“The Yoruba are a fastidious, critical and discerning people. They will not do anything in politics merely to oblige a fellow Yoruba. If the Yoruba man is satisfied that your policy is good and will serve his self-interest, he will support you no matter from which ethnic group you hail.” — Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Awo (Autobiography), p. 261 (1997 edition).
Aare Amerijoye DOT.B.
There are quotations that merely decorate a page, and there are quotations that detonate like a moral bomb in the middle of national hypocrisy. The words of Chief Obafemi Awolowo above belong to the second category. They are not a lullaby. They are a verdict. They are the sound of Yoruba political philosophy refusing to kneel before tribal blackmail, refusing to worship the idol of blind loyalty, refusing to obey political intimidation disguised as ethnic solidarity.
Awolowo did not merely speak to Yoruba people, he spoke to humanity, to reason, to political discipline, and to the sacred duty of leadership to justify itself before the court of the governed. He was not a vendor of emotional manipulation. He was a builder of standards. He was one of the rare leaders whose politics was anchored on conscience, performance, and the welfare of the people, not on tribal hysteria and organised deception.
And it is this same court of the governed that some of us have chosen to stand with today, because Nigeria is no longer governed by competence, but by propaganda. When propaganda becomes the national meal, truth automatically becomes a crime. When suffering becomes policy, empathy becomes an offence. When failure is defended with arrogance, decency becomes rebellion.
This is why I am writing.
Because in the last few months, especially across Facebook and the noisy swamps of social media, I have watched a strange new disease spread among APC sympathisers, a disease of cheap insults and expensive suffering. A government that should be answering questions with results is now answering hardship with arrogance. A political party that should be defending policies with measurable outcomes has turned its supporters into online thugs, whose only assignment is to name-call anybody who refuses to clap for hunger.
So they come to my page, breathing fire and nonsense, pouring insults like gutter water, calling me “bastard” because I support Atiku Abubakar. They call me “hungry” because I refuse to worship Tinubu. They call me “traitor” because I refuse to lie. They call me “enemy of Yoruba” because I refuse to become a prisoner of tribal slavery.
And I have decided to reply, not because I am weak, but because silence in the presence of injustice is what turns a nation into a slaughterhouse. I have decided to reply, not with pleading, not with apology, not with timid grammar, but with volcanic clarity:
Some of us supporting Atiku are not bastards. We are standing for the suffering Nigerian people.
That is the truth.
We are standing for the market woman whose goods have become museum exhibits because nobody is buying anymore. We are standing for the artisan who now measures his daily survival in teaspoons of hope. We are standing for the driver who buys fuel with fear and drives through Nigeria like a man navigating an economy designed to punish him. We are standing for the teacher whose salary has become an insult to human dignity. We are standing for the youth who has done everything the system told him to do, school, NYSC, certificates, discipline, yet the system repaid him with rejection.
We are standing for Nigerians whose lives have become a daily struggle against a government that speaks like a saint but governs like a cartel.
And if defending the suffering Nigerian people makes us bastards in the eyes of APC regurgitators, then let them keep barking. History does not recognise barkers. It recognises builders.
The APC has turned governance into a cruel performance.
Let us not pretend.
Nigeria is bleeding.
The masses are choking.
The cost of living is not rising, it is sprinting like a thief fleeing justice. The price of food is not increasing, it is multiplying like locusts. The value of the naira is not declining, it is collapsing like a weak wall in a storm. Transport fares have become punishment. Electricity bills have become robbery in broad daylight. School fees have become a border between the poor and education. Hospitals have become execution grounds for people without money. Security has become a luxury, and the poor have become sacrificial lambs in a republic that keeps begging for patience but refuses to deliver relief.
Yet what is the response of the Tinubu-led APC government?
More arrogance.
More praise-singing.
More recycled propaganda.
More “be patient.”
More “it will get better.”
More “we are doing reforms.”
More “you don’t understand economics.”
But Nigerians understand something deeper than textbook economics, they understand hunger.
Hunger is the most honest professor. It teaches even the stubborn.
A hungry man does not need a PowerPoint presentation to know that a government is failing. A hungry woman does not need a press statement to know that her suffering is real. A poor household does not need official statistics to know that it has become a prisoner in its own land.
If Tinubu and APC wanted the love of the people, they should have brought relief.
Instead, they brought punishment and named it reform.
The new APC strategy: insult the people, defend the failure.
In a sane country, when a government fails, it becomes humble.
In Nigeria under APC, when a government fails, it becomes louder. It begins to intimidate. It begins to insult. It begins to blame the people. It begins to treat suffering as if it is the fault of citizens.
This is why some APC supporters now behave like hired megaphones, people who cannot defend policies but can defend insults. People who cannot present achievements but can present abuse. People whose minds have been reduced to echo chambers.
And I told one of them recently, an APC regurgitator who came to my page with his vomit of propaganda, I told him:
“You people cannot defend Tinubu with results, so you defend him with insults. But insults cannot feed Nigeria.”
Yes.
Because the only thing APC has mastered is how to turn national pain into political pride.
They have turned suffering into a festival. They have turned hardship into a hymn. They have turned hunger into a national anthem. And they still expect Nigerians to clap.
But while they are busy insulting citizens online, let us remind them of something that will forever trouble their propaganda.
Even in the last election, when they tried to market Tinubu as a tribal destiny, when they tried to turn the South West into a private inheritance of APC arrogance, the South West still produced a clear political reality that they have refused to accept.
In the 2023 presidential election, in the South West alone, Atiku Abubakar polled 941,941 votes, and Peter Obi polled 846,478 votes. Put together, that is 1,788,419 South West voters who did not vote Tinubu. Tinubu himself polled 2,279,407 votes in the same South West.
So let me ask a question that no amount of propaganda can answer, a question that even hunger can interpret without translation.
If supporting Atiku makes someone a “bastard,” and supporting Obi against Tinubu also makes someone a “bastard,” then are you telling me that 1,788,419 South West voters were bastards in 2023?
Is that your new definition of bastardy?
That the moment a Yoruba man refuses to clap for suffering, he becomes a bastard? That the moment a Yoruba woman rejects hardship, she becomes a bastard? That the moment a South West youth refuses to worship poverty, he becomes a bastard?
If that is the insult you people are selling, then you are not insulting us, you are insulting the South West itself. You are insulting the Yoruba spirit of discernment that Awolowo described. You are insulting the very people you claim you are defending, because you have replaced political reasoning with tribal intimidation.
And now you want us to believe that in 2027, after the hardship has deepened, after food prices have climbed like they have wings, after transportation has become torture, after businesses have collapsed like weak huts in heavy rain, the number of those you call bastards will reduce.
No.
It will increase.
Not because we enjoy opposition, but because Tinubu has failed, and failure is the loudest campaigner against itself.
Aristotle and the purpose of government: the good life, not the good lie.
Long before Nigeria became a laboratory of suffering, Aristotle, one of the most influential philosophers in human history, wrote extensively about governance, leadership, justice, and the purpose of the state. Aristotle was not a prophet of noise, he was a prophet of reason. He believed that the state exists to create conditions where citizens can live dignified lives. He believed that leadership is not a licence to oppress, but a responsibility to serve. He believed that politics must aim at the common good, not the private pleasure of rulers.
There is an anecdotal story about Aristotle that has survived the centuries, that he taught while walking, and his students followed him, listening to wisdom as his feet moved with conviction. That story is not merely about movement, it is about leadership, that ideas must walk with people, not float above them like arrogant spirits.
Now compare Aristotle’s concept of leadership with Tinubu’s Nigeria.
In Tinubu’s Nigeria, leadership does not walk with the people, it walks on them.
In Tinubu’s Nigeria, government does not protect the people, it tests their endurance.
In Tinubu’s Nigeria, policies are not designed to ease life, they are designed to squeeze life.
A government that cannot guarantee basic welfare has betrayed its purpose.
And Aristotle would have called such governance what it truly is, a perversion.
A state that exists only for the comfort of the rulers is not a state, it is a crime scene.
A government that makes citizens poorer while defending itself with arrogance is not reforming, it is punishing.
And any political party that celebrates this kind of punishment deserves rejection, not applause.
Awolowo: the Yoruba nation is not a tribe of slaves.
Chief Obafemi Awolowo was not a man of shallow politics. He was not a tribal drummer. He was not a merchant of emotional manipulation. He was an architect of political ideas. He believed leadership is measured by what it delivers to the people, not by what it claims in speeches. He believed education, welfare, economic planning, discipline, and structure were the pillars of progress.
And he understood the Yoruba psychology deeply.
That is why he said Yoruba people are fastidious, critical, discerning. It means Yoruba people are not easily deceived. It means Yoruba people are not naturally enslaved to blind loyalty. It means Yoruba people will not support nonsense just because it is packaged in tribal wrapping.
But today, APC is trying to poison Yoruba identity with stupidity.
They want Yoruba people to believe that supporting Tinubu is a tribal duty, even if the man’s policies are turning people into beggars. They want Yoruba people to believe that rejecting Tinubu is betrayal, even if the man’s government has turned Nigeria into an economic graveyard. They want Yoruba people to believe that political loyalty must override suffering.
Awolowo’s words are a slap to that nonsense.
Awolowo is telling them, even from the grave, with the authority of history:
If your policy is good, Yoruba people will support you. If your policy is wicked, Yoruba people will reject you, regardless of tribe.
That is wisdom.
That is discipline.
That is political maturity.
And anyone who hates this truth is simply afraid of an enlightened electorate.
Tinubu’s APC has made suffering a national culture.
Let us speak plainly.
Under Tinubu and APC, Nigerians are suffering not as an accident, but as a consequence.
It is the consequence of a party that is more interested in power than people.
It is the consequence of a party that believes propaganda can replace performance.
It is the consequence of a party that treats citizens like fools who can be hypnotised forever.
They call it reform, yet the reform has not reformed the life of the ordinary man.
They call it adjustment, yet the adjustment has adjusted Nigerians into poverty.
They call it tough decisions, yet the decisions are only tough on the masses and soft on the elite.
Let us ask a simple question.
Where is the relief?
Where is the evidence that this hardship is leading anywhere?
Where is the proof that Nigerians are not simply being sacrificed for the comfort of a privileged few?
Because we are tired of hearing “tomorrow will be better” from a government that makes today unbearable.
Tomorrow is not a food item.
Tomorrow cannot pay rent.
Tomorrow cannot treat malaria.
Tomorrow cannot fuel a vehicle.
Tomorrow cannot keep children in school.
Tomorrow cannot rescue a dying economy.
Nigeria needs relief now.
Why we stand with Atiku: because we are standing for Nigeria.
Some people ask, why Atiku?
And they ask it as if Nigeria is a comedy show.
As if leadership is a joke.
As if elections are entertainment.
We stand with Atiku because we are standing for competence against confusion, for economic intelligence against reckless improvisation, for national experience against dangerous experimentation, for statesmanship against propaganda.
Atiku represents national reach.
Atiku represents political depth.
Atiku represents the ability to build alliances, structures, and governance frameworks that can confront Nigeria’s complexity.
Atiku represents a leadership temperament that understands that Nigeria is not a private company where you can punish workers and call it efficiency. Nigeria is a country of human beings, and the primary duty of leadership is to preserve human dignity, stimulate productivity, protect livelihoods, secure lives, and restore hope.
That is what APC has destroyed.
That is what Nigerians want back.
To those who call us “bastards”: you are insulting the people, not us.
Let us address the insult merchants directly.
Those who come to Facebook pages to call fellow Nigerians bastards because of political preference are not brave. They are not intelligent. They are not defenders of Yoruba land. They are not warriors of truth. They are simply prisoners of propaganda.
You call us bastards because we support Atiku?
But did you call Tinubu a bastard when he supported Buhari?
Did you call APC bastards when they begged for votes across Nigeria?
Did you call Buhari’s supporters bastards when the naira fell?
Did you call yourselves bastards when insecurity expanded?
No.
You only found courage when it became time to insult the suffering masses.
That is the cowardice of propaganda.
So I repeat, calmly and clearly:
Some of us are not bastards. We are standing for the suffering Nigerian people.
And the suffering Nigerian people are not bastards.
They are citizens.
They are taxpayers.
They are the owners of Nigeria.
They are the true stakeholders of this nation.
And no amount of insults can erase the reality that Tinubu’s APC has failed them.
The marketplace of pain: Nigeria has become too expensive for the poor.
Go to the market and see the tragedy.
People now price food like they are pricing gold.
A bag of rice has become a dream.
A carton of eggs has become a luxury.
Beans has become a symbol of wealth.
Yam has become a status item.
Even garri, the last hope of the common man, now wears the crown of inflation.
Transport fare has turned commuting into punishment.
Electricity has turned darkness into normality and billing into robbery.
Young people are leaving Nigeria in desperation, not because they hate the country, but because the country has refused to love them back.
Families are splitting.
Small businesses are dying.
Hope is evaporating.
And yet APC supporters online are calling people bastards.
How can a man be smiling inside a burning house?
Only propaganda can produce that kind of madness.
APC’s biggest failure: they destroyed trust and replaced it with noise.
It is not just that the APC has failed economically.
They have failed morally.
Because when a government is sincere, it listens.
When a government is sincere, it shows empathy.
When a government is sincere, it admits mistakes.
But this APC government is intoxicated with pride.
They respond to suffering with “shut up.”
They respond to criticism with insults.
They respond to hardship with “be patient.”
They respond to hunger with “it is necessary.”
Necessary for who?
Necessary for the poor?
Or necessary for the elite who are still eating fat while the masses are chewing bones?
Because Nigerians are tired of being used as sacrifice for elite comfort.
2027 is not a tribal war, it is a welfare revolution.
Let nobody deceive you.
2027 is not about tribe.
It is about survival.
It is about whether Nigerians will continue to live like prisoners in their own land.
It is about whether governance will return to meaning, or remain a theatre of cruelty.
It is about whether Nigerians will continue to manage suffering like a religious duty.
It is about whether leadership will finally fear the people.
Because for too long, Nigerian politicians have behaved like emperors, forgetting that power belongs to citizens.
2027 must teach them humility.
2027 must teach them accountability.
2027 must teach them that Nigerians are not slaves.
So register, mobilise, organise, and vote with your suffering in mind, because hunger has already campaigned against APC better than any opposition ever could.
Conclusion: we are not bastards, we are standing for the people.
So yes, I have heard the insults.
I have seen the name-calling.
I have watched the propaganda merchants.
I have seen their tribal blackmail.
But let me say it again, so it echoes beyond the noise of APC regurgitators:
Some of us supporting Atiku are not bastards. We are standing for the suffering Nigerian people.
And in the end, history will not remember who insulted louder.
History will remember who stood when it was risky.
History will remember who spoke when silence was convenient.
History will remember who defended the suffering masses when the elite wanted them to smile through pain.
We are for Nigeria.
We are for relief.
We are for competence.
We are for justice.
We are for the suffering Nigerian people.
And by the grace of God, the suffering Nigerian people will reclaim Nigeria.
Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Director-General, The Narrative Force (TNF)
