The Jonathan-Amaechi rift cracked the PDP wide open, and gave the then leading opposition the benefit of experienced and battle hardened politicians who provided. the final push that enabled the APC seize the moment. However, the real force that swept the party from power in 2015 was a mounting national outrage built brick by brick over five years of betrayal, bloodshed, and brazen theft that left ordinary Nigerians feeling robbed of hope.
It began with terror invading the capital. On October 1, 2010, barely five months into Jonathan’s presidency, a bomb exploded near Eagle Square during Independence Day celebrations, killing 12 and wounding dozens. The festive air turned to horror, signaling that violence was no longer distant.
The attacks grew bolder. On August 26, 2011, a suicide bomber struck the United Nations headquarters in Abuja, killing at least 23 and injuring over 80, the first successful hit on an international target in Nigeria. Fear spread: if the UN wasn’t safe,who was?
2012 became a year of unrelenting pain.
Subsidy removal protests, the revelations of unchecked corruption and racketeering in subsidy payments and management. unchecked violence and killings across the North and the FCT.
On January 20, Boko Haram unleashed hell in Kano: coordinated bombings and shootings claimed over 180 lives in one day. Among the dead was Enenche Akogwu, a 31-year-old Channels TV cameraman and reporter. While courageously filming the aftermath and interviewing witnesses on live television, he was shot dead by gunmen. His murder which was captured in real time, shocked the nation: if journalists documenting the truth could be gunned down on live television, what hope remained for ordinary citizens?
Violence continued unchecked: in April, bombs ripped through ThisDay newspaper offices in Abuja and Kaduna, further stifling voices and deepening dread.
By this time, the economic gut punch had already been dealt. On January 1, 2012, the government removed the petrol subsidy overnight, spiking prices from N65 to N141 per litre. Streets erupted in #OccupyNigeria protests (workers, students, mothers, traders) marching nationwide against what felt like daylight robbery from the poor. Following days of nationwide protests, the federal government reduced the price to N97 per litre, but the harm had already been done.
The National Assembly probe that followed peeled back the layers of deceit.
In April 2012, the ad hoc committee revealed N1.7 trillion in subsidy irregularities from 2009-2011 (ghost imports, overpayments, and fake claims).
Marketers claimed subsidies for fuel never delivered. One shocking revelation: the Accountant-General paid N999 million 128 times in a single 24-hour period, totaling N127.8 billion to unidentified scammers and refused to name them during the probe.
The number of subsidy-managing companies also exploded from 5 in 2006 to 140 in 2011, enabling massive fraud.
Convictions were rare, only a handful of marketers jailed years later, with billions unrecovered, leaving Nigerians convinced the system was rigged from the top.
On the same day, Boko Haram abducted 276 Chibok schoolgirls. The government’s hesitant and doubting response coupled with weeks of silence before urgency, felt like abandonment. #BringBackOurGirls echoed worldwide, but at home it became a scream of betrayal.
2013 wasn’t any better with the added burden of a much vaunted Power Privatisation Scheme that promised so much but delivered darkness. Power generation languished below 4,000MW against crushing demand, blackouts strangling homes and businesses. In the Niger Delta, the East-West Road, awarded in 2006 for N211 billion with a 2010 finish, had ballooned to N726 billion amid endless delays, its craters a daily slap to oil-producing communities.
By 2015, the toll was soul-crushing: over 20,000 dead from insurgency, 3 million displaced, youth unemployment at 23.9% half the population in poverty despite earlier GDP boasts.
From bombed streets to stolen billions, flickering lights to unfinished roads, the pain was visceral. Everyday Nigerians felt not just neglected, but deliberately robbed.
2014 delivered the killing blows. February brought CBN Governor Lamido Sanusi’s bombshell: up to $20 billion in oil revenues missing from NNPC coffers.
Although Amaechi’s defection gave political voice to the fracture, offering the opposition the benefit of a much-loved fearless and dogged fighter for justice; the people’s raw suffering drove the verdict: continuity was unbearable. They weren’t voting for change; they were voting against a nightmare they could no longer endure.
April 14, 2014 was etched in tragedy: a bomb at Nyanya bus park in the suburbs of Abuja killed over 70; two weeks later, another struck the same spot.
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Read part three → The Machinery of Victory
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