How two strategists beat the odds and redefined power in Nigeria
By Law Mefor
Politics is both an art and a science. Those who understand its rules will always win; those who don’t will always complain.
It is a long-range marathon, not a 100-metre dash. The successful player must fix his eyes on the goal and stay the course, without emotions. Because politics is a game of the head, not of the heart. Those who play emotional politics will always lose and end up heartbroken.
Above all, politics is a game of interest. There are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only permanent interests.
If you want a case study of two men who understand these iron laws, look no further than President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo.
The Tinubu Template: Winning Against the State
The story of how Bola Tinubu became President is now political folklore. The entire power architecture was arrayed against him. The currency was redesigned on the eve of an election to cripple him. The incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari, preferred another successor. The establishment wanted him out.
Tinubu still prevailed. He out-organised, out-strategised and outlasted them. That is not luck. That is a master’s game and a masterstroke – decades of building structures, forging alliances and waiting for his moment.
The Soludo Parallel: Winning Against All Odds
Soludo’s trajectory mirrors Tinubu’s. He became governor against formidable odds. But his second-term re-election was the real test – a mountain of opposition, an amalgam of strange bedfellows, old rivals and new opportunists, all united by one mission: stop Soludo.
He did not just win. He prevailed with 73% of total votes cast, sweeping all 21 local government areas – a feat unprecedented in Anambra’s political history and rare in Nigeria’s.
Like Tinubu, Soludo won because he understood that incumbency is not a slogan, it is performance plus structure.
The Mathematics of 2027
That same mathematics is already playing out ahead of 2027.
Today, 33 governors plus the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory are lined up behind President Tinubu. That is 34 out of 37 – because for presidential election purposes, the FCT is constitutionally a state.
The Nigerian Constitution requires two things to be President: a simple majority and 25% of votes in at least 24 states.
If 34 chief executives, each with a political machine in his state, deliver the mandatory 25%, President Tinubu has already secured 50% of victory before a single ballot is cast. The remaining condition – a simple majority – becomes a fait accompli.
This is why 2027 is arguably the most predictable presidential election in Nigeria’s recent history. The winner is foretold without ifs and buts. It was the same with Soludo’s re-election: the result was clear long before the polls.
The Knife in a Poor Man’s House
What has made this possible is the complete collapse of organised opposition.
Nigerian opposition today is like the knife in a poor man’s house: the sharp knife has no handle, and the one with a handle is not sharp.
It is not the duty of Tinubu or Soludo to build opposition for their opponents. In any democracy, opposition must present itself as a credible alternative – built on consensus, integrity, resilience, patriotism and sacrifice.
What we have instead is a collection of strange bedfellows pursuing power without structures. They want in four months what Tinubu spent 30 years building, and what Soludo spent years methodically laying.
As Ndigbo would say: Anu agbaala oso, ihe a na-ahu bu ahihia na-ama jijiji. The game has bolted; what is left is the shaking grass. The election is won and lost. What remains is coronation and fulfilment of all righteousness.
The Lesson of APC
Those wishing the opposition well should wish them better luck in 2031, if they care to learn.
When the APC was in opposition, it did not rely on social media noise. It forged a behemoth – five legacy parties, over 17 governors, with a unifying arrowhead in Muhammadu Buhari. Tinubu was the architect of that merger. He buried his own presidential ambition in 2015 to push Buhari forward. That is strategic patience.
Today’s opposition is the exact opposite: splintered into at least three major camps, each going into the polls hoping for a miracle, but with no common ground, no structure, no sacrifice.
In the end, victory does not go to the loudest. It belongs to the masters of the game – those who know how to plan, how to strategise, and how to stay the course.
Tinubu and Soludo are masters of the game of politics indeed.
Dr. Law Mefor is Anambra State Commissioner for Information & Value Reformation
