Tinubu is About Repeating the Tragedy of Operation Wetie - Tola Adeniyi Warns

There are moments in history when a people decide they have had enough. Moments when silence becomes betrayal, and fear gives way to fire.

Chief Tola Adeniyi, former Editor-in-chief of the Tribune takes us back to one of those moments, the dark, combustible days of 1965 in Nigeria’s Western Region. A time when politics lost its soul, elections were twisted, and the will of the people was trampled under the weight of power. The result was chaos. Streets burned. Trust collapsed. A nation trembled.

It was called “Operation Wetie”—a phrase that is a warning bell across generations.

With the burden of memory, Adeniyi draws a chilling line between that past and the present. He reflects on the patterns of power, the dangers of electoral manipulation, and the fragile line between order and anarchy. In his view, history is watching for an opportunity to repeat itself.

As Nigeria moves under the leadership of Bola Tinubu, he raises a question that refuses to go away: are we learning from history, or are we rehearsing it?