OTHERS' VIEWS

OTHERS' VIEWS

On Sunday, March 25, the Church celebrated this year’s mothering Sunday. The event which traditionally follows the Feast of Annunciation, honours the grace – filled life of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Standing on the dignity the BVM brought to womanhood, the Feast by extension honours the vocation of motherhood. The BVM unites the two and stands out as the epitome of this face of creation. But because the mother of Christ was invested with supernatural graces, some have a feeling that she is so set apart from the rest of us that she cannot seriously be emulated. Notwithstanding that Mary led a normal human life on earth, except for the inclination to sin, her projection as model of womanhood and motherhood, is sometimes accepted as only the ideal but a mission impossible for the mass of humanity. This suspension or anaesthetic perception of Mary’s humanity takes place, somehow forgetting her seven sorrows. The flight to Egypt with Joseph, shortly after childbirth, in harrowing conditions of winter and desert dust, is a sobering reminder of the hardship she contended with. The three day search for the boy Jesus who had stayed back at the temple in Jerusalem is a trial no mother, let alone mother of an only child, would wish another parent. But, then, if Mary’s qualities are deemed too daunting, are there no other women of heroic virtues we can find to spice the subject?

Although motherhood is often seen from the prism of family, there is no reason why it should not include a role in the larger society. The fixation with running of the home may well be an unconscious acceptance of the limitations placed on women by society for centuries. While the importance of the family as basic unit of society, with implications for proper socialising cannot be overemphasized, the demands of citizenship are no less imperative. A woman, mother or not, is a citizen and has a role to play in the life of her society. Early, primitive communities and much of successive societies got it wrong with their patriarchal bent. The creator made woman as a helper, companion, not slave, not servant to the man. The human potential for greatness is not a function of gender. Womanhood is beyond motherhood just as motherhood is beyond the home. As the celebration of mothering Sunday echoes on, two Biblical women call our attention with their strength of character. With the Lenten season drawing to climax, their testaments of life, hewn from the redemptive work of Christ, cannot be ignored.

Mary Magdalene is an interesting character. This woman, who was sprung from the jaws of death at the very last minute, teaches us the pricelessness of a second chance. She was not just mindful of her escape from the torture of stoning; she valued the opportunity to live; to live again. The intervention that staved off the mob was touching. It was so quietly, yet, so powerfully done. A man, just one man, with his gentle but earnest ways, holding off and then dispersing that mob baying for her blood, with great calm and confidence. She sensed the personal attention to her life by this miracle worker. Was this not a life – restoring mission? In the days that followed, Mary spotted the consistency about the preacher. The waves of merciful love that radiated from the man the day he saved her also flowed in his ministering at neighbourhoods, villages and towns. Mary perceived the light because she was attentive and disposed. Valuing life, she cherished even more, the source of her new enlightenment, both in adoration and gratitude. And the once notorious prostitute swore to a revolution of the new life. In this response, there could be no demarcating between the morning rays of the good news and the loving charm of the man the Jews called rabbi. Her faithfulness to the Redeemer, all through the frightening drama of crucifixion, up to the lonely graveside, is an epic of moral reinvention, faith and love. Mary Magdalene’s odyssey speaks to the permissive lifestyle of our age that celebrates adultery and idolatry. One of the principal causes of divorce is infidelity, with psychology attributing a significant measure of deviant behaviour and crime to broken homes. Mary Magdalene shows us that both individual and society can make amends and renew themselves.

 

Veronica, the woman mentioned at the sixth Stations of the Cross is another wonderful being. I have often pondered at the depth of her soul, wondering what beautiful thoughts animated her spirit. One apocryphal commentary was of the view that Veronica had been practicing kindness and compassion in her everyday life before that fateful day. The import of this suggestion is that the gesture she extended to Christ was possible because it came naturally from her. Perhaps so. Yet, another commentary suggested that she had dipped the cloth in water before stepping forward to soothe the sting of blood and hot sweat on Christ’s face. However, the central message for us cannot be lost. It was not just her courage. She practically put her life on the line by her action. In the patriarchal Jewish society of the time, in an assembly of soldiers and a mob blind with rage, what she did was out of this world. Her unconcern about her personal safety might appear reckless but she listened to her conscience. Veronica voted for humanity. Her intervention was a rebuke to the maddening crowd. You don’t treat anyone this way. No one, regardless of the offence, deserves to be brutalised so cruelly. This is sickening, her powerful gesture proclaimed. She was said to be a bystander, but it’s possible she had heard about the man of Galilee who went about doing good. Perhaps, she was thinking, could he really be the messiah? It would seem that the imprint of Christ’s image on her veil was not just a thank you response but also a message of revelation. If there’s nothing else our society will take away from Veronica’s compassion, it’s to put a stop to jungle justice, to the inhuman lynching of suspects.

In recent times, the example of Rosa Parks has shown us that resignation is not the answer to injustice. Returning from work on December 1, 1995, in Montgomery, Parks alongside three other blacks were directed to move to the back of a bus to make room for white passengers at the front. The driver’s demand, to which the other three blacks complied, was backed by law. Nonetheless, Rosa Parks refused to budge. Upon James Blake, the driver’s report, she was arrested and fined in court. The sanction triggered a chain of boycotts, protests, marches and lawsuits against racial inequality in the United States. Parks herself was in the forefront of this civil rights campaign. A year later, in November 1956, Alabama’s segregation law was voided by the Supreme Court. The movement had ripple effects, sweeping away racial segregation practices in other affected states. Tributes to Mrs Rosa Parks capture the salient points of her activism. Wikipedia writes of the wide impression of her as a “quiet, dignified heroine whose singular act inspired change.” At www.ushistory.org, she “quietly incited a revolution – by just sitting down.”

Finally, there’s our own emerging voice for responsibility in government. Recently, Senator Natasha Akpoti – Uduaghan served notice of a campaign against the arrogance of power in Nigerian government and politics. Many of us are not in a position to comment on the merits or otherwise of her sexual harassment allegations against the Senate’s presiding officer. But the leadership’s response to the complaint was unsettling. It was one of how dare you! The punitive sanctions visited on the complainant were scandalous for their overreach, pettiness as well as abuse of officialdom. Many are alarmed at the vicious attempt to crush dissent, to impose a climate of intimidation and fear in the legislature. By Jove, what remains of democracy when elected legislators have to cringe at the weapon of suspension dangling over them? How do elected representatives of the people push the interests of their constituents where the system coerces them into “yes men” and women? Senator Natasha’s challenge of power corruption, her refusal to be bullied into silence and submission is remarkable. The battles she is fighting are well beyond private spheres. They are in the interest of good governance. And that’s why she has strong public support. Her constituency empowerment programmes are reportedly first class, further enhancing her profile. Her focused activism, which has so far brushed aside distractions, is a ventilation of motherhood.

While millions of Nigerians celebrated the successful primary election for the Anambra November 2025 gubernatorial election that produced Governor Chukwuma Soludo as the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate, many well-meaning citizens have expressed serious concern about the undemocratic tendencies portrayed by the opposition parties in Anambra.

The disarray in the opposition parties in Anambra shows two things: (a) the opposition parties are not deeply rooted in the State as the people of Anambra have taken the current party in power – APGA – as a religion and a movement; (b) the elements in the opposition have no leadership, genuine membership and structure. And this is why many commentators who have analyzed Governor Soludo’s impressive performance in the last 3 years and happenings in the opposition parties in Anambra have argued that there is no real opposition in Anambra.

Last Thursday, the internal crisis in the Labor Party in Anambra escalated as two competing factions nominated candidates for the upcoming November gubernatorial election in Anambra. One faction, chaired by Sunday Okereke, announced Jude Umennajiego – a sitting member of the Anambra State House of Assembly representing Onitsha South II – as the elected gubernatorial candidate, another declared George Moghalu as its elected candidate a few days earlier. While thanking the delegates that elected him, Jude Umennajiego nominated another assembly member representing Awka South I, Henry Mbachu, as his running mate.

Earlier, George Moghalu, who recently decamped to the Labour Party from the APC, had received a certificated of return from INEC after he was announced winner in the primary election of April 5.  The only contestant of this April 5 primary election, Mr. John Nwosu, had withdrawn from the election that produced George Moghalu a few hours before the elections. John Nwosu had alleged irregularities in the delegates’ list, ‘’which included alterations and falsification of names, and the list was only submitted hours to the primary election’’, as the reason for his withdrawal. Mr. Nwosu went on to argue that since Nigeria’s apex court sacked Julius Abure as the national chairman of the Labour Party on April 4, the primary that was conducted by Abure’s leadership team on April 5 cannot stand ‘’judicial scrutiny.’’ John Nwosu even participated in the parallel primary election that produced Jude Umennajiego.

 

The disarray at the national level in the Labour Party is even worse than that in its affiliate in Anambra. Political parties with this kind of disarray do not offer any meaningful opposition in elections. (Currently, at the national level, Lamidi Apapa has said he is supposed to be the party’s chairman after Julius Abure was sacked by the country’s apex court. Mr. Lamidi Apapa is all out to fight the Nenadi Usman Caretaker Committee, backed by Governor Alex Otti and Labour Party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi).

The case of the APC in Anambra is even worse and happenings in the party in Anambra is against what Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu – a great leader who has sacrificed for democracy – stands for.

Valentine Ozigbo, who recently decamped from the Labour Party to the APC and was a candidate in the APC Anambra gubernatorial primaries, has rejected the outcome of the APC’s April 5 gubernatorial primary that produced Nicholas Ukachukwu. Valentine Ozigbo described the primaries as a “charade” and “a theft against Ndi Anambra.” He has since filed a formal petition. Before the APC’s primary election, a number of contestants withdrew few hours before the elections, citing undemocratic tendencies. One of the candidates that withdrew from the Anambra APC primary a few hours to the event, Paul Chukwuma, has now been reported to be YPP’s gubernatorial candidate. (Paul Chukwuma, Chukwuma Umeoji and Obiora Okonkwo withdrew from the primaries leaving only Ukachukwu, Ozigbo, Johnbosco Onunkwo, and Edozie Madu).

 

But Valentine Ozigbo’s report of the just concluded APC primary election in Anambra calls for concern. Here is Mr. Ozigbo’s report of the election: “The facts are now public: non-party members populated the delegate list; genuine party faithful were locked out or violently barred from voting; accreditation was either skipped or manipulated; and votes were counted without transparency.”

Mr. Ozigbo’s comments show that what happened in Anambra APC primary seemed highly undemocratic and might not be able to stand scrutiny.

The PDP, which is virtually non-existent in Anambra State, produced Jude Ezenwafor as its candidate. Mr. Jude Ezenwafor bought the party’s N40m nomination form at the eleventh hour and was the only candidate for the party’s primary election.

Up till this moment, most of the aspirants – in the opposition of course – in the last primaries have not congratulated the purported winners. But the most worrisome issue is that the opposition parties in Anambra have all been accused by their purported members of undemocratic tendencies. They are extremely weak at the moment.

 

The good news is that Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s eyes are on the ball. He is focused on providing the people of Anambra State the dividends of democracy. Millions of Ndi Anambra – in and outside the State – are queuing behind him and the Governor has promised to continue to work very hard.

A simple birthday celebration of one of the organic “Daily Times” icons who arrived on the 7th floor this week, Mr. Ndubuisi James Ugbede and the Minister of Information Alhaji Idris Mohammed Malagi’s remark in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, where he is attending the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show 2025, provoked a revisit of two old commentaries on this column in 2018 and 2023.

On Thursday this week, (April 10, 2025) at the Lagos Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Iyalla Street, Alausa Ikeja, a remarkable colleague Mr Lekan Otufodunrin and I were guest speakers at a symposium organised in honour of a former Director of Times Journalism Institute (TJI) under the aegis of their Times Journalism Institute’s Alumni Association (TJAA) now headed by Mr Clifford Agugoesi. In a preface to my discussion I had recalled some touchy but significant issues about the iconic “Daily Times” as a strategic national asset and indeed a paradise we lost to curious privatisation of public institutions and agencies that the IBB regime initiated and the Obasanjo civilian administration controversially concluded. Some excerpts from my opening remarks:
‘…I decided to honour the invitation because ‘Journalism’, the World Bank Institute describes as “the best profession in the world” is involved. I am always anxious any time the organic “Daily Times” Group is mentioned. I always remember that monument as one of Nigeria’s national security assets that the ‘militricians’ and politicians destroyed, which has actually diminished the stature of journalism in the most populous black nation on earth. I didn’t mean to haul any missile in the direction of those who curiously sold “Daily Times” anyhow during the Obasanjo administration (1999-2007).
I mean that if the legacy of the iconic Adeyemo Alakija who bought it over from Cecil Kings had not been destroyed by that ill-fated decision to sell the company to those who have reduced it to an online newspaper, even the digital library as a resource alone would have been a money spinner, a veritable stream of income at this time when all the institutions of higher learning and indeed the nation still don’t have any reliable library for institutional memories.

I hope most of us here are aware that even the National Library in Abuja hasn’t been completed about 50 years after Murtala Muhammed proclaimed Abuja as Nigeria’s capital. The capital of the federation will be fifty years old in February 2006 (1976-2006). The library project is still conspicuously neglected near the beautiful National Mosque, overlooking the equally exquisite National Christian Centre. Doubtless, the country would have had recourse to the “Daily Times” Library as our own Congressional Library still generally regarded as the most reliable library in global context. It is one of the critical national assets that have enhanced the powers and the glory of the United States Congress. There is virtually nothing on earth you can’t research at the remarkable Library of Congress. They make a lot of money daily from researchers. That is where you can still get all the copies of the authentic “Daily Times” publications when there was a country…’

It isn’t my pleasure to invoke sad memories of “Daily Times” one of the most influential and indeed most profitable newspapers in the world then. I am quite wary of calling the DTN, a defunct newspaper. I know the consequences in today’s Nigeria where the court (of law) is no longer regarded as ‘the last hope of the common man’. ‘Do not say I told you’ as a corner gossip piece indicated in those days of the best-selling “Lagos Weekend”. Most of the ‘old soldiers’ in the print media, indeed members of the TJAA are aware of the time even the “The New York Times” visited the “Daily Times of Nigeria” for research and orientation. The historic visit is still in NYT’s library. My dear “Daily Times” veterans, this isn’t intended to be a day to read from a piece on the day “Common Sense” died in Africa’s most populous country. I mean this is not a day to read from the book of lamentation on “Daily Times” but a day to celebrate with one of the blessed ‘survivors’ of the organic “Daily Times”, Mr. Ndubuisi Ugbede who just clocked 70. Comrade Ugbede, congratulations on your birthday. It isn’t easy to reach that milestone in this “country of anything is possible” as a former army chief once described our blessed country…It is the Lord’s doing as it is written and so it is marvelous in our eyes. May the good Lord who has blessed you to reach the 7th Floor continue to keep you strong and healthy in His pavilion…!

In a related and relevant development, a report from Las Vegas early in the week indicated that the Federal Government ”Begins Technical Upgrade for Media Organisations, Says Information Minister”. According to the report filed by the ministry from Nevada, “The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, has stated that the Federal Government has begun investing in cutting-edge technologies and acquiring state-of-the-art equipment for federal media organisations to ensure effective service delivery. Idris made this statement in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States during discussions with leading broadcast and information companies at the ongoing National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show 2025”.

The Minister was quoted as saying that such investments would lead to the upgrade and replacement of obsolete infrastructure across radio and television stations owned by the Federal Government. To actualise this, he said, his ministry “is forging partnerships with broadcast equipment manufacturers to avail local broadcasters the opportunity to benefit from emerging technologies and industry-specific training”. The Nigeria’s delegation led by Idris malagi consisted senior officials, including Salihu Abdulhamid Dembos (Director-General/CEO Nigeria Television Authority), Ali Muhammed Ali (Managing Director/CEO of News Agency of Nigeria), Charles Ebuebu (Director-General/CEO of National Broadcasting Commission), Dr. Lekan Fadolapo (Director-General, Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria), and Jibrin Baba Ndace (Director-General/CEO, Voice of Nigeria). The NAB Show, running from April 5 to 9, 2025, with the theme “The Technology, The Trend, The Future,” provides valuable insights into industry trends, covering topics such as Artificial Intelligence, cloud visualisation, the creator economy, and sports production and streaming.

This is therefore a time to remind the powerful delegation in Las Vegas that the mission the minister has pledged in Nevada is a strategic one but he should not fall into the danger of assumption that investment in digital equipment alone can transform the Nigeria’s public information management system.

It is a fact that the public information management infrastructure has been quite weak and so the superstructure hasn’t been reliable enough to serve the public good expected from them in 21st century where the information ecosystem doesn’t support a ministry of information to drive efficiency of public information in the age of the giants of digital journalism and communications. Although I once suggested here in 2023 that even the federal information ministry should be scrapped to give room for restoration of Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS), this piece isn’t about the quality of the Information Minister and his team. Doubtless, Mallam Idris, a media entrepreneur before joining the federal cabinet, has been generally regarded as one of the most resourceful information ministers since 1999. He doesn’t scream to respond to publications and telecasts that the government doesn’t like. He likes to engage media organisations quietly in resolving even conflicts and controversies.
That is also why we can also suggest a few things to him at this time to look beyond equipment of the public broadcasters he calls “federal government-owned organisations”. They are not federal government-owned, after all. They are public broadcasters that should serve public interest just as the BBC and SABC, Africa, which only the parliaments can ‘regulate’.

As I had noted in 2018 and 2023, again, I would like to suggest restructuring of one of Nigeria’s most significant institutions that successive governments have been competing to ruin: the public broadcasters known as the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) and Voice of Nigeria (VON).

My interest in these public broadcasters as they should be called, was renewed then (2018) through two related issues involving two Nigerian significant female journalists, Ms Kadaria Ahmed formerly of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Ms Toyosi Ogunseye former Sunday Punch Editor who then joined the same BBC, a very successful public broadcaster. The first was Kadaria’s when she marked her 50th birthday in December 2017 with a colloquium on the state of the media and a book presentation in Lagos. Read the details of the Kadaria story through the links below: https://guardian.ng/sunday-magazine/a-time-to-restructure-nta-frcn-and-von/

The two striking stories of Kadaria, Toyosi and the BBC had then set me thinking about the expediency of discussing the rise and fall of institutions in Nigeria. Which was why I am was persuaded then that instead of reading regularly from the book of lamentation on how the military juntas in Nigeria tactlessly seized the then Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service (WNBS) and changed it to NTA now in focus, we should think of how to rebrand the public broadcasters (NTA, FRCN and VON) now from the ruinous clutch of the federal government. There has been no credit to give to any government since the takeover: no government has added value to the NTA, FRCN and VON. We only pretend that all is well.
And here is the thing, why is it that Toyosi could join the BBC, a public broadcaster instead of a Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS)? How is it that the only reference point is that the FRCN and NTA too made John and Sola Momoh, for instance? And sadly, why can’t Channels television get some values from the FRCN and the NTA that trained its owners some years ago?

The same sad commentary can be extended to the Daily Times and the New Nigerian, among other once prosperous state-owned newspapers such as Daily Sketch, Herald, The Observer, Chronicles, The Tide, The Triumph, The Standard, The Voice, etc, the Nigerian system has destroyed too.

The point really is that all these once fruitful newspapers that have been killed by the Nigerian leaders once made the Dele Giwas, the Doyin Abiolas, the Segun Osobas, the Nduka Obaigbenas, the Doyin Mahmuds, the Ray Ekpus, the Yakubu Mohammeds, the Dan Agbeses, the Garba Shehus of this world. Most Nigerian elders would remember this recent aspect of our history.

In other words, I used to think that the idea of prosperous state-owned newspapers was an idea whose time was long gone until I travelled to Liberia the other day and stopped over in Ghana where I got a copy of the state-owned newspaper the Daily Graphic. As a newspaperman, I didn’t need to ask any question about the quality of the content and production. The newspaper is generally regarded as the most influential and the most commercially successful newspaper in Ghana today.

But note this paradox of history: the well produced daily newspaper in Ghana has some striking similarity in history with our own Daily Times that the military regime seized, ruined before a civilian government sold it in January 2004 to what now looks like an ‘undertaker’ of a national monument.

To be continued…

It is difficult to pinpoint when the political gusts turned against the one time political impresario of the All Progressives Congress, APC in Delta State, Senator Victor Omo-Agege.

The contradiction in the circumstances facing Omo-Agege is the fact that he is being subjected to a social media trial in the hands of those he not too long ago had at his beck and call.

The petition to the state chairman of the APC, Elder Omeni Sobotie accuses Omo-Agege of among others infidelity to the party and betrayal of fellow party candidates in the 2023 General Election.

The accused has yet to give his plea, but many prosecution witnesses who allegedly signed the petition against Omo-Agege have told the social media court that their signatures were forged.

Indeed, Omo-Agege’s political ascendancy in Delta State was crystallised when he emerged as the first senator from Delta Central to win re-election. His feat came following the death of Senator Pius Ewherido, arguably the greatest political disruptor in Delta State who turned the political dynamics against the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Delta Central in the 2011 elections.

It is remarkable that since Ewherido’s popular victory in 2011, achieved on the platform of the Democratic Peoples Party, DPP, that the PDP has been at sea on how to reinvent itself in that senatorial district. While Senator Emmanuel Aguariavwodo finished Ewherido’s impactful term, albeit on the platform of the PDP, the party has since then continuously failed in winning the Delta Central seat.

Omo-Agege’s two terms on the platform of Labour Party and then on the platform of the APC are about the longest stretch an individual has held on to political ascendancy in Delta Central. His emergence as Deputy President of the Senate, the first Delta senator to hold such a position, only strengthened his political confidence or brashness as some critics alleged.

Given his role in undermining the Bukola Saraki Senate during the 8th Senate, it was not surprising that Muhammadu Buhari’s political enforcers not only positioned Omo-Agege for the position of DSP, but also showed him favours that enabled him to swagger with bravado across the political space in Delta.

The constitution of APC structures across Delta State in 2021 by most accounts, was done in Omo-Agege’s bedroom. Given the natural proclivity of many Delta people to speak truth to power it was no surprise that a number of political actors  in the APC refused to be taken in by the lordship of Omo-Agege over the party.

Two of those who swore to that effect were Chief Great Ogboru, popularly known as the Peoples General, but who as Omo-Agege consolidated was almost turned to a recruit in the APC.

Another was the former civil rights lawyer, Mr Festus Keyamo who went to the extent of terming those who emerged as party officials in 2021 across the state as Omo-Agege’s houseboys and house girls.

Given the acrimony that trailed Omo-Agege’s emergence as Numero-uno in the APC, it was not surprising that a number of party officials who despised the fact that he also took the gubernatorial ticket for himself worked against him in the governorship election of 2023.

Among those who openly came out to confess that fact was the late Dr Cairo Ojougboh who claimed being part of the conspiracy of APC leaders who worked against him. Even more, Ogboru who has the national record of contesting gubernatorial elections, despite his abysmal performance in 2023, surfaced for once to congratulate the PDP candidate, Sheriff Oborevwori, for defeating Omo-Agege.

The prediction of Omo-Agege’s difficult straits was, however, very visible just before the 2023 election. Days to the governorship election and while still serving as the Deputy President of the Senate, he was shell-shocked when one of his most prominent houseboys, Nick Ovuakporie, who he had promoted the state secretary of the party, surfaced at the PDP governorship rally to denounce him. Ovuakporie’s defection was a masterstroke on the part of the PDP, given that he was allegedly the pointsman used by the Omo-Agege camp to wrest control of the APC from his former rivals.

But the problem for Omo-Agege was compounded by perceived actions he took in the days leading to the election. The charges drawn up against him for which party members have commenced a social media trial of the former DSP include the claim that he hobnobbed with the opposition to betray the party in the presidential election. It is a charge that President Tinubu may not have taken seriously given that Tinubu received the former DSP on his own after party leaders conspired to squeeze him out during the controversial visit to Aso Villa last February.

Whatever, the principal reason antagonists in the APC struck the four point charges against Omo-Agege is their determination not to have him represent the party in the 2027 governorship election. This is well manifested in their charge sheet against the erstwhile DSP.

Whatever, the prospects for Omo-Agege in browbeating his former houseboys are not easy. How he positions himself as the governorship candidate with the prospects of running two terms in Delta State will be a tough nut to crack. That is, given the zoning tradition that has governed the state since 1999.

The last time I wrote about this tragedy which I now call Tinubu’s Terrible Tribalism, I had asked: Is Tinubu settling scores? Because the president’s naked embrace of Yorubacentricism after a lifetime of railing with his kinsmen against Hausa-Fulani hegemony could only have been inspired by vengeance. 

But such undisguised and unbridled vengeance in his first term against the North, whose votes he must secure for re-election, would be foolhardiness. The focus on the North isn’t to understate the treachery other zones feel but to emphasize the political irrationality and moral hypocrisy of  Tinubu’s tribalism. Tinubu might be arrogant and occasionally temperamental, but he is a consummate schemer. The idea that he can allow self-indulgence to blind him to basic political calculations is a little preposterous. So why is Tinubu relentlessly perpetuating a Yoruba hegemony so early in his presidency? 

It’s doubtful even that the mercurial Sunday Igboho, saddled with the responsibilities of a president, would have relegated statesmanship and national cohesion to this extent in pursuit of an apparent ethnic championship. Igboho, being less cunning and presumptuous might have been more sensitive. The reality is astounding, so it bears repeating. All critical instruments of coercion are effectively in the hands of one ethnic group. A Yoruba is president. A Yoruba is the  Chief of Army Staff. Yoruba is the  Police Inspector General.

A Yoruba is the Director General of State Security. A Yoruba is the EFCC chairman. A Yoruba is the Chief Justice of the Federation. A Yoruba is the Attorney General of the Federation. A Yoruba is the Comptroller General of Customs. A Yoruba heads Immigration. The Chief Justice is not the president’s appointee but shouldn’t the Yoruba headship of two of the three arms of government make Tinubu worry about imbalance? Even if the Yoruba had conquered Nigeria, wouldn’t they have been more magnanimous? 

A few commentators have argued that having come to the throne majorly through self-help and against all odds, Tinubu perhaps feels entitled to do and undo. Expanding his Lagos dynasty and imposing it on the entire country might be, for him, his natural progression. But perhaps that portrays Tinubu too much as a Tarzan. However, Tinubu’s politics, read benignly, conceives good governance to be dependent on a guided continuity. For him, democracy means benign Babasopecracy (patriarchal autocracy). It doesn’t matter if it is forced to masquerade and run around as a liberal multiparty democracy.

So what others see as opportunistic self-aggrandizing godfatherism aimed at entrenching a private political dynasty using Yoruba as mere building blocks, he possibly sees as progressive politics. While an obsession for an expanded dynasty coheres with Tinubu’s political history and explains in part his carefree tribalism, nothing in this dynasty concept precludes shrewd calculated inclusiveness. Allowing pliable folks from all parts of the country to occupy critical security positions to hoodwink the populace would have provided a necessary smokescreen. But Tinubu has chosen to be explicit. 

Nigeria has six zones. Yoruba is primarily one zone. Nigeria has over 250 ethnic groups. Yoruba is only one of them, though it constitutes about 20% of the national population. A Yoruba is the Minister of Finance and Coordinator of the Economy. A Yoruba is the Oil Minister. Another Yoruba is the CBN Governor. A Yoruba is the Minister of Blue Economy. Yet another Yoruba is the Minster of Digital Economy. A Yoruba is the Minister of Solid Minerals. A Yoruba is the Minister of Trade and Industries. A Yoruba is the head of FIRS. A Yoruba is MD Bank of Agriculture. A Yoruba is MD NSTIF.

Another Yoruba is the Accountant General of the Federation. The Yoruba hold the most critical positions, not just in the security and law enforcement sectors but also in the economy. The Yoruba may be the smartest Nigerians, but the gap isn’t this wide. Therefore, any attempt to sell this perfidy as meritocracy is political Yahoo-Yahoo. The abject and comprehensive servility of the National Assembly should be proof to Tinubu that many other Nigerians are as willing as the Yoruba to worship Tinubu, to sing On Your Mandate while lying face down at his feet. If so, why is Tinubu’s  Tribalism so headlong, so relentless? 

While refuting revenge as a motive for Tinubu’s Terrible Tribalism, I had wondered about the virtue of the entire NADECO and Afenifere enterprises of the 90s and early 2000s. Perhaps we had all been deceived into jumping onto a duplicitous wagon for group vendetta or ethnic actualization rather than national liberation. That attempt to interrogate the original authenticity of Afenifere because of the startling repudiation of its core principles by one of its champions provoked the former Afenifere leader, Ayo Adebanjo, who sadly died recently. In response to that article, Adebanjo had disowned Tinubu and disagreed vehemently that Tinubu was promoting any genuine Yoruba interests. He said Tinubu’s tribalism was dangerous cronyism, a patently self-serving adventure by a wolf in sheep’s clothing to turn Nigeria into a one-party state and become its life president. 

In his response to that article, a former minister in the Jonathan administration said he was baffled by the scale of Tinubu’s tribalism which he believed was borne of triumphalism. He wondered why Tinubu was recklessly alienating people of other tribes who were starting to respond by switching off, becoming apathetic, in many government institutions. He wondered how embracing only a section of the Yoruba instead of the entire South would help the president assuming he had something deep-seated against the North and wanted to call it’s bluff.

My response was that besides triumphalism, Tinubu wanted to conscript the Yoruba emotionally to protect and preserve his presidency as a Yoruba project. In addition to their block votes which might compensate for some of the inevitable losses up north, the Yoruba intelligentsia, if pushed into ethnic defensiveness by any indiscriminate anti-Yoruba sentiments by the other groups, could become the formidable and validating voice to legitimise and promote him, his second term ambition, and possibly any life presidency ideas, no matter his performance. In other words, Tinubu could be banking on the benefits of becoming synonymous with Yoruba, arguably the country’s most enlightened clan. 

Many years ago, Tinubu was an apostle of Sovereign National Conference. The SNC, that vehicle of inclusion, was supposed to transport ethnic nationalities to a people-oriented constitution to enthrone freedom, equity, social justice and prosperity in the nation. The SNC was the gbogborise fermented in Yoruba land, which must be administered to Nigeria, or it would inexorably perish. Then, Tinubu had said the cracks in the foundation of the nation demanded a fundamental overhaul. Those days, he regarded the unity of the country as desirable and negotiable rather than inviolable and sacrosanct. Now, Tinubu regards that unity with callous levity. And perhaps any noisy agitation for a Sovereign National Conference now could easily be treated as treason. 

For so many years, Tinubu and his political associates demanded true federalism underlined by resource control and devolution of powers. Those days they seemed the most principled politicians in Africa. They wanted a decentralization to curb the prevalent national ailment. That ailment was stagnation and inequity and the reign of mediocrity. Unavoidably, they wanted an end to Hausa Fulani hegemony. Now  Tinubu is cheerfully concentrating power in the hands of one ethnic group. It has become his obsession. Now, Tinubu no longer remembers the positions and appointments that defined lopsidedness, which made him and his friends cry about Hausa Fulani’s hegemony. They now say all positions are equal. Perhaps Tinubu thinks Nigerians are cows. 

In truth, nobody expects habitually wheeling and dealing politicians to be averse to opportunism or to pass any strict tests of moral hygiene. But Tinubu’s brazen tribalism is confounding. Some say Tinubu has only revealed his true colours. But for some of us who saw some good in him, his industrial-scale tribalism is concerning. Because such crippling myopia could be a consequence of a more fundamental moral depreciation. In multi-ethnic African nations, rabid tribalism is always a recipe for stagnation and instability. Any concentration of power in a single ethnic group is always a disservice to the tribe and country. That Tinubu cannot foresee this ruin is worrisome. That he can, uninhibited by conscience, and with defiance, choose this course is pitiable. 

 

 

When vigilantes incinerated traveling Hausa hunters in Uromi, Edo State, on the mistaken assumption that they were “Fulani herdsmen,” countless Hausaphone Muslim northerners sent the videos to me with commentaries that reeked of unappeasable wrath.

Because there is a 6- to 5-hour time difference between Atlanta and Nigeria, some of the people who shared the videos with me became noticeably impatient with the perceived delay in my response. 

Frustrated by the lag in my intervention, they sent messages reminding me of my swift and impassioned condemnation of the May 2022 murder of Deborah Yakubu in Sokoto. They wondered aloud why, unlike my immediate reaction to that previous incident, I had not yet commented on these recent videos.

A few even recalled my January 1, 2011, column titled “Jos bombings: Can we for once be truthful?” where I denounced, in the strongest terms possible, the mass massacre of Jos Christians by a group that called itself Jama’atu Ahlus Sunnah Lid Da’awati Wal Jihad. (I’ve just been made aware of a similar mass murder in Plateau recently. I could republish my 2011 column, and most people won’t notice that it's a 14-year-old piece except for some names).

Of course, they never reminded me of my swift, full-throated denunciation of the February 1, 2018, murder and burning of 7 innocent Fulani cattle herders in Benue “by people who have been programmed to associate criminality with all Fulani cattle herders,” as I pointed out in my February 10, 2018, column titled “News Media’s Cultivation of ‘Fulani Herdsmen’ Hysteria.”

The people who were impatient with me implied that I was deliberately courting the approval of Christians. In their view, this meant I was seeking validation or favor from the Christian community, possibly at the expense of my own religious identity. Essentially, they accused me of prioritizing external validation over internal solidarity, implying a certain negligence or disregard for the sentiments and expectations of my own religious community.

Nonetheless, since the publication of my March 29 column, titled “Barbaric Mass Burning of Innocents in Edo,” scores of Christians routinely tag me to mass murders committed by Muslims against Christians and challenge me to objurgate them with the same passion as I did the Edo mass incineration. 

It seems to me that public commentators unfairly shoulder a burden of intervention that should properly belong to people in positions of authority. Too often, it falls upon commentators to address and amplify crises, even though their roles are fundamentally different from those who wield executive power and influence. 

Writing about the horrendous human tragedies that have increasingly become the signature of our national life in Nigeria imposes tremendous mental strain on me. It is emotionally draining and psychologically taxing to continually engage with, dissect, and articulate these disturbing events. 

Nonetheless, I deeply understand the reasons behind distraught citizens' desire to have their anguish acknowledged and amplified by individuals they perceive as having sizable platforms. They turn to public commentators because of their frustration with those in authority, who are perceived as detached, indifferent, or ineffective in responding adequately to their suffering.

Most importantly, though, our outrage toward mass murders often seems conditioned by whether the perpetrators differ from us in identity or affiliation. During Muhammadu Buhari’s presidency, for instance, I faced vicious personal attacks from northern Muslims for drawing attention to Boko Haram’s relentless massacres of Muslims in the North, massacres that many preferred to overlook. 

Similarly, bandits in the North have consistently burned, slaughtered, and dismembered their victims, yet these atrocities rarely provoke widespread indignation or inspire righteous anger. Because the victims do not fit the narrative of northern Muslims being victimized by (southern) Christian aggressors, their suffering is met with muted concern at best and outright indifference at worst rather than outrage or vigorous outcry for intervention.

This dynamic is not unique to the Muslim North. In the Christian North, numerous lives are frequently lost in inter-ethnic communal violence. In these cases, however, both the victims and perpetrators typically share a common Christian identity.

 As a result, the collective sense of hurt and urgency felt by communities within these areas is markedly diminished. The outrage and intensity of grief that would typically accompany violence perpetrated by Muslims against Christian communities is notably absent, which reflects how religious identities powerfully shape public empathy and indignation.

In the southeast, so-called unknown gunmen perpetrate shocking acts of brutality, including gruesome murders, against fellow Igbo people. But there is rarely any pressure or expectation placed upon commentators like me to amplify these events publicly or to demand action from authorities. 

This selective silence, this inconsistency in how acts of violence are perceived and responded to, this tendency for our outrage to be contingent upon the identity dynamics between victims and perpetrators, is an instinctive, age-old, even evolutionary human trait about which psychologists and philosophers have written.

For example, in their Social Identity Theory formulation, Henri Tajfel and John Turner assert that we derive our sense of self from our membership of collective identities, and that attack on the collective triggers an intense emotional response but that intra-group violence, though troubling, is psychologically processed as an internal issue and thus evokes less public rage.

From the standpoint of evolutionary biology, we are hardwired to depend on group cohesion and cooperation and to be suspicious of outsiders. Thus, violence perpetrated by out-groups is perceived as a threat to group resources or status, which invokes defensive anger and intolerance.

Emmanuel Levinas and Richard Rorty have also written about the moral burden of "othering," which refers to the process through which out-group members are mentally constructed as fundamentally incompatible or as morally deficient, thus deserving harsher judgment or reduced moral consideration.

The moral distance created by “othering” leads people to interpret out-group violence as evidence of moral depravity or inherent hostility. The result is that out-group violence elicits intense moral condemnation. Conversely, violence within the in-group, involving individuals perceived as morally closer, is more readily explained away, forgiven, or rationalized.

In communication scholarship, we also talk of selective perception. It is an instinctive cognitive bias that predisposes us to perceive reality in ways that reinforce and soothe our predetermined prejudices. 

Related concepts are selective exposure (the tendency to see only those things that affirm our pre-set biases and to block out those that cause us cognitive dissonance) and selective retention (the tendency to remember only those things that confer psychic comfort to our sentiments and to forget those that don’t fit that frame).

We are more tolerant of and readier to justify hurtful words that come from our “friends” than we are of even less hurtful words that come from our “enemies.”

Psychologists who study cognitive biases point out that our default positions as humans is to support our kind, to selectively expose ourselves to and perceive, even retain, only those points of views and perspectives that reinforce our prejudices. 

It’s often an unconscious process. And so, it takes nothing to be prejudiced. It’s effortless. What isn’t effortless is the capacity for conscious distancing, for dispassionate reflection, and for self-criticism.

It takes self-reflexivity and self-awareness to rise superior to the default impulses that so readily and so easily crowd and becloud our minds in moments of emotional tension. Very few are capable of this, and that’s why some people question the practical utility of the idea of deliberative democracy—the idea of government by rational conversation.

Because this is not unique to Nigeria, I hope humans can evolve to the point where we transcend these troubling predispositions. 

Programme: City Talks with Reuben Abati

Time: 12:00

Guest: Inibehe Effiong
Public Interest and Human Rights Lawyer

Topic: Criminalized and Forgotten: The Plight of Nigerian Children Behind Bars.

Date April 12th, 2025

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/92877141732?pwd=VEJWb29OL2VVekZUTHRpdWYxK0xxZz09

Meeting ID: 928 7714 1732
Passcode: 600206

"When I confided in my pastor that my husband and I were finally ready to try IVF, he shook his head so vigorously I thought he was going to have a fit.

“Your faith is gone. Sister, have you concluded that God needs help, that he cannot give you a child? Have you not heard testimonies of women who had babies in their 50s, even in their 60s? Have you forgotten the story of Sarah? Why do you want to help God?”

Sister Joke was lost, short of words, shaken, could not understand where her pastor was coming from, where all his objections were pouring from. She told her pastor about the IVF option not because she needed counsel on the subject. Her mind was made up. She just needed prayers and encouragement. She was not expecting her Pastor’s objection or disapproval. The man has a MSc in Biochemistry for God’s sake!

So, why do some men of God think assisted fertility in any form is evidence of faithlessness? Some don’t even want to hear of adoption, least of all surrogacy. Yours sincerely has ruminated over this for years and I have not found any answer. What exactly is it about IVF that is anti-God or anti-faith or unchristian? In my own little analysis of conception, the science or faith of it does not and cannot exclude God. I am Christian enough to know that the most extreme science or smartest scientists have not been able to totally exclude the hand of God in what happens between when ferterlized egg is implanted in a woman and when she takes the first pregnancy test. Even when all the protocols and precautions have been followed meticulously, many, very many pregnancy tests still turn out negative. The disappointment, pain and despair that follow that all important test can best be described by couples who have experienced it. Imagine a woman who had had to endure seeing her period every month, resolving to invest (hope and money) in IVF, only to see the period again?

What women, couples endure while in the Lord’s waiting room have been subjects of many books, seminars, sermons, movies and researches. But here’s another angle, is God against IVF? Or is it just that some pastors feel ‘insulted’ by their people’s decision to try something else apart the prayers and fasting they preach?

I have reliably leant that both Muslim and Christian clerics are guilty of this ‘offence’. Isn't it time they changed their stance and reviewed their world views on the subject of assisted fertility?

Meanwhile, while we are researching the holy books and praying for a change of heart for our faith leaders, let us address the primary stakeholders of the matter at hand, the waiting fathers, mothers and couples. Everybody prays to dash through the process of conception, long lip-smack enjoyable sex and a positive pregnancy test a few short weeks later. No stress, No waiting, no loitering, no suspense, just delicious love- making and a set of twins.

But more and more couples are these days, waiting so long for conception to occur, that sex eventually loses its taste and flavour. More marriages are breaking down because the babies ‘refuse’ to show up. More women are doing the unthinkable out of desperation to have children. Good men, otherwise faithful and committed husbands are straying, trying more than one forbidden fruit to become Daddies.

Who can judge a desperate Mother-in-waiting? Nobody should preach holy homilies to a man who is holding in zillions of sperms that can run but never reach their destination or when they do fertilize eggs that are not viable (doctor have many terms for that single word). Babies are just slower in arriving these days. I’m sure God knew these days would come, believe me or explain why science could not figure out surrogacy, IVF and all these new help centers 100 years ago but they are all readily available today, even in places like Nigeria where we don’t know what to do with readily available anything. And who gave the doctors the sense and zeal to take Ade’s sperm and Joke’s egg (without them having sex), make a baby in the laboratory and then transfer it back into Joke to carry to term. This minute, this very minute, it just occurred to me that the first IVF that happened was done really by God himself more than 2000 years ago. Mary, Virgin Mary, that is, had no sexual intercourse but got pregnant with Jesus Christ, right. God from his abode, in a laboratory, that is above all other laboratories ‘made a baby’ and implanted it in Mary. It was a miracle supervised by God, guided and guarded to term by God himself.

So, darling sister, God is in the boat of your life. A woman’s body is hers to protect from all kinds of violation from predators including men who blackmail her to have an abortion. It is also her decision to become a mother using the science alternatives. Just get your man on board and agree on a solution. Follow God’s example and pray to him to guide the doctor’s hands.

Those who tell a woman that IVF means doubting God’s faithfulness are never there when she cries until she cannot even make a sound or even produce a tear. Girl, do+ not wait until your eggs are old and dry before you make the first attempt. An IVF baby does not, will never stop God from giving you easily and naturally conceived babies. Jesus Christ had siblings that came from Joseph’s loins, Mary’s eggs. God is kind and unfathomable. A friend waited 25 years to get a first set of twins and then conceived naturally nine months later. While still breastfeeding the twins, she did not even know she was pregnant until she collapsed one morning while brushing her teeth. Her naughty husband scored a goal they tried all styles trying for 25 years! Go on. Do it. The best time to start is now.

Your sister’s or brother’s children are not yours. You are only claiming them by faith. It is safer for your mental health to deploy that faith you have in traditional adoption to assisted fertility. It may have worked in a few instances but the rate of failure is too high, too risky. By the time most women who adopted their nieces or nephews realize it, it usually too late to to undo the damage. The pain that follows such 'losses' are usually too deep and devastating that I say ‘why bother’. Ask Sisi Dupe the Yoruba star actress whose story broke a few weeks ago. Only she knows the pain. The lost years, the betrayal can lead to stroke or even sudden death. A woman who had been known and addressed as Mama Tunde wakes up one day to the sad reality hat the real Mama Tunde had just been humoring her all along.

Of course, assisted fertility procedures are expensive but you can save towards it. You can make a plan just like you make a plan for your annual rent, your wedding ceremony, a car and building or buying a house.

It’s a matter of focus, determination. Just kill the procrastination, stop complaining to everybody and just start. Make the first call.. Today.
------
Re - Virgin hunters

Nice article as usual .

Any man who has deflowered is not deserving of a flower from a virgin and if he thinks he is lucky, God will turn it to a nightmare for him by marrying a frigid sexphobic lady!

God is not mocked; whatever a man sows the same he shall reap.


It does not really matter what the past had been. If any man ( or woman)is in Christ , he is a new creature, old things have passed away, behold all things have become new. 2 Chor 5:17

-Olatunde S.

Considering the vast immensity of the global business landscape, few names command the same reverence and admiration as that of Aliko Mohammad Dangote, the richest black man in the world. Not given to one and done, Dangote, a serial investor and a visionary entrepreneur, has indelibly etched his mark on the annals of commerce, transforming not only his native Nigeria but also the African continent and beyond. His is a story of relentless determination, astute business acumen, and an unwavering commitment to excellence.

An enigma of sorts, born on April 10, 1957, the business he founded currently has presence in 17 African countries and is a market leader in all the economic sub-sector where he operates on the continent. One of the Group’s subsidiaries, Dangote Cement Plc, is the largest listed company in West Africa and the first Nigerian company to join the Forbes Global 2000 Companies list. The Group has other subsidiaries: Dangote Petroleum Refinery, Dangote Fertiliser Limited, Dangote Sugar Refinery, and NASCON Allied Industries, with the latter two business units listed on the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX).

 

His business group is fully diversified and operates in major sectors of the Nigerian economy including agriculture, foods, Sugar, salt, rice, real estate, steel, mining, communication, logistics, maritime, automotive, packaging, energy and infrastructure. The Dangote Fertiliser was commissioned on March 22, 2022 while the Dangote Petroleum Refinery was commissioned on May 22, 2023. The South Africa-based Brand Leadership Movement in collaboration with the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) awarded Dangote ‘the most admired African brand’ in 2018, of African continent origin. Dangote sits on the board of the Corporate Council on Africa and is a member of the Steering Committee of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Global Education First Initiative, the Clinton Global Initiative, the McKinsey Advisory Council, and the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum. He was named Co-chair of the US-Africa Business Center, in September 2016, by the US Chamber of Commerce.

Dangote amassed laurels both within and outside Nigeria in recognition of his achievements and philanthropy. On November 14, 2011, the Nigerian Government conferred on him the Grand Commander of the Niger (GCON), becoming the first person outside government functionaries to bag the honour. In 2013, he was conferred with the highest national honour in the Republic of Benin, the Grand Commander of the National Order of the Republic of Benin.

In 2014 he also made the list of CNBC’s “Top 25 Businessmen in the World” that changed and shaped the century. In November 2019, the Nigerian Government conferred on him the National Productivity Order of Merit Award in recognition of his contributions to the Nigerian economy. In June 2021, he received the highest civilian honour in Cameroon – the Commander of the National Order of Valour – from the President of the Republic, Paul Biya.

Also in April 2014, TIME Magazine listed him among its 100 ‘Most Influential People in the World. For six consecutive years: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018, Forbes listed him as the “Most Powerful Man in Africa” alongside the Egyptian President Abdel Fatteh el Sisi. In December 2014, he was named ‘Forbes Africa Person of the Year.’ In September 2015, he was named ‘African Businessman of the Year’ by London-based IC Publications. In October 2015, Aliko Dangote was listed among ‘50 Most Influential Individuals in the World’ by Bloomberg Markets.

In August 2022, Dangote was conferred with the Commander of the Order of Merit of Niger award by the then President of the Republic of Niger, Mohamed Bazoum, in Niamey, in appreciation for services he rendered to the Republic of Niger and as well as a tribute to his business acumen and philanthropy. 

The President, as fondly called by hundreds of thousands of his employees, who earn a living through his investments, is a symbol of what can be achieved when ambition, innovation, and determination converge. Nothing speaks to these qualities better than his latest foray into midstream sub-sector of the oil and gas industry at a time Nigeria’s oil refineries have languished in a state of disrepair, plagued by inefficiencies, corruption, and a lack of political will to implement necessary reforms for over three decades. The country’s four state-owned refineries—located in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna—have failed to operate at optimal capacity, resulting in the paradox of an oil-rich nation heavily dependent on imported petroleum products, which has not only strained the economy but also exposed the nation to the volatility of global oil markets.

Recall that Dangote had in 2007 in the twilight of administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo purchased the carcass of Kaduna refinery in the hope that he would resurrect it and return it to full operations. Rather than see in the idea a national economic interest, the hawks felt otherwise and threw spanner in the works. Less than two weeks on assumption of office, they mounted pressure on the government and the late President Musa Yar’Adua rescinded the sale of the refinery, a singular decision that motivated Dangote to go back to the drawing board and opted for building his own refinery, which has now become the real game changer in the troubled Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.

In an audacious move which no Nigerian businessman has ever taken, Dangote led the management of his Group, Dangote Industries Limited on September 4, 2013 to Abuja, in the full glare of many state governors and other stakeholders, to sign a $6 billion term loan agreement with a consortium of banks. The loan was part of the $9 billion estimated cost to build a 400,000 bpd refinery initially planned for Olokola Free Trade Zone, in Ondo State, to be financed with $3 billion equity and the rest from the banks. However, certain business considerations necessitated changing the location to Lagos Free Zone, Ibeju-Lekki and also increasing the refinery size to 650,000bpd thus shooting the cost to $19 billion.

It took Dangote over a decade to realize this dream of erecting a world class refinery in a country proliferated by rent seekers camouflaging as genuine investors. What stands out Dangote among the pack is his patriotic obsession with manufacturing which most Nigerian money men avoid like a plague as it takes time to bring returns. Kudos to Dangote because this is what Nigeria economy needs and not importation that reeks quick returns.

Today, beautiful to behold is the world single largest train Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals, a monumental achievement that stands tall in the heart of Africa, symbolising innovation, progress, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. This colossal refinery not only marks a significant milestone in industrial achievement but also underscores the pivotal role of private enterprise in addressing longstanding infrastructural deficits in Nigeria and Africa as a whole.

Interestingly, while overburdened suffering Nigerians are hailing him for this feat chanting and labelling him as a liberator over the completion and subsequent roll out of petroleum products, the development rather created a deep seated hatred in the circle of Nigeria’s oil sector Cosa Nostra, members of which are the beneficiaries of the protracted logjam in the energy sector. To them Dangote is an irritant and a kill-joy kind of for delivering on the project. They never gave him a chance of final completion given the humongous size. They thought he was on a wild goose chase. How wrong they were. 

They just couldn’t stand the fact that the man already touted as the richest man in Africa is adding another prime asset to his crammed wealth collection. It doesn’t matter to them what the project means to Nigerians who have had to contend with a vicious circle of fuel scarcity all year round. Dangote refinery is seen as a ploy to take their hands off the cookie jar or so it would seem, then Dangote has stirred the hornet’s net and should therefore bear the consequence. Even the official regulators who should celebrate the project went all out to disparage the refinery and demonise the founder.

Given the Nigerian government’s long-standing inability to revitalise its own refineries, Dangote Refinery to ordinary Nigerians emerges as a testament to what visionary business leadership and private sector dynamism can achieve in the face of governmental irresponsibility that has dogged the nation’s socio political and economic landscapes. A visit to the refinery’s Single Point Mooring System (SPM) located 20km in the middle of the ocean offshore through which crude is received and refined products sent out, leaves one with one question as to what could have been the motivation for the project. Certainly, profit only could not have been for the construction of the facility but also sheer patriotism and love for dear country.

None of his traducers could have put their money into a business that will take over a decade to complete. Little wonder, scores of them that were given refinery licenses years before him failed to erect a single pole but converted them to fuel import license that brings returns almost immediately especially with the regime of obnoxious subsidy.

At 68, he continues to chart new territories and explore innovative opportunities. His legacy as a transformative entrepreneur remains firmly intact. 

His vision for a self-reliant Africa, driven by industrialisation and economic empowerment, is gradually taking shape. Through his pioneering efforts, Dangote has demonstrated that Africa’s potential is boundless, and that with determination and vision, remarkable achievements are within reach.

Happy birthday to the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger standing tall at the helm in Dangote Group.

. Awowole-Browne, a Strategic Communication Expert, writes from Lagos.

 

The proposed Abia Airport in Nsulu, Isiala Ngwa North Local Government Area, has sparked fresh controversy, with increasing concerns about the government’s transparency, or lack thereof, in the land acquisition process.

Local communities are demanding clarity on the amount of land acquired and the beneficiaries of the compensation scheme, claiming that the process is convoluted and potentially flawed.

The Abia State government has repeatedly stated that the airport project will require 1025 hectares of land. However, communities are now demanding definitive proof.

 

Community leaders and residents are demanding that the government publicly release a detailed breakdown of land acquired by the community to determine whether the total land area matches the claimed 1025 hectares.

“We need concrete evidence,” declared Chief Eze Ugochukwu, a prominent community leader. “The government keeps using the 1025-hectare figure, but we have yet to see any verifiable documentation to back up this claim.

“We deserve to know exactly how much land has been taken from each community and that it matches what has been promised.”

 

Allegations that imported names were added to the list of landowners and allocated significant portions of land are fuelling the fire.

Landowners argue that people who have no legitimate claim to ancestral land are being strategically placed to benefit from the compensation scheme.

To address these concerns, there is a strong call for the government to publish a comprehensive list of landowners whose properties have been acquired, as well as the exact amount of land taken from each individual.

 

The landowners believe that this critical step will help confirm the legitimacy of the land acquisition process and expose any potential fraud.

“We are hearing whispers about people who have no connection to this land being given large swathes of it. “This is simply unacceptable,” said Mrs. Ngozi Okoro, a Nsulu landowner.

“The government must publish the names of the landowners and the extent of their land acquisition so that we can confirm the legitimacy of this process. We have heard stories about party members being given large parcels of land. To prevent injustice, the government must be transparent.”

 

The lack of transparency is exacerbated by differences in compensation packages.

According to reports, compensation for land acquired for similar projects in Ukwa and Umuahia was set at around N1.8 million per plot.

However, the compensation rate and process for the Nsulu airport project are shrouded in secrecy, raising concerns about unfair treatment.

 

“Why is the Nsulu compensation being handled so differently?” questioned Mr. Chidi Nwankwo, a community youth leader. “We are aware of the compensation rates offered in other parts of the state.” Why is Nsulu’s case so secretive? Are we being cheated on purpose? We demand the same level of transparency and fairness as our Abia counterparts.”

Adding to the concerns, private estate surveyors consulted by community representatives estimate that the actual land acquired for the airport is closer to 500 hectares, significantly less than the government’s claim of 1025 hectares. This disparity raises serious concerns about the future of the remaining 600 hectares.

“Our private estate surveyors have confirmed that the actual land acquired is around 500 hectares. “Where is the rest of the land going?” Asked Chief Ugochukwu.

 

“Who benefits from the alleged seizure of our 600 hectares of land?” The government must answer these questions and provide concrete evidence to refute these allegations.”

Rising tensions highlight the critical need for the Abia State government to prioritise transparency and address the Nsulu community’s concerns.

The government can rebuild trust and ensure the airport project moves forward fairly and equitably by publishing the requested information, which includes a breakdown of land acquired per community, a comprehensive list of landowners and their land allocations, and a clear explanation of the compensation process.

 

Without transparency, the Abia Airport project in Nsulu risks causing long-term resentment and undermining the very development it seeks to bring.

The burden of proof is on the government to demonstrate that the land acquisition process is just, transparent and benefits the entire community, not just a select few.