The tragedy of Odinkalu’s involuntary disintegration — by Olabode Opeseitan
Some disintegrations are loud. Others unfold slowly in public, one post at a time, until the man at the centre is the last to recognise what has happened. Chidi Odinkalu was once a name Nigerians invoked when they sought a credible voice on rights and the rule of law. He is a professor of law who chaired the National Human Rights Commission. That record set a standard. It is now under scrutiny. The question is not whether he may criticise Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Any citizen may, and a serious critic is a public asset. The question is what becomes of a critic whose verdicts are fixed long before the facts arrive. The disintegration feels involuntary, not because he lacks choices, but because obsession narrows them until each next step appears inevitable.
The Lagos to Calabar Coastal Highway is the clearest example. Odinkalu declared that there is no such road and insisted it would never be built as a continuous highway to Calabar. Construction is underway in sections, including at the Calabar, Ogun and Lagos ends. Government has explained that spurs, including one in Edo, will connect neighbouring states. A scholar would have revised his position. Odinkalu did not.
The escalation came in two registers. In an interview with Symfoni TV, he argued that the project did not follow due process and described it as a smokescreen for election financing money, meant to build a partisan war chest. The government has answered the procurement and environmental questions. The Minister of Works Dave Umahi says the contract passed through the Bureau of Public Procurement, which issued a certificate of no objection, and that the Federal Executive Council approved it. He also says the environmental approvals were issued. These claims are verifiable. The burden lies with the accuser, and Odinkalu offered no document, audit or witness. Then, on his X page, the suspicion shed even its caveats. The road became the biggest heist in Nigerian history, run by a bunch of petty rustlers in high office. That is an accusation of crime with no evidence behind it. A former human rights commissioner knows that a heist requires a thief, a theft and proof. He supplied none of them.
The pattern repeats in his larger claims. In July he declared that there will be a third term and that he was prepared to bet on it. But a legislator’s remark about a single six-year term is not a bill. No constitutional amendment proposing it is before the National Assembly, no executive initiative has been announced, and the Constitution’s two-term cap stands. Changing it would require two-thirds of both chambers and ratification by 24 state assemblies. None of these steps has begun. A bet is not evidence.
The Guinean passport allegation shows the same habit, although it began with a publicly reported occurrence. In 2023, a Guinean diplomatic passport was circulated in the media and discussed by the Guinean embassy. That made it a legitimate question for public debate. Odinkalu escalated it into a claim that Nigeria has a president whose nationality is unknown. The legal opinion on record is that Section 137(1) is subject to Section 28, so a Nigerian by birth may hold another citizenship and still seek office. Dual citizenship controversies have arisen before in Nigeria. None disqualified a candidate by birth. A reasonable query became a predetermined conclusion.
The sharpest example came a few days ago. Odinkalu told his followers that Tinubu’s address at the inauguration of the APC Presidential Campaign Council was pre-recorded and that the President was not at the venue in person. He described the event as an orchestration. Premium Times, which was present, independently confirmed that the President was physically there. Local and international media covered it live. Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo shook his hand. Gov Ademola Adeleke danced with him. Nyesom Ezenwo Wike – CON, GSSRS went over to greet him. Elder statesman Tanko Yakasai exchanged pleasantries with the President after delivering his goodwill message. Multiple independent livestreams captured the event in real time.
Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga responded that partisanship has clouded Odinkalu’s vision and judgement. A man who once weighed evidence for a living now demands a wide-angle shot to disprove what hundreds of people witnessed.
This is not only about Odinkalu. He is the most prominent case of a wider condition, which is anti-Tinubuism as a closed system. It is a dysfunctional ecosystem shaped by algorithm incentives. It has scant regard for credibility or verification. It operates through echo chambers, thrives on clickbait and rewards performative outrage. In that system the conclusion comes first and the evidence is recruited afterwards or never sought. Every road is a scam, every appointment a plot, every speech a forgery. The person inside it feels like a truth-teller. From outside, he appears to be walking blindfolded across a busy highway while trying to project strength, coordination and sophistication. Total opposition is as lazy as total praise. It lets you skip the work of logical interrogation.
When a man of his standing trades in charges he cannot prove, the harm does not stop with his own reputation. It teaches a watching public to doubt every claim, including the true ones. That corrodes civic trust and makes him a foe of the very accountability he claims to defend.
No government is right about everything, and Tinubu’s is no exception. Policy, spending, appointments and electoral conduct all deserve scrutiny, and a free country needs critics willing to supply it. Nor can everything he has done be wrong, any more than everything could be right. The discipline of an intellectual lies in telling the two apart. That is the discipline Odinkalu has abandoned. He told Nigerians a road would not cross Lagos when it already had. He called it a heist without producing a thief, a theft or proof. He promised a third term with no bill before the legislature. And he insisted a President was absent from a hall where he stood. When a man’s acerbic attacks keep collapsing against the facts, when does he stop. Does he stop when nothing is left of his own integrity? Credibility is spent slowly and is almost never refunded. The tragedy is that Odinkalu was once rich in it. The disintegration has been so public, and so repeated, that his own record is now the evidence against him.
