OTHERS' VIEWS

OTHERS' VIEWS

The most topical political issue this Easter weekend is Gov. Umo Eno’s public endorsement of President Tinubu for a second term and the discussions it’s generated across the country. Eno is a PDP governor who has not hidden his affection and support for the President and the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and has succeeded in building bridges across political divide in his state. On many occasions, he has asked Akwa Ibom people, irrespective of party leanings, to rally around the two leaders; but this week, he took the platitude a notch higher. At the flag off of the Akwa Ibom section of the controversial Lagos-Calabar coastal road on Tuesday, the governor announced to the assembled crowd of APC and PDP chieftains that ‘’President Tinubu will be reelected for a second term and I will support him’’. APC members applauded and cheered him, while PDP chieftains looked stunned in disbelief.

At another event the following day at Ikot Ekpene township stadium, the governor repeated the same pro-Tinubu message, this time with additional flavour. ‘’I will tell you the reason when the time comes and you will see with me why we should support him so that he can complete what he started. You will see what he’s doing for our state and you will know why we should not go elsewhere’’, he said. APC supporters and members in the audience, which included Senator Akpabio’s wife, applauded; but PDP stalwarts appeared nonplussed. In return, Mrs Akpabio, apparently speaking the husband’s mind, also endorsed the governor and asked the people to support his reelection ‘’irrespective of the party you belong to’’ ,noting that the governor has performed well in office. She was essentially returning a favour the governor has extended to Akpabio since he was elected Senate President in 2023.

Since he assumed office two years ago, the governor has kept a safe distance from partisan controversies, but this is the first time he’d be in the news for openly rooting for his opponents. For being the first PDP governor to break rank with his party and openly campaign for the reelection of the President, Eno has created a stir in PDP and upended political calculations in some quarters. If this were in the Second Republic when political parties were managed almost like a military formation, the governor would be accused of anti party activities, but this is Nigeria of 2025 when indiscipline is writ large in the parties and rules, norms and traditions are obeyed in the breach. The PDP itself has been systematically weakened by its own internal contradictions. After all, a former governor and PDP chieftain is serving in Tinubu’s cabinet as a prominent minister, and he’s using his position to further undermine the party. So, Eno is justified to chart his course.

Speculations are rife on the possible reasons behind the governor’s decision not to support his party in the next election. Many even conjecture that it’s a somewhat quid pro quo strategy to cement his own reelection. But the governor waved that off. ‘’I support the president’s re election because I’m convinced that the South must complete eight years in the presidency, just as the North did’’, he said in an exclusive interview with me on Good Friday evening. ‘’My party (PDP) must do the right thing, and we must put our house in order. Can you show us a credible alternative to President Tinubu at this moment? The President is doing his best and we should support him’’, he said, stressing, however, that he is not planning to defect from his party.

Gov. Eno’s romance with APC has many implications. He is essentially taking a dig at Atiku Abubarkar who is clearly looking to contest again in 2027. The 78-year-old former Vice President was the standard bearer of PDP in the last two presidential elections, even going against the rotation between North and South in 2023. Many PDP leaders have asked him not to run again so as to make way for fresh hands to lead the party. But Atiku seems adamant and there are indications that his entry into 2027 race may further divide the party. APC leaders in Akwa Ibom are understandably excited at the turn of events. Chief Don Etiebet, former Petroleum Minister and APC leader, praised the governor for endorsing the president and commended Senator Akpabio for backing the governor for a second term.

But some PDP leaders are not sure of what to make of their governor’s position. Some like State Party Chairman Emmanuel Akpan and Emmanuel Enoidem, SAN, who was the chairman of the governor’s election political group, refused to comment when I called. But a few are quite clear-headed about it. Says Isantim Kenneth Okon, Chairman of Ibom Community Watch, the state’s security outfit: ‘’the governor is our leader; when he speaks, we listen; and when he moves, we follow. But in this case, the governor should ensure that we get something in return from the president. President Tinubu will have to return the favour by supporting the state government’s desire to develop a deep sea port. The port will change the economy of Akwa Ibom forever and it’s very dear to our people’’. I agree with Okon on this, and it’s a point Gov. Eno also emphasized when we spoke.

The governor rejects the assumption that he’s supporting Tinubu in order to secure the president’s backing for his own re election. He told me: ‘’By the grace of God, I am a contented man. I will forever remain thankful to God, my political father Udom Emmanuel and Akwa Ibom people for their trust. I will always follow my conscience. I have my conviction to support this president to succeed. If God is for me, what can man do for me?’’

Meanwhile, Eno deserves some credit for building cross-party political alliance between PDP and APC in the state. If it is firmed up and implemented, he and Akpabio would be returned unopposed and President Tinubu will go beyond the 30% threshold APC has scored in the last two presidential elections in the state. It will also bring an end to the gubernatorial ambitions of folks like Senator Ita Enang and Senator Bassey Albert who have been warming up to run again in 2027. The loser would be the PDP which scored over 50% of the vote in the 2023 presidential race. But if this alliance fails, a big political battle will ensue in the state.

The progressive signature of Pope Francis on the Vatican was unmistakable from the beginning of his papacy. Since the Catholic pontiff died on Easter Monday the remarkable positions taken by the Bishop of Rome on many socio-economic and political issues have been amply acknowledged in tributes from diverse quarters. The Pope stood for world peace. He preached compassion. He opposed the widening inequality and social injustice which define the world. He cautioned against irresponsibility in matters of climate change. He appointed women to positions of responsibility in the Vatican. He condemned the suffering of women and children as Israel bombed the occupied territory of Gaza just as he rejected anti-Semitism.  With his immense moral authority, the Pope took many other steps in solidarity with the poor and the weak. Expectedly, the difference that Pope Francis was making attracted the attention of observers globally.

It could be a fitting farewell to Pope Francis to reproduce a tribute that this reporter paid to the pontiff on this page on Christmas Day 2013. It was entitled “Pope Francis, Truly of the People.”

Below is the piece:    

“As Pope Francis celebrates his first Christmas today in the Vatican as the leader of Catholics all over the world, it may be apposite to draw attention to the emerging character of his papacy.

“At least one discernible trait in the doctrinal development taking place in the Vatican is quite relevant to the message of Christmas: Pope Francis has reinvigorated the message of compassion which is at the heart of Christianity and other great religions.

“In other words, it is important to spare a thought about the social relevance of evangelism. It is on this point that Pope Francis is a leader to watch.

“Take a sample.

“On his twitter page last Thursday, the Pope said: ‘Let us pray that God grant us the grace of knowing a world where no one dies of hunger’.

“Now that is a great departure from the sort of evangelism that blames the victims of hunger; some other leaders of faith would say the hungry man is suffering from the consequence of his sins. Doubtless, the pontiff is carrying out a reform of the message issuing from the church. Some would even call what is taking place a revolution of sorts. There is no way you could be honestly critical of the world in which millions of human beings live in abject poverty without being critical of the dominant ideology of the age. It is such a case that mass poverty is what global capitalism has got to show for its so-called ideological triumph in the cold war. “Hence, Pope Francis has been unequivocal in his criticism of the recklessness of neo-liberal capitalism, which has wreaked havoc in the economies of even the developed capitalist societies. He has condemned the growing inequality in the global economic system.  He has never assumed the posture of a technical expert; he has only demonstrated a social conscience in his faith. This is the lesson other religious leaders should learn from the Pope. The Pope has been reported as posing this sobering question: ‘How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?’ It is a question that those who glibly proclaim the end of ideology should sometimes ponder.

“On another occasion, he said: ‘People continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth … will bring about greater justice in the world. This opinion expresses a naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power.’ The matter is put more explicitly when the Pope argues as follows: ‘As long as the problems of the poor are not resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets … no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems.

“By the way, these random quotations from the statements that the Pope has made in the last few months are merely to illustrate the clarity of purpose in his message. More significantly, the fact that these statements are made by the Pope makes them to be weighty in global terms. After all, there was a Pope who was reputed to be a member of the ideological tripod that facilitated the ‘collapse of communism’. This is a frequent reference to the ideological roles of former American President Ronald Reagan, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul in the days of the cold war. Similarly, the message of Pope Francis is resonating today in liberal and conservative quarters. However, unlike Pope John Paul, Pope Francis does not appear destined to be a hero of the Right. Members of the Tea Party in the United States already see something red about the Pope, which the rest of the world is, perhaps, not seeing yet.

“Little surprise that those who are cocooned in the extreme right corner of the ideological spectrum are quick to dub the Pope a ‘Marxist’ for his message of compassion for the poor in a Christ-like manner.  Interestingly, the Pope has defended himself unambiguously against the charges of ‘Marxism’. He said: ‘Marxist ideology is wrong. But in my life I have met a lot of Marxists who are good people, so I do not feel offended… That does not mean being a Marxist.’ It is also instructive that as an Argentine, the Pope has lived under the regime of neo-liberal orthodoxy in economic management with its socially destructive consequences.

“He is no stranger to the effects of global capitalism on the quality of life of the poor. Yet he is no liberation theologian. If anything, he is on record to have been critical of the leftist liberation theologians in Latin America in those days.

“Pope Francis is only reminding the Church of the primary question of compassion in its origins; this is a question that market forces do not yet have an answer. You don’t have to be a communist to appreciate this fact about humanity. All that is needed is to be socially sensitive to the widening inequality in the world today. This is the point that the conservative segment of the Pope’s audience should always bear in mind, as they are wont to assail him with ideological criticisms. It is cheery news that not a few observers across the ideological spectrum are   watching the doctrinal direction in the Vatican with keen interest.

“The TIME Magazine seems to capture the essence of the new direction of the Pope when it declared him ‘Person of the Year’ last week for ‘pulling the papacy out of the palace and into the streets, for committing the world’s largest church to confronting its deepest needs and for balancing judgment with mercy…’ Besides, he has made a forceful case for a ‘greater presence’ of women in the church. There is a lot of truth in the observation which the magazine puts like this: ‘These days it is bracing to hear a leader say anything that annoys anyone. Now liberals and conservatives alike face a choice as they listen to a new voice of conscience: Which matters more, that this charismatic leader is saying things they think need to be said or that he is also saying things they’d rather not hear?’

“It is refreshing to know that the message from the Vatican is not only about abortion and homosexuals. While he maintains the fundamental views of the church on these largely social and biological issues, he is nudging the church away from getting fixated on the issues. On homosexuality, he once asked: ‘who am I to judge?’  Now, this is far from being rhetorical. It is a possible call for a rethink.

“What is, however, not in dispute is that poverty and inequality are doing a greater havoc to humanity. In words and action, the Pope is reminding the world of this material reality.

“The Pope exudes humility and prefers a simple life. Some other men of God do not see the contradiction between their lives of opulence (sometimes bordering on obscenity) and the poverty of the majority in the congregation. By rejecting the burgeoning inequality in the world today and making compassion a focus of evangelism, Pope Francis truly belongs to the people.”

Yes, the foregoing was just a humble observation of Pope Francis nine months after his papacy began. From the tributes now being paid across the globe to his memory since he died two days ago, the beautiful story of Pope Francis has been that of “morning shows the day.” Some of the great things being said today about Pope Francis were already manifest 12 years ago when he became the head of the Catholic Church.

He held on to his faith to the last minute.

May the compassion, justice and peace about which Pope Francis consistently preached to the world come to pass.

In a time when most religious homilies have been reduced to performative sermons void of national relevance, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto continues to remind Nigerians that the pulpit can still be a place of truth, courage, and accountability. His 2025 Easter Message, delivered during the Holy Saturday Service, is not just a homily, it is a clarion call that holds a mirror up to the Nigerian state and its leadership. In a country plagued by hypocrisy and muffled truths, Bishop Kukah’s sermon is, indeed, worth digesting and ruminating over.

His message, rich in metaphor and grounded in the harsh realities of Nigeria, forces us to reckon with the nation’s spiritual and socio-political condition. Using the cross as a metaphor, Kukah paints a grim yet honest portrait of a country bleeding from every corner, crippled by insecurity, hunger, and poor governance. He doesn’t mince words, and in doing so, he does what many in positions of influence fear: he speaks truth to power.

Kukah opens his homily by drawing a parallel between the crucifixion of Christ and the suffering of Nigerians. He refers to the nation’s current situation as being akin to dangling on a cross, innocent, tortured, and abandoned. “Mr. President, Nigeria is reaching a breaking point. The nation is gradually becoming a huge national morgue,” he warns.

 

This metaphor is not poetic exaggeration, it is brutally accurate. From Sokoto to Enugu, Maiduguri to Lagos, families wake up unsure of whether they or their loved ones will fall victim to the day’s dose of savagery. Kidnappings, killings, and general insecurity have become so normalized that the announcement of tragedies barely elicits shock anymore. Nigeria, Kukah rightly notes, is hanging on a cross constructed by decades of political recklessness, but now, the nails are being driven deeper by a government that seems increasingly detached from the agony below.

One of the boldest elements of the homily is Kukah’s direct address to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. “Mr. President, we all admit that you neither erected this cross nor did you effect our collective crucifixion,” he says, acknowledging that Tinubu inherited a mess. But that is where the understanding ends. The bishop swiftly pivots to reality: Nigerians are tired of hanging on this cross.

Kukah demands action, not explanations, not excuses. His tone is firm but not disrespectful, clear but not confrontational. In a country where sycophancy has become a norm among many religious leaders, his audacity to call on the President to “bring us down from this cross” is not only refreshing but necessary.

 

Kukah does not dwell only on physical suffering. He expands the discussion to the moral and psychological torment of Nigerians. He highlights the culture of cynicism, hopelessness, and loss of faith in leadership. The bishop reminds Christians, however, that Easter is fundamentally a season of hope, hope that defies logic and endures beyond pain.

This is a critical spiritual and philosophical insight. Nigerians have endured so much pain that many no longer expect improvement, they merely hope to survive. And this is dangerous. A nation that no longer expects progress that no longer believes in its future is on a fast track to implosion. Kukah is essentially saying: reigniting hope is not just spiritual, it is political. It must be backed by tangible action.

In what could be described as one of the most piercing portions of the homily, Kukah calls out the futility of palliative-driven policies. He rightly points out that “mere palliative distribution diminishes the dignity of citizens.” Nigeria has become a nation where government handouts are presented as policy achievements, and Kukah is having none of it.

 

He presses the President to make food security a fundamental right, not a seasonal handout. His challenge goes beyond hunger. It speaks to the heart of a broken governance system, one that has mastered the art of temporary relief but fails at sustainable solutions.

Kukah’s homily takes a darker turn when he reminds Nigerians that some of today’s bandits were once political tools. “Some of our public officers confessed that they brought our current killers into our country as a strategy for upstaging the government of the day.” This is a chilling revelation, and one that indicts the political class across board. It lays bare the reality that Nigeria’s insecurity is not an accident, it is, in part, a consequence of calculated greed and a hunger for power.

Now, these political tools have mutated into monsters. They no longer take orders, they issue them. Kukah warns that Nigeria’s very foundation is under threat from these “ravenous predators.” If these threats are not dismantled immediately, Nigeria risks becoming a failed state in both function and soul.

 

Kukah ends his message with a dire warning: that government inaction is beginning to look suspicious. He questions whether the persistence of insecurity is due to incompetence or whether those in power are benefiting from the chaos. “Are Nigerians lambs being sacrificed to an unknown god?” he asks. That’s not just a rhetorical question; it’s a haunting accusation.

This is perhaps the most damning part of the homily. It questions the very moral fiber of the nation’s leadership. Is the state merely overwhelmed, or is it compromised? Are our leaders simply helpless, or are they profiting from our helplessness?

Even as Kukah critiques and challenges the nation’s leaders, he does not lose sight of the essence of Easter. He reminds Christians that Christ’s resurrection is the ultimate emblem of hope. This is not a message of despair, it is a call to action, a spiritual charge to believe again, act again, and reclaim our country.

 

Kukah’s sermon is what a prophetic message should be: bold, honest, faith-filled, and politically aware. It is a message that should make leaders uncomfortable and citizens reflective. It is a sermon that forces us to think, not just about what is, but about what ought to be.

In a country starved of sincerity, Bishop Kukah’s 2025 Easter message serves as both mirror and map. It reflects the nation’s failings with unapologetic clarity, and at the same time, offers a roadmap for renewal. This is no ordinary sermon, it is a national document of conscience.

Nigeria needs more leaders like Kukah, who are not afraid to tell uncomfortable.

Rivers State, one of Nigeria’s most strategically important states politically and economically, has lately become a theatre of absurdity, where the rules of democratic governance have been replaced with the treacherous tactics of a chessboard. The unfolding drama, characterized by betrayals, power tussles, underhanded moves, and calculated silence, raises a pertinent question: Who is really playing Rivers State like a political chessboard to satisfy his selfish ambition?

From the outside, it may look like a mere clash between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his predecessor, Nyesom Wike, now the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). But look deeper and you will see a more sinister power play, one where the state is being treated like a pawn in a much larger, more dangerous game.

Rivers State was not always like this. Known for its rich oil resources and vibrant people, the state used to stand as a symbol of strength in the Niger Delta. However, in recent years, it has become increasingly evident that political godfatherism has entrenched itself in the corridors of power. At the center of this debacle is the unresolved tension between Wike and Fubara, an embarrassing soap opera that has eroded the state’s dignity.

 

Governor Fubara was supposedly Wike’s protégé. He emerged as the governorship candidate under controversial circumstances, allegedly handpicked by Wike himself to serve as a placeholder for the minister’s extended influence. But like many political godsons who suddenly find themselves in power, Fubara is now resisting the overbearing hand of his godfather.

Let’s be brutally honest, no political chess game is played without a grandmaster. Someone is holding the strings, someone with a national ambition, someone who sees Rivers State not as a place of people and culture, but as a stronghold to consolidate power. The state’s politics are being manipulated, not for development or peace, but for raw political gain. Wike, known for his brash and confrontational style, has refused to let go of power, and his desperation for political relevance, perhaps as a future presidential or vice-presidential hopeful, has led to the current debacle.

His hand is seen in every move, covert and overt. From the sudden defection of lawmakers loyal to him, to the persistent impeachment plots against Fubara, and his eventual suspension as a state of emergency was declared, to his unguarded utterances while chaos brews, Wike appears to be orchestrating every move, like a general moving pieces on a board. The question is: to what end?

 

This is not the first time Nigeria is witnessing a fallout between a political godfather and a godson. From Lagos to Kano, this unholy arrangement has always ended in disaster. But the Rivers State case is particularly worrisome because it appears the state’s interest is not even a factor in the equation. Developmental concerns, governance, and the welfare of the people have all been sacrificed at the altar of ego and ambition.

The 2023 elections were meant to mark a turning point for Rivers. Instead, the elections handed the state back to a shadowy cabal determined to hold it hostage. The current rift has paralyzed governance. Projects have stalled. The civil service is in limbo. Tensions are so high that even security agencies are reportedly taking sides. Is this what Rivers people voted for?

Let’s not romanticize Fubara as an innocent victim either. He knew the game he was getting into. He knew he was handpicked for a reason, to be loyal to Wike. But the moment he attempted to assert his independence, the game changed. This is a classic case of a pawn trying to become a king. His newfound resistance, though commendable in democratic terms, appears reactive rather than strategic. He has failed to build the kind of political coalition necessary to withstand a force like Wike, and his political naivety is becoming more apparent by the day.

 

However, one cannot entirely blame him. He was placed in office under the illusion of loyalty and expected to dance to a tune that was never his. When he tried to compose his own music, the conductor cut him off.

The most tragic part of this game is the suffering of the ordinary people of Rivers State. While political elites are busy plotting their next move, ordinary citizens are grappling with poor infrastructure, worsening insecurity, environmental degradation, and a dwindling economy. The recent destruction of public properties, factional loyalist violence, and breakdown of legislative functions are telltale signs that the state is dangerously teetering on the edge of anarchy.

The question, then, is not just who is playing the game, but why the people of Rivers are allowing themselves to be played.

 

We must also look at the wider political implications. The All Progressives Congress (APC), which now counts Wike as one of its strongest backers at the national level, is watching this crisis unfold with keen interest. Wike’s crossover from PDP to APC, in all but name, has allowed him to leverage the federal structure in his favor, putting Governor Fubara in a precarious position. It is as though the state is being offered as a political dowry to the APC in exchange for Wike’s ambitions down the line.

This political chess game is not confined to Rivers alone. It is a dangerous template that, if left unchecked, will spread to other states. What Wike is doing in Rivers today, others will replicate tomorrow. The presidency’s silence over the entire saga is even more troubling. Are they tacitly approving this method of control?

Nigeria’s democracy is still growing, and this growth is being stunted by political desperadoes who believe in power for power’s sake. The Rivers State situation is a clarion call for political maturity. It is time for Rivers leaders, both past and present, to rise above personal ambition and put the state first.

 

Civil society groups, traditional rulers, and respected elders in the Niger Delta must intervene. The National Assembly should not be silent while a federating unit is being torn apart by a selfish political feud. And Rivers people must rise and demand better. Their state should not be reduced to a mere pawn in someone’s ambition.

So, who is playing Rivers State like a political chessboard? The signs are clear. The moves are obvious. The ambition is evident.

It is time for Rivers people to say, “Enough is enough.” The state deserves better than being reduced to a political playground for personal ego trips. Until Rivers is allowed to breathe, grow, and function without the suffocating grip of self-styled godfathers, its future will remain uncertain, just another pawn in a never-ending game of political chess.

 

And just like in chess, when pawns are carelessly played, they are easily sacrificed. The people of Rivers must not allow themselves to be sacrificed. Not this time.

The unveiling of the Artificial Intelligence Collective last week by Dr Bosun Tijani, Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, is a good call by the Nigerian government to play a lead role in the development and deployment of AI to resolve socio-economic challenges while developing new opportunities.

The Collective is a gathering of experts and distinguished personalities from the tech industry, communications, academia, civil society and the private sector which, in the expectation of the government, will develop a strategy to build a sustainable AI ecosystem, one that supports innovation while safeguarding ethics and inclusion.

AI is more than the new kid on the block. It’s a monster that holds the keys to future economic growth and development. It has the capacity to do virtually anything, except probably standing on a street corner and whispering some love notes to a friend. AI has no feelings but has the capacity to achieve good.

My judgement call derives from the Minister’s conscious effort to put the country on the front row in building out an AI ecosystem that will be of more benefit to the nation while providing a template for the rest of the continent. There are always benefits for those who make the first move at the dawn of new technologies. They enjoy the advantages of the first movers.

 

History is replete with such developments as humanity is always pushing the frontiers of knowledge and putting technology to test in the most esoteric way. There is always a harvest of glory and then wealth.

Look at this. The space race started in the 50s. The Soviet Union of which Russia remains the most visible surviving face, sent the Sputnik into space in October 1957. The development was too much for America to stomach as the country’s President, J.F. Kennedy challenged his nation to land a man on the moon between 1960 and 1970. By July 1969, the objective was achieved as Apollo11 docked three men on the moon who planted an American flag in that planet hitherto unreached by man.

Since then the wisdom in President Kennedy’s positon not to concede the importance of space to any other nation of the world is only too obvious. More countries of the world have joined the space race. Our dear country, Nigeria, even had to contact the Chinese to build a satellite for us to have a leg in the space business. Space technology has become a big boom for businesses. You can’t fly a plane without space technology. You can’t steer a ship without space technology. Telecommunications and broadcasting are dead without space technology. In fact, life may actually be put on hold without space technology. Call that hyperbole! It only adds colour to our exaggerated beliefs.

 

At the moment, fun has become an element of the game. Only recently, billionaire Jeff Bezos, flew an all female crew into space with his Blue Origin rocket. Within 11 minutes of return flight, the six women got beyond the limits of the earth into that space of weightlessness before returning in a capsule. And perhaps too tucked into her seat to enjoy an opportunity to wave to God, pop star, Katy Perry, burst into Louis Armstrong’s song, What a Wonderful World. CBS reporter, Gayle King called it the highlight of the journey for her, according to a BBC report of the event.

Another billionaire, Elon Musk, who has become more of a politician lately, with his SpaceX, has long redefined the history of space technology, going beyond tourism to even sending a crew for space rescue mission recently from the International Space Station (ISS).

British billionaire, Richard Branson, wouldn’t let the Americans have the entire space to themselves alone. Virgin Galactic planned a monthly tour to space. A ticket is said to cost a hefty $450,000 from $200,000; while in the summer of 2021, Blue Origin once auctioned a seat for $28m!

So there is so much to benefit from new technologies beyond the veneer of politics. And methinks the minister is not playing politics but genuinely concerned about Nigeria benefiting from this new genre of technology with the capacity to have a profound impact on humanity well into the foreseeable future.

 

At the Paris AI Summit in February 2025 where Nigeria was present fortunately, the global community came to pitch for their countries. For instance, Vice President JD Vance who represented the United States argued that of the projected $700bn investment in AI by 2028, half of the money should come to his country because of the attraction it presents.

Dr Tijani said at the time that “Artificial Intelligence is an opportunity for humanity to be better, and we cannot afford to take our eyes off it.” He is also very concerned about Nigeria leading AI discourse in the global south where needs and direction are different from what obtains in the developed north.

But more of the strategy was about the country last week. “The country’s model involves identifying and engaging with Nigerian researchers and experts in AI, both locally and internationally, to develop a comprehensive strategy that addresses the nation’s specific needs and challenges,” he said.

From the personalities present at the launch, including Prof Olayinka David-West, Dean, Lagos Business School, and Dr Olubayo Akanmbi, CEO, Data Science Nigeria, representatives of relevant industries and their positive positions expressed, this writer has little room for doubt. However, there is some fear that this launch shouldn’t be another layer upon the stack of problems waiting to gain serious attention in the tech ecosystem or in the government basket of issues waiting to be addressed.

 

There are quite a number of them but I will pick only two for the purpose of this writing. The mobile industry is projected to hit $11trillion in economic value and 8.4 percent of global GDP by 2030. Without doubt Nigeria is expected to benefit from this economic windfall. Unfortunately, the regulator of the telecommunications industry, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), whose duty it is to curate the process and ensure such benefits, has not been able to recover from the harassment received under the previous administration. It is therefore reasonable to observe that without being spruced up in terms of training and necessary financial provision, the organisation may find it difficult to meet expectations from critical stakeholders. It is in the interest of the government for the NCC to once again wear the ironclads of the regulator and be able to meet even the most basic aspirational expectations of these stakeholders.

The Minister may tell me that he is not in charge of the broadcast industry and its regulator, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) but the activities can hardly be separated. Look at it this way. The Digital Switchover (DSO) that should have ended in 2021 has hardly moved a needle. This writer is not aware of any timetable at the moment to bring the process to a conclusion. The attraction at the time was that a proper execution of DSO would free up some broadcast frequencies for telecom services. Apart from bringing more money to the coffers of the government, the new frequencies will help to deepen telecommunication service availability and penetration. A minister so desirous of growing the telecoms industry with the aim of introducing new bouquets of services should take more than a cursory interest in the DSO process and encourage his broadcast counterpart with shared and beneficial opportunities.

 

As a writer, I have long understood the emptiness of words, how cheap they can be, according to Prof Femi Osofisan, and the need for those in government to go beyond the confines of words. I encourage Dr Bosun Tijani to match his enthusiasm with action and add the agility of youthfulness to achieve the kind of results that history cannot ignore. He doesn’t need to be told that technology can be very harsh in documenting our efforts for posterity.

 
 
 
 
The passing of Pope Francis, aged 88, on Easter Monday (21 April 2025) has ended a 12-year papacy marked by humility and simplicity. Less than 28 hours earlier, the ailing pontiff, nicknamed “Slum Bishop” in his native country, Argentina, struggled to bless a crowd gathered at the Vatican to celebrate Easter Sunday this year. His final words in public were: “Dear brothers and sisters, I wish you a happy Easter.”
 
Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on 17th of December 1936, to Italian immigrants, Pope Francis took the name of the 13th-century Saint also known for his simplicity. Instead of the Apostolic Palace reserved for Popes, Francis lived in a Vatican apartment, wore his old-fashioned shoes, discarding the red loafers of the papacy, and rode in compact cars or buses, abandoning the Papal limousine.
Pope Francis was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1969 and led the Religious Order in Argentina from 1976-83. He became Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was elevated to Cardinal in 2001 by then-Pope John Paul II, now a Saint.
 
Francis was elected the 266th Pope on March 13, 2013, on the fifth ballot, after his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI stepped down. He presided over the latter’s burial in December 2022.
The prelate scored several firsts, including, the first pope from the Americas, the first from the Jesuit Order; the first to take the name of Francis, after St. Francis of Assisi and the first Roman Catholic Pope to visit Iraq, where he met the country’s top Shiite Muslim cleric in 2021.
 
Francis made his funeral wishes ahead of time. In November 2024, he revised the traditional papal funeral rites, insisting that his would emphasise the role of a “humble bishop.”
The Master of liturgical ceremonies, Monsignor Diego Ravelli, later explained that the Vatican would be eliminating the usual requirement that the pope's body be placed on an elevated bier in St. Peter’s Basilica to be viewed by members of the public.
 
“Instead, Pope Francis' body will be placed in view at the Basilica in a simple coffin, where dignitaries and some of the faithful may pay their final respects.
“The burial itself will no longer require the three coffins crafted of cypress, lead, and oak, as is the papal tradition,” Ravelli said, explaining that this is “to emphasize even more that the Roman Pontiff’s funeral is that of a shepherd and disciple of Christ and not of a powerful man of this world.”
Announcing his demise, the Vatican said that Francis died on Easter Monday, two months following his treatment for bronchitis at Gemelli Hospital in Rome.   
"Dearest brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow, I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis. At 7.35 am, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father,” said Cardinal Farrell.
 
“With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we commend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite merciful love of the One and Triune God," he added.
On the night he was elected, Pope Francis and the Cardinals rode in a bus back to his hotel, instead of being driven in the papal car. The next morning, he insisted on paying the hotel bill.
During his days as an archbishop in Buenos Aires, Pope Francis earned the nickname 'Slum Bishop,' because of his frequent visits to crime-ridden shanty settlements. Apart from residing in a modest Vatican flat, he also cooked his meals.
 
His aides and associates testify that after every trip, Pope Francis would visit the Basilica, where he prayed before an image of Mary, cradling her baby son, Jesus Christ, saying: “It’s my great devotion. The place is already prepared,” in reference to his final resting place.
An advocate of the poor and migrants, Pope Francis' first trip outside Rome in 2013 was to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa to meet with newly arrived migrants. He denounced what he called the “globalisation of indifference” towards would-be refugees.
 
He also prayed for dead migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2016 and brought 12 Syrian Muslims to Rome on his plane after visiting a refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece.
Such dispositions pitted Francis against U.S. and European policies, and he was on record as telling then-U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016 that “anyone building a wall to keep migrants out is not a Christian.”
 
Francis also became the first pope to use scientific data in a major teaching document, and made care for God’s creation a hallmark of his papacy.
In 2015, Francis in an environmental manifesto “Praised Be” called for a cultural revolution to correct what he called the “structurally perverse” global economic system that exploits the poor and turns the Earth into “an immense pile of filth.”
 
Early in his papacy, Francis signaled a more welcoming stance towards the LGBTQ+ community, declaring: “Who am I to judge?” when asked about a gay priest. In 2023, he was quoted as saying that “Being homosexual is not a crime,” and later approved blessings for same-sex couples, provided they don’t resemble marriage vows.
A notable scandal erupted during his papacy in 2018, when he controversially criticised victims of clergy sexual abuse in Chile and sided with a bishop accused of complicity in the abuse. However, realising his mistake, Francis wasted no time in inviting the victims to the Vatican and apologised. He also brought Chilean Bishops to Rome, and pressed upon them to resign over the scandal.
Francis went on to convene a summit of the Catholic hierarchy in 2019 on abuse and made a strong statement by defrocking former U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick after a Vatican investigation implicated him in the abuse of minors and adults.
 
Furthermore, Francis approved Church laws abolishing the use of pontifical secrecy and establishing procedures to investigate bishops who abuse or cover up for predator priests. The high-profile case where Pope Francis seemed to side with accused clergy was blight, but his papacy was remarkable for his courage, simplicity,  selfless and pro-poor leadership.
As World leaders mourn him, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “Pope Francis will always be remembered as a beacon of compassion, humility and spiritual courage…”  Despite their disagreements, U.S. President Trump wrote: “Rest in Peace Pope Francis,“ and in separate post, announced that flags would be flown at half-mast in the White House and other public buildings in and outside America in honour of Francis.
 
Israeli President Isaac Herzog praised the late Pope as "A man of deep faith and boundless compassion, (who) dedicated his life to uplifting the poor and calling for peace in a troubled world."
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who personally met Pope Francis three times -  in 2013, 2015, and 2019 - called him a "defender" of "humanism and justice," recalling his role in fostering ties between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches.
 
King Charles III of England said he was "deeply saddened" by the death of Pope Francis, whom he visited earlier this month with his wife, Queen Camilla.
The UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, said the Pope’s "tireless efforts to promote a world that is fairer for all will leave a lasting legacy."
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said Pope Francis was “a leader who connected with people and focused on contemporary global challenges.”
Nigerian President and  ECOWAS Chairman Bola Tinubu described Pope Francis as “a humble servant of God, tireless champion of the poor, and guiding light for millions.”
American Cardinal Kevin Farrell has stepped in as acting head of the Vatican, and as the World looks forward to the funeral of Pope Francis and the election of the 267th leader of the estimated 1.4 billion Catholic faithful, the Italian Football Federation cancelled all matches on Monday in honour of the late pontiff.
The election of a new pontiff is a solemn event that equally generates huge public interest, especially the anticipation of the white smoke, which signals the selection of a new Pope by the Papal Conclave or College of Cardinals.
 
Africa's two candidates for a potential pope are Cardinal Peter Turkson,76, from Ghana, and Cardinal Robert Sarah, 79, of Guinea.
Pope Francis undertook  47 international trips during his papacy, including visits to 10 African, 22 Asian, 23 European, and 12 North and South American countries.
Rest on, Holy Father, Pope Francis!
 
Paul Ejime is a Media/Communications Specialist and Global Affairs Analyst

In the course of delivering a lecture at Al-Hakim University in Ilorin, Kwara State, on Thursday, April 17, the Inspector General of Police, IGP Kayode Egbetokun, PhD, implored Nigerians to acquire Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras to be installed in their residences and places of work.

He argued that it is part of the much-vaunted, but yet-to-be-implemented, state/community policing initiative.

My immediate reaction as soon as I read the news in the mass media was: Good idea, but how feasible is it for the average Nigerian to procure CCTV at such prohibitive cost, and how can it be operated without a stable supply of electricity?

Has the idea been put through the crucible of critical thinking?

Shortly after the IGP’s proposal, on Saturday, April 19, a highly respected former Defence Minister and ex-Chief of Army Staff, T.Y. Danjuma, took an extreme position by proposing that civilians should defend themselves because the government has failed to do so — and that they will perish if they do not resort to self-help. Addressing a large gathering, he reportedly told his people: “I once asked you to rise and defend yourselves. I am still repeating it today with more seriousness — rise and defend yourselves. The killers have obtained sophisticated arms; we don’t know where they got them. But you people should also ask to get arms wherever they got theirs. You must defend yourselves against the killers. You should know they are well-armed to kill you and ready to take your land. Be ready for them — they are also humans like you.”

Impliedly, the Army General is advocating that civilians should bear arms to protect themselves from the vicious invaders that appear hell-bent on killing them.

That is not the first time Gen. Danjuma has made such a call.

Based on records, he has done so twice.

My immediate reaction when I read his advice was: Has this idea of fire-for-fire been thought through? While it may appear like a plausible short-term solution, in the long run, would mutual self-destruction be an efficacious response to the seemingly intractable internal insecurity challenge?

To me, it echoes the era of nuclear bomb proliferation — a reckless enterprise — and the current non-nuclear arms proliferation agreement, which was reached when it became apparent that a nuclear arms race would result in the mutual destruction of mankind.

Could the license to kill or be killed be a reasonable solution to the killings by outlaws engaging in the orgy of slaughter in Nigeria’s countryside? Would solving one security challenge in that manner not trigger another?

Very importantly, have we, as a nation, taken a critical look at the experience of the United States of America, where the system of civilians bearing arms has resulted in a gun epidemic? One so debilitating that it has defied solutions, even by the leaders of the most powerful and wealthiest nation in the world such the death tally may be comparable to that of nations at war?

I think if we devote enough time to doing due diligence on the call for civilians to bear arms, more Nigerians will dread the prospect than those who desire it.

In any case, at least the IGP’s proposition on civilian CCTV ownership marks a shift in the position of the Police Force, which has long been opposed to the concept of state police.

This is based on the presentation made by the IGP in the past.

In making his case against the decentralization of the police force, the IGP had taken a position against the birthing of state police for the reasons of being prone to abuse by politicians amongst other factors.

However, in my view, the difference between the concept of state police and community police may lie in the fact that the former will be controlled by the respective state governors, while the latter will still be centrally controlled by the IGP in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja — at least there is a consensus that the current framework of policing in Nigeria is inadequate.

As such, there is a need for a paradigm shift.

Since the return of multi-party democracy in Nigeria in 1999, I have consistently advocated for a state policing system.

While President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999–2007) was the first to moot the idea — when criminality started rising around the country, a reflection of the freedom that came with nascent democratic rule after decades of military dictatorships — the idea has suffered a stillbirth, 25 years later.

By the same token, I have often wondered aloud why the Police Force, which is constitutionally charged with the responsibility of maintaining internal law and order, has been emasculated within the country’s security architecture.

Again, based on former President Obasanjo’s military background as an ex-military Head of State, it was a natural course of action for him to resort to the use of military force instead of the police to curb internal insecurity.

As such, the police—already defunded and hobbled by multiple military regimes to prevent it from posing a threat during Nigeria’s long period under military rule—had been rendered almost comatose.

Somehow, that military kinetic approach to enforcing internal security, as opposed to the more appropriate, less militarized, and non-kinetic method in which the police are adept and more efficacious, has been sustained—with a consequential deterioration in the level of security and safety of lives and property in our country.

We will delve into the apparent usurpation of the role of the police in internal security by the military, whose primary responsibility is to defend our country against external threats.

Yet, the armed forces have taken over the role of the police and, in the process, based on available records, have expended more than an estimated $16 billion between 2012 and 2018 on security—even though Nigeria has not been at war with any other country.

Rather, our country has been faced with the menace of non-state actors: religious insurgents exhibiting extremism; bandits who initially engaged in cattle rustling but have scaled up to kidnapping for ransom; and the perennial clashes between farmers and herders, whose animals destroy crops. This has been worsened by land-grabbing schemes of nomadic herdsmen, compounded by a new strain of fortune seekers stirring up insecurity, especially in areas rich in solid minerals. The agenda of this last category of outlaws is to cause mayhem in specific locations so they can illegally extract our country’s natural resources—such as rare earth minerals—after rendering the targeted areas ungovernable.

While the reality is that it is the police who have the mandate—and are specifically trained—to deal with the type of criminal activities wrecking our country, as highlighted above, the military has been executing the task of trying to maintain peace, a task for which it is ill-equipped. In my view, that is one of the key reasons the marauders have been having the upper hand and why insecurity in Nigeria has been on an upward trend.

For instance, while N6.11 trillion has been allocated to the Ministry of Defence in the 2025 budget of N49.74 trillion, only N1.1 trillion was provided for the Ministry of Police Affairs.

So, while the military is getting an elephant-sized allocation, the police have been given an ant-sized share of funds in the 2025 budget.

This is even though ensuring the internal security of lives and property is the police’s constitutionally assigned responsibility.

Be that as it may, one is not oblivious to the fact that the Ministry of Defence covers the Army, Air Force, and Navy, which explains its N6.11 trillion budget. Nevertheless, since internal security falls within the purview of the police, it should have received the lion’s share of the funds devoted to keeping Nigerians and their property safe and secure within the country.

Before delving further into the non-prioritization of police funding to take charge of internal security—while emphasis continues to be placed on funding the military, which has received the highest allocation in yearly budgets over the past 25 years—let us first examine the IGP’s proposition that Nigerians acquire CCTV as part of his concept of community policing and as a citizen contribution toward stemming the crisis of insecurity, which has reached alarming proportions in our beloved country.

To be sure, the idea of Nigerians acquiring CCTV is quite laudable. In fact, the cities of London, Dubai, and New York are practically forests of CCTV cameras, which have proven efficacious in crime control.

But from the point of view of affordability for Nigerians, it is very expensive to acquire and operate. As such, it may be an unrealistic expectation.

The challenge is especially compounded by the lack of a steady electricity supply that continues to plague our country.

Therefore, to make CCTV affordable for the average Nigerian—at least initially—the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) should remove the import duty on it.

Subsequently, the government should provide funding support for a few firms to begin assembling CCTV systems locally, thereby reducing costs.

The selection of the firms to be supported should be done through an open and competitive bidding process.

Imports should not be allowed to continue beyond 18–24 months, within which time the infrastructure and capacity to assemble the items locally would be expected to develop.

To boost local assembly, there must be a government support scheme to empower the same firms assembling CCTV cameras to also assemble solar panels and drones, as part of a bundled package.

They should likewise assemble electricity meters, Point-of-Sale (PoS) machines, and ATMs, using Completely Knocked Down (CKD) units imported and assembled by Nigerian workers.

The production of these items is not rocket science, and private firms can establish joint ventures (JVs) with European, North and South American, or Asian companies—including Chinese, Korean, and Indian manufacturers. It may recalled that back in the day, Adebowale Industries, a local entrepreneur was assembling radio, television sets, and other electronic gadgets here in Nigeria.

Government support—through subsidies, equity investments via the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI), tax holidays, and customs duty exemptions—must be guaranteed.

In the same vein, the newly established CreditCorp should be mandated to provide Nigerians with credit facilities to acquire CCTVs and solar panels assembled locally. This would not only enhance security but also create jobs and increase the country’s productivity quotient.

With a population of over 220 million, Nigeria has a sufficiently large market to justify local production.

I am convinced that this proposition is a win-win: security will be improved through widespread CCTV coverage, people will feel safe enough to return to farms and factories, job creation will rise, and, by extension, the economy will grow—ultimately boosting our GDP.

That is not all. There’s also the added value of technology transfer, as Nigerians working in these assembly plants will learn to build these gadgets through collaboration with foreign technical partners.

That said, one fact that must not be ignored is that with the IGP’s proposition for citizens to acquire CCTV, the responsibility for monitoring crime—to proactively prevent it or to track and apprehend criminals—is being shifted from the government to the people.

But perhaps this shift is justified, as it has been proven that public funds invested directly in citizens tend to yield better returns than those funneled through government contractors, which often fall victim to corruption.

As may be recalled, in 2012 or thereabouts, a contract was awarded to ZTE Corporation of China for $470 million to install 2,000 solar-powered CCTV cameras across Nigeria.

According to a House of Representatives ad hoc committee that investigated the deal, ZTE collected a $100 million upfront payment but only installed 40 cameras—most of which remain non-functional.

The committee described the project as a monumental failure, attributing the outcome to corruption and mismanagement. The goal of the initiative had been to monitor and deter crime in Lagos, the commercial nerve center, and Abuja, the nation’s capital.

Therefore, it’s perhaps a credit to the creative ingenuity of the current IGP that he is seeking to circumvent the well-known corruption associated with government contracts by pivoting CCTV ownership to citizens. I would add that such acquisition should be supported by the government.

Just imagine if the $470 million earmarked for ZTE in 2012 had instead been used to subsidize individual CCTV ownership under a model like the one now proposed by IGP Egbetokun and expanded upon here.

Had that approach been adopted back then, perhaps today’s alarming insecurity levels would either not exist or would be drastically reduced, as criminals would have had no hiding places.

Incidentally, the same scourge of corruption that scuttled the deployment of CCTV cameras in Abuja and Lagos has characterized the military’s kinetic approach to combating insecurity in Nigeria—a crisis now in its 25th year, having started during Obasanjo’s administration in 1999.

In the 2014 national budget, about $2.5 billion was allocated to security agencies under the supervision of then National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki.

Following the defeat of President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP in 2015 and the takeover by Muhammadu Buhari and the APC, allegations surfaced that the security funds had been misappropriated and diverted to fund the 2015 elections.

At this point, it is important to examine how insecurity started and degenerated to the current dire state.

It began as a form of religious insurgency, following the adoption of Sharia law (a legal and moral code based on Islamic principles) in Zamfara State during Obasanjo’s presidency in 1999.

The religious extremism that accompanied the law was soon hijacked and transformed into a front for political thuggery and criminality.

Curiously, since that time, mineral-rich Zamfara has consistently been a hotspot for insecurity in Nigeria.

Arising from this, I believe that religion is another factor fueling insecurity in the country.

Some of the perpetrators of heinous crimes have used the pretense of jihad—a claim that many Islamic clerics have rightly denounced—to commit atrocities. These criminals have killed both Christians and Muslims indiscriminately.

Once those hiding under the guise of religion to perpetrate crimes bordering on genocide and ethnic cleansing are exposed and apprehended, our security agencies will be in a stronger position to restore peace.

In addition to religion, another major factor driving insecurity is external influence.

There are foreign interests behind the chaos in states rich in rare earth minerals. These actors fund criminal activities to make such areas ungovernable, thus enabling illegal mining and exploitation of resources.

They began in Zamfara and have now shifted their attention to Plateau State, which is rich in lithium and other valuable minerals.

One clear thing is that the same playbook criminals have been using in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for about 100 years is now being deployed in Nigeria.

Strikingly, what is happening in Darfur, South Sudan—defined by armed conflicts driven by external interests in fossil fuel resources over the past five decades—is not dissimilar.

Due to a gap in policing in our country, foreigners are roaming freely in our hinterlands, mapping out resources. In some cases, we’ve even seen trending videos of foreigners handing out cash to our police officers—presumably as compensation for favors.

In more security-conscious climes, foreigners are not allowed to travel into the hinterlands, let alone contest for resources with locals without proper licensing.

But in Nigeria, foreigners are present in our forests and solid mineral sites, extracting and carting away natural resources under the radar.

At one point, small propeller airplanes were landing on narrow paths in Zamfara State, carting away precious stones to unknown destinations for processing—allegedly in connivance with security forces.

Aside from their official duties of protecting public officers and Very Important Personalities (VIPs), some police personnel have been seen offering protection to individuals of questionable character—people they ought to be apprehending. These individuals then move around intimidating ordinary Nigerians with loud sirens and vehicle convoys while citizens go about their daily struggle to eke out a living.

With a paltry police strength of about 400,000 officers in a country with an estimated population of 220 million—and many of them engaged in VIP protection—there are not enough personnel to respond adequately where marauders strike.

As a result, there have been multiple instances where bandits return to previously attacked locations within days or weeks to wreak more havoc on unprotected victims.

One cannot fathom why the operationalization of state or community policing remains in abeyance and why the police force continues to be underfunded.

We have a youth bulge in this country. I do not understand why the authorities have not embarked on a massive recruitment drive to enlist and train young Nigerians into the police force to secure the hinterlands and repel marauders.

We also need a dedicated forest police unit—an idea previously proposed by the Minister of Solid Minerals, Dr. Dele Alake. This specialized force would patrol forests and protect our natural resources, which are the primary targets of criminal syndicates fomenting violence in resource-rich areas.

In addition to the regular police force, I would argue that it is time to reintroduce the National Guard—originally established by General Ibrahim Babangida—as an elite police unit to tackle the evolving security threats across the country.

The recent tragic events in Plateau and Benue States, where numerous lives have been lost, highlight the urgency of adopting extraordinary measures to combat insecurity.

Commendably, in his Easter message, President Tinubu, while felicitating with Christians, also commiserated with those who lost loved ones in the attacks, stating:

“Just as Christ triumphed over death, so too shall our country triumph over every challenge we face.”

He went further to reassure Nigerians:

“I have given clear directives to the Armed Forces and all relevant security agencies to end insecurity decisively and without delay.”

Given President Tinubu’s record of thinking outside the box, we can hope that his directive to the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu—himself a retired Assistant Inspector General of Police—will yield positive results.

That said, one pressing question remains: Will putting the police at the center of the renewed effort to restore peace lead to a lasting solution to the resurgent insecurity?

Well, we won’t know until we try.

Also, is this resurgence in violence connected to the politics of 2027, when the next electoral cycle begins?

Time will reveal the truth as the situation unfolds.

My argument for a more central role for the police in internal security is based on the fact that they are better trained in managing civil conflicts. How could the military have been involved in the infamous Lekki, Lagos toll gate killing of protesters in 2020 during the Endsars riots, if it was not involved in internal security? 

Some pundits argue that insecurity has persisted because the military—whose expertise is in kinetic warfare—has been overwhelmed, as what is truly needed are policing skills to handle banditry, inter-communal conflicts, and various criminal activities.

Even the military has admitted that non-kinetic approaches might yield better results than the military tactics they’ve traditionally relied on. In fact, they have begun shifting toward non-kinetic strategies.

So why is the police—naturally more adept at non-kinetic methods—not being empowered to take the lead in a combined military-police strategy?

Let me be clear: I have nothing against our brave military men and women. I greatly admire them.

My father, David Ebiye-Onyibe, was a soldier who fought in World War II and the Nigerian Civil War as a medic. He died in active service on December 28, 1970, when I was a toddler.

After his passing, I was taken to Benin City from Agbor to sit for the entrance exam into the Nigerian Military School, but I was underage and couldn’t be admitted.

Because of that history, I have an eternal admiration for the military, and I always feel a sense of pride when, at airports abroad, uniformed service members receive special recognition through public announcements and are offered privileges and perks.

That said, beyond the inability of the military to play the role of internal security agent effectively, another major reason insecurity persists in Nigeria is religion.

Some of the criminals behind these atrocities are deceived into believing they are engaging in jihad, not realizing they are pawns feeding the greed of a few powerful kingpins.

Fortunately, some traditional rulers and Islamic clerics in the North have taken a stand, distancing themselves from the terrorists and condemning the senseless violence that has devastated lives and properties in the hinterlands.

Once these impostors—those hiding under the cloak of religion—are exposed and held accountable, our security agencies will be better positioned to restore peace and harmony among Nigeria’s many ethnic groups.

More importantly, we must confront the external factors in the rising insecurity.

There are foreign elements funding criminality in areas rich in rare earth minerals—especially in Plateau State—so they can operate in lawless conditions.

This same method was used in Zamfara, and now the focus has shifted to Plateau, largely because of its lithium deposits.

It’s the same strategy that has been in use in the DRC for over a century.

And just as external powers once armed the Janjaweed militia in Darfur, South Sudan, similar external forces are at play here.

Although the Nigerian military has made gains—repelling some attacks and neutralizing notorious gang leaders—millions still live in fear, especially in remote areas where the government seems distant and unresponsive.

Clearly, there’s a gaping hole in our policing architecture.

I cannot fathom why the implementation of state or community policing is still pending, or why the police remain poorly funded.

We have a youth bulge and a high unemployment rate.

Why aren’t our leaders seizing this opportunity to train and engage young people in law enforcement, transforming them into productive contributors to national security?

I do not understand why a massive recruitment drive into the police force has not been initiated—complete with cutting-edge training, equipment, and high-tech tools to secure our forests and hinterlands.

We also urgently need the forest police unit that Dr. Dele Alake proposed—dedicated to protecting our natural resources and fending off criminal syndicates.

Furthermore, I believe it’s time to reintroduce the National Guard, created under Babangida, to serve as an elite security force capable of handling the evolving security challenges.

General T.Y. Danjuma’s extreme position—encouraging self-defense among his people—may have stemmed from a deep sense of helplessness and frustration.

His home state, Taraba, as well as Benue and Plateau, has seen consistent attacks and loss of lives.

While not disputing anything Gen. Danjuma said, a resort to self-help in the form of widespread armament among civilians may have unintended consequences.

If inter-communal conflicts arise, will these weapons not be turned against fellow Nigerians over land disputes or cultural disagreements?

This is why we must take seriously the IGP’s call for citizens to own CCTV systems, and Gen. Danjuma’s warning, both of which highlight the rising wave of killings in recent weeks.

If the situation improves through a new paradigm shift in security—placing the police at the forefront, bolstered by strategic military support—then perhaps the urgency for civilians to arm themselves will diminish.

Before then Nigerians can not wait to exhale by having the yoke of insecurity removed as part of the existential challenge hindering them from being productive to self and society.

ONYIBE, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst, democracy advocate, author, and development strategist.

April 14 was the anniversary of the abduction of the Chibok girls from a Government Girls Secondary School; 90 are still missing. Today is another anniversary: the abduction from Greenfield University. 20th April 2021 was like any other day for students of Greenfield University, Kaduna. Muslim students observing Ramadan prepared for iftar in the company of friends and classmates, while other students perambulated between hostels and the cafeteria.
 
At about 8.15 pm, gunshots rang out; for some, the sound was not perturbing. The school was close to a major highway where motorists were frequently attacked by armed robbers. This time was different - armed men, some in camouflage, that students mistook for Nigerian military personnel, rounded up 23 people - 18 students and five administrative staff - took their phones and herded them into the bushes. Some female students were half undressed; many had no shoes on. They trekked for hours, then were driven in twos and threes on waiting motorbikes to a camp where other kidnapped Nigerians were held.
 
Three days later, on Friday, April 23, the kidnappers told parents that they had a message for them: the remains of Dorathy Yohanna, Precious Nwakacha and Sadiq Yusuf Sanga left on the side of a road. Yohanna, a third-year student of Political Science, turned 23 days before she was kidnapped. The night before her death, she cried and prayed, fretting over her mother’s reluctance to let her go back to school because of security concerns. 20-year-old Nwakacha, in her third year of Accounting, was outspoken and articulate. This was why her classmates thought she was a good choice when she was selected by the kidnappers purportedly to take a message to the parents - they knew she would be a good ambassador for their cause. Sanga, who was in his third year of a cyber-security course, woke the morning he was killed to share his dream: three people were going home, and he was one of them.
 
In Nigeria, we often say: when you wake up, is your morning and you cannot wake a person pretending to be asleep. I did not know these details when I woke up to the news that three of the students kidnapped from Greenfield had been killed, but it was a morning of sorts for me. The Greenfield story was only one more reality of schools as soft targets for terrorists and mercenaries, and not more horrific than the murder of 59 students in Federal Government College Buni Yadi in 2014. Part of what shook me was that, unlike the attack on Buni Yadi, which was ideological terror, killing Yohanna, Nwachaka, and Sanga was part of a negotiation for money; calculated to put pressure on families to pay the 800,000,000 Naira (approximately 2 million $US) ransom.
 
Channelling the desperation that I imagined families were feeling, I reached out to Olubukunola Williams and Chioma Agwuegbo, feminist activists in civil society, to find out what could be done. It was unfathomable that Nigerians or women would not be mobilizing around this. Williams, Agwuegbo and I, conceived of responding to the Greenfield kidnapping by centering women as influencers in their homes and communities to organize Nigerians to demand that the Federal Government deliver on its responsibility to secure our lives in accordance with Section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution as amended: “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government”. The campaign had a name, slogan and demand: #Secure our lives. Our goal was acknowledgement by the government of the toll kidnapping was taking on Nigerians and a response to bring an effective end to what had become an industry.
 
Maybe we were unconsciously tapping into the culture of women for hire for claps and cries; the exploitative narrative of women as nurturers of the nation who cannot be relied on for formal power in government, but are useful for tugging on emotions. We thought only of inspiring histories of women championing social justice reforms such as the often-mentioned Aba Women’s War and Abeokuta Women’s revolt against excessive taxation during Britain’s colonial rule, the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace that brought an end to Liberia’s brutal civil war and other inspiring examples of women mobilizing effectively across the world.
 
Six weeks after we started the process, the campaign received donor funding. By then, two more students had been murdered: Feso Osunlalu, a third-year student of International Relations, tall, witty and irreverent and Shaheed Abdulrahaman, a first-year student who arrived in school the day he was kidnapped. On May 29 2021, all the survivors of the Greenfield kidnapping were released, reportedly after a ransom of 150,000,000 Naira (375,000 $US) and eight new, fuelled motorbikes had been paid.
 
We built a coalition of feminist, civil society, media and faith-based organizations involved in security, gender equity, human rights protection, and access to education to plan how best to capture the attention of the public and government. We agreed on a day of mass action with millions of Nigerians making noise, at a particular time of the day reminiscent of banging pots during the pandemic. We would also use artistic expressions to engage i.e., a poem (‘how much blood will this land drink before we say enough’) by Dike Chukwumerijie, a renowned spoken word and performance poet and installations of rows of shoes or cups in public places to speak visually to passersby who were outside our circle of communication about the human costs of kidnapping.
Finally, we decided to create and publish a red list of Nigerians who were killed and unaccounted for from kidnapping and disappearances, because, as we planned, kidnappers continued to attack schools.
 
The day of action - July 28 2021 - came and went with various activities across the country, but the impact came not even close to what we had initially imagined and eventually settled for. We continued advocating through online activities on X Spaces, anchoring our engagement to global recognition days such as International Day of the Girl Child and 16 Days of Activism and by end of 2021, the campaign petered out. There was still a balance from the first tranche of funds, which, with funders’ approval, we contributed to the 2022 campaigns for the passage of five gender bills in the National Assembly, which were aimed at closing gender inequality gaps.
 
“Why is it difficult for donor/philanthropy-funded organisations to build organic movements?”
 
Years later, my reflections about this campaign and the escalating insecurity in Nigeria have been partly shaped by continued observation of attempts to organise around insecurity (and other issues) and reading the works of Anthea Lawson (Entangled Activist), Prof. Issa Shivji (Silences in NGO Discourse) and others. Lawson theorises that, “activists are part of and injured by and survivors of the very problems that we are trying to change in the world and our tactics and organisations often mirror the same frameworks for operating that we say we want to change. Some of those entail “how we centre ourselves as subjects and see those we are trying to help (with our superior knowledge) as objects”. Shivji identifies NGOs as handmaidens of a neo-liberal purpose, i.e., replacing a degraded state no longer charged with social goods and welfare and pretending to be ‘pro-poor’ while maintaining the capitalist globalisation hegemony.
 
Why did our #Secure Our Lives campaign make little impact, and why is it difficult for donor/philanthropy-funded organisations to build organic movements?
 
The first challenge is tied to Shivji’s accusation that activists try to change the world without understanding it. ‘How can you make poverty history without understanding the history of poverty?’, he asks. In our case, how could we successfully demand that the government secure our lives without understanding the nature of our state and the sources of insecurity? Assessing the roots of insecurity in Nigeria would have intersected with another observation of Shivji’s that NGOs ignore geopolitical realities. In our case this would be the breakdown of governance in Nigeria; deep state capture for plundering public resources; the politics of West Africa and the Sahel in the context of the Cold War and foreign military bases; decades long conflict with jihadists in north-east Nigeria indoctrinated in Saudi Arabia; and the impact of global warming on traditional economic activity.
 
In 2021, we were reacting to a fire of sorts and in retrospect, we would probably have agreed that we did not have time to build theoretical knowledge about the extractive, neoliberal nature of the Nigerian state and the influence of geopolitics. We might have argued that we did not have to interrogate the drivers of insecurity and why the raison d’etre of our security forces is regime security, not securing citizens - we live the realities. Besides, civil society has hosted dozens of conferences since 2010, some in collaboration with the military, about the drivers of insecurity in Nigeria, including the massive defence budgets, which no one accounts for. If we had taken time for this analysis, we might have ended up with a different strategy for how to engage on insecurity.
 
The second challenge to organising by NGOs comes from the observation of both Shivji and Lawson about the politics of aid and funding, which create dependencies and, in some cases, make it harder for people and institutions to collaborate. This was our experience. When the #Secure Our Lives campaign received funding, we agreed not to spend on individually mobilising citizens to join the activities. We partly sealed the failure of the campaign with this decision, but we were not going to follow industry norms or politicians and organise people by paying them. We wanted an organic campaign, like #Bring Back Our Girls, where people went to the sit-ins and marched because of shared humanity and experience, not because they had been promised 1000 Naira. Civil society justifies paying people to organise: ‘people earn daily; they should be compensated for that loss of income; they need to eat’. What this does is attract widely, without building a base of conscious citizens.
However, because there are no secrets in the civil society space and people follow the money, our plans became political, by virtue of funding and focus. As Almut Rochowanski in Rethinking Foreign Aid says, “Money is never just money. It is power incarnate.”
 
Soon our strategy sessions became battles about representation and identity, and the pathologies of organising in a traumatised community where everything mirrors the political economy of power rose to the surface: subterfuge, competition for power intertwined with who gets resources and recognition, co-option and infiltrators.
 
In this, Shivji is right about paying attention to existing power structures around which societies are organised. For instance, in hindsight, our attempt at drawing in the Catholic Women’s Organisation (CWO) and the Federation of Muslim Women's Association of Nigeria (FOMWAN) was misplaced and mishandled. Misplaced because religious influencers in Nigeria tend to defend the status quo and eschew anything radical. I might have botched our chances of signing up CWO by leading that engagement. ‘I hope our sisters in the north have joined’, the CWO’s president said to me the first time we spoke. I understood the concern and should have made way for other women in the coalition to lead on this.
 
As a Muslim and from the middle belt, which has historically, for political reasons, been captured as geographically North, I was probably not the best interlocutor for building an alliance with catholic women, but I was not successful with FOMWAN, so being of the same religion did not help either. Possibly, regardless of all we could have done better, including meeting with them in person and not relying on the COVID recovery sense of the virtual being equal to the physical, they would not have joined us.
 
Our campaign barely made a dent in the consciousness of women that we claimed as our primary target. Is the daily wage earner, the one civil society pays to attend meetings and protests, the same person that Shivji and other advocates for grassroots campaigners expect to lead organically and to theorise? The women outside the formal NGO sector, who took part in the actions, were largely affiliated with civil society organisations working in urban and rural areas. Were we preaching to the converted, or were our messages unwittingly designed for them? Whatever the case, we could hardly say that educated, professional women supported the action in larger numbers than working-class women.
 
“Money is never just money. It is power incarnate.”
 
The recent suspension of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) puts aid politics in focus. As one of Africa’s major recipients of U.S. foreign aid estimated at $US1.02 billion in 2023 alone, the suspension has sparked debates in Nigeria about the politics of aid. The positions range from blaming international aid for dulling and dissipating civic dissent and lowering citizens' expectations of government to provide public goods, to aid being a form of repayment of the debt owed from colonialism, neocolonialism and neoliberalism. Others insist on acknowledging the positive impact of aid, particularly on public health services, while others point out that the U.S. is the biggest beneficiary of its aid, building global soft power and supporting U.S. businesses and organisations. For instance, in 2017, 60 per cent of USAID funding went to 25 U.S. organisations.
 
The third challenge is tied to an assumption that we made, which has been a popular theory of change of civil society for decades: that informed citizens act. It is why millions of dollars have been spent on various ways of informing citizens and raising awareness. Wrong! Most Nigerians have no faith that the government will ever act as it is supposed to. So near complete is the government’s abdication of responsibilities, that some Nigerians have no concept that government is supposed to provide public goods.
 
My orientation towards liberal, representative democracy i.e., one based on a social contract where as a taxpayer and voter, I can demand accountability from my elected representative, is a fiction in practice and not the reality for many Nigerians. As a primarily resource-based economy reliant on the extraction and trade of raw mineral resources, our government revenue does not depend on the well-being of Nigerians, and as much of the tax is informal, there is no sense of a contract with the majority.
With this understanding, I had at least one answer to an unresolved question that has nagged me for years: if funded NGOs are a corrupting influence, what prevents the majority of people outside the NGO bubble from mobilising and organising?
 
I had been unable to explain the inertia from citizens uncorrupted by donor funds who presumably had aspirations for a better society. But it is not apathy, that was my framing. Those who want better security, for instance, are not demanding anything from a government they have no expectations for; they are hiring vigilantes, bandits, sometimes groups like Lakurawa, designated terrorists by the government, to protect them.
 
2024 started with the murders of 13-year-old Folorunsho Ariyo and 21-year-old Nabeeha Al-Kadriyar. They had been kidnapped from their homes on January 2. When their families failed to meet the deadline to raise millions for their release, they were killed and their bodies left on the side of a road. It was morning for a few more people in Nigeria. Ariyo and Al-Kadriyar lived in the Federal Capital Territory, mere kilometres away from the Presidency. If the home of the federal government is unsafe, how is the rest of the country faring? Across WhatsApp groups, I observed people waking up (could be Groundhog Day for some) and attempting to organise around the new year 2024 kidnap and murder spree. 'Let women lead the charge', someone said. I closed my eyes.
 
Within the first 10 days of January 2025, close to 300 Nigerians had been kidnapped. Despite generous defence budgets ($US4.47bn in 2021) and global support to tackle insecurity, Nigeria has remained among the top 10 countries most impacted by terrorism since 2011. In 2014, it was ranked third globally for the impact of terrorism, and in 2015, when President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in, it was second. By 2021, Nigeria’s rating had improved two places, but while terrorism declined, kidnapping was rising. Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics reported recently that between May 2023 and April 2024, 2.2 million Nigerians were kidnapped, over half a million were killed by kidnappers, and 2.2 trillion Naira (1.4 US$ billion) was paid as ransom.
 
As insecurity ramps up - with Boko Harm attacking in Borno daily and Benue and Plateau in the news for fresh waves of cyclical terror, it is clear that it is impossible to address insecurity as a single issue. Kidnapping is only one arm of insecurity in Nigeria. Cattle rustling, armed robbery, terrorism, gang violence, illegal gold mining, secessionist movements, police predation, crude oil bunkering and drug smuggling, defence contract abuse, government corruption, and corporate fraud are happening across the country, feeding into each other.
 
It is possible, as deduced in security analysts' reports, that kidnapping funds other transnational organised crime, but it is plausible and there is anecdotal support that, as the economic situation in Nigeria worsened, kidnapping became a business. The recent rise in the kidnapping of medical personnel, some say, is an indication that the kidnapping industry is evolving, requiring the services of doctors and nurses for kidnap camps.
 
“If funded NGOs are a corrupting influence, what prevents the majority of people outside the NGO bubble from mobilising and organising?”
 
It is unlikely that there will be successful attempts to organise around insecurity in Nigeria as we tried to do. Aside from Nigeria being more politicised and polarized - which results in us being less organised, typical donor funding is unlikely to provide a critical requirement to successfully organise time. If many Nigerians have given up on or never held the belief that the government owes them a duty of care, information alone cannot wake them up. Without an anchoring, magnetising ideology or philosophy that provides a culture around which people identify and organise, appeals to enlightened self-interest and an assumption that ‘we all want to be secure’ will not be enough.
 
However, organising and mobilising a critical mass of citizens is still one of the few ways to exert pressure to reform systems and structures, maybe more so during these times of global upheaval. As civic spaces constrict and social media algorithms and cacophony make it harder to engage, reaching into our past of organising tactics might be necessary, but also accepting that it can take years to organise people effectively, especially when part of the process is trying to wake people who do not know what it means to be awake
 
Ayisa Osori, Director, Executive Vice President’s Office, Open Society Foundations, is the author of Love Does Not Win Elections.
 

Caleb Muftwang, the Governor of Plateau, made a grave mistake by hosting the Ambassador of Israel, an ethno-fascist, genocidal, child-killing, terrorist & apartheid nation in his state. I watched the show of shame & almost threw up. 

As a Christian how does this Muftwang feel about receiving mass murderers, ethnic cleansers & religious bigots in his official residence? 

More importantly, as a human being, how can he sleep at night after doing this? 

Outside of that does he not know about the role that Israel & her strongest allies are playing in the killings in the North & even in his own state? 

Does he not know who is really behind the terrorists that have plagued our nation both North & South? 

Does he not know who is really benefiting from the carnage & land-grabbing? 

Does he not know that their objective is to plunge us into a civil & religious war whilst they pick up the pieces? 

Someone tell him to ask his Zionist friends who created, founded, funds and arms ISIS, ISWAP, Boko Haram, Al Shabab, Al Qaeda & virtually every other terrorist organisation in the world. 

Tell him to ask them who uses these evil forces to divide, destabilise & destroy the foreign nations which they seek to control & dominate. 

Tell him to ask them why none of the terrorist organisations mentioned above have EVER attacked Israel or targetted the Israelis? 

Tell him to ask them who funded and sold arms to the Biafrans more than anyone else during our civil war. 

Tell him to ask them how African Jews from Ethiopia (known as the Falashas) that are seeking to become Israeli nationals are treated in the Zionist state and how they are subjected to and injected with strange and toxic chemicals in order to prevent them from having children and "contaminating" the white/European bloodline of the non-semitic Ashkazi Jews that rule that dark and accursed country. 

Receiving the emissary of an insensitive & callous beast, a bloodthirsty tyrant, a feral psychopath & a delusional meglomaniac like Bibi Netanyahu & showering accolades on him is an insult to the martyred women & children of Gaza & a big slap on the face of those that are fighting Israeli occupation in Palestine.

Worst still in doing so the Governor has inflicted a deep spiritual wound on himself & his Government. 

Bringing a Jewish snake into your house will not help you to solve your problems in Plateau state no matter what they promise to do for you: it will only make them worse. 

As they say,  "beware of the Greeks, especially when they bring gifts!" The Trojans learnt this lesson the hard way! Let us hope the same fate does not befall you. 

Meanwhile did your guest tell you that they spit on Christians in his country? 

Did he tell you that according to their holy book known as the Talmud, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was a liar and a rogue and is now burning in hell whilst swimming in a pool of human faeces? 

Did he tell you that they discriminate against both Christians and Muslims and that they detain and slaughter them like flies? 

I learnt that the day after he left Plateau state no less than 100 more people were killed by the terrorists: why am I not surprised? 

This Muftwang has much to learn!

 

(Chief Femi Fani-Kayode is the Sadaukin Shinkafi, the Wakilin Doka Potiskum, the Otunba Joga Orile, a former Minister of Culture and Tourism, a former Ministerof Aviation and a former Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to President Olusegun Obasanjo)

I found myself inventing that verse as today’s headline. The verse came sounding like “The Lord is my shepherd/ I Shall not want…” The twenty-third Psalm. Yesterday was Easter Sunday; today is Easter Monday. All Judases are shamed.

Life here is bitter as brine. The green pastures are withered. The still waters are poisoned. More and more, victims fall in undeclared wars in Benue and Plateau. Terrorists rebrand and relaunch in Borno and Niger and Zamfara. The Commander-in-Chief is absent in flesh, in body and soul. But I must be quiet, because the president is my brother.

Some twenty-something years ago, one of us (I can’t remember who the person was) blurted out a question:

“The name of your governor, ‘Alamiyeseigha’, reads like a tongue-twisting clause. What does it mean?”

Our guest was the Bayelsa State Commissioner for Information.

The guest sat up, grinned and looked round the Tribune boardroom. She then smiled out the answer.

 
 
“It means God is never wrong. Just like my name, ‘Benamaisia’, means brother is never wrong.”

I thought that was deep. I quickly got it stored in the depth of my brain. True. God is never wrong. But brother? An argument would have ensued but that commissioner, Mrs Ruth Benamaisia Opia, went into an intelligent analysis of how and when a brother is deemed not wrong: She said a brother is never wrong in the presence of outsiders. She might be right. Among her audience were a people whose own culture instructs them to first deal with the fox before spanking the cock. They also say you don’t sell your brother cheap; if you do, you won’t be able to buy him back expensive.

“Kin-blood is not spoiled by water.” That is how 12th-century German poet, Heinrich der Glîchezære, couches it in his epic, Reinhart Fuchs (Reynard the Fox). I am supposed to love and be loyal to the king because he is my brother. Is my brother, the king, supposed to love and be loyal to me? Christian scholar, T. L. Westow, in his ‘Who is my Brother?’ published in May 1964, declares that “nobody can eat for somebody else.” That may be true in biology; it is not true in politics. What do you think my brother, the president, is doing on my behalf in Europe? He has been there for the past two weeks.

Because my brother is the president, he can do anything and get away with it. And he has been doing it. The president is the law. He keeps a very good company in the US President Donald Trump. Last week, Trump complained about his country’s Federal Reserves chair, Jerome Powell. “I’m not happy with him. I don’t think Powell is doing the job. He will leave if I ask him to.” An American reacted: “Why has anybody but Trump run anything? Just get rid of congress, senate, Supreme Court, etc. He’s so smart; he can run everything.” It is too late to recommend the same here. President Bola Tinubu is the smartest somebody ever created. He had been the law long before he became president. Presidential powers have only enlarged his coast, and we are happy and grateful for the answered prayers.

 

I have no problem with Tinubu staying put abroad. The only issue I have with it is that in his absence, Muhammadu Buhari’s eunuch is having an erection again. I don’t like that. It is risky. While I agonise over the resurgent eunuchs, I will not stop stopping critics from hampering my president with the constitution and all its provisions. Scrap the law, scrap the courts, the legislature, everything; sack the governors, give the president their functions and budgets. Make him President and Governor General of the federation. Trash all the scrapped. Scrap Abuja and let the super man reign from wherever he finds comfort. Why not?

My brother, the president, is in Europe, running the country effectively unseen like an unseen poem. It is my duty as a brother to expose the ignorance of critics who say the president residing abroad is immoral and illegal. I should tell such critics that the people who created Nigeria started Nigeria with that arrangement. When the two Nigerias were brought together in 1914, the first ‘president’ (nicknamed Governor General) reigned six months in Nigeria; four and a half months in London; one and half months cruising on the high seas. Lord Lugard gave his employers that condition and he got it, he maintained and enjoyed it for several years. A befitting office with full complement of competent staff was even provided for him righ  t inside the colonial office in London. That is our history.

Shakespeare says there is no darkness but ignorance. Ignorant critics say my brother does not delegate as the constitution dictates. They should read history. Our president’s ancestor, Lord Lugard had two deputies called Assistant Governors. From 1914 when he took charge till he left in 1919, he delegated neither power nor responsibility to any of them. There were complaints and grumblings, home and abroad; the Governor-General ignored them all. Nothing happened. Nothing will happen if President Tinubu keeps that foundational tradition alive. He has a duty to run his government undisturbed from the Moon, even from inside the Sun.

If my brother is not ready for home, it is my duty to beg him to stay back wherever he is. It is also my duty to attack his attackers here. He should not rush home after these Easter holidays simply because sibling rivalry is pushing some of our bad brothers to demand his immediate homecoming. The president should work harder in London – or cross the English Channel back to Paris, and continue where he stopped.

Last week, from wherever he was, the president set up an eight-man committee on his pet census project, five out of the eight members are from his sitting room. Because he is my brother, I am not supposed to mention this and say he was wrong to use his household to rule the whole world.

For those who are not happy that five brothers out of eight make the list of Tinubu’s census committee, I recommend, in the spirit of this Easter season, ‘The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard’. It is a Bible passage:

“Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Him with her sons, kneeling down and asking something from Him.

“And He said to her, ‘What do you wish?’”

“She said to Him, ‘Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom.’” (Mathew 20:20,21).

What you just read is a brother to the right; his blood brother to the left. The Master was number one. The brothers would be numbers two and three. And there were twelve disciples. The two brothers were John and James. Whose cousins or nephews were they? Find out whose sister their mother, Salome, was.

Some neighbours are already saying that without them in 2027 my brother will be sent back home empty-handed. They should shut up, and go and listen to Juju music Commander Ebenezer Obey. He warns that no one should vow that without them their friend won’t find food to eat. They should not say that again  Sustenance is God’s. He is the only provider. If they want war in 2027, my brother will give them. I will watch the bull fight; my popcorn is ordered.

So, those who are not happy with my brother’s nepotism should go drink iced water. They should wait for their own time. Nigeria is a tripod. Every good and every bad must get entered in the country’s balance sheet. Muhammadu Buhari had his own fill. We shouted, but Bayajidda II pointed us to his kurmo (deaf) ears. Goodluck Jonathan had aides who helped him do his own so well that he became Azikiwe.

I read Keith Ferrazzi’s ‘Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success.’ But I will not join outsiders to quote that book and warn the solo man that he “can’t get there alone” and “in fact, can’t get very far at all.” I will also refrain from reading ‘What do you think of eating alone?’, a recent piece written by The Korea Times’ senior advisor, Park Moo-jong. There is a spice in that piece. It is from Desmond Morris, English zoologist, ethologist and author of ‘The Naked Ape’: “One may eat alone in the privacy of one’s own home, but to eat alone in a public place is to invite suspicion of personal failure at best and deviancy at worst.” If the president were not my brother, I would have expanded that verdict to accommodate what critics say of him here. I would have said that Nigeria is a public, multi-regional, multi ethnic entity and that no group, no matter how smart, or wise or vicious can kidnap Nigeria and hold it hostage for long. But the president is Yoruba and Muslim like me, so I won’t undermine my brother. I won’t join those who say that even the British who created the country did not succeed in putting it in purdah for as long as they wished.

President Bola Tinubu is a brother to some because he is a Muslim. To some others he is a brother because of the language he speaks — his mother tongue – Yoruba. Still, to some others, he is a brother because of the fraternity of politics he leads. Common to these concentric circle of brotherhoods is the charge that his wrong must not be said from any mouth there. Scores killed in Plateau, 56 murdered in Benue, the Commander-in-Chief is rocking the cities of Paris and London. He must not be accused of playing Nero while his Rome burns. Our brother must never be said to be wrong.

This president campaigned and pledged to renew our hopes in a better Nigeria. Where are the promised “sparkling springs” and the “babbling brooks”? A brother has no right to question his brother, the president. If he is your brother, tell him not that he lives in an illusory world where failure is praiseworthy success and poverty is wealth. The people’s suffering notwithstanding, rejoice with your brother.

A brother is never wrong. Like the anonymous American army major said in the Vietnam war, there is nothing bad to have my brother destroy the town in order to save it. The king can invent his own reality and call us to project it for the world to admire and applaud. We will obey him; he is our brother.

Poverty unravels homes; policies upend businesses. But what is real is unreal because the president is my brother. We hear politicians of various ailments hail the president for making Nigeria great again. Even some opposition governors are rushing into his Noah’s Ark. Reality has different versions. When it is bad as we have it, regime washers create a positive one and command me to praise it. They say we must celebrate their reality because it is done everywhere, even in America where we borrowed this system that sells the freeborn into slavery. If that sounds interesting to you, read ‘Bad for Democracy: How the Presidency Undermines the Power of the People’ by Dana D. Nelson. It was published in 2008 long before Donald Trump came with his ideology of alternative truth.

You see them on TV boasting of unprecedented achievements and daring you to contradict them. They did and do it where we copied our constitution. Towards the 2004 presidential election in the US, a Bush administration official with the swag of a conquistador told a New York Times reporter, Ron Suskind: “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality judiciously, as you will, we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” This sounds like what my brother’s government can say in Nigeria. The government is a pack of confidence men. We – you and I – exist to only study, write and talk about what they do.

My brother is dining alone somewhere across the Mediterranean Sea. Some people say he is in Paris, France; some say he is in London, United Kingdom. I am supposed to thank him for eating on my behalf abroad while I yawn at home. As I do that, I should also ask what will end anyone’s ‘eat alone’ regime if they do not change? An Arabian proverb speaks on the consequences of fencing off others from a communal feast. They say he who eats alone vomits alone. They also say he who eats alone chokes alone. The Tigrigna of Eritrea and northern Ethiopia say: He who eats alone dies alone. The NURTW has a more radical version. Its members shout: “Eat alone, Go away!”

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