President Bola Tinubu.
By Aniefiok Isat
There is a chemical many local fishermen know very well — Gammalin 20.
Once it is poured into the river, it works fast and effectively, killing fishes of all types. But the problem is this: it does not only kill the big fish you want to catch. It also kills the small fish, the fingerlings, and even destroys the future of the river itself.
That is why it was condemned and banned in many places. Sadly, that is the exact type of politics many Nigerians are now witnessing today. What we are seeing is no longer ordinary political competition. It is beginning to look like a deliberate effort to weaken, poison, frustrate, and destroy every meaningful opposition platform before 2027.
And that is dangerous.
A healthy democracy is supposed to have strong alternatives, healthy competition, and room for dissent. But once one side begins to use state power, institutions, fear, pressure, infiltration, legal confusion, and strategic destabilization to weaken every other political force, that is no longer democracy in its true sense.
That is Gammalin 20 politics.
It kills everything in the river so that one fisherman can claim to be the king of the waters.
But what kind of victory is that?
If all other parties are weakened…
If every strong opposition platform is frustrated…If every possible challenger is destabilized…If every alternative is made to look disorganized…Then what exactly are Nigerians being left with?
That is not political strength.
That is political extermination.
And history has shown us that this method always takes nations backward.
We have seen similar patterns in some African countries where opposition voices are weakened, harassed, divided, or criminalized until democracy becomes nothing more than a ritual on election day.
When that happens, elections may still hold, but real choice dies. And once real choice dies, the people are no longer truly free.
That is why Nigerians must be very careful.
Because today it may look like smart politics to some people. Today it may look like strategy.
Today it may look like “outwitting the opposition.”
But in truth, Gammalin 20 does not only kill the fish you hate. In the end, it destroys the entire river. And when the river dies, everybody suffers.
Nigeria does not need Gammalin 20 politics.
Nigeria needs a democracy where parties rise and fall by ideas, performance, credibility, and the will of the people — not by who can poison the political river first.
Destroying opposition may help one man.
But it can destroy one nation.
Isat is a political observer in Uyo
