THREATENING OUR FRAGILE DEMOCRACY 

Oru Leonard 

Four days to the conduct of the keenly contested Osun State Off-Cycle Governorship Election, which was held on Saturday, 15th August 2026, Senator Francis Fadahunsi (representing Osun East Senatorial District) directed members of the All Progressives Congress Congress (APC), at, Ilesa, Osun State, to kill supporters of the opposition ACCORD Party. He said, in a video which went viral:”If you see any of them from now on to the day of the election, kill them”.

Shortly thereafter, the Chairman of the Kuje Area Council in the Federal Capital Territory(FCT), Samuel Danjuma Shekwolo, was caught on video saying:”I have said in my Area Council, it’s either you’re doing APC or leave the Area Council. I am not arguing with you”.

At a recent inauguration event organized by the Tinubu City Boy Movement, a political support organization campaigning for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s re-election, the Borno State Commissioner for Poverty Alleviation, Youth Empowerment and Sports, Sainna Buba, sternly warned:”Whoever shows us a finger, we are ready to cut off his fingers. We are now playing politics.

Whoever shows us a finger, we will show him a finger…Whoever dares to show us a finger again, we will break his finger”.
These low-brow and primitive pronouncements speak eloquently to brazen threats, intimidation, incitement and outright violence. Little wonder, they and those who had the temerity to issue them, were condemned by outraged Nigerians. In this regard, we must salute the media, civil society and ordinary folks for showing both indignation and vigilance. They acted as one, and in tandem with what Thomas Paine once commanded:”Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it”.

If these pronouncements drew the indignation of Nigerians across the board, it is instructive that those who issued them are prominent members of the governing All Progressives Congress(APC).
It is very instructive that, bar tepid and specious attempts by Senator Fadahunsi, the Chairman of Kuje Area Council, Mr. Shekwolo, and Honorable Buba to walk back or retract their horrible statements, the APC as a party did not disclaim, disown, or sanction them. It kept a loud silence. As at the time of writing this piece, neither has the Borno State government distanced itself from the crimson remarks of its Commissioner, Sainna Buba.
Coming hot on the heels of the President’s remarks to a delegation of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria(CBCN), on Tuesday, 28th July 2026, led by the Most Rev. Matthew Ndagoso, that:”All is fair in politics and there are equal opportunities”, Nigerians are inclined to assume that these exalted APC personages drew their afflatus and inspiration from the President.
These remarks, which go beyond the pale of decent and civilized politics, and which thus far, are consigned to the ranks of the APC, may be symptomatic or emblematic of two things: it may speak to the extent to which the APC as a political party, is inebriated with power. Recall that the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), in its halcyon days, and drunken with power, boasted that it would “rule”Nigeria for sixty unbroken years. As it turned out, its hubris was halted after a mere sixteen-year run. The APC may be following the same self-destruct path. In the process of this implosion, it may be giving muscular effect to the Sicilian saying that:”Power wears out those who do not have it”.
These incendiary threats and incitements to violence could also speak to a desperation to hold on to power, willy, nilly. A person who is comfortable and surefooted will hardly issue threats or wax cataclysmic. As a matter of fact, the electoral process demands that a party and its candidates sell themselves to voters in the most refined, engaging and parliamentary manner, and either on the basis of its accomplishments or the enunciation of the policies/plans it intends to implement. Recourse to incitement thus suggests an unraveling and that matters are not going to plan.
The boorishness of these political actors and their brazen incitements to violence are, unfortunately, not helped by the complacent disposition of our security agencies. As at early this week the Police said it was still investigating the incendiary pronouncements issued by Senator Fadahunsi and Honorables Shekwolo and Buba.
One would have thought that these were open-and-shut cases that ought to be dealt with decisively and with despatch: These are gentlemen who occupy high offices. These are gentlemen who know the spaces they occupy call for caution and delicacy. And these are gentlemen, who though cognizant of the need to exercise circumspection in their pronouncements, and to always demonstrate a measure of statesmanship, nonetheless, elected to go haywire.

Senator Fadahunsi, on the day he issued his bestial directive, entreated his audience, made up largely of APC supporters, wearing fez caps emblazoned with the party’s logo, to video-tape him. He further encouraged them to share the video on social media.

Mr. Shekwolo’s Chief of Protocol, Stephen Tumaka, reinforced his principal’s statement, which he proceeded to upload on social media. Mr. Buba was addressing an event which was bound to be widely reported given its epochal nature and its importance to the President’s re-election bid. He was therefore deliberately ingratiating himself with the President. Besides, before he eventually retracted and apologized, he had rationalized his threat by claiming that he was speaking figuratively. The troika of Fadahunsi, Shekwolo and Buba knew what it was doing:They were deliberately rousing the rabble to cause death and mayhem.

To say that the Police is still investigating these infractions, which are as clear as crystal, goes against the grain of the profession of the Police spokesperson,

Chief Superintendent Anietie Iniedu, that “The Nigeria Police Force is responsible for maintaining law and order and will not shy away from this responsibility, no matter whose ox is gored”.

Perhaps if the Police had acted promptly and “responsibly” by bringing the Senator to book, rather than merely inviting him for an interview for an offense that was committed in full public glare and television klieg lights, and which instantaneously went viral, the incitements subsequently made by Messrs. Shekwolo and Buba would not have been issued. Such prompt and firm action would have served as a deterrent. It would also have sent a powerful message to them and other would be perpetrators.

It is this predilection to be dilatory and to gloss over infractions that give birth, not only to impunity but the snowballing of otherwise small incidents into big ones. They then become difficult for the acclaimed custodians of law and order to contain. Let there be consequences for bad behavior, “no matter whose ox is gored”.

Lest we forget, bloodbaths and genocides begin with incitements, incendiary comments and hate speeches. It was hate speech that birthed and aided the Nazi-led holocaust. And it was hate speech that gave rise to the Rwandan genocide.
Until we nip them in the bud, inflammatory and hate speeches may yet threaten, if not torpedo, our fragile democracy.