Politics is not a poetry contest. It is arithmetic tempered by sociology, history, geography, institutions, and human behaviour. Nations do not change hands on vibes. They change hands on numbers, spread, structure, alliances, endurance, and the cold discipline of reality.

I learnt this again in a conversation with a friend of mine, a brilliant man, passionate, articulate, and firmly Obidient. Over cups of conversation that grew hotter than the afternoon sun, he declared with confidence that Peter Obi is the most popular politician in Nigeria.

I asked him a simple philosophical question, the kind Socrates would smile at before dismantling illusions. By what parameters did you measure this popularity?

He hesitated. Then he spoke of social media noise, of rallies, of urban excitement. I told him gently but firmly that assumptions are not evidence, and that politics punishes delusion without mercy.

He insisted Obi won the last election.

I asked how.

He replied that he was rigged.

I smiled and asked the question that ended the romance of that claim. Was Atiku not rigged? Did both men not go to court? Did the same institutions not adjudicate their grievances?

Silence crept in.

One of the Obidients with him, visibly restless, cited the now-popular argument that Obi scored over six million votes without a sitting governor, senator, or member of the National Assembly.

I responded with facts, not slogans.

Atiku polled almost seven million votes in 2023 despite internal sabotage within his own party, sitting governors quietly working against him, candidates undermining their presidential flagbearer, and an election environment aggressively hostile to opposition. Yet, even under these burdens, Atiku still finished ahead of Obi.

For the avoidance of doubt and for those who insist on empirical clarity, official INEC results from the 2023 presidential election recorded Atiku Abubakar with 6,984,520 votes, while Peter Obi recorded 6,101,533 votes, a margin that is neither speculative nor rhetorical, but documented and verifiable.

Numbers do not lie. They only embarrass fantasies.

At this point in the conversation, I paused deliberately. Not because the argument was exhausted, but because truth, when laid bare, often requires silence to settle before it can be absorbed.

The Obidient then invoked the sacred cow of Nigerian politics, the youth. I challenged that mythology without sentimentality.

Yes, Obi enjoyed intense urban youth enthusiasm, particularly in Abuja and Lagos, amplified by social media megaphones. But elections are not won in Twitter Spaces or Instagram comment sections. They are won across seven hundred and seventy four local governments, dusty wards, rural communities, religious networks, market associations, transport unions, and intergenerational family structures.

Atiku’s youth support is nationally diffused. It cuts across northern cities and rural belts, south western towns beyond Lagos, the North East and North West youth structures, and South South political networks.

I asked him a question he could not answer. If youth alone delivered Obi’s votes, why did he struggle across much of the North and large parts of the South West?

The truth, uncomfortable but unavoidable, is that Obi’s strongest numbers came largely from the South East driven by ethnic solidarity, parts of the South South by cultural affinity, and the North Central Christian belt where religious sentiment played a decisive role. That is not a moral failure. It is electoral sociology. But it must never be mistaken for a national majority.

When passion failed, the Obidient turned to record of impact.

Here, I was unequivocal. By any measurable parameter economic footprint, institutional legacy, philanthropy, political mentoring, national bridge building, or individual life transformation, Obi does not surpass Atiku.

Atiku’s impact spans decades of private sector job creation, institutional reforms as Vice President, mentorship of political leaders across regions, quiet but massive philanthropy beyond cameras, and a pan Nigerian network built patiently over forty years. Obi’s record, while respectable at sub national level, does not compare in scale, spread, or depth. Politics at presidential level is not governed by moral aesthetics. It is governed by capacity multiplied by reach.

Frustrated, the Obidient played the age card.

I told him age has never diminished Atiku. It has refined him. There are men whose years weaken them, and there are men whose years season them. Atiku belongs to the latter class. His clarity, negotiation skill, emotional intelligence, and strategic patience today are products of experience, not liabilities of age.

History offers abundant lessons here. Winston Churchill was dismissed for years as politically finished, only to become Britain’s wartime Prime Minister at an age many would have written off, steering a nation through existential crisis with judgment forged by time, not youth. Nigeria itself has repeatedly learnt that experience, not exuberance, stabilises fragile transitions.

History is merciless to those who confuse chronology with competence.

Then came zoning, the most dangerous arithmetic in Nigerian politics.

Since 1999, Southern Nigeria has governed for about seventeen years and one month, while Northern Nigeria has governed for about ten years and eleven months. If a Southern president serves another term, the imbalance becomes twenty one years and one month for the South against ten years and eleven months for the North.

Here lies the unspoken fear. If a South Eastern president emerges in 2027, human nature may tempt a second term, stretching Southern control to about twenty five years and one month against the North’s ten years and eleven months. Politics is not run by angels. Trust matters. The North will not gamble its future on sentiment.

I told my friend plainly that those shouting Obi or nothing are not accelerating an Obi presidency. They are prolonging Southern dominance under a South Western incumbent. A Vice Presidential pathway for the South East is not a demotion. It is proximity to power, transition, and inevitability. Politics rewards patience, not tantrums.

I ended with a proverb from home. Among the Yoruba, we say that the senior dog kills the animal without tearing the skin. It means maturity achieves victory without barbarity.

In the Atiku fold, attacking Obi is unnecessary and unethical. He is human, not a saint. But insults do not win elections. Structure does.

No amount of abuse will stop Atiku from emerging as the ADC candidate. No volume of insult will prevent his march toward the presidency. We are cultured. We are disciplined. We are strategic. And we will do everything necessary to make ADC work, not with noise, but with numbers.

Politics is not noise.

It is mathematics.

And the equation is clear.

Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Director General
The Narrative Force.