Heavy snow across parts of England was on Sunday set to cause disruption for air travellers with runways closed at airports in Bristol and Liverpool.

The Met Office said Bingley in northern England had seen 12 centimetres (4.7 inches) of snow overnight.

An amber weather warning — the second most serious — for snow and freezing rain was in place for much of Wales, central England and parts of northwestern England.

Higher ground in Wales and northern England was forecast to see up to 30 cm of snow.

Some rural communities above 300 metres (1,000 feet) could be cut off with up to 40 cm of snow, the Met Office said.

Manchester and Liverpool John Lennon airports in northwest England closed their runways on Sunday.

Central Birmingham airport also suspended operations for several hours overnight for snow to be cleared from its runway but said it expected it would be “business as usual” on Sunday morning.

Bristol airport also reopened at around 11 pm (2300 GMT) on Saturday but warned of delays due to aircraft being out of position.

The National Grid said it was working to restore power after outages in central and southwest England and south Wales.

Vanguard News

Fifty-seven years ago almost to the month, celebrated Kenya political scientist, Ali Mazrui, observed that “for some reason, a disproportionate number of the historic acts of violence in Africa since independence have tended to happen in the months of January and February”. He had good reason for this. 

In January 1961, the Belgians and the Americans arranged to hand over to Moise Tshombe in Katanga, Patrice Lumumba, the inconvenient post-colonial prime minister of the country now known as the Democratic of the Congo. The following month, the world learnt of the brutal fate that befell Lumumba. The Congo and indeed Africa have both paid a heavy price for those events. 

Togo’s first president, Sylvanus Olympio, was killed in January 1963. Two years later, in January 1965, Pierre Ngendandumwe, Burundi’s prime minister, was assassinated. 

In the year before the assassination of Ngendandumwe, meanwhile, Ugandan, John Okello, led the overthrow of Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah in the very bloody Zanzibar Revolution. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) would later record with clinical economy that the effect of the revolution was that “the Arab regime of Zanzibar vanished in a single day as its leaders fled, died or were interned”.

The year after the assassination in Burundi, it was the turn of Nigeria’s prime minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, together with the regional premiers in the northern and western regions. The following month, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown while on his way to see Mao Tse Tung in Beijing, China. 

Professor Mazrui never did manage a dispositive answer to his question as to whether there is “any special reason why the opening months of January and February from year to year should have had such a disproportionate share of Africa’s great acts of turbulence?” Instead, he offered a telling insight, arguing that these events were the fallouts of the search for two forms of legitimacy essential to the trajectory of Africa after the colonial experience. One was the legitimacy of the state and the other was the legitimacy of regimes or of rulers.

Nearly six decades later, these twin problems of state and regime legitimacy continue to afflict African countries but the ways in which different countries now respond to them have arguably made our collective African Januaries a little more interesting.

In many countries, elections – rather than assassinations – have become the chosen path. In 2024, the people defenestrated ruling parties in Botswana, Ghana, Senegal, and even South Africa. Namibia’s ruling party edged a contest that produced the country’s first female president in an act of political survival for the ruling SWAPO that may just have postponed its day of electoral reckoning. 

Some of the elections during the year, of course, re-enacted familiar scenes from a discredited part in Africa’s history. Tunisia’s election in October 2024 arranged to re-select law professor and incumbent president, Kais Saied, with 90.7% of the votes cast. It was like a scene from the period before the Arab Spring. 

Since the turn of the millennium, however, many of Africa’s elections have been increasingly decided by judges, not voters. In the latest example, in Mozambique, the ruling FRELIMO party procured a judicial validation of an election widely seen as heavily rigged in its favour. A country already ravaged by a murderous insurgency in its northern region of Cabo Delgado and a destructive cyclone must now live with self-inflicted ungovernability. The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), in power since independence in 1966, made a different choice when the people rejected it.

Judicial involvement in elections is not without high risk to the judges involved or to political stability. To deliver their judgment nullifying the rigged presidential election in 2020, the Malawi Defence Forces arranged to clothe all five judges of the Constitutional Court of Malawi who sat on the case with bullet-proof vests. 

In the same year, by contrast, the ruling party in Mali chose to steal through the courts 31 seats won by the opposition in parliament. The result was an uprising that led first to the dissolution of the Constitutional Court, and later the overthrow of the government in a military coup.

Ghana’s 2024 election was the first in nearly one and a half decades not to end up in the courts. The candidate of the ruling party and incumbent Vice-President, Mahamudu Bawumia, conceded the race long before a far-from-credible electoral commission had got around to announcing any results.  Ahead of the election, the opposition had made it clear that they would not contemplate going to court if they were denied victory. In his concession, Bawumia saved the country from what would have been an assured date with instability.

Judges do not always wait until after the ballot to weigh in with their own votes. In Burundi in 2015, President Pierre Nkurunziza was determined to run for a third term even though it seemed clear that he was constitutionally barred from doing so. The case ended up before the Constitutional Court where the judges initially decided to uphold term limits barring the president from running for a third term. Under pressure from a barrage of very personalised presidential threats, the vice-president of the Constitutional Court, Sylvere Nimpagaritse, fled into exile and “the remaining judges then changed their decision in Nkurunziza’s favour”.

The model of judicial overthrow of the popular will and its replacement with judges as the only eligible voters is, of course, an exclusively Nigerian invention. The politicians who control Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) are quick to intone “go to court” at the end of every rigged election, secure in the knowledge that they have also rigged the courts and have many of the judges safely locked away inside their bedrooms. 

In the 2023 election cycle, over 81 percent of the seats contested ended up being decided by the judges. This business model of managing elections is bad both for democracy and for the independence of the judiciary. 

First, it denies citizens the right to decide who governs them or on what platform. 

Second, the way in which judges achieve this result is not much different from the toppling of elective government by soldiers with guns. The only difference when the judges do it is that they deploy the artifice of law when in fact what they seek to do is to replace legality with corrupt whim. 

Third, the depth of judicial involvement in elections in Nigeria makes the judiciary a plaything of the politicians who have every incentive to capture and corrupt it. 

Fourth, this creates an internal market in judicial business that casualizes all but political cases where the judges involved increase their chances of trading in judicial power and legitimacy for cash or powerful networks at the hands of politically exposed litigants. 

In 2025, Nigeria will enter the foothills of another major election cycle. With all the political parties all but defanged, the main theatre of activity will be the judiciary. In Imo State, for instance, where the National Judicial Council (NJC) has removed the Chief Judge for falsifying her age, the State Governor has chosen not to designate any replacement because, ostensibly, he does not find the options available politically palatable.  

In the elections in Tanzania this year and in Uganda at the end of the year, judges will be very active in persecuting regime opponents. In Nigeria, that is already routine even before the electoral gong tolls. The upshot is almost assuredly to guarantee uncertainty instead of ending it. 

When he wrote in 1968, Ali Mazrui thought that the opening months of the year seemed to guarantee turbulence in Africa. Today, that tendency occurs all year round. Far from becoming less turbulent, Africa’s January may have infected the remaining months of the year with a turbulent contagion.

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

TWICE in less than two weeks, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has repeated his threat to crush inflation from 36.4 per cent to 15 per cent in 2025. His first attack on inflation was at his budget presentation at the National Assembly on 18 December 2024 and then in his New Year message on 1 January 2025.
In both instances, he said his economic policies would push inflation down with 21 per cent. Those who thought they did not hear him well heard him repeat it in the New Year message.

The summary of the presidential message, the Governors, and all those who have deemed it their role to send out similar messages, is abundant hope. The President never misses a chance to ask Nigerians to be patient with his policies. He accuses us of impatience without any proof.
In his 18 months, Tinubu has made the banking system a Point Of Sale, POS, economy where banks no longer allow customers to withdraw cash under the guise of a cashless economy. The ATMs are without cash or configured to discharge an amount like N5,000. How do small businesses cope or people who have to make small purchases?
Cash is always available with the POS merchants whose extra charges import inflation into a transaction on which other charges had been paid. Where else do POS merchants get cash except from the banks?
Is availability of cash in banks against the economic policy of the government? How does the government expect low income earners and rural communities to bear these extra costs that it may not recognise as inflation?
A proposed policy to limit cash one can access from POS merchants is not a solution. It is another wave of hardship on the way.
These, according to experts, are the real drivers of inflation:
.Government is wasting a lot of money in maintaining “a big bureaucracy” against official reports that have suggested cuts to wastes.
.The increase in fuel prices following the removal of subsidy, cost of imported diesel which depends on value of Naira, constant raise in price of electricity, all translate to higher prices of food, energy, and transportation. Rising fuel prices cause increased fares for commuters, and goods. Currently, fuel has no fixed price, and it goes mostly up.
.The continued drop in the value of the Naira is the lead driver of inflation and the impact runs through the whole span of a highly import-dependent economy. Higher costs for machinery, fertilizers, and other inputs for farmers, result in higher food prices. Industries are also mired in increased costs for raw materials, machinery, most of which are imported. High production costs and prices that most consumers cannot afford are the results.
.Insecurity lessens access to farms which means that even if food was produced, evacuating it faces increased challenges. Security has also affected transportation costs as people are using longer routes to avoid certain areas or travel by air.
.Higher global oil prices, the falling Naira, and cost of imported fuel, all contribute to inflation. The arrival of Dangote Refinery was quickly followed by controversies that have not permitted its operations to be felt. Revamped government refineries in Port Harcourt and Warri, if they last, would take time to reduce the inflation that has hugged the economy.
These situations have hit consumers and businesses really hard. Consumers barely have enough to buy basic needs while manufacturers that borrow from banks at outrageous interest rates find it more difficult to remain in business.
High inflation rate makes savings useless. Earnings depreciate by the day as witnessed in the new national minimum wage that will leave workers almost worse than the situation they were in before the increase.
Are these what Tinubu said he would tackle in a year? How would he do it in a government most of whose top officials may be available but unseen where issues that are their responsibilities are involved? Not many of them recognise service to the people as the purpose of their offices.
They gloat over Tinubu’s presidency as if it is the conquest of those who demand governance and not just a regime change from Muhammadu Buhari to Tinubu.
We should not be deceived. The year will be tougher than any we have been through. Governments have made provisions in their budgets to live above the circumstances that we are all complaining about. They do not feel what we feel.
They have no feelings towards the people they are meant to serve. Retorts and rhetorics have become standard responses to mere questions about how our governments work for our benefit. It is none of their business to improve our lives.
How would they understand how we feel when their own issues are covered in budgets? If they run out of money, they send in papers for a supplementary budget to fetch more money. In all cases, the supplementary budgets are passed with the urgency of an emergency.
Tinubu is not about to attend to the drivers of inflation. He has ruled out chances that he would ever run a smaller government. The same can be said of his other indulgences.
“Under the banner of the Renewed Hope Agenda, President Tinubu is dutifully turning our nation’s fortunes around. He deserves the support and patience of Nigerians to consolidate the deep economic foundation he has laid and deliver a vibrant, prosperous new Nigeria for the good of all. We urge Nigerians to remain confident in the brighter days ahead,” Felix Morka, National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has advised those who want to know the direction of Tinubu’s presidency.
Trite regurgitations like Morka’s lay to rest any expectation that Tinubu even listens to what the people feel. There is no chance that he would reduce inflation to 15 per cent as it would run contrary to his policy of not caring about ordinary Nigerians.

Finally…
JUST as the Federal Government did not burden us with how it bundled Nnamdi Kanu into an aircraft in Nairobi to continue his trial in Abuja, it should not bother us with efforts to put Simon Ekpa on trial for the nuisance he has continued to be.
THE 2025 budget would do with a lot of scrutiny. We should have a good look at the budget to cut wastes.
DID you come across the advisory the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued to Nigerians against travelling to Australia? Though it was a counter to one Australia issued to its people, it provided a good laugh. I look forward to the Ministry of Internal Affairs issuing advisories on how safe parts of Nigeria have become.
NIGERIAN Television Authority devoted hours of live broadcast on Friday to Ezewoke Nyesom Wike, Minister of Federal Capital Territory, as his disciples turned out in their numbers to sing Wike’s praises, pledge loyalty to Wike, apologise to him for the comments Dr. Peter Odili made about him, and commend the great job he is doing in Abuja. One called him the Governor of Abuja, and they all called him leader. Wike was very happy, particularly, when the praises were about what he had done for the Ijaws, as articulated by the leader of an Ijaw group that apologised for the “ingratitude” of Governor Sim Fubara. This Port Harcourt event called New Year Luncheon is another Wike innovation.
DEATHS were plentiful during the celebrations – poisoning, accidents, assassinations, murders, and then the incident of a Catholic priest firing shots that killed two people. Bandits still threaten whole villages and execute their threats without consequences. The body counts are too regular that they hardly make headlines these days. Nigeria is getting more dangerous. Someone should help.
THERE are provisions of over N600m in the 2025 budget for provision of infrastructure for nine palaces of traditional rulers in Nigeria, the Nigerian Tribune reported. The allocated were spread thus – North East 1, North West 1, North Central 2, South West 3, South South 1, FCT 1, and South East 0. Our ancestors forbid that there are no palaces in the South East.
HAPPY New Year. Let us make this year count as one in which we intentionally set out to seek our own good only in the race for the common good.

ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues

At the 66th Session of the Authority of the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS) Heads of State and Government which held recently in Abuja, Nigeria, the regional bloc approved he establishment of a Special Tribunal for The Gambia to prosecute perpetrators of gross human rights violations. Specifically, the Tribunal is empowered to ensure justice and accountability for gross atrocities and human rights abuse committed between July 1994 and January 2017 under the repressive regime of Ex-President Yahya Jammeh

Among the major crimes allegedly committed by Jammeh’s special killer squad ‘The Jungulars’ are extrajudicial killings, torture and sexual violence, enforced disappearances, fake HIV and Aids treatment causing deaths, and the 2005 massacre of over 50 West African migrants, including 9 Nigerian citizens.

Upon the restoration of democracy in The Gambia, the Truth Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) was set up by the Adama Barrow administration to investigate all human rights abuses perpetrated against Gambians and other citizens between July 1994 and January 2017.

After two-and-a-half years of public hearings and iinvestigations, the Commission confirmed that not less than 240 persons were found to have been murdered by state agents under his rule. The Government issued a White Paper on the report of the Commission.

This is the first time the ECOWAS has partnered with a member country to establish an international tribunal to prosecute such crimes. The decision of the Ecowas to ratify the Tribunal is a serious warning to other military and civilian dictators that they may be brought to justice for gross human rights abuse. With the establishment of the Tribunal, the demand for the arrest and trial of Mr. Yahya Jammeh by the International Criminal Court will cease.

Since his fall in December 2016, Ex-President Yahya Jammeh has been in exile in Equatorial Guinea, a central African country. He is expected to be brought to The Gambia to face trial for multiple charges of murder, kidnapping, torture, rape and other sexual offences.

On May 15, 2024, the Federal Criminal Court in Switzerland onvicted a former government minister, Ousman Sonko, of crimes against humanity under ex-dictator Yahya Jammeh and jailed him for 20 years, in a historic verdict under universal jurisdiction in Europe. The Court found the former minister guilty on several counts of intentional homicide, torture and false imprisonment.

The Gambian Bar Association under the leadership of Mr. Salieu Taal deserves commendation for collaborating with the Government to institute and operationalize the court. This is a unique example of a Bar Association proactively leading efforts to ensure justice and accountability for victims of gross human rights abuse.

The door of life is binary; it opens either ways, inwards or outwards. So goes an age-long wisdom. When the Thisday newspaper, on January 1, 2025, announced President Bola Tinubu as its Man of the Year pick, emotions of Nigerians ran riot. Was that decision a product of editorial science or newspaper shamanism? Nigerians asked. To many, the newspaper’s editors must have meandered into some kind of trance, communed with with some unseen spirits and emerged therefrom with their odd pick. To others, Thisday hit the bull’s eye. Suffering Nigerians were even ready to, in the lingo of the millenials, cut the Thisday some slacks. So, they reason: could the newspaper have been seized by some inexplicable emotion of sympathy for the president on account of unprecedented attacks against his government? Did it merely want to decorate him to charm his vanity? So, like Lord Henry said in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, did the newspaper just go “bankrupt through an over-expenditure of (their) sympathy (for Tinubu)”?

For a journalism profession which thumps own chest as “the rough draft of history,” the idea of the newspaper media choosing persons as ‘Man of the Year’ began in 1928, five years after the founding of the Time magazine on March 3, 1923. The “Man of the Year” cover reflects individuals selected for their contributions for that particular calendar year. American aviator. Charles Lindberg, became the first person to grace the magazine’s “Man of the Year” cover that 1928. The choice of Lindberg, according to Time, which has coasted home with the coveted trophy of the world’s largest and first weekly news magazine, was based on his daring audacity of being the first solo aviator to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. He had flown from New York to Paris. With the decision to have Lindberg adorn its front page cover, which the editors said was a mere happenstance, the magazine began an annual ritual that has lasted almost a century.

In 1938, as Thisday editors picked Tinubu as their Man of the Year, the editors of Time picked Adolph Hitler as theirs, too. Hitler was the dictator of Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945 during which he was believed to have committed suicide. Based on his ancient view that the Jews were the enemies of the German people, Hitler was reported to have executed about six million of them. As leader of the Nazi Party, Hitler believed Germans were superior to all other races. He thus became obsessed with the notion of the racial purity of his Aryan race by which he meant a pure German race or Herrenvolk. His Aryan race, in his thinking, was vested the control the world.

For a magazine which regaled the world with its rather self-adulating motto of “the faces of Time have been the faces of the world,” that same world was aghast and rankled by the Hitler pick. When the magazine’s cover page came out on its January 2, 1939 issue, it had the face of the German despot decorating its globally celebrated Man of the Year page. The world went berserk. Time was assumed to have faced similar bankruptcy of sympathetic emotions for Hitler as the Thisday faced. The world did not hide its consternation. Not dissimilar accusations of having gone on an emotive junket were pelted on Time.

Time had earlier in 1939 whetted the appetite of the world by foreshadowing what was to come. In the course of the 1930s, it featured the Third Reich leader of Nazi Germany over the course of time. Hitler appeared on the magazine’s cover in December 1931 as he made a fiery address. In March 1933 as well, Hitler, donning his emblematic bushy moustache, lounged in a chair by the side of a black German Shepherd. The photo hit the cover page of Time. In an April 1936 cover photograph, Time also had him giving an open-palmed salute.

But, what is the philosophy behind the Man of the Year of Time? Studies have been undertaken to de-couple the fact from fiction. One of the most remarkable of these studies which drilled into the rationale for selecting certain people for the magazine’s covers was done by William Christ and Sammye Johnson in 1985. Entitled Images Through Time: Man of the Year Covers, the authors submitted that Time’s picks are “a person or persons who for better or worse dominated events in the previous 12 months”.

The Man of the Year or Person of the Year concept was however teased out of Scottish philosopher, Thomas Carlyle’s theory of history. Carlyle had written that “the history of the world is but the biography of great men.” It was the philosopher’s belief that the few, powerful and the famous, in a very essential way, shape our collective destiny as humanity. As such, Time uses its pick as one who best represents the news of the year.

From Time, newspapers all over the world thereafter borrowed the concept of the “Person of the Year”. Today, it has become an annual newspaper ritual. Time uses it to recognize individual or group of individuals who it considers as having had the hugest impact on news headlines in the previous 12 months. When the choice of a person is proclaimed, it is that person who, “for good or ill” has negatively or positively, more than any other person, affected the course of the year. Emotions however rise when the choice is considered to be an honor or a reward.

However, the 1939 portraiture of Hitler as Man of the Year by Time marked a radical departure from the norm. But, as Wilde said in that same Picture of Dorian Gray, behind every exquisite thing that existed, there is something tragic that exists. Instead of the conventional portrait, the magazine had a cryptic illustration by Rudolph von Ripper. Hitler was drawn playing a ‘hymn of hate.’ On the drawing was affixed the title, ‘From the unholy organist, a hymn of hate”.

But, on January 1, 2025, Thisday had no such forewarning. Nor any hint that it was satirizing Aso Rock. It had a smiling Tinubu below its screaming Man of the Year headline. No reflection of the searing pains his people undergo. Nor that the year Thisday decided on his pick as Man of the Year represents one of the most hopeless years Nigerians have lived on earth. Oh, I forgot, Time’s Hitler also looked resplendent. As Adolf sat comfortably on the front page of the magazine, Jews were being murdered in their thousands.

But Hitler was not the only despot to don Time’s front page as Man of the Year. A number of them made controversial appearances as the magazine’s pick. For instance, Joseph Stalin, Soviet despot and totalitarian, was the magazine’s choice in 1939 and 1942 respectively. Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin’s successor, was also adjudged its cover page choice in 1957. So also did Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomein, who led an Islamic revolution in Iran; who navigated the country from its political leader, the Shah and ran it as a theocracy from 1979 to 1989. He became its Man of the Year in 1979. In 1935, Haile Selassie, also known as Tafari Makonnem, Emperor of Ethiopia and a despot, started the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. It was at a time when Italian forces invaded Ethiopia. That same year, the Time magazine picked him as its Man of the Year.

In the thick of searing emotions against its controversial choices, Time had always come out to defend its choices. First, it argued that its picks were misconstrued as honour, award or prizes. Literally swearing by its mother’s head, Time swore that the controversial persons’ choices were done “for their impact on events.” It also said that those selections were ultimately based on “who (it) believed had a stronger influence on history and who represented either the year or the century the most.”

Similar to Nigerians’ disgust at the Thisday pick, in a Letter to the Editor penned and signed by Hollywood luminaries and published in the magazine’s 1939 edition, the luminaries frowned at the unmerited space Time offered Hitler. They considered him a blood-sucking emperor and pleaded that “if his picture appears on your cover only as Time’s man of the year, the controlled fascist countries and uninformed of all nations will hail the selection as an award of merit”. Time’s response was that it had noted and observed the letter-writers’ concerns and subsequently referred them to the magazine’s cover.

When in 1994, Time announced Pope John Paul II as its pick for that year’s Man of the Year, the choice was appraised in laudatory terms. This was largely because no citizen of the world commanded the texture of admiration the Pope enjoyed. His globetrotting where he garnered over 1/2 million flying miles to talk to the vulnerable had far-reaching impacts on a fractious world. Many people however disagreed with the Time pick of the Pope on account of his theology and abetment of perceived evil. They argued that, through his sacerdotal pen, John Paul had enough powers to stop Catholic Church’s centuries’ long dogma of “forbidding to marry,” otherwise called forced celibacy. The biblical Apostle Paul, in Timothy 4:1,3, had considered the Papacy’s celibacy as a strand of the “doctrines of devils.” It was also felt that Pope John Paul could stop the rampant child molestation by priests in the Catholic church.

The above historical recount of the concept of Man of the Year should makes it clear that the Thisday newspaper does not have the patent of its pick of President Tinubu as its Man of the Year. Global villains, despots and achievers in the world have hitherto been garlanded with same trophy. The challenge is that, like everything Nigerian, that Times magazine concept has been bastardized. And the Nigerian print media is the culprit. Spurious and shameless Man of the Year awards have been made by newspaper houses in Nigeria over the years which made charlatans primus inter pares in areas they did not deserve. Most of the choices are money-driven, aimed at inflating the egos of the picks for a fee.

The only challenge is that the Thisday editors, in arriving at their pick of Tinubu, did not elaborate on whether his choice was for good or ill. In this regard, the newspaper chose to sit on the fence. From the outset, the newspaper should have defined its parameters for the pick, rather than seeking a justification of its choice from the beginning of the essay. Its general statement, its justification, it stated thus: “It is hard to find anyone who could fairly challenge (Tinubu) to the …Man of the Year.” If the parameter for choosing Tinubu was that he is the most audacious Nigerian leader in the last one year, it may indeed be difficult to best the president to the pick. Tinubu is known to have peremptorily taken the most consequential economic decision of subsidy removal of his own volition. The next decision was the flotation of the currency, a decision that could drown this country. The outcome has been gruelling pain, deaths and distress. Even in its choice of audacity as the parameter for canonizing the president, an attempt should have been made to calibrate the word “audacity.” As it means ‘willingness to take bold steps,’ the word also connotes impudence. Some acts of audaciousness can manifest as recklessness if the immediate positive outcome is life-threatening, invisible and inaccessible to the ordinary eye. For instance, if a president who willingly took his country to the unprecedentedly high inflation figure of 33.4% wants to bring it down to 15% in less than one year, should it be done like a Shaman conjuring specimens from space?

While Thisday says its choice of Tinubu, in part, was due to his “resolve to stick to his reforms” because he had forewarned that “you can’t be doing the same thing and expect different outcomes,” this could, in interpretative logic, mean arrogance of power. As good as it is for leaders to be determined and resolute, it is equally a downside for them to be unbendable. If they are, they are a mile away from Despot-ville. The appellation of a “daring” and “gritty” leader, which Thisday awarded Tinubu in the essay, the last time I remember, was also given to the Fuhrer when he began to nurture his Aryan race. In the same mould, a leader who, in the words of Thisday, dammed the consequences of floating the Naira and removal of subsidy can only be allowed to gloat if his paths are not filled with the dead and socially dislocated victims of such policies. Leaders should de-risk their policies.

One of the newspaper’s indices for awarding Tinubu the Man of the Year, according to its essay, was his proclamation in a recent media chat that, “there’s no going back on the tax reform bills.” No leader who sounds as God like this while underscoring the irrevocability of his action should be awarded a trophy for being good. Leaders are assessed by their humanity and not the number of dead persons that line the path of their decisions. The newspaper’s claim of Tinubu’s “measures to cushion the effects” of his policies, which it named to be CNG buses and his “constantly assisting the states with palliatives” is in the mould of the famous Ali and the Angel fabulism.

In the final analysis, while I agree that President Tinubu was worthy of the Man of the Year trophy given him by the Thisday newspaper, I am of the opinion that the award should be for ill, and for worse, in the words of Christ and Johnson. Tinubu has had, more than any living Nigerian in the last 12 months, negative impacts on the lives of Nigerians. His choice as Man of the Year should spell this out.

My choice for the Nigerian Man of the Year will be you; yes, you! In the year that just ended, the Nigerian has gone through an excruciating time. The Nigerian Man of the Year is the president’s friend who tumbled down from owning five Rolls Royce and now rides a Honda Accord, while his friend, the president, rides a Cadillac Escalade and flies a presidential jet that costs about $150 million. My Man of the Year is the Nigerian who is still breathing under this suffocating economy; who can hardly pay his child’s school fees. My Man of the Year pick is the elderly Nigerian who can hardly afford the cost of his drugs but manages nevertheless. My Man of the Year has suffered untold hardship in the hands of Thisday’s Man of the Year pick. Step forward to receive your award, longsuffering Nigerian!

The Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF) has accused President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration of displaying a troubling disregard for patriotic voices against the tax reforms agenda of the administration.

The NEF urged the government to halt the proposed Tax Reform Bills before the National Assembly, citing concerns of unfairness and potential economic impact.

A statement issued by the forum’s chairman, A.M. Al-Amin Daggash, recommended that the federal government should suspend the implementation of the reforms to allow for broader consultations with stakeholders. It emphasized the need for a careful and inclusive approach to address concerns and redesign the implementation strategy.

“The rush to implement these tax reforms is unnecessary. Dialogue, quality contributions, and critical inputs from Nigerians should be prioritized before any decisions are made,” Daggash said.

The forum expressed opposition to the proposed increase in Value Added Tax (VAT), warning that it could erode purchasing power, fuel inflation, and increase interest rates.

Daggash noted that such measures should be postponed until the government demonstrates tangible economic recovery.

He also criticized the proposed VAT revenue-sharing formula, describing it as unjust to states where VAT is generated. According to him, VAT should be allocated based on consumption, ensuring fairness to contributing states.

Daggash further accused the Tinubu administration of disregarding dissenting opinions and using coercive tactics to push its policies. “The government has displayed a troubling disregard for patriotic voices and an inclination to suppress opposition,” he said.

While supporting reforms that align with global best practices, the NEF stated that the Tax Reform Bills fail to meet the standard of transparency and inclusivity required for effective policy-making.

The forum called on the federal government to revisit the reforms, ensuring that they reflect the interests and contributions of all Nigerians.

The Lagos State Police Command has clarified that Ayomide Adeleye, who confessed to killing Christianah Idowu, his friend and neighbour, has been charged with murder and remains in custody for the offence.

This clarification was issued by the state Police Public Relations Officer, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, in response to reports suggesting that Adeleye was not being held in any Lagos correctional facility.

In his statement, Hundeyin said, “We can confirm that Ayomide Adeleye was charged with murder and was remanded for the same offence.

“It is also a fact that another person bearing the same name was remanded for a different offence and released in April 2024, long before the Ayomide we are talking about committed his offence.

“An outfit that prides itself on investigation should live up to its name. Relying on ‘sources’ rather than the spokesperson of the Correctional Service would land you in this kind of misinformation.”

Adeleye, a 200-level Philosophy student at Olabisi Onabanjo University confessed in September to killing Idowu, a 300-level student at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun State.

On November 5, Adeleye appeared before Magistrate Seyi Omodara at the Ogba Magistrate Court.

The magistrate issued a remand warrant, allowing the police to detain him at the Ikoyi Correctional Center pending advice from the Directorate of Public Prosecutions.

[Punch]

Naomi Osaka withdrew from the final of the Auckland Classic with an abdominal injury Sunday, a blow to the Japanese star just a week before the start of the Australian Open.

Playing in her first WTA final for three years, against Denmark’s Clara Tauson, the four-time Grand Slam champion called for the physio after taking the opening set 6-4 and pulled out shortly afterwards.

Osaka’s sudden withdrawal came as a shock after playing with no apparent problem in the 35-minute opening set, unleashing some powerful groundstrokes to break her opponent in the third and fifth games.

At the changeover, the 27-year-old stood and performed a series of stretches during a medical timeout.

After consulting with the trainer she shook the hand of Tauson, who picked up a third career title and her first since 2021.

Osaka didn’t divulge details of what forced her withdrawal in a short courtside interview.

However, in a statement, the WTA said she retired “due to an abdominal injury”.

“I just want to thank everyone for welcoming me to such a beautiful city. I had a lot of fun playing here and I’m sorry about how it ended.

“I hope you did enjoy the tennis that we did play and I’m just really grateful to be here,” Osaka said.

It was an anti-climactic finish to the week for Osaka, who was chasing her first title since winning the 2021 Australian Open.

Her most recent final appearance was at the Miami Open the following year, before taking a 15-month break and giving birth to her first child midway through 2023.

She returned to tennis 12 months ago and has climbed to 57th in the world rankings.

AFP

The decision of the government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to return History as a compulsory subject to Nigeria’s primary and secondary schools is a welcome development. Announcing the decision on the last day of 2024, Tunji Alausa, our new Minister of Education confirmed that based on the express mandate of the President, “our students in primary schools, JSS and secondary schools will from 2025 have the subject as part of their studies.” According to the Minister, President Tinubu was swift at seeing the need to restore the critical subject to bridge the generational gap in historical knowledge following its erroneous removal more than two decades ago. In other words, the announcement is not as usual about a proposal but a decision already being implemented. 

Considering the immense importance of History, Alausa can be said to have successfully scored a decisive early goal in his ministership. It is only fair to commend him because his predecessor began, then procrastinated and finally stopped at the proposal stage. It will be recalled that at the 61st Meeting of the National Council on Education Ministerial Session in 2016, the former Education Minister, Adamu Adamu, had ordered the reintroduction of History as a subject in basic schools across Nigeria. Some 9 years later, another Minister is now taking urgent steps to implement the same crucial decision. The implication of this is that the quest to ensure proper growth and development in the education sector was inadvertently taken aback many years. 

If policy vacillation is distasteful, to do so with History is worse asanyone who seeks to comprehend the present must first understand yesterday so as to plan for tomorrow. This is because people’s perception of history often shapes how they view the present.  Indeed, some Nigerian scholars including this writer had many years back, argued that the best way to solve the ills of the Nigerian society especially the protracted ones is to employ the historical approach to critically examine when, where and how such ills began as well as what sustains them. In that way, one would underscore the verdict of history as enunciated by the famous Spanish-born philosopher, poet, and novelist, George Santayana (1863 – 1952) who once stated that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” 

By electing to abandon History as a course of study, Nigeria did not only deprive its youths of the knowledge of what those before them did, it also divested the entire nation from a reliable record of societal events. For history to be authentic, it must be comprehensive and chronological. It must begin from the beginning and must incorporate records of the origin, growth, development and challenges of a given society. When related to Nigeria, the dilemma was not just about the abandonment of the study of History, even the version that was previously taught was essentially fake. All through Africa, History as a course of study was not about African events or any of the innovative initiatives of the indigenes; rather it was a distorted and jaundiced record of European activities in Africa. 

Put differently, it was a record which featured several perverse and irrational claims. For instance, for   general   knowledge   and   examination   purposes, students of   African history   learnt   and   quite   often   had   to   memorize   historical   fallacies   such   as   that   one   alien adventurer – Mungo Park discovered the River Niger.  No one bothered to rationalize that a man who was shown the River Niger by the inhabitants of its bank ought not to be credited in history with the discovery of the same river.   Even   if   the   supposed   discovery   was   helpful to adventurers and imperialists, it is still awkward for the indigenous people who lived around the river and their successors to be indoctrinated into believing that they too did not know the river until the coming of Mungo Park.

It is because of such poor sense of history that Nigerians were never able to see the fine similarities between colonial masters, military rulers and the current actors of our bogus democracy. They are all the same. In order to suppress and hush the people particularly the leaders of nationalist movements fighting for independence, the colonial masters enacted obnoxious laws such as the Newspapers Ordinance of 1903 and the Seditious Offences Ordinance of 1909. They also criminalized defamation which is akin to the effort of the military to use decrees especially numbers 2 and 4 to criminalize dissent. Notwithstanding the standard world-wide acceptance that truth is an absolute defence to defamation, today’s ‘democrats’ imprison their fellow citizens before giving them a chance to defend any alleged offensive statements. 

Our current Cybercrimes Act contains segments of the law of sedition which elevate those who claim to have been elected by the people into government to operate as emperors. Hence, we have state governors who can sue but cannot be sued and who can use the police to detain their opponents and critics for months even though the law does not provide for more than 48 hours. Our police force as a matter of fact is yet to transition from the Paramilitary Constabulary of the colonial era set up to terrorize blacks and forcefully subordinate them to the political authority. In our special type of democracy, public protests are not allowed as the repealed Public Order Act of 1979 is still being used in breach of the freedom of speech, movement and assembly guaranteed by our constitution.

Before colonial rule, Nigerian traditional institutions served as judges and dispensed credible justice. They ensured that parties involved in a case did not become enemies as the settlements were usually amicably done making those at fault to quite often voluntarily offer apologies to those wronged. Those empowered to settle disputes today abhor technical justice in their public speeches but every case before them is subjected to technicalities – a trend which neither pleases the larger society nor does it sooth the nerves of the aggrieved. There are no records of the positive aspects of our justice delivery system that ought to have been retained and modernized. As a result, the inherited colonial system is used to set criminals free without a consideration of the substance of the allegations made against such accused persons.

For our institutions to become more useful and viable, we need to attain an authentic history which among other things records stories of exemplary conduct. Perhaps leaders who are busy extorting public revenues would never have made laws that give themselves retirement benefits of official houses in their states and Abuja if they had an opportunity to read the simple and humble stories of the life and times of leaders such as Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa or even President Shehu Shagari. Credible internal democracy would probably not have been this convoluted if the relationship between party chairmen and their elected leaders of old were illuminated by historical records.

It is therefore not enough to announce the reintroduction of History as a course of study in our schools; Minister Alausa has much more to do. He must set up an arrangement that effectively and efficiently supervises the reinstated policy. The inspectorate division of the Ministry of Education must be reinvigorated to return to result-oriented business. Alausa must himself lead the venture and ensure that periodic reports on several aspects of the task are retrieved and copied to his office. As an incentive, schools that are able to show progress in adhering to the arrangement should also receive letters of commendation and awards while those lacking behind should be similarly reprimanded. The issue is therefore an Alausa goal that must not be allowed to be toyed with.

Our schools too must be assisted to comply with the arrangement. Infrastructures, books and other essentials must be provided by government. A focus on the matter is far more useful than the indiscriminate setting up of several unequipped institutions which politicians take delight in doing to gain popularity in their constituencies. Alas, their motivation has continued to complicate the situation.  It is hoped that the media would throw their searchlight on the policy as a way of ensuring that all hands are on deck to assist the success of the policy. It is indeed an understatement to seek to emphasize the need for Nigerians to get to know the history of their nation. The gap which has been created by years of abandonment of the subject must be quickly and adequately filled while jettisoning the previous versions in which aliens distorted our history.

As Nigerians join the rest of the world to usher in a New Year, political pundits predict an upward swing in the tempo of political activities ahead of the 2027 general election.

Judging from the outcome of the 2023 presidential election which Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) won, the performance of the three main opposition parties and their candidates stood out.

Perhaps having learnt lessons from their collective defeat, opposition leaders are said to have began consultations in a bid to upstage Tinubu in 2027.

This was confirmed by a former National Vice Chairman (North-West) of the APC, Salihu Lukman, an ally of former Kaduna State Governor, Ahmed El-Rufa’i.

Lukman spoke on the subject on New Year’s Day.

He said: “While acknowledging that opposition political leaders, including alienated APC leaders, have commenced negotiations towards producing alternative political platform, it must be also recognised that most Nigerian politicians are not disposed to competitive political culture.

“Largely because most politicians are driven by personal ambitions to contest elections, the default mindset is about imposition and manipulating processes to achieve personal ambitions. This must stop.

“We must remind all our political leaders that if they want to prove their altruistic value and demonstrate strong disposition towards rescuing Nigeria, therefore beyond the pretentious claims of subordinating personal ambitions towards the emergence of the new platform, opposition political leaders should commit themselves to allowing political competition as basis for the emergence of political leaders at all levels”.

The question begging for answers remains, Can any of the leading opposition parties go it alone?

PDP and the trouble within

The chances of the PDP in the 2027 presidential election are uncertain, but its past performance and current challenges are worth considering.

Historically, the PDP has been a dominant political force in Nigeria.

It won every presidential election between 1999 and 2011 until it lost power to the APC in 2015 and have since struggled to bounce back.

Its presidential candidate in the 2023 poll, Atiku, lost to APC’s Bola Tinubu, receiving 29.1 percent of the vote compared to Tinubu’s 36.61 percent.

This, according to some analysts, suggests that the PDP still commands a significant following, but faces strong competition from the APC.

The party is currently struggling with internal conflict which, if left unresolved in 2025, two years ahead of the 2027 polls, could undermine its ability to present a united front at the elections.

Challenger

Atiku’s desire to be President hasn’t changed. He is expected to fight for the party ticket with Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, a potential challenger from the South.

The party also has to contend with the challenge posed by the larger than life influence of Chief Nyesom Wike.

Wike is one PDP leader who not only serves as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), under an APC administration, but has vowed to work for Tinubu’s re-election.

A former National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Kola Ologbondiyan, is optimistic about the party’s chances.

Ologbondiyan said, “Let’s consider facts. Which other party can genuinely boast of our kind of a well-established structure? Which other party enjoys our kind of grassroots organic support?

“It is only in the PDP that you can find a pool of experienced politicians, including former presidents and governors, who have the capacity to provide guidance and support. We have challenges no doubt, but we will overcome them.”

Overall, while the PDP has a chance of winning the 2027 presidential election, it will require careful planning, strategic campaigning, and a bit of luck.

Labour Party’s war of attrition

Although the Julius Abure-led National Working Committee of the party enjoys the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s recognition, critical stakeholders like: the NLC, Peter Obi and the party’s only elected Governor, Alex Otti, reject his leadership.

There is even talk of Obi and co-seeking alternative platforms.

But the National Publicity Secretary of the LP, Obiora Ifoh, said, “Despite the temporary setbacks, our party has suffered with the defection of some of our lawmakers, we have started the rebuilding process.

“Our party will not only recover, we will grow and surpass our 2023 achievements at the polls.”

Romance with APC

Kwankwaso, who is the party’s national leader of the NNPP, is facing an uphill task keeping the party together.

The party boasts of one governor, some senators and members of the Kano State Assembly and members of the House of Representatives, but there is no guarantee that Kwankwaso can prevent the looming defections from the party into the ruling APC.

Whereas the 2027 presidential election in Nigeria is more than two years away, pundits agree that it’s safe to speculate about the chances of Kwankwaso and Peter Obi.

Amid the talks about a potential alliance between the two ahead of 2027, Kwankwaso expressed his willingness recently to serve as Peter Obi’s running mate under certain conditions.

This development is significant, considering their previous discussions about a merger ahead of the 2023 general election which did not materialize.

In the 2023 election, Peter Obi emerged third, securing approximately 6,101,533 votes, while Kwankwaso garnered 1,496,687 votes to emerge fourth.

While these numbers don’t necessarily predict the outcome of the 2027 election, they do indicate that both candidates have a significant following.

Dynamics

A Jos, Plateau State-based political scientist, Dr. Joseph Anuga, said, “If Kwankwaso and Peter Obi were to form an alliance, it could potentially boost their chances. We must note that the dynamics of 2023 may not be the same in 2027.”

Anuga stressed that it was essential to note that Nigerian politics can be unpredictable as various factors, including party dynamics, regional considerations, and voter sentiment ultimately influences the outcome.

Reluctance

Obi, on his part, is trying hard not to be drawn into the 2027 debate and the possibility of a merger or the formation of a mega party.

Commenting on the subject at a media event in Abuja, he said, “On the issue of merger, everybody who means well should come together to get the country to work.

“Let’s build this country. None of us is going to be here forever. For me, what is important today is Nigeria. We are so occupied about election, just as we are so occupied with power capture.”

Kwankwaso also denied the speculation that he and his two fellow opposition leaders had agreed on a formula to defeat Tinubu and share power.

He said, “I heard from a source that PDP brought in scholars – about 45 of them – and claimed that there was a consensus that Atiku will rule for four years and Peter Obi will rule for eight years. This is a complete lie and has no basis in reality”.

Master of the game

With his mastery of the political game, Tinubu and the APC know how to cultivate loyalists.
Apart from the power of incumbency, the President has ensured that those who worked for his victory in 2023 were not only rewarded but kept close.

His loyalists currently control both chambers of the National Assembly as well as all levers of state institutions and instruments of coercion. Former Governors David Umahi (Ebonyi), Nyesom Wike (Rivers), Abdullahi Ganduje (Kano), Bello Mattawalle (Zamfara), Atiku Bagudu (Kebbi) and Mohammed Badaru (Jigawa) have all been rewarded with ministerial posts and are expected to repay this gesture with a repeat performance in 2027.

The President and his party have also been fingered as having more than a passing interest in the crisis in the three major opposition parties.

At this point, it’s difficult to accurately assess their chances, but the potential alliance between Kwankwaso and Peter Obi is certainly an interesting development to watch.

[Vanguard]