OTHERS' VIEWS

OTHERS' VIEWS

Few things are more important to the future of the African continent than the implications of rapid population growth. We cannot wish any of its assumed potential positive implications into existence, nor should African governments wait for its equally negative possible effects to materialize, without the foundational policy and scenarios planning that is needed NOW. In 1800, the world had 1 billion people. Today we have 8.2 billion people on the planet, and we will have a population of 10 billion by 2050.

While population growth is slowing in the rest of the world, and even declining in Europe, Africa’s population is growing in leaps and bounds. Africa, with a continental population of 1.5 billion people today, will have 2.7 billion by 2050 – one quarter of the world’s projected population 25 years from now.  By 2070, Africa’s population will have doubled to 3.2 billion. Of the eight countries that, together, will make up half of global population growth by 2050, five are African – Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Egypt. At current trends, Africa as a continent will likely be 40% of the world’s total population by 2100 according to population experts.

The future of the world is increasingly African, demographically speaking. Why is this happening? Because fertility rates remain high in our continent, combined with decreasing mortality rates.  This trend has created an extremely young continent in terms of population, one in which 70% of Africans are under the age of 30. If the future will be increasingly ‘‘African’’ with one-third of the world’s working age population being African, will Africans automatically prosper because they have multiplied on the earth? Will Africa’s population boom be an asset or a liability? Will the 21st century be the African century?

Some have argued that it will be, and, that this population explosion – the population momentum — means Africa is The Next Big Thing. It is politically correct to be optimistic.  No one wants to be a party-pooper. And yet … The question is not Africa’s population numbers. The real question is about how prosperous or poor the billions of the new African entrants to planet earth will be. Evidence abounds that projections of Africa’s imminent transformation have often been exaggerated. The post-independence euphoria about our continent’s prospects after colonial rule ended in the 1960s were not born out, while Asia, most of which also experienced colonial rule, has made remarkable progress in human development and industrialization. In the 2000s, the ‘‘Africa Rising’’ euphoria hit the airwaves. While the continent witnessed some economic progress, it certainly did not rise, and has not risen, because the structure of the continent’s economies has barely changed from reliance on raw commodities in its international trade and revenue profile, and most African countries continue to suffer from a marked deficit in leadership and governance.

Africa’s demographic trends should be understood in a clear-eyed manner to assess accurately whether it will be an asset or a liability. First, as we all know, it has resulted in a massively young population. But will this young population have the skills, jobs, and productivity that can secure the future? Without this, the phenomenon will ultimately prove a liability – a youth bulge that will foster challenges of unrest and security. Even discounting the entrepreneurial inclinations of Africa’s youth and the changing nature of work and opportunities fostered by technology including social media, the reality is that the economies of African countries are not creating jobs for young Africans at the rates that are necessary. 

Second, a massive wave of urbanization is afoot. This has implications such as the adequacy of urban infrastructure, social services, and other aspects of municipal governance. Third, Africa’s young population is putting its stamp on the world in the areas of music and the arts. Afrobeat is taking over the world. Whether in the suburban malls of Virginia, USA, or in the restaurants in Kigali, Rwanda, the likes of Rema and Davido croon away,  calming the moods of customers. I am proud of their achievement. But how many jobs do musical superstars create? We should not be misled by cliches and feel-good stories and statistics. 

Fourth, the young generation of Africans is more self-assured than their forebears, and they are more entrepreneurial. This means that African agency, a missing factor in the continent’s development trajectory, is on the rise. Fifth, the younger the African population gets, the more the possibility rises that the texture of politics and democracy could change for the better in the years ahead. The youth, especially if well educated, will likely be impatient and demand more from aspiring political leaders in the continent. We have seen this trend in countries such as Kenya and Senegal in recent months. In NIgeria, however, it remains only an unproven assumption.

Sixth, a population boom has implications for climate change in African countries. There will be increased demand for resources, including fossil fuels that drive higher greenhouse gas emissions.  Seventh, the booming youth population has triggered more and more innovation and is responsible for the rise of the Fintech industry in the continent.  But I argue that this is financialization without underlying economic productivity in goods and services.  

To future-proof Africa’s booming youth population, massive investments in education (including in education reforms that transform both what young Africans are taught and how they are taught), is required. Massively boosting skills (productive knowledge) of African youth is critically needed to increase the economic productivity of African populations. This is what drove the Asian economic miracles. Investment in energy infrastructure will also boost productivity, including in the informal economy.  

Strategic investment in science, technology and innovation as a core goal of public policy remains necessary. This is an area of natural competitive advantage for African youth, but it remains a low priority for too many governments on the continent. Innovation ecosystems need to be supported by governments in African countries. Other than South Africa, Kenya is one of very few African countries truly investing in technology and innovation as a major plank of public policy. Private sector investments without strategic policy support are unlikely to yield the kind of technological transformation that powered the industrialization of the western world and is powering the rise of Asia.

Access to capital, in a manner that is truly transformative, must be created in African countries where the lack of infrastructure and inflation drives up the cost of capital as monetary policy tackles rising prices with high monetary policy rates to achieve price stability. Governments must create alternative funding structures to support small businesses, innovation and entrepreneurship by African youth, and not leave the financial space only for central banks whose toolkits are limited. That, in turn, requires more effective mobilization of fiscal resources by governments. All of this is different from participation in financial flows through fintech. Here, what is needed is access to low-cost funds to support innovation and small businesses formation.  Giant venture capital funds established as public-private partnerships will stimulate wealth-creation by young Africans.

Expansion of agricultural value chains will create jobs for young Africans. Agriculture remains a major anchor of economic activity in most African countries. Transforming it from subsistence farming to agri-business that African youth will engage in, with value chains of mechanized agricultural production, storage, transportation, processing and export, will create wealth for young Africans.

Population policy is essential. Africa’s population growth must decline for economic growth to catch up. The best way to achieve this is through education, especially in rural areas and the education of women and girls, that changes mindsets away from cultural tendencies and reduces the number of children that women have on the average. The average fertility rate in sub-Saharan Africa is around 4.3 to 4.6 children per woman, while the global rate is 2.3 births per woman. This is what will make investments in education yield the transformations that will secure the future of Africa’s youth. This is a major lesson from China and several Southeast Asian countries.

Competent, thinking governance, including performing the basic task of providing security inside territorial states, is required overall in Africa. Conflicts and terrorism remain a threat to the future of Africa’s youth and must be tackled decisively. Nigeria has the world’s highest out-of-school age children at nearly 20 million, mainly because of terrorism and its disruptive effects on municipal and local populations. Are these children the ones that will be harbingers of The Next Big Thing?

Competent governance also includes a capacity for futures-thinking and scenario planning. The mission of the African School of Governance (ASG) is to become a pipeline for the emergence of this kind of leadership in the continent.  The question of the implications of Africa’s “youthquake”, along with that of why Africa remains poor relative to the rest of the world despite its abundance of critical natural resources, is a major reason why Rwandan President Paul Kagame, former Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, and other African academics, philanthropists and policy makers founded the ASG university in 2024.

Africa’s youth population boom can be both an asset or a liability. The trajectory depends on the choices governments in Africa make today. We should not get carried away by narratives that are not created and owned by Africans themselves. Time to  end our worship at the altars of the “gods of small things’. We often get excited about trends without truly interrogating them and their implications for our present and future as a continent. There are two scenarios. One is a super story in which Africa’s youth become increasingly skilled and productive, creating broad-based prosperity.  In this scenario,  the demographic boom shifts from rhetoric about The Next Big Thing to a lived reality.  The other is a dystopian future in which increasingly unemployed and frustrated young men and women mill around in African urban centers, jobless and unskilled. No outcome from this scenario should surprise anyone, but it is likely that such outcomes will not be pleasant.

•Prof. Kingsley Moghalu, President and Vice-Chancellor of the African School of Governance in Kigali, Rwanda, delivered this keynote address to Harvard University’s African Development Conference 2025 at Harvard Law School in Boston, USA, recently.

In many ways the recent resignation of Hakeem Baba Ahmed as Political Adviser to Vice President Kashim Shettima confirms the worst kept political secret in the land: that the gulf existing between President Bola Tinubu and Vice-President Kashim Shettima has widened to the point of no return.

It is no longer a secret that President Tinubu does not trust nor have confidence in his Vice President. Indeed a presidency source told me that things have got so bad that the president never meets Shettima one-on-one. Vice-President Shettima is placed only on a ‘’need to know’’ basis on sensitive polices and even at that not all the details of such policies are disclosed to him. Memos from the Vice President and those of his staff are subjected to levels of vetting and watered down such that when they eventually land on the president’s desk for his attention, they are devoid of their essence and meaning. All Ministers and appointees of the presidency and the administration are forbidden from giving him detailed briefs on their tasks and for their own good they try to limit their contact and involvement with the VP to a cursory level.

The cold war between President Tinubu and his Vice so far not fully blown, has however prompted comparisons between the experiences of Professor Yemi Osinbajo, Vice President under the immediate past administration of President Muhammadu Buhari and that of Shettima.

In culinary terms the difference in experience under their principals could be likened to the difference between Ikokore, the popular Ijebu delicacy which I am told the former Vice President being an Ijebu man relishes, and Burabisco, the favourite Kanuri dish which Shettima as a dyed-in-wool Kanuri man likes a lot. As the two dishes are made of different ingredients and are enjoyed by in different parts of the country, so also are the experiences of the two VPs under their bosses.

 

Although the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria recognises and ipso facto specifies roles for the Vice President in the functioning of the administration, in reality the VP’s relevance can only be subject to the disposition of the president.

For instance, although the constitution provides for the VP to chair the National Economic Council (NEC) made up of state governors, the president can work to make the council irrelevant. This is what happened when VP Shettima at the head of the NEC led the governors to present their informed views on the Tax Reform bill. We all knew that president Tinubu threw the bill at the VP and the governors’ faces and brusquely told them he preferred his own version of the bill which he was going to send to the National Assembly.

By contrast, Osinbajo as VP was in full charge of the NEC as its Chair and from that vantage point recommended and actively implemented economic and social programmes running to billions of naira.

 

Apart from not being allowed such powers under Tinubu, since his run-in with the president over the Tax Reform bill, Shettima has literarily had the door shut firmly against his face as far as economic and social matters which the constitution grants him.

Professor Osinbajo was the cerebral intellectual power house of the Buhari administration and his erudition and depth of knowledge provided the government with the much needed air of competence to cover up the lapses of some the officials of the government. Perhaps fully aware of this, president Buhari gave Osinbajo the full encouragement and thrust to be the face of the administration making speeches and representing him frequently at public and private occasions.

Osinbajo was given the latitude to choose his team which included a Special Adviser on Media and Political Affairs as well as other necessary staff who functioned as independently as possible without interference from the President’s office.

VP Shettima too was allowed his complement of aides. But the point of departure is that whereas VP Osinbajo’s aides Laolu Akande for Media and Babafemi Ojudu on political affairs functioned effectively in their positions, Stanley Nkwocha and Hakeem Baba Ahmed appointed in respective positions under VP Shettima’s office have hadly been heard. Indeed the resignation of Hakeem Baba Ahmed, former Federal Permanent Secretary and Secretary-General of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) was connected to the belittling role he had been subjected in the presidency. He was not given any schedule and befitting office. He also was not allowed unfettered access to the media. He could not engage the media on the VP’s political perspectives; he was virtually a political glorified desk officer in the VP office reduced to drinking tea and ‘’enjoying’’ the central air conditioner there. For someone who is known to be articulate, erudite and with such a vast and distinguished experience in politics and governance and who enjoys frequent media attention, restricting Hakeem Baba Ahmed’s visibility and interventions as he was in the Tinubu presidency was like taking a fish out of water. There was no way that Hakeem Baba Ahmed would take that sort of treatment lying low.

 

That VP Osinbajo was accorded his rightful place in the Buhari was due largely to the laissez faire disposition of president Buhari. Buhari was known to allow his appointees the latitude to work without too much interference in order to allow them deliver on the tasks assigned to them.

But president Tinubu is not only known as a micro-manager he also has an unapologetic disposition towards favouring people from his ethnic comfort zone to work with him. From what we have seen of him, president Tinubu clearly does not feel comfortable having people from other ethnic nationalities working too closely with him.
VP Shettima may not have committed any weighty official breaches of official protocol in the presidency, but president Tinubu’s in built paranoia and discomfort in the midst of people he considers as belonging outside of his bloodlines and his political and ethnic comfort zone is largely responsible for the short shrift being given to VP Shettima in the presidency.

Going forward president Tinubu clearly faces a dilemma on what to do with VP Shettima. He is obviously not enamoured of the VP and cannot be persuaded to retain him in the coming months. But the president knows distinctly that dropping the VP off the ticket presents a very delicate and dangerous political manoeuvre. It was with Shettima that he was able to navigate the difficult challenges of the 2023 presidential race and won. Removing Shettima now would amount to a tactical political miscalculation. Who to replace Shettima with that will give him the political traction with northern voters he desperately needs for re-election in 2027?

If he intends to keep the Muslim-Muslim ticket a host of names have been thrown into the equation; Nuhu Ribadu, Abdullahi Ganduje, Kwankwaso etc.

 

But anybody he chooses now will be a hard sell to northern voters. The mere fact of replacing Shettima with another figure will reinforce the feeling that Tinubu cannot be trusted to respect political agreements. And this could even rupture the ruling APC.
There are reports too that president Tinubu may change tack and replace Shettima with a northern Christian namely former Speaker Yakubu Dogara, former SGF Boss Mustapha, Senator Simon Lalong etc.

If Tinubu cannot be sure of a huge northern Christian votes tally to tip the scales in his favour this will amount to political suicide to say the least.

 

As Governor of Lagos state, Tinubu was able to whimsically change three deputies; Kofo Bucknor, Femi Pedro and Adeyemi Ogunleye without fear of political recriminations. As president he is now faced with three options all of which have potential consequences; he cannot retain Shettima because the gulf between them has become insurmountable; if he drops him and picks another Muslim he risks a rupture in the ruling party and if he decides to go for a northern Christian replacement he will most likely bring the house down.

As he sits presently in limbo under the Tinubu presidency, waiting to see how and where the dice rolls VP Shettima will be hoping for the best under the circumstances.

To spoil a ship for a ha’porth of tar is an English idiomatic expression that talks about destroying something big by not spending a small amount to maintain it. That typifies the lifestyle of the average Nigerian. We simply lack a maintenance culture. We buy a car but fail to adhere to the manual’s instructions for regular and periodic maintenance. Check out some car tyres, windscreen, wipers, and car doors, and you will be shocked at how a car that is not up to five years old has become a jalopy. We build houses and a lackadaisical attitude to maintenance makes the house become dilapidated in next to no time. The door handles, plumbing, fittings, electrical appliances, tiles, water closet, water tanks, and furniture all become dysfunctional or spoilt due to the owner’s indifference to proper maintenance.

Similarly, many hotels that look beautiful on the outside are shitholes when you lodge in them. It is either that the water heater is not working, the air conditioner is not working, some taps are leaking, or the towels and bedspreads are dirty. Some hotels have never changed their blankets and duvets since inception, nor are they regularly dry-cleaned. Sometimes the room stinks. I have also been to many public buildings and government secretariats where the elevators have broken down, and visitors have to climb the staircase to get to the floors they need to take elevators to reach. This is because the elevators have broken down due to a lack of proper maintenance. Many toilets in government offices are an eyesore. It is either that there is no water to flush or that the water closet lever is dysfunctional. The furniture in many government and public offices is wobbling. Workers share offices with rodents and roaches because they are never fumigated.

Check out the state of our roads and bridges. Be they federal, state or local government roads, they have become infested with graters and gullies and have become death traps due to a lack of proper maintenance. Bandits and kidnappers take advantage of these bad roads to carry out their nefarious activities, as vehicles plying such bad roads have to slow down at these bad spots. Last month, the Federal Ministry of Works shut down the Independence Bridge along Ahmadu Bello Way, Marina-bound on Victoria Island, Lagos. The Federal Controller of Works, Lagos, Olukorede Kesha, said the closure was to facilitate essential maintenance and rehabilitation works on the bridge from Wednesday, March 19 to May 31, 2025. News reports have it that the bridge closure brought about untold hardship on commuters plying the area. In fact, many motorists spent the entire night of the first day of the bridge closure on the road due to the gridlock. Meanwhile, it was discovered that one of the pillars holding the bridge is just floating, as the soil holding it has been eroded by water. A lack of periodic maintenance did not allow the ministry officials to notice this early enough.

While pipeline vandalism is one of the menaces being faced by the Nigerian government. However, some of the oil and water pipes have corroded and are leaking due to a lack of periodic maintenance. Imagine that some oil pipelines laid in the early sixties that are to be replaced every 10 years are left unchanged and, after a while, begin to leak and thereby degrade the soil and the environment. Similarly, the lack of routine turnaround maintenance of our four oil refineries in Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna led to Nigeria’s overdependence on the importation of refined petroleum products. Did you know what economic loss this has inflicted on Nigeria? We lost jobs, businesses, foreign exchange and prestige.

 

The administration of President Muhammadu Buhari borrowed $1.5bn reportedly from a Chinese bank to carry out the turnaround maintenance on Port Harcourt and Warri refineries. Despite that, after several failed deadlines, NNPCL informed Nigerians in December 2024 that those two refineries had been restreamed to commence operation, but not at full capacity. Nonetheless, it is the privately owned Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical that has come to the rescue of Nigerians, as production from government-owned Port Harcourt and Warri is inadequate for our domestic consumption needs.

A lack of or inadequate and timely maintenance is always costly. As the saying goes, prevention is better than a cure. If all and sundry embrace proper maintenance culture, the lifespan of our objects will be longer. We will even spend less. Given the fact that the cost of goods and services is skyrocketing, a prompt maintenance culture will ensure that we spend less today to prevent spending more tomorrow. Imagine how much we are having to spend on the maintenance of the Lagos–Ibadan Expressway? I am sure the amount is far more than what was spent to build the road in the first place. It is a lack of proper maintenance of our national assets, like the Nigerian Airways, Nigeria Railway Corporation, Nigeria National Shipping Line, and Nigeria Telecommunications, better known as NITEL, that led to the death of these government-owned enterprises. Thankfully, the Federal Government has deemed it fit to revitalise the Nigerian Railway Corporation. It is heartwarming that train services have been restored in South-West Nigeria from Lagos to Ibadan, Abuja Municipality and Abuja to Kaduna, to mention a few.

Maintenance culture is not all about items or objects. What about our bodies as human beings? How many of us go for routine medical check-ups? How many of us even go to hospitals when sick? Many prefer self-medication. Some go to quacks and unlicensed medicine stores for medications. This lack of proper maintenance of our bodies through routine medical checks, healthy living, exercising, dieting, relaxation and sleeping adequately is the major cause of terminal sicknesses and untimely deaths.

 

Concerned people are asking why so much terrorism is going on the Plateau and across the Middle Belt region of Nigeria on such a horrific scale. And the word that keeps going round is that the terrorists are aliens from the Sahel.

Gen. T.Y. Danjuma, Nigeria’s former Chief of Army Staff and Minister of Defense, who confirmed “that most of (the terrorists) are foreigners, (though) there are (local) collaborators”, lamented, “The whole country is overrun.”

The horror of the renegade’s invasion is captured in an amateur, but gory, video that shows people offloading corpses of those they claimed were casualties of recent attacks in Plateau State to the front of a massive white building that they claimed was a government state house.

If those individuals indeed dumped the corpses in front of a state government house, they would have added more numbers to the casualties, if the sentries had decided to mow them down for breaching state house security. 

But it must be acknowledged that it was a brilliant public relations stunt to draw attention to the helplessness of the people of the Plateau, victims of the reign of terror that has now almost become a regular ritual.

A young female poet laureate, who says she is from the North, but her blood carries many names, recited an indicting dirge on the assault on the lives and lands of the people of the Plateau, which is representational of the Middle Belt region of Nigeria that includes Plateau, Benue, Taraba and Southern Kaduna States.

She wailed, in narrative prose, rather than poetry, “Haven’t we learnt yet, oh my beloved country? Haven’t we seen enough lands dug by shaking hands in fury and fear? And haven’t we carried enough bodies, stiff and silent, wrapped in the weight of injustice?”

From the conniving government and nonchalant Nigerians outside of the Plateau killing field, she asked, “Haven’t we learnt yet, Nigeria, that silence is a co-conspirator, that when the leaders turn away, history sharpens its knife; that when justice is delayed, the earth grows fat with graves; that a country that does not punish its past will live to repeat it in different dialects?

“Haven’t we learnt that violence does not stay contained, and the machete swung today could rest on any door tomorrow? That today’s victim is yesterday’s neighbour, and tomorrow, it could be you, me, or the child who still believes that home is a safe place, that this is still our Nigeria?”

Another female poet lamented in dreadful words, “The food basket of the nation is now the blood basket of the nation. The land, once lush with green, now hush and grim, filled with sullen faces with no hope to survive the day, like arid ground in want of rain.

“Pain is plain. It’s daybreak. Folks are supposed to go on to their farms, but farms are not the safest places to be. It’s nightfall, it’s heartbreak, it’s heartache, over destroyed homes, destroyed crops, slaughtered brethren and bloodshed.

“Motherland is not the safest place to be. Once lively hoes now echo with silence; the land, loud with violence, flooding with the blood of the young and the old alike. Great sons fall like autumn leaves, dead bodies scattered like mustard seeds…

“They say tough times don’t last. Tell that to the people of Guma, who have watched herdsmen turn gunmen. Tell that to the people of Turan, who have been swept from their homes, like brooms to flies, their homes and belongings transformed to bonfires.

“Tell that to the people of Sankerra. Tell that to the people of Logo. Tell that to the people of Kwande, who have had bullets sprayed on them like rainwater, who have been changed to nothing but chickens for slaughter. Tell that to youths who this has caused them their futures.”

 

But enough of the poetry; the artists’ impression of the unbridled carnage happening on the Plateau of Nigeria, without anyone in government or the security agencies being able to take any tangible steps to contain it.

One real-life story of the pains caused by these invaders on the Plateau is the ridiculous story of Samuel Ortom, who, as the sitting governor of Benue State, was chased, with his security details, by terrorists from his farm.

A recent report from Benue State claims that several communities, like Tombo Mbaya, Buruku Local Government, and Mbachoughu and Mbanyagber, in Tarka Local Government, came under “coordinated assault” by armed herdsmen.

Governor Caleb Muftwang personally reported how terrorists sacked communities in Plateau State. His words: “These communities that have been recently attacked were part of the communities attacked in 2023… The Ruuri community that was first attacked lost about 17 people in 2023…Over 50 persons were killed within one week in attacks on communities that left over 300 houses burnt.”

Governor Muftwang reasons, “If these attacks have been going on for close to 10 years (most of which is under the All Progressives Congress), it tells you that there is a deliberate, conscious attempt to clean out populations.

“As I am talking to you, there are not less than 64 communities that have been taken over by the bandits on the Plateau, between Bokkos, Barkin Ladi and Riyon Local Governments. They have been taken over, renamed, and people living there (now are) conveniently on lands they pushed people away to occupy.”

Why do government and security agencies fail to repel the land grabbers and restore the rightful owners to their ancestral lands? Gen. Danjuma told a home crowd in Taraba State, “The armed forces are either not capable or unwilling to protect us.”

Following is the, albeit one-sided, report of a current victim hiding in the bushes to avoid another attack from terrorists, that Governor Muftwang, like Lai Mohammed, President Muhammadu Buhari’s Minister of Information, called bandits.

“This is reporting from Hurti, on exactly what happened on 2nd April 2025. We were living peacefully with these Fulani herdsmen… At around 3:45pm… we… just began to hear gunshots… We saw that they had surrounded the environment. They were shooting sporadically, shooting at every person…

“But they concentrated more on the men that they wanted to wipe out the community. They kept on telling us that we say we are serving a living God. Where is our God now? They kept on shooting everybody that they found around….

“After the shooting, the next thing is that they started burning houses… They looted all the foodstuffs, our house stuffs…. On Thursday… we were able to recover 32 corpses… We went searching again, and still retrieved another four…. We had a mass burial for the 32 and the four others were buried in different places.

“17 people sustained injuries, and they are currently receiving treatment. One of them, Oji Tobias, has lost his life. I am pleading that all necessary measures should be taken to make sure that this does not recur…. The government should be able to arrest these people and make sure that justice takes its course.”

To resolve this matter, maybe the government should take Gen. Danjuma’s counsel, wherein he said, “As a soldier, my training teaches me that the best defence is attack,” and enlist citizens of the Plateau in something like South-West Nigeria’s “Amotekun”.

Professor Humphrey Nwosu’s legacy: Domesticating the electoral process

As a political scientist, Professor Nwosu understood that the character of electoral competition in Nigeria is such that the outcome of any election will almost always be contested. This is because in societies like ours, political power is the major means of production, distribution and exchange and for that, whoever controls political power, controls everything, including the power to turn a pauper into a billionaire and to turn a billionaire into a pauper.

The struggle for political power therefore is often anarchic, tending towards the Hobbesian state of nature, with a pervasive fear that whichever group captures state power will use it to privilege its in-groups while disadvantaging others. For this, African politicians seemed to take literally the injunction by Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President, who famously advised his countrymen during the struggle for independence to: “Seek ye first the political kingdom and all other things will be added unto you”.

As a political scientist who had the opportunity of trying to marry theory and practice during his earlier political appointments, Professor Nwosu realised that while democracy is in fact not alien to Africa, the current institutions of democracy such as institutionalised opposition via political parties and the winner-takes-all mentality, are not. He knew that as a ‘mere’ electoral umpire, he had little or no power to drastically change the nature of electoral competition but believed that he could attenuate its anarchic character by making the process more transparent through domestication. This was his rationale for introducing the Open Ballot system.

An open ballot system is a voting method in which voters vote openly, in contrast to a secret ballot, where voters’ choices are confidential. Professor Nwosu was not the originator of the open ballot system. Some other countries of the world also had traditional open ballot system until modern legislations adopted secret ballot system. In Australia, for example, open ballot system was in use until 1856, when the country adopted the secret ballot system. In Britain, it was the Ballot Act of 1872 that officially introduced secret ballot to the British parliamentary politics. In Nigeria, open balloting was in use until 1923 when the British colonial administrators first introduced secret ballot system. 

In a 2008 interview with The News magazine, Professor Nwosu defended the open ballot system against charges that it was a primitive system. “But there is nothing wrong, I must say, with secret ballot system per se, but it has been thoroughly abused in this country, starting from the federal elections in 1964, October 1965 Western House of Assembly elections, 1979 and 1983. Why should we continue to use what didn’t work? It works for Britain. No one would go and stop elections in Britain; no one would go and write results before it is released. Nigerians should begin to ask questions about systems that work, not mentioning theories- transparent this and electronic that.

Nigerians want something that is real; that can restore confidence and that their choice is respected” (The News, 2008). Following criticisms that the Open Ballot system could expose some of the voters to witch-hunt, Professor Nwosu came up with the Modified Open Ballot System. Under this system, people still had to register and still had to be accredited but during the voting proper, they were issued with a ballot paper, where they went into a cubicle and voted secretly for the candidate of their choice. Professor Nwosu’s bold decision to domestic electoral competition came more than 20 years before many prominent Nigerians, including former President Olusegun Obasanjo, began complaining that liberal (Western) democracy has failed in Nigeria and needs to be domesticated. 

Professor Nwosu outwitted the military, conducted free-and-fair elections and yes, announced the results. Babangida admitted in his recent book, A Journey in Service: An Autobiography (2025), that there was a faction of the military which opposed a handover of power to civilians. He also admitted in the same book that by the time of the June 12 election his government had massive credibility problem, which was compounded by several events, including the emergence of a shadowy Association of Better Nigerians, ABN, funded by Arthur Nzeribe, who was calling for four more years for the military government. Babangida said he was unaware of the existence of the group and believed that forces linked to the late Abacha were behind the group. On June 10, two days before the presidential election, the ABN approached the Abuja High Court of Justice Bassey Ikpeme for an injunction to stop NEC from conducting the election.  The injunction was granted.

Professor Nwosu, aware of the contending forces at that time showed uncommon courage. Babangdia narrated that the NDSC meeting on Friday, June 11, only hours before the scheduled election, was one of the stormiest meetings he ever conducted as President. As he put it: “Strangely, the Attorney General and Justice Minister, Akpamgbo, who was the nation’s chief law officer and who ought to know that the Justice Ikpeme court order violated an extant law (and was tacitly supported, it turned out by some of my topmost military officers), advised that the elections be postponed in compliance with the Abuja court order. Professor Nwosu insisted, to the dismay of my top military colleagues, that he had enough powers under the law to proceed with the elections.” (Babangida, 2025:273), emphasis mine.

It was obvious from Babangida’s narrations in the autobiography that by this time he had completely lost control of his government to that faction of the military that did not want the elections to hold at all (see part 1 of this article). In essence, the locus of power no more resided with Babangida despite being formally the President on whose desk the buck should theoretically stop. Professor Nwosu seemed therefore to be caught in the crossroads between Babangida, the formal authority who appointed him NEC Chairman, and who apparently wanted the process to be concluded (at least for self-preservation, having already lost out in the military power play), the shadowy military faction that did not want the elections to be conducted, (which had become obviously ascendant at this time), the Nigerian electorate (who expected him to do the right thing), and his conscience. At this stage, Professor Nwosu seemed to turn the whole affair into a game of wits between him and that faction of the military elite. He had already outwitted them in round one by insisting that he would go ahead with the election despite the ABN’s court injunction on June 11, 1993. 

He also outwitted them in round two by ensuring that the conduct of the election was hitch-free as violence could have provided the forces that did not want the election to go ahead with the ammunition to intervene and cancel the exercise or even topple the Babangida government. 

As Babangida noted: “Voting took place in all the 110,000 polling stations in the country, and in keeping with the Modified Open Ballot System (MOBS) as stipulated in Decree 13, counting took place flawlessly in the open, followed almost simultaneously with an open collation that allowed for final results to be attained quickly” (Babangida, 2025:274).

Nwosu also outwitted that faction of the military by announcing the results. Yes, he ‘announced’ the results – contrary to some suggestions that he failed to “announce” the results.  To quote Babangida again:

“Using a giant board in front of its Abuja offices, NEC started, as early as June 13, as stipulated by the Electoral law, to display already released results from all 30 State Headquarters of NEC before the Resident Electoral Commissioners brought them to Abuja for final ratification (emphasis, mine). That process of public display of results, which had now covered 14 states, continued until June 14. And then, on June 16, without my knowledge or prior approval, NEC Chairman, Professor Nwosu, announced the suspension of the June 12 election results ‘until further notice’. I knew instantly that certain fifth columnists were at work and that there was a need for extra care! (emphasis, mine) And even after that suspension of the announcements of results, ABN obtained another ‘strange’ court order from Justice Saleh’s court in Abuja, stopping the release of the results of the elections” (Babangida, 2025:274).

The truth is that if Nwosu had not gone ahead to release the results “even before the Resident Electoral Commissioners brought them to Abuja”, we would probably not be talking about Abiola winning that election today.  By releasing the results of the elections the way he did despite knowing that the forces that did not want the elections to hold had become ascendant, Professor Nwosu actually informed the world that Abiola had won and by so doing outwitted that faction of the military yet again. While he was not in a position to declare MKO Abiola President elect because not all the results had been released and a court in Abuja, working with those shadowy forces had obtained another court order stopping the release of the results, Professor Nwosu believed he had done his bit by letting the world know who was winning the election and that it was up to Nigerians to help Abiola claim his mandate.

I have heard some Nigerians claim that Nwosu should have gone ahead to “announce the results”. Former Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, a man who likes to act tough (for obvious reasons, some would say), and to sound authoritative even on issues he knows next to nothing about, descended so low as to call Professor Nwosu a “coward” for not having the “courage” to “announce” the results (I believe he meant declaring him President elect). English people would say that discretion is a better part of valour. Babangida, a military General who was the Head of State, said he suspected fifth columnists in the annulment, and “realised he needed to thread very carefully”. The Igbos say that it is from the compound of an apparent coward that people stay and point at the ruins in the compound of a man of bravado. It takes wisdom to know that there is a difference between bravery and bravado. 

Professor Nwosu’s genius in the game of wits between him and the faction of the military that did not want the elections to hold at all was to let Nigerians know who won the election before allowing the military to annul it. In essence, a faction of the military annulled the election but it was like bolting the stable after the horse had already bolted. By outwitting that faction of the military yet again, Professor Nwosu successfully turned it into a confrontation between progressive Nigerians and that wing of the military. 

 Professor Nwosu called for June 12 to be made Nigeria’s Democracy Day some 10 years before it was actualized

Professor Nwosu saw ‘June 12’ as a movement and called for that Day to be made Democracy Day. In the interview he granted to The News Magazine in June 2008, he declared as follows: “So you’ll find that June 12 as a movement was indeed the day Nigerians opted for a democratic political order. They didn’t care and the parties cut across ethnic, state and regional boundaries. And Nigerians were highly mobilized and they expressed their choices freely without interference…. And so in my own view, June 12 was the day Nigerians decided freely for a democratic political order without any hindrance. That day should be Democracy Day. I don’t see anything that makes 29 May, 1999 superior to June 12, 1993. Without June 12, there wouldn’t have been May 29. In my view, it was an offshoot of June 12.”  It was only in June 2018 that Muhammadu Buhari made June 12 Democracy Day in Nigeria. That was clear 10 years after the man the likes of Adams Oshiomhole called a “coward” made that call. 

What is the best way to immortalize Professor Nwosu?

I have a lot of respect for Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe. But I disagree with him and his colleagues in the Senate who walked out because the Senate refused to endorse a motion to honour Professor Nwosu posthumously on several grounds:  One, I am not sure it was proper to bring that motion in the floor of the Senate as it amounted to “begging” the state to honour him. That apparent act of begging in itself would have cheapened that honour, if it was granted. A simple letter to the President drawing attention to Professor Nwosu’s legacy, would perhaps have been a better approach. 

Two, even if Professor Nwosu is honoured posthumously, one could raise the question of the worth of a few letters after one’s name or naming a building after the person (especially now that national honours have become very cheapened). The best place to immortalize any one is in people’s hearts. The two colloquia in his honour – variously at the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus and at Abuja,  (in which Senator Abaribe himself and several others like Professor Jega attended), are among the best ways of immortalising anyone. I had the privilege of presenting a version of this paper at a segment of the Abuja colloquium. 

Three, there are better ways of immortalizing Professor Nwosu in the hearts of people who appreciated him as a scholar and Chairman of NEC:  Prizes could be endowed in his honour at selected  Departments of Political Science and Public Administration across the country; the Department of Public Administration at the UNN could be named after him. Some of the papers presented at the colloquia to honour his legacy could be published as a book.  If the Nigerian state decides at any point to honour him, it should be at its discretion to do so.  After all, June 12 was made Democracy Day 25 years after Professor Nwosu ‘announced’ Abiola the winner of the elections, and 10 years after he made a call for June 12 to be so honoured.

Jideofor Adibe is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Nasarawa State University He can be reached on: 0705 807 8841 (WhatsApp and Text messages only).

The paper was originally presented at a Colloquium on the Life and Times of Professor Humphrey Nwosu at Abuja on March 25 2025. 

Jideofor Adibe is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Nasarawa State University and founder of Adonis & Abbey Publishers (www.adonis-abbey.com). He can be reached at: 0705 807 8841 (WhatsApp and Text messages only).

 

 

The first head of government that declared a state of emergency in Nigeria was the then Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (December 1912 – January 15, 1966) and that was in May 1962. I was a student then at Olofin Anglican Grammar School in Idanre in Ondo State, along with Folu Olamiti, Prince Wale Olateru-Olagbegi, Olu Adegboro, Feyi Famutimi(75) and others. 

He declared the state of emergency in the Western Region which now comprises South-West and parts of South-South.

The crisis was an internal affairs in the then region which later consumed the whole country. 

The crisis of the Action Group which reared its ugly head at the party’s annual convention held in Jos, Plateau in January 1962 started like a joke. It was at the convention that the General Secretary of the party, Chief Ayotunde Rosiji (1917-2000) resigned and Mr. Samuel Goomsu Ikoku (1912-1997) took over as the Chief Scribe of the party. Chief Anthony Eromosele Enahoro (1923-2010) became the deputy leader of the party. Mr. Sam Ikoku had earlier defeated his father, Dr. Alvan Ikoku by 59 votes in the Eastern Nigeria House of Assembly election. 

The 8th convention of the party was held in African Sports Club in Jos with Chief Ajibola Idowu Ige,SAN(1930-2001) elected Publicity Secretary of the party and with Professor Samuel Adepoju Aluko(1929-2012), Prof. Hezekiah Adedunmola Oluwafemi Oluwasanmi (1919-1983), Prof. Victor Adenuga Oyenuga(1917-2010),Chief Arthur Edward Prest(1906-1976), Prof. H.E. Ajose, Dr. Sanya Dojo Onabamiro (1913-1985) and Prof. Akinlawon Ladipo Mabogunje (October 18, 1931 – August 4, 2022), in attendance. 

At the convention, the then leader of the party, Chief Obafemi Awolowo (1909-1987), was on one side, while the Premier of the Western Region at the time, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola (1912-1966) was on another side. The crisis snowballed into a major national crisis, the consequences of which we still face today.

Before the declaration of the state of emergency, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa had issued a press statement on May 22, 1962. In the statement, he declared: “The two factions in the Action Group have contacted the Prime Minister regarding the holding of another meeting of the Western Nigeria house of assembly today. The Prime Minister cannot stop the meeting from taking place, but because of the fight which has broken out in the house this morning, if the parties decide to hold a meeting of the house of assembly they may do so. It may be on the strict understanding that there will be no police protection within the chamber. If, however, any party insists on being afforded police protection within the chamber the police may be so present, but the Federal Government will not accept any decision reached as a result of such proceedings in the chamber. If in spite of all efforts of the police there should be an outbreak of violence or any disorder, the police have authority to clear the chamber and lock it up”.

Despite this clarification, no solution was found to the Western Region crisis; in fact, the situation became more tensed. However, the logistical problems of the army, which was transferring most of its battalion between the Congo and home depots, a token number of troops and armoured vehicles went to Ibadan to back up the police if necessary. The GOC of the army (General Welby-Everard) caused an administrative sensation by moving his tactical headquarters to Ibadan and setting up a joint ‘pol-mil’ HQ with the Inspector General of Police Sir Kerr Bovell(1913-1973). It was unprecedented. Some AG members asked Chief Anthony Enahoro to go abroad to tell the world of a threat to democracy. 

On May 29, 1962, then Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (1912-1966), summoned an emergency meeting of the Federal House of Representatives which was then the Federal Parliament in Lagos during which he moved a motion on the Action Group crisis. 

*Read the full motion as reproduced and the reply of the then opposition leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, next week. 

To be concluded 

•Teniola, a former director at the Presidency, wrote from Lagos.

 

 

Periodic harvest of death through mindless killing of innocent men, women and children by bandits which have unfortunately become regular feature of the Middle Belt region especially the Benue/Plateau axis, according to Governor Caleb Mutfwang occurred  again last week resulting in the massacre of over 50 people in Bokkos.

But, as common with Middle Belt region leaders who got integrated into the power structure through either marriage, business or politics by the hegemonic power in the north, self-preservation is often the first law. This was why the governor was going to play the ostrich so as not to rock the boat until Channel TV’s Seun Okinbaloye’s probing question left him no room for equivocation. He was forced to declare – “as I speak to you there are not less than 64 communities taken over, renamed and people are living there on land they push people away from”. Writhing his hands in helplessness like his predecessors in office, he attributed the nightmare of his people to “genocide sponsored by terrorist from somewhere” and “proliferation of sophisticated arms”.

Mutfwang cannot out of desire for self-preservation suppress facts about the killings in the Middle Belt and those behind the killings. It is on record that no less than 1,000 persons were killed in Jos and its environs as a result of ethno-religious conflagrations in n 2001, about 700 killed due to communal clashes in Yelwa, southern Plateau, in 2004; Scores in Jos in January 2010 as a result of sectarian clashes including the killing of nearly 150 Muslims in Kan Karama while December 2010’s Christmas eve explosions in two Christian neighbourhoods in Jos, followed by several days of sectarian violence, left at least 107 persons dead.

We have also been told that the number of renamed communities in 2020 was about 102 while as at July 2023, we have  an estimated 18,751 internally displaced persons, many of them  condemned to IDP camps where they face hunger diseases and uncertain future .( Gideon and Funmi Para-Mallam Peace Foundation).

The governor was hesitant when it came to disclosing the identities of those assailants sacking communities, confiscating land and sending victims to IDP camps. He can keep his peace as credible Fulani voices like Sheik Gumi, Nasir El Rufai, Aminu Masari and Abdullahi Ganduje have already identified them as disgruntled immigrant Fulani herders who want recognition and compensation after their heinous crimes. The tragedy of besieged people of Benue and Plateau is that they have continued to be betrayed by their leaders.

For fear of antagonizing the hegemonic power in the north, the Justice Nikki Tobi Commission report that came out during Obasanjo’s presidency was for instance never implemented; Joshua Dariye’s introduction of vigilante groups- The Rainbow Boys – was not allowed to operate just as Jonah Jang’s anti-land grabbing and anti-kidnapping bills were never passed by the state House of Assembly.

It was for the same reason successive leaders of the Middle Belt region who for a long time opposed state and community policing could not replicate the Southwest Amotekun security architecture model. It was the same reason they would rather listen to Shehu Garba’s criticism of community policing than the timely advice by Theophilus Danjuma, the late crusader for Middle Belt self-actualization to the effect that those facing threat of genocide can defend themselves by procuring guns from where their tormentors got their own if government refused to give them licence to officially buy guns to protect themselves.

The people of the Middle Belt have not changed. They remain the same people whose land was never conquered, the same brave warriors Uthman Dan Fodio hired as mercenaries to prosecute his wars and the same people who staged an insurrection immediately after independence to press their demand for self-actualisation. What changed are leaders driven more by consideration for self-preservation than patriotic zeal to serve their people.

The nightmare of the people of Middle Belt region started with the death of Joseph Tarka, and Chief Obafemi Awolowo the greatest advocate for the creation of the Middle Belt Region. Awolowo remained the last man standing during the 1957 London constitutional debate following betrayal by Ahmadu Bello, the NPC leader and Nnamdi Azikiwe the NCNC leader, both of whom were driven by greed to corner land belonging to various Nigerian ethnic nationalities for the exclusive use of their own people.

A brief journey through history will show how both shared a common philosophy of how to manage Nigerian land spaces.

Ahmadu Bello and the hegemonic power in the north saw Nigeria as a land ordained by God for the stateless Fulani across West Africa with his great grandfathers capturing of Hausa land over which he imposed 13 of his kinsmen and one Hausa as Emirs. On his part, Zik who believed Igbo race had been ordained  by God to lead the children of Africa, was also convinced that everywhere in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa should be home to his industrious and entrepreneurial Igbo people.

It is therefore not difficult to see why Zik and his supporters did not see any contradiction in recommending a unitary system for a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural Nigeria or attempting to take over Yoruba nation in 1952 in the name of fake nationalism using his West African Pilot as tool of propaganda.

And if further reasons are needed, Emeka Ojukwu’s strategy for the civil war which started as a war between the north and the east also said it all. For instance, instead of confronting the northern soldiers that attacked the Eastern Region from Makurdi, the Biafra Army overran Midwest, appointed an Igbo administrator and was on the way to Lagos before they were stopped at Ore, in Ondo State. But that was not before his insolent letter to Victor Banjo stating that he Ojukwu would decide who the administrator of Lagos would be after the pacification of Yoruba land.

Not much has changed since the beginning of the Fourth Republic. The new campaign is no more unitarism but citizenship as the answer to the national question. In this regard, there is currently a bill in the National Assembly by Hon Benjamin Okezie Kalu which will legitimise immigrants’ takeover of ancestral home of host communities, a superior alternative to the ongoing bandits’ mindless killings in the Middle Belt region.

The Fulani leaders never pretended about what they wanted out of Nigeria. With Uthman Dan Fodio’s subjugation of Hausa and sharing of their land among his siblings, his grandchildren believe Nigeria is a land ordained for stateless Fulani across West Africa. Ilorin was later to be seized through the help of Afonja, the Oyo Are Ona Kanakafo stationed in Ilorin. Oyo was later sacked by Fulani invaders who were stopped at Osogbo by the Ibadan army.

What the Fulani leader could not get through war, they got through British colonial power. At the 1950 Ibadan constitutional conference, they insisted and secured 50% of membership of the Nigerian legislative house as condition for remaining part of post independent Nigeria.

For the Fulani, like their Igbo rivals, not much have changed. It is still the same sense of entitlement over land that is fuelling the crisis in The Middle Belt and elsewhere in the country. Abubakar Malami, former Attorney General of the Federation once insisted that armed immigrant Fulani herders have right to occupy Ondo forest reserve. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi publicly encouraged Fulani herders to disobey Benue State’s anti-open grazing laws. Bauchi State governor, Bala Mohammed not too long ago passed a ‘fatwa’ through Channels TV, declaring any Fulani from any part of Africa, a Nigerian. Leaders of the herders wrote a 70-page letter to Muhammadu Buhari as president insisting open grazing is part of Fulani culture and threatened to make the country ungovernable if restricted from grazing in any part of the country.

And their strategy for managing power has not changed. Tafawa Balewa, a minority from southern Bauchi was picked as prime minister in the first republic. He did everything Ahmadu Bello wanted including ‘doing nothing’ because of self-preservation even as the West burned.

Gowon was installed Head of State after the 1966 July military vengeance coup over his seniors in breach of military protocol.  It was not a surprise that when the rivalry between the Igbo and Fulani ended in a civil war, Gowon and other notable Middle Belt military officers including Danjuma who has today become a leading voice of resistance, fought like slaves because of self-preservation.

Chiefs Solomon Lar, Barnabas Gemade, Audu Ogbe, Ahmadu Ali, Kawu Baraje were for 16 years chairmen of the then ruling PDP. But they all pretended not to see the daily harvest of death from their home. David Mark and Bukola Saraki jointly occupied the senate presidency, the third most powerful office for 12 years. But fear of Fulani hegemonic power blinded them to the daily misery of their people.

For all Middle Belt politicians, it is always the law of self-preservation. 

In slamming Mexico with a high reciprocal tariff—which has now been suspended for 90 days—the President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump, did not take into consideration the provisions in the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which precludes member countries from being levied tariffs on certain products.

Upon discovering the breach, Mexico pointed it out to the US, and promptly, the concern was addressed with the USMCA exemption recognized and the aberration corrected.

Like the USMCA, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), introduced in 2000 under President Bill Clinton’s administration, grants African countries exemptions from paying tariffs on some items exported to the US.

With the 10% across-the-board tariff that the US has imposed on all her trading partners worldwide—and the reciprocal tariffs (currently paused for three months) that raised tariffs on Nigerian goods to 14%, and up to 50% for a small African country like Lesotho—the US may have breached the AGOA pact with Africa.

So, the question is: has Africa, like Mexico, approached the US to inform her that the AGOA arrangement has been breached, so that an adjustment can be made accordingly, in the same manner that a similar breach of USMCA was addressed when it was brought to the US’s attention?

That task squarely falls within the purview of the African Union (AU); it is a responsibility that rests directly on its shoulders.

If peradventure, Africa has not yet made that move via the AU, the 90-day pause announced by President Trump is a veritable window for the pan-African organization to engage with the relevant authorities in the US to resolve the matter.

That said, at this juncture, it is appropriate that we take a look at Africa’s uninspiring place in the world order and try to figure out how to reposition the continent to become a more active player in the new global trade framework being reshaped by President Trump through his sweeping tariff changes.

In identifying Africa’s place in the new world trade order being unfurled and wrought by President Trump—through trade tariffs that have disrupted global trade in ways that may become unrecognizable to old-school aficionados—it is imperative to put the unfolding scenario in historical context.

As we all would agree, from the Berlin Conference of 1884–85 where Africa was partitioned among European powers, to today’s Africa where the likes of Tony Elumelu, chairman of UBA/Heirs Holdings is promoting Africapitalism (a vision for African entrepreneurs to develop the continent by intentionally investing in its abundant resources to bring prosperity to communities), European exploration and exploitation of Africa has a long and complex history.

For a deep dive into how entrenched the European and other superpowers’ interests in Africa have become, here is a breakdown of key historical milestones:

Going back to the Ancient Era, the Phoenicians—a civilization from the eastern Mediterranean—are believed to have explored North Africa and possibly even circumnavigated the African continent around 600 BC. It is believed they established colonies, with Carthage being the most notable.

In the Medieval Period, during the Viking expeditions of the 9th century, North African Mediterranean coastal towns were also raided.

Then came the Portuguese explorers in the 13th–14th centuries. Genoese navigators such as Vandino and Ugolino Vivaldi attempted to find a sea route to India around Africa in 1291. Thereafter, Jaume Ferrer sailed down the West African coast in search of the legendary “River of Gold” in 1346.

That expedition was followed by the Age of Discovery explorations in the 15th century when the Portuguese—led by Prince Henry the Navigator—pioneered maritime exploration. That was when explorers like Bartolomeu Dias reached the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, and Vasco da Gama successfully navigated to India via Africa in 1498. All of the above is what many of us learned in European history classes during our formative years in school, right? One is going down memory lane because to truly understand the marginalization of Africa in the scheme of things by the rest of the world, we must recall and place these historical realities in perspective.

It was not until much later that other European powers such as the Dutch, English, French, and others soon followed, establishing trading posts and colonies along the African coast.

In light of the above and based on historical records, European exploration of Africa’s interior did not gain momentum until the 19th century, with explorers like David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley mapping the continent’s geography and “discovering” new regions.

For this discourse, we will stay focused on the exploitation of the African continent by foreign invaders since the time of Livingstone et al.

Following the arrival of European explorers in Africa in the 19th century, and especially after World War I, the continent has been actively and continuously pillaged by fortune seekers from other continents—particularly Europe, North and South America, and Asia.

Specifically, Africa’s exclusion from productive trade was entrenched as far back as 1884/85, when then-German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck hosted the Berlin Conference, during which European powers carved up Africa without inviting a single African representative to the table.

After the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade—which occurred between the 16th and 19th centuries, during which roughly 10–12 million Africans were shipped as slaves to the Americas in a trading system where African slaves were exchanged by Europeans for American products such as coffee and sugar, which were then shipped back to Europe—these Western powers transitioned from being slave traders to colonizers.

Unsurprisingly, the European colonizers lingered to further extract solid and rare earth minerals abundant in Africa—an unfair trade practice that remains in play to this day.

Unlike the countries in the Southern Hemisphere, which the Europeans were also scrambling to colonize but which were fortunate enough to benefit from the ‘Big Brother’ protection of the Monroe Doctrine—a U.S. foreign policy enacted in 1823, wherein then-President James Monroe prohibited further European colonization of countries in the Western Hemisphere—Africa was left unprotected. As such, the continent remained exposed to the insatiable greed of European powers.

The original version of the Monroe Doctrine also prohibited the marauding Europeans from further colonization of other countries universally including other hemispheres, particularly Africa. 

But it was then Secretary of State John Quincy Adams citing a lack of capacity to enforce the law globally that advised President Monroe to confine the proclamation to the Western hemisphere which was near. Otherwise, perhaps the Europeans would have been discouraged from partitioning and colonizing Africa in 1844/5 in the manner they did, as it occurred over 20 years after the Monroe Doctrine was instituted.

With no ‘big brother’ protecting Africa, the Europeans greedily ravaged Africa and the exploitation has been so overwhelming that countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)—blessed with abundant rare earth resources needed for manufacturing high-tech products—owing to unbridled exploitation have remained ground zero for armed conflicts. Even fellow African countries like Rwanda have joined the scramble for Congo’s resources, which have been exploited continuously for at least a century. The scenario described above is a classical case of unfair trade. 

Incidentally, the justification for President Trump’s ongoing tariff war includes not only an effort to stem the illicit drug fentanyl from entering the U.S. but also to correct what he considers unfair trade practices by the rest of the world against the United States. So, with its economic and military clout as the world’s global hegemon, and under the leadership of a bold and unorthodox President Trump—who was voted into power based on his reputation as a change agent, although a political outsider—the U.S. is using tariffs to fight for balanced trade with its partners.

But from the narrative about trade between Africa and other continents, as earlier highlighted, it is disheartening and disappointing that Africa has been a perennial and perpetual victim of unfair trade. Sadly, the continent lacks the clout to fight for itself, as the U.S. is currently doing.

Operating in an unstructured—and some may say ungoverned—environment, where six (6) countries (Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, Mali, and Sudan), mostly located in the Sahel region, have reverted from democratic governance to military dictatorships, forging a common front to assert herself as a unified continent has remained a mirage since the time of the founding fathers of the Organization of African Unity (OAU)—Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, among others—who convened in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1963.

Although the OAU was later renamed the African Union (AU) in Durban, South Africa in 2002—likely inspired by the somewhat successful European Union (EU)—the change was largely nominal. The continental body has never been able to transform Africa into a powerful trading bloc like the EU.

Instead, the continent has remained a mere source of raw materials and not a producer of value-added products that could have engendered prosperity for its people when it becomes the new manufacturing hub for the US.

Perhaps the recently formed African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will make a difference by triggering the desired positive change.

In a previous article titled “What If President Trump Wants to Shift From Aid to Trade?”, I explored the possibility that Trump might replace aid to Africa—which he has begun to roll back—with trade. I argued that Africa needs trade, not aid.

That prospect is not far-fetched. The continent is increasingly being seen by forward-thinking investors as the next frontier for development. But with trade between industrialized nations now restricted by Trump’s tariffs, one wonders:

Will Africa become the dumping ground for goods that advanced economies can no longer trade among themselves?

If so, would this not further hinder industrialization on the continent? On the flip side, could this trade standoff prompt the U.S. and others to manufacture in Africa instead of relying on China and Vietnam—countries hit by the heaviest tariffs?

Given Africa’s closer proximity to the U.S. via the Atlantic Ocean (compared to Asia via the Pacific), the continent—especially Nigeria—could become a strategic manufacturing base. This possibility gains weight with the U.S. currently building its largest embassy in the world at Eko Atlantic, located on the shores of Bar Beach–Atlantic Ocean in Victoria Island, Lagos.

Signs of a Strategic Shift

The recent appointment of Mr. Massad Boulos, former Group Managing Director of SCOA Nigeria Plc, as Senior Special Adviser to President Trump on Africa affirms growing optimism that Africa will be a focal point for U.S. economic cooperation.

My self being a board member of SCOA Plc and chairman of its Audit Committee since 2012, I can guarantee that Mr. Boulos is a veritable asset to the U.S. and will make a great and positive impact for the benefit of both the U.S. and Africa. He knows the continent inside out, having worked with the SCOA Group—an organization that has existed for nearly a century with a massive Africa-wide footprint.

Already, Mr. Boulos has initiated meetings with the Presidents of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria to promote peace in conflict zones and foster mutually beneficial economic partnerships.

For too long, as earlier stated, Africa has been sidelined in global trade value chains—operating on the fringes due to unfair trade practices entrenched during the colonial era, which saw the continent become an extension of European empires.

Even after gaining political independence, beginning in the mid-1950s, Africa has remained marginal in global trade—accounting for less than 3% of global trade volume.

Yet Africa is resource-rich:

 • 30% of the world’s mineral reserves

 • 40% of global gold reserves

 • 90% of global platinum and chromium

 • Over 10% of global oil reserves

 • 65% of the world’s arable land

 • 60% of the world’s uncultivated fertile land

 • A population of 1.539 billion as of March 2025, representing 18.83% of the global population (estimated at 8.1 billion)

If Africa is to thrive in the emerging world order, it must seize this moment not as a threat, but as a strategic opportunity to renegotiate its place in global trade—by adding value, fostering local production, and becoming an active partner in global manufacturing and economic integration.

Using the recently released Forbes list of billionaires for 2025 as a barometer of Africa’s global standing, there are a record 3,028 billionaires on this year’s list. Their combined wealth totals a record $16.1 trillion. Yet, only twenty-three (23) of them are Black. Alhaji Aliko Dangote remains the richest Black man on earth. Other Nigerians on the list include Chief Mike Adenuga, Alhaji Samad Rabiu, and Mr. Femi Otedola—who all reside in Nigeria—while Mr. Bayo Ogunlesi and Mr. Tope Awotona, also Nigerians, live outside the continent.

The 23 Black billionaires account for just 0.8% of the total wealth of the world’s 3,028 billionaires. Effectively, less than 1% of the world’s billionaire wealth is held by Black individuals—and even less by Africans living on the continent.

Based on Forbes figures, these 23 Black billionaires have a combined wealth of only $96.2 billion—less than $100 billion—a mere drop in the ocean compared to the $16.1 trillion owned by the remaining 3,005 billionaires, mostly in industrialized and advanced societies.

Apart from its vast mineral wealth, Africa holds a global comparative advantage in agriculture. However, subsidies provided by industrialized nations to their farmers significantly neutralize any potential gains for African producers. For instance, eggs that were once produced in excess in the U.S. used to be dumped locally or even thrown into the ocean during gluts, rather than being exported to famine-stricken areas in Africa—especially in the Horn of Africa—where people have died from hunger-related diseases. Ironically, the U.S. is now experiencing an egg shortage. Hopefully, when the egg surplus returns, the U.S. will remember to ship excess produce to Africa, where the need is dire. This is especially critical given that the continent is increasingly unable to feed itself due to unfair global trade practices orchestrated by powerful players in the developed world.

Against the backdrop of Trump’s ongoing reciprocal high-tariff upheavals, one might have thought this would be an opportunity to bring Africa more squarely into the global trade framework—especially now, as a new world order seems to be emerging under Trump.

Take, for example, the case of avocados. High tariffs imposed on Mexico—currently the largest supplier of avocados to the U.S.—have created a supply gap. Africa, also a major grower of avocados, could potentially fill that gap under a tariff-free framework such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), introduced by President Bill Clinton in 2000. AGOA significantly boosted trade between the U.S. and Africa’s 54 nations.

Unfortunately, that might no longer be the case. That is because as earlier noted, AGOA which has been in practice for 25 years seems to have been sidelined under the current administration’s reciprocal tariff regime. Unless the seeming breach is rectified.

What remains Africa’s biggest handicap in becoming a manufacturing hub for U.S.-bound exports is the lack of infrastructure. This, coupled with financing deficits and debt traps, has made the continent less attractive compared to Asian countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand, which are now thriving manufacturing hubs serving the U.S. market. Vietnam, for instance, has been hit with tariffs as high as 46%.

The industrialization of these countries is the result of a ripple effect—an economic radiance originating in Japan and China, spreading outward to nations like Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia. These countries now orbit as stars around the moons of Japan and China within Asia’s industrial ecosystem.

The U.S. could intentionally choose to industrialize Africa. The continent’s lack of industrial capacity underscored by energy insecurity could be mitigated by fixing its chronic electricity shortages. Africa possesses abundant untapped energy potential—from hydropower and solar to wind and biomass—even without considering nuclear power. Elon Musk has already developed battery pack technology capable of powering entire cities, tested successfully in Australia. Why not introduce it to Africa?

While the world is in the midst of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Africa missed out on the first two. However, the continent caught up during the third—the telecoms revolution—by skipping telephone landlines and going straight to mobile technology, thanks to GSM. Similarly, Musk’s super battery packs could revolutionize Africa’s power sector in much the same way.

These are ideas worth considering by President Trump, the leader of the world’s most powerful and wealthiest nation, and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.

During this tariff war, the Director-General of the World Trade Organization, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, made the following remarks at a Commonwealth event in London on March 31:

 “Amidst all this turbulence, what is still good is that there is still $24 trillion of goods trade. The U.S. accounts for 13–16% of world exports, and China 15%. If 75% of trade is still going on outside the U.S. and China, it means there’s a world out there trading within itself, coming together to reaffirm support for the system. So, take a deep breath—let’s preserve what works… But when you throw out retaliation, it just goes back and forth.”

Her non-retaliatory stance appears to be the most pragmatic way forward.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent echoed this sentiment after President Trump announced the new tariffs in the White House Rose Garden, urging affected countries not to engage in tit-for-tat retaliation. The nations that heeded his advice had the tariff paused so it is only China that retaliated with a 125% tariff against the US the 145% has been operationalized.

To lend my voice, I believe EU President Ursula von der Leyen should prioritize dialogue with President Trump and his team—who are intent on remaking the global trade order—instead of adopting a combative stance. The objective should be mutual compromise.

President Trump does have a valid argument when he claims that the U.S. has been exploited through trade imbalances and security expenditures—particularly in its relationships with Europe. The high reciprocal tariffs, according to him, are a correction of those long-standing disparities.

Even Jens Stoltenberg, the immediate past NATO chief, acknowledged that Trump’s tough stance during his first term prompted most NATO members to meet their financial obligations—a clear “Trump effect.”

From a global security perspective, one could argue that the U.S., as the longstanding global hegemon, has carried the burden of maintaining world order—which may have justified its earlier trade concessions. President Trump is now reversing those concessions.

After the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Russia—the main remnant—has struggled to match U.S. dominance in either economic or military terms. The Cold War, which once divided the world between a communist East and a capitalist West, ended with the U.S.-led West as the undisputed superpower.

Now, China—currently the world’s second-largest economy—is consolidating its regional power. It has reclaimed Hong Kong from the UK, and now eyes Taiwan, which claims independence. One would think China would first solidify control over its region before challenging the U.S. on the global stage. While President Xi Jinping has extended olive branches to neighboring nations like Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia through a “neighborhood diplomacy” initiative, tensions with Taiwan have escalated lately, as evidenced by a recent military maneuver.

Still, against all odds and perhaps out of national pride, China has stated that while it won’t raise tariffs further, it is not afraid and in my view, it appears it remains open to negotiation.

In the meantime, the U.S.—unopposed in its superpower status—continues to shape the world according to its vision. Nevertheless, President Trump has paused his reciprocal tariffs for 90 days, ostensibly to allow room for negotiations by the over 60 nations hit with the reciprocal tariffs. While some critics argue he panicked due to the negative bond market and ordinary people's reactions, I believe he’s acting strategically—seeking a win, not a war without an end.

All said and done, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, is originally from South Africa. Morally, he should fight for Africa, leveraging his immense wealth and global influence. Given his concern about land disputes in South Africa, it’s clear Musk cares about the continent. All he needs to do is broaden his scope to include the “rainbow coalition” (black and white people) across Africa—widely recognized as the world’s next frontier.

If Tony Elumelu can commit $100 million in ten years through his foundation, TEF to empower African youth across 54 countries with entrepreneurial skills and start-up seed money, there’s no reason why Musk cannot dedicate $1 billion to provide electricity to Africa—powering industrialization and creating new prosperity on the continent of his birth.

After all, Africa—as economists have confirmed—is not an aid case. It is a land of untapped potential.

The bottom line is this: Africa needs industrialization and trade, not aid. And both President Trump, leader of the world’s most powerful country, and Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, can make it happen.

Musk has already explored the unknown in space with his SpaceX program. Now it’s time to explore Africa—for real, and for good.

I would like to conclude by restating the fact that, Africa beckons President Trump and Elon Musk.

Magnus Onyibe, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst, and author.

Although the rest of Africa seems to have forgotten about the crisis and wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), some scholars, intellectuals and thinkers from the continent are continually engrossed in finding the pathways to resolving the perennial problems in the continent’s largest country. Last weekend, they came together to examine the underlying causes of the conflicts and proffer solutions. It was at a webinar organised by The Pan-African Dialogue Institute (TPADI) on the theme ‘’Invasion of DR Congo: Global interests and implications for pan-Africanism’’ TPADI is an international think tank of African academics, professionals, students, civil society and grassroots leaders in different fields of life within Africa and the Diaspora, coming together for the study, practice, and propagation of Pan-Africanism.

The keynote speaker at the webinar, Prof G. Macharia Munene, is a professor of history and international relations at the United States International University Africa (USIU-A). He has taught in several universities in Europe, America and Africa, and published many articles and books. His academic excellence and advocacy have earned him an award as a UN-recognised expert on decolonisation. Prof. Munene gave a historical account of the Congo crisis, tracing it to the Berlin Conference of 1884, and argued that the country is “the source of both Pan-African agony and Pan-African consciousness”, because of being subjected to military, mercenary, commercial, mineral resource looting, and spiritual invasions.

Congo is geographically a big country and there actually seem to be two countries in one, Eastern and Western Congo. Those in Eastern Congo appear to be closer to East African countries than to Western Congo. To them, the zone around Kinshasa in Western Congo is like a foreign country and Eastern Congo is similarly a foreign country to those in Kinshasa. Congo is rich in strategic minerals and other forms of wealth like rubber and timber. He noted that DRC is similarly a source of African contradictions of extreme wealth in the midst of extreme poverty – a place of attraction for colonisers to extract wealth accompanied by the pain of poverty for African victims of colonialism. It attracts extra-continental adventurers and wealth looters.

Participants at the Berlin Conference, Munene reasoned, achieved two things. First, they partitioned the Congo zone so that the French, the British, the Portuguese, and the Germans each got a piece of the Congo zone. The biggest beneficiary of the partitioning was King Leopold of Belgium who acquired the entire DR Congo as his personal property, to be called ‘Leopold’s Congo’. The second achievement was to agree on how to claim other African territories without fighting. But Congo was set on a path of destruction.

 

The post-independence killing of Lumumba plunged Congo into Cold War chaos and acted as a warning to other African leaders of what could happen. Leaders of the soon-to-be-independent Kenya took note of those happenings and assured the West that all would be well because thugs would not run the government. Nairobi tried to reconcile the Congolese factions in the 1960s but external forces made sure that the reconciliation would not go far. Mobutu was the main man to be protected by the Western powers in the 1970s even as he looted his country dry. He became so rich and ran his country bankrupt, so much so that he could lend money to his country. He tried derailing the events in Angola, sponsoring Holden Roberto. In his private visits to the US, he still received honoured treatment from US President Jimmy Carter.

Mobutu’s ouster was due to both internal weaknesses as well as external pressure. Internally, he had alienated the Congolese so much that he did not have an army to rely on. He instead relied on mercenaries and mercenaries rarely fight when they should. They simply take the money and move elsewhere. Mobutu’s mercenaries abandoned him to his fate. The external factors involved a coalition of Congolese in exile under Laurent Desire Kabila, a purported follower of Lumumba and who was supported by neighbouring countries such as Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Zambia. Paul Kagame, initially operating from Uganda, came from the 1994 genocide in Rwanda as a saviour. About two million genocide suspects, who escaped to Eastern Congo, endorsed Kabila. And so did Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni and other countries which joined the Kabila bandwagon which swept Mobutu out of office into exile in 1997.

With Kabila finally in Kinshasa as president, he changed the country’s name from Mobutu’s Zaire to Democratic Republic of Congo, DR Congo. He also chased his Ugandan and Rwandan supporters from Kinshasa. His bodyguards assassinated him in January 2001. He was succeeded by his son, Joseph Kabila. In addition, the anti-Mobutu allies started quarrelling as each country leader looked after his country’s national interests.

 

Some of those interests turned out to be exporting gold and other minerals from Eastern Congo. Some like Rwanda and Uganda, exchanged fire in Eastern Congo or, like Uganda and Zimbabwe, exchanging insults as to who was a lackey of the United States. Kabila transferred power to Felix Tshesekedi in 2019 after an election. Several countries have different excuses for having troops in Eastern Congo ranging from security to supporting Felix Tshesikedi’s government against such rebels as M23.

Congo also attracts extra-continental players who propel conflicts in return for access to different types of minerals. They supply the guns to keep the violence going and offer ‘humanitarian’ assistance for the victims. Among the extra-continental players in DR Congo are the EU, China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, France, and Russia. Tshesekedi, probably observing Ukrainian indecision on giving minerals to Trump’s America, offered to give Trump access to Congolese minerals in return for security. The meeting with Masaad Boulos, advisor to Trump on Africa and the Middle East, who is also an in-law to Trump, reportedly yielded positive results. It might imply a return to the Mobutu days.

Prof Munene concluded that the violence in DR Congo is likely to continue partly because it is not in the perceived interests of the forces that control Congo’s resources such as the mining of the minerals. Those forces subject Congo to various types of invasions ranging from military invasion to commercial as well as beliefs that are designed to dehumanise and enslave people into submission. This is not a new challenge but a long-lasting one that has ravaged Congo for more than 140 years.

Another speaker, Prof. Mutombo Nkulu-N’Sengha, a citizen of DRC and a professor of Religion at California State University, Northridge, USA, is the Vice President of TPADI. In his presentation titled, Geopolitical and Pan-African Approach to the DR Congo Tragedy, he noted that foreign powers have vested interests in the Congo due to its vast mineral deposits. Western powers consider Congo, and indeed Africa, as their properties that can be used however they want, and keeping Africa in perpetual conflicts is part of their strategies for continued exploration and exploitation. Prof Mutombo said although many scholars are suggesting that DRC may be divided into two countries – Western Congo and Eastern Congo – just as the North and South Koreas, he is against demarcation of his native country. For him, the division does not necessarily bring a solution and gave the example of Sudan. Eastern Congo has been in the eye of the storm, he argued, because the largest deposits of minerals are found there. He concluded by calling on all Africans, particularly the Congolese, to rise up, and come together to engage the common enemy, the West.

 

The third speaker, Dr Peter Wafula Wekesa, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History, Archeology and Political Studies at Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya, is a specialist in border community relations, border resources, identity politics, international relations as his main research focus. He is an accomplished academic with many publications to his credit. On DRC, Dr Wekesa believes that border and ethnicity issues may not be unconnected to the instability witnessed in the Congo region. Western Powers, he argues, capitalise on ethnic divisions amongst the Congolese to perpetrate their evil agenda, which is to keep the people under subjugation while they exploit their minerals. He therefore called on Congolese and indeed Africans to talk less about the things that divide them and dialogue more on those things that unite them.

Dr. Francis Khayundi looked at the DRC problems through a legal framework. An Assistant Professor of International Law at the United States International University, Africa, he is also an advocate of the High Court of Kenya. At USIU-Africa, he teaches and researches International Law, International Organisations, Refugee Protection, Human Rights, Governance, Data Protection, and International Relations. According to him, the Berlin Conference and its outcome were related to international law as the Western Powers needed to legitimise their actions in Africa through that conference.

The director of the TPADI Commission on African Politics, Governance and International Relations, Dr. Kakai considered the leadership question and its roles in the DRC crisis. He is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History, Archaeology and Political Studies at Kenyatta University, Nairobi. Dr Kakai questions the quality of leadership in DRC and wonders if the invasion was as a result of the abundant mineral resources in the country or a result of the collusion between the government and foreign forces. He however insisted that no matter the level of conflict, the country should not be divided; but remain united and find a lasting solution to their problems.

The International President of The Pan African Dialogue Institute (TPADI), and organisers of the webinar, Dr Effiong Udo, thanked the panellists for giving the best of their scholarship in enlightening participants on the invasion of the Congo. He noted that what happens in the Congo was of paramount interest to the institute and should be of concern to everyone in Africa. ‘’As Pan-Africanists, we believe that an Injustice to one African is a tragedy to all Africans”, he said.

 

He regretted that the natural resources in Congo have become a curse that has sent millions of Congolese children, women and men to their early graves with no end in sight, stating that every blood spilt in Congo by the M23 militants is either feeding the greed of its leaders or enriching the Western contractors. He encouraged all to embrace dialogue, a peaceful and non-violent approach to this conflict against picking arms. According to him, violence has never solved a conflict. He called on the African Union to assist the leaders and citizens of Congo to resolve this prolonged conflict through dialogue and deep thinking or our people will continue to die like fools.

In the bustling heart of Nollywood, where stories mirror the pulse of the nation, filmmaker Omoni Oboli’s Love in Every Word emerges not merely as a romantic drama but as a profound allegory for Nigeria’s enduring love affair with itself.

The film, which follows Chioma—a Lagos career woman torn between her past and an unexpected romance—unfolds like a parable for the Nigerian condition: a nation grappling with inherited flaws, societal storms, and a love so fierce it borders on obsession. This is not just a tale of two lovers; it is a reflection of Nigeria’s journey to reconcile its contradictions, heal its wounds, and embrace a future where “all will be well,” no matter the tempests.

Chioma’s story begins with resistance. A modern Nigerian woman shaped by ambition and trauma, she cuts ties with a lover who fails her expectations and recoils from a father whose flaws once shattered her family. Her resolve to avoid men who mirror her father’s shortcomings mirrors the disillusionment many Nigerians feel toward their nation. Like Chioma, citizens often wrestle with a love-hate relationship with Nigeria—a country whose potential feels perpetually undermined by systemic failures, corruption, and the ghosts of past betrayals.

 

The film’s opening scenes—where Chioma demands back the gifts she gave her ex—echo the frustration of a populace weary of investing hope in leaders and systems that yield little return. Her toxic workplace, ruled by a tyrannical boss, mirrors the daily grind of Nigerians navigating a society where merit is stifled, opportunities are hoarded, and survival often depends on gritting one’s teeth through indignities. Yet, like Chioma, Nigerians persist. They show up, they work, they dream—even when the dream feels like a mirage.

Enter Obiora, the Igbo entrepreneur whose confidence and persistence disrupt Chioma’s guarded world. Played with magnetic charm by Uzor Arukwe, Obiora is no flawless knight; he carries the cultural baggage Chioma despises—accent, traditions, and a boldness that unnerves her. Yet, he embodies something greater: an unshakable belief in his worth and his right to love her. Here lies the metaphor for Nigeria’s untapped promise.

Obiora’s grand gesture—buying an entire office building to win Chioma’s attention—is audacious, almost reckless. But isn’t this the essence of Nigeria? A nation that, against all odds, continues to bet on itself? From the bustling markets of Onitsha to the tech hubs of Yaba, Nigerians daily perform miracles of resilience. They build empires from nothing, create art in chaos, and innovate where infrastructure falters. Like Obiora, Nigeria may not fit the mold of what the world—or even its people—expects, but it refuses to shrink. It demands to be seen, not for its scars, but for its spirit.

 

Chioma’s workplace serves as a microcosm of Nigeria’s systemic struggles. Her boss, a symbol of oppressive authority, hoards power and undermines her efforts—a reality familiar to many in a nation where leaders often prioritize self-interest over service. Yet, Chioma’s journey teaches a vital lesson: storms refine us. Her resignation from the job, prompted by a crisis of conscience, mirrors moments in Nigerian history when citizens rise—#EndSARS, voter mobilization, civic activism—to reclaim agency.

The film’s tension lies in Chioma’s internal battle: Will she let past pain dictate her future, or will she rewrite her story? Similarly, Nigeria stands at a crossroads. Generations inherited the traumas of colonialism, civil war, and military rule, but the choice remains: Do we chain ourselves to history, or do we, like Chioma, step into the unknown for a chance at redemption?

In Chioma’s friends, Ify and Ivie, we find the Achalugo—the voices of reason and community that anchor her. They represent Nigeria’s vibrant civil society, its artists, its grassroots movements, and its diaspora, all urging the nation toward self-love. “You’re pushing away a good man because of an accent?” Ify chides, echoing the irony of Nigerians who shun local solutions while romanticizing foreign saviors.

 

Obiora, the Odogwu Paranran (great warrior), embodies the fearless love required to transform Nigeria. His persistence is the relentless hope of farmers tilling arid land, teachers in crumbling classrooms, and nurses battling epidemics with scant resources. He does not beg for acceptance; he earns it through action. This is the lesson for Nigeria: To win the world’s respect, we must first believe in our worth.

The film’s crescendo is Chioma’s leap of faith—choosing Obiora despite her fears. It is a quiet revolution, akin to Nigeria’s moments of collective courage: the 2015 peaceful transfer of power, the creativity of Burna Boy and Chimamanda claiming global stages, and the resilience of IDPs rebuilding lives. Chioma’s choice whispers, “Love is not the absence of storms, but the courage to dance in the rain.”

Nigeria, too, must choose. Will we cling to cynicism, or embrace the audacity of hope? The “love” here is not naive—it is revolutionary. It is the love of Fela’s music raging against oppression, the love of Wole Soyinka’s pen defying tyranny, the love of market women pooling resources to send a child to school. It is a love that stares down dysfunction and says, “You cannot have my soul.”

 

Love in Every Word closes not with a fairy-tale ending, but with the promise of growth. Chioma and Obiora’s journey is just beginning—as is Nigeria’s. Our nation, like the film’s protagonists, is a work in progress. But progress demands faith.

To love Nigeria irrevocably is to be a realist and a dreamer. It is to acknowledge the oil spills in the Niger Delta and the ingenuity of startups turning waste into wealth. It is to decry banditry in the North while celebrating the peacemakers bridging divides. It is to groan under the weight of poor governance yet campaign tirelessly for accountability.

This love is not blind; it is visionary—seeing beyond the present chaos to the potential gleaming beneath.

 

Achalugo, the voices crying out for justice, and Odogwu Paranran, the warriors building a better Nigeria, are not mythical figures. They are the students coding through power cuts, the mothers rallying communities against insecurity, and the artists redefining our global narrative. They are you and I.

Nigeria, like Chioma, is learning to love itself—flaws, accents, and all. Our storms—insecurity, inflation, corruption—are fierce, but so is our resolve. The world whispers, “Break,” but Nigeria bends and rises, again and again, because our love is not a fleeting infatuation. It is an obsession, a covenant, a prayer etched into the soil of our ancestors.

In the words of Chinua Achebe, “Nigeria is what it is because its leaders are not what they should be.” Yet, the inverse is also true: Nigeria will be what it should be when its people—guided by the spirit of Achalugo and Odogwu Paranran—refuse to let go of love. We are Chioma, wrestling with our past. We are Obiora, daring to demand more. And in our collective story, the final act is not written by the storms we face, but by the love that outlasts them, and for me this is a testament to the unyielding faith in the fatherland.

 

All will be well. E go better. Because to love Nigeria is to believe in miracles–May Nigeria Win!