So, where are the stones? Where are the political warriors who confidently announced that the APC would be stoned in the South-East? Where are the people who spoke as though they had collected a signed declaration from every Igbo man and woman that Bola Ahmed Tinubu would never find supporters in their region? For months, some people carried on as though the South-East had one political brain, one political opinion and one compulsory instruction: reject Tinubu, reject APC, and stone anybody who disagrees. They made the prediction with the confidence of people who had already conducted the election, counted the votes and declared the results. Then Owerri happened on Saturday, October 10, 2026, and suddenly Nigerian politics delivered a practical lesson in the danger of speaking too soon. APC supporters came out for a rally in support of Tinubu, Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma and the party ahead of the 2027 elections. The organisers called it a one million-man march, although that attendance figure has not been independently verified. Whatever the final headcount, the rally was real enough to expose the comedy in the claim that the APC could not find people willing to support it in the South-East.
One has to admire the confidence of those political prophets. They did not say the APC would face opposition. They did not say the party would struggle to win over voters. They went straight to the dramatic conclusion that its supporters would be stoned. Apparently, they had mistaken their own political preferences for the official position of millions of people. They had finished speaking for the Igbo before the Igbo themselves had finished making their individual political choices. Unfortunately for them, nobody informed the APC supporters in Owerri that their presence was forbidden by somebody else’s prediction. They came out anyway. What an embarrassing interruption to a beautifully prepared political story! The people who had already arranged the stones in their imagination were left explaining a rally they had apparently decided could never happen.
Perhaps the next time somebody wants to announce what the entire South-East will do, the person should first send a memo to the people living there. It seems some residents did not receive the instruction that they were supposed to hate the APC with one voice. Some apparently missed the meeting where their political loyalties were decided for them. Others seem to have committed the unforgivable offence of supporting a party that certain commentators had already declared unacceptable. How could they? Did nobody tell them that their ethnic identity came with a political script? Did they not know that before supporting Tinubu, they were supposed to obtain permission from the self-appointed guardians of Igbo political opinion? The whole episode would be funny if it were not such a revealing illustration of how easily people confuse loud political rhetoric with actual public opinion.
The South-East, it seems, has a serious shortage of people willing to agree with one another, but an impressive supply of people willing to speak on behalf of everybody. One politician makes a declaration, and suddenly it becomes the position of the entire region. An activist expresses opposition to Tinubu, and the statement is presented as though every Igbo voter has personally endorsed it. Then another group comes out to support the president, and the political mathematics begins to suffer. Suddenly, the story becomes less convenient. The problem is not that Igbo people disagree. Every region in Nigeria contains disagreement. The problem is the habit of pretending that disagreement does not exist whenever it is politically convenient to claim a united front. You cannot spend months telling Nigerians that the entire South-East has rejected a party and then act surprised when people from the same region publicly support it. You cannot claim exclusive ownership of the people’s political choices and then blame the people when they make choices you did not approve.
And this is where the mockery becomes deserved. If the APC was supposedly going to be chased away, why was there a rally? If the party had no supporters, who were the people who came out? If every Igbo person had supposedly reached the same political conclusion, who authorised the dissenters to turn up in Owerri? Perhaps the political prophets should organise another meeting and explain why their predictions failed to account for people who did not follow their instructions. They might even establish a committee to investigate how an ethnic group managed to have different political opinions without seeking their permission. That would certainly be a more entertaining use of their time than repeatedly announcing what millions of people will do as if they were reading from a script.
The deeper problem is that this kind of political theatre does not strengthen the South-East. It exposes the gap between claiming to speak with one voice and actually agreeing on a common political strategy. The region has political leaders, governors, legislators, activists and citizens with different ambitions and loyalties. Some work with the APC, some oppose it, and others pursue different political interests. Yet, whenever a convenient political argument requires it, someone appears to declare that the entire region has made one decision. That is a wonderful arrangement for the person holding the microphone, but it is a poor substitute for political organisation. If the South-East wants greater influence in national affairs, it needs more than dramatic declarations about which party will be rejected. It needs credible leadership, strategic alliances, coordinated priorities and the ability to negotiate outcomes that matter to its people. Political influence is not measured by how loudly somebody announces that a party will be stoned. It is measured by what political representatives can actually achieve for the people they claim to represent.
This is why the Owerri rally deserves more than a passing laugh. It has exposed the danger of treating an entire region as a political possession. The people who attended the rally have the right to support Tinubu. Those who oppose him have the right to reject him. Neither group has the authority to erase the other. The organisers’ claim of one million participants should not be treated as a verified attendance figure, and the rally does not prove that the South-East will vote for Tinubu in 2027. A crowd is not an election result. But the gathering does demonstrate that the APC has visible supporters in a region some commentators portrayed as completely hostile to the party. That should be enough to make anyone who predicted an inevitable stone-throwing reception reconsider the certainty with which the prediction was delivered.
The APC should also resist the temptation to celebrate as though it has already won the South-East. A rally is not a ballot paper, and enthusiasm at a public event does not automatically translate into votes. Tinubu and the APC still have to answer questions about governance, economic hardship, insecurity and their record in office. If they want more support, they must persuade voters rather than rely on one rally to do the work. But at least the party has demonstrated that it can mobilise supporters in Owerri. Its opponents can criticise the rally, question the attendance figure and challenge the party’s record. What they cannot reasonably do is pretend that no APC supporter in the region exists simply because that would make their preferred political story easier to tell.
The real embarrassment belongs to those who turned a political preference into an ethnic prophecy. They wanted the entire South-East to appear united in rejection of Tinubu, and they spoke as though the matter had already been settled. Now, the region’s own political diversity has disrupted the performance. The same people who insisted that the APC would be stoned must confront the fact that some residents chose to demonstrate support instead. They can explain it away, dismiss the participants or invent another theory, but none of that changes the basic lesson: you cannot speak for millions of people simply because you are loud enough to be heard.
Perhaps the political prophets should retire their imaginary stones and return to the business of persuading voters. The 2027 election will not be decided by the confidence of commentators, the declarations of activists or the size claimed by rally organisers. It will be decided by voters exercising their choices. The South-East is not a single political congregation, and nobody has been appointed its permanent spokesperson. If the people who predicted stones have learnt anything from Owerri, it should be that a political prediction is not a command, an ethnic identity is not a voting instruction, and shouting on behalf of an entire region does not mean the region has agreed with you.
They promised stones. Owerri produced an APC rally. And the people who claimed to know exactly what the Igbo would do have been reminded, rather publicly, that the voters did not sign any contract to follow their script.
Ademola Adekusibe is a Nigerian journalist, columnist and media professional serving as Operations Manager at The Yoruba Times (TYT). His work focuses on governance, public affairs, politics, social issues and developments affecting Nigerian society. He examines public policy, political strategy, institutional accountability and the relationship between public institutions and ordinary citizens.