These are my personal views and I am constrained to express them given the fact that one Ben Llewellyn-Jones, a misguided, mischievous and clearly unlettered Englander who does not know his place, threw away all caution and mentioned my name in his inglorious commentary.

I would advise this Ben, who I am told is the Deputy High Commissioner of the UK to Nigeria, to keep his dirty nose out of our internal affairs.

Nigeria stopped being a British colony 63 years ago and we need no lessons from him on how to run our affairs or conduct our politics.

I know that his preferred candidate did not win the presidential election but that does not mean he should cross the line and take liberties with us here. I wonder who the hell he thinks he is?

I am not one of those Nigerians that bows, shakes, shivers and trembles before the British or indeed any other foreigner.

And unlike most I do not need any validation or endorsement from him or his ilk and neither can I be intimidated by his veiled threat of a visa ban.

Frankly I could not care less.

I would however take this opportunity to assure him that regardless of his views and desire to compel us to accept their godless so-called "humanist" and "libertarian" values and introduce evil practices and policies such as same-sex marriage in our country this will never be the case.

My aversion for sod*mites remains as constant as the northern star and whether he likes it or not we will never allow a sod*mite to be our President.

Neither will we accept lessons in decency, etiquette, what to say or how to speak from a fading British civil servant and a man that represents a nation that has committed more atrocities than perhaps any other in the history of humanity.

I advise this little Englander to respect himself and remain a silent observer when it comes to the politics of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

As a nation we are not a poodle of the British and we came of age 63 years ago.

He should be more concerned about the shrinking fortunes of a once "Great Britain" and the systemic racism, inherent injustice and insufferable arrogance that is entrenched in the British establishment and society than in the intra party politics of Nigeria.

He should also be more concerned with the efforts of his nation to bring us one step closer to WW3 given the unfolding events in Ukraine.

(FFK)

“We have become a community with different codes, values, and facts. We have mastered the art of destroying others to outshine and ascend the ladder of success.”

Dear Governor-elect, Fr. Hyacinth Alia,

It is a great pleasure and honor to write this open letter to you. Let me take this opportunity to formally congratulate you on your success in the March 18 poll. I have never met you in person. However, I have heard some good stories about you. Even after I joined the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), I continued to hear about your ministry in Benue. A few years ago, I was surprised to learn that you announced your intention to become governor of our State. Ahead of the election, you demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to the people of Benue through a strong campaign. Now is the time for all constituents to unite and support your shared vision of a strong and healthy nation. I may not be the only one among the Benue diasporans writing about the difficulties facing Benue State. However, I speak from experience and understanding of the conflict in Benue State. Indeed, the Benue people had high hopes that they had elected a government that would serve them, judging from the campaign promises and the failure of the previous government to meet the yearnings of the Benue masses. It is light at the end of the tunnel.

You did a commendable job engaging the Benue people in your acceptance speech. You spoke to us about where we are and took the time to explain our predicaments, contributions to your campaign, and challenges we face as a State– all of which have significantly impacted every facet of the State. You made a promise that inspired hope. Hope is a virtue we hold profoundly in our hearts because it has been and will always be the strength and success of the Benue people. I am writing you this open letter hoping you will take the time to read it and understand the importance of this message and why I decided to write you personally. To address the deep-rooted issues of Benue, which you mentioned in your acceptance speech, it will take more than one man or one administration to conquer. But with the support of the entire State, I know we can work together to bring to life the changes you promised.

In a few months, you will officially transition from a governor-elect to the serving governor of Benue State. I must extend my congratulations once again to you for the uncommon feat of defeating the opposition candidates, even as your emergence epitomizes a victory for democracy and a reflection of the preferred choice of the good people of Benue State. This victory is a testimony to your tenacity, resilience, determination, courageous planning, and clinical execution over the uninspiring leadership of the outgoing governor. The people of Benue State spoke in one resounding voice and rewarded your resilience with the highest stewardship in the land. It is now your turn to reciprocate the support of the people by justifying their choice at the poll through people-driven governance, accountability, and accessibility by those who have invested their trust and confidence in you.

Your excellency, as you rightly stated in your acceptance speech, the task ahead of you is daunting but not impossible with the right team and political will. The backlog of arrears of salaries, pensions, gratuities, the IDPs, and the persistent insecurity challenges had sparked an enormous challenge for a prosperous Benue. But it is, however, my belief, one shared by a great deal of the people of Benue State who gave their votes to you, that you are a man of focus who will not betray the aggregate hopes of those who have put their confidence in you and that you will not renege on your campaign promises nor stray from the noble path.

Your excellency, you should be proud to have earned the privilege to become the governor of our State. The youth (young men and women) of Benue State were at the forefront of your campaign, helping you to overcome the financial temptations of money politics to hand you a resounding victory. The measure of any successful government is how it carries its young populace along, not just in stomach infrastructure but in entrusting positions of authority to them as parts and parcel of the government. I sincerely beg you to make young people the cornerstone of your administration. To build a transcendent legacy, you need the trust of the young demographic who are now driving political portends and conversations more than at any other time in our political history. You may need the support of these young leaders of tomorrow to deliver on your many promises with humility and grace. Indeed, the government that deprives the quality of its youth representation can never be taken seriously in these times. I can confidently say that Benue State University has trained several youths of uncommon competence who have proven themselves in public or private service. It is your job to discover them and give them roles to rebuild the State. The choice of bringing youth to work in your administration must not happen in a rush. Hence, your administration should consider qualities such as ideology, personal competence, general acceptability, capacity, and integrity. It is to these that a great many young men and women of Benue State will look up to in a measure of how they relate to you and your government. I do not doubt that you will act rightly toward them as this fact is at the heart of the support you will enjoy amongst many of us in the civil society scope. To betray the youth population of Benue State would be to betray the trust of people who have used their platforms to canvass popular support for your candidacy and eventual emergence, and one that will regrettably catalyze a reversal of that broad trust and support. We, however, stay affirmed to your government as we share the conviction that you are a man in touch with the realities of the time and committed to working for the people and the State.

Your excellency, as the governor-elect waiting to take over the mantle of leadership, you have a challenging task ahead of you. I am sure you also recognize the difficult task ahead of you. You might be aware that the State is grappling with various issues, such as ethnic and religious divisions, rampant corruption, poor economic growth, a high unemployment rate, security challenges, and inadequate healthcare and educational systems. To address these problems, you must set a clear agenda that will prioritize the interests of all Benue people, regardless of their background or religious status. Your excellency, always remember that while you might claim that the Benue people elected you, they were the majority of others who never liked you to win. You were mocked and accused of ceding the State of Benue to Tinubu. Others wrote articles to question your antecedents as a priest and challenged you to prove that you healed people during your healing ministry. There was even the establishment in the Church hierarchy that fought you hard.

This attitude of looking down on a brother or sister is not new to Benue people. Benue people (especially the Tivs) are all too familiar with the entire episode. It has become a recurring decimal in our existence as a people. J. S. Tarka, in all his popularity and fame, was brought down by his people. Aper Aku, widely credited with laying the foundation for modern Benue, suffered the same fate at the hands of his people. Yet, today there is no single past leader of the State to equal Aku’s legacies. Rev Fr. Moses Orshio Adasu suffered the same indignities from his people before his death. Yet, he was a man whose service to the State was so selfless that he died without building a house for himself throughout the one year and ten months of his tenure as governor. He constructed the modest house he lived in and died while serving as a priest long before he became governor. Sometimes, I intend to attribute the Benue man’s penchant for destroying their best to the witchcraft tradition. According to witchcraft tradition, only the very best is sacrificed or wasted. The worthless ones, the thugs, the hoodlums, gangsters, criminals, drug addicts, and the hemp smokers are immune. In the retrogressive witchcraft ideology, people expect young people to hide in the background to avoid being noticed by the elders or those in authority, no matter how brilliant their ideas are. Benue, therefore, today boasts only of dead heroes. Be aware that you will go through the same criticisms. But the right way to respond to such critics is to remember the encounter between Jesus and the adulterous woman in John 7:53-8:11. He or she who has no sin should be the first to cast the stone. Many of us have quickly forgotten the story of an adulterous woman, which provides an excellent example for us to follow when we find ourselves reacting judgmentally or with attitudes of self-righteousness toward someone else’s sin.

Today, Benue State is at a disadvantage, as it has been since Nigeria’s inception. Still, ironically, we have dealt the deadliest blows from within, creating the most significant obstacles for ourselves. We cannot spare anybody from the destructive drive. As a Benue public policy student, the Benue Cement Company is a painful source of concern. No sensible Benue indigene passes by that company and sees a swath of the landscape destroyed without moaning. The billions of Naira quarterly declared as profit by the Dangote Group does not have any corresponding thing to show. However, the condition of those of us who work there as casual laborers is pathetic. Most are now contract workers who will never receive a pension at their retirement. For some time, a few Benue sons and daughters have taken it upon themselves to bring the plight of the Benue people to the fore through publications and in the national dailies to no avail.

In recent years, an investor said his peers had injected money into the Taraku Mills Company to revive it. This ailing industry aimed to produce the finest grade of all edible oil and different kinds of flour, including all forms of animal feed. In its heyday, Taraku Mills supplied vegetable oil to all parts of northern Nigeria. But corrupt managers and sheer government neglect have not only killed the company but have also killed the efforts to restore it. The pertinent question is, why would the state government allow corrupt persons to supervise the revival of this industry that holds enormous prospects for the people? This company is the legacy of the first civilian governor of the State, the late Aper Aku, and should be protectively guarded, but sadly, our government treated it with negligence. Beyond doubt, Aku’s regime initiated the idea to set up other similar industries such as Otukpo Burnt Bricks, Benue Fruit Juice Factory in Makurdi, Benue Packaging Company, Gboko, and Benue Education Supply Company to develop the State’s agricultural and natural resources. Ostensibly, the Aper Aku administration had envisioned that these companies would gainfully employ the youths, the farmers who formed the majority of the rural population would have ready markets for their produce, and the government would also generate enough revenue to boost the socio-economic sector of the rural and civil service state. Confidently, not a few persons during the glorious birth of the dilapidated company had believed that the good intention of the governor, who in only four years of his tenure left footprints on Benue soil, could be easily muzzled and die quickly for lack of proper management.

Taraku Mill started full-scale production in 1989 after installing the necessary equipment. The government installed all the machines between 1986 and 1987. The government centrally located this company at Taraku, a four-kilometer distance from Otukpo, to serve the three dominant groups of Tiv, Idoma, and Igala that form present-day Kogi State. The prediction was that the site’s proximity to a nearby railway station, with the large expanse of land at its disposal, would encourage farmers to grow soya beans and benni seed to feed the factory’s needs. Moreso, the availability of raw materials would create an enabling environment for job seekers and an avenue for people to market their farm produce to the company. The intention was to add value to agricultural production for a rural state so that other economic activities related to farming and agriculture could gradually pick up to enable the population to survive in an agro-allied economy. But as it is, tales of disappointments, agonies, and disillusionment replaced the noble dreams of the founding father, especially for the fact that in the last decade of their epileptic operations, the ailing mills were reputed to be the largest of their kind in West Africa had undergone pathetic stages of abject neglect in the hands of successive administrations.

Today, the Benue State government has shut down Taraku Oil Mills and laid off its staff. The laying off of staff and the delay in paying them has caused severe hardship to the affected workers. Sixty persons died while waiting for their benefits. Some of whom are my family members. I cannot forget how excited and happy some people were when they realized you won the election and became the governor-elect. I will not forget how gloomy and unhappy some Benue people were when they realized you won the election. Many such people will be hostile and aggressive to your administration, looking forward to your failure, so they can proclaim themselves prophets that saw the future in your collapse. A successful option is that you can become the governor of Benue and all Benue natives, addressing the divisive challenges and issues plaguing Benue. But that is if you care for the State. As a Benue indigene, my concern has always been to see a prosperous and healthier Benue. Hence, I sincerely pray for your success in realizing these dreams for a greater Benue.

As a concerned Benue indigene, let me highlight the areas that I think you must prioritize in your administration as you prepare to assume the office of the executive governor. As a matter of urgency, you must prioritize restoring the unity of the Benue people. The unity of Benue has never been this fragile and polarized since the creation of Benue State. Today, you have emerged as the governor-elect in the most polarized State. In the last few years, it has become clear to anyone living in Benue that we are facing an issue of polarization. And the force that empowers this polarization is tribalism, ethnicity, and religion. Deep antagonism stirred by political leaders against each other has hindered parliamentary and government cooperation and triggered a cascade effect of divisions among the Benue people. Political parties and indigenes who have become followers of party leaders have replicated these conflicts. But what do these events tell us about the State of polarization in Benue? In recent years, polarization has increased between the people and the party elites. Confidential debate, confined to the fringes of older circles, has made its way to the Facebook pages of the Benue people. We have become a community with different codes, values, and facts. We have mastered the art of destroying others to outshine and ascend the ladder of success. In our public debates, it seems that we no longer disagree. We reject each other premises and doubt each other motives. We question each other’s characters and close our ears to different points of view. At home, polarization has destroyed personal relationships, ruined companionship, and torn families apart. We are experiencing these divisions in our workplaces, neighborhood meetings, and even our places of worship. At media interviews, analysts attack and mock opponents and talk over each other. On the internet, social media has become a hotbed of outrage, takedowns, and cruelty—often targeting our brothers and sisters. But this notion can change. Most of the Sons and Daughters of Benue, what I would call an exhausted majority, have had enough of our polarization. They know we have more in common than what divides us: our belief in sovereignty, uniformity, and common dream. They share a deep sense of gratitude that they are indigenes of Benue. They want to move past our differences. It is possible to abolish the disunity between us – but it will not be easy for you. As much as we have differences and disagreements, you should be able to listen to us to understand those differences and find common ground. That should be one of the goals of your administration. To understand better what is pulling us apart and what can bring us back together.

Polarization today reflects a perfect storm: unsettling changes in our community and society have left many Benue sons and daughters feeling like strangers in their land. Old certainties are gone. The concept of eating and giving to a brother or sister, the notion of I am because we are, and the safety of neighborhood life where everyone knew each other all feel like relics of a bygone era. It feels as though hard work is no longer accepted, yet the gap between those who have and those who do not have widens yearly. Many sons and daughters of Benue wonder who else they can trust. The institutions that once bound us are disappearing, and we no longer seem to have each other’s backs. Everyone appears to have a varying version of world events. Hence, it becomes more challenging than ever to sort fact from fiction. Our news feeds seem to echo our views, and when people post alternative opinions, they often get attacked by angry mobs. We do not disagree without perceiving another person’s views as stupid, wrong, or evil. We are being played off each other and told to see each other as threats and enemies. The loudest and most extreme voices get heard, while others feel they are outsiders. Nobody wants to turn the clocks back because several things are not right about the world of the Benue people. Today, we seem more fractured and fragmented than anyone can remember. Instead of helping us find solutions to move us all forward, politics is driving us apart. When people fail to understand each other, they cannot converse or find common ground. Yet somehow, if you could only press a reset button, things could be different, and we could move forward together as one community. The time to reset that button is right here and now.

Your excellency, the people of Benue will appreciate more if you list unity as part of what your administration will focus on in addition to your seven-point agenda and promote policies that will foster greater understanding and cooperation among the Benue people. This suggestion is necessary because we have too much unpleasantness, animosities, resentment, hostility, and bitterness in our land. People are hurt, impoverished, and have become beggars in their land. You will be the governor of such people, whether we like it or not or whether we voted for you or not. Hence, you could rise above sectionalism, regionalism, and indigenous sentiments to become the governor for all. My opinion is that you should create time to help us live peacefully and participate in the socio-political activities of the State. It is ridiculous that the people of Benue should suffer in a State that belongs to all of us. The Benue indigenous people living in the State should not be considered strangers.

Finally, your excellency, you will receive congratulatory messages from people of all worth of life, social media advisers, and content creators congratulating you on your victory at the polls. These people were often harshly critical of the priesthood and your choice to become the governor. Some took their anger out on you to divide our church deeply. I would, therefore, remind you to be wary of sycophants in the corridors of power whose interest is to engage in bootlicking and hypocrisy. These people will do everything now to praise you but they will also be the first elements to criticize you when you fail to deliver on your mandate. I urge you to be wary of these people, steadfast, focused, and dedicated as you steer the affairs of the State. The Nigerian expression goes: Shine your eyes and do not fall our hands! If you fail, it will be devastating and heartbreaking. As a Jesuit Catholic priest, I would be ashamed. But if you succeed, you will put the Catholic Church in the position of having authentic and transformative leaders who play a fundamental role in inducing a positive change. People will believe in our church as the only institution with genuine leaders to serve others. When it was clear you were the winner of the just concluded election, someone wrote on Facebook that if you let down the Benue people, the last hope would be to try the traditional herbalist or witch doctor. We do not wish to go to that level where people will make a caricature of the Catholic priesthood and the church.

Your election is a battle we desperately need to win in Benue. Right now, we are facing an economic crisis that has exacerbated job mobility for the people of our State. Our standing as the “food basket of the nation” with a conducive environment for business has also fallen. I pray that our legislatures will work with you to stem this decline by promoting policies that help create and retain the “food basket of the nation.” In doing this, you will ensure Benue’s continued success as a desirable place to be and raise a family. The people of Benue have provided an opportunity for you to set a new tone and direction for this powerful place we call home. As a brother priest, I am confident that you understand the Benue issues and that your experience can help move the State forward. Once again, I congratulate you on your election as governor and wish you a smooth transition. I envisage a powerful collaboration between your administration and legislative session to ensure that Benue, once again, becomes an attractive place to work and live.

Rev. Ma, S.J, is a Jesuit Catholic priest and PhD candidate in public and social policy at St. Louis University in the state of Missouri, USA.

The theme for World Autism Week 2023 is colour: the powers that be want to promote autism awareness with a splash of colours. As usual, the autism activists will be out there in force on sponsored walks, raising money, and doing talks trying to educate the general public on autism.

I believe those on the autistic spectrum really don’t care about an awareness week devoted to trying to understand what they are: most would prefer to be given a fair chance to live in a world that rejects them and treats them like circus freaks. Perhaps more time should be spent on educating the ordinary man on the street about what autism really is like and how those affected by it try to live their lives.

Autistic people are no different to anybody else except their brains are wired differently: the same human being but a different way of thinking and living. The common belief that all autistic people are non-verbal retards is not exactly true, some will be but not all, and in the same way not all ‘normal’ people are clever and can boast of high IQs. The mere fact you’ve met one autistic person doesn’t mean you’ve met them all. Don’t stereotype! People like Elon Musk, bullied as a kid in South Africa because he was autistic and weird (- he still is weird!) is on-and-off the Worlds Richest Man following in the footsteps of people like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg, all rumoured to be on the spectrum, who are using their unique talents and abilities to re-shape the world we live in. Recently Jason Arday an autistic 37-year-old Black Briton became the youngest Black professor at Cambridge University: he didn’t utter a word until he was 11 and didn’t learn to read or write until he was 18. A few years down the road and he worked hard and quickly got a first degree, 2 Master’s degrees and finally his PhD in Educational Studies. Not bad for an autistic ‘retard’!

The mere fact somebody is slightly different to everybody else, perhaps a bit antisocial and weird is not an excuse to discriminate against or ostracise a person.

Discrimination is a big crime in the world today: we prosecute people for discriminating against others because of their race, sexual and religious orientation and cultural differences. But sadly, people who have autism and other mental health conditions seem to be exempt from this rule. For some strange reason its ‘OK’ to bully, harass, ridicule, alienate and ostracise people who have mental health conditions.

Nobody has any control over what they are born as, it’s a Lottery of Life: if you were born ‘O.K’ you’re lucky, if not you’re stuck with whatever you are born as for the rest of your natural life. Think about that next time when you’re ridiculing somebody who’s on the autistic spectrum or who has mental health issues.

So Autistic Awareness week, in my opinion, should be dedicated to not just learning more about the condition – or making a song and dance about it – but to showing how people live with a condition that imposes certain limitations on how they live their lives: limitations the average person would find impossible to live with. Simple things like going to a shopping mall, or attending social functions can cause a sensory overload or even going outside of their own front doors can be difficult for most people on the spectrum and that’s not to talk of being hyper-sensitive to common things such as noise, bright lights, smells or even certain foods and at the same time being prone to meltdowns, struggling with depression, loneliness (-often leading to suicidal intentions), while at the same time being de-humanised by everybody around them.

Tribalism is to Africa what racism is to the West. It is the African version of black-on-black violence, except that ours is unmatched in the crudity of the implements of violence and the tenacity with which we insist on handing over the chalice of hate to the coming generation. Some people are not content with fouling the waters of human coexistence; they want to ensure that their children inherit their ‘enemies’ so that a fractious future is thus assured.

Six years ago, in my column of February 20, 2017, I pondered over how politicians and some of their collaborators within the larger society weaponise ethnicity to drive a wedge between the people and advance the politicians’ game of mass deception. With the shameful developments in the run-up to the recent elections, it is clear to me that some people know of no other way to seek a democratic mandate except through transmogrifying polling booths into gory crime scenes.

And don’t let anyone fool you, it’s all about self and never about the people. Politicians play on the vulnerabilities of the mob. It is the same trick used by the racist American who has convinced half-literate white layabouts down the social ladder that the reason for their poverty is that black doctors and engineers from Nigeria are taking their jobs. 

That is the same trick used by our politicians who tell their impoverished followers — people they, the politicians, had kept in penury through treasury looting and lack of vision for the betterment of society — that non-indigenes are the cause of their poverty. The last set of elections witnessed a resurgence of tribalism, making me realise that my campaign against the scourge six years ago needs to be re-echoed.

Part of my “Memo to the Tribalist” ran thus:

Mr and Mrs Tribalist, your tribe is well represented in the list of armed robbers, treasury looters, kidnappers, ritual killers, internet fraudsters and drug peddlers, just as the other tribes you deride. There is no tribe that is all good just as there is none that is irredeemably bad. Every mother does have them! 

The most worrying aspect of your myopia is that you are handing over the baton of hate to your children. But you forget that they are in a globalised world in which those children you have ‘villagised’ will have no place. Has it ever occurred to you that the more you ‘villagise’ your children the narrower their catchment scope in terms of spread and reach?

Naturally, you can dislike what some people are doing. That is your entitlement. But, as Pope Francis has repeatedly said, we have no right to hate anyone because hate begets terrible consequences…

Check out the innocuous rumblings and hate peddling that preceded the Rwanda genocide. Having sufficiently stripped rival tribes of their humanity through stereotypes, rumours and hate vending, the next step naturally was to lash out at the source of their anger. In their minds they were not killing fellow human beings, they were doing humanity a favour by ridding the world of vermin.

Perhaps hate pedlars are scared that they will peter into irrelevance once their wares become unfashionable. So they hawk hate on street corners, in beer parlours, at the hilltop, in seedy tribal conclaves, anywhere and everywhere they pollute with their hate-filled presence. If only they realise that there are many good things to celebrate about other people too! 

…Have these haters in Nigeria not heard of one gentleman called Booker T. Washington who said, “I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him”?

The only good takeaway of the season of madness is that it helped unmask closet tribalists. Society cannot forget that although no man or woman chose where he was born, some people turned that into the main issue in their quest to preside over our collective patrimony. And they are recruiting younger elements to take over from them in future. 

When I think of the ideals we propagated as university students in the 70s and the fact that it was the relationship of ideas that established kinship, I am alarmed at the tribal mantle some in my generation are handing over to their children. There can’t ever be a frictionless interaction between various cultures. In our university days, we taunted each other to the moon and back. But hate? No!

Anything that demonises people for their tribe or race is evil. If we don’t stamp it out, it festers. As Fr. Dwight Longenecker brilliantly notes: “First we overlook evil. Then we permit evil. Then we legalise evil. Then we promote evil. Then we celebrate evil. Then we persecute those who still call it evil.”

It is understandable then, that this poisoned atmosphere we are currently experiencing is bound to take its toll on the media whose duty is to inform, educate, entertain and monitor the society. Politicians think that because they routinely get away with their crimes, they also ought to determine how their shenanigans should be reported by the media.

There is a pattern of media harassment developing in the past few years. Some politicians are so vacuous that they deploy braggadocio as a substitute for their brain. When asked questions that require introspection or simple honest-to-God truth, they resort to throwing tantrums.

One of the more famous cases in the last 24 months was a press conference at which Femi Fani-Kayode rained insults on a journalist who dared to ask him if his “consultative meetings” with the ruling APC was sponsored. He could simply have answered, “No”. But that wouldn’t be dramatic enough. He gave a thorough tongue flagellation to the journalist and ordered him out of the press conference. Amazingly, other journalists at the conference witnessing the humiliation of their colleague for doing his job simply kept mum!

In another instance which was rebroadcast recently, Festus Keyamo, speaking in defence of his principal, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, over the plea bargain episode in the US, told his interviewer to get a biro and paper so that he could lecture him on the intricacies of the law. What a cheek! The accomplished attorneys of the great countries of the world would never talk down on a reporter no matter how lowly (and, unlike the legal profession which places a premium on rank, every journalist is, first and foremost, a reporter). 

The arrogance of politicians seems to come with the territory. Once they occupy some public office, they think they are above censure and that journalists should orally lie prostrate before asking them questions. They are able to carry on this primitive attitude because journalists themselves seem to have accepted that the idiocies of politicians are to be tolerated no matter how ridiculous.

I think journalists have to stand up for themselves and for each other. Nobody, no matter the degree of his delusion of grandeur, should be allowed to get away with talking down on a journalist whether in the print or electronic media. In those days, the threat of the self-acclaimed big men used to be, “I’ll report you to your editor”. These days, they simply resort to ‘area boy gra-gra’. Instead of answering your tough question, they rain insults and refuse to allow you to put in a word. Politicians think we all have amnesia. Thank goodness that journalists are always there to drag the intrepid men back to reality.

And only the other day, former Governor Ayo Fayose, refused to answer an uncomfortable question put to him by Arise TV’s Rufai Oseni. The question had to do with the ‘small’ matter of the alleged billions of Naira transported to Ekiti for the purpose of election rigging when Fayose was running for governor. Instead of answering the question, Fayose literally descended into the gutter. He questioned the moral right of his interviewer and revealed that he had expressed reservations about Oseni being among his interviewers. Apparently, his sense of entitlement made him feel that a TV station should rejig its team to please him.

The matter riled many journalists. One of the more educated responses was provided by Nkanu Egbe, publisher of Lagos Metropolitan:

Nkanu wrote: “All these pseudo-journalists pontificating on Oseni Rufai ‘s presentation style, have you ever heard of outrage journalism? It’s journalism that provokes! The interviewer asks the most daring questions in the most provocative way. For a democracy and society as ours which is fraught with wanton lawlessness and impunity, you need someone who would dare to push out the questions. Label him, get upset with him, at the end of the day, he’s calling out the issues. Perhaps, he’s too idealistic in his approach, but at the end of the day, you will thank him.”

A recent cash shortage in Nigeria has led to a spike in the usage of the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), the eNaira.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) embarked on a note replacement program, replacing the 200-, 500- and 1,000-naira notes. Conducted inefficiently, the program led to an acute shortage of cash that saw protests erupt across the West African nation. A petition by some governors saw the Supreme Court push the deadline for replacing the old notes to December, up from the February 10 deadline.

This cash shortage was a boon for the eNaira. Speaking to the media, CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele revealed eNaira transactions have surged by 63% to NGN22 billion ($47.7 million). The digital currency also boasts 13 million wallets now, a 12-fold increase from October 2022.

Emefiele further revealed that of the NGN10 billion minted by the central bank, NGN3.4 billion is already in circulation.

The governor said one of the key factors for the uptick in adoption, aside from the cash shortage, is the government’s decision to distribute aid to needy Nigerians under the welfare program through the digital currency. Nigerians created four million new wallets under this welfare program.

“The eNaira has emerged as the electronic payment channel of choice for financial inclusion and executing social interventions,” the governor said.

Despite the spike in transactions and value processed, the eNaira’s usage in the country is still low. Data shows that over $14 billion was transacted last year via digital payments in the country, miles higher than eNaira’s $48 million. In 2021, Nigerians conducted 3.7 billion real-time digital payment transactions, dwarfing the CBDC’s usage.

One of Nigeria’s biggest pitfalls has been the CBN’s omission of commercial banks and payment processors in the eNaira distribution process. In Europe, for instance, the European Central Bank (ECB) is working to integrate the banks to avoid disintermediation and to tap into their networks and customer base. The Bank of England, on its part, has revealed it would leave digital wallet development for the digital pound to the banks.

Nigeria’s CBN has gone at it alone, and with the central bank not well-versed in catering to a retail base, the digital currency is still struggling to attract users.

Nigeria is still largely dependent on cash payments, with 90% of transactions in the informal economy conducted through cash: this has presented yet another hurdle to the CBN’s digital naira push.

To learn more about central bank digital currencies and some of the design decisions that need to be considered when creating and launching it, read nChain’s CBDC playbook.

Watch: Blockchain in Africa

[coingeek]

On or around March 20, 2023, two days after the ballot into the offices of state governors and state legislators, which took place on 18 March, Seun Osewa issued what he ostentatiously titled “An Apology to the Igbo People of Nigeria.” A 40-year-old graduate of one of Nigeria’s best universities, the Obafemi Awolowo University, in Ile-Ife, Osun State, Mr Osewa is best known as the mind behind Nairaland, the rumbunctious digital bulletin board where Nigerians trade all manner of things on the ether, from the sublime to the egregious.

Addressed to “the Igbo People”, the statement claimed to “sincerely apologise for allowing a toxic political banner advert which said ‘Lagos can never be run from Anambra; go and vote’ to run on Nairaland for several hours on Wednesday, March 15, 2023.” 

It described the advertisement as “an ethnically divisive political campaign aimed at securing Lagos State for the ruling party by instilling fear in Yoruba people, making them believe that Igbo people intended to ‘take over’ Lagos State.”

Mr Osewa ultimately blamed the advert on the absence of “clear policy against accepting negative and ethnically divisive ads on Nairaland” before generously disclosing that having made N16,000 (sixteen thousand Naira) from the advert, he will “double it and donate it to victims of political violence in Lagos.”

It is not entirely clear what Mr Osewa hoped to achieve with his “apology”. The response he got was anything but generous. Journalist Fisayo Soyombo accused him of being among people who are “led by their pockets.” Techpreneur Osaretin Asemota dismissed the release as “performative nonsense”. Chibuzor Okoronkwo accused Mr Osewa’s release of “putting more salt to the injury.”

Mr Osewa’s apology hardly helped its author. First, it came from a place that hardly abjured collective punishment on grounds of immutable identity. Ethnic politics may be de rigeur but, in Nigeria, Igbos don’t have a right to vote; citizens do. Those citizens come from any number of over 389 ethnicities and over 500 language groups. No ethnic group votes as a herd in Nigeria. Dozie Ikedife Jr. campaigned for Bola Tinubu just as Rinu Oduala supported Peter Obi. 

Second, Mr Osewa clearly conflated ethnic identity with political opinion, ending up with a determinism that equates one with the other. It was immaterial that the ruling APC had high-level support from such people as the incumbent governors of Ebonyi and Imo States as well as past governors of Abia and Enugu States, all of them Igbo. The people who set out to suppress the votes of Igbos in Lagos did so by rejecting the political autonomy of the citizen requiring them manu militari to either renounce their ethnic identity or immolate their civic agency.

Third, Mr Osewa appeared to assume that ethnic profiling can be attained with neat precision, which is far from the case because you sooner or later discover that many people look alike across lines of situational division. On the day of the state-level election in Lagos, Iyanuoluwa Bolarinwa, a name that is unlikely to make the bearer Igbo, reported that she was “told to go back to Anambra”, one of the Igbo States, before being “rough handled, beaten and sent out because I look Igbo? Because I was not going to vote APC?” 

Popular Youtuber, Sisi Yemmie, reported that party political heavies precluded her and her husband from voting because they were said to “look like Igbo people.” Mr Osewa’s “apology to the Igbo people of Nigeria” did not extend to people like Sisi Yemmie or Iyanuoluwa, neither of whom is Igbo but both of whom suffered violence because of the kind of poison that he sold. 

As if to add the salt of mirth to the injury and hurt from his advertisement, Mr. Osewa then promised to donate N32,000 (thirty-two thousand Naira) to the “victims of political violence in Lagos.” Impressively, this part of Mr Osewa’s release is the only one addressed to “victims”, an implicit concession that the class of the injured may have gone beyond the ethnic identity group of his target. Yet, he seems to assume that the victims are a coherent group, organised with a bank account in this season of no cash and that their injuries can be cured by unconcealed hubris from the authors of their civic liquidation.

On any of these metrics, Mr Osewa was probably best advised not to have bothered to issue his release. Without it, many people may have been willing to overlook the advertisement on Nairaland. After this release, most people will have few doubts as to where to place him. 

Mr Osewa’s flippancy is characteristic of the people who instigated the ethnic violence and profiling or see themselves benefiting from it. They want to turn the page as if nothing happened and quickly move on, summoning everyone along with dubious appeals to fatuous patriotism. Mr. Osewa’s “apology to Igbo People” ended with him asking his readers to “NOT give up on Nigeria”, with the promise that “TOGETHER we will overcome.” The capital letters are original to him. It is not clear, however, where he gets his collective pronoun to voice a promise he’s not in a position to make. 

Like Mr Osewa, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, basking in the afterglow of re-election, swiftly appealed to “a spirit of solidarity and togetherness that binds us as Lagosians.” His principal, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, claimed to be “pained by cases of ethnic slurs, which are capable of creating needless mis-characterisation reported in some locations.”

The victims, understandably, are slow to make haste. They must bury their dead, bind their wounds, immortalise their scars, re-discover dignity, and then wonder whether they belong to the country that invites them to healing and patriotism only when it is convenient. In the cycle of Nigeria’s elections, patriotism can have a shelf life of the 90-minute duration of a football match involving the men’s national team. In any case, it must be furloughed in the year preceding elections.

The reality is no one ever moves on from this kind of violence. The perpetrators see the benefit for themselves in the humiliations and exclusions they can inflict, which come with munificent benefits in propinquity to power thereafter. Far from being humbled, their impunity emboldens them. The victims nurse their traumas, which many of their generations will inherit from them. 

This is why election violence in Nigeria is chronic. As the Sheikh Lemu Presidential Panel Report on post-election violence (which remains classified) of 2011 makes clear, violence and ethnic profiling have “continually featured in almost all elections in Nigeria since the first election that was conducted in 1922. The temptation is to suggest that election violence is deeply embedded in the Nigerian political culture.”

This should make it obvious that ethnic profiling and accompanying violence of the sort that characterised these elections and necessitated Mr Osewa’s faux apologia is not a fate for Nigeria. It is a century-old choice. The divisions that sustain this pathology are so essential to the DNA of power and politics in Nigeria that those declared winners do not have any incentives to bring it to an end. The narrative of an inter-ethnic zero-sum game is profitable. 

In strictly material terms, you can see their point. For Mr Osewa, the cost is a promise to contribute N32,000 to a non-existent fund or entity. In a country where the citizens or politicians are ready to bring this nonsense to an end, Mr Osewa will not have the courage to rub this salt into the injury that he propagated. 

I thank the organizers for the invitation to participate in this side event at the UN 2023 Water Conference which has been described as the most important water event in a generation. The 2023 UN Water Conference, organized after a 50-year hiatus since the first UN Water Conference was held in Argentina in 1977, is indeed an opportunity for us to raise ambition to support the attainment of SDG 6 targets in Africa by 2030 and present game-changing solutions for the multifaceted crises of “too much water”, such as storms and floods; “too little water”, such as droughts and water scarcity; and “too dirty water”, such as polluted water.

Inadequate quantity and quality, water is essential for all aspects of life and sustainable development. The UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), not surprisingly, is a “cornerstone” goal. The achievement of clean water and sanitation is key to achieving many of the other SDGs. It is critical to sustainably managing natural resources and it is embedded in all aspects of development – poverty reduction, food security, and health – and in sustaining economic growth in agriculture, industry, and energy generation. Water is also recognized as a central plank of the green economy.

Despite the proven benefits of investing in water for development, water security – which is not only about the availability of sufficient water, but in simple terms addresses the ‘too little’, ‘too much’, and ‘too dirty’ issues of water management, is far from being realized in many countries.

The COVID-19 pandemic has uncovered critical gaps in water and sanitation services, with serious consequences for public health.  This challenge is particularly acute in Africa, which has little chance of meeting SDG-6 targets by 2030. Access to water and sanitation services is very low:  30 % of the population in sub-Saharan Africa used a safely managed drinking water service by 2020, only 20% used a safely managed sanitation service, and 26% had access to hand-washing facilities. On water stress, only 6% of the renewable water resources in Sub- Saharan Africa is being withdrawn according to SDG 6 snapshots provided by UN Waters.

From drought in the Horn of Africa to floods in Sierra Leone, to water shortages in Cape Town and Bouake, so many people in Africa live every day with the damage done by too much or too little water. Growing demands driven by demographic changes and urbanization; reduced water availability and quality, exacerbated by climate change; the potential for conflict over water resources – all these issues mean Africa is on the frontlines of the water crisis.

Ominously, current levels of investments are outstripped by increases in population, and the number of unserved people is rising. Poor water quality is the root cause of 70–80 percent of diseases. Every hour, an estimated 115 people die from diseases related to improper hygiene, poor sanitation, or contaminated water.

Lack of access to safe water has a clear gender impact as the burden of securing water falls disproportionately on women and girls with consequences for their income and educational opportunities. Lack of sanitation also creates specific risks for women and girls’ safety.

While water security is key to our collective future, Africa is still deeply water-insecure. Data from the UN’s first-ever assessment of water security in Africa published by the Canada-based Institute for Water, Environment and Health in 2022, presents very sobering and worrisome results. The assessment used 10 indicators to quantify water security in Africa’s 54 countries and introduced five stages of water security: Emerging (a score of 0 — 45), slight (45 — 60), modest (60 — 75), effective (75 — 90), and model (90 — 100).

While data deficiencies loomed large, not a single country is at the highest “model” stage of water security. Except for Egypt, all countries scored below 70. Only 13 of 54 countries were found to have a “modest” level of water security, while over a third of the 54 countries had a“emerging” level water security, representing a large gap to be closed to reach an acceptable level.

Water insecurity also has links with conflicts. At the state level, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan have been engaged in a continuing fratricidal dispute over fresh water in the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Water-related conflicts are also expected to increase under climate change, as droughts which drive water scarcity, become more frequent due to erratic rainfall patterns. Communities along Lake Chad have erupted in violence as citizens, battle for limited water resources. Boko Haram has waged a violent insurgent campaign since 2010; partly as a result of the drying up of Lake Chad. In the Darfur region in Sudan, access to water was part of the regional conflict and a trigger of the humanitarian emergency there. In Nigeria’s Middle Belt, changing rainfall patterns are limiting the grazing area of herders, who then encroach on the land of farmers. Water-related violence has been responsible for more casualties than the violent insurgency waged by Boko Haram. This conflict caused the deaths of 1,078 people between the months of January and March 2018.

A major challenge has been weak governance which exacerbates these water challenges. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) succinctly defines water governance as “the range of political, social, economic, and administrative systems that are in place to develop and manage water resources, and to deliver water services at different levels of society”. Many river/lake basin organizationshave been put in place in Africa and Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) adopted as a new paradigm for sustainable water management at national and regional levels but challenges abound in several countries, particularly in moving from the realm of policy to actual change on the ground.

Any role for Cities and Municipalities?

While in a majority of African countries, water policy is driven at the national level by a line ministry often in charge of most regulatory functions, including tariff setting, quality standards definitions and monitoring, and consumer protection and engagement, the last decade has seen an increasing leadership of city and sub-national governments in water policy as a recent OECD survey indicates.

Though the political, regulatory and fiscal powers of local governments vary across the continent, we believe that cities are uniquely situated to drive change at the local level in the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 on “Clean water and sanitation for all” in Africa.

Mayors and city leaders hold the key to water security. They are closer to citizens and oversee critical investments and decisions related to land use, solid waste, infrastructure, and environmental amenities. They can drive water security and promote low-cost, green, and nature-based solutions. Even where water policies remain highly centralized, mayors are taking bold actions to fix water pipes and institutions.

With mounting pressures on water resources from climate, urbanization, and demographic trends in Africa, more partnerships between national and local leaders are needed. Governors and Mayors in particular, now need to turn the key to unlock the development of better water policies for better lives. As many decisions affecting urban water management are taken outside the water arena and vice-versa (spatial planning, agriculture, energy, etc.), coordination is essential to ensure a whole-of-government approach through which water can become a factor for sustainable growth and contribute to the broader economic, social and environmental agenda.

The OECD and UCLG Africa joined forces to launch a new Roundtable of African Mayors for Water Security. The Roundtable which brought together more than 50 Mayors from cities of different sizes across the five sub-regions of Africa, will facilitate the design and implementation of more robust local water policies.

At the 9th World Water Forum that took place in Senegal in March 2022, Mayors from across the globe united to applaud this initiative and adopt an Action Plan to leverage the 12 OECD Principles on Water Governance to ensure the right to water and sanitation, foster rural-urban linkages, catalyze innovative finance, promote inclusive governance and advance cooperation for future-proof and resilient water systems.

The platform aims to facilitate the design and implementation of robust local water policies by producing granular data and evidence, sharing knowledge, experience, and best practices, and enhancing collaboration among Mayors.

The Case for City Basin Management

The results of the 2021 OECD Survey on Water Governance in 36 African cities, however, indicate that only 42% of cities surveyed are part of a river basin organization. In the absence of integrated basin governance systems, the mismatch between hydrological and administrative boundaries can lead to competition between water uses and hinder the effectiveness of service delivery.

River basin organizations are no doubt important tools for coordinating water policy at the territorial level, across sectors, stakeholders, and between levels of government. Indeed, they can be useful to manage water at the appropriate scale through integrated basin governance to reflect local conditions, foster multi-level cooperation for the management of water resources; encourage sound hydrological cycle management; and promote adaptive and mitigation strategies.

Building a “City-Basin Dialogue” is thus the surest way to move toward sustainable water management in Africa. Governors, Mayors, and city leaders, who are closer to citizens and place-based needs, could play a more significant role in addressing the mismatch between hydrological and administrative boundaries, by contributing to water resource management within integrated basin systems.

Effective multi-level governance is needed to manage water at the appropriate functional and territorial scale(s), within integrated basin governance systems, to enhance rural-urban linkages, and develop place-based solutions that reflect local conditions, as set out in the Action Plan of Mayors, Local and Regional Governments for Water Security signed by 80+ local authority representatives gathered within the OECD/ UCLG-Africa Roundtable of African Mayors for Water Security. This is the way ahead and my organization, the Forum of Regions of Africa, is pledging to ensure that this collaboration succeeds.  

The Case of Nigeria

Let me briefly turn to the case of Nigeria my country, before I proffer few recommendations on the way forward.

Nigeria, in recent years, has made modest progress in expanding access to water, sanitation, and hygiene to its rapidly growing population of 209 million people –  the largest on the African continent.

By 2018, a combination of inadequate infrastructure, a lack of required human capital, poor investment, and a deficient enabling regulatory environment, amongst other challenges, meant that approximately 60 million Nigerians were living without access to basic drinking water, 80 million people had no access to improved sanitation facilities, while 167 million could not access basic hand-washing facilities.

In rural areas, 39% of households lack access to at least a basic water supply, while only half have access to improved sanitation, and almost a third (29%) practice open defecation.

The Government of Nigeria strengthened its commitment to improving access to WASH services, with President Muhammadu Buhari declaring a State of Emergency in 2018 and launching the National Action Plan (NAP); a 13-year strategy for the Revitalization of Nigeria’s Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Sector aimed at ensuring universal access to sustainable and safely managed WASH services by 2030, commensurate with the Sustainable Development Goals.

With the support of the World Bank and other development partners, the Federal Government of Nigeria has developed initiatives designed to fill identified gaps that have limited citizens’ ability to have access to safe and potable water. One of these initiatives was the National Urban Water Sector Reform Program (NUWSRP).

The NUWSRP outlined several objectives, including sector reform, water utility sustainability and commercial viability, infrastructure improvement, service reliability, and performance enhancement, and increased access to quality piped water networks in urban areas nationwide.

The World Bank listed the achievements recorded through the NUWSRP to include the construction of over 2,300 additional Water Points, and 6,546 sanitation compartments and hygiene facilities across the country; the creation of 12,435 direct and 24,870 indirect jobs since 2015; and the certification of a total of 33 Local Government Areas within nine States as Open Defecation Free (ODF).

Several challenges however remain!

Nigeria currently has no comprehensive water law. Efforts by the Federal Ministry of Water Resources to introduce the Water Bill since 2021, have been mired in controversy, especially by States that contend that the bill sought to entrench and vest the ownership, control, and management of water resources in the Federal Government.  

Nigeria is currently divided into 36 states and the FCT. In the absence of a comprehensive law, each state operates with different institutional structures, power dynamics, and little or no regulatory oversight. In most states, a State Water Board (SWB) is responsible for providing water and sanitation services. On the whole, however, SWBs are hobbled by nonexistent or weak incentives for better performance, aging infrastructure, inadequate or ineffective operations and maintenance, weak institutional capacity, and little accountability to consumers.

UNICEF also recently raised concerns that an estimated 70% of water at the point of consumption is contaminated and, as a result, Nigeria has the world’s highest number of deaths from the waterborne disease among children under five years old, estimated at 117,000 children every year.

The Way Forward

To conclude, getting water security right is now a matter of urgency across Africa, where the number of water-insecure urban residents is rising. Progress on United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 must accelerate with a sense of great urgency, given the pressing need for improved water and sanitation access in communities and municipalities across the continent.

Missing and patchy information stemming from incomplete, outdated, and/or fragmented data, remains a prominent obstacle to effective water policy implementation, evaluation, and monitoring. Action needs to be undertaken immediately by national governments to radically improve data collection for Africa, with support from international agents. Better quality data and monitoring and reporting of water resources will lead to an increase in knowledge, which will support the ability to make informed decisions for enhancing water security through better water resource management. Perhaps, water data availability itself should be used as an indicator in future water security assessments.

The funding gap is huge and considerable investment efforts are still required to achieve SDG 6.1.1 and 6.2.1 targets by 2030. It has been estimated that Africa will need investments of up to $20 billion a year, but countries today are allocating no more than 0.5 percent of their GDP to the water sector. A first step could be to reform water tariffs, to recover the costs of investment, operation, and maintenance of water infrastructure as much as possible. A certain proportion of the investment gap could also be covered through increased efficiency with technical losses representing from 20% to 50%, and collection ratio ranging from 80% to 95% throughout Africa. Subsidies and tariff structures must also be appropriately designed, targeted, and implemented with the objectives to achieve sustainability, equity, affordability, and the appropriate level of service for all.

The lack of capacity related to water – human, financial, institutional, technological, and service provisioning – is a major hurdle to achieving water security. As water security has social, humanitarian, economic, legal, and environmental dimensions, it requires an equally wide range of capacities and expertise that go beyond the immediate management of available water resources. Policy-makers need to identify existing capacities, as well as gaps, in order to properly address the water security challenge. Such assessments need to be undertaken at both the institutional and relevant geographical (national, river basin, etc.) levels.

Finally, an expansive and inclusive framing of water security must also emphasize the ability to manage tensions and conflicts at different levels through appropriate governance, negotiation, and the rule of law. Water security must, of necessity, reduce the potential for conflicts and tensions, contributing to significant social, development, economic, and environmental benefits.

Fayemi, the President of the Forum of Regions of Africa and former Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF), made this presentation on the sidelines of the UN 2023 Water Conference in New York, United States.

As a consequence of the events of the last few days I am constrained to say that, like a rabid and mad dog that is foaming at the mouth, the Nigerian opposition, represented by the followers of Atiku Abubakar (Atikulators) and the followers of Peter Obi (Obidients), have lost control of their senses.

They need to get a grip before it is too late. They are attempting to start something that they cannot finish and that they cannot possibly fathom the end of.

They are beating the drums of war and are indulging in a level of irresponsible and downright dangerous behaviour that has NEVER been witnessed before in the annals of the history of our politics.

As a consequence of their subterranean manipulations, byzantine conspiracies, unhinged vituperations and unbridled desperation things are getting very hot and they are pushing us towards an Armageddon-like melt down and the road to Kigali.

Be rest assured that had it not been for impartiality, strong resolve, persistent interventions and sheer professionalism of our intelligence agencies and particularly the DSS who have worked day and night to keep the peace and stop us from tearing each other apart, we would have trod that disaterous path and met a bitter end long ago.

The signals are not good and, unless they exercise restraint, reflect sobriety and change course quickly, it is clear that our nation will soon find itself in a cataclysmic and monumental struggle between the forces of light and darkness, the likes of which have never been seen before.

Permit me to offer some free and unsolicited advice to them and to those that are stoking their insufferable and rabid arrogance, intransigence and belligerence from behind the scenes.

That advice is as follows.

Peace is priceless and unity is a fundamental pre-requisite to progress and prosperity: you must learn to cherish them both.

That you have lost today does not mean you will lose forever.

I counsel you to calm down, purge yourself of hate, sheath your sword of war, drop your dastardly gameplan and not so hidden agenda to establish an Interim Government, desist from displaying madness, bend the knee and bow to your President-elect, refrain from weaponising falsehood, act within the law and, if you must, make your protestations quietly in an atmosphere of peace and tranquility and there will be no problems.

Go to court, if you must, and state your case with respect, dignity and decorum and I assure you that, no matter the outcome, there will be NO issues.

That is what democracy and the rule of law is all about. You win some and you lose some.

That is the reasonable, rational and responsible attitude and disposition that you should cultivate, display, engender and reflect. That is the path to peace.

However if you continue to say you do not believe in the system or institutions, that the President-elect must not be sworn in under any circundtsnces and that you have no faith in the courts or the rule of law and you encourage people to take the law into their own hands then you are inviting chaos, anarchy, violence, tyranny, fascism, treason, a breach of the constitution and the law of the jungle and we will NOT sit by idly and allow that.

If you continue to incite, intimidate, threaten, provoke, destabilise, undermine and overheat the polity and breach the rules of engagement all hell will break lose.

Our only "crime" was to win an election yet because you cannot bear the fact that you lost you want to pull the whole house down and burn everyone in it.

Let this serve as a timely warning. We cannot be a punching bag for the opposition forever and soon we will react.

Trust me when I tell you that if there is any foul play in this matter or any conspiracy to thwart the people's will we will make this nation ungovernable.

There can be no more cheating, no more subterfuge, no more games and no more dastardly tricks. We have seen enough of that over the last 63 years of our national existence.

Do NOT test our will or underestimate our firm resolve.

We speak for the silent and peaceful majority and, unlike the opposition, we cut across all regional, ethnic and religious lines. We do not represent just one faith or just one tribe.

We represent all faiths and all tribes and our supporters can be found everywhere in this country. We are the hope and promise of a better future shrouded in glory, unity, peace, strength and prosperity for our nation.

There are millions of us all over this country and when we say that we will stand on Bola Tinubu's mandate and defend it, we mean it.

We are not joking and we are not playing games. We have prepared for it, we have the means to do so and we WILL do so.

I implore you in the name of God not to mistake our relative silence, calm disposition, magnanimity and attempt to reach out in peace as weakness, stupidity or an indication of fear or guilt.

I urge you not to "cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war".

I counsel you not to 'wake our sleeping sword lightly".

The bottom line is as follows. Annul Asiwaju's election and we will annul your brain. We have returned to the trenches.

Those that kindle fire shall be consumed by it. Those that invoke the spirit of war shall be destroyed by it.

Those that wish to truncuate our democracy shall be crushed by it. And those that seek peace, unity, justice, progress and fair play shall find it.

The people have spoken. God has approved it.

If you want to steal our mandate you will have to kill every single one of us and be ready to spend the next twenty to thirty years in a massive regional conflagration and major conflict.

This is NOT our prayer and no sane person wants war.

However we shall not shirk away from it if is forced upon us by those that are hell bent on robbing us, suppressing us, enslaving US, cheating us and turning us into pawns and vassals of their vain and obsessive delusions, their wicked, vicious and relentless disposition of tyranny and their unbridled and insatiable lust for power.

There are some things that are worth fighting and, if necessary, dying for and democracy, fair play, truth, the rule of law, righteousness and justice are amongst them.

Let that sink and let peace reign. A word is enough for the wise.

(FFK)