By Pamela O., Political Strategist and Columnist.
In the heat of Warri today, the streets spoke with unmistakable clarity. A viral video making the rounds captures angry voices from the Delta heartland delivering a blunt message to Nigeria’s First Lady, Senator Remi Tinubu: “Area no send anybody papa.”
The translation is as raw as it is revealing – the people of Delta are not impressed by presidential family interference, and they are not afraid to say it.
What began as a supposed show of federal might has backfired spectacularly, exposing the dangerous precedent of unelected influence peddling in party primaries and state affairs.
Let us be clear: Remi Tinubu has no constitutional role in determining the outcome of any senatorial primary in Delta State. None.
Yet credible reports and the growing public outrage suggest she has waded into the APC senatorial primary process, attempting to “crown” former Governor Ifeanyi Okowa as the winner without the courtesy of waiting for INEC to collate results or the APC national secretariat to ratify them.
This is not leadership; it is usurpation. It is the First Lady attempting to do the job of the Independent National Electoral Commission and the ruling party’s national working committee – institutions that are supposed to operate independently of Aso Rock’s bedroom politics.
The motive, many suspect, is even more troubling. Delta State is currently at the centre of a passionate debate over the creation of Anioma State, a long-standing demand from the Anioma people in Delta North. Senator Nwoko, a prominent son of the zone, has been vocal on restructuring and state creation.
Some insiders whisper that the First Lady’s sudden interest in “settling” the primary in Senator Okowa favour is less about party unity and more about strategic obstruction – ensuring that any momentum toward Anioma State is quietly throttled before it gains national traction.
Whether that suspicion is entirely accurate or not, the optics are disastrous. A First Lady from Lagos, with no electoral mandate in Delta, dictating political winners in the Niger Delta?
That is the very definition of federal overreach that fuels regional resentment.
This is not how democracy works. Primaries are the lifeblood of party internal democracy. They belong to the delegates, the aspirants, the state executive committees, INEC monitors, and ultimately the national secretariat.
When a First Lady bypasses all of that – without fact-checking who actually won the primary – she does not strengthen the APC; she embarrasses it. She turns what should be an internal party affair into a family affair.
And in a country already battling trust deficits in its electoral system, this kind of interference only deepens cynicism. Delta people are watching. Warri people are speaking. The message from today’s trending video is loud: “We will not be remote-controlled from Abuja.”
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a man who built his political brand on street-smart pragmatism and respect for party structures, must act decisively. Mr President, this is not 1999.
The era of “first family knows best” ended with military rule. Your wife’s enthusiasm for politics is understandable, but enthusiasm without institutional boundaries is reckless.
Call her to order – publicly if necessary. Remind her, and the entire country, that the Presidency is not a family business. The APC is not a Lagos social club. Delta State is not a colony to be administered from the First Lady’s drawing room.
As a political strategist who has advised across party lines, I can say without equivocation: this kind of meddling is electoral suicide in the long run.
It alienates core voters in the South-South, hands ammunition to opposition parties, and risks turning a winnable state into a theatre of resistance.
The APC’s recovery in Delta was always going to be tough; handing the opposition a ready-made narrative of “Tinubu family dictatorship” makes the task near impossible.
The people of Warri have drawn the line today.
They have reminded the First Lady that Delta has its own leaders, its own aspirations, and its own dignity. Anioma State creation or not, senatorial primaries must be decided on merit, votes, and due process – not on whispers from the Presidential Villa.
Mr President, the ball is in your court. Call your wife to order before this embarrassment becomes a full-blown political crisis. Nigeria is watching. Delta is watching. And history will not be kind to those who treat democratic institutions as personal property.
The area, as they say in Warri, no send anybody papa. It is time the Villa listened.
