2027 poll: Opposition resurrect “Operation Wetie”, do-or-die politics, By Ehichioya Ezomon

Nigeria’s opposition politicians – angling, by all means, in the 2027 General Election, to remove from power President Bola Tinubu and his All Progressives Congress (APC) administration – gathered on Saturday, April 25, 2026, in Oyo State, for a “National Summit of Opposition Party Leaders,” with the theme, “That We May Work Together for a United Opposition to Sustain Our Democracy.”

Leader of the Coalition of Opposition Politicians (COP), former Vice President and thrice presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, topped the prominent figures at the gathering hosted by Oyo Governor Seyi Makinde. Others were former Senate President David Mark; and ex-Governors and 2023 presidential candidates, Peter Obi (Anambra) and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso (Kano).

Also in attendance were former Speaker of House of Representatives and ex-Sokoto Governor Aminu Tambuwal; former Governors Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), Rauf Aregbesola (Osun), Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara), and Babangida Aliyu (Niger); former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana; political economist and management expert, Prof. Pat Utomi; and Alhaji Kashim Ibrahim Imam.

Besides crisis-ridden and depleted main oppostion Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and self-acclaimed “main oppostion” African Democratic Congress (ADC) (to which most of the summiteers belong), several of the political parties listed as represented at the meeting, including New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Labour Party (LP) and Accord Party (AP) promptly denied represention, and dissociated their platforms from the outcome and decisions therefrom.

Advertisement

On the surface, the summit looked well-meaning and a welcome development, serving to highlight critical issues in the process of the 2027 poll, and especially the attendees’ resolve, contained in their “Ibadan Declaration” communique, to field a “concensus candidate” from among the opposition parties to challenge Tinubu’s re-election bid at the January 16, 2027, presidential poll.

Also reassuring is their avowal to preserve Nigeria’s multi-party democracy, and resist alleged attempts by the APC to foist a one-party state on the country; and to thwart the reported “ongoing political manoeuvres by the ruling party,” and field candidates and actively contest the 2027 presidential and other elections, The Nation reported on April 25, 2026.

The summit comes on the back of calls by the opposition to Nigerian youths to regard the 2027 election as “a war” and approach it as such. This seemingly “call to arms” began on April 25, 2026, when an ADC topshot, veteran journalist and media publisher, Chief Dele Momodu, likened the election to a war, and urged Nigerian youths to take note and move away from theory and “get very practical” during the poll.

Momodu, an Atiku ally and front-line campaigner for his fourth attempt at the presidency in 2027, spoke at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State, on Wednesday, April 22, 2026, on the sidelines of a ‘Reading Time’, an event organised by the OAU Library as part of activities marking this year’s Library Week, PUNCH reported on April 22.

Staunchly backing Atiku’s aspiration amid a clamour for power to remain in Southern Nigeria till 2031 – to accord with the unwritten rotation of the presidency between the North and South every eight years – Momodu advised youths on the practical approach to the 2027 poll, saying, “We should theorise but know that there is a limit to theory. Rather, we should get very practical.”

Momodu’s idiomatic recalling his failed presidential bid that never got off the ground, or traction in the media: “When I contested in 2011, that was when I realised that the Elephant head is not for child’s play. Politics, especially the (2027) presidential election, is going to be a war. People are going to fight because it’s about winner-takes-all,” he said.

He added a caveat: “And the president of Nigeria is probably the most powerful president on earth because nobody can question him. He controls the judiciary, the legislature, the Gen Zs, the city boys and the village boys” – two pressure groups canvassing for votes for President Tinubu and the opposition, accordingly.

Whether he’s metaphorical or not, Momodu’s damn wrong to frame the 2027 poll as a war, and parrot styling Nigeria’s President as the “most powerful in the world, who pockets other arms of government, and the Gen Zs, who can take up his misdirected baiting and “swing into action.”

(Generation Zs, born roughly 1997-2012, are true “digital natives” who have grown up with smartphones and social media as staples of daily life, and use platforms like YouTube and TikTok heavily, spending roughly 54% of their time on them daily, often for more than four hours, according to data from YouTube.)

If you thought Momodu’s off the rails, Governor Makinde upped the ante at the Ibadan summit, recasting, in the name of bitter politics, the mid 1960s massacre of thousands of people in the Western Region, premised on alleged wholesale fraudulent election.

Romanticising “Operation wetie” as if the occasion and venue was for political jokes and jokers, and reliving the crisis with the wrong perspectives, Makinde feared a possible re-enactment of the 1965 electoral heist (in 2027), which the Military exploited to overthrow the Nigerian Government in January 1966, and killed key federal and regional leaders, resulting in a counter-coup in July 1996, and the Nigerian Civil War from 1967 to 1970.

The name “wetie” derives from the Yoruba expression “wẹ̀tẹ̀ (drench/soak), “referring to the act of dousing political opponents, their houses, and vehicles with petrol before setting them on fire, with thousands killed and millions in property destroyed,” AI Overview notes. The Western Region crisis began in 1962, and peaked from late 1965 to January 1966 following the region’s rigged poll.

As Vanguard reported on April 25, 2026, Makinde warned: “For those (President Tinubu and his APC government) that are carrying on as if there’s no tomorrow, they should remember that ‘operation wetie’ started from here (Ibadan). This is the same ‘Wild Wild West.’

“Back in 1950, this city hosted a conversation that helped shape Nigeria’s constitutional future. Those discussions were not perfect but necessary. They were driven by a recognition that the structure of the nation was a deliberately built, protected and well necessary debated. In many ways, this gathering carries the same responsibility.”

Then Makinde turned speculative: “There are open efforts to consolidate legislative control under one party. At the same time, opposition parties are increasingly entangled in internal crises and legal battles that raise serious questions about their ability to function effectively.

“This is not something that we should treat lightly. I don’t want to think saboteurs are here (at the summit or at work). Because democracy is not destroyed overnight, it is weakened step by step until people begin to feel it no longer works for them.

“When opposition becomes ineffective, democracy itself loses meaning. Democracy is not defined by the success of one party, it is defined by the existence of real alternatives. By the ability of citizens to choose.”

Give it to Makinde for identifying that democracy isn’t destroyed overnight (as the opposition members accuse President Tinubu), but over time, and that in a multi-party system like Nigeria’s, one party necessarily wins, while allowing alternatives to exist.

But he could’ve passed the message of “sustaining democracy” without revisiting the Western Region “apocalypse” as Nigeria reels from insecurity across the country. Surely, the summit attendees regarded his better-forgotten sojourn into the past as over-board, and didn’t feature it in their communique signed by “Chairmen of Participating Opposition Parties!”

Desperate politicians, clutching at any straw for 2027’s relevance, should beware that when their call to arms is heeded by those they goad into action, none, including the Ibadan summit’s over-fed fat cats wanting a return to power again and again, will be spared.

When opposition figures speak about democracy and freedom of choice and association, are those ingredients meant for them alone? Don’t members of the ruling party, including the president, governors and legislators have freedom of choice and association under a democratic setting?

Why are the opposition members “scared and jittery” about the spread of the APC? Did they holler about turning Nigeria into a “one-party state” when then-ruling PDP controlled 31 of 36 states from 2007 to 2009? Does dominance of one party equate to plotting to foist “one-party state” on the country?

Don’t the opposition members dismiss spread of the APC as superficial and an illusion of state governors allegedly blackmailed, intimidated, pressured, and threatened by President Tinubu to defect to the APC, and that “Nigerians” will demystify the ruling party in 2027? Can’t they wait and “turn their theory to practical” at the election in which “only aliens” will vote for Tinubu and the APC?

The opposition coalition is on track, though, exploring the possibility of fielding a “single candidate” against Tinubu in the January 2027 presidential poll. It’ll be unprecedented, to agree on one candidate from among a motley of fiercely-individualistic and ambitious aspirants, and win the ballot for the second time by the opposition in Nigeria!

Having nailed down their 2027 strategy, the opposition should leave the sideshows, the blame game, the propaganda and the call to arms, and focus on democratically sacking President Tinubu from the Presidential Villa in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city. Treading other route(s) is fishing for unconstitutional means to remove the incumbent from power, and a recipe for anarchy in the land!

■ Mr Ezomon, Journalist and Media Consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria. Can be reached on X, Threads, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp @EhichioyaEzomon. Tel: 08033078357.