Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Osita Okechukwu has rediscovered elementary school. In his latest statement against Atiku Abubakar, the former Director General of the Voice of Nigeria and foundation member of the All Progressives Congress announced that the ADC candidate has forgotten “lesson 101”: that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
It is a charming proverb. It is also the only part of the statement that resembles an argument.
Since Mr Okechukwu is so fond of the classroom, the class is now in session. The pupil is Osita.
LESSON ONE: A GLASS HOUSE HAS FOUR WALLS
Look closely at what the proverb is doing. Atiku has raised questions about the record of the man in Aso Rock. Okechukwu does not answer a single one of them. He says instead that Atiku has no right to ask.
That is not a rebuttal. It is a gag order dressed as folk wisdom.
Apply his rule evenly and see whose windows survive. In 1993, 460,000 dollars was forfeited to the United States in a Northern District of Illinois civil case over accounts in Bola Tinubu’s name. By the Okechukwu doctrine, the President could never again speak one word about corruption. Mr Okechukwu does not apply the doctrine there. A rule that points in one direction only is not a principle. It is a weapon.
A rule that points in one direction only is not a principle. It is a weapon.
LESSON TWO: A PETITION IS NOT A VERDICT
Any Nigerian with an envelope and a stamp can petition the EFCC. A petition proves one thing only: that a petition exists.
Okechukwu’s own statement records that the Lagos High Court dismissed the matter. He cites the court in one breath and asks the nation to prefer a letter over it in the next.
He adds that crime is not statute-barred. Let him have it. Atiku has never asked for any file to be closed. By his own published account, he waived his constitutional immunity in 2006 and opened his office to investigators, Nuhu Ribadu, then Chairman of the EFCC, among them. Nuhu Ribadu is today the President’s National Security Adviser. Whatever file exists sits within arm’s reach of the incumbent’s own security chief, and after twenty years of hostile administrations there has been no charge and no conviction.
Atiku’s position has never been “close the file”. It has always been “open it, and show the nation what is inside”.
LESSON THREE: EQUITY IS A COURTROOM, NOT A CAMPAIGN
“He who comes to equity must come with clean hands” is a maxim of the civil courts. It binds a party who asks a judge for equitable relief.
Atiku is before no judge and asks for no relief. He is a candidate before the electorate, and the only relief he seeks is the vote of the Nigerian people on 16 January 2027.
Mr Okechukwu describes himself as a “roadside lawyer”. A roadside lawyer may be forgiven for not knowing where a maxim belongs. A roadside lawyer who then lectures the nation with it may not.
LESSON FOUR: “REGARDLESS OF ITS OUTCOME”
Here is the most revealing phrase in the whole statement. The petition, he says, has placed Atiku on the front burner “regardless of its outcome”.
A man who cares about the truth waits for the outcome. A man who says the outcome does not matter wants only the smoke.
He goes further and laments an “image gridlock” for Nigeria, and then spends an entire statement spreading the very thing he says damages the nation’s image. The arsonist is complaining about the fire.
A man who cares about the truth waits for the outcome. A man who says the outcome does not matter wants only the smoke.
LESSON FIVE: THE WITCH-HUNT YOU CONDEMN
Mr Okechukwu closes by urging his political colleagues to avoid grandstanding and witch-hunts. He says this in a statement cheering the revival of a two-decade-old case against the leading opposition candidate, in the final months before a presidential election. The sermon and the sin share a page.
He also insists he is “not protecting Mr President”. The record says otherwise. In November 2022, as Director General of the Voice of Nigeria, he was attacking Atiku over rotation. In October 2023, when the Chicago State University records were before the nation, he argued that only a diploma had been deposed to INEC and warned Nigerians against following Atiku’s ambition. In July 2026, on Arise Television, he demanded that Atiku quit the race. Now this.
Four seasons. One target. And on every occasion, the President’s flank covered.
LESSON SIX: ADJECTIVES ARE NOT EVIDENCE
Read the statement again and count the facts. “High profile.” “International outliers.” “Kitchen sink political missiles.” A lobbyist’s bill that was “reportedly” deployed.
Not one date. Not one sum. Not one account. Not one witness. Only adjectives, doing the work that evidence refused to do.
On the Washington advocates, engaging counsel abroad is lawful, and the particulars Mr Okechukwu’s party keeps quoting are public precisely because they were declared. By the Presidency’s own complaint in July, what those advocates placed before Washington was the record of a United States court. If a court record is a missile, Nigerians are entitled to ask who built the target.
CLASS DISMISSED
Mr Okechukwu came to teach lesson 101 and failed every paper he set: logic, law, consistency and candour.
While he reads petitions aloud, Atiku is placing his working documents before the Nigerian people: how fuel reaches the pump at a price a family can bear, how food returns to the market at a price a worker can pay, how the states are empowered to compete, and how every naira of subsidy savings is accounted for. That is the examination the suffering masses will set on 16 January 2027, and it is the only one that counts.
120 days remain. The glass house is not in Yola.
Atiku2027 #ADC #TheNarrativeForce #InformedInspiredInvolved
Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Director General,
The Narrative Force
thenarrativeforce.org
19 September 2026
