Those of you mistaking the US midterm elections for Nigeria’s presidential election should better wake up from your slumber.

You were here in 2023. You contested and lost the election, but your leader claimed to have won and, mischievously, still insists he won “without evidence” to back up the claim.

Since then, there has been no serious organisation from VP Atiku Abubakar to Governor Peter Obi. No real politics, no concessions, no sustained mobilisation, no nothing.

Atiku spent over two years prevaricating before finally leaving the PDP and settling in the ADC this year, barely a year to the next election.

Till date, the ADC is not even in good electoral shape. Founded in 2005, despite being older than the APC (2013), it has failed to build functional structures nationwide. With Atiku and his band of political nomads, the party barely has structures in 50 per cent of the country.

The NDC, on the other hand, is a new party registered through a court order. It is not even a year old. Despite Obi’s late entry, it has yet to establish structures in more than half of the country.

Now, consider the American example you are celebrating.

The Democratic Party dates its founding to 1828, while the Republican Party was founded in 1854. These are political institutions with histories spanning nearly two centuries.

Beyond their long institutional histories, consider the financial muscle behind their elections.

According to OpenSecrets, total spending on the 2026 US midterm elections is projected to reach a record-breaking $11.9 billion, nearly $12 billion. Democratic candidates alone are expected to spend more than $2.2 billion, compared with approximately $1.4 billion by Republican candidates.

Think about that for a moment. Nearly $12 billion ($16.9trn) has gone into a midterm election, not a presidential election. This is the scale of political financing, organisation, fundraising and mobilisation involved in American politics.

Of course, money alone does not guarantee electoral victory. But it takes organisation, structures, resources, people and sustained political engagement to compete effectively in such an environment.

You cannot simply lift the outcome of an American midterm election and assume it has any automatic implication for Nigeria’s presidential election.

Yes, President Bola Tinubu’s economic reforms have caused tremendous dislocations in people’s pockets and, indeed, their brains. But the opposition has not demonstrated the capacity or readiness to convert the resulting public resentment into electoral advantage.

There is nothing the Democrats’ victory in America can do to alter Nigeria’s electoral outcomes in January.

The opposition is bereft of strategy, funding, people and conscience. It has no concise messaging, no clearly articulated policies and very little goodwill. Its members are simply hanging around like thieves in the night, hoping to find a window left open through which they can sneak into power.

Unfortunately for them, they are up against an astute politician who knows the house, understands the game and is very much in charge.

American midterm elections are not Nigeria’s presidential election. The sooner they understand that, the better.