to the following: (i) input process-oriented business model; (ii) skills and competency gaps; (iii) lack of clarity on actions required to execute national plan; (iv) poor alignment between national plans, sectoral activities and departmental/unit programmes; (v) unclear accountabilities for execution; (vi) inadequate performance monitoring and reporting; (vii) organizational silos and culture blocking of execution; and (viii) undefined rewards and sanctions.
The managerial revolution insists that the Nigerian public service, like every other public service across the globe, must bring the Weberian business model into conversation with the managerial paradigm. This conversation will enable the public administrator rethink, for example, the input process-oriented model into another that is essentially output oriented. However, and more than the demand of the NPM, the public administrator must also reflect on how we can rethink the understanding of public administration and of the status of the public administrator herself, in line with the changing role of the state. The managerial revolution also coincides with the pressure that keeps mounting on the state to change its status and role in terms of the delivery of public services to the citizens. The state has always been configured by a rowing metaphor which implies that the government is involved in the business of directly delivering services to the citizens outside of the participation of the nonstate actors.
However, and since the 1990s, the state and its role have been reconsidered within a new boat metaphor of steering. This means that the role of the government is limited to that of a regulatory entity that is concerned with setting governance objectives and enacting a regulatory mechanism that will see to the proper behavior of the nonstate actors that have been allowed into the expanded governance space within which the government hitherto solely operated. Thus, from the perspective laid out by the NPM managerial paradigm, the state’s centralized planning that motivated the rowing metaphor is often cumbersome, wasteful and ultimately inefficient in service delivery. Switching to an enlarged governance space and a market-oriented customer service model demands also that the public administrator’s role must change with that of the state and its public service.
In other words, if the state has enlarged the governance space to allow nonstate actors participate in the governance and development process, and if the public service has opted for a managerial and market-oriented business model, then the public administrator’s role is no longer tenable. The public administrator must become transformational by becoming a public manager whose role is to articulate public choices into a market framework calculated on cost-benefit dynamics. This has tremendous implication for how the public service manages scarce resources and policy implementation on behalf of the government. A good example is provided by the public-private partnership framework within which the public manager must now operate. The state can now hold the public manager to account in terms of performance contracts which enable the public manager and public servants in the various MDAs to set goals and objectives, measure activities, manage projects and programmes and monitor achievements and outputs in ways that align the political will with the policies of government.
Decision-making is circumscribed by accountability and transparency to achieve value addition. The public manager imbibes an entrepreneurial spirit that demands the capacity to continually, consistently and creatively create ad recreate public value to the general satisfaction of the citizens. This is even more in the twenty-first century circumscribed by two fundamental circumstances. The first is that the public manager is operating within a knowledge society and the fourth industrial revolution that demand a knowledgeable familiarity with new and digital technologies and mechanisms that have become imperative for modernizing the public service and teasing out of it more performance and productivity.
Given that the state must be developmental to be able to make any meaningful inroad into the knowledge society and the fourth industrial revolution, it implies that the state must depend on that public manager to be able to competently and creatively manage the public service in ways that backstop the development aspiration of the state. The second circumstance that pushes the boundary of the public manager beyond a mere administrative responsibility is that the twenty-first century environment is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. To operate in such a VUCA environment, the public manager must necessarily transcend the traditional transactional mindset.
The twenty-first century is a technology and knowledge world that requires specific skills and competence sets, as well as attitude and mindset, which transforms the persona of the public manager as well as the capabilities of the workplace. The twenty-first century public manager needs, for example, critical literacies, skills and competences that enable her to operate within the knowledge and technology-modulated work environment of the public service
These literacies and competences include the following: (a) interpersonal skills: facilitation, empathy, political skills; (b) synthesising skills: sorting evidence, analysis, making judgements, offering critique and being creative; (c) organising skills: group work, collaboration and peer review; and (d) communication skills: better use of new media and multi-media resources. And furthermore, apart from the traditional role of being an expert, regulator, reticulist and engager, the public manager needs to, as a matter of urgency, do more. She must be a storyteller (with the capacity to keep recreating new visions of the future); a commissioner (who is able to bring together myriad resources from different sources); a resource-weaver (with the ability to devise different uses for resources regardless of their original goal); and a navigator (who consistently guides the citizens to the different possibilities the public service is able to bring about in service delivery).
To conclude: the public administrator has the responsibility to keep up the dynamics of institutionally reforming the nature of public administration and of the public service in tune with changing realities. The public service workplace and workforce that the public manager supervises are critical to the productivity that instigates democratic governance
Olaopa is a Professor of Public Administration, and the Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission
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Opinion
Why I Dedicated My Book On Elebuibon To Toyin Adepoju
Published
20 hours ago
on
July 8, 2026
By
NewTimes
Prof. Toyin Falola.
By Toyin Falola
This month, I released a book on the Ifa guru, Araba Elebuibon, titled Ifa Priestcraft: Ifayemi Elebuibon and Yoruba Ancestral Knowledge. I dedicate this book to Toyin Adepoju, a leading Independent Scholar based in Lagos. I am proud to have dedicated the book to him, and I am eager to give my reasons
Book dedications are always more than simple gestures. In essence, dedications are expressions of appreciation, admiration, respect, and remembrance. A dedication always has a history that goes much deeper than the actual text that appears on the pages of the book. In fact, there have been instances when dedications are not simply an expression of friendship, but rather an affirmation of shared visions, similar intellectual pursuits, and extraordinary commitment to the expansion of knowledge. This is the reason why I dedicated my book about Elebuibon to Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju.
Though this might seem like a small thing to many, this point is characteristic of a long-time engagement with a scholar whose life’s work revolves around showing unparalleled dedication to uncovering the epistemologies of Africa, Yoruba cosmology, and the intellectual traditions of Africa. While most scholars engage with superficial descriptions of what goes on in Africa, Adepoju is one of a breed of scholars who believes that the intellectual tradition of Africa requires an analysis from an all-inclusive, nuanced, and global perspective. While some scholars can only engage with the text through reading it, some engage with the text beyond the text by challenging the text, arguing against it, and releasing its latent potential. Adepoju falls within the category of scholars who challenge the text. He never engages with scholarship as mere literary works or as history. Rather, he engages with scholarship as the living repository of human thought processes. This is clear in his intense engagement with my body of work on Yoruba studies, African knowledge, and intellectual history.
It must be noted that he has become one of the leading critics of my creations in the past couple of years. He has provided a highly intelligent and thought-provoking criticism of my works through the USA-Africa Dialogue and Toyin Falola Network, as well as many other means that really touched me with his intellectualism and his philosophy on my work. But it must also be remembered that there are other reasons why he stands out among others. As opposed to the mere flattery that other people can give, it is the intellectual curiosity that Adepoju has cultivated as a critic and as a researcher, going beyond simple admiration into more complex areas of hidden meanings and what could happen in the future of Africa.
Therefore, the dedication in this particular book is very fitting indeed. This is so not only because my book on Elebuibon is a product of my intellectual curiosity about indigenous African knowledge systems but also because it is a critique of things that pertain to the African cosmos
This is exactly the type of intellectual terrain that Adepoju has continually traversed with incredible tenacity. Throughout his research, he always focuses on one issue: that African intellectual heritage must be rescued from being understood through reductionist perspectives. He recognizes that Africa’s civilizations cannot be involved in global dialogue without first reconnecting with their roots intellectually. In this sense, his intellectual project has much affinity with the philosophical impetus for my study of Elebuibon. There is yet another remarkable attribute of Adepoju’s literature that is his appreciation of the importance of studying African philosophical thought from both indigenous and global perspectives. His work on the philosophy of the Yoruba people is not carried out from an ethnological or romantic perspective. He sees it as a living intellectual system that can contribute to human discussions on spirituality, morality, creation, and existence. These ideas harmonize quite well with my own philosophical approach toward writing about Elebuibon.
For too long, African traditional knowledge systems have been misrepresented in Western paradigms that have viewed them as vestiges of so-called primitive peoples unable to philosophize. Such biases have informed institutions of academia as well as public discourse and even the African people themselves
Nonetheless, scholars like Adepoju continue to reject such biases by revealing the philosophical profundities contained in African worldviews. Adepoju was especially interested in the analyses I conducted regarding my own writing on African Ancestral Studies. This is because he realized that my project on ancestral systems was not one of going back to the past to revive the old ways, but to consider how traditional epistemology could encounter modernity without compromising its philosophy. He comprehended that traditional systems like Ifá were alive and able to adapt to changing times and geographies.
The importance of this stems from the fact that one of the most unfortunate characteristics of colonial modernity has been the systematic destruction of African epistemology.Generations of Africans have been raised to have doubts about the genuineness of their epistemological inheritance of theirs and embrace the foreign paradigms. The consequence has been that African epistemologies have become the butt of mockery rather than the subject of serious inquiry. Nevertheless, custodians such as Araba Elebuibon have preserved African epistemologies over generations through dedication and commitment. When it comes to honouring the person to whom this book ought to be dedicated, I thought of Adepoju instantly owing to the similarity of his scholarly endeavour to mine in terms of restoring African epistemology.
Moreover, Adepoju’s scholarship carries inherent interdisciplinarity, which resonates with me as a methodology. Even though modern-day academia tends to compartmentalize knowledge, historians are supposed to be within the realm of history, literary scholars within literature, philosophers within philosophy, and anthropologists within anthropology, reality within Africa does not respect these boundaries
The civilizations of Africa have been characterized by interrelated systems of knowledge, in which spirituality, politics, ethics, aesthetics, ecology, and communal existence interact constantly. The intellectual capabilities of Adepoju encompass the understanding of this intricacy
The notion that scholarship needs to break out of strict academic silos has been central to my intellectual journey. Knowledge thrives on dialogue between different disciplines. In many African societies, wisdom could never have been compartmentalized. The diviner, historian, healer, philosopher, artist, and moralist would all occupy overlapping areas in society. Elebuibon is a perfect manifestation of such an intellectual world. While treating Ifá strictly as religion would be inadequate, it also means philosophy, ethics, history, poetic art, hermeneutics, sociology, and cosmology. Such a scholar as Adepoju would undoubtedly be able to appreciate all of these elements without being trapped in academic reductionism.
Another factor I considered for my dedication to him is his profound understanding of symbolism and metaphysical imagination. While intellectual pursuit in the modern world tends to privilege empirical thinking over symbolic reasoning, the latter is dismissed as either irrational or trivial. The African people have long known that symbolism is one of the most important ways by which a community expresses its values, fears, hopes, and philosophy. The discussion of Adepoju on the “Tree of Knowledge” and other symbolic interpretations of the African intellectual tradition illustrates his perception of the deeper meanings contained within cultures. This kind of perception is crucial for someone wishing to engage in dialogue with Ifá and similar knowledge systems. In fact, one of the problems regarding the indigenous epistemology of Africa is that people who are from an outside perspective and who do not understand the symbols used in it tend to take it literally. It leads to misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Something that Adepoju never does. He gives philosophical epistemology of Africa the respect it deserves.
Intellectual generations always have some duties left behind by their predecessors. Intellectual property is preserved when individuals choose to preserve, evaluate, criticize, and evolve their intellectual heritage. However, in many African communities currently, there exists an alarming dissociation of the younger generations from their native modes of thought. Globalization has made the world much more connected and exposed them to the influence of foreign civilizations while rendering indigenous intellectual practices foreign. Adepoju’s literary creations demonstrate one way this challenge could be addressed. These literary pieces prove that there is no need for people to discard modernity and global intellectual interactions simply because they study their indigenous practices. Rather, they demonstrate that indigenous practices could contribute to the debate in the global arena without losing their uniqueness.
I hope that younger scholars will go on to engage with African epistemologies seriously without feeling embarrassed by them. I hope that the weight of cultural forgetfulness will not erase intellectual legacies carried over millennia of historical oppression and that African philosophy will come to take up the places that have been denied to it for too long. Writing my book on Elebuibon became one way of engaging in these larger discussions. I wished to question our preconceived ideas about what counts as legitimate knowledge. I wished to prompt people to engage with local epistemologies not out of fear and prejudice but with intellectual rigor. More than anything else, I wished to capture the story of someone who embodies the strength of African intellectual legacies.
This dedication to Toyin Adepoju is justified by the fact that his research resonates in this same vein. Another factor justifying this dedication is one of intellectual courage. Courage is required to commit to studying African metaphysical systems amidst the lingering colonial bias in academia. Topics related to indigenous religion can invite misunderstanding and hostility. However, Adepoju has always been willing to explore these themes, acknowledging their importance in African intellectual tradition. It is important to recognize such boldness. In several respects, it is also an homage to intellectual tenacity, the determination to explore tough issues despite the disapproval of prevailing structures. Intellectual tenacity has been present in Elebuibon’s efforts to preserve Ifá culture and Adepoju’s intellectual inquiry into African cosmology. One must also consider the value of interpretation within the field of intellectual endeavour. Ideas will not endure simply because they have been recorded on paper. They will endure because critics and readers constantly interpret them throughout generations. The numerous encounters that Adepoju has with my work made me realize this fact repeatedly.
Adepoju is not a mere summary writer; he goes deep into texts in a philosophical sense, forging links between texts that the writers themselves might not have consciously thought about. That, by itself, is a contribution worth its weight in gold. For that reason, I honor this dedication sincerely. It is recognition of a great mind whose preoccupations are strongly aligned with the philosophical concerns of the book on Elebuibon. It refers to Adepoju’s interactions with my books, as well as his many other contributions to scholarship on topics such as Yoruba studies, African epistemologies, mentoring, symbolism, and intellectual history. Moreover, on a deeper level, my dedication speaks to my faith that scholarship should foster communities of thought and not just brilliant performances. Scholarly traditions thrive only if the people conducting scholarship engage each other in generous, critical, and creative dialogues. The writing of Adepoju is such scholarship. His scholarship is constantly growing in conversation and not just being fed from.
Unfortunately, academic culture is more inclined towards competition rather than intellectual solidarity in most cases. Relationality and continuity, however, appear to be common traits in African knowledge systems. The continuity of knowledge systems over time depends on a succession of people who transmit the system from one individual to another, including teachers, interpreters, learners, and knowledge custodians. The relationship between Elebuibon’s universe and Adepoju’s analysis serves as a good illustration of such continuity. On one side, one inherits the knowledge system of the ancestors through practices and oral tradition, while the other analyses and interprets African knowledge systems within a broader intellectual tradition.
To conclude, the dedication of my book to Adepoju should be attributed to admiration, intellectual indebtedness, affinity, and acknowledgment. I admire his profound understanding of research methodology. I am grateful for his continuous participation in my intellectual pursuits
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Opinion
Pastor Adeboye And The Rhetoric Of Politics
Published
21 hours ago
on
July 8, 2026
By
NewTimes
Dr Promise Adiele
By Promise Adiele
I have always been fascinated by the evident but veiled alignment between religion and politics. This complex intersection is effectively dramatized by American-born English playwright T.S. Eliot in his play Murder in the Cathedral. My interest in the relationship between religion and politics inspired me to research and write an academic paper titled “The Dialectics of Politics and Religion in T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral” published by Taylor & Francis in Comparative Literature: East and West (vol. 8, issue 2, 2024, pp. 155-169.) In the paper, I contend that the relationship between the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, and King Henry II reveals the putrid underlying tension between religion and politics. Intriguingly, they both imbricate each other in specific ways.
Many of those masquerading as men of God are diehard politicians. Conversely, many politicians exert significant control over most religious organizations for personal objectives. So religion and politics gravitate towards each other. My worry is that religious and political actors hide under a spurious cover of denial to delude the populace about their sainthood and neutrality while they covertly straddle the two concepts. The tragic end of the Archbishop in the text, assassinated by four knights ostensibly sent by King Henry II, exposes the inherent unease between religion and politics. Although the Archbishop died as a martyr, his deep involvement in politics is established because he once served as Lord Chancellor of England, a political position, before King Henry II appointed him as the Archbishop of Canterbury.
There is documented evidence that many men of God are intricately immersed in politics. They advance their political convictions through the pulpits. While some of them prophelie and give fake prophesy over a perceived political enemy, others turn their pulpits into a political theatre, indoctrinating and swaying the emotions of their members. Did Karl Marx not admonish the world that “religion is the opium of the people”? Religion intoxicates like opium. To view the world or reality from the prism of religion is an existential myopia and sadly, many church-goers are victims of this bodily dysfunction. Since many worshippers see their pastors and general overseers as infallible, God personified, they swallow whatever the preacher says even if it means engaging in practices that are inconsistent with morality, lacking any biblical validation. Thus, many gullible worshippers are led astray through psychological manipulation, but the preacher flourishes in materialism, power, and influence.
In Nigeria, there are highly revered spiritual leaders renowned as moral compasses given their perceived affinity with God. When they talk, the country listens, both Christians and non-Christians. Their humble beginnings motivate many people. They speak truth to power and identify with millions of ordinary people in the country as Christ did. Many of them are genuine philanthropists committed to lifting millions of people out of poverty and in many cases, contribute to social infrastructure, including educational empowerment. Among these figures, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), holds an unparalleled position of influence. Daddy GO (as many members of his church, including my wife, fondly call him) is a religious and spiritual colossus in the modern era. His sphere of influence extends beyond Nigeria to many parts of the world. To many people, he is God’s direct representative on earth.
However, Pastor Adeboye’s recent pronouncements regarding Nigeria’s cataclysmic security situation under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu have infuriated many people, provoking widespread public anger. By declaring that Tinubu “has done his bit” because he has issued directives to security chiefs, Pastor Adeboye has basically delineated the parameters of presidential responsibility – a restructuring of benchmarks that stands in glaring contrast to his aggressive stance during the administration of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. Speaking at the US-Nigeria Faith Heroes Award Gala in Washington, D.C., Pastor Adeboye argued that a President’s duty ends with issuing operational directives to subordinates. In a widely criticized analogy, he compared Tinubu to Donald Trump or other global leaders who command military strikes from the comfort of their executive mansions. According to Adeboye, “You don’t expect him to go and put on khaki and fight.”
Although it is true that no reasonable citizen expects an elderly President to pick up an assault rifle and march into the Sambisa Forest to confront terrorists and bandits, the argument itself is a classic example of strawman fallacy. The constitutional responsibility of the Commander-in-Chief does not include engaging in physical combat. It involves ensuring the security of life and property, managing policies, enforcing consequences for failing security apparatuses, and ultimately delivering results. To state that a leader “has done his bit” merely by holding meetings and signing memos while kidnappings, banditry, and massacres spread aggressively across the country is an insult to the victims of this pervasive violence. What makes Pastor Adeboye’s current defence of the presidency so unpleasant to Nigerians is the stark historical inconsistency it excavates.
Historical records show that the RCCG leadership maintained a drastically different standard of accountability a decade ago. When President Goodluck Jonathan was at the helm, navigating the brutal infancy of the Boko Haram insurgency, the RCCG pulpit was neither patient nor forgiving. During that era, the Jonathan administration was roundly condemned by prominent religious leaders, including influential voices within the Christian community, for failing to safeguard the nation. The government’s perceived weakness was actively used as a measuring stick for structural incompetence, and spiritual authorities frequently echoed the frustrations of an angry populace.
In fact, Pastor Adeboye organized a one-million-man protest march against the spate of insecurity in Nigeria when Goodluck Jonathan was the president. The respected man of God petitioned Jonathan over the growing insecurity in the country. Part of the petition read “As we mark our 50th anniversary as an independent nation, we are faced with the emergence of kidnapping as the latest Nigerian nightmare and one of the most serious threats to our common well-being, no one is safe.” In 2020 during the Muhammadu Buhari administration, Pastor Adeboye participated in a nationwide prayer walk against insecurity organized by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). Fast forward to the present day, and the security apparatus has devolved into a multi-headed monster. Bandits and terrorists dominate major highways, corporate kidnapping has become an institutionalized multi-billion-naira industry, and territories that were safe during the Jonathan era are now actively terrorized.
Yet, Pastor Adeboye is quiet or exonerating the government. There must be a name for this double standard. The fierce urgency of the RCCG pulpit has mysteriously transformed into a shield of executive empathy. This dramatic shift in tone cannot be isolated from the structural proximity between the RCCG hierarchy and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). The connection is inexorably glaring to mortar and pestle. The First Lady of Nigeria, Mrs Oluremi Tinubu, a former Senator, is an ordained Assistant Pastor within the RCCG structure – a title the church recently endorsed publicly despite ongoing controversies around her. Before the Tinubu presidency, former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, an eminent pastor within the same denomination, sat at the right hand of Muhammadu Buhari for eight years. When proximity to power increases, the disposition for speaking truth to that power invariably diminishes. Since Osinbajo left power, he has not found it worthy to lend a voice and condemn the disastrous economic conditions or the catastrophic security situation across the country. His silence is almost scandalous.
By defending Tinubu’s performance on security, Pastor Adeboye has effectively transitioned from a national moral arbiter to a political apologist. His defence reduces the presidency to an administrative desk job where effort is celebrated over outcome. If leadership under Goodluck Jonathan was judged strictly by the bodies that fell and the towns that were lost, why should leadership under Bola Tinubu be judged merely by the circulars sent to the service chiefs? When religious leaders shift goalposts depending on who occupies the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, they do severe damage to their institutional credibility. The blood of innocent Nigerians does not look for political party affiliations, nor does it care about the religious titles of a leader’s spouse. Insecurity is an existential threat requiring absolute accountability from the very top. Pastor Adeboye has not found it fit to condemn the kidnapping of innocent school children or the gruesome beheading of a school teacher in Southwest Nigeria, his regional ancestry. SAD!
Pastor Adeboye’s attempt to exonerate President Tinubu is a profound disservice to millions of Nigerians living under the constant shadow of terror. Leadership is defined by accountability, and accountability stops at the President’s desk – not in his bedroom after a command has been issued. The pulpit must return to its historical mandate of defending the oppressed and holding the powerful to account, regardless of personal friendships, denomination, or proximity to power. It is excusable if a religious leader decides to stay away from politics and focus on preaching the gospel. But if religious leaders decide to venture into politics, they must identify with the oppressed and suffering masses no matter who is in power rather than pitching tenth with a government generally perceived as a failure.
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