Politics of Criticism and the Problem with Smear Tactics

In politics, there are times when criticism is necessary, and there are times when it just creates worry. This difference is not always clear at first. Both can seem like they are asking questions. Both can look like they are serving the public. But one seeks proof, while the other wants to shrink a person, a record, or an institution into a simple story.

Every political culture develops its own way of judging. Some encourage questions. Others encourage doubt. Over time, these habits shape how people view success. Success stops being seen as achievement. It becomes about positioning. Service changes to strategy. Professional success turns to political readiness. This leads to a distortion of public life. A society that cannot tell the difference between achievement and ambition loses sight of those who build institutions while they are busy doing it.

Politics in Bauchi has always been intense. Like many political areas with a long history of competition, it has its own instincts, rivalries, memories, and doubts. It has a pattern of seeing visibility as a sign of ambition. A public figure does not need to announce interest in any position before a political atmosphere starts to form around them. Supporters may dream big, opponents may see danger, and commentators may share certainty where proof is weak. Soon, the person at the center of the talk is judged not by their actions but by what others think they must be planning.

Political transitions often make this tendency stronger. When old beliefs start to fade and future alliances are unclear, political imagination runs wild. Public focus shifts from reality to possibilities. People who gain visibility outside of traditional politics face scrutiny that goes beyond their real actions. They become symbols for hopes, fears, and rival strategies. In these situations, the conversation rarely focuses on the individual alone. It becomes a mirror of the political environment watching them.

This is how political projections occur. Some people become candidates because they declare themselves. Others become candidates because others want them to be. The first is ambition. The second is anxiety disguised as analysis. In such cases, public discussion reveals more about the environment discussing than about the person being discussed.

Political communities often create symbolic candidates long before actual candidates appear. The symbolic candidate serves a purpose. Supporters come together around them. Rivals unite against them. Commentators build stories around them. Their intentions take a backseat to the role they play in the broader political imagination. The individual is no longer talked about as a person but as a possibility. This is why some names gain a significance that goes beyond any formal political action tied to them. The story lasts not because it is particularly convincing, but because it meets needs that have little to do with the individual at its center.

This context helps us understand the recent attempts to simplify Muhammad Ali Pate into a convenient political stereotype. The issue is not that he is beyond criticism. No public figure is. The point is that real criticism should engage with the record before judging motives. Chinua Achebe understood this flaw in post-colonial public life well. He was concerned not just about leadership but about the quality of public judgment around it. He often warned against societies being consumed by personalities while ignoring institutions. In such societies, gossip gets more attention than action, and speculation spreads faster than governance.

In the end, citizens interact with institutions, not personalities. Hospitals matter after politicians leave. Schools matter after campaigns end. The healthcare system matters long after speeches are forgotten. When commentary focuses more on building suspicion than on examining facts, it stops being scrutiny and becomes part of the usual politics of belittlement.

Having a career that spans medicine, public administration, development finance, global health, and national reform does not fit well into the narrow language of local succession politics. This does not mean that politics is unimportant. In Bauchi, politics is always close to public interpretation. It means, however, that not every successful son of the state should be seen first as a future candidate, and not every act of service should be forced into an electoral script.

The strange thing about smear campaigns is that they often show the weakness of the argument they try to support. If a public figure has no record, then insinuation can work because there is little for the public to look at. But where there is a long, clear, and verifiable record, the smear has to work much harder. It must convince citizens to overlook what they can see in favor of what they are told to suspect. That is a tough job, especially when the record includes local service, national reform, and international leadership.

Pate’s career is not best understood through any single position, including the often-discussed Gavi episode. That was a significant point of global recognition, but it was not the start of the journey and it is not the main focus. The key point is continuity. Across the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, the Primary Health Care Under One Roof reform, the Midwives Service Scheme, Nigeria’s long fight against polio, his time as Minister of State for Health, his work at the World Bank, the Global Financing Facility, and his return to Nigeria’s health sector renewal efforts, the recurring themes are clear: primary healthcare, health financing, institutional reform, service delivery, workforce development, and system strengthening.

This continuity is most visible in the current phase of his career. The Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative and the Sector-Wide Approach are among the most ambitious efforts since the return to democratic rule to align federal, state, and partner investments around a shared governance framework, financing, workforce development, primary healthcare, service delivery, and accountability. These efforts tie together themes that have been present throughout his professional path. Just when a national reform agenda is being advanced across the federation, a significant amount of political commentary remains fixated on speculative futures. This contrast is telling. It shows that for some, the more interesting story is not the difficult task of building institutions but the easier drama of assigning motives to those involved in building them.

From this angle, the idea of sudden political calculation seems insufficient. What stands out is not that the narrative exists but that it has attached itself to a career defined by continuity rather than political shifts. The institutions changed. The responsibilities grew. The geography altered. Yet the main concerns stayed remarkably consistent: systems, governance, financing, service delivery, and institutional performance. Whatever conclusions one draws from that record, it is hard to align it with the simple logic many speculative stories rely on.

A career that has moved through medicine, public administration, development finance, global health, and national reform does not easily fit into the narrow vocabulary of local succession politics. This does not mean that politics is irrelevant. In Bauchi, politics is always intertwined with public interpretation. It does mean, however, that not every accomplished son of the state should be seen first as a future candidate and not every act of service should be forced into an electoral script.

There is a bigger irony here. Nigeria complains about brain drain. It celebrates citizens who excel abroad. It calls for experts to return home and help with national development. Yet when someone with global recognition comes back, suspicion often follows. If they stay abroad, they have left home. If they return, they must have a hidden agenda. If they succeed internationally, they are praised from a distance. If they serve locally, their motives are questioned. The allegations change, but the habit of suspicion remains.

This contradiction is worth looking into. A society cannot simultaneously bemoan the loss of talent, celebrate international achievements, encourage returns, and then meet those returns with distrust. At some point, this contradiction becomes counterproductive. The message sent is that excellence is admired from afar but unsettling up close. But nations do not build capacity just by praising achievements abroad. They build it when experience, expertise, and leadership are allowed to make meaningful contributions at home.

This habit is not harmless. It limits public conversation and distracts citizens from important questions. The real question is not whether political players can invent motives for a public servant. Motives are easy to create and hard to disprove. The key question is whether institutions are getting stronger, whether systems are improving, whether public resources are providing value, and whether citizens are better served by the actions being taken.

The politics of acrimony ultimately defeats itself. It assumes that reputation is built mainly by narrative and can be destroyed by counter-narrative. But lasting reputations are built differently. They are built through consistent work over time, through institutions touched, through reforms attempted, through responsibilities taken on, and through records available for examination. Such reputations can be criticized, but they are not easily wiped away by political tricks.

That is why the Bauchi perspective is important. The state’s politics, like many other places, often becomes too focused on imagined contests and not attentive enough to institutional outcomes. Yet public life is not sustained by speculation. It is sustained by functioning schools, operational hospitals, connecting roads, trustworthy courts, and public institutions that last beyond the personalities temporarily linked to them. The village woman looking for care for her child is not helped by rumors. The patient needing treatment is not served by whispers. Citizens experience governance not as gossip but as service delivered or denied.

This is how the politics of acrimony ultimately defeats itself. It assumes that reputation is built mainly by narrative and can be destroyed by counter-narrative. But lasting reputations are built differently. They are built through consistent labor over time, through institutions impacted, through reforms attempted, through duties fulfilled, and through records available for scrutiny. Such reputations can be criticized, but they are not easily erased by political mischief.

History has always had a longer view than politics. Political gossip may dominate a moment, but institutions survive in a different way. Few Nigerians now see Obafemi Awolowo mainly through the rumors, doubts, and strategies of his contemporaries. What lasted were the institutions, ideas, and social investments linked to his public life. The same goes for Ahmadu Bello. The political debates of their time have mostly faded; the administrative and institutional impacts of their work have not. Their peers debated ambitions. History assessed results. It cared less about intrigue and more about what remained after the intrigue faded.

Every generation produces its own intrigues, certainties, and calculations. Entire political classes get caught up in stories that seem essential to understanding the present. For a time, these stories dominate public discussions. Then things change, new controversies arise, and public focus shifts. Institutions move differently through time. They remain after rivalries fade, after calculations are forgotten, and after the urgency of current disputes passes.

History asks different questions than politics. Politics asks who is rising, who is falling, and who may run for office next. History asks what was created, what lasted, what improved, and what remained after the noise died down.

This is the standard serious societies eventually return to. Not what was alleged, hinted at, or conveniently spread by rival groups, but what was built. The same standard applies to every public figure, including Pate. If institutions weaken under his leadership, let the record say so. If reforms fail, let the evidence show it. But public judgment suffers when assessment turns to insinuation and records give way to speculation.

Hospitals do not care about rumors. The child getting vaccinated is unaffected by speculation. The mother arriving at a clinic in labor has no interest in intrigue. Public life ultimately returns to realities that exist outside of the stories built around them.

In the end, societies live not with the impacts of what was whispered, suspected, or imagined, but with the consequences of whether institutions were built, strengthened, or neglected.

This is where societies truly exist.

And this is where history awaits.