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[OPINION] IBB in the Annals of Civil Service Reforms in Nigeria - Tunji Olaopa

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The autobiography is a most delicate, complex and indeed disruptive art form. It is the autobiographer’s authorial insistence to be heard in terms of his or her narrative addition to a historical discourse. In fact, it is the autobiographer’s narration of the historical event from his or her own perspective. And more often than not, when the autobiographer is a fundamental participant in the event, the complexities of that event and the circumstances surrounding it is multiplied. Only very few autobiographies enjoy global approval. And that is because the art form is seen as an ego trip. That sentiment is summed by the English biographer, Humphrey Carpenter: “Autobiography is probably the most respectable form of lying.” This is even made worse if the protagonists are critical individuals whose lives have affected national trajectories. General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) is one such critical protagonist, and his autobiography has arrived.

A Journey in Service has since started generated lots of furors in all strata of the Nigerian public space, online and offline. Lots of opinions have tied IBB to several significant historical moments in Nigeria, especially the annulment of the June 12 elections, and the demise of MKO Abiola. What many have conveniently glossed over, and a case I have consistently made, is that personal narrative in the forms of autobiography and memoirs serve a unique function in terms of their historical import. If A Journey in Service had not been written, we will all be gasping within the yawning silence of the political and administrative gaps that ought to have been filled with whatever the autobiographer has to say. But now it has been written, and we can then commence the journey of unraveling how the narrative fits or fails to fit in with the existing accounts of Nigeria’s political development.

This personal narrative has a critical import for me as a historian of Nigeria’s administrative and reform trajectories. The Babangida administration played a very fundamental role in articulating a significant portion of Nigeria’s administrative reform architecture. And so, that portion of the trajectory, and the entire institutional reform agenda of the Nigerian state, will not be complete without adding the voice and perspective of the key protagonist to the understanding of how the reform policy emerged. No matter what anyone thinks, the imperative of national history demands that such an account be added to the stock of what we already know, and to flesh out a better understanding of what we already know. The idea therefore is to see how the protagonist, no matter the groundswell of national opinion for or against him, fits into a larger picture of the political and administrative frameworks that enable us to see where the nation is coming from and where it is headed. This is a task every institutional reformer must long for without getting sidetracked by sentimental opinion that accords blame and sling mud. This is part of what makes IBB and A Journey in Service such a delight for me. Unfortunately, the head of the historic administration does not consider that irreducible reform agenda that distinguishes his administration so significantly as to celebrate its conception, elements and operation, as well as its limitations, in a significant autobiography. That responsibility has been passed to posterity. This piece rescues that fundamental omission.

The pre-Babangida administrative reform narrative must always revert back to the 1974 Udoji Commission. That Commission is singular because it was the first to attempt an alignment between Nigeria’s reform efforts and the emerging managerial revolution in public administration across the globe. The Udoji Commission took its immediate inspiration from the Lord Fulton Committee of 1968 in Britain. The task of the Fulton Report was to inquire into the capability readiness of the British civil service to confront the modern British society and its technological complexity. Fulton’s most significant recommendation was the displacement of the cult of generalist amateur civil servants in an approaching administrative dispensation that requires a critical mass of new managers who possess the professionalism and specialist expertise to harness the talents needed to make the civil service economic, effective and efficient.

By the time the Udoji Commission was inaugurated, Nigeria had also reached the critical juncture where it became imperative to ask whether the Weberian assumptions underlying the British administrative legacy were capable of tackling the urgent governance requirement of a postcolonial society. The wage impasse which the system had been confronting before independence, for the Commission, was a symptom of a deeper administrative malady represented by a bureaucratic culture that had arrested innovation and entrepreneurial creativity in the analysis and implementation of policies. Managerialism therefore provides the most timely and perfect means of making the civil service system align with the goals of national development. The Udoji Commission went on to leverage the global good practice of the time that calls for a new style public service that deploys new management techniques of Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS), Management by Objectives (MBO), the precursor of what is today called the performance management system, project management system, among others, that was totally alien to the Nigerian public service, at the time. The new management architecture that the envisioned management system would have institutionalized would obviously have been inadequate but would have laid a critical substructure that would have set Nigeria on the new productivity paradigm that assisted Malaysia, Singapore, the Asian Tigers and many other developing countries that are within Nigerian global ranking at the time.

The most devastating blow that the civil service suffered were those created not by it but the governance tradition that militarism and “New Federalism” of the post-civil war years created where the rigorous analytical frame that governed development investment got replaced with the unreflective “with immediate effect” command and control governance tradition which created huge process, policy, capacity, performance and resource gaps. The Udoji Commission and its limitations, as well as the succeeding Phillips and Ayida Commissions, could be understood only within this military tradition of which IBB was a significant part. When he assumed office in 1985, one of the most immediate decisions was, according to his admission, the need to “strengthen the practice of the presidential system with clear economic, political, and social reforms to strengthen the nation as a constitutional democracy based on the presidential system.” Assuming the title of a “President” was therefore more than a mere nominal gesture to narcissism. Rather, he said, it was “a summation of our consensus on the need to preserve and strengthen the presidential system and make it work better for the nation.”

But a nominal title was not enough. A commitment to the presidential system, IBB insisted, defined the necessity of “structuring a reform programme around institutions to make it work.” And given the tension that already was prevalent in the heated polity, IBB surmised, the reforms that must make any significance must be as comprehensive as the administration could make it. And the first act of symbolic gesture was negative: the urgency of the need “to review the various draconian decrees, convictions, and pending cases that bordered on human rights violations.” The Exchange Control (anti-sabotage) Decree 7 and Decree 4 (Public Officers Protection Against False Accusation) had to be significantly reviewed. This was followed by the real positive task of reforming the economy and governance in ways that go beyond “knee-jerk populist reflexes.”

The task, in governance and economic terms, was therefore to “Remove the government from the role of an enormous money changer to that of an enabler of the appropriate economic environment. We also needed to let the economy, in general, breathe more freely.” It was to liberalize the economy and make government an able enabler rather than occupying the ‘commanding heights of the economy.” Unfortunately for us all, IBB fails to dwell on what could have been a defining dimension of A Journey in Service, the civil service reform framework of the Babangida administration. This is shocking but revealing in itself. One possible reason is that the author subsumed the civil service reform under the broader political reforms: “Our political programme targeted the critical areas of political and socio-cultural restructuring highlighted by the Political Bureau report: the party system, the electoral process, including election administration, the federal structure, the civil service, and the problem of succession, including political leadership.”

And yet, this fails to do justice to the significance of the Babangida administration and its inheritance of the Dotun Philips Commission from the Buhari-Idiagbon administration. The Phillips Study Team is significant because it had the task of re-organizing the operations of the civil service in terms of professionalism that will eventually align it with the managerial revolution recommended by Udoji. And that reform effort alone cements his administration’s significance in the annals of administrative history in Nigeria, and a fundamental contribution to the cumulation of reform knowledge in Nigeria. IBB already gave the significant intellectual basis of the restructuring that was an imperative: to achieve “national rebirth and future greatness,” there is a need for political and economic restructuring that free up the national space for transformation. And one way to do this, according to him, was cultivate intellectuals: “We needed the input of intellectuals to enlighten the business of government.” There was also the crucial need for the public service as the engine of government business. It beats me how IBB did not see that.

The Dotun Philips Study Group was constituted by the Buhari-Idiagbon administration in 1985, with the objective of undertaking an interrogation of the structure, mode of operation and strategy of the civil service in the light of contemporary administrative situation, as well as finding means by which the eroded professionalism of the system could be restored. After the 1985 coup, Babangida inherited the study group and transformed it into a full-blown commission whose task was to keep up with the objective of aligning the spirit of managerialism and a professionalized civil service with the form and spirit of presidentialism. This was to be incorporated into the total package of the Civil Service Reforms through a Civil Service Reorganisation Decree No. 43 of 1988. Given the administration’s concern with the rigid Soviet-styled centralization of the economy and the need to open the economy up to market forces, it was only logical that the administration would adopt the critical managerial principle of letting managers manage by having greater control on critical resources. This possesses the capacity to inspire a wholesale decentralization of the HRM function to MDA. The policy choice here is between centralized resource governance for example where the civil service commission wields constitutional powers for recruitment, promotion and discipline exercised at top management levels by the Commission while delegating the powers to MDAs at middle to lower levels.

The Philips reform was compromised essentially because (a) it took the issues involved in professionalism too far (for instance, by attempting to make a professional out of everybody within the civil service); and (b) its own unique managerial thrust was directed towards integrating the civil service into the presidential system of government, with one unintended consequence being that professionalization turned into politicization through an attempt, for instance, that turned an administrative post (permanent secretary) into a political one (director-general). And yet, this is not a failure because it was a logical reform complements to the short-circuited Udoji Commission recommendation of a public service founded on performance management, and its underlying managerial philosophy was significant in getting the Babangida administration its governance template for transforming national development.

I insist that an administration is only as good as its reform agenda, both in design and implementation. The Babangida administration gave Nigeria’s reform trajectory one of the key moments in the protracted attempt to translate the gains and efficiencies of a managerial opportunity to a bureaucratic system.

[OPINION] If the Senate Can Ignore a Federal High Court Order, Can Fubara Do the Same to the Supreme Court? A Nation on the Edge - John Egbeazien Oshodi

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The Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the status of the 27 lawmakers loyal to former Governor Nyesom Wike has deepened public concern over Nigeria’s judiciary. The apex court ruled that there was no legal basis for Governor Siminalayi Fubara’s claim that the lawmakers defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC). This verdict effectively restored the legislative authority of the lawmakers, further complicating Fubara’s control over the state government. However, the judgment is being widely perceived as favoring Wike’s camp, raising questions about judicial neutrality and reinforcing broader apprehensions about institutional credibility. If the courts are perceived as political tools rather than impartial arbiters, then the foundation of Nigeria’s democracy is at risk of crumbling under the weight of selective judicial obedience.

Double Standards in Obeying Court Orders

Who Decides Which Rulings Matter? If Nigeria’s Senate, under the leadership of Godswill Akpabio, can boldly disregard a Federal High Court order by suspending Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan despite a court ruling to the contrary, then how can Nigeria turn around and expect Governor Fubara to fully comply with a Supreme Court ruling he perceives as flawed? The inconsistency in judicial compliance at different levels of government creates a dangerous precedent where court orders are no longer universally binding, but instead selectively followed based on political convenience. If Fubara were to openly question or even delay compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling, it would not be without justification, considering the growing evidence that judicial rulings in Nigeria may no longer carry the same weight they once did.

Rivers State Electoral Body Defies the Legislature:

The Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC) has also joined the cycle of legal defiance. Following the Supreme Court ruling, the Rivers State House of Assembly issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Governor Fubara to re-present the 2025 budget and summoned the chairman of RSIEC, Justice Adulphus Enebeli (rtd), along with commissioners, to justify financial expenditures without an appropriation law since January 2024. In an act of outright defiance, both Governor Fubara and RSIEC have rejected the ultimatum, further fueling the constitutional standoff. RSIEC issued a Pre-Action Notice, challenging the legal authority of the Assembly to issue such an ultimatum and claiming it violates Section 36 of the 1999 Constitution, which guarantees fair hearing. The refusal of RSIEC to comply now raises serious concerns about whether judicial decisions and legislative authority hold any real weight if major political actors selectively choose which rulings to follow.

Judicial Favoritism? When the Law Serves Political Interests

If the judiciary is truly independent, then its rulings should be seen as sacrosanct, regardless of the parties involved. However, when some court orders are obeyed while others are openly flouted, the entire justice system is weakened, leaving room for anarchy and eroding public confidence. The judiciary must not only be impartial but must be seen to be impartial. A judicial system that tilts toward one political faction while aggressively enforcing rulings against another risks losing credibility in the eyes of the public. If the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the Supreme Court ruling now contains elements of defection that were never part of the original litigation, then the judiciary itself is under scrutiny for possible post-ruling modifications that serve political interests rather than legal precedent.

Fubara’s Imminent Political Battle:

Governor Fubara is now in an increasingly precarious position. The Supreme Court ruling, which strengthens the authority of Wike’s lawmakers, emboldens them to further assert control over the state legislature. This ruling provides them with a legal foothold to renew impeachment threats and legislative challenges against Fubara. By narrowing his legal avenues to challenge the defected lawmakers, the ruling forces him to engage in careful political maneuvering. He must now either broaden his alliances to counterbalance Wike’s grip on the Assembly or seek a diplomatic resolution to maintain governance stability. However, given that the Senate has already openly defied a Federal High Court order, some argue that Fubara may feel justified in questioning or delaying compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling.

The Supreme Court’s Role in Defection Cases: Has the Outcome Been Pre-Determined?

Furthermore, the Supreme Court’s involvement in defection cases has led to increased scrutiny on whether ongoing cases in lower courts have been effectively pre-determined. If the Supreme Court ruling includes preemptive decisions on defection that were not part of the case before it, it could signal that lower court rulings may already have a foregone conclusion, limiting any future legal challenges. This calls into question whether Nigeria’s judicial system is still a neutral venue for resolving disputes, or if it has become a tool for political leverage.

Erosion of Trust:

What Happens When Citizens No Longer Believe in the Courts? The judiciary’s credibility is critical in maintaining democratic order, and the perception of judicial bias could exacerbate political tensions across Nigeria. Rivers State, which is already experiencing deep political divisions, is now at the heart of an institutional crisis. The selective adherence to judicial rulings raises questions about whether Nigeria is moving toward a lawful democracy or a system of rule by political decree. Public trust in the judiciary is essential, yet the growing sentiment is that some politicians and institutions are above the law while others are held strictly accountable.

The Unraveling of Nigeria’s Democracy:

A Nation on the Precipice: In an era where political loyalty seemingly dictates legal outcomes, what happens when the people lose faith in the very institutions meant to uphold justice? If judicial orders are perceived as suggestions rather than mandates, then how does Nigeria maintain a functional democracy? With both the legislative and executive arms of government now engaged in selective compliance, the judiciary finds itself in an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy.

A Final Warning: If Court Rulings No Longer Bind, What Holds Nigeria Together?

Nigeria stands at a dangerous tipping point. The nation’s stability depends on the ability of its institutions to command respect and enforce accountability fairly and consistently. If the courts fail to uphold the principle of equal justice under the law, then democracy itself is at risk. The slow unraveling of trust in the judiciary is not just a legal or political issue—it is an existential threat to Nigeria’s ability to function as a state governed by law. If left unchecked, this erosion of trust will not only embolden further disobedience to legal authority but will set the stage for a future where governance is dictated by power rather than principles. If court rulings are no longer binding, then what remains to hold Nigeria together?

[OPINION] Maradona’s Hand of God and IBB’s History: Nigeria’s Struggle for Narrative - Prince Charles Dickson

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Vergangenheitsbewältigung (German: [fɛɐ̯ˈɡaŋənhaɪtsbəˌvɛltɪɡʊŋ], “struggle of overcoming the past” or “work of coping with the past”) is a German compound noun describing processes that, since the later 20th century, have become key in the study of post-1945 German literature, society, and culture. (“Overcoming the past”) is generally associated with Germany’s process of coming to terms with the history of National Socialism and the Holocaust.

Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God,” a moment of audacious deception and divine attribution, remains etched in the collective memory of football. It’s a story that transcended the boundaries of a simple sporting event, becoming a cultural touchstone, a symbol of cunning and controversy. The replay, the analysis, the debate – all contributed to the solidification of this moment into a piece of history, albeit a contested one. In Nigeria, we yearn for such clarity, such a tangible, debated, and ultimately understood narrative of our past.

IBB

Our historical landscape is cotton woven with threads of omission, selective memory, and a profound reluctance to confront the more painful chapters of our national story.

The systematic removal of history from secondary school curricula, a decision that effectively severed a generation from its roots, speaks volumes about our discomfort with our past. This deliberate erasure has created a void, a chasm where a shared understanding of our nation’s journey should reside.

The prioritization of foreign empires, like the Songhai, over the intricate and complex story of Nigerian history further compounds this issue. While these external narratives offer valuable perspectives, they cannot replace the fundamental need to understand our internal dynamics, our struggles, and our triumphs. The absence of a comprehensive exploration of the “Nigerian empire,” whatever form it may have taken, leaves a critical gap in our understanding of our own identity.

The Biafran War, a brutal and deeply divisive conflict, stands as a stark example of our reluctance to confront our past. The persistent refusal to commission a televised narrative, a project that could have served as a powerful tool for healing and reconciliation, underscores our collective unease. The parallels with “Hotel Rwanda” and “Sometimes in April,” films that dared to confront the horrors of genocide, are undeniable. By shying away from our painful truths, we perpetuate a cycle of misunderstanding and mistrust.

The Jos September 21 crisis, a more recent but equally devastating event, suffers from a similar lack of comprehensive documentation and public discourse. The absence of a clear, accessible narrative leaves the wounds of this tragedy festering, hindering the process of healing and reconciliation. Without a shared understanding of these events, we are condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Equally troubling are the unresolved controversies that loom like specters over Nigeria’s political history. The 1986 assassination of Dele Giwa, founder of Newswatch magazine, via a letter bomb remains a festering wound. Despite evidence implicating state actors, the case languishes in obscurity, buried under layers of official obfuscation. Similarly, the 2001 murder of Bola Ige, then-Attorney General and Minister of Justice, remains shrouded in mystery. The unanswered question of who killed Bola Ige has become a metaphor for the culture of impunity that haunts Nigeria’s corridors of power. These are not mere cold cases; they are testaments to a state’s refusal to confront its shadows.

Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, IBB

This opacity extends beyond individual tragedies. The Nigerian state’s insistence on classifying vast swathes of historical records—often under the guise of “national security”—denies citizens access to their own story. While democracies like the United States declassify documents after set periods, Nigeria’s archives remain locked, fueling speculation and conspiracy. What truths lie hidden in files marked confidential? What role did the state play in pivotal moments like the annulment of June 12 or the fuel subsidy protests? By clinging to secrecy, the state reduces history to a weapon, wielded to control narratives rather than enlighten the public.

Compounding this is the relegation of national discourse to the realm of myth and rumor. Without official records, history becomes a battleground of competing anecdotes. Was MKO Abiola’s death natural or engineered? What truly transpired during the Dimka coup? In the absence of facts, hearsay thrives. The danger is not merely academic; it erodes trust in institutions and fractures collective memory. When history is negotiable, manipulated by those in power, or concocted in the echo chambers of social media, society loses its anchor. A nation cannot mature when its past is a puzzle with missing pieces, assembled by guesswork and bias.

The silence of key figures, particularly those who played pivotal roles in shaping our nation’s destiny, exacerbates the problem. General Gowon, a man who stood at the helm of the nation during a tumultuous period, remains silent, his war memoirs unwritten. His perspective, his insights, and his reflections are invaluable, yet they remain locked away, depriving us of a crucial piece of our historical puzzle.

The recent launch of IBB’s autobiography, while a welcome addition to the sparse collection of personal narratives, underscores the challenges we face. In a nation starved of historical context, such accounts become not just personal reflections but de facto historical records. However, these accounts, by their very nature, are subjective, offering a single perspective on complex events. They cannot replace the rigorous, objective analysis of professional historians and the wealth of information contained in well-maintained archives.

Unlike nations with robust archival systems and transparent processes for declassifying historical documents, we rely heavily on “tales by moonlight,” anecdotal fragments that, while valuable, lack the rigor and objectivity of structured historical analysis. This reliance on oral traditions and personal accounts blurs the lines between public relations and historical record, allowing narratives to be shaped by personal agendas rather than a pursuit of truth.

The power of literature, as evidenced by Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart,” lies in its ability to illuminate the human experience and offer insights into the past. However, literature alone cannot replace the foundational role of history. History is not constructed logically; it happens, it is recorded, and it is taught. Without that foundation, we are left with fragments, interpretations, and the ever-present danger of repeating the mistakes of the past.

Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida

We must reclaim our history. We must demand comprehensive education, open archives, and honest narratives. We must encourage those who shaped our nation to share their stories, not as PR exercises but as contributions to a collective understanding.

Only then can we move forward, not as a nation adrift, but as a people grounded in the truth of our shared journey. Only then can we ensure that the “Hand of God” of our past does not become a tool for manipulation but a lesson for a more informed and united future. We need to create a culture where history is valued, debated, and understood, not suppressed or manipulated.

This means investing in historical research, supporting archival institutions, and fostering a spirit of open dialogue about our past. It means ensuring that our children are taught the full, unvarnished truth about their nation’s history, both the triumphs and the tragedies. Only then can we build a future where the lessons of the past guide us toward a more just and equitable society.

I would end by stating painfully that we are in a coffin, where young Nigerians exhibit a profound disconnection from their historical heritage and cultural roots, reflecting a broader societal shift away from the collective memory and traditions that once defined their identity. This detachment not only undermines their sense of belonging but also diminishes their understanding of the cultural, social, and historical narratives that have shaped the nation. In an era dominated by globalization and digital modernity, the erosion of this connection to the past poses significant challenges to the preservation of Nigeria’s rich cultural legacy and the cultivation of a cohesive national identity. Do we remain in the coffin or resurrect—Only time will tell.

[OPINION] Akpabio and His Men Cry Trauma, While Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan Bears the Real Psychological Scars of Senate Abuse - John Egbeazien Oshodi

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Senate President Godswill Akpabio has lamented the supposed trauma he and the Senate have suffered due to the sexual harassment allegations leveled against him by Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan. However, if truth be told, the real victim of trauma is Natasha herself—a woman who dared to speak up against male dominance in a legislature historically hostile to women’s leadership.

The psychological toll of her suspension, public vilification, and institutional gaslighting reflects the entrenched patriarchy in Nigeria’s political system. The Senate, under the leadership of Akpabio and Majority Leader Opeyemi Bamidele, has turned a blind eye to the systemic suffering inflicted upon women who challenge the status quo. Instead of addressing the allegations with due process, they have chosen to silence and isolate the accuser, reinforcing a culture of impunity.

The Trauma of Silencing Women in Power

For Akpoti-Uduaghan, the trauma is profound. Her suspension is more than a political penalty; it is an act of psychological warfare against all women in leadership. The Senate’s decision sends a chilling message to Nigerian women: speak up, and you will be punished. This calculated retaliation induces fear, stress, and emotional distress, creating an environment where women are systematically discouraged from seeking public office.

The impact of such institutional bullying includes:

Public humiliation and degradation: She was forcibly walked out of the Senate chamber by the Sergeant-at-Arms, a move intended to break her spirit in full view of her colleagues and the nation.

Economic and career sabotage: Her office was locked immediately after her suspension, denying her access to essential legislative tools and resources. Her salary was cut off without due process, ensuring that she was left financially vulnerable.

Verbal attacks and intimidation: Male senators, one after another, hurled painful words at her on the Senate floor, weaponizing their voices to degrade and shame her. They dismissed her claims, questioned her character, and cast her as unruly and unfit to serve.

Institutionalized media manipulation: A dark cloud of misinformation was spread through compromised media outlets, framing her as the aggressor rather than the victim. Headlines painted her as disruptive, unworthy, and a political opportunist, erasing the context of her ordeal.

Authoritarian suppression of her voice

Her microphone was abruptly cut off during her last moments on the Senate floor, a symbolic and literal silencing of her words. Akpabio himself presided over this entire charade, ensuring that she had no chance to defend herself.

Psychological toll: Should she decide to seek therapy to heal from the trauma inflicted upon her, the Senate must be held financially responsible for the cost of her treatment. It is the institution that inflicted this harm, and it must bear the burden of redress.

The Role of the Senate in Perpetuating Psychological Abuse

The Nigerian Senate, through Akpabio and Bamidele, has mastered the art of psychological manipulation by making Akpoti-Uduaghan’s experience seem like an overreaction. The Senate President’s remarks, filled with sarcasm and dismissal, seek to trivialize her experience.

Akpabio’s statements—such as suggesting that no one heard of the harassment until a committee change—are not just defensive; they are deliberate attempts to question her credibility and normalize gendered political suppression. This is a classic example of gaslighting, a psychological abuse tactic designed to make victims question their own reality.

Moreover, the refusal to acknowledge Akpoti-Uduaghan’s trauma is part of a broader pattern in Nigeria’s male-dominated power structures, where men in leadership feign victimhood when held accountable. By shifting the narrative, the Senate avoids addressing the systemic issues that enable gender-based violence in governance.

The Broader Impact: What This Means for Nigerian Women

The handling of this case has ramifications beyond the walls of the National Assembly. It discourages young women from entering politics, reinforces gender discrimination, and perpetuates a toxic culture where women are expected to endure mistreatment in silence.

The Senate’s actions violate international commitments Nigeria has made to protect women’s rights, including:

The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)

The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action

The Urgent Need for Accountability

Nigeria cannot continue to present itself as a champion of gender equality while engaging in high-profile acts of gender suppression. Women’s rights organizations, international human rights bodies, and legal advocates must challenge this injustice at the national and global levels. The following organizations should take a stand:

United Nations Women (UN Women)

Human Rights Watch (HRW)

Amnesty International

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)

The Global Fund for Women

The African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET)

Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights

These leaders treat Nigeria as their personal playground, unchallenged because they have the police and judiciary under fear and compromise. The institutional corruption that enables them must be dismantled, and they must be held to account by both local and global legal frameworks.

Who is the Real Victim?

Senate President Akpabio and his allies may claim to be traumatized, but the real question is: who holds the power and who is actually suffering the consequences? The victim here is not the man who has access to unlimited political resources and media control—it is the woman who has been silenced, vilified, and excluded from the legislative process for daring to speak her truth.

If justice is to be served, Akpoti-Uduaghan must be reinstated, her allegations must be investigated with transparency, and the Nigerian Senate must be held accountable for its systemic oppression of women in governance. Until then, this remains a glaring example of how power protects itself at the expense of truth, justice, and democracy.

[OPINION] Saving the Senate - Dakuku Peterside

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The Nigerian Senate, a crucial pillar of democracy, stands at a crossroads. Once a revered institution, the Senate finds itself at the centre of a crisis threatening its legitimacy and reputation. The ongoing crisis culminating in the suspension of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan is not just about her or Senate President Godswill Akpabio—it is about the integrity of the Senate itself. The Senate, which should serve as a beacon of democracy and a voice for the people, is increasingly being perceived as a self-serving institution that adds no value to the life of the average Nigerian. The arc of public opinion on the Senate has reached an all-time low. No matter the divide on this matter, the common ground is that Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan’s saga is a dent on the reputation and stature of the Nigerian Senate.

The consequences of this growing distrust are dire. A democracy without a credible legislature is a failing one. If this trend continues, the Senate will lose not only its authority but also its aura, clout, respect, and relevance in the Nigerian democratic system. This could lead to a vacuum in the governance structure, potentially paving the way for a constitutional crisis. It is imperative that lawmakers recognise the damage a reputational crisis could do and take immediate steps to restore the sanctity of this institution.

As a former legislator, I understand the role of a presiding officer in allocating and reassigning seats based on legislative tradition. On this count, Senator Natasha Akpoti overreached herself and may have lessons in composure and understanding rules. On the issue of her suspension for six months, the Akpabio-led Senate danced to the wrong tune and ended up losing the deal. I concede to the Senate its right to use its duly constituted committees to ensure discipline. However, Natasha’s rights of fair hearing must be balanced against the entitlement of the Senate to order and discipline. There are many things wrong with both the suspension and the Senate’s approach to the issues that leave that institution vulnerable, and I will highlight a few.

Due to legislative breaks, weekends, and recesses, she could be out of the chamber for almost a year, although suspended for 6 months, leaving the people of Kogi Central without representation. This not only undermines the democratic rights of the people but also hampers their ability to address local issues and concerns. According to the National Assembly website, each senator represents an average of 1.5 to 2 million Nigerians. This means that millions of citizens effectively have no representation. Another issue that the manner of her suspension has thrown up is the Senate’s increasing tendency to suppress dissent and operate without transparency. The Senate is both a public and a democratic institution.

However, the way the Senate has handled the issue of sexual harassment allegations against its president raises serious concerns. Such allegations must be taken seriously and appropriately investigated, yet the Senate appears more focused on silencing the accuser than addressing the claims. A 2021 report by the National Bureau of Statistics indicates that 30% of Nigerian women have experienced sexual harassment in workplaces and institutions. Ignoring such an accusation at the highest level of governance sets a dangerous precedent.

It is true that Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan had previously benefitted from Senate President Akpabio’s liberal disposition when she was appointed Chair of the Senate Committee on Local Content. Yet, the way the sexual harassment allegations have been handled suggests an institution that does not take its moral standing and reputation seriously. The institution’s approach to this issue shows a troubling disregard for fairness and transparency.

Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan was suspended without a fair hearing. She did not appear before the ethics committee because of subsisting court order. This matter was already in court. The Senate should have respected the judicial process instead of preempting its outcome. Acknowledged, the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act 2018 outlaws the courts interfering in internal legislative processes; the Senate ought to approach the court and do the right thing. Whereas some argue that legislative matters are beyond judicial interference, precedent shows otherwise.

The Supreme Court had previously halted legislative processes during a constitutional amendment, proving that the judiciary has a role in ensuring constitutional compliance. Past rulings have shown that the courts can intervene in legislative matters, yet the Senate proceeded without regard for judicial authority. According to a 2018 report by the Centre for Democracy and Development, Nigeria has a history of executive, legislative, and judicial overreach and rascality that has significantly weakened public trust in governance.

This saga takes us back to the constitutional question, does any legislative house under our current constitution has the power to suspend an elected member for any duration without going against the spirit and letter of our constitution. It is evident that the Senate lacks the constitutional authority to suspend a senator for six months. As previous court rulings have reaffirmed, the Senate’s internal rules cannot override constitutional provisions.

In 2017, the Federal High Court ruled that the suspension of Senator Ali Ndume for 90 days was unconstitutional. The court ordered his reinstatement and the payment of all outstanding salaries. In 2018, the Federal High Court also nullified the suspension of Senator Omo-Agege, ruling that the Senate could not suspend a member beyond 14 days. These precedents show that the Senate’s decision to suspend Akpoti-Uduaghan for six months is unconstitutional and will likely be overturned if challenged in court.

It is unacceptable that Senate President Akpabio, who is accused of sexual harassment, presided over the suspension of his accuser. This is a fundamental violation of legal ethics—no one should be a judge in their own case. Senator Akpabio should have recused himself to ensure fairness. There is a precedent in this regard: Senator Bukola Saraki, during the 8th Senate, was accused of nonpayment of customs duty on a bulletproof official car he imported. SP Bukola Saraki stepped aside and allowed his deputy to preside over his investigation. Senator Akpabio was in the Senate at the time and should have taken a cue.

The Senate, in this instance, has demonstrated an alarming lack of openness. The Ethics and Privileges Committee should have conducted its proceedings publicly to maintain credibility. Instead, the Senate moved forward with a suspension that appears politically motivated and legally unsound.

The Senate’s refusal to properly investigate the allegations against its president sends a dangerous message: that sexual harassment claims can be dismissed with political manoeuvring. This is a grave injustice that damages the Senate’s reputation. One wonders how the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petitions suddenly becomes so efficient and fast in dispensing punishment to Senator Natasha in this case when it usually is sluggish in dealing with the many petitions and cases before it. This smack of a hatchet job and it does not help the public standing of the Senate.

It is unfortunate that the Senate has conducted its affairs opaquely for a matter that has come to the public’s attention. The Senate’s lack of transparency in this matter is a clear indication of the need for openness and honesty in governance. For the Senate to ignore and sweep under the carpet the issue of sexual harassment is a disservice to the President of the Senate and the institution.

Mr. Senate president can show he has power by suspending Senator Natasha, but it is not a cure for such a serious allegation. The best the Senate can do is to conduct a proper investigation on the issue and come out with a clean bill of health. The Senate must understand that the Nigerian public wants transparency and full disclosure of all the problems. It is not a private matter. Sexual harassment is a serious accusation and cannot be dismissed as trivial as the Senate did. It’s a dark spot on the reputation of the Senate. It is also not acceptable in a democracy.

The suspension of a senator without due process creates a dangerous precedent. If allowed to stand, this decision could pave the way for further suppression of dissenting voices, weakening democracy in Nigeria. The Nigerian Senate is already struggling with negative public perception. This incident further erodes confidence in its ability to act as a “check and balance” on the other arms of government.

The Senate must acknowledge its overreach on the Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan matter. The Nigerian public demands accountability. It is common sense to recognise that the Senate is at risk of permanent reputational damage. A Senate with sullied reputation does no one or the country any good. If it continues to prioritise power plays over democratic principles, it will lose whatever legitimacy and respect it still holds and enjoys. To save itself, the Senate must return to the principles of integrity, fairness, openess and constitutional adherence. The Nigerian people deserve a legislative body that upholds justice, fairness, and transparency, not one that operates in secrecy and impunity. The future of Nigerian democracy depends on it.

[OPINION] Bloody civilians, Nigeria military, impunity and immunity - Owei Lakemfa

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A major political milestone, the June 12, 1993 presidential election which has led to ‘Democracy Day’ in Nigeria, might not have occurred. That is if five years earlier some personnel of the Nigeria Air Force Base in Lagos had succeeded in murdering the eventual winner of that election, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola.

Abiola, then regarded as the richest man in the country, was extremely powerful with personal friends like then head of the military junta, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida. But despite these and his immense international status, Abiola in the eyes of the military was no more than a ‘ bloody civilian’ as some soldiers derogatorily refer to non-military personnel.

His near-death encounter was on Monday, January 25, 1988, right inside his palatial home. That day some soldiers had gone on rampage in Lagos over a traffic accident. In the ensuring commotion, Ayodeji Abiola, Chief Abiola’s second son, had a minor traffic accident with a vehicle driven by Air Force Corporal M. Danjuma. Apparently, this issue was not properly resolved before Abiola’s son left the scene.

The Air Force personnel trailed the latter to his father’s house, and armed reinforcements were brought who opened fire. One of the bullets narrowly missed Chief Abiola. The business mogul took the matter up with the military authorities.

Air Vice Marshall Nura Imam who was the Air Officer Commanding, Logistics Command, Ikeja and a member of the then Armed Forces Ruling Council, waved off the incident as a non-issue. The media reported him as saying that Abiola should know that the Air Force personnel were “mad dogs”.

On Thursday, March 6, 2025, that is 37 years after the Abiola incidence, gallant officers and men from the same barracks, now named Sam Ethnan Barracks, were on similar operational duties in Lagos.

The enemies identified were not terrorists, bandits, kidnappers or even criminals. The targets were the management and staff of the Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company. The two enemy locations were the company’s corporate headquarters in Ikeja and its Oshodi Business Unit Office.

The NAF assault team allegedly led by a woman, was conveyed in a military truck, two OP-MESA vehicles, and other vehicles.

They condoned off the roads leading to the headquarters, scaled the fence and, commenced their operation which lasted one and a half hours. One of the staff, Michael Sani, was approaching the gate when he noticed something was amiss. He ran into the police station nearby; the NAF commandos entered the station, seized and brought him into the premises.

The first group the military contingent encountered were journalists in a bus parked in the premises who were scheduled to attend a solar unveiling project in Adiyan, Ogun State. This fortuitous presence of journalists obliged the public first-hand accounts of the military operation.

Some of the journalists were swiftly captured and their ‘dangerous weapons’ such as mobile phones, tripod, memory card and power bank, were confiscated . These prisoners of war, POWs, were told they were liable to being shot if they uttered a word.

It did not matter if these were journalists on routine duty or whether some of the victims were just customers of the company. As Babangida wrote in his journey in self-service memoirs: “In the military mind-set, there are only two types of people: enemies or friends. Our political opponents were, therefore, primarily ‘enemy forces’ before they were fellow Nigerians.” To the Air Force fighters, they were on enemy territory; so, all souls found therein were enemies and had to be treated as such.

It is not for nothing that when the Nigerian military enters a town, whether it is Odi, Zaki-Biam, Ugep or Okuoma, living things in them are regarded as enemies and, therefore, legitimate targets.

In the Lagos operation, the air men destroyed property, including CCTV cameras, computers and electricity equipment.

The staff and civilians captured, who included women, said they were so badly beaten with plastic rods that they could not even stand up. Some were repeatedly trampled upon with military boots as they laid unarmed on the ground. The captured electricity staff were taken to the NAF military base in Oshodi where they were tortured in the open field under the hot sun.

The NAF team apparently had no respect for the Geneva Convention on the rights and protection of POWs from physical and mental torture. The NAF troops also ‘liberated’ the money in the pockets of their adversaries and made a cache of mobile phones which might have been ‘privatised’.

The cause of this conflict was the disconnection of the barracks from power supply for allegedly being indebted to the tune of N4.3 billion. The barracks gave the electricity company 48 hours within which to restore power which the latter failed to do.

Rather than resort to legal or constitutional means, the NAF commanders took matters into their hands leading to the invasion. It is clear that despite 25 years of civil rule, many in the military still have the mentality that they are superior to civil laws and cannot live by constitutional precepts.

It will be easy to bring the Lagos invaders to book because there are video footages. In any case, since the military is said to be a disciplined force, someone must have given the orders to turn the troops out.

If this government is serious about the rule of law and social justice, it can order the immediate detention, investigation and subsequent trial of those who took part in the lawlessness and criminality.

Also, were we in a disciplined, accountable or civilized country where the rule of law rather than impunity reigns, the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshall Hassan Bala Abubakar, would have apologised to the country and tendered his resignation.

In the absence of the above, groups and individuals can take up the matter. For instance, the brutalised journalists, the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, and the Nigerian Guild of Editors, NGE, can ensure justice is done. The brutalised electricity staff, their trade unions can equally take up the case. The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trade Union Congress, TUC, can also back up the NUJ and unions for action that would force the hands of government and ensure that the bullies and torturers from the barracks are brought to justice.

The electricity company itself needs to recover its losses by making the Sam Ethnan Barracks pay for damages. I am sure if it picks up the courage to do so, there will be many lawyers willing to offer their services.

We cannot hope to build a nation where peace and justice reign if we do not have the courage to rein in people imbued with a sense of entitlement and immunity from criminal liability.

[OPINION] Echono’s three-year blitzkrieg in TETFund - Tunde Olusunle

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One very well reasoned appointment into a very critical government department in recent years, is bound to be the “conscription” of Sonny Togo Echono to the leadership of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, (TETFUND). The last five years of his most eventful public service career were spent as Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Education. On a daily basis, he engaged with Vice Chancellors, Rectors and Provosts of Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education, owned by the federal government. Added together, we are speaking here of well over 100 such institutions, with the federal government hosting this tripod of institutions, universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, in most of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, (FCT). Echono’s office distilled the needs of these citadels of knowledge and activated the bureaucracy of the ministry to tend to their operational requirements.

Following his retirement from service early 2022, Echono momentarily reclined into his couch to savour desired rest and rejuvenation after a racy and most eventful career. Before his last port of call in the Federal Ministry of Education, Echono’s career which began as an architect with the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing in 1987, had taken him through several key Ministries, Departments and Agencies, (MDAs), availing him multisectoral experiential rootedness across the public service. He had served variously in the Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit, (BMPIU), and the ministries of Defence; Water Resources; Environment; Agriculture and Power. He had therefore planned to shuttle between his address in Nigeria’s capital city and his countryside abode in the Idoma heartland in Benue State, which he cherishes dearly.

Duty, however, beckoned within weeks of his retirement. Echono, seasoned architect, experienced public servant, consummate patriot, was appointed Executive Secretary of TETFUND. He formally assumed office on March 18, 2022. The scheme was established by the federal government in 2011, with the primary responsibility of disbursing, managing and monitoring the deployment of education tax remitted to government-owned tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Public tertiary institutions were hitherto poorly funded. This situation, expectedly, had very negative impact on knowledge dissemination, periodically engendering unrest in the institutions. TETFUND is supervised by the Federal Ministry of Education, Echono’s last official post. This naturally has ensured smooth and seamless collaboration between the parent ministry and its parastatal, since the onset of the Echono dispensation.

Three years into his five-year stewardship, Echono continues to chalk up milestones for the organisation. It was not going to be “business as usual” under his watch so he began with desirable “housekeeping” by addressing the work ethic in TETFUND. Previously perceived as a “cash cow,” entrenched interests had constituted themselves into a cabal which determined the award of contracts to predetermined interests. There were also murmurs and talks about stealing and underhand dealings which cast the organisation in bad light in the public sphere. Steeped and stewed in the ethos of due process and public procurement, Echono moved speedily to bring his imprimatur to bear on the workings of the organisation. He has since striven, gradually and unobtrusively, to straighten the administration of TETFUND and realign its operations with its core mandate.

Such revolutionary novelties in an organisation previously steeped and stuck in its ways were not going to make new friends for Echono. Fifth columnists in the system and their external collaborators, periodically engineered phoney petitions to anti-graft agencies, notably the Independent Corrupt Practices and Related Offences Commission, (ICPC). They equally generated submissions to the nation’s parliament contending in one particular instance, that an accumulated allocation of over N2 Trillion to TETFUND over the years, could not be accounted for! The ever calm Echono has always responded to such claims and invitations to clarify the issues with impeccable documents and records. These have serially deflated the schemes and mischief of faceless rabble rousers.

Sonny Echono’s regime has brought a fresh air of activism into the endeavours of TETFUND. The federal government has also continued to reaffirm its faith in the establishment via regular upward reviews of its budgetary allocations. TETFUND continues to renew, or open fresh, possibilities for collaboration between it and a plethora of organisations. Callers at the Abuja headquarters of the organisation over time, have included the Senate and House Committees on Tertiary Institutions. Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State and his Cross River State counterpart, Bassey Otu, have also visited TETFUND seeking partnership. Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff, (CDS), General Christopher Gwabin Musa has also been a guest of Echono’s TETFUND. Musa exercises oversight over the Nigerian army, navy and airforce. Over the years, the military has continued to reinvent its training institutions many of which are degree awarding citadels today. Musa believes there are areas of potential cooperation between the military and TETFUND, and has begun a conversation around this. The Federal Road Safety Corps, (FRSC), recently followed the precedence of the military, when its Corps Marshal, Shehu Mohammed, led a team to TETFUND. The FRSC canvassed support for its training institutions to enhance the capacity and professionalism of road safety personnel across the country.

Simultaneously, Echono is regularly on the road with his own officials, knocking on doors of MDAs whose partnership can strengthen the enterprise of TETFUND. Among several others, he has in recent months, led delegations to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC), and the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, (NEITI). Echono is equally a much sought-after speaker these days at university convocation lectures and similar public engagements. These have availed him the platform to address burning issues in Nigeria’s all-important educational sector. Echono’s Convocation Lecture at the Federal University of Technology, (FUTO), Owerri, Imo State, last December, was titled *Impact of Leadership Selection on Governance in Public Universities in Nigeria.* At a similar event at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, (OOU), Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State last January, Echono spoke on *TETFUND and Educational Development in Nigeria: The History, the Treasures and the Future.*

Echono addressed the subject *University Autonomy and the Challenge of Quality Tertiary Education in Nigeria,* at the Convocation ceremony of the Federal University Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti State, in February. He has deployed these speaking opportunities to address issues of inadequate funding in tertiary institutions, and to restate the imperative of the payment of tuition fees in public universities. This, he has regularly maintained is crucial to support that critical level of the educational hierarchy. Echono has canvassed synergy between institutions in the areas of research, innovation, alumni obligations and student exchange to broaden the worldview of young scholars. He has equally admonished on the inescapability of full autonomy in public universities, if educational standards must improve and be sustained. The acquisition of quality literacy never comes cheap, he has consistently maintained.

Elsewhere, Echono has decried the penchant of many Nigerians who were sponsored abroad on public resources, but refusing to return home to contribute to national development. Many such nationals opt to stay back in foreign lands, against the spirit of their scholarships. Echono regards this as a dimension of the pervading *japa* syndrome, the abscondment abroad of Nigerians fleeing excruciating socioeconomic conditions at home. Last November, TETFUND under Echono stopped government funding for intending foreign students. This should mitigate the double-sided loss of the country’s fiscal and human resources, respectively. At an August 2024 *Conference on Digital Pedagogy and Fundable Research Writing,* Echono criticised the arbitrary upgrading of Colleges of Education into Universities of Education, by governments at various levels. His contention is that the country remains in short supply of teachers and instructors at the foundational level of education.

Sonny Echono has also criticised the continuing politicisation and corruption inherent in the appointment of Vice Chancellors in Nigerian universities. In one of his public presentations, he abhorred political interference and financial inducement in leadership selection processes in our universities. These factors he observed are combining to erode the sanctity of the hallowed university system. Echono expressed worry about the fact that competition for appointment into principal offices in universities has become a lucrative venture which has made members of governing councils prone to fiscal inducement. Echono has received several awards through the years including that of the national honour of *Officer of the Order of the Niger, (OON).* He has demonstrably distinguished himself beyond the the half line of his present assignment. He can be trusted and should be continually supported to consolidate on his legacies in the years to come.

Olusunle, PhD, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (FANA), is an Adjunct Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Abuja

[OPINION] Reward for Betrayal - Gabriel Agbo

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Treachery This is being false or disloyal to a friend or to a cause. It is also being deceptive; not to be relied upon. Treacherous actions always attract curses upon the person(s) involved and on their next generations. Unless the cause betrayed is ungodly itself.

And this is why we must always be very careful of the way we live. The word of God says that whatever a man sows, that he must also reap. You cannot act treacherously without reaping the punishment. If the reaping does not come immediately, still know that it will surface later.

There are people that just enjoy being deceptive or selling out. They can never be true to a friend, to an associate or to a cause to the end. They love to betray anything and everything. They are slippery. They will pretend to be loyal only to go behind and betray the cause.

They will dine with you, study your weaknesses and strengths, and then effortlessly, hand you over to your enemies. Look at Judas Iscariot. He was an official of Jesus’ ministry. He ate with him, prayed with him and in fact, was the treasurer of the ministry. But he chose to betray his master for money. Even when Jesus predicted his betrayal, Judas also like the other apostles, asked, “Master (teacher). Am I the one, am I?”

But after all this, he still went ahead and did what he had decided to do. A treacherous person is always heartless, conscienceless, dangerous and godless. They are always the most dangerous people to deal with; because you can never know what is in their mind, unless the Spirit of God reveals it to you.

But Jesus also has a word for the betrayer (treacherous person). He said that cursed is the man that will betray him. That it would be better for the person if he had not been born. And you saw how Judas the betrayer ended. He hanged himself; even without enjoying the ‘gain’ of his treachery. There is always a curse on deceptive, false, treacherous people. And it often goes generational.

Let’s further look at the generational consequences of this sin by Judas. Peter while addressing about 120 believers after the ascension of the LORD said that, the home of Judas will be desolate, with no one living in it and that his position will be taken by someone else.

Read it, “Brothers, it was necessary for the Scriptures to be fulfilled concerning Judas, who guided the Temple police to arrest Jesus. This was predicted long ago by the Holy Spirit, Speaking through King David. Judas was one of us, chosen to share in the ministry with us.

“(Judas bought a field with the money he received for his treachery, and falling there, he burst open, spilling out his intestines. The news of his death spread rapidly among all the people of Jerusalem, and they gave the place the Aramaic name Akeldama, which means ‘Field of Blood’).

“Peter continued, ‘This was predicted in the book of Psalms, where it says, ‘Let his home become desolate, with no one living in it.’ And again, ‘Let his position be given to someone else”Acts 1:16-20

This was terrible! Now, can you see the generational dimension? The consequences of the sin will not only be on the culprit – Judas, but also on his home. Home means family, house, quarters, residence, a dwelling place. And it can also be a place of birth, home town, native land, etc.

The bible said that his home will become desolate (uninhabited, deserted, barren, austere, forbidding, miserable, unhappy, depressed, wretched, and dejected). God! Just for the sin of betrayal by one indiscreet man? Are you a betrayer??

Let’s also see few more examples from the bible: Ham/Canaanites After the flood, one day Noah was lying in his tent naked and drunk. His youngest son - Ham saw his father in that mood and instead of covering him or even minding his own business, he derided his own father, went outside and told his brothers.

Now, his wiser brothers Shem and Japheth immediately, covering their eyes, went and covered their father’s nakedness. When Noah woke up from his drunkenness, he learnt what Ham had done and promptly cursed him and his descendants,

“When Noah woke up from his drunken stupor, he learned what Ham, his youngest son, had done. Then he cursed the descendants of Canaan, the son of Ham: ‘A curse on the Canaanites! May they be the lowest of servants to the descendants of Shem and Japheth.”

Genesis 9:24-25. Noah expected his youngest son Ham to have given him that respect and honour as a father or even as an elder, and at least cover his nakedness, but he didn’t do that. Instead he made a mockery of the whole thing.

His father felt betrayed and as a result released this generational curse upon Ham and his next generations. Ham was disloyal and unconsciously sealed the destinies of his children and subsequent generations. Why would one mock or celebrate the nakedness (weakness) of his/her own parents?

Parental curses are very strong and always go generational. So many people are today suffering from parental generational curses.

Truly, it is one of the most effective I have ever seen. It is like whatever you do to your parents must come back to you. Your children will do the same to you.

I have always heard people say that their children are doing exactly what they themselves did to their own parents. It’s like a ‘standing curse’. Even the bible further said that for you to live long and for it to be well with you, you must treat your parents well.

Yes, very well. We must respectfully, with love and gratitude, treat our parents and elders very well. (Even if you think they are bad people). So many blessings come through this. Their blessings as well as curses are very sure and generational. What is your current relationship with your parents?

Your mentors, helpers, relations, spiritual parents? Are you treating them well? If not, go look for them. Take care of them now! We will continue next week.

God bless you!

[OPINION] Lagos and the slide to anarchy - Dele Sobowale

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“In every community, there is a class of people profoundly dangerous to the rest. I don’t mean the criminals. For them we have punitive sanctions. I mean the leaders. Invariably, the most dangerous people seek power” – Saul Bellow, 1915-2005.

The chaos experienced in Lagos State government goes beyond the ordinary political disturbance nations occasionally experience. It is tending towards the sort of anarchy which threatens democratic governments. At the risk of being called parochial, it needs to be stated that Lagos is unlike any other state in the federation. It is the second most important unit in Nigeria – after the Federal Government.

The state accounts for nearly half of the nation’s commercial activities; it is home to the headquarters of most banks and other financial institutions and the largest single refinery globally. The head offices of five of the nation’s leading newspapers are here. No national strike can be successful without Lagos participating. Right now, Lagos is undergoing what can only be described as a political spasm which could become violent – if not properly handled by the All Progressives Congress, APC.

It is difficult to pin-point the exact cause of the current crisis which has turned the state House of Assembly, SHA, into a battle ground in which the police and the Department of State Security, DSS, now determine who has access to the hallowed chambers of the legislative house. Hitherto, well respected elders of the party in the state, the Governor’s Advisory Council, GAC, which until now spoke with one voice, are also divided on the main issue of whether Mr Obasa has been constitutionally removed as Speaker and Mrs Meranda has emerged as his replacement.

The roles of the police and DSS are also confusing. It is difficult to understand on whose instructions they operate and who they regard as the Speaker to protect against the other. The last drama before the writing of this column occurred on Thursday, February 27, 2025, when Obasa was escorted into the SHA with only four members of the Assembly to hold a session while 36 members were locked out. The self-proclaimed Centre of Excellence has now become the Centre of Confusion politically.

Even the reported intervention of former Governor Bisi Akande of Osun and his Ogun counterpart, Segun Osoba, proved abortive. The party’s elders would have been better off staying at home. Battle lines have been drawn and neither side is prepared to concede an inch. That is understandable. Irrespective of who eventually emerges as the ultimate Speaker, the war between the two camps has just started. That is the most frightening aspect of this conflict.

Just as concerning is the realisation that the state and National Leader of the APC, President Tinubu, is being cited by both sides as their supporter, his attempt to declare “no winner no loser” through Akande and Osoba had met a brick wall on both sides. Neither Obasa nor Meranda wants to step down to allow a third candidate to emerge as Speaker. The case is in court and might drag on for a long time while the wounds of hostility fester.

Elsewhere, the Governor of the state is the recognised leader of the party in the state. That unfortunately has not been the case with Lagos State. Tinubu has kept control of the party machinery – all the way down to the ward level. As inconvenient as that might be for Lagos State Governor, it ensured unified command – with little room for disagreement or discord. But, that level of involvement was only possible when he was not President. Given the challenges of the presidency, with an angry North trying to unseat him in 2027, it has become absolutely impossible to maintain the grip on Lagos.

Political power abhors a vacuum; and with the Governor not fully in control, the current power tussle was an accident waiting to happen. The most important question now is: how does the party resolve the conflict without creating lasting enmity within the ranks as the nation moves towards the mid-term of the Tinubu administration and politics moves to the centre stage once again? It is not easy for a non-politician to advise professionals in the business about how to go about solving their self-created problems. One thing however appears obvious to an onlooker; and that might be the starting point.

“Who will guard the guards themselves?” asked Juvenal, born 55 AD, a Roman satirist. Nigerians in general and Lagosians in particular should now be asking: “Who will rule the rulers themselves?” As at the time of writing this article, Lagos State House of Assembly is ‘controlled’ by security forces – not those elected to rule. The police and DSS are there because the rulers have demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that they are incapable of ruling. Has ruler-ship now been transferred to security forces in Lagos? The crisis is certainly an embarrassment to President Tinubu.

This impasse is taking place in his state and those demonstrating their unfitness for ruling are people he personally approved to be elected to office. Right now, like a magician who has suddenly run out of tricks, he is obviously bewildered – wondering why the old magic wand no longer works. I think there might be a reason. Most of the old hands he had used to control the state have stayed on for too long. The culture of family dynasties, children of old politicians and their in-laws being slated for all the available political offices – Senate, House of Representatives, state House of Assembly, cabinet positions, etc – is now breeding pervasive resentment.

Those known to be non-partisan are privy to the steady increase in attacks against members of the Governor’s Advisory Council and Tinubu himself. The most frequently asked question is: “Are they the only people in Lagos?” The question invariably is followed by a catalogue of all the public positions held by the oligarchy. Certainly, there is a need for more inclusion in sharing the dividends of the party’s success. The President has a big mess on his hands as we head for the mid-term. Irrespective of what he does, the party in Lagos will never be the same again; and there is a chance the APC might repeat the mistake of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, which handed the governorship of Lagos to the National Republican Congress, NRC, and Chief Otedola in the 1990s…

Afenifere and PANDEF in search of new leaders

“Advice is seldom welcome; and those who need it most, always want it the least” – Earl of Chesterfield, 1694-1773.

The sudden death of the two titans of Afenifere and PANDEF, Chief Ayo Adebanjo and Edwin Clark, respectively, left two big holes that would be very difficult to fill. To some extent, Afenifere has the bigger challenge. The Adebanjo faction of the Pan-Yoruba organisation has quickly selected Oba Olaitan as the Acting Chairman obviously in a bid to ensure a seamless transfer of authority. The fact remains that Afenifere speaks with two voices – the Fasoranti group and the Adebanjo group. Because Adebanjo, as Vice Chairman, was the voice of the organisation, before the split with the Fasoranti group, it had been easy for the media and other associations to treat the late Chief as the voice of Afenifere. The same privilege might not be extended to Oba Olaitan.

Attah should lead PANDEF

“All great leaders have one characteristic in common; it is the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxieties of their people” -Professor John Kenneth Galbraith, 1908-2006, The Age of Uncertainty.

PANDEF is more fortunate. Last week, in my article titled PA ADEBANJO AND CLARK JUST RAISED THE BAR ON RETIREMENT, the point was made that at its inception, PANDEF had appointed the late Chief Edwin Clark and Obong Victor Attah as co-Chairmen. On account of old age, Attah stepped down for Clark. Now, there is a vacancy in PANDEF. Even the most casual observer of the Nigerian political environment must concede that the person who fits most into the shoes left by Adebanjo and Clark is Attah.

He lives on the same street in Asokoro with the late Edwin Clark and he and Adebanjo were so close the late Afenifere leader had been present at all the important functions involving Attah in Uyo. I know, because I was there each time. Attah had returned the favour and frequently visited Adebanjo whenever in Lagos. Ideologically, Attah is in total support of all the positions held by the two leaders. As we have often noted, leadership has two important dimensions: Character and competence. Since 1999, two sons of the Niger Delta have held top positions at the federal level – President and Senate President.

None of them have had “the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxieties of their people”. When Attah was fighting for Resource Control, Jonathan and Akpabio kept quiet. Jonathan started a constitution reform programme and petroleum industry bill without finishing any one. Akpabio had been Senate President for almost two years; and nothing has been heard about restructuring; and there will never be if he remains Senate President for 50 years. I honestly wish Attah is a Yoruba; because he would have been the logical successor to Adebanjo. PANDEF owes the nation a duty to appoint Attah as Chairman if they want the struggle to continue in safe hands.

[OPINION] Senate shouldn’t have suspended Natasha Uduaghan - Tonnie Iredia

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The Nigerian Senate last Thursday suspended Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan (Kogi Central) for six months for what it called her total violation of the Senate Standing Rules which allegedly brought the presiding officer and the entire Nigerian Senate to public opprobrium.

The suspension was announced by Senate President Godswill Akpabio following the approval of the recommendation of the Ethics and Privileges Committee to penalize Natasha for the said infraction. Public responses to the development have been varied. Whereas the majority of senators supported the suspension, some analysts believe the approach of the senate did not project its members as true democrats.

The senate relied heavily on the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act of 2018 which among other things regulates the conduct of members and other persons connected with the proceedings of the Legislative House. Of particular importance is Section 21(2) of the Act which provides that ‘where any member is guilty of contempt of a Legislative House, the House, may by resolution, reprimand such member or suspend him from the service of the House for such period as it may determine.’Although this law may on its face valuelook harmless to the House, there is doubt if the attempt by our legislators to cover themselves with a cloak of tyranny can stand the test of time.

A body such as the senate which does not have the power to make a senator, cannot give itself the power to unmake any senator. There are only two authorities that our constitution empowers to remove a legislator from office. These are: an election tribunal and the people that elected the legislator to represent them in the legislature. If an authority has no legal powers to remove a person from office, such an authority cannot validly exercise the illegal power by making the removal a short-term matter. Removal by one day in the name of suspension is a removal, it is irrelevant that the length of time of the removal is long or short; because as the saying goes, no person, group or authority can give what it does not have.

The senate or any group or organization is no doubt entitled to making its own rules for the smooth running of the body. It is therefore in order for the senate to make rules to penalize its members for any infraction, but such punishment must be within its powers. If the senate is satisfied that Senator Natasha Uduaghan breached any of its rules, it can remove her from a chairmanship position of a committee or any other privileges hitherto bestowed on her by the senate. It can however not extend the punishment beyond its own power. This point has been repeatedly made and one wonders why our Legislative Houses have continued with the illegality of purporting to have the power to suspend one of its own.

If they really don’t know, the courts have since severally said so. First, Femi Okurounmu, (Ogun Central) was suspended in 1999. This was followed by Joseph Waku, a senator from Benue State who was suspended in 2000. Senator Arthur Nzeribe from Imo state was suspended in 2002. Senator Ali Ndume, a former Senate leader was suspended in 2017. Next was Senator Ovie Omo Agege form Delta state who was suspended in 2018. There was also the recent case of Senator Abdul Ningi from Bauchi state who was suspended in 2024. Interestingly, the Judiciary quashed all the suspensions declaring them as illegal and unconstitutional. The case of Senator Omo Agege probably stood out because of the initial insistence of the court that the other party – the senate must also be heard. At the end it was also quashed.

The House of Representatives has also had its own string of illegal suspensions that have similarly been quashed by the Judiciary. One would have thought that the National Assembly should have by now realized that it has no powers to suspend its legislators. But that has not been so. Instead, there have been reports of how some State Houses of Assembly have also followed the same line as their federal colleagues. Luckily for our democracy, it was one of the suspensions from one state that gave the judiciary the room to throw ample light on the subject of Legislative Housesand their powers to suspend their members. The celebrated case involved one Rifkatu Samson Dannaswho was suspended in 2012 by the Bauchi State House of Assembly.

The offence of Dannas, the then only female and Christian member of the House was her objection to the proposed relocation of Tafawa Balewa Local Government headquarters from Tafawa Balewa to Bununu- a location heavily populated by Muslims. She was suspended without listening to the voice of reason that the headquarters of local governments listed in the constitution cannot be changed without constitutional amendment. She went to court to challenge her suspension which the court declared as illegal and unconstitutional.The House appealed but the Court of Appeal also ruled in Danna’s favour just as the Supreme Court declined to order a stay of execution of the Appeal Court judgment that reinstated Danna. Aptly put therefore, the state of the law in Nigeria today is that it is illegal for a legislative House to suspend any member.

Beyond the law, it is also a notorious fact that a legislator is not an employee of a Legislative Chamber. Leaders of the latter need to therefore appreciate that they cannot hire and fire their members. It is true that section 21(2) of the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act of 2018 earlier referred to empowers anyLegislative House to penalize members who breach any rules of the House. It is equally true that the Act was signed into law in 2018 making it appear to be a valid law but any aspect of the law which is at variance with the constitution is without doubt illegal. Thus, Legislative Houses ought to listen to the persuasive argument that it is unfair to penalize a constituency in the guise of sanctioning an offending legislator.

Section 39(1) of the Nigerian constitution grants every person freedom of expression, including the freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference. To underscore the importance of this freedom, Section 39(2) explicitly empowers citizens to “own, establish and operate any medium for the dissemination of information, ideas and opinions.” For as long as any such opinion is not defamatory, no one including a legislator can be deprived of his freedom of expression. Accordingly, the senate cannot penalize Uduaghan for expressing an opinion.At the same time, internal rules of the senate cannot take precedence over the nation’s constitution.

Again, the posture that the legislature cannot be stopped from doing its job appears misconstrued because legislative functions are in the words of our constitution subject to judicial review. Perhaps it is important to restate the relevant provision of Section 4(8) of our constitution which states clearly that, “the exercise of legislative powers by the National Assembly or by a House of Assembly shall be subject to the jurisdiction of courts of law and of judicial tribunals established by law, and accordingly, the National Assembly or a House of Assembly shall not enact any law, that ousts or purports to oust the jurisdiction of a court of law or of a judicial tribunal established by law.”

For this reason, the courts have continued to insist that “access to court is a fundamental right in the Constitution, which cannot be taken away by force or intimidation from any organ.” We know Uduaghan is already in court and that the details of the case are still sketchy. But,whether or not the senate has correctly handled the subject would become clearer shortly. To start with, it is unimaginable as one lawyer suggested the other day that although Order 67(4) of its own rules limits the suspension of a member of the upper chamber to a maximum of 14 days, the senate went ahead to violate such rules by suspending Uduaghan not for 14 days but for 6 months.

From the points we have made in this article, we insist that the senate has no powers to suspend any member adding that the suspension of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan representing Kogi Central, for even 30minutes has no legal backing.In addition, we urge our legislators to refrain from the tendency to now and again give themselves powers that are at variance with our constitution. The current National Assembly in particular should seek to set a record of an institution which does not function outside the rule of law by serving as democrats who never seek to act in excess of the powers given to them.

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[OPINION] Now that Natasha has made Akpabio happy - Festus Adedayo

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Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan

In South Africa under the presidency of Jacob Zuma, any analysis of government and governance without factoring sex into the mix was tame and lame. Zuma was a notorious polygamist who had six official wives as president, many more by unofficial account and 22 children from the liaisons. He was a kingpin of lechery. On May 8, 2006, a South African court under Judge van der Merwe acquitted him of rape of Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo, an HIV-positive AIDS activist, who was the daughter of his friend, Judson Kuzwayo. During trial, Zuma pleaded that the sex was consensual but admitted that he had unprotected sex with the lady. He then stunned the world with his bizarre claim that he had “showered afterwards to cut the risk of contracting the infection”.

In the process of studying power relations in Nigeria, sex as a phenomenon is often understudied or underrated. In other words, while power relations are known to be shaped by a complex interplay of factors that range from the economic, political, social, to the cultural, including individual characteristics and relationship dynamics, hardly are gender and sex reckoned with.

In my piece of March 6, 2022 with the title, Buhari’s Serial Rape Of Nigeria’s Lady Justice, I doubled down on a sub-theme of the powerful role sex plays in national politics. To do justice to this, I recalled a September 7, 2008 cartoon sketched by Jonathan Shapiro, award-winning cartoonist with the Johannesburg-based Sunday Times whose cartoon identity was Zapiro. I illustrated the piece with a submission that though political cartooning may look harmless, it can be nerve-racking, provoking the bile of political officeholders and triggering a huge political umbrage in the process. This cartoon triggered a huge ball of fire in South Africa. Named ‘Rape of Lady Justice’, in it, Zuma, who was then leader of the African National Congress (ANC), and later to become president, was seen loosening his trousers’ zippers for a sexual romp. On his head was a shower cap. Before him, flung on the bare floor, was a blindfolded lady with a lapel inscribed, “Justice System” hung on her chest.

Four hefty and menacing-looking men knelt by the Lady Justice’s side, holding down the “wench”, whose skirt was half peeled off. They were political surrogates of Zuma in the ANC, which included Julius Malema, then leader of the ANC Youth League. The scale of justice had fallen down beside the Lady Justice, with one of the men smilingly beckoning on Zuma to clamber her, muttering, “Go for it, boss!”

That cartoon shot Zuma into a fit. Indeed, he immediately sued Zapiro for the sum of £700,000. Massive reactions followed it, ranging from the condemnatory to the laudatory. The ANC, SACP and ANC Youth League pilloried it as “hate speech,” “disgusting” and “bordering on defamation of character” and then petitioned the South African Human Rights Commission for redress.

I went into all these dogo turenchi, just as I did in another piece I wrote on February 6, 2022, to ask that we must not underrate the power of sex in high places. In that February piece, I borrowed a line from Irish poet and playwright, Oscar Wilde, who said, “everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power”. With it, I submitted that the Wilde theory should tell us that there is an intersection between gender, sexual power and political power. This was further escalated by renowned scholar, Prof Wale Adebanwi, in one of his journal articles, where he submitted that “the African man of power must display or exhibit his virility – particularly sexual virility.” In the same vein, Zimbabwean journalist and blogger, Fungai Machirori, urged us to study the sexual histories of our men in power because, from the rhythm of their silently dangling penises, we may find a compass to their politics.

Last Thursday, the ghost of the spat between Senate President Godswill Akpabio and senator representing Kogi West, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, seemed to have rested. In the relations of power in the senate, on that day, Akpabio, it will seem, had succeeded in showing Akpoti-Uduaghan that, as bland-looking as the old Nigerian pence looked, it was not a currency to be trifled with by the Kobo coin (Bí tọrọ ṣe yọ to, kíì s’ẹgbẹ Kọbọ). Not only was she suspended for six months for violating senate rules and bringing the senate “to public opprobrium”, her salary and security details were withdrawn while her office would be locked during the pendency of the suspension.

If you watched the senate proceedings leading to Akpoti-Uduaghan’s suspension, you would be sorry for Nigeria. Then, African-American Sterling Brown would come to your mind, just as you visualise Jonathan Shapiro’s cartoon in Akpabio figuratively loosening his trousers’ zippers for a forceful sexual romp with the Lady Justice. With same lens, you would see Majority Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, Adenigba Fadahunsi and other fawning senators holding down the “wench”, smilingly beckoning Akpabio to “Go for it, boss!”

Like Africans, African-Americans grew to know the wisdom which teaches that injustice is a furnace that burns and destroys. The life of Sterling Brown, professor at America’s Howard University, folklorist, poet and literary critic, was chiefly dedicated to studying black culture. In one of his poems entitled “Old Lem,” Brown wrote about mob violence and injustice which black people suffered in the hands of the American criminal justice system. American writer and civil rights activist, James Baldwin’s ‘The Fire Next Time’ also speaks to this theme. In the America of the time, black parents, aware of the danger of their blackness and the violence and death they could suffer, deployed folklore to cushion them, even as they told stories that depicted their skewed realities.

There was this famous folklore told to African-American children while growing up. Entitled “Old Sis Goose,” it goes thus, as I reproduce it verbatim: One day, “while swimming across a pond, Sis Goose got caught by Brer Fox. Sis gets pissed off because she believes that she has a perfect right to swim in the pond. She decides to sue Brer Fox. But when the case gets to court, Sis Goose looks around and sees that besides the Sheriff who is a fox, the judge is a fox, the prosecuting and defence attorneys are ones too and even the jury is comprised entirely of foxes. Sis Goose doesn’t like her chances. Sure enough at the end of the trial, Sis Goose is convicted and summarily executed. Soon, the jury, judge, Sheriff and the attorneys are picking on her bones.”

The morals of this old anecdote are two. One, as encapsulated in one of the lines of Apala musician, Ayinla Omowura’s track, is that, if you do not have a representative in a council where your matter will be decided, even if you are right, you would be adjudged guilty. The second moral is that, if the courthouse is filled with foxes and you are an ordinary, lonely goose, there will be no justice for you.

In the senate last week, Akpoti-Uduaghan was Sis Goose who looked around and saw that, beside the judge, Akpabio who is a fox, the prosecuting and defence attorneys were all foxes, too. Even the jury is comprised entirely of foxes. Though they appeared as unbiased umpire senators, they were flesh-starved foxes baying for blood of the hapless little Goose. And Sis Goose was summarily executed.

First, we must realise that, just like other Nigerian institutions, the power, glory, graft and corruption at the beck and call of Akpabio’s senate presidency is breathtakingly awesome and humongous. Don’t mind his suffocation of these agencies in his most times nauseating jokes, Akpabio has the power to literally turn anyone’s night into day. If you enter his senate as a pauper and find favour in his ego, you could upstage Mansa Musa, ninth Mansa of the Mali empire’s wealth. Owing to this largesse in his hands, as ants gravitate towards the pee of a diabetic, the senate president has the pleasure of a humongous number of solicited and unsolicited fawners and senatorial Oraisa (praise-singers) and hangers-on.

[OPINION] In Rivers state, a supreme iniquity? - Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

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The political control of the resources of the territory known as Rivers state in Nigeria’s Niger Delta has been a site of curious jurisprudence since the acting consul of the Oil Rivers Protectorate, Harry Johnston, procured the judicial liquidation of King Jaja of Opobo in December 1887 in Accra, present capital of Ghana. The charge against King Jaja was the violation of a treaty obligation to assist the British “in the execution of such duties as may be assigned.” At the end of proceedings which lasted less than one day before a forum described by Elvar Ingimundarsson as a “Kangaroo court”, King Jaja was convicted and sentenced to exile. The court also prohibited the people of Opobo from designating a replacement for him.

At the end of February 2025, Nigeria’s supreme court continued a tradition of afflicting the people of the territory of Rivers with curious jurisprudence. Separated by 137 years, the decision of the supreme court in the latest of the legal disputes from the political rift between incumbent governor, Siminalayi Fubara, and his predecessor, Nyesom Wike, reprises essential parallels with the trial and exile of King Jaja with haunting similarity.

Now, as then, the underlying dispute is really about “a treaty”, in this case, allegedly between the governor and his predecessor, the terms of which also appear to be about “the execution of such duties as may be assigned….” The court orders are against a ruling figure (Governor Fubara) from Opobo and the political effect is to seek to exile him from office while precluding any other Opobo person from replacing him.

Context is necessary to understand the case that the supreme court had to decide. Going into the 2023 election, the governor of Rivers, Nyesom Wike, was term-limited. In 2020 and 2021, he publicly declared that he would not impose a successor on the state. In 2023, he did. His choice was a little-known public servant from Opobo-Nkoro, Sim Fubara. After the election, their relationship disintegrated. The reasons are subliminal in this case; the consequences are explicit.

In December 2023, 27 members of the Rivers state house of assembly loyal to Nyesom Wike, including the Speaker Martin Amaewhule, ostentatiously announced that they had defected to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). In 2015, the Supreme Court of Nigeria ruled that such defection is permissible only if the political party from which the legislators seek to defect is so hopelessly splintered that it “makes it impossible or impracticable for [the] political party to function as such”. If not, according to the court, “the defector automatically loses (sic) his seat”.

With the defection of Martin Amaewhule and his 26 other colleagues, the house of assembly of Rivers state became factionalised. The remaining five members were loyal to the incumbent governor. Shortly after the defection of the Amaewhule faction in December 2023, the premises of the Rivers state house of assembly were demolished, ostensibly on the orders of the state government. The faction loyal to the state governor relocated to the Government House where, shortly thereafter, they purported to pass into law the 2024 Appropriation Bill for the State, which became law when the governor promptly assented to it.

The outbreak of litigation that followed has been inexhaustible. The appeal determined by a five-person panel of the supreme court on February 28, 2025, is one of them. Essentially, it sought orders to restrain the Central Bank of Nigeria from remitting to Rivers state its share of the proceeds from the Federation Account except to finance a budget passed by the Amaewhule faction of the state house of assembly. In other words, this was litigation asking the judiciary to take sides in what is in fact a very grubby dispute over control of Rivers state’s money.

This case travelled up to the supreme court with supreme alacrity. The federal high court delivered judgment on October 30, 2024, a mere three and a half months after filing on July 15. Not wishing to be outdone, the court of appeal delivered judgment on December 13, 2024, less than a month and a half later. The supreme court has been equally supersonic in bringing the case to judgment.

The supreme court dealt with two issues when it should have addressed at least three. First, it affirmed the jurisdiction of the federal high court to hear the case. Next, on the question of whether the rump of the house of assembly of Rivers state loyal to the governor could constitutionally sit to pass the 2024 budget, it held that they could not. In support of this position, the court cited precedent applicable to when the legislature sits on impeachment, a special procedure for which the constitutionally prescribed parliamentary arithmetic is different.

The third issue, it left unattended. The court simply proceeded without deliberation or reasoning to grant all the orders asked for.

An injunction, the principal relief sought in this case, is notoriously a remedy in equity, only granted deliberatively. Over one century ago, the path-breaking decision in The Lusitania laid down the principle that “as a general rule of both civil and common law…. the remedy must be commensurate with the injury received”.

There are four glaring problems with this supreme court judgment. The first is not what is in it but what is missing. Lawyers claim that “equity does not act in vain”. The supreme court did not bother to provide any reasoning or justification for its orders, leaving it open to legitimate accusations of having acted in vain or in a transaction. Granting the court every latitude on the violations that it found, its orders are an unreasoned overreach.

Second, ordering the Central Bank to withhold Rivers state’s share of the federation account is, at best, a rogue order that punishes the people for a dispute between politicians. It violates the maxim that “equity regards the beneficiary (in this case the people of Rivers State) as the true owner”. Their right to their share of the federation account is antecedent to, independent of, and unconnected with the dispute in this case.

Third, being aware of the ongoing litigation on the legal consequences of the defection of the Amaewhule faction of the state house of assembly, the supreme court short-circuited a contingent appellate process and issued dispositions on a dispute that was neither before it nor necessary for the determination of the issues it was called upon to decide. In doing so, the court chose, with a touch of injudicious shamelessness, to accept the invitation to take sides in the underlying political dispute in Rivers state.

Fourth, the supreme court announced revolutionary jurisprudence on the judicial fly, claiming that, in cases where there is a disputed defection, “[o]nly the [legislature] can declare a seat vacant for defection and not the Governor of a State. Not even the Courts can do so.” It takes heedless audacity for an apex court to castrate the judiciary. That is exactly what the court did with this line in italics. When the supreme court laid down the contrary principle in 2015, it was by a panel of seven justices. This supreme court purports to overrule that principle without even citing, acknowledging, or considering its earlier decisions on the same point. Moreover, a five-person panel of the supreme court cannot overrule a seven-person panel.

When Chief Justice of Nigeria, Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, showed up reportedly to turn the sod on proposed judicial digs with Nyesom Wike last October, there were unheeded warnings then concerning the prohibitive institutional costs of such dalliance with a notorious political litigant who has a reputation for instrumentalising the courts. Many will look at this recent decision from the supreme court and say, “we told you so”. For the CJN, it will be argued that she was not on the panel, to which the response will be that she chose the judges and constituted the panel.

On December 1, 1887, the Kangaroo court of Rear Admiral Walter Hunt-Grubbe ruled that the presence of King Jaja in Opobo “would be fatal” to British commercial interests and authorised his eventual exile to the West Indies. The judgment was widely seen as a transactional travesty, and its effect, it was said, was “to haunt the British colonial administration in West Africa for a long time”. It may similarly be said of what the courts of post-colonial Nigeria did in the 137th year of that iniquity that they sought in another transactional travesty to exile another figure from Opobo from his position because his presence would be fatal to the interests of Nigeria’s most prolific political litigant.

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at chidi.odinkalu@tufts.edu

[OPINION] And Now to the Petition Proper - Simon Kolawole

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With Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan (PDP, Kogi central) suspended by the senate for “misconduct” and “refusal to comply with the seating arrangement” in the red chamber, may we now carefully proceed to the substance of her allegation against Senate President Godswill Akpabio? We need not be distracted from the serious allegation against the nation’s No 3 citizen. From what I have seen so far, it is quite obvious that the Nigerian society does not yet take sexual harassment allegations seriously. We still appear to be living in an age when those who allege sexual harassment are subjected to ridicule and reproach. I propose that we have a rethink over this cynical attitude.

But contrary to what you might have been reading, Akpoti-Uduaghan was not suspended for making a sexual harassment allegation against Akpabio. That is why it is dangerous to take your cue from social media. Someone even commented: “How can Akpabio preside over his own case?” Such profound ignorance could be misleading and contagious — this was obvious in the subsequent comments and positions canvassed by prominent opinion leaders. No, Akpoti-Uduaghan was not suspended for making the allegation. She was suspended for her conduct at the senate plenary on February 20, 2025 when she relentlessly tongue-lashed Akpabio over the new seating arrangement.

When I watched the video, I knew she was going to be suspended. Anywhere in the world (and I stand to be challenged on this), as soon as the person with the gavel bangs it to call you to order, you just have to shut up, otherwise there will be consequences. It is a parliamentary practice dating back to centuries. In a court of law, as soon as the judge calls you to order with the gavel, you have to obey. I did not need any special skills to predict that Akpoti-Uduaghan would be suspended. Nonetheless, there is something about the national assembly leadership that views dissent as mutiny. The lawmakers behave like a close-knit confraternity: a dissenter is sent out — into the cold.

There is a publicly known sequence of events culminating in Akpoti-Uduaghan’s suspension. On February 20, she — on full volume — told off the senate president for moving her seat. Senator Mohammed Monguno, the chief whip, said it was to accommodate senators who recently defected from the PDP to the ruling APC. He read out the relevant rules. Akpoti-Uduaghan sprang to her feet to talk, but Akpabio refused to recognise her. He ordered that she be ejected from the chamber as she kept talking. Her microphone was muted but she continued to talk. The infraction was not that she objected (people often object) but because she refused to be moved and kept berating Akpabio.

Days after the heated confrontation with Akpabio, Akpoti-Uduaghan said her seat was changed to silence her. “Changing my seat was just a chance of silencing or alienating me from being seen. Sitting position is important. The nearer you sit… positions you near the camera and gives you an added advantage to be called upon to contribute to debates,” she told a radio station based in Abuja. “Ordinarily, I’m already sitting at the very back. But then, I was now moved suddenly without any notice. Without any information, my seat was moved to the far corner, a part where the cameras don’t capture.” This sequence of events was what was televised and known to the general public.

However, on February 28, Akpoti-Uduaghan dropped the nuclear bomb on ARISE TV. “Mine is the case of a student being punished by a lecturer for refusing to sleep with him,” she said, before going into details. “It all started on 8th December, 2023, which was a day before his birthday and mine — we are birthday mates. We all moved to his house in Uyo at about 8pm. He held my hands and he said he wanted to show me round his house. My husband was walking behind us, just the three of us. We were walking around from room to room. He showed me the beautiful interior. I noticed that he hastened his pace while still holding my hand and my husband was behind on his phone.”

She alleged that it was at this point that Akpabio made the indecent proposal. “He got to this particular sitting room and he said ‘do you like my house’. I said, of course sir. He said ‘now that you are a senator, I’m going to create time for us to come and spend quality moment here. You will enjoy it’. At that point, I just pulled away… that I don’t understand what he meant.” Akpoti-Uduaghan also alleged that when she met Akpabio at his office to ask why he was repeatedly stepping down her motions, the senate president told her she could enjoy a whole lot if “I just take care of him”. Now, these are grievous allegations that should not be conflated or confused with seating arrangement.

Akpoti-Uduaghan’s suspension and the withdrawal of the incredibly sumptuous privileges top Nigerian government officials enjoy would not be the first in our history, so I am ready to live with that. Many senators and reps have been suspended in the past and more will be suspended in the future. Even if she is suspended forever (as long as it is legal), I am ready to stomach it. From all indications, they were chummy, so something went wrong and I suspect half the story has not been told yet. “Her husband is our friend,” senate leaders keep saying, even letting out a state secret that he was asked to nominate someone for a position — a privilege usually reserved for the gods.

What I cannot accept — and, I would suggest, Nigerians should vehemently reject — is the trivialisation of sexual harassment allegations. People are lining up to defend Akpabio one after the other. His wife took the extraordinary step of filing a defamation suit against Akpoti-Uduaghan. Have you noticed that not a single senator, male or female, has spoken in favour of Akpoti-Uduaghan? Is it because no one wants to lose out of the senate “ogbono” soup in this Tinubu economy? Or are there other reasons we need to know? Many social media warriors are tearing Akpoti-Uduaghan to pieces (and some are well paid for the hatchet job) but her supporters are putting up a great fight as well.

My real concern is the allegation of sexual harassment. This must be fully probed. Her petition was first dismissed out of hand over procedural lapses. She has re-presented it. The senate must be seen to do a diligent job of investigating the allegation. It is a sacred duty they owe not only to themselves but also to Nigerians. I know many things are wrong with our country (for which Nigeria has been written off as “finished” by many people). Still, we should not accept that this is the best we can be. No, Nigeria can be far better than this and it is matters of this nature that can benchmark our place in the comity of civilised nations. No attempt should be made to sweep these grave allegations away.

By the way, I am not suggesting that Akpabio sexually harassed her. I cannot in all conscience conclude that the allegation is true or false. It could even be a misunderstanding on both sides — perhaps how Akpoti-Uduaghan felt is different from what Akpabio meant, and vice-versa. I don’t know. I can’t say. I am ready to give both parties the benefit of the doubt. That is why the allegation should be thoroughly investigated. We must resist any attempt to sweep it under the carpet. We must reject any attempt to dismiss it based on technicalities. We must ignore every attempt to downplay the saga by referring to the past conducts of both senators. Every case is unique.

Whatever the outcome of the investigation may be, certain things need to be established going forward. Nations use events like this to reform their systems. For one, the national assembly must come up with a robust sexual harassment policy. The world is changing (whether we like it or not). There are certain expressions that we have to avoid or withdraw if considered inappropriate. In fact, the policy must be universally applicable across Nigerian institutions and offices. Nigeria is not an island. You may get away with an inappropriate comment in Abuja but get punished in Aberdeen. By the way, I do not suggest that Akpabio is guilty but it is quite important to put down the marker.

Without prejudice to the outcome of the investigation of this saga, we may need to update provisions on sexual harassment in the code of conduct for public officials. This should include punishments for making false claims: we should not take it for granted that everyone who alleges harassment is telling the truth. There should be safeguards so that justice is not miscarried. Our laws must also institute independent mechanism for probing and punishing sexual harassment and abuse of office. The senators have not behaved in a way that will make the public trust them to do justice to this allegation. I have only seen key senators take turns to divert attention from the issue at hand.

Outside the sexual harassment allegation, I think the senate (and the house of reps) should improve its broadcast system. Akpoti-Uduaghan complained that those sitting at the back are at a disadvantage when it comes to being recognised to talk. This sounds trivial, but it is still a point to note. The cameras should be positioned in a way that every senator can be well captured. No senator should be gravely disadvantaged. This looks tiny, but it can address a problem. It may even make some senators stay awake during plenary. However, Akpoti-Uduaghan’s complaint that some of her motions are stepped down or not listed is neither here nor there — every senator experiences that.

Finally (trust me to not let this go without a comment), do you notice that in this crisis, the senators are of one accord? No Hausa, no Fulani, no Yoruba, no Igbo, no southerner, no northerner, no Christian, no Muslim, no male, no female, no APC, no PDP, no Labour Party. The same thing happened when they all got the latest SUVs in 2023. This has reinforced my belief, or theory, that Nigeria is fundamentally divided into two: the elite and the rest of us. It is lowly Nigerians that abuse and kill each other over religion and region. The elite play sectional sentiments only when their interests are threatened. Otherwise, they are a fraternity. May we understand this truth someday.

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…

BY FIRE, BY FORCE

On Thursday, men of the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) invaded the headquarters of the Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (IKEDC), vandalised its offices and brutalised its officials. Why? The NAF base in Ikeja was reportedly owing N4 billion and Ikeja Electric disconnected their power supply. Ikeja Electric has a lot of bills to pay — for every N1 revenue it collects, it has to pay power generation companies (who also have to pay their gas suppliers), the transmission company (TCN) and the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC). I used to think air force is the “gentlest” of the armed forces. And for those praying for military rule, I hope they enjoyed the taster. Impunity.

CRAZY DEMONSTRATION

The comedy show at the Lagos house of assembly peaked on Monday with the resignation of Mojisola Meranda as the speaker and the reinstatement of Mudashiru Obasa, who had previously been removed by 32 out of the 40 members. Our version of democracy which Fela called “demonstration of craze” and “crazy demonstration” was fully televised. Even though all the actors and their godfathers and guardians were cut from the same cloth and none of them can claim a higher moral ground, I think they went too far with the comedy show. We are not even pretending to have any respect for democratic tenets again. We are dancing naked in the market place. Disgusting.

RIP, OKUPE

Dr Doyin Okupe, spokesman of the National Republican Convention (NRC) in the annulled third republic and former spokesman to Presidential Olusegun Obasanjo, died on Friday a few weeks to his 73rd birthday. He had survived a number of critical health challenges in recent years, even to the point of death. The last time we met, I think in 2022, he said he was working on his memoir. He had a title already. I tried to sign him on to CableBooks, our publishing arm, and we agreed to take the discussion further but, regrettably, we didn’t. He has now died without telling us his story, which I believe would be very rich and revealing. I pray that his family would be comforted. Amen.

NO COMMENT

How are the mighty fallen! The PDP will not be fielding a candidate in the Anambra governorship election holding on November 8. In my record, this is the first time the party would not be fielding a governorship candidate in any state since 1999. Alhaji Abdullahi Ganduje, the APC national chairman, poked fun at his former party on Friday, but I would say the joke is on our democracy. The PDP, as the ruling party, expanded mostly by using state power to woo or cajole opposition figures. The APC is doing the same. Competitive democracy suffers body blows when there is limited opposition. Come, was it not the same PDP that once threatened to rule Nigeria for 60 years non-stop? Wonderful.

[OPINION] The Savoury Fall in Food Prices - Waziri Adio

Admin

Recent stories in some national and foreign media outlets as well as informal surveys indicate that the prices of some staple food items have been falling across Nigeria. This is noteworthy for three reasons. One, the decline in prices is not all due to seasonality: prices are not falling just because all the affected food items are in season or because there is a glut in supply from ongoing harvest. Two, the Ramadan period usually coincides with high food prices because of surge in demand as most consumers would normally stock up on food for, and in anticipation of, the fasting period. So, a noticeable fall in prices of food items at this period bucks a known trend. And three, a persistent rise in food prices poses a constant risk not just to individuals struggling to feed themselves but also to the stability of the country. Nigerians and Nigeria need this price break.

This is thus a major and welcome relief. And the President Bola Tinubu administration should take the glory, as long as the administration will not try to shift the blame if and when food prices start rising again. I have written many times in the last 20 months or so about the danger of high food prices in a country where food alone accounts for about 60% of household expenditures. With food inflation around 40% (before the CPI rebasing), my greatest fear was a food protest that could spiral in many ugly directions. We narrowly escaped one of such last August. It is therefore important to acknowledge this tasteful moment, give kudos where it is due, and pray and hope that food prices (and cost of living in general) will continue to track down. But we need to go beyond prayer and optimism. We need to fully understand the drivers of this positive trend, and ensure that we pay more serious, systematic and sustainable attention not just to food prices but also to the larger issue of food security. We shall return to this shortly.

A number of media outlets have documented the notable fall in food prices in the last few weeks. I have seen stories and surveys in Daily Trust, BusinessDay, Nairametrics, ThisDay, The Guardian, TVC, Channels and Aljazeera, among others. I have also spoken to a few people in the food business. Prices of most raw food items that in and out season are falling while those of processed and packaged food items and fruits are not falling yet or, in some cases, are still rising. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) publishes two important reports that should help with concrete data: the Cost of a Healthy Diet (COHD) report and Selected Food Prices Watch. These reports, especially the latter, should have current prices of major food items, and should show shifts in prices on monthly and yearly basis. We look forward to the most current issues of these reports.

Ahead of the release of these reports, we can safely work with the surveys by media houses. Aljazeera reported that the prices of some grains crashed by as much as 40% in the past few weeks. On 26^th February, BusinessDay highlighted noticeable fall in the prices of beans, yam, rice, tomatoes and garri, ranging from a decline of 23% for imported rice to 70% for tomatoes. In its monthly price survey, Nairametrics stated that the price of a 50kg bag of garri fell by 10%, a medium-sized tuber of yam by 15%, a basket of pepper by 29% and a bag of dry onions by 43%. The Guardian, on its part, reported the decline in prices as follows: 39% for a bag of beans, 40% for a heap of 120 yams, 42% for a bag of millet, 66% for a bag of maize and 71% for a bag of sorghum. While prices of certain items like eggs, fruits, beverages and packaged/processed food items are yet to come down probably due to lag effect, the decline in the prices of major raw food items is significant and should be duly recognised. This is more so when it also bucks the global trend. According to the FAO Food Price Index, the prices of globally-traded food commodities in February 2025 increased by 1.6% month-on-month and by 8.2% year-on-year.

The logical question to ask is why the significant and atypical drop in food prices in Nigeria. To President Tinubu and his agriculture ministers (Senator Abubakar Kyari and Senator Aliyu Abdullahi), the answer is straightforward: the administration’s policies and interventions in the sector are working. Another official explanation is that the improvement in security in some parts of the north has translated to increase in food production, which then is leading to supply surpassing demand. It is possible that both are valid and reinforcing explanations. But it will be good to anchor such discussions on data. Policy should not be speaking and working without relevant data. For example, how many more hectares of land have been brought into cultivation due to improved security? And if we are seeing the fruits of Tinubu policies/gains, what particular policies are we talking about and how and by how much have they impacted the total outputs of the different food items? Without data and proper tracking, it will be difficult for government to know which policy is working, what it should do more or less of and how it can sustain the gains.

There have been some other explanations, ranging from the lifting of the ban on importation of food across land borders, the pausing of payment of duties and taxes on some imported food items (that is if that well-lauded presidential promise was allowed to eventually happen), the firming up of the Naira, and reported pausing of bulk purchase of grains that UN and US agencies distribute to IDP camps etc. The combined effect of these factors would be a fall in demand and rise in supply, leading inexorably to fall in prices in line with basic economics. Signalling could also be at play here. The continuous fall in prices could have prompted/nudged the farmers and traders storing up grains and other produces in their warehouses and barns for future higher prices to start offloading their stocks in order to cut their losses in case prices plunge further. This could contribute to increasing supply, further forcing prices down.

In the absence of actual evidence, we can file all these under speculations for now. However, if one of the factors that have made the difference is the lifting of the ban on food importation/eventual implementation of the waiver of duties on rice, maize and other items, then it is gratifying that common sense finally prevailed. A good case must be made for protecting farmers. But the way to protect farmers is not by punishing the rest of the population with high food prices. If you protect farmers with unbearably high, and consistently soaring, food prices (when it is clear that we are not producing enough to meet demand), you are clearly and gratuitously inflicting pains on the many to protect the few.

Farmers are better protected when they can produce more from the same parcel of land and with the same or less effort or even subsidies on inputs and support services. Most citizens, including farmers, suffer from high food prices because even farmers cannot realistically produce all the food they consume. So, high food prices will catch up with them too. It is bad policy to continue to prioritise the welfare of the producers (farmers) over and above the welfare of the consumers. We need to balance the two, and we need to constantly keep a trained eye on the risk to national stability. A country with consistently high food prices is just an acre away from trouble.

We need to properly understand the drivers of the current fall in food prices to ensure that it can be sustained. But we equally need to acknowledge that we have a lingering food security challenge. Nigeria steadily ranks low on global measures of food security. Our country was ranked 110 out of 127 countries on the Global Hunger Index for 2024 and 107 out of 113 countries on the Global Food Security Index for 2022. In November 2024, three UN agencies (UNICEF, FAO, WFP) claimed that as many as 33 million Nigerians could be food insecure this year. Also, the Cadre Harmonise projected that 33.2 million Nigerians may experience critical food and nutrition insecurity during the lean months of 2025. This is a 25.3% increase on the figure for the corresponding period of last year.

Despite accounting for 25% of our aggregate GDP and employing more than 30% of our labour force, Nigeria’s agricultural sector is not in fine fettle. It is a sector characterised by low productivity (a measly 1.19% GDP growth in 2024), low yields (our farmers produce less from the same size of land than their counterparts even in the subregion), and lingering supply gaps (we don’t produce enough to meet internal demand for even for food items like yam that we are the world’s leading producer). The sector continues to be hobbled by inadequate support system (extension services, credit, mechanisation, high-yield and pest-resistant seeds) and limited infrastructure (rural roads, irrigation, storage and processing facilities etc), all of which are further compounded by banditry and other forms of insecurity. The sum of all these is that even when agriculture remains our largest employer of labour, it is not pulling its weight. The farmers are operating at mostly subsistence level, struggling to eke out respectable living. Nigeria remains food insecure and the needed structural transformation is yet to happen. You can draw a direct line between the state of our agriculture and the state of economic development of our country.

While it is important to note and celebrate the unusual fall in food prices now, we should ensure that it is a trend that can continue. But we should not lose sight of the bigger picture. We need to make the agricultural sector more productive, position Nigeria to be more food secure, free up more hands for manufacturing and services sectors, and put Nigeria on a firm development pathway. We need to see fixing our agriculture as a necessary step to fixing Nigeria. We need to upgrade food security to the status of national security. Section 16 A of the 1999 Constitution (one of the amendments of 2023) mandates “the State to promote and sustain activities that enhance food security”. Section 16(2)(d) already affirms a “right to food and food security.” We have to take food security as seriously as other countries that have made progress have. We don’t have to wait for a major upheaval to start prioritising this.

Page 15 of 211

OTHERS' VIEWS

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[OPINION] Akpabio and His Men Cry Trauma, While Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan Bears the Real Psychological Scars of Senate Abuse - John Egbeazien Oshodi

[OPINION] Saving the Senate - Dakuku Peterside

[OPINION] Bloody civilians, Nigeria military, impunity and immunity - Owei Lakemfa

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[OPINION] Reward for Betrayal - Gabriel Agbo

[OPINION] Lagos and the slide to anarchy - Dele Sobowale

[OPINION] Senate shouldn’t have suspended Natasha Uduaghan - Tonnie Iredia

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