In Naija politics, the most powerful thing the opposition can do is tell the truth about the government's failures.

The second most powerful thing is to acknowledge the government's wins when they actually happen.

The opposition in Nigeria has never been good at the second one. And this week, three separate incidents showed exactly how that selective memory is costing them credibility at the worst possible time.

Fifty-six days. That is how long the Oriire schoolchildren and their teachers sat in captivity after Boko Haram dislodged from the North and staged a coordinated daylight raid on three schools in Oyo State on May 15. Thirty-nine pupils, seven teachers, a toddler who was two years old. Two teachers killed. One beheaded in front of his colleagues in the bush.

On July 10, a joint military, police and DSS operation pulled them all out. Eight kidnappers arrested. Several neutralised. No ransom paid. No prisoner exchange. The government drew a firm line and held it for eight weeks.

That is a genuine, undeniable security win.

Now watch what the opposition did with it.

Atiku: The Man Who Said Silence That He Did Not Say

The Presidency accused Atiku of staying quiet for nearly 18 hours after the Oriire victims regained their freedom, despite repeatedly criticising the Tinubu government while they were in captivity.

Onanuga put it directly on X, saying Atiku had not deemed it fit to rejoice with the administration and the security agencies. He praised Obi separately for acknowledging the rescue.

Atiku, through Phrank Shaibu, fired back and the response raised its own problems.

Shaibu said there were only two possible explanations for the Presidency's outburst. "Either they failed to read our statement because they were too lazy to do so, or they deliberately ignored it because it exposed uncomfortable truths about their misplaced priorities."

Here is where it gets interesting. Atiku did issue a statement. It was titled "A Nation at War Needs a Commander-in-Chief, Not a Campaigner-in-Chief." He praised the security agencies. He welcomed the rescue. Fair.

But the title of the statement tells you where his head was. He used the rescue announcement as a springboard for a broader political attack on Tinubu's presence at an APC campaign event on the same day.

Atiku said what he declined to do was applaud a Commander-in-Chief who, at a defining moment of national importance, remained publicly preoccupied with partisan political activities instead of personally leading the nation in celebrating the success of the troops.

Two things can coexist. Tinubu can be criticised for attending a campaign launch while children were still in the bush. And the rescue itself can be celebrated without any asterisk attached to it.

But Atiku could not let the rescue land as a clean government victory for even 24 hours before wrapping his congratulations inside a political broadside. The congratulations became a vehicle. The security agencies became props in an attack on the president.

That is not balanced commentary. That is opposition reflex dressing itself as principle.

Makinde: The Governor Who Made It About Himself

Then there is Seyi Makinde.

Speaking shortly after the rescue operation, Makinde said, "For seven years, we didn't witness anything like this in Oyo State. I declared to run for the presidency of Nigeria at four o'clock, and by 9 a.m. the following morning, the children were abducted."

He said it at a meeting with Allied Peoples Movement leaders in Bauchi. On the same day the children were freed.

The man had every right to note the terrible timing of that coincidence. Genuinely, those 56 days sat on his tenure and his presidential declaration in ways that were personally devastating for him. Nobody disputes that.

But he said it in public. On the day of the rescue. As a narrative framing device. The implication, whether he intended it or not, was that the kidnapping was connected to his presidential ambition. That something more than coincidence was at work.

Critics argued that introducing his presidential declaration into discussions surrounding the abduction was ill-timed, insisting that the focus should remain on the trauma suffered by the victims and their families rather than political narratives.

That criticism is accurate.

Fifty-six days those families waited. The vice principal Mrs Alamu Folawe was filmed in hostage videos begging the government to give the kidnappers whatever they wanted. She came out of that bush and said on camera: "Mr President, sir, we are grateful. We understand your commitment to our safety." That woman did not say anything about Makinde's presidential declaration. She said thank you and went to get her children medical care.

The day of her rescue was not the day to centre the narrative on your own political story.

Obi: The Man Who Praised The Employee and Blamed the Employer

Then comes Peter Obi's comment on Olayemi Cardoso and the economy. And this one requires the sharpest attention because it is the most intellectually dishonest of the three.

Obi commended the CBN for what he described as its sound monetary management under Governor Olayemi Cardoso, saying the CBN has taken commendable steps to stabilise the economy through monetary reforms. However, he blamed weak fiscal policies, excessive government spending and corruption for Nigeria's lingering economic challenges.

Good CBN. Bad fiscal policy. Cardoso deserves credit. Tinubu does not.

That framing has one enormous problem.

Who appointed Olayemi Cardoso?

Tinubu.

Cardoso was confirmed as CBN Governor in September 2023 after Tinubu nominated him. The man Obi is praising for monetary discipline, the man whose institution just won the Central Banking Awards 2026 in London, the man who raised interest rates from 18.75 percent to 27.5 percent, cleared the FX backlog, removed quasi-fiscal interventions, got Nigeria off the FATF grey list, and brought inflation down from over 33 percent in early 2024 to 15.69 percent by April 2026, that man works for the government Obi says deserves no credit.

Cardoso did not appoint himself. He was given a mandate. He executed it. The mandate came from Tinubu.

You cannot applaud the coach's assistant for an excellent game plan and simultaneously argue that the coach had nothing to do with it.

In Naija politics, this kind of selective attribution is so common it barely raises eyebrows anymore. But it should. Because an opposition candidate who cannot be trusted to give accurate credit when credit is due is not building a case for superior governance. He is building a case for superior spin.

The critique of fiscal policy is legitimate. Nigeria's deficit spending is real. The N8 trillion in off-budget expenditure that Obi cited in his resignation call last week is a genuine accountability question. The ghost agency PFIPC budget lines are real. Wale Edun was removed partly because of undisbursed capital.

Say all of that. Be specific about what is wrong with fiscal management. The evidence is there.

But do not stand in the same breath and separate Cardoso's monetary success from the government that hired him, set his mandate, and gave him the political cover to implement difficult policies that unpopular presidents rarely have the stomach for.

That is not criticism. That is cherry picking.

What Constructive Opposition Actually Looks Like

Here is what each of these men should have done and what it would have cost them.

Atiku should have put out a statement with a single clear paragraph. "The rescue of the Oriire children is a win for Nigeria's security forces and every family is rejoicing. We commend this outcome. Our ongoing calls for stronger security infrastructure across the country remain, and we urge the government to extend the same commitment to the hundreds still held across the North." Full stop. No title about Campaigner-in-Chief. No mention of Tinubu's campaign event. Just the clean, honest, unambiguous acknowledgement that the security agencies did something right.

Makinde should have said nothing about his presidential declaration on July 10. The families needed that day. He could have raised the security-politics connection in a separate forum, at a different time, with different framing.

Obi should have said: "Cardoso's monetary reforms have delivered measurable results and deserve recognition. These results are only possible because the Tinubu government appointed and supported the right person for the CBN role. Where we differ is in fiscal management, which remains a serious concern." That is honest. That is specific. That acknowledges cause and effect without surrendering the right to criticise.

None of those approaches weakens the opposition's case against Tinubu. A government wins on security in Oyo and still has children in captivity in Borno. A government hires a good central banker and still has a ghost agency with a N1.3 billion budget line. Those contradictions exist simultaneously and require no distortion to make.

The opposition does not need to minimise government wins to criticise government failures. Nigeria's problems are big enough to speak for themselves.

The Lesson Nobody Is Learning

The Ooni of Ife called Obi a Tsunami. A Tsunami does not argue about whether the wave that came before it deserves credit. It just arrives.

The ADC and NDC have legitimate cases to make against a government that is still producing N1,400 petrol, still building ghost agencies into national budgets, still losing generals in unmaintained armoured vehicles, and still presiding over insecurity severe enough that terrorists can abduct 46 people from three schools in broad daylight.

Those facts do not need embellishment. They do not need political framing. They do not need Atiku to turn a rescue celebration into an attack headline. Or Makinde to centre his own presidential timeline. Or Obi to split Tinubu in two and praise the half he finds useful.

What they need is an opposition disciplined enough to say what is true, give credit where it exists, and prosecute the real failures with precision.

Right now, Naija politics has opposition parties that are very good at the prosecution and very bad at the precision.

And a government that can survive its own incompetence as long as the opposition keeps making the same mistakes.

What do you think? Is the Nigerian opposition's inability to acknowledge genuine government wins costing them credibility with undecided voters who are tired of one-sided commentary? And is Atiku's insistence on attaching political attacks to every positive security development actually helping or hurting the ADC's 2027 message? Drop your thoughts in the comments. Today is July 13, 2026. Naija politics does not reward selective honesty, and the voters who will decide January 14 already know the difference between genuine accountability and political point-scoring.