Prof Toyin Falola,the world acclaimed author, essayist and teacher wrote about the nature of Nigeria’s problems. He said:
“In Yoruba, Nigeria’s situation is aptly described as egbirin ote-a complex web of problems that keeps evolving, rearing its head in new places the instant one is decapitated.”
The Yoruba often talk of egbirin ote:a complex web of intrigues, sustained with unconscionable coldness: and the more you weed out one, the more others sprout, literally from nowhere!
As a metaphor for human conflict,Yoruba elders say “Egbirin ọtẹ ni, bẹ́ẹ̀ bá ge kan, òmíràn á tún rú jade” (It is like the egbirin weed; as soon as you clear one stalk of conspiracy or malice, another sprouts right from the roots).
The botanical term Egbirin usually refers to aggressively spreading, creeping, or rhizomatous weeds. These plants survive cutting because they have extensive underground root systems (rhizomes or runners) or seeds that drop instantly into the soil.
In Nigeria, political files are never permanently closed. Scandals featuring academic certificate discrepancies, dual citizenship, hidden foreign assets, or old corruption probes are meticulously archived by opposing camps.
During off-election years, these issues disappear from the public discourse. However, as soon as political primary season begins, these exact same dossiers sprout back to life overnight.
By keeping the public trapped in an endless loop of recycled drama,ranging from leaked audio recordings to sudden petitions sent to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,politicians successfully evade debates on actual policy.
The media and the electorate spend months weeding through sensationalist accusations, leaving zero time to demand accountability for collapsing infrastructure, inflation, or electoral reform.
In the landscape of modern political warfare, information is weaponized not through its accuracy, but through its frequency.
In Nigeria, the periodic resurfacing of certificate and drug allegations against President Bola Tinubu, contrasted symmetry-wise by the cyclical return of Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), privatization graft, and US Senate investigation allegations against former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
The accusations evolved into a predictable, macro-political phenomenon;an election-time ritual.
While these multi-partisan campaigns are framed by political actors as noble quests for institutional accountability, their underlying operational mechanism relies on deep-seated psychological vulnerabilities within human cognition.
By systematically resurrecting decades-old controversies at precise political junctures, orchestrators exploit the architecture of memory, perception, and group identity.
This strategy transforms unverified narratives into durable political realities, a phenomenon now aggressively accelerated by the systemic architecture of digital platforms.
At the core of this political strategy lies the illusory truth effect, a cognitive bias where human brains inherently equate processing fluency,the ease with which information is understood and recalled,with factual truth.Which in most cases its not!
When an allegation regarding academic credentials, corporate logistics setups, or historical legal filings is repeated across multiple election cycles, it carves deep neural pathways in the public consciousness.
Over time, as exposure increases, the mental effort required to recall the allegation decreases, and the brain mistakes this cognitive comfort for empirical validity.
Consequently, even when rigorous denials, retractions, official institutional verifications, or legal clearances are presented, they struggle to compete with the deeply entrenched familiarity of a highly repeated rumor.
This cognitive vulnerability is further aggravated by source monitoring error.
When individuals encounter an allegation repeatedly over several years, their brains process the core narrative but often fail to retain the context or credibility of the source.
A voter may completely forget that a specific claim originated from an unverified social media account, a leaked audio snippet, or a highly partisan blog, instead remembering it simply as an established, historical milestone.
During an election season, this allows old narratives to be repackaged as fresh revelations, catching the public in a continuous loop of recycled outrage.
Strategically, this functions as a classic “Dead Cat” political maneuver:introducing a sensational topic to completely hijack public discourse, shifting attention away from critical, substantive issues such as economic policy, infrastructure projects, and national security.
While the psychological foundations of this tactic are rooted in evolutionary biology, its modern efficacy is governed by social media algorithms.
Platforms like X, TikTok, and Meta are engineered to maximize user engagement, a metric that relies heavily on emotional arousal.
Because outrage and indignation drive the highest rates of sharing,likes comments, and watch time, algorithmic systems naturally privilege controversial, unverified allegations over complex, verified rebuttals.
A rebuttal may at best be speaking to the wind!I have been there!
When a political actor or protege resurrects a historical allegation,whether it is an unverified certificate query or a decades-old privatization debate.The algorithm detects the immediate spike in user engagement and pushes the content to wider audiences.
This creates a digital feedback loop that functions as an algorithmic echo chamber.
For the user, the repeated appearance of the allegation across their timeline creates a false perception of consensus;a psychological illusion known as social proof.
If an individual sees the same claim liked, posted, reshared, and debated by dozens of accounts, their cognitive defense mechanisms lower, assuming that a claim with such high visibility must possess a grain of truth.
You have to be at the receiving end of this digital ambush to understand its efficacy.I have been there!
Furthermore, these algorithms insulate users from counter-evidence.
Because the system continuously feeds users content that aligns with their preexisting biases, opposition voters are shielded from official institutional clearances, while supporters are shielded from legitimate examination of the allegations.
The platform does not seek truth; it seeks to retain attention, turning a cognitive bias into a highly profitable, politically devastating business model.
The use of cyclical, unverified allegations as an electoral ritual is not unique to the Nigerian polity; it is a well-documented fixture in global democratic history.
A striking parallel is found in the United States through the “Birther” movement directed against former President Barack Obama.
Despite the official release of his certified birth certificate in 2008, political opponents periodically resurrected allegations regarding his citizenship during the 2012 re-election campaign and subsequent political cycles.
The repetition relied on the exact same cognitive mechanisms: exploiting the processing fluency of a simple, nationalist narrative and leveraging early social media echo chambers to ensure the rumor outlived its empirical refutation.
Similarly, in French politics, the “Clearstream Affair” demonstrated how repeated institutional allegations can be weaponized as cyclical electoral interventions.
Ahead of the 2007 presidential election, fabricated lists implicating politician Nicolas Sarkozy in holding anonymous, illegal bank accounts were repeatedly leaked to the media.
Even as judicial investigations systematically exposed the lists as forgeries, the continuous media loops and public repetition ensured that the cloud of suspicion lingered throughout the campaign, altering voter perception through sheer exposure.
Going further back, the infamous “Zinoviev Letter” of 1924 in the United Kingdom illustrates the pre-digital origins of this tactic.
Days before the general election, a leaked, highly controversial letter allegedly written by a Soviet official urging British communists to engage in seditious activities was splashed across the press.
Though later proven to be a sophisticated forgery, the relentless repetition of the allegation in the closing days of the campaign permanently altered the electoral trajectory, proving that the psychological blueprint for the election-time ritual predates modern technology but has always relied on weaponizing unverified anxiety.
The behavioral impact of this cycle on the electorate is deeply polarizing, dividing society into hardened psychological camps.
For opposition supporters, these repeated allegations serve as vital confirmation bias anchors, providing an emotionally satisfying justification for preexisting hostility.
Conversely, for the targeted leader’s political base, the cyclical nature of these attacks triggers a defensive tribal reflex, causing supporters to dismiss even legitimate inquiries as malicious fabrications.
This total collapse of objective, middle-ground debate deepens partisan divides, rendering constructive civic dialogue nearly impossible.
For the undecided or independent voter, the psychological fallout results in political cynicism and mental fatigue.
When the public sphere is continuously flooded with the same explosive, unresolved accusations every four years, it induces a state of learned helplessness.
The voter concludes that the entire political ecosystem is inherently fraudulent and that truth is entirely unattainable.
This mental exhaustion ultimately leads to widespread voter apathy and lower electoral turnout.
To counter this ritualistic warfare, traditional communication strategies are no longer sufficient.
Psychologically, repeating an allegation to deny it often backfires, as it inadvertently reinforces the lie’s familiarity.
Instead, modern strategies must rely on “pre-bunking” or cognitive inoculation;warning the public about the upcoming narrative cycle before it begins, thereby framing the allegations as a predictable tactical maneuver rather than genuine news.
Ultimately, the survival of an informed electorate depends on recognizing these cyclical allegations not as spontaneous bursts of civic truth, but as highly engineered, algorithmically accelerated psychological operations designed to manipulate and tilt the democratic choice.
As long-standing political heavyweights pass the baton or form new alliances for upcoming campaigns, their proteges adopt the exact same playbooks.
The actors change and the party acronyms mutate, but the underlying machinery of manufactured outrage and weaponized state institutions functions exactly as it did decades ago!
Asiwaju Kunle Kalejaye SAN
Eagle102.5 FM Ilese-Ijebu
