When Dele Momodu dismissed Datti Baba-Ahmed as “aggrieved like a jilted lover” for criticising members of the African Democratic Congress, the remark was not merely rhetorical flourish. It crystallised a growing rift within Nigeria’s post-2023 opposition space—one defined less by ideology than by wounded expectations, strategic anxiety, and unresolved questions about structure and relevance.
Momodu’s comments, made during an appearance on Sunrise Daily on Channels Television, followed Baba-Ahmed’s announcement that he would contest the 2027 presidential election. In that declaration, the former Labour Party vice-presidential candidate dismissed figures aligned with the ADC coalition as “disgruntled politicians” and described defectors from the Labour Party as “political travellers.”
Momodu’s response was blunt. While acknowledging Baba-Ahmed’s right to contest and speak freely, he expressed surprise at what he described as dismissive and emotionally driven attacks on other politicians—arguing that such language reflected personal grievance rather than strategic clarity.
A Personal Dispute With Strategic Implications
At one level, the exchange is personal. Momodu openly suggested that Baba-Ahmed’s anger stems from unmet expectations following the 2023 election, where he ran as running mate to Peter Obi. In Momodu’s telling, Baba-Ahmed expected continuity—another joint ticket, another shot—only to confront a political landscape in which alliances have shifted and leverage has thinned.
“He ran with Peter Obi the last time; he would expect to run again,” Momodu said, warning against what he called the mindset of “serial contestants” who prioritise individual ambition over coalition arithmetic.
Yet the sharper point in Momodu’s intervention was not about personal disappointment, but about political realism. He argued that today’s Labour Party is no longer the vehicle it was in 2023, and that pretending otherwise risks strategic self-deception.
Politics as Mathematics, Not Moral Performance
Momodu’s framing aligns with a recurring Arbiterz observation: Nigerian elections are won less by moral signalling than by structure, reach, and coalition mathematics. “Elections are a game of mathematics,” he said, urging politicians to work with platforms that already possess organisational depth and nationwide infrastructure.
This is where Baba-Ahmed’s language becomes revealing. By describing ADC figures as disgruntled and dismissing defectors as itinerant opportunists, he positioned himself rhetorically outside the logic of coalition politics—at precisely the moment when coalition-building is becoming unavoidable for any serious challenger to an incumbent.
Momodu contrasted this approach with earlier strategic decisions in Nigerian opposition politics, citing Atiku Abubakar’s 2019 choice to select Obi as his running mate, despite resistance from some governors. That decision, he argued, reflected a willingness to prioritise perceived capacity and national appeal over narrow sectional calculations.
The implicit critique of Baba-Ahmed is that he appears to be fighting yesterday’s war—defending a moral claim to relevance—rather than engaging today’s structural realities.
What This Says About Labour Party After 2023
Beyond personalities, the Momodu–Baba-Ahmed exchange exposes a deeper problem Arbiterz has repeatedly highlighted: Labour Party’s failure to consolidate its 2023 momentum into a durable political institution.
The party’s 2023 surge was real, but it was also fragile—built on enthusiasm rather than embedded organisation. When the election cycle ended, the movement lacked the internal machinery needed to manage succession, accommodate ambition, or discipline dissent. As Arbiterz has previously argued, this weakness made post-election fragmentation almost inevitable.
Baba-Ahmed’s rhetoric reflects that vacuum. Without a strong party structure to arbitrate disputes or channel ambition, political actors are left to fight for relevance in the public arena—often through language that alienates potential allies rather than attracts them.
ADC, Defection, and the Opposition’s Structural Dilemma
The immediate trigger for Baba-Ahmed’s remarks—the ADC coalition—has itself become a litmus test for Nigeria’s opposition. While far from cohesive, ADC represents an attempt, however imperfect, to aggregate structures, delegates, and regional reach in a political environment where fragmentation has repeatedly handed advantage to incumbents.
Momodu’s defence of engagement over dismissal underscores a pragmatic view: coalition politics is messy, but unavoidable. Attacking potential partners as morally suspect may satisfy a base emotionally, but it weakens negotiating power in practice.
This is the strategic tension now facing Labour Party figures. Do they continue to assert moral distinction from Nigeria’s traditional political class, or do they adapt to the arithmetic of coalition politics required to compete nationally?
A Familiar Pattern in Nigerian Opposition Politics
The dispute also reflects a broader pattern in Nigeria’s opposition history: movements that fail to institutionalise quickly often descend into personality clashes once the unifying force of an election passes. Without clear rules, hierarchy, and shared long-term incentives, ambition turns inward.
Momodu’s “jilted lover” metaphor, provocative as it is, captures this dynamic. It suggests not just personal grievance, but a failure to recalibrate ambition to changed circumstances.
What the Exchange Ultimately Reveals
More than an exchange of insults, the Momodu–Baba-Ahmed episode highlights a central question facing Nigeria’s opposition ahead of 2027: can it move from grievance to strategy?
For Baba-Ahmed, the challenge is to articulate how moral critique translates into political power in a fragmented opposition landscape. For figures like Momodu, the wager is that realism—however uncomfortable—offers a better path to relevance than nostalgia for 2023.
What is clear is that the post-2023 opposition is no longer unified by momentum alone. As Arbiterz has consistently noted, without structure, cohesion, and strategic discipline, popular energy dissipates quickly. The current exchange is not an aberration; it is a symptom.
