A call by the legal practitioner and author, Timothy Tugbiyele, for the Afrobeats star David Adeleke, popularly known as Davido, to apologise to the Edo State Governor, Monday Okpebholo, has generated debate over whether the lawyer placed the burden of restraint on the wrong party in a political exchange that began on the Osun campaign trail.
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Since the video began circulating, reactions on WhatsApp groups and other social media platforms have converged on a single question: who started it.
The dominant line of criticism circulating online is that the controversy did not begin with the singer’s post at all, but with a serving governor of another state travelling into Osun during a campaign and ridiculing the sitting governor of that state before his own residents.
On that view, a public officeholder who introduces personal ridicule into an election campaign, and does so in the territory of the man he is ridiculing, cannot reasonably expect insulation from an equally personal reply. Concentrating criticism on Davido’s response, the argument runs, while treating the remarks of the officeholder as secondary, overlooks who introduced the personal dimension in the first place.
A related strand of the online reaction has framed the Edo governor’s presence in Osun as itself the provocation, with some commentators asking whether a governor who campaigns against another state’s governor in that state’s own territory is in a position to complain of disrespect afterwards.
A second line of objection goes to the ground of the lawyer’s argument rather than the sequence of events.
Tugbiyele rested his call for an apology partly on status, saying that the singer and the governor “are not in the same social class” and “not of the same status,” and partly on Yoruba cultural expectations of respect for elders.
That reasoning has been contested. Public office in a democracy ordinarily subjects its holder to public criticism rather than creating a social status that prevents citizens from responding to political statements. A comment visible in the online discussion surrounding the intervention argued that Okpebholo is not Davido’s governor and that the singer therefore owes him no special obligation of deference — illustrating a competing view that the controversy should be judged on the substance and civility of what was said rather than on the social standing of those who said it.
@thenigerialawyer "Public Office Subjects Its Holder To Criticism, It Does Not Create A Social Class Above Citizens" — Critics Fault "Not In The Same Class" Argument
The sharpest question put to the lawyer arises from his own words.
Tugbiyele expressly acknowledged that the Edo governor’s conduct was not right. “I’m not saying what Okpebholo did is right, to disrespect his uncle, but it should not be an eye for an eye,” he said.
That admission has prompted the obvious follow-up: if both actions are considered inappropriate, why should the demand for a public apology be directed only at the singer, and not equally at the officeholder whose comments preceded the response?
Tugbiyele made the call in a video posted on Facebook, urging the singer to apologise after he shared a document purported to be Okpebholo’s West African Examinations Council result on his Instagram story. The authenticity of the document has not been independently established, and neither WAEC nor the Edo State Government was shown in the available reports to have authenticated it.
He described the action as inappropriate and disrespectful, arguing that the singer should not have personally responded to a serving governor. “I think what Davido did is disrespectful and I will plead with him, he should exercise some humility and apologise,” he said.
He further argued that the Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, ought to have responded directly to his Edo counterpart, or authorised one of his aides to do so, rather than have the singer become involved.
On the result itself, he maintained that it should not have been deployed to ridicule the governor, arguing that an unimpressive academic performance at one stage of life should not permanently define an individual. “The result is not good enough, but it’s possible the governor did a resit. We are not aware of that, but I think Davido, David Adeleke’s publication is inappropriate,” he said.
He drew from his own experience, saying he had also obtained poor results at one point but had benefited from encouragement rather than being labelled negatively.
Okpebholo, while campaigning in Osun State for the All Progressives Congress governorship candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, publicly mocked Governor Adeleke before Osun residents over his well-known dancing habit.
“Before somebody signs paper, he will dance. Are you not tired? For four years, this man has been dancing. Before he takes breakfast, before he drinks tea, he will dance,” Okpebholo told supporters at the rally.
Davido, who is Adeleke’s nephew and has been openly campaigning for his re-election, subsequently responded by publishing the purported WAEC result without a caption.
The singer later resumed his criticism of the Edo governor after the announcement of the appointment of thousands of special assistants across Edo State, responding to a statement attributed to the governor with the remark: “There’s no way in heaven he typed this.”
The continuing exchanges have attracted mixed reactions online, with some users supporting the singer’s attacks and others urging him to stay away from the confrontation altogether.
Amid the reaction, some commentators have described the lawyer’s intervention in unfavourable terms. It should be stated clearly that there is no verified evidence from the material reviewed that the Nigerian Bar Association has received any formal petition seeking disciplinary action against Tugbiyele for expressing his opinion on the dispute.
Critics are entitled to describe the intervention as unnecessary, attention-seeking or misplaced. Such descriptions remain opinions, and they should not be presented as established professional misconduct in the absence of a specific allegation capable of engaging the Rules of Professional Conduct or the disciplinary jurisdiction applicable to legal practitioners. Expressing a view on a matter of public controversy is not, without more, a breach of any professional rule.
Some social media users have also accused Tugbiyele of seeking attention through the controversy, describing him as a “content-creation lawyer” whose interventions are often tailored for online engagement. They urged members of the public to review his social media pages, arguing that his latest intervention offered no substantial legal point and appeared more focused on generating publicity than addressing the substance of the exchange between Okpebholo and Davido.
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