Mogaji (Hon) Seye Oladejo
The Lagos State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) notes, with a mix of concern and amusement, that as Nigeria marches confidently into a new year, the opposition remains stuck in a familiar wilderness-wandering aimlessly, clutching excuses, and mistaking noise for relevance.
If New Year resolutions were mandatory, Nigeria’s opposition would be the most delinquent defaulter.
Year after year, Nigerians are forced to endure the same tired reruns: exaggerated despair, choreographed outrage, selective memory loss, and an incurable allergy to electoral reality.
Rather than introspection or renewal, the opposition has perfected the art of grievance merchandising-crying foul where none exists and seeing persecution where there is only accountability.
It is now obvious to all discerning Nigerians that a hollow opposition-devoid of ideas, unity, or credible policy alternatives-is not merely embarrassing; it is dangerous. Democracy flourishes on the contest of ideas, not on the circus of bitterness.
An opposition that survives solely on obstruction, incitement, and institutional sabotage does not strengthen democracy; it pollutes it.
A meaningful New Year resolution for the opposition should therefore start with honesty-telling Nigerians what they intend to do, not what they imagine others are doing wrong.
It should include acceptance of democratic outcomes, an end to the undignified habit of international pity-shopping, and a firm decision to stop praying for Nigeria’s collapse just to soothe wounded egos and expired ambitions.
More urgently, the opposition must resolve-perhaps for the first time-to be accountable. In any serious democracy, the rule of law is not suspended because a politician feels offended.
Criminal allegations are not acts of persecution, and courtrooms are not theatres for political melodrama. Only in the imagination of a desperate opposition does accountability automatically translate to witch-hunt.
Those who cannot answer questions about their own conduct should spare Nigerians the charade of moral outrage.
It would also help if the opposition finally learned to take the driving seat in its own affairs instead of blaming neighbours, institutions, and imaginary enemies for every self-inflicted failure.
When a household is perpetually on fire, it is dishonest to keep accusing the neighbours of arson. Political incompetence is not cured by outsourcing blame.
The opposition must also resolve to grow a spine-especially the moral spine required to condemn terrorism, criminality, and violence without footnotes, caveats, or ethnic calculations.
A political tendency that condemns terror in one breath and rationalizes it in another has forfeited any moral authority to lecture a nation bruised by bloodshed.
Furthermore, the opposition should desist from its strange obsession with cursing Nigeria through reckless rhetoric, exaggerated despair, and daily prophecies of doom. Nigeria is not a failed state in waiting, no matter how fervently some wish it so.
Those who seek leadership should be reminded of the timeless wisdom that nations are not built by professional mourners or sustained by merchants of despair.
While the opposition perfects complaint-writing and grievance-tweeting, the APC-led Federal Government under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is doing the unglamorous work of governance-fixing a distorted economy, taking tough but necessary decisions, strengthening the security architecture, and laying the groundwork for sustainable growth.
Governance is hard work; the opposition prefers hard talk without hard thinking.
The Lagos APC therefore advises the opposition to adopt a New Year resolution rooted in ideas over insults, policy over propaganda, and patriotism over personal vendetta.
Nigeria needs critics, yes-but not critics who mistake volume for value or bitterness for vision.
Nigerians are no longer impressed by political tantrums. They know that nations are built by builders, not by bystanders who shout instructions from the sidelines.
If the opposition must reinvent itself this year, it must first abandon the politics of desperation and embrace the discipline of credible alternatives.
Until then, Nigerians will continue to entrust their future to leadership that builds rather than whines; that governs rather than grandstands; and that delivers results instead of rehearsing excuses.
Mogaji (Hon) Seye Oladejo
Lagos APC Spokesman
