Elections is not ‘baby just the tip’ – by Chioma Ahaghotu

Many “forces” from other regions who voted Obi in 2023 will not support him in 2027. But you don’t want to ask why. You think it’s by hope and “God abeg.”

You call mapping strategy gaps “too much scrutiny” and criticism, as if refusing to look at the gaps will make them fill themselves. That mindset is exactly why many of you confuse movement traction with campaign strength. They are not the same thing. Not even close.

What is giving you confidence is the Obidients you see online and in your circles. Loud. Passionate. Emotionally invested. But if winning the presidency was up to Obidients alone, Obi would not have left Labour for ADC. He left because movements energize people, but campaigns win elections. And elections in Nigeria are not won on timelines and comment sections.

Many of you don’t even know how elections are run and won in your own LGAs and constituency. Unu na ako too. You don’t know who controls the ward lists, who mobilizes on election morning, who negotiates security access, who funds agents, who feeds the machinery. Yet you speak with supreme confidence about national victory. Be serious.

Movements care about the feelings of their members.

Campaigns care about the winnability of the candidate.

Strategists care about cold questions: voter segmentation. Who left and why? How do we re-engage them? What message brings back discouraged 2023 voters? How do we win undecided, swing, and independent voters outside strongholds? How do we collapse hostile structures and neutralize opposing machinery? These are not questions answered by hope and feelings.

You even think the people who entered ADC before Obi will simply step aside and “give” him the ticket. Be for real!

So you don’t understand how primaries work? How could you? Labour didn’t run real primaries, and Obi exited PDP before theirs.

Primaries in Nigeria are highly dollarized. Every main actor in ADC understands this language. They didn’t stack dollars for years to hand it to Obi out of sentiment. Politics is not a prayer meeting.

But you, who don’t know how LGA elections are run in your own village, think we can hope our way to a presidential win. You say “structures don’t matter .” Then what did you think mass defections to APC were? To count flyovers? No. Interests. Pipelines. Networks. Negotiated power. That is the machinery collapsing into a pool in real time. The variables that will matter in 2027 were not present in 2023!!!

Many of the people who invested money, machinery, and ground networks for Obi in 2023 are not returning in 2027. You don’t think that matters?

Elections is not “baby just the tip.” Elections are hardcore. 2027 will be full-force. The opposition is still searching for soft landing.

Many in ADC today shouting coalition and claiming them will support whomever emerges will run back to APC after primaries to secure appointments for their camps. That is how Nigerian politics works. 4 years is a long time to stay “unvested”.

Politics is interests first. Negotiation of power first. Strategy first. Feelings last.

It is brutal, cold and calculating!

When these realities unfold in real time, that’s when many of you will finally learn that politics is a game. And you don’t win games by refusing to study the board.