By Otunba (Dr) Abdulfalil Abayomi Odunowo
The primaries have produced winners, losers and political wounds. Those who confuse a certificate with a mandate may find out in 2027 that the enemy they prepared to confront was never as dangerous as the friend they failed to reconcile with.
A dangerous celebration is unfolding in Nigerian politics.
Candidates emerge from party primaries, receive congratulations, pose for photographs, print posters, put together campaign teams and almost immediately start acting as though the election has already been won.
It has not.
Winning a primary gives you a ticket.
Winning back your political family gives you a fighting chance.
Winning the people gives you power.
Every APC candidate who emerged from the recent primaries must grasp this distinction before political excitement turns into political intoxication.
The primary election is over.
But the wounds are not.
And wounded politicians do not forget easily.
YOU WON THE PRIMARY. WHO DID YOU LEAVE BLEEDING?
That is the question every candidate should ask before printing another campaign poster.
Who did you defeat?
Who believes he was cheated?
Whose supporters feel humiliated?
Whose structure was displaced?
Who spent millions pursuing the same ticket?
Who mobilised hundreds or thousands of party members believing their principal would emerge?
Who believes the process was manipulated?
Who believes Abuja decided what the grassroots should have decided?
Who feels abandoned by the party he spent years building?
These are not academic questions.
They are electoral questions. Ogun APC has already seen serious controversy after its primaries. The party’s National Working Committee reviewed appeals, yet many complaints over National Assembly, governorship and state assembly nominations remain unresolved or unaddressed in public pronouncements.
Protests and competing claims followed. The state party has not visibly set up an effective reconciliation committee, itself an admission that unresolved grievances cannot simply be wished away. Aspirants such as Abayomi Hunye have gone to court challenging the process that produced Senator Solomon Adeola (Yayi) as the consensus governorship candidate, while figures like former senator Iyabo Obasanjo have resigned, citing disrespect and exclusion.
Anyone pretending that everybody has simply “moved on” is playing with political fire. Nigeria’s political history is full of parties that treated primary wounds like temporary bruises, only to discover they were open sores bleeding votes on election day.
PARTY SUPREMACY CAN PRODUCE A CANDIDATE. IT CANNOT COMMAND THE HUMAN HEART.
This is where many politicians get politics wrong.
A party can declare you its candidate.
Its National Working Committee can affirm you.
Its lawyers can defend your nomination.
Its leaders can raise your hands before television cameras.
But no party constitution can order a disappointed politician to become enthusiastic about you.
Loyalty cannot be legislated.
Enthusiasm cannot be forced.
Political wounds cannot be healed by circulars from party headquarters.
That is why the language of “they have nowhere else to go” is one of the most dangerous sentences in politics.
They do not have to go anywhere.
They can remain exactly where they are and do nothing.
That may be enough.
THE MOST DANGEROUS ANTI-PARTY ACTIVITY MAY BE SILENCE
People often imagine anti-party activity as openly campaigning for another candidate.
Not always.
Sometimes political sabotage needs no microphone.
No press conference.
No defection.
No opposition rally.
An aggrieved leader may simply stop making telephone calls.
A ward coordinator may stop mobilising.
A financier may shut his wallet.
A youth leader may become unavailable.
A women’s leader may suddenly become “neutral.”
A former aspirant may tell his supporters: “Vote according to your conscience.”
And thousands of votes can vanish without anybody formally leaving the party. That is why candidates should fear political indifference almost as much as political opposition.
Anger makes noise. Withdrawal does not.
And by the time you notice the difference, the votes may already have been counted.
YOUR REAL OPPONENT MAY BE WEARING THE SAME PARTY COLOUR
Every APC candidate is already studying the opposition. Good.
But perhaps you should spend equal time studying your own political house. Because the person capable of defeating you may not be the opposition candidate whose photograph appears beside yours on the ballot.
It could be the aspirant whose telephone call you stopped answering after the primary.
It could be the political leader you publicly humiliated.
It could be the ward structure you dismissed as irrelevant.
It could be the financier whose contribution you forgot.
It could be the grassroots organiser whose loyalty you assumed belonged automatically to the party.
Your opponent must persuade these people to vote against you.
Your arrogance only needs to persuade them not to vote for you.
That is a much easier assignment.
History offers brutal proof. In Zamfara before the 2019 elections, the supremacy battle between camps loyal to former governor Abdulaziz Yari and Senator Kabiru Marafa produced parallel primaries and prolonged litigation. Despite initial electoral success, the Supreme Court ruled that the APC had failed to conduct valid primaries. The party lost all elective positions in the state, what should have been a triumph became one of the most painful self-inflicted defeats in the party’s history.
In Rivers, the rivalry between supporters of Rotimi Amaechi and Senator Magnus Abe produced court decisions that excluded the APC from participating in key elections. In Edo, reconciliation efforts between then-governor Godwin Obaseki and then-national chairman Adams Oshiomhole collapsed completely. Obaseki defected to the PDP and won re-election against the APC.
These were not distant theoretical risks.
They were concrete consequences of unresolved primary wounds.
CANDIDATES, UNDERSTAND WHO HAS THE MOST TO LOSE
Governor Dapo Abiodun will remain a major political actor.
The Honourable Minister of state Health, Dr. Iziaq Adekunle Salako, has built considerable political visibility and networks. The APC leadership will survive another election cycle.
But candidates must understand something:
It is your name that will be on the ballot.
It is your ambition that is being tested.
It is your political future that may be decided.
It is your investment that is at risk.
It is your career that may rise or collapse.
Therefore, do not outsource your reconciliation to anybody.
Not to the Governor.
Not to the Minister.
Not to Abuja.
Not to the State Executive.
Not even to a reconciliation committee.
The party may already have activated post-primary reconciliation mechanisms nationally, and Ogun APC has made some attempts after its internal disputes. But institutional reconciliation cannot replace personal political reconciliation.
Some conversations must be held personally.
Some hands must be shaken personally.
Some houses must be visited personally.
Some apologies must be offered personally.
YES, APOLOGISE IF NECESSARY
Politics has produced a strange culture where saying “I am sorry” is treated as weakness.
That is nonsense.
If someone genuinely believes you humiliated him, go and see him.
If an aspirant believes the process treated him unfairly, listen.
You do not have to agree with every allegation.
You do not have to surrender your ticket.
But you can acknowledge pain.
You can recognise sacrifice.
You can show respect.
There is tremendous political power in telling yesterday’s opponent:
“The contest is over. I respect what you brought to this race. I cannot win this election alone. Let us rebuild together.”
That is leadership.
BEWARE OF THE PEOPLE TELLING YOU THAT EVERYBODY IS HAPPY
Every newly nominated candidate suddenly acquires an army of praise singers.
“Distinguished, forget them.”
“Honourable, everybody is with you.”
“Sir, you have already won.”
“Madam, don’t waste your time begging anybody.”
Run from such advice.
Those voices have buried many political careers.
The crowd at your residence is not the electorate.
Facebook likes are not polling units.
WhatsApp endorsements are not ballot papers.
Photographs with governors are not votes.
Motorcades are not votes.
Billboards are not votes.
Political godfathers are not votes.
People are votes.
And elections are ultimately won when enough individual human beings decide to leave their homes and physically vote for you.
YOUR CERTIFICATE CANNOT VOTE
Candidates should write this sentence somewhere they can see it every morning:
YOUR TICKET IS PAPER. YOUR PEOPLE ARE POWER.
Your certificate cannot vote.
Your poster cannot vote.
Your convoy cannot vote.
Your social-media followers cannot all vote in your constituency.
Your political godfather cannot stand simultaneously in every polling unit.
Your party chairman cannot manufacture enthusiasm.
Your Governor cannot personally mobilise every ward.
Your Minister cannot personally deliver every polling unit.
Eventually, politics comes down to people.
Real people.
In real communities.
Standing before real ballot boxes.
Making individual choices.
DO NOT WAIT UNTIL YOU NEED THEM
The worst possible time to begin reconciliation is when the campaign is already collapsing.
Do not suddenly remember an aspirant when you need his supporters.
Do not remember ward leaders three weeks before election day.
Do not suddenly discover political elders when opinion polls frighten you.
Do not begin reconciliation because your opponent has started visiting the people you ignored.
Reconciliation undertaken from panic smells like desperation.
Start now.
Call people now.
Visit them now.
Listen now.
Repair relationships now.
Because today’s wounded aspirant could become tomorrow’s enthusiastic campaigner, but only if you treat him with dignity.
TO THE AGGRIEVED: DO NOT DESTROY TOMORROW BECAUSE OF YESTERDAY
There is also a message for those who lost.
Politics does not end with one primary election.
You may believe you were cheated.
You may have legitimate grievances.
You may feel betrayed.
Pursue whatever lawful internal or legal remedies are available to you.
But remember:
Politics has no permanent winner and no permanent loser.
The person holding the ticket today may need you tomorrow.
And you may need him the day after.
Do not burn every bridge because you lost one battle.
But candidates must make the first move.
Victory carries the greater responsibility for reconciliation.
APC MUST NOT MISTAKE PARTY SUPREMACY FOR ELECTORAL SUPREMACY
This is perhaps the larger lesson.
A ruling party can become so accustomed to its own strength that it starts confusing internal authority with electoral invincibility.
They are not the same.
A party can be dominant and still lose constituencies.
A popular President cannot automatically rescue every unpopular candidate.
A Governor cannot automatically deliver every candidate.
And national party strength cannot compensate indefinitely for local resentment.
The opposition does not necessarily need to become extraordinarily strong.
Sometimes, it simply needs the ruling party to become sufficiently divided.
The PDP’s own post-2023 primary fractures, especially the fallout from the Atiku-Wike contest and the subsequent G5 rebellion, offer a cautionary mirror. Unresolved zoning grievances and personal humiliations produced parallel structures, mass defections of governors and lawmakers, and a dramatic contraction of the party’s territorial strength.
That is why reconciliation is not charity.
It is not weakness.
It is not surrender.
RECONCILIATION IS ELECTORAL STRATEGY.
THE WARNING IS SIMPLE
To every APC candidate:
Celebrate less.
Listen more.
Call those you defeated.
Visit those who opposed you.
Respect those who are angry.
Reconcile with those who feel betrayed.
Bring their supporters back.
Rebuild the political family.
And do it before the opposition does it for you.
Because your opponent is watching.
Every aspirant you abandon is a potential conversation for your opponent.
Every structure you neglect is a potential structure for your opponent.
Every grievance you dismiss is an opportunity somebody else can exploit.
Every bridge you burn creates another route into your political base.
YOU HAVE WON NOTHING YET
This may sound harsh.
But politically, it is the truth every candidate needs to hear.
You have won an internal contest.
The electorate has not spoken.
The ballot boxes remain empty.
The polling units have delivered nothing.
The votes have not been counted.
Therefore:
Stop acting like elected officials simply because you became candidates.
You won the primary.
Now win your party.
You secured the ticket.
Now secure your political family.
You defeated your fellow aspirants.
Now turn them into allies.
You received the certificate.
Now earn the mandate.
Because when election day comes, nobody will ask how powerful you looked after the primary.
Nobody will ask how many dignitaries attended your campaign launch.
Nobody will count how many congratulatory messages you received.
Only one question will matter:
HOW MANY PEOPLE VOTED FOR YOU?
And when those votes are finally counted, some candidates may discover a brutal political truth:
THE OPPOSITION DID NOT DEFEAT THEM. THEIR UNRESOLVED PRIMARY ELECTION DEFEATED THEM.
APC candidates, reconcile now, because the angriest voter you will face in 2027 may be the party member standing beside you today.
Winning the ticket made you a candidate.
Only winning back your people can make you a winner.
Signed
Otunba (Dr) Abdulfalil Abayomi Odunowo
National Chairman AATSG
Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu Support Group.
Sunday 30th August 2026.
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