Atiku and Obi Helped Build the Tinubu Presidency They Wanted to Destroy, By Olabode Opeseitan

Here is an uncomfortable truth that Atiku Abubakar and Mr. Peter Obi may not want to hear: no two opposition politicians have done more to improve Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s presidency.

That is not because they designed his reforms or dictated his policies. They did neither. The subsidy removal, tax reforms and economic restructuring belonged to the President and his team. But governments do not govern in a vacuum. They govern under pressure. And some of the most important corrections, explanations and refinements of the Tinubu years emerged from the relentless pressure applied by the very people trying hardest to defeat him.

Political science has a name for part of this phenomenon. In Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970), Albert Hirschman argued that those who stay and complain often become an institution’s early-warning system. More recently, Henrik Bech Seeberg’s study The Power of the Loser (2022) found that governments frequently adopt the opposition’s concerns in order to deprive them of agenda-setting power. The critic wins the argument; the incumbent harvests the result.

In Nigeria’s case, the pattern is increasingly difficult to ignore.

From the day Tinubu took office, Atiku, Obi and some of the country’s most aggressive newsrooms subjected every major decision to hostile scrutiny. They attacked everything and credited nothing. Their criticism was often excessive, occasionally unfair and frequently partisan. Yet criticism does not stop being useful because it comes from opponents.

Tinubu himself admitted that he stopped reading newspapers at the height of the backlash because the coverage had become too depressing. But a leader who stops reading the noise still hears the grievance. The grievance enters public debate, gathers momentum and eventually demands a response.

Begin with the first great controversy: the removal of petrol subsidy.

Atiku argued in June 2023 that subsidy removal should have been preceded by adequate cushioning measures. Obi asked what exactly would be saved and how ordinary Nigerians would benefit. Neither man defended the subsidy regime itself. Their attack focused on the consequences of abrupt removal and the absence of visible protections for the poor. Yet subsequent disclosures about the strain on public finances complicated that criticism. A government inheriting severe fiscal constraints had limited room to fund extensive palliatives before ending a subsidy regime that was already devouring scarce public resources.

The government’s response was not to reverse the policy. Instead it gradually moved to explain, soften and operationalise it through palliatives, cash-transfer programmes, state relief measures and the expansion of the compressed natural gas initiative. Some of those measures reflected plans already under consideration; others gathered urgency as public pressure mounted. The critics did not stop subsidy removal. They helped ensure that its social costs remained at the centre of the national conversation.

The same pattern emerged during the hardship crisis of 2024.

Atiku’s one-year report card on the administration was harsh. Television studios amplified every charge. The government did not retreat from reform. Instead it expanded its architecture for economic management through the Presidential Economic Coordination Council, the Economic Management Team Emergency Task Force, a tripartite advisory structure and other coordination mechanisms that brought major private-sector actors into the process.

The reforms remained Tinubu’s. The pressure sharpened their execution.

The tax reforms offer perhaps the clearest example.

Opposition criticism merged with concerns expressed by governors, lawmakers and the National Economic Council. The common complaint was not necessarily that tax reform was wrong. It was that consultation had been inadequate.

Tinubu refused to withdraw the bills. That is the important point. He took the feedback, not the instruction.

A national conversation followed. There were town halls, consultations, revisions, negotiations over VAT-sharing formulas and eventually public hearings by the National Assembly. When Atiku later demanded a suspension and Obi cited concerns raised by KPMG, the government still refused to pause implementation. Yet lawmakers opened inquiries, and the chairman of the reform committee acknowledged that some criticisms were useful.

The laws survived. The arguments improved them.

The same dynamic appears in the debate over accountability.

Atiku persistently demanded explanations for subsidy savings. Obi repeatedly asked what tangible improvements citizens could see in schools, hospitals and welfare outcomes. When questions intensified, the Presidency responded with increasingly detailed public justifications. Ministers appeared more frequently in the media. Official figures became more prominent in government communication. At the same time, project inspection and verification tours gained prominence as officials sought to demonstrate that the debate was not merely about projections and promises, but also about roads, railways and other visible outcomes on the ground. By October, the President himself was publicly citing economic indicators and defending his record in numerical terms.

Whether one accepts those figures is another question.

What is harder to dispute is that sustained scrutiny forced the administration to explain itself with greater precision.

Today the pressure continues.

Obi and Atiku insist that improvements in macroeconomic indicators have not translated into relief at the household level. The IMF similarly notes continuing concerns over poverty and food insecurity, even as it acknowledges that Nigeria’s reforms have “yielded improved macroeconomic outcomes and built resilience.” Defenders of the reforms point to increasing public revenues, stronger external reserves, improved tax mobilisation, renewed investment in roads, railways and other long-neglected infrastructure, and a more stable fiscal position as evidence that the economy is moving onto firmer foundations. The argument, therefore, is no longer between reform and no reform. It is between those who believe the gains are beginning to emerge and those who believe they have yet to reach ordinary Nigerians. The real dispute is whether those gains have arrived quickly enough at the kitchen table.

The significance of that debate is not whether the opposition benefits from making the criticism. The significance is that the criticism is increasingly shaping the language of government itself.

When policymakers begin talking about shared prosperity, inclusive growth, household welfare and growth that works for ordinary citizens, they are responding to a conversation they did not entirely create.

Credit, however, must be allocated honestly.

The opposition did not invent Tinubu’s reforms. Labour unions, governors, business leaders, policy experts and international institutions exerted pressure as well. Many of the initiatives critics now discuss were already under consideration before the loudest attacks began.

Yet it is equally dishonest to pretend the opposition had no impact.

They stress-tested policies before the public. They highlighted areas where implementation lagged behind intention. They raised questions government could not afford to ignore. In responding to those questions, the administration was compelled to explain its choices more fully and defend them more rigorously before the public.

This leaves Atiku and Obi facing a peculiar political dilemma.

Every criticism that produces a government correction weakens a future campaign attack. Every grievance that is addressed removes one more item from the opposition’s charge sheet. Every successful adaptation by the administration narrows the distance between government action and opposition demand.

In that sense, the people trying hardest to weaken Tinubu may have helped strengthen his presidency.

That is the paradox.

The opposition’s greatest victories are often absorbed by the government they oppose.

So does Tinubu owe Atiku and Obi?

In a sense, yes.

Not for his policies. Not for his electoral victories. Not for his reform agenda.

He owes them for part of the pressure that made his government explain itself better, defend itself more rigorously and pay closer attention to the consequences of its own decisions.

That may be the highest compliment any government can pay an opposition: not surrender, but adaptation. Not obedience, but improvement.

And it is why Atiku and Obi may have helped build the very presidency they wanted to destroy.

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