By Elempe Dele
A common trap in political conversations is the belief that only we see reality clearly. Once that idea takes hold, disagreement stops being about policy and starts being about morality. If someone’s view doesn’t match the script, they get branded a sycophant, a blind follower, corrupt, or complicit. Scroll through Nigerian social media and you’ll see this play out daily.
At the root of this is intolerance. Groups across the political spectrum claim they alone have uncovered and revealed “the truth.” History tells a different story. When we adopt that posture, we become closed to other perspectives. Sooner or later, the debate turns into a fight, and we reach for harsh language to defend our version of events.
Most political positions are convictions and trade-offs, not eternal truths.
You might think a healthcare center should come before a road. Someone else may argue the road is what makes the center accessible. Both views can be reasonable, depending on how you weigh growth, access, and limited resources. The moment we label the other side “evil” for making a different choice, conversation ends.
This is also why promises of instant fixes fall apart. Some believe electing the right candidate will make bureaucracy, corruption, and even issues like “sex-for-marks” disappear overnight. Others know it won’t be that fast. The truth is, no one can predict exactly what happens once someone takes office. What looks simple on a campaign stage is often messy inside government. The candidate who sells magic solutions usually leaves with most of the same problems still there. That’s not always dishonesty—it’s the reality of governing complex systems.
Political talk in Nigeria is often laced with resentment, outrage, insults, and ill will. We start treating opponents as enemies instead of fellow citizens who weigh trade-offs differently. We spend more energy demeaning them than testing our ideas against theirs. And both elites and academics are guilty of this.
Before elections, politicians tell us a four-year term is enough to fix everything. It rarely works out that way, because politics is a process, not an event. There are no magic switches.
The way forward is to separate what we want to be true from what _is* true. That gap is where tolerance lives. We need to distinguish “my preferred outcome” from “the only objective truth.” If we can do that, we make room for real discussion.
Elections are not apocalypses. No candidate can fix Nigeria alone, and no candidate can destroy it alone. The country will outlast them all. Holding onto a fragile certainty that turns into abuse doesn’t solve anything. Why do we end up hating our opponents instead of focusing on the problems, even at the level of ideas?
The antidote is intellectual humility. It’s how we keep political discourse from collapsing into war.
