By: Daure David
There was a time when Adams Oshiomhole strode Nigeria’s political landscape like a lion proud, defiant, and resolute. As a former president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), he gave voice to the voiceless and stood tall against oppression, economic mismanagement, and political manipulation. He fought godfathers, challenged the establishment, and once positioned himself as the unbending symbol of democratic resistance.
But today, that image lies in tatters.
Now a senator, Oshiomhole has reduced himself to little more than a uniformed mascot of Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s cult of personality cap included. Once an anti-godfatherism crusader who declared victory over political puppeteers, Oshiomhole has willingly adorned the very emblem that represents the opposite of everything he once claimed to stand for: Tinubu’s signature cap a symbol, not of solidarity, but of servitude.
Let us be clear: no one faults camaraderie among political allies. But when a man who once branded himself the destroyer of political godfathers now walks the corridors of power as a peripatetic sycophant, dressed like a Tinubu campaign mannequin, the symbolism is too loud to ignore.
Even Tinubu’s closest and oldest allies do not wear that cap with such religious consistency. They understand its implications that it has moved from mere attire to a loyalty badge. It’s reminiscent of the Abacha era when grown men were compelled to wear lapel pins and regalia to assure the despot of their obedience. It was a mark of fear, not of affection. Oshiomhole, a man who lived through those times, surely knew what such symbolism meant then. But now, in the twilight of his career, he chooses to wrap himself in that very fabric of subjugation.
This is not just about fashion. It is about integrity. About the collapse of personal conviction. It is about how power or the proximity to it can erode a man’s spine. Oshiomhole used to mock bootlickers. Now he leads the choir.
The tragedy here is not just political; it is deeply personal. What happened to the firebrand who once looked President Obasanjo in the eye and demanded a living wage for workers? What happened to the Edo governor who dared to challenge entrenched interests and won the people’s mandate on the back of his authenticity and grit?
Perhaps the answer lies in Benin City where Governor Godwin Obaseki and Philip Shaibu tore into Oshiomhole’s legacy and sent him packing from the political center stage of Edo politics. It was a brutal, public fall from grace. And since then, it seems the once-proud comrade has been in search of relevance, willing to swap his pride for proximity to power. A man reduced to a literal “Okpebholo” the messenger boy of the very godfatherism he once waged war against.
This is not how icons are supposed to fade.
It is both painful and embarrassing to watch a man who once inspired millions become a parody of himself branded, tamed, and paraded like a trophy in another man’s gallery of the subservient.
The cap may seem harmless. But in it, we see the final nail in the coffin of Oshiomhole’s once-heroic image. A symbol of a man who has not only lost his political soul, but worse doesn’t seem to realize it.
And for those of us who once admired him, it is not just disappointing.
It is devastating.
