Babachir Lawal And The ‘Temu’ Fallacy: When Political Bitterness Exposes Political Naivety
By
Ola Olateju
There is something deeply revealing about Babachir Lawal’s recent attempt to ridicule former Vice President Atiku Abubakar by describing him as a “cheap product from TEMU.”
The metaphor may be catchy for social media consumption, but it is intellectually shallow and collapses under the weight of Nigeria’s political history.
If Babachir Lawal believes that branding Atiku a “cheap product” diminishes his political relevance, he should perhaps ask himself a more fundamental question: what determines the value of a political actor in a democracy – the noise surrounding him, or the depth of his political investment, experience, democratic engagement, and national reach?
Atiku Abubakar may be contested, criticised, and challenged like every other politician. But reducing a man who has spent decades at the centre of Nigeria’s democratic evolution – serving as Vice President, repeatedly contesting presidential elections, and remaining one of the country’s most consequential opposition figures – to an online bargain product is not political analysis.
It is political frustration dressed up as sarcasm.
FROM “WHOEVER WINS, WE WILL SUPPORT” TO “REPLACE ATIKU”
What makes Babachir Lawal’s latest intervention particularly curious is the evolution of his public position.
Before the ADC presidential primary, Lawal was publicly aligned with the coalition and spoke in support of a democratic process that would produce the party’s presidential candidate. Indeed, in 2025, he stated that the ADC would support whoever emerged as its flag bearer.
Then the primary produced Atiku.
Suddenly, the democratic process became a “rigging machine.”
Lawal resigned from the ADC, alleging that the primaries were massively rigged in Atiku’s favour. He subsequently called for Atiku’s replacement, arguing that the former Vice President lacked the capacity to defeat President Bola Tinubu.
Now the rhetoric has descended further: Atiku is allegedly a “cheap product from TEMU.”
This progression is telling.
When a political outcome does not align with one’s preference, there are two options: interrogate the process with evidence, or discredit the outcome with ridicule.
Lawal appears to have chosen the latter.
BUT WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE?
There is nothing inherently wrong with challenging a political primary.
On the contrary, democratic politics demands scrutiny, dissent, and accountability.
However, serious allegations require serious evidence.
Lawal has repeatedly alleged manipulation of the ADC primary, including claims of altered results and substituted candidates. Yet Atiku’s camp has consistently challenged him to provide verifiable proof – documents, result sheets, witness testimonies, or other credible evidence – rather than assertions and unnamed sources.
That is the standard democratic expectation.
Present the evidence.
Take it to the appropriate party organs.
Take it to the courts where necessary.
Let the facts speak.
But turning an unresolved political dispute into personal ridicule does not establish malpractice.
It merely reflects hostility.
BABACHIR SHOULD UNDERSTAND ONE SIMPLE PRINCIPLE ABOUT POLITICAL PARTIES
Perhaps Babachir Lawal requires a refresher on the basic principles of party democracy.
A political party is not a marketplace where every aspirant automatically acquires a permanent proprietary claim over the party’s final ticket simply by participating in a process.
Parties operate under constitutions, internal organs, screening procedures, nomination guidelines, and legally recognised mechanisms for selecting candidates.
A party has the institutional authority to determine who represents it, in accordance with its constitution and applicable electoral law.
Of course, once a valid primary has been conducted, the party is bound by its rules and cannot arbitrarily disregard its outcome. However, participation in a primary does not confer an irrevocable veto over the party’s final decision-making authority.
In this case, the central irony remains that Atiku did not emerge from a private arrangement. He emerged from the ADC’s formal nomination process.
If Babachir believes the process was unlawful, the appropriate response is evidence and legal adjudication – not metaphors drawn from online marketplaces.
THE ADC DID NOT BUY ATIKU FROM TEMU
The ADC did not “purchase” Atiku Abubakar from an online discount platform.
Atiku entered the ADC with a political history that long predates many of the current debates surrounding his candidacy.
He has been a central figure in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic politics, served as Vice President, contested multiple presidential elections, and remained an active participant in national conversations on federalism, economic reform, private-sector development, and democratic governance.
His record is open to scrutiny – and should be scrutinised.
But scrutiny is not caricature.
Even his critics cannot reasonably erase decades of political relevance with a social media metaphor.
Interestingly, Lawal himself has previously described Atiku’s political influence in terms that contradict the notion of irrelevance. In June, he suggested that Atiku had limited campaign activity before the primary and contrasted him with Rotimi Amaechi, whom he described as more active in the race.
This raises an obvious question:
If Atiku is politically insignificant, why does Lawal’s narrative simultaneously require him to possess enough influence to allegedly manipulate a nationwide party primary?
One cannot logically portray a political actor as both powerless and omnipotent depending on the argument being advanced.
THE CONTRADICTION IS BECOMING THE STORY
Another contradiction is increasingly difficult to ignore.
If Atiku is truly politically irrelevant, why has so much of Lawal’s post-ADC political messaging focused on him?
Why demand his removal from a party he supposedly does not control?
Why devote sustained attention to a candidate allegedly lacking electoral significance?
Why make him the central subject of political critique?
The answer is straightforward.
Political irrelevance does not usually command sustained political attention.
ATIKU’S DEMOCRATIC CREDENTIALS CANNOT BE REDUCED TO TEMU CURRENCY
The core issue is not whether Atiku Abubakar is universally liked.
It is whether his political career can reasonably be dismissed as a “cheap product.”
The answer is clearly no.
Atiku’s political trajectory has been defined by participation in democratic contests, organisational politics, opposition engagement, and repeated submission to electoral processes.
He has lost elections.
He has contested outcomes.
He has changed political platforms.
He has formed alliances and broken them.
He has been both criticised and a critic.
That is the nature of democratic politics.
Yet through it all, he has remained a significant actor in Nigeria’s political landscape.
His supporters also point to his role in economic reforms and the liberalisation of key sectors during the Obasanjo administration as part of his public legacy.
One may disagree with his record or political philosophy.
But disagreement does not justify historical distortion.
AND WHAT EXACTLY IS THE PRICE OF POLITICAL LOYALTY?
Perhaps Babachir Lawal should reflect on a broader pattern in Nigerian politics.
There is a growing tendency for political actors to shift alliances, only to later reinterpret their previous affiliations as errors in judgment or evidence of corruption.
When inside a party, processes are defended.
When outside it, the same processes are condemned.
This inconsistency is precisely why political actors are ultimately judged by the coherence of their principles, not the intensity of their grievances.
Lawal is fully entitled to oppose Atiku.
He is entitled to criticise the ADC.
He is entitled to challenge the legitimacy of any nomination process.
He is entitled to argue for alternative candidates.
But he is not entitled to rewrite the political history of his opponents simply because the outcome of a process did not align with his preference.
ON ATIKU’S DEMOCRATIC CREDENTIALS
Atiku’s most significant democratic credential is not that he has always won elections.
He has not.
It is that he has remained consistently engaged in the democratic arena.
He has subjected himself repeatedly to electoral uncertainty.
He has participated in internal party contests.
He has accepted defeats and returned to competition.
He has remained in opposition when political accommodation may have been easier.
This does not make him flawless.
But it does make the “cheap product” analogy analytically weak.
A political career spanning decades cannot be reduced to a marketplace metaphor.
A WORD ABOUT DEPTH AND SHALLOW
There is an old political wisdom worth recalling:
It takes depth to understand depth.
Shallow analysis often struggles to engage with complex political realities.
Atiku’s political career is a complex subject.
It can be debated, criticised, and rejected at the ballot box.
But it cannot be meaningfully reduced to an online discount analogy simply because one political actor is dissatisfied with a party outcome.
The real question is not whether Atiku is perfect.
No politician is.
The question is whether Babachir Lawal’s metaphor contributes anything substantive to national discourse.
It does not.
It reflects, instead, the exhaustion of argument when evidence is absent and rhetoric takes over.
BABACHIR SHOULD LOOK BEYOND THE POLITICAL MIRROR
Before describing another politician as “cheap,” it may be useful for political actors to reflect on the broader cost of political decisions made by those who have held public office.
Nigeria does not need a competition in insult-driven metaphors.
It needs serious engagement with its pressing challenges: insecurity, unemployment, poverty, institutional weakness, and democratic distrust.
That is the conversation Nigerians deserve ahead of 2027.
Not online marketplaces.
Not name-calling.
Not insinuations.
Not political vendettas.
Ideas.
Competence.
Integrity.
Democratic accountability.
And, above all, evidence.
Babachir Lawal is free to oppose Atiku Abubakar.
He is free to campaign against him.
He is free to challenge the ADC’s internal processes through appropriate democratic or judicial channels.
But he should not confuse political disappointment with political insignificance.
And he should not mistake disagreement for erasure.
Atiku Abubakar is not a TEMU product.
He is a veteran of Nigeria’s democratic process – process defined by elections, alliances, defeats, victories, controversies, and continuous public scrutiny.
Whether Nigerians ultimately support him is a matter for the electorate.
But the final judgment will not be determined by Babachir Lawal.
It will be determined at the ballot box.
And that remains the enduring lesson of democracy:
You may leave a party. You may criticise its candidate. You may reject its leadership. But you cannot exit democracy and still claim to define it.
