Nigeria is moving. The wheel of progress is grinding forward with a force that even its loudest critics can feel. Yet some, like Prince Adewole Adebayo, insist on standing in front of that wheel, waving outdated talking points like a man trying to stop a train with a handkerchief. They do not know the difference between a “keke Marwa” that is just about taking off and a high-speed train in full motion. Nigeria’s progress is in motion. They are trapped in ignorance and mischief, mistaking their confusion for national reality.

The tragedy is not that they criticise. Criticism is healthy. The tragedy is that they criticise without knowledge, without homework, without contact with the real Nigeria. Opposition is meant to be the sentry guard of democracy. It should be factual, reasonable, and resonant. It should speak to the situation. It should acknowledge reality. It should know what came before, what is being done now, and what can be improved. Instead, today’s opposition has become a troupe of performers mistaking applause from their echo chambers for national relevance.

They forget that Nigerians are not fools. Nigerians lived through the decades when leaders tried but could not substantially move the needle. Nigerians saw the rot. They endured the decadence. They know the difference between motion and progress. They know when a country is rising. They know when critics are reading yesterday’s newspapers to analyse today’s Nigeria.

So when Adebayo calls Tinubu a pilot who cannot fly an aircraft, he only reveals that he himself does not know what a cockpit looks like. If he did, he would have seen the sweeping institutional reforms stabilising the flight. Local government autonomy restored. VAT restructuring that sends more money to states and councils. Electricity powers devolved. State police moving from endless talk to legislative reality. A military structure expanded from 8 divisions to 12 to tackle insecurity. Twenty eight thousand new military personnel approved for recruitment. Fifty thousand new police officers authorised to strengthen internal security. Seven thousand trained forest guards deployed to reclaim ungoverned spaces. Governors aligned within days. Policy announcement now meeting execution without delay. Within one week of the new military divisions being announced, service chiefs were already meeting Governors to finalise logistics. This is not a leader who does not understand governance. This is a leader who has studied the manual and rewritten the parts that never worked.

The opposition’s detachment from reality is now their defining trait. They make claims that collapse under basic scrutiny. Some shout about lopsided appointments while federal character compliance is intact. They cry marginalisation while over half of major capital projects are in the North. They recycle controversies from the past and paste them onto 2026 as if Nigerians have no memory. They insist on outrage because outrage is easier than research. Outrage is easier than policy. Outrage is easier than thinking.

Their favourite slogan is “Ebi n pawa”. Hunger is real, but slogans are not solutions. Hunger cannot be solved by people who lived in mansions, drove exotic cars, and failed to uplift the same masses when they held power. Rt Hon Chibuike R Amaechi built rail lines at exorbitant costs. Atiku Abubakar presided over a system that sold national assets for peanuts. Yet they now parade themselves as champions of the poor. Nigerians have moved on. The country has moved on. Only the blind critics remain stuck in yesterday.

Then comes one of the most spectacular fabrications of all. Adebayo, the SDP presidential candidate in next year’s general election, claimed that the government secretly kept $20 billion away from foreign reserves and signed the Gazelle 2 crude oil deal opaquely, mortgaging future production without National Assembly scrutiny. Both claims are false. The $20 billion narrative is a recycled controversy from 2013 and has nothing to do with the Tinubu administration. Under Tinubu, Nigeria’s foreign reserves have surged past $52 billion as of July 2026, the highest in more than 17 years.

Gazelle 2 was openly approved by the National Economic Council. It refinanced an existing $3.3 billion facility and unlocked an additional $3 billion in fresh liquidity. It reduced pledged crude from 90,000 barrels per day to 78,750 barrels per day, releasing 11,250 barrels daily back to the federation. A publicly approved deal that reduces debt obligations and adds $3 billion to national liquidity cannot be described as secret mortgaging of the future. It is intellectually lazy to do so.

And nothing exposes this laziness more than his claim that government policies are stagnating oil production. The day before he made that statement, the Federal Government announced a new regulatory and fiscal framework for deep offshore oil and gas projects aimed at attracting up to $50 billion in investment and reviving stalled developments. Adebayo did not know. He did not check. He did not update his facts. He was reading yesterday’s newspaper while Nigeria was announcing tomorrow’s opportunities.

Meanwhile, the numbers tell a story that even the blind can feel. Nine hundred new dollar millionaires added in one year. Oil production rose from 1 mbpd to peaks of 1.8 mbpd, with OPEC quotas met consistently for three months. The stock market climbed from ₦30 trillion in May 2023 to ₦160 trillion. Today, Nigeria’s stock market is ranked the best performing equity market in the world in dollar terms with a 67% year to date return, overtaking South Korea’s Kospi Index.

At the micro level, opportunities are opening daily for everyday Nigerians. Access to credit for MSMEs and households is becoming easier. Students can now take loans to further their education. Farmers have improved access to mechanisation and agricultural extension services. These are not abstract developments. They are practical indicators of a country turning a corner.

A new governance culture is emerging. A new tempo. A new seriousness. A new discipline. Nigeria is not just moving. Nigeria is accelerating.

Yet the opposition insists nothing is happening. They insist Tinubu knows nothing. They insist Nigeria is stagnant. They insist on shouting into the wind while the country moves past them. They are not just uninformed. They have made themselves irrelevant. They are not just behind. They are lost. And that is a sad commentary for our democracy.

Nigeria is still challenged but rising fast. Those who refuse to rise with her will simply be left behind.

Nigeria

Democracy

PeterObi

Tinubu

Atiku.