There is a particular kind of courage that Nigerian politics almost never rewards. Not the courage of the man who storms the arena with thugs at his heels and ballot boxes under his arm. Not the courage of the man who buys the returning officer’s conscience the night before. A quieter, rarer courage, the courage to walk away when walking away costs everything and yet preserves the only thing that truly matters, which is honour, writes Seunmanuel Faleye.
That is the courage Senator Otunba Gbenga Daniel’s structure displayed on Sunday.
Let no one mistake what happened in Ogun East for weakness. What the BATOGD Movement did, advising Senator Daniel against participating in the APC Ogun East Senatorial primary and directing supporters to stay home unless security was objectively guaranteed, was not the act of a broken political structure. It was the act of statesmen. In a political landscape littered with men who would sell their conscience for a party ticket, that distinction deserves to be said loudly and without apology.
Desperation has a recognisable face in Nigerian politics. It is the man who arms thugs, threatens local government chairmen, and turns a party primary into organised terror. It is the man who would rather preside over a ruined process than lose a clean one. When the BATOGD Movement announced that miscreants had been deployed, that agents of the state government had issued threats, and that the atmosphere had become too dangerous for any meaningful democratic exercise, they did not escalate. They did not reach for thuggery to meet thuggery. They simply said their people’s lives were worth more than a primary ticket, and that they would only participate if security could be objectively guaranteed. That is not weakness. That is the clearest demonstration that OGD is not chasing the Senate seat at the cost of his people’s safety.
Gbenga Daniel governed Ogun State for eight years, built roads, built institutions, stadia and built political structures that still define Ogun East politics today. He did not need this primary the way a hungry man needs his next meal. He wanted it and pursued it through legitimate means. When those means were sabotaged, not with votes but with violence, his structure refused to play. In refusing a rigged game, they have done something most Nigerian politicians are constitutionally incapable of: choosing integrity over ambition.
There is something else the architects of Sunday’s intimidation clearly did not anticipate. By deploying coercion against OGD’s supporters, the state government inadvertently confirmed that he is the candidate they fear most. You do not mobilise state machinery against a man you are confident of defeating. You do that when you know, privately and uncomfortably, that on a level playing field you lose. The violence was not a show of strength. It was a confession.
The 2027 general election remains ahead. The court of public opinion is always in session. And a man whose structure chooses his people’s safety over political survival has deposited something in their hearts that no intimidation can repossess.
Gbenga Daniel’s people stepped back on Sunday. But what you witnessed was a man of principle, and the movement that stands behind him, who know the difference between a battle and the war.
That is not retreat. That is the long game.
Seunmanuel Faleye is a brand and communications strategist. He is a covert writer and an overt creative head. He publishes Apple’s Bite International Magazine.
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