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[OPINION] “Our Doc, who art in the National Palace” - Festus Adedayo

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On April 23, 1971, the New York Times did a feature on Haitian tyrant, Francois Duvalier, infamously known as Papa Doc. It reported Duvalier as getting Haitian children indoctrinated with a political catechism which parodied Christians’ The Lord’s Prayer, thus: “Our Doc, who art in the National Palace for life, Hallowed be Thy name by present and future generations. Thy will be done at Port‐au‐Prince and in the provinces. Give us this day our new Haiti and never forgive the trespasses of the anti patriots who spit every day on our country; let them succumb to temptation, and under the weight of their venom, deliver them not from any evil . . .”

Since the antonym of democracy is autocracy, is Nigeria sliding into autocracy? Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo didn’t explicitly say so but believes democracy is dead in Nigeria. Peter Obi shared same view. At a symposium to mark the 60^th birthday of former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Emeka Ihedioha, Obasanjo proclaimed the death of democracy, not only in Nigeria but Africa. In 2008, in an assessment of the state of democracy in Africa, Larry Diamond, American political sociologist and scholar who specializes in democracy studies, submitted that, “the statistics (of the practice of democracy in Africa) tell a grim story.” I will visit these grim statistics presently. Argentine economist, Daniel Kaufman and his colleagues at the World Bank, developed six measures with which we can assess the quality of democracy in any country. Africa, Nigeria recorded dismal failure in virtually all of them.

One of the measurement is, voice and accountability. Voice entails freedom of expression and citizen participation in governance. In other words, governmental tolerance for dissent is a major kernel of democracy. In the fawning stampedes by Delta State government apparati last week to defend federal power, you can glean the enveloping tyrannic character of the current Nigerian state. Officials of government had earlier fought mere Nursing school girls’ tantrums in the “See your Mama” viral video against First Lady Remi Tinubu in Asaba. You would think it was a world war. Though minute and seemingly insignificant, but for immediate massive responses on social media, threats to deal with the students would have been activated. I will cite a historical example of tolerance for dissent that showcases the Asaba attempt to silence voices as indicative of undemocratic attitude.

At the Adeseun Ogundoyin Polytechnic convocation lecture I delivered in June 2023 with the title, Re-inventing polytechnic education for 21^st century Nigeria, I cited the example of the first civilian governor of Oyo State, Chief Bola Ige. Sometime between 1979 and 1983, Ige had visited the Ibadan Main Campus of the polytechnic. In their characteristic tantrums, the students became rude and uncontrollable. In an unsparing tongue-lash characteristic of the man widely credited for his lingual exceptionalism, the governor landed the students a fusillade of vitriolic attack. He said: “I am happy your Rector is a holder of a PhD in Animal Science; he will apply it on all of you!” Decency will not permit the reproduction here of the vile and insulting reply, laced with thunderous howls and delivered as a song, with which the students replied Ige. Not long after, some primary school pupils paid Ige a courtesy visit. He ostensibly saw it as an opportunity to even the score. So, in advising the pupils on their life trajectory, the governor told them that whilst walking towards Sango, a street in the capital city, (as metaphor for furthering their education) rather than make a detour towards Ijokodo, (where Ibadan polytechnic is located) they should rather go straight to Ojoo. Ojoo is the route that leads to the University of Ibadan. That was where it ended. No institutional sanction against Ibadan poly students.

Last week, Nigeria erupted in discussions on whether the practice of democracy in Africa, Nigeria had failed. Though concerns about democracy in Nigeria predate Bola Tinubu, they have reached feverish pace today. As we speak, the name Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan is almost becoming a legislative history in Nigeria. In our very before, a dalliance of senatorial leadership impunity, in cahoots with Kogi government’s democratic irreverence, is about to produce a sour broth that Nigerians will be forced to swallow. The only recourse the people have is to look skywards, with tears coursing down their cheeks and mutter, “Let them cover themselves with the shroud of a thick mortar after shooting an arrow into the sky; if the king of this earth does not apprehend them, the King in heaven surely will:”

In the same vein, a few weeks ago, an NYSC member who complained about the deteriorating state of Nigerians’ well-being was threatened into submission. I submit that the Asaba event and an earlier Seyi Tinubu’s quest to turn his father into the father of Nigeria in Adamawa State are fatherlizing and motherlizing attempts which are no happenstances. It is the beginning of the mutation of the cells of the opposite of democracy. Duvalier pioneered this seemingly benign misbiology in Haiti. At the beginning of his tyranny, he got his own Villaswill Akpabio-led rubber‐stamp legislature to proclaim him as “Spiritual Father of the Nation.” In the capital city, Port‐au Prince, Duvalier ordered “spontaneous” demonstrations of affection towards him, as it is done on the social media today where thousands of a largely illiterate and desperately poor Haitians were tricked to frenziedly scream, “Du‐val‐yeah!” and “Viva Papa Doc!”

The federal government’s infamous odyssey in Rivers State in close to two years now is perceived by watchers of Nigeria’s tottering democracy as a manifestation of a totalitarian tendency. Its cells will spread presently. When they do, we will all be in trouble. The recent tactic was to make a Bukar Suka Dimka of Rivers’ ex-Head of Service, George Nwaeke and claim that he was a witness to suspended governor, Siminalayi Fubara’s alleged treasonable plan to bomb oil installations. The ultimate script is to finally try Fubara for treason. Dimka, you will recall, was the coup plotter who, after his capture in March, 1976, sang like canary to implicate, among others, Major General Illiya Bisalla. His claims were never corroborated, leading to Bisalla’s execution. The viral video of Nwaeke’s wife which affirmed a guerrilla capture of her husband by federal forces so as to incriminate Fubara must have let Nigeria into the window of a frightening re-calibration of Duvalier in Nigeria. Robert Mugabe didn’t just leap into tyranny; he grew, like a mustard seed, into it.

A cartoon which went viral last week explains the configuration of Nigeria’s present “democracy”. A man with huge double pockets, depicted as “executive,” had inside the pockets castrated urchins tagged as “legislature” and “judiciary”. To explain this unholy matrimony, ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar did away with niceties and diplomatese that are the handmaidens of Nigerian politicians. The Senate President and the National Assembly, he pronounced, are compromised and corrupt. To corroborate Abubakar and the newspaper cartoon, a little over a week ago, taciturn President Goodluck Jonathan drew his own cartoon strokes of the current state of Nigeria’s “democracy”. He accused the three arms of government as being a tripartite axis of evil who were complicit in the Rivers imbroglio. He said: “No businessman can bring his money to invest in a country where the judiciary is compromised; where government functionaries can dictate to judges what judgment they will give.” Jonathan deployed an Indian version of a Yoruba anecdote that illustrates a Nero fiddling while Rome was burning. It tells the story of someone falsely simulating sleep who the Yoruba call Apiroro. The Apiroro is always difficult to wake up. Jonathan’s summary of the power calculus on the Rivers crisis is that, “They are pretending to sleep and waking up such a person is extremely difficult.”

While the typhoon of illicit relationship between the three arms of government was yet raging, a photograph of Supreme Court Justice Emmanuel Akomaye Agim and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, at the University of Calabar’s Golden Jubilee Special Convocation surfaced on the social media. Immediately I saw it, my mind went to Justice Olumuyiwa Jibowu (1899 – 1959). Jibowu was a fierce judge. The first African to serve in the Supreme Court of Nigeria, first Nigerian High Court Judge and one-time Chief Justice of the Western Region, Jibowu demonstrated that there must never be any unholy concourse between a judge, a lawyer who has matter before him and litigants. He once demonstrated this while he was Judge in the Ondo High Court. Counsel in a matter before him and Federal General Secretary of the Action Group Party, Ayotunde Rosiji, was slated to appear before him sometime in the early 1950s. They were both acquainted as Jibowu had paid Rosiji a visit when the latter came back from his legal studies in Britain. So, the evening before he was to appear before him, Rosiji decided to visit Jibowu in his home. Renowned for his uprightness and probity, though Justice Jibowu attended to Rosiji, when he was to deliver his judgment, he lifted up a sheaf of papers for all to see, which he said was a copy of the judgment he had stayed all night to write. Then, to the shock of everyone, the judge tore the papers into shred. All because counsel to one of the parties had come to see him in his house.

Former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (Nigeria), Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, in his anger at this anomaly, cited an earlier pronouncement of such public togetherness as incestuous by Justice Niki Tobi. In his ruling in Buhari vs. Independent National Electoral Commission & Ors (2008), the late Supreme Court Justice warned that “The two professions (law and politics) do not meet and will never meet at all in our democracy… If they meet, the victim will be democracy, and that will be bad for sovereign Nigeria.”

Let me illustrate the calamity that Justice Tobi foretold with the market. Like any human endeavour, the market has a philosophy. It is constituted by a tripod: the brick and mortar stalls (Oja), marketers (pate-pate) and traders (Onina’ja). On market days when merchants advertise their merchandise, the soul of the market is not the merchants nor their merchandise. It is the market, which is the people, the traders or the Onina’ja. So, when the market is over, you may see merchants and their merchandise or even the stalls but the soul of the market is gone (oja ti tu). So it is in a democracy. The moment a democracy harbours a complicit judiciary, an adulterous legislature in bed with the executive, the way President Jonathan painted it, the market is over. What is left are mere wares and merchandise (T’oja ba ti tu, a ku pate-pate). When you look, you see democracy on paper, the way you see a mass of quills and feathers on a masquerade, when, in actual fact, the masquerade is long gone. Late dramatist Hubert Ogunde verbalized this flight of democracy when he sang in Yoruba, “Iye l’e o ma wo l’eyin eye o….”

Nigeria’s situation today can be compared to Senegal’s under Abdoulaye Wade. With Wade, rather than rule of law, it was rule of person, otherwise called personal rule. A longtime Senegalese opposition leader, when Wade won the presidency in 2000, as many did in the current government, hopes were quite high for democracy in Senegal. Rather than this, however, Wade drew power and resources to himself and those of his family. By 2007, criticisms from journalists, political activists, singers, and marabouts (Muslim spiritual leaders) or any word from the opposition earned physical intimidation from his goons. Last week, as riposte to Peter Obi’s criticism of present slide towards autocracy, Nigerian presidency told him that, that he could talk freely was a presidential grace. Today, Nigeria grapples with a lackluster economic performance just like under Wade. The Senegalese leader also, like here in Nigeria, mobilized support, according to Larry Diamond, by corrupting and co-opting “religious figures, civil society leaders, local administrators, military officers… with money, loans, diplomatic passports, and other favors.”

Said a responder to Diamond, “He has destroyed all the institutions, including political parties. He has taken opposition with him and manipulated the parliament. People are so poor and Wade controls everything. If you need something, you have to go with him.” Nigerians must see themselves in that Wade mirror.

Apart from the above indices, there are other measurements of the state of health of a democracy. They include, political stability (absence of violence), government effectiveness (of public services and public administration), quality of government regulation, the rule of law. Recourse to violence as means of settling social discord has risen in Nigeria and governments are absent in the lives of the people, leading to self-help. The Uromi, Edo State incineration of travelling northerners is on my mind here. Though another famous theorist of democracy, Richard Sklar, in his “Democracy in Africa” (1983): African Studies Review, Vol. 26, No. 3/4, said “democracy dies hard,” he also submitted that it could “bleed and die” on the altars of repressive rule and lack of accountability. He concluded by saying “The true executioner of democracy has neither sword nor scepter, but a baneful idea.”

In Nigeria today, democracy might not have died but its balance sheet is scary. Democracy is not in periodic elections, appointments into offices or its persistent mouthing like a refrain. Democracy is about the people. Obasanjo made this known at the Ihedioha colloquium. When, rather than the people, a small clique of politicians are sole beneficiaries of democracy and there is this mass of misery, what we have can better be described as politicians-cracy. There is a regression of democratic culture in Nigeria and hunger is blanketing Nigerians. Human development statistics regress daily, life expectancy is nosediving while dismal level of governance and violent conflicts seize our country by the jugular.

The good news is that, Larry Diamond said that democracy cannot die. He, however, imputed that it could suffer fatal seizures. It is obvious that today, the Nigerian democracy is gasping for breath.

By the way, this is wishing President Bola Tinubu a happy 73^rd birthday.

[OPINION] Nigeria’s Twisted Power Stage: A Wife’s Pain, A Husband’s Confusion, Ruthless Games, and A Woman Trapped Between Lies and Power - John Egbeazien Oshodi

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It all began on Friday, a day that should have been ordinary, peaceful. George was supposed to be home. They had planned for Sunday—a simple church outing, a moment of sanctuary from the turmoil that had begun to engulf their lives. Florence held on to that hope, to the comforting familiarity of routine. But before Sunday even arrived, the nightmare began. George left on Friday with a hurriedness she had never seen before. His words were rushed, his manner strained.

“I will be back the same day,” he told her, his voice hollow, stripped of warmth and certainty. The man she once knew was speaking like a stranger, his tone mechanical, his words rehearsed. Florence felt it in her bones—something was terribly wrong. But the fear remained buried within her, cloaked by her hope that he would return as promised.

What troubled Florence most was not just his sudden departure but the way he spoke. There was something in his voice—a weariness, a reluctance, a mechanical hollowness that didn’t belong to the George she knew. He was leaving, but it was as if he had already been taken away from her, spirited off to some faraway place even before his physical absence. His hurried departure left Florence stranded in her own home, a place that now felt like a prison built from her own anxieties.

The Crushing Silence—Florence’s Growing Desperation

Hours passed. Then almost a full day. Then more. By Saturday morning, George was still gone. Florence’s calls went unanswered, her messages left with the cruel emptiness of silence. Her mind spun with fear and doubt. Had he been harmed? Was he hiding from her? The possibilities tangled into a knot of despair she could not untangle. She called friends, family, anyone who might know his whereabouts. But no one had answers.

Every unanswered call became a fresh wound. Florence’s mind constructed scenarios of danger, of betrayal, of death. It was like her sanity was being whittled away by an invisible hand, slicing away her hope piece by piece. Each moment of silence was an indictment against the man she loved—a man who had always been transparent with her but was now nothing more than a ghost. The horror of not knowing where he was or what was happening to him left her gasping for air, her chest tight with panic.

The Shock of Exposure—The Television Appearance

The first clue of George’s whereabouts came not from George himself, but from outsiders. Friends and strangers alike bombarded Florence with calls, their voices fraught with urgency and disbelief. “Florence, your husband is on TV. He’s accusing Governor Fubara of burning buildings, stealing money, sponsoring oil pipelines explosions, conspiring against Tinubu. He’s saying terrible things.”

The words cut through Florence like a knife. Why was George on television? Why was he speaking about such grave matters without telling her? Why had he left her in darkness, with nothing but her fear for company?

Her hands trembled as she turned on the television, her heart pounding in her chest. There he was, speaking like a man unhinged, his words rapid and jumbled, his expression distant and unnatural. His eyes were dull, as though he was reading from a script written by someone else. The man she saw on the screen was not the man she knew. Florence’s mind recoiled from the image, her heart breaking under the weight of her own helplessness.

A Nation’s Stage—George’s Confusing Broadcast

George appeared on television again on Saturday morning. But he was slipping. He stumbled over his words, his voice mechanical and detached. His speech was broken, his mind seemingly fractured. His confusion was so evident that it felt like a betrayal of his own consciousness.

“Good evening,” he began, even though it was clearly still morning. His confusion seeped through, a sign of the turmoil within him. Yet, he persisted, delivering his speech as if driven by forces beyond his control. Florence could see it, hear it, feel it. “That is not my husband,” she whispered to herself, her voice trembling with grief and anger.

The image of George struggling to maintain coherence was a brutal confirmation of Florence’s worst fears. Someone had taken him, manipulated him, twisted his words and mind until he was nothing but a puppet on a string. It was as if the George she loved had been swallowed by something sinister—something that had stolen his soul and replaced it with a script.

The Cruel Manipulation—Luxury as a Weapon

George claimed he was in Abuja because “that is where all the major security agencies are headquartered.” A convenient justification, but Florence saw through the deception. Everything George was speaking of—the alleged bombing of the Rivers State House of Assembly, the financial exchanges, the supposed conspiracy—these were all matters tied to Rivers State. They had happened in Port Harcourt, not Abuja. So why was he so far from home, from her?

But what baffled Florence most was not just George’s whereabouts, but the manner of his stay. George was now reportedly staying at Transcorp Hilton Hotel, a place far removed from the man who had once pleaded for financial help. Luxury had become a weapon against him—an illusion of grandeur meant to mask the strings being pulled by those who sought to control him.

The Revelation—Fubara’s Cruel Strategy

Then came the revelation. Governor Siminalayi Fubara, now suspended, emerged with alleged screenshots of George’s messages to Chief of Staff Edison Ehie. Texts that exposed George’s desperation, his pleas for financial help, his struggle to survive. The messages were humiliating, reducing George to a man begging for assistance from those who sought to manipulate him.

George’s messages were not cries for conspiracy or political power. They were pleas for survival, for a lifeline in a world that had turned its back on him. And now, the very people who offered him aid were using his vulnerability against him. The calculated cruelty of their actions struck Florence like a physical blow.

The Weaponization of Desperation—Texts Turned Against Him

Florence could scarcely believe the extent of the betrayal. Her husband’s most vulnerable pleas for help had been paraded before the world as evidence of his weakness, his desperation, his lack of credibility. What was once a private struggle to survive had been twisted into a public spectacle of humiliation. It was a cruel tactic designed to strip George of his dignity and Florence of her sanity.

Those messages were not conspiracy plots. They were the desperate cries of a man battling against forces he could not understand, let alone control. Florence’s mind raced through the words shared by Fubara—messages of financial strain, of pleading for assistance, of desperation so raw it made her stomach twist with sorrow. And now, the same man who had once begged for mere survival was speaking from the comfort of Transcorp Hilton Hotel, delivering statements that seemed crafted to fit a narrative not his own.

“That is not my husband,” Florence repeated, her voice cracking with grief. It was a plea, a declaration, a warning. But to those who sought to control George, it was nothing but the inconvenient truth of a woman they had already decided to ignore.

The Luxury Prison—Transcorp Hilton’s Illusion of Control

The words George spoke from the comfort of Transcorp Hilton Hotel felt detached, hollow. Florence could hear the unnaturalness in his voice, the way his words lacked the authenticity that once defined him. The grand setting of the luxury hotel only served to deepen the suspicion.

He declared, “I am in Abuja. This is Transcorp Hotel where I am lodging.” The way he delivered those words was meant to convey assurance, credibility, stability. But Florence saw the truth. She saw a man living under false protection, surrounded by comfort designed to hide the chains they had placed around him.

Luxury was their tool of manipulation, a gilded prison meant to convince George and the world that he was safe, that he was speaking of his own free will. But Florence knew better. She had seen the cracks in his performance, the forced smile, the faltering words. That was not her husband.

The Rehearsed Lines—George’s Struggle Against His Script

George’s words continued to sound forced, rehearsed. The mechanical delivery of his statements was a betrayal of the man she once knew—a man whose voice had always carried warmth and sincerity, even in the harshest of times. The lines he spoke seemed unnatural, as if he was reading from a script handed to him by those who had taken control of his life.

They were feeding him lines, manipulating his words to suit their narrative. And George, lost within the labyrinth of deception, was unable to break free from their control.

A Wife’s Painful Certainty—Florence’s Unyielding Cry

“That is not my husband.”

Florence’s cry was more than just words. It was a plea for the world to see the truth, to recognize the deception playing out before their eyes. Her pain was laid bare for all to see, her tears a testament to the injustice that had been forced upon her family. But her cries fell upon deaf ears.

She watched as George continued to speak from the luxury of Transcorp Hilton, his voice mechanical, his words hollow. The man she loved was trapped, his voice stolen and replaced with a false narrative meant to destroy everything he had once stood for.

If George truly believed in the allegations he was making, why not report them to the Rivers State Police Command? The alleged crimes and conspiracies he described all originated in Rivers State. They were tied to Port Harcourt, not Abuja.

The supposed bombing of the Rivers State House of Assembly? Allegedly orchestrated on Moscow Road, Port Harcourt.

The financial exchanges George claimed to have witnessed? Conducted within Government House, Port Harcourt.

His resignation, which he insisted was voluntary? Announced and accepted in Rivers State.

Yet, George was now far removed from the scenes he described, making bold claims from the safety of a luxurious hotel in Abuja. Florence knew this was not her husband.

The Painful Revelation—Florence’s Desperate Plea to Fubara

Florence had called Fubara, her voice trembling with desperation. “They got him, that was not the George I know, help me governor.”

But even as she reached out for help, it felt as though the script had already been written, the players chosen, the lines rehearsed. Fubara’s response was calculated, revealing alleged screenshots of George begging for financial support from Chief of Staff Edison Ehie.

Those texts painted George as a man desperate for help, a man struggling to survive in a world that had turned its back on him. But instead of offering compassion, those texts were used as tools of humiliation, meant to discredit and destroy.

The Cruel Game—George’s Forced Declarations

George had been pressured to admit knowledge of billions allegedly manipulated by Governor Fubara. But the words he spoke were not his own. They were apparently forced, extracted from him through a process of coercion and manipulation.

They were feeding him lines. Telling him what to say, how to say it, when to say it. And all the while, Florence’s voice remained the only truth he could not escape.

“That is not my husband.”

The Man She Loved—Lost to Deception

Florence’s pain was now the pain of a nation. A nation betrayed by the same systems of power that twisted her husband’s truth. They had taken him away from her, placed him in a luxurious prison, and fed him words meant to destroy everything he had once stood for.

But Florence refused to give up. She continued to cry out, her voice cutting through the lies with the sharpness of her own grief. “That is not my husband,” she repeated, her words a testament to her unwavering love and relentless pursuit of the truth.

The Isolation of Truth—Florence’s Words Ignored

Florence’s words were not just a declaration of pain. They were a cry for justice. But as the hours stretched into days, her cries seemed to fall into the abyss of indifference. She pleaded for someone to listen, to understand that the man speaking from Transcorp Hilton was not the George she knew. He was a man imprisoned by manipulation, his voice twisted to serve the interests of those who sought to destroy him.

Her desperation was visible for the world to see—caught on camera as she sat with her phone clutched tightly in her hands, her voice cracking from the strain of calling, texting, pleading. Yet, the silence was deafening. No responses. No reassurance. Nothing but the unyielding pain of abandonment.

“That is not my husband.” Those words became her only defense, her only truth against a world determined to ignore her suffering.

The Scripted Denial—George’s Forced Rebuttal

“They told me what to say. They told me to rebuke you,” Florence imagined him whispering to her, a truth buried beneath layers of deception. But the world did not hear that truth. They only heard the lines he was forced to speak.

“That is not my husband.” Florence’s cry grew louder, her pain more visceral, her truth more undeniable.

The Breakdown of Logic—Contradictions in George’s Narrative

As George continued to speak, the contradictions became glaring. He insisted he was in Abuja to report his findings to the security agencies because “that is where all the major security agencies are headquartered.” But Florence saw through the pretense.

Again, all the alleged crimes George spoke of had occurred in Rivers State. The supposed bombing of the Rivers State House of Assembly? It was said to have happened on Moscow Road, Port Harcourt. The financial exchanges he claimed to have witnessed? Conducted within Government House, Port Harcourt. His resignation, which he insisted was voluntary, had been announced in Rivers State.

So why was George now far removed from the scenes of his own accusations? Why was he speaking from Abuja, a city where truth seemed to dissolve into shadows and deceit? Why was he delivering his statements from the comfort of a luxury hotel, rather than facing the realities of the allegations he claimed to expose?

Florence’s frustration grew. Her tears turned to anger. And her voice, trembling but unbroken, continued to speak her truth.

The Media Circus—A Nation’s Indifference

The media latched onto George’s story, twisting it to suit their own narratives. Reports were printed, interviews conducted, headlines splashed across screens and newspapers. Yet none of them captured the reality of Florence’s pain. None of them acknowledged her cries.

Instead, they focused on George’s forced statements, his hollow declarations. They ignored the glaring inconsistencies, the evident manipulation, the glaring fact that the man speaking was not the man Florence had known.

“That is not my husband.” Her words were lost amidst the noise of sensationalism and political maneuvering.

The Mockery of Justice—A Process Corrupted. Soon we will hear Go to Court!

Now, they speak of a police investigation. Of George traveling to Abuja to officially report his claims to the security agencies. Of legal proceedings that will supposedly uncover the truth. But Florence knows better.

“This is not about truth,” she whispered to herself, her voice heavy with despair. “This is about control. This is about silencing George and breaking me.”

They had isolated him, placed him in a luxury hotel to give the illusion of credibility. But Florence knew that luxury was nothing but a cage—one built to keep him away from the truth, away from her.

A Heart Torn Apart—Florence’s Emotional Collapse

Florence’s agony continued to spill over, her cries growing louder, her desperation more profound. She apparently could not sleep. She apparently could not eat. Her mind was consumed by the thought of George, of the man who had been taken from her.

“That is not my husband.” The words had become a chant, a mantra meant to keep her own sanity intact. But the world continued to ignore her.

Was she mad? Was she the only one who could see the truth? Or was everyone else simply too afraid to acknowledge the lies playing out before their eyes?

The Hollow Words—A Nation’s Failure

The longer George remained under their control, the more Florence’s grief turned to rage. How could a nation claim to uphold justice when its own systems of power were built upon deceit? How could they claim to care for the truth when they were so willing to manipulate a man’s words, his life, his mind?

Florence’s words were a testament to her love, her loyalty, her relentless pursuit of the truth. But to those who sought to silence her, they were nothing but an inconvenience.

A Man Lost—And a Woman Forgotten

Days had passed since George’s last appearance. And still, Florence waited, her phone clutched in her hand, her eyes hollow with exhaustion. The silence stretched on, suffocating her with every passing moment.

Was George still in Abuja? Was he still under their control? Had they broken him completely, or was there still a chance to bring him back?

The questions circled her mind like vultures, tearing away at her sanity. And all she could do was wait.

The Unanswered Questions—And a Wife’s Final Plea

The media remained silent. The authorities offered no answers. And George remained out of reach. Florence’s world had been turned upside down, her life shattered by forces beyond her control.

“That is not my husband.” Her voice was now a whisper, broken and tired. But the truth remained. And she clung to it with everything she had left.

Who knows where George is now? The media remains silent, offering no updates, no explanations. And as Florence waits for answers, the world continues to move on, indifferent to her pain.

All anyone can do is hope that Florence is fine, that she is safe, that her voice will one day be heard.

[OPINION] Where is Bobrisky, as Nigeria Makes Progress? - Prince Charles Dickson

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A prisoner is told, “If you tell a lie, we will hang you, and if you tell the truth, we will shoot you”

What did the prisoner say to save himself?

The prisoner can create a paradoxical statement that prevents the guards from carrying out either punishment consistently. By saying: “You will hang me.”

This creates a logical contradiction:

If the statement is true (they hang him), then he should have been shot for telling the truth.
If the statement is false (they don’t hang him), then he should have been hanged for lying.

Neither punishment can be applied without violating the original rule, forcing the guards to spare him.

Nigeria’s social media space has forgotten Bobrisky?” The self-styled transgender icon and socialite vanished after his arrest in April 2024 for naira abuse, leaving gossip mills churning. Yet, while Bobrisky has stopped captivating tabloids, a far deeper narrative unfolds—one that transcends celebrity scandal and speaks to Nigeria’s democratic resilience, to understand this, we must look beyond the noise and interrogate history: How does Nigeria’s 25-year democratic journey since 1999 compare to the formative decades of even the world’s oldest democracies, like the United States? The answer reveals a story of paradoxical progress, where flaws coexist with strides forward, much like the prisoner’s clever escape from his captors’ logic.

VeryDarkMan and Bobrisky

The prisoner’s dilemma—“If you lie, we hang you; if you tell the truth, we shoot you”—is resolved through a statement that collapses the system’s logic. Nigeria’s democracy, too, operates within contradictions. Critics highlight its imperfections: electoral violence, corruption, and inequality. Yet, like the prisoner’s paradox, Nigeria’s progress defies simplistic judgments. When measured against the early years of the United States (1776–1806), a period romanticized as democracy’s “golden age,” Nigeria’s Fourth Republic emerges not as a failure but as a work in progress—messy, flawed, but undeniably alive.

Existential crises marked the United States’ first 30 years. The Articles of Confederation collapsed under economic chaos, Shays’ Rebellion exposed federal weakness, and the 1800 Jefferson-Burr electoral tie nearly triggered a civil war. Voting was restricted to white male landowners, and dissent was criminalized under the Alien and Sedition Acts. Progress was halting, violent, and exclusionary.

Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, by contrast, has maintained uninterrupted civilian rule since 1999—a feat in coup-prone West Africa. Despite flawed polls, four presidents have handed power to rivals, including the 2015 defeat of Goodluck Jonathan, a first in Nigeria’s history. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has digitized voter registration, with 93 million Nigerians registered in 2023—a figure unimaginable in 1800s America, where voter participation rarely topped 10%. Nigeria’s system is imperfect, but its continuity amid ethnic diversity (250+ groups) and extremist threats like Boko Haram underscores a resilience the early U.S. lacked.

Bobrisky

In 1806, the U.S. economy relied on enslaved labor and small-scale farming. Infrastructure was sparse; innovation lagged. Nigeria, however, has leveraged globalization to diversify beyond oil. Startups like Flutterwave and Paystack dominate African fintech, attracting $2 billion in investments since 2020. Lagos, once a congested megacity, now rivals Nairobi and Cape Town as a tech hub. Agricultural reforms have revived cocoa exports and slashed rice imports by 60% since 2015. Though 40% live in poverty, GDP has tripled since 1999, and the middle class has surged from 4% to 23% of the population.

This trajectory mirrors America’s 19th-century industrial rise but at a 21st-century pace. Where the U.S. needed 100 years to build railroads, Nigeria’s digital economy leapfrogs traditional stages—mobile money adoption outpaces banks, and remote villages access global markets via WhatsApp. The challenges—corruption, and inequality—are real, but so is the progress.

The U.S. Founding Fathers feared direct democracy, designing a republic buffered from “mob rule.” Nigeria’s civil society, however, thrives on chaos. Movements like #EndSARS (2020), which forced the dissolution of a brutal police unit, showcase a digitally empowered populace. Courts have overturned fraudulent elections and jailed once-untouchable figures—former governors, ministers, and even Bobrisky, whose prosecution, however performative, signals declining and sometimes topsy turvy tolerance for impunity.

Compare this to early America: the 1798 Sedition Act jailed critics of President Adams, while the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision entrenched slavery. Nigeria’s judiciary, though sluggish, has no equivalent stain, yet stains for those that don’t understand what it did in Imo State. Its media, ranked among West Africa’s freest, amplifies dissent in ways America’s partisan 18th-century press could not.

Nigeria’s struggles—corruption, terrorism, ethno-religious strife—are real but not unique. The early U.S. normalized slavery, genocided Native Americans and weathered a Civil War. Nigeria’s Boko Haram insurgency and farmer-herder clashes are devastating, yet the state persists. Corruption, though rampant, is being challenged: the EFCC recovers billions annually, and whistleblowers expose graft via social media.

Even Bobrisky’s trial reflects this duality. His arrest for naira abuse was criticized as selective, yet it sparked debates about currency respect—a discourse inconceivable in 1800s America, where elites burned banks without consequence.

Bobrisky

Bobrisky’s absence symbolizes a shifting Nigeria. His fame relied on outrage—a society wrestling with gender norms, wealth display, and moral hypocrisy. But as Nigeria matures, a new generation seeks substance over spectacle. They care less about “Mummy of Lagos” dramas than holding leaders accountable. They build tech startups, vote with PVCs, and demand climate action.

Nigeria’s democracy, like America’s at 25, is raw and fragile. But history teaches us that democracies grow through crises. The U.S. needed centuries to expand rights; Nigeria, in 25 years, has navigated coups, insurgencies, and pandemics while expanding civic space.

The prisoner’s paradox teaches that systems can be confounded by their contradictions. Nigeria’s democracy, too, defies doom prophecies. Its progress is nonlinear—a dance of setbacks and breakthroughs. Bobrisky’s theatrics fade, but Nigeria’s youth, tech, and tenacity endure.

Where is Bobrisky? He is a footnote. The real story is Nigeria—a nation scripting its future, not in isolation, but as part of democracy’s arduous, global march. As America’s past shows, the path to stability is long. But Nigeria, against the odds, is walking it—May Nigeria win!

Prince Charles Dickson PhD

Team Lead

[OPINION] Humanity: Remi Tinubu redirecting public attention - Tonnie Iredia

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From history, it is easy to observe that the attention of the average Nigeria is to the self – a trend which in my part of the country is popularly known as ‘cut for me, cut for me.’ To be able to garner much wealth in life, the average citizen who finds himself in a public office or privileged position struggles a lot to remain affluent which explains why some people want to be in one appointment or another even at age 90.

Those who are public servants that must retire at a specified date use affidavits to continue to alter their ages so as to extend their stay in office. Whatever is attained through such aggressive hustling is often used for the betterment of the proverbial ‘me, myself and I.’ Occasionally however, a few hustlers try to extend some favours to other people who are usually their family members or those with whom they share same ethno-religious affiliations.

Bearing in mind that in developing societies government is the greatest spender, all efforts are on politics because that is the sector where looting or extortion is least difficult to accomplish. Wealthy politicians spend heavily on politics rather than business or philanthropy. They keep their resources in safe firmaments to buy over opponents and other interest groups in order to be assured of electoral victory. For those in government whose primary purpose is supposedly the security and welfare of the citizenry, attention is really not on the people. Instead, capital projects such as the construction of bridges and roads are the priority of government simply because the capital-intensive nature of the sector accommodates massive kickbacks.

Of recent, we are able to find a few public-spirited citizens among them Senator Oluremi Tinubu, Nigeria’s current First Lady, who think differently. For the latter, the best security and welfare for fellow citizens is good health. It is not difficult at all to appreciate the logic in her thought process because one needs to be alive to be able to enjoy other benefits of democracy and good governance. In 2024, Remi Tinubu donated one billion naira from her Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI) towards the eradication of Tuberculosis (TB) in Nigeria. She made the pledge during her investiture as the Global and National Stop TB Champion. This year, she has again donated another one billion naira during a community outreach in Sauka, Abuja as part of activities marking the 2025 World TB Day.

In a country where politicians are usually busy acquiring expensive items for personal comfort, not many are conscious that TB has remained a leading cause of death in Nigeria. Yet, our country records more infection and deaths than any other African country. Indeed, Nigeria is ranked the 6thmost affected country globally and with the ailment being an airborne disease caused by a bacterium that mostly affects the lungs, anyone can be a victim. It is indeed, the second deadliest infectious killer disease (after COVID-19) and among the top 10 causes of death worldwide. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) report in 2024, over 1.6million deaths consisting of mostly the vulnerable were recorded in our clime the year before.

A significant effect of Mrs Tinubu’s donation is the likelihood that her approach would draw greater attention to the most fundamental need of humanity- the right to life. While preparing to write this piece, I tried to gather information on how people felt about the development. Majority of those, I interviewed dismissed the First Lady’s effort arguing that her donation initially belonged to us anyway. It took some persuasion before an insignificant few saw the perspective; I was projecting that even if the allegation that the donation was originally stolen from the public purse was correct, it is perhaps the only ‘stolen’ fund that was being ploughed back to save many people who have no relationship with the donor. How I wish every Nigerian politician could become that selfless and humane to make it a priority to save fellow citizens from pain, disease and deaths.

The major reason I decided to make this subject my topic for the week was the protracted caution by one of my respondents not to waste my energy commending Mrs Tinubu because he was sure no one would buy my point. He asked if I didn’t hear how some student-nurses embarrassed her last week in Delta state when she went there with the same health campaign? With this I became convinced that perhaps the First Lady’s Renewed Hope Initiative needed a greater support from those of us in the media because of its utility value to Nigerians. Our people need to be better sensitized on how to react to governance issues in our society. First, Mrs Tinubu was in Delta to attend the flag-off ceremony of the campaign for the elimination of HIV/AIDS, syphilis and hepatitis in Asaba – an advocacy initiative led by the African Union, the Organization of the African First Ladies for Development and Global Partners.

Second, the response of Delta authorities to a song on social media reportedly against Mrs Tinubu was an overreaction. Did the students behave differently from any known generation of students? Neither the First Lady nor other leaders involved in the type of humanitarian scheme launched in Asaba last week are the ones to be rejected. Instead, local and state leaders in our communities who divert development funds to themselves should be the first to be rejected. Of course, part of why our health care is in shambles is because our politicians across board are too corrupt. Last year for instance, Nigeria’s Independent Corrupt Practices Commission ICPC discovered the theft ofN13billion from our public treasury. The chairman of the commission, Dr. Musa Aliyu (SAN) revealed that the money was stolen in just one month. How much could have been stolen in other months which would have been better used to reduce the sufferings of our people?

Every year, we hear different stories of how our federal legislators perfect the act of budget padding. The last of such alarms was raised by a ranking senator, Abdul Ningi who revealed a budget padding of no less that N3trillion. Although he was quickly cowed and even suspended for allegedly not having credible evidence, Senator Abdul Ningi, who was at the time, the Chairperson of the Northern Senators Forum (NSF), had told BBC that the lawmakers sought the service of a private auditor who discovered irregularities in the budget. As usual, Nigerians did not believe the senate which has become known for its tendency of being a judge in its own cause. On its part,BudgIT – a foremost financial research group was able to find a total of 7,447 projects culminating in N2.24tn that were indiscriminately inserted in the 2024 budget by the National Assembly.

Based on this revelation, it stands to reason that the First Lady’s Renewed Hope Initiative cannot stop at just its own donations. A different additional intervention is for the First Lady to mobilize wives of state governors to individually and collectively lobby their husbands to pay more attention to health care. Last year, Nigeria recorded 214 deaths from Lassa fever. Evidence that the epidemic had risen far more than previous years is seen from the latest report which says that within the first 3 months of this year alone, more than100 Nigerians have already died from the same fever. According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) the states with the highest casualties are Ondo, Taraba, Edo, Benue, Bauchi, Gombe, Kogi, and Ebonyi.

One of the latest deaths from Lassa fever was that of a young medical doctor aged 31. He was said to have contacted the disease and died within 4 days at a private health facility in Ondo state. To have lost such an asset suggests that our leaders have not done well at all especially as the state where he died including the neighbouring state of Edo are well known to be most vulnerable. Yet, healthcare is not in the front burner of governance in such states. What seems to attract public spending in our states is politics where illiterate party chieftains have become the most valued citizens. One can only hope that the attention which Mrs Oluremi Tinubu is drawing to the nation’s devastating epidemics will yield some results soonest. For that to happen, there is no better time than now for all patriots to aggressively focus on Nigeria’s dilapidated health care system.

[OPINION] Sunday Jackson is a victim of a miscarriage of justice - Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

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Numan, the town that lends its name to one of the 21 local government areas in Adamawa state in north-east Nigeria, is home to the Bwatiye (Bachama), a transnational identity group stretching into parts of Cameroon. Located in the basin of Benue River and one of its tributaries, River Taraba, Numan’s fecund lands play host to vast energies in sedentary agriculture. Fulbe pastoralists have for long also found it welcoming for grazing their herds.

These factors have made Numan a major frontier in the murderous livelihood conflict that has pitted sedentary farmers and armed pastoralists in the Middle Belt of Nigeria. Described as a crisis “over scarce land and water resources” this conflict is estimated to have “claimed the lives of around 10,000 Nigerians” in the period since about 2013. It is widely recognised as the second most deadly conflict in Nigeria after the Boko Haram crisis.

For nearly three years until 2018, Numan was the site of a murderous war between sedentary farmers and armed pastoralists. No one knows the number who lost their lives in this conflict. James Courtright, who researched the situation wrote in 2023 that “by the time the crisis ended in January 2018, around 150 people were dead, a dozen villages burned to the ground and hundreds of Fulbe who had called Numan home had fled.” Tens of thousands were reportedly displaced. This crisis even became the subject of litigation before the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS Court of Justice).

On 5 December 2017, Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo SAN, visited Adamawa state to see things for himself. Subsequently, the federal government arranged to distribute emergency relief materials to affected communities including Dong, Lawaru, and Kukumso in Demsa LGA; as well as “Shafaron, Kodomti, Tullum, Mzoruwe and Mararraban Bare in Numan Local Government Area.” Amidst these developments, the federal government launched what ultimately proved to be an inconclusive “series of national consultations with all relevant groups designed to find a lasting solution to the farmers-herders conflict in parts of the country.”

The events in Kodomti village during this crisis were to become the subject of prosecutorial interest which worked its way up to the Supreme Court, coming to a decision on 7 March 2025. On 27 January 2015, an incident occurred on a farm in Kodomti belonging to Sunday Jackson. By the time the dust had settled, Alhaji Ardo Bawuro lay dead, victim of three stab wounds in the neck at the hands of Sunday Jackson.

The Adamawa State Director of Public Prosecutions arraigned Sunday Jackson on one count of culpable homicide punishable with death (murder) for the killing of Ardo Bawuro. On 10 February 2021, the High Court of Adamawa State convicted and sentenced Sunday Jackson to death. The Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal on 20 July 2022. From there he appealed to the Supreme Court.

The evidence relied on by the courts was straightforward. There was a coroner’s report but the judgment does not mention a pathologist’s report. According to Sunday Jackson’s statement to the police: “On Tuesday, 27/01/15 at about 11:10 hrs, I left my village and was cutting thatching grasses (sic) in a bush located in Kodomti village in Numan LGA when the deceased, Alh Buba Bawuro as identified attacked me after loosing (sic) sight of some persons alleged to be pursuing (sic) for killing his cattle. He attacked me in frustration and wanted to stab me with a dagger then we engaged in a wrestling encounter. I succeeded in seizing the dagger from him which I used to stab him thrice in his throat. When the deceased collapsed and was rolling down in a pool of his blood, I took heels and escaped.”

In its judgment on 7 March 2025 delivered by Justice Baba Idris, the Supreme Court determined that this statement was a confession and simultaneously also raised issues of self-defence which had to be considered.
In Nigeria, self-defence is a constitutionally guaranteed right. In criminal law, it is also total exoneration to a charge of murder.

According to the court, four conditions must be present for self-defence to succeed. First, the accused must be free from fault in bringing about the encounter leading to death. Second, there must be present an impending peril to life or of grievous bodily harm. Third, there must be no safe or reasonable mode of escape. Fourth, there must be a necessity for taking of life.

The Supreme Court found that the first and second conditions were fulfilled in the case of Sunday Jackson. As to the last two conditions, the court said that “there was a reasonable mode of escape by retreat and there was no necessity to take the life of the deceased.” It did so notwithstanding that there was nothing in evidence about how safe it was to retreat. Consequently, the court held that “the defence of self-defence is not available on a closer consideration of the evidence, and in the light of the circumstances of this particular case.” The court also dismissed any possibility of a defence of provocation, which would have reduced the crime to manslaughter.

In his concurring judgment, Justice Haruna Tsammani said: “on the facts as narrated…., I am of the view that [Sunday Jackson] inflicted more harm than was necessary for the purpose of defending himself. Having overpowered the deceased and collected the dagger from him, a stab would not be considered excessive. It is also my view that [Sunday Jackson] acted in a vengeful manner by stabbing the deceased trice (sic) in the neck; a person he had overpowered.”

This statement by Justice Tsammani is at the heart of the three flaws with this judgment. One is a matter of law and evidence: The Supreme Court believed it was alright for Sunday Jackson to have stabbed Ardo Bawuro once, but not thrice. But there was no evidence before the court as to which of the three stab wounds killed Ardo Bawuro.

It is possible that it was the first stab wound; or the second; or the third. That determination is a matter of evidence and, in criminal law, establishing what killed the Ardo Bawuro was the responsibility of the prosecution. If he was killed by the first stab, then the claim by the court that three stab wounds were too many is demonstrably gratuitous, and self-defence would have availed. In the absence of that kind of evidence, the court had no basis for excluding self-defence.

Second, the court imposed an unreasonable standard of assessment, requiring a person whom it found to be in real peril of loss of his life from an assailant with murder or grievous bodily harm on his mind to make assessments that are beyond the capability of any human in the throes of a fight-or-flight struggle.

Third, in suggesting that Sunday Jackson had a reasonable means of escape, the Supreme Court showed an almost blissful lack of awareness of the nature of the conflict on the floodplains of the Benue River (and its tributaries). This case arose in a conflict zone between livelihood and identity groups. The standard of evidentiary assessment deployed by the Supreme Court required Sunday Jackson to possess almost divine knowledge of the surrounding circumstances. Asking him to run in the middle of this required him to be certain that there was no other danger around him. There was no way that he or anyone could in the middle of an active conflict zone have attained that degree of knowledge or awareness.

The miracle in this case is how the court reached a unanimous judgment.

The Supreme Court, we are reminded, is the last bus stop on legal disputes. Yet, in nearly every case presented for judicial resolution, we find ourselves not merely before the court of law but also before courts of public opinion, of precedent, and of posterity. The judgment in Sunday Jackson’s case is bad law, bad precedent, and bad policy. It is perverse on the scale of a miscarriage of justice. Sunday Jackson is eminently deserving of the exercise of the prerogative of mercy by the Governor of Adamawa State.

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

[OPINION] Clemency For Sunday Jackson - Wole Olaoye

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In Nigeria, you can be sentenced to death for defending yourself against an assailant. Forget all that you’ve read. If your life is threatened by an armed herdsman, run for cover. Or simply allow the vagabond to slice your throat. You’re better dead and classified as a victim than to retaliate and be condemned to death for fighting for your life.

Nigeria’s Supreme Court recently affirmed the judgement of the lower courts in respect of a case of culpable homicide against Citizen Sunday Jackson who must now be sent to the hangman for defending himself when he was attacked with a knife by a herdsman feeding his cattle on Jackson’s farm.

Jackson was only 20 years old and an expectant father when the incident happened. He maintained a farm to support his family. On the fateful day, he was tending his farm when he was suddenly attacked by a knife-wielding herdsman, Buba Bawuro, in Kodomti Village, Numan local government area of Adamawa State.

Self-defence

In the ensuing struggle, he managed to overpower his assailant and returned the compliment. His assailant eventually died of his wounds.

He was subsequently arrested and charged to court for murder, spending seven years in pretrial detention (the Nigerian prison system has an incredibly high number of ‘Awaiting-Trial’ inmates).

When his case finally went to trial, he was sentenced to death, with the court ruling that he should have fled after disarming his attacker.

The court did not reckon with the fact that the herdsman had seriously stabbed him in the leg and so he could not have made a quick getaway even if he wanted to. In a unanimous judgment (SC/CR/1026/2022), delivered by Hon. Justice Mohammed Baba Idris, the court ruled against Jackson’s defence of provocation.

The death verdict surprised many observers because it seemed to contradict the universal contention that every human being was entitled to self-defence if his life was under threat. Also, the fact that the courts seemed to believe that the quantum of violence could be calibrated in a life-or-death situation in such a manner as to apply only the appropriate dose that would make the assailant flee instead of dying.

The kernel of the Supreme Court’s verdict can be found in its statement that, “An accused person cannot legally be entitled to the defence of provocation and self-defence at the same time and in relation to the same offence.”

After the Supreme Court, there is no appeal, except to God. But that will be post-mortem. Only two earthly interventions can save Jackson’s life now: If the Governor of Adamawa State, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, exercises his prerogative of mercy and grants him a pardon, especially considering the fact that he had already spent 10 years in the correctional facility; or if he is granted clemency by the President in exercise of the same prerogative of mercy.

Appeal

In a passionate appeal to the governor, Jackson wrote: “I am a student and a farmer, who was going about my honest and lawful activity, when I was violently attacked and sustained severe injuries. Despite this, I was able to overpower my attacker and defend myself whereupon my attacker died. However, in a gross miscarriage of justice, I was sentenced to death in 2021 after already being in prison for several years.”

Jackson recalled that he was unarmed when his assailant attacked him with a knife. He tried to run for his life, calling for help but he was stabbed at the back of his head. According to him, “My assailant stabbed me again on my leg, and one more move from him was going to end my life. I was too weak to run, so in defence of myself, I disarmed him while already in a pool of my own blood, and killed him to save my life.

“I have been devastated emotionally and mentally, as I have had to deal with the pain of this grave injustice against me. I have never set eyes on my 10-year-old daughter all these years, as she was born after my arrest,” he said.

He, therefore, appealed as follows: “In light of these circumstances, I urge Your Excellency to exercise your prerogative of mercy and grant me a pardon, particularly as I have also spent 10 years in the correctional facility, through the determination of this case. This would be a just and compassionate decision, considering the clear miscarriage of justice that has occurred in this case.”

Jackson has also appealed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to intervene in his case.

Legal experts have drawn attention to Section 33 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), which guarantees the fundamental right to life of every Nigerian citizen. Section 33(2) (a) provides that: “A person shall not be regarded as having been deprived of his life in contravention of this section, if he dies as a result of the use, to such extent and in such circumstances as are permitted by the law, of such force as is reasonably necessary-(a) for the defence of any person from unlawful violence or for the defence of property… “

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in the 19 northern states and Abuja has strongly condemned the Supreme Court’s death verdict on Jackson. In a statement issued in Kaduna on Tuesday, the chairman of Northern CAN, Rev. John Hayab, described the judgment as a “grave travesty of justice” and called on the Adamawa State Governor, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, to grant Jackson a pardon.

Conflict Resolution

An international human rights lawyer, Emmanuel Ogebe, and Pastor William Devlin who serves as the national president of REDEEM! — an organisation committed to assisting persecuted people and groups in America and around the globe, took their advocacy for Jackson’s life to the traditional ruler, Hama Bachama. The royal father facilitated a heart-to-heart discussion between the Jackson and Bawuro families, resulting in the victim’s father, Ardo Bawuro, writing to the governor to say that his family has forgiven Jackson for killing their son, and pleading that the governor grant clemency to the convict.

In a letter titled: “Death Sentence On Sunday Jackson By The Supreme Court Of Nigeria For Murder Of My Son Buba Bawuro”, Ardo pleaded that Jackson’s life be spared. He argued that there was no point taking another life. He declared, on behalf of his entire family, that they were not interested in executing the verdict of the Supreme Court.

His conclusion sounds quite edifying: “In this regard, your excellency should count us out of the judgement passed on the victim (Sunday Jackson). My son can never wake up again. Based on this fact, I am pleading for clemency on Sunday Jackson to be pardoned and set free.”

How is a layman supposed to interpret all this? The grandiose legal system from the High Court to the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court failed Citizen Jackson. Now, it seems that the good old traditional conflict resolution mechanism (featuring the traditional ruler and the two feuding families) has come to the rescue.

The less time spent on further arguments the better.

I add my voice to Ardo Bawuro’s appeal to Governor Umaru Fintiri: Please exercise your prerogative of mercy and let Sunday Jackson go home.

[OPINION] Our Democracy and Its Vagrant Elite - Chidi Amuta

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In recent weeks, we seem to have been wrestling with the very idea of democracy. After all, our political system has passed through the Westminster parliamentary system and over three decades of the Washington type presidential system. There is a prolonged assumption that we are indeed a thriving democracy and ought by now to have come to take certain issues for granted. But on a daily basis, our politicians and political elite seem more confused about the essence and meaning of democracy itself. This is clearly an illustration of the vagrant and unserious nature of our political elite.

Surprisingly, however, our political elite has this curious habit of returning to interrogate our democratic credentials ever so frequently. Last week, a major gathering of consequential political voices gathered in Abuja to nark the 60th birthday of former House Speaker, Emeka Ihedioha. It was yet another opportunity to interrogate the efficacy of our democracy and indeed the very appropriateness of our democratic route.

Former President Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo, chairman of the occasion was his predictable cynical self, skeptical as ever. about the appropriateness of Western democracy for Africa. His contention was essentially a cultural conservative reservation about the alien roots of democracy as practised in most African countries. Bishop Kukah in the role of keynote speaker asked the question as to whether democracy has failed in Africa. Former Sokoto Governor Aminu Tambuwal was definitive in disagreeing. For him, democracy has not quite failed in the country or indeed the continent. Peter Obi was non equivocal in asserting that democracy has failed totally in Africa. Segun Adeniyi was typically journalistic in saying that democracy has neither succeeded nor failed in Africa. He instead zeroed in on the individual foibles of the political leadership as unserious mascots of democracy in Africa. Other voices found weaknesses in the practitioners of our democracy, insisting that nothing is wrong with the various concepts of democracy as practiced in Nigeria or indeed Africa.

Pitfalls like corruption, disruptive governance, abuses of due process by politicians have combined to give democracy a bad name. In all of these attempts to understand the failings of democracy in our country, politicians and the elite have tended to uproot the concept of democracy from is European roots. The fact of mouthing democratic concepts and systems is unfortunately not likely to make us a democracy. Our society has bot paid its dues. We have not passed through the economic crucible of evolving a productive economy first before exploring the most apt system of government. In Europe, the

Industrial Revolution and the tyranny of kings and oligarchs preceded the rise of democracy. Similarly, economic independence and the emergence of a political consensus among the urban elite created the necessity for popular democracy as an alternative to monarchical absolutism.

It was this combination of forces that compelled Europe to behead and dethrone kings and queens and overthrow or reform the monarchy in favour of elective popular governance. Representatives of the people took over power through a system of representative democracy to ensure that the taxes paid by the productive populace were spent by representative governments to fund social programmes and services. The modern nation state was born on the foundations of elective democracy based on the popular mandate of economically empowered citizens. With democracy, subjects became citizens. Citizens acquired rights and rulers were compelled to accountability to ‘the people’.

Elsewhere especially in Asia where democracy later took roots, it was the rise of authoritarian military regimes which suppressed workers rights, whittled down civil rights, forced people to fight for the rights they wanted to enjoy and assiduously grew the economies to create the wealth and prosperity that empowered people to demand certain rights and privileges of freedom and representative government. Like in Europe, it was the empowerment of the people that forced them to demand certain rights especially the right of citizenship and political representation.

In each of these instances, democracy was not a ‘given’ handout or arrangement. It was not an organized syndicate or arrangement agreed upon by a departing colonial order and its successor local political elite of trade unionists, traditional rulers and western educated elite as in most African countries. Democracy in either the European West or Asian dictatorships did not emerge in and of itself but as a consequence of compulsive economic and social forces.

In the Nigerian instance, our ‘democracy’ has transformed from an arrangement of colonial selection to one cultivated by self- appointed military dictatorships. Representatives of the people have been selected whether by a colonial order or by an imposed military dictatorship. The popular masses were literally ‘invited’ or coopted into the democratic wagon and taught the rituals of periodic electioneering. Consequently, our democracy has hardly had organic roots in and among the people. At best, the people have been ‘invited’ during election cycles to the seasonal political agenda, told major issues in contention and the major personae contending for power. In the post election periods, the politicians disappeared to the centres of power from where they lord it over the masses until the next election season. In most of Africa and in Nigeria especially, there has not been a process of consciousness creation about the rudiments of democratic culture. At best, democracy has been merely a dialect of political speak.

Democracy is not however a voluntary self-generating force. It is an outcome, a momentum unleashed and driven by social and economic forces of a historical nature such as happened in Europe and Asia. The driving forces include an urgent compulsion by productive working people who demand accountability for their hard earned tax money. It is the vortex of pressure by the masses which wanted their views and perspectives heard and reflected in the way the society was governed and manifested itself. Taxation is guaranteed by representation. That is the basis of accountability in governance which confers power on the people.

Therefore, when modern constitutions and other social contract documents begin with the expression “We the People”, it is a conscious expression of the real power of the people as tax payers, citizens and voters. It is the people’s power of tax money, the power of labour power and the exertions of workers as an orgnized force that propels the economy. It is in addition the momentum of the cultural solidarity and the willful surrender of the power of independent self- defense in preference for collective security embodied in an elected sovereign. We the people hereby surrender unto you the right and power to preside over us and protect us from one another and from hostile others!

That is the foundation of the Social Contract, the intangible contract that binds the broad majority to the sovereign elected authority who wields state power on the collective behalf of the “people”. Thus is born the modern nation state as the foundation of world order.

Democracy does not give birth to itself nor does it protect and sustain itself. It has certain guardrails in the nature of institutions which it needs to operate and survive. The elected sovereign is a guided executive authority. That authority is guided and guarded along the path of law and order by a judiciary of trained honest judges and a battery of lawyers. An executive not guarded or guided by a judiciary is bound to degenerate into an unregulated anarchy, the lawless Hobbesian state of nature in which the laws of nature reign and bloody violence rules the affairs of men.

In turn, elected conclaves representing the people as a constituent whole are empanelled as parliaments and assemblies to ensure that the affairs of the state reflect the interests of the majority and diversity of the public.

The collective feedback voice of the people is wielded through the power of the media- the agencies of the mass media which function as the unofficial monitor and regulator of the conduct of state and its officials. It does not matter whether the media is the legacy print and electronic media that we have since come to know or the contemporary social media platforms in which everyman is a media owner and practitioner. The functions of the media in a democracy remain basically the same- moderation and modulation of public opinion in the service of the enlightened governance of the state.

The rest of the society whose interests and opinions matter in the progression of the society is what has come to be known as civil society, that amorphous collective of chattering voices in the market of society that is usually the first to gather at the venue of protests against bad governance. It can be organized into pressure groups and interest groups or show up facelessly as a mob.

The guardian elite of a democracy consists of both the practicing political elite and the broad spectrum of enlightened voices-professionals and interested others with an abiding interest in the survival of the society either as a functioning state or thriving democracy. An elite cannot possibly be illiterate or ignorant. An illiterate or ignorant national elite is a danger to itself and to the perpetuation of the society it pretends to serve and represent. A national elite must share a common commitment to the wellbeing and continuity of the society. When a bunch of vagrants, casual thugs and unemployed political jobbers control the commanding heights of the political space, the result is a perennial confusion as to the meaning and plight of democracy. Mob rule could be mistaken for democracy.

When illiteracy, ignorance and lack of enlightenment dominates a political space, even the simplest challenges of routine democratic practice are presented as systemic earthquakes. The budget process is often rigged in favour of paddings by the legislators just as the executive muzzles its way through questionable bills. Legislators are not certain how to vote for simple legislations. Debates on the floor of parliament are either not held at all or are muzzled through the nefarious power of open bribery. Or legislators as licensed thugs scream their way through troublesome sessions.

The executive frequently read or deliberately misinterpret the constitution to serve their narrow political interests. Both unfortunate features have been displayed recklessly with the President’s recent declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State.

Those who are still troubled by the present sorry state of democracy in Nigeria should look even harder at the character of our national elite especially those who call themselves politicians. The time is approaching when we shall ask our political class to educate us on whether politics in Nigeria is a career, a vocation, a profession, a trade or part time unregulated business.

[OPINION] Rivers emergency declaration is a national ill-wind - Dele Sobowale

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“Lord, protect me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies” – Robert Greene, author of 48 LAWS OF POWER.

I pray that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, aka, BAT, will live much longer. Irrespective of whether he secures a second term or not in 2027, there was one meeting and a decision arising from that encounter that he will regret for the rest of his life. Few people know who initiated the first meeting between then-presidential candidate of the APC (Tinubu) and then-governor of Rivers State, a member of the PDP, Nyesom Wike.

Without being there, it requires no space science intelligence to figure out what the subject of the appointment was all about – treachery for sale. Wike was there to betray his party and help Tinubu win the presidential election; in exchange for a plum appointment if the plot succeeded. BAT, aware that the election might be close, was desperate for assistance from anyone. What could be better than a powerful insider who could deliver the prize; just for a mere political appointment? A deal was struck.

Wike was very circumspect about his intentions. He persuaded four other serving PDP governors and Fayose – intelligent but not wise – to follow him on his trip to London; where the details of the betrayal of their party were worked out. None of the gullible governors campaigned for their own candidate. None was rewarded for helping to destroy their own party; and none can now confess that they have been duped. Wike is the only beneficiary of a conspiracy hatched by him and executed by him. Makinde, Ikpeazu, Ortom and Fayose were used as collaterals to seal the agreement. They perhaps now wish they never met Wike.

Wike a serial traitor

“The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies. It comes from friends and loved ones.”

Poser: Can anybody point to someone who has helped Wike, as he climbed up the political ladder, who has not directly or indirectly been betrayed? Invariably, the association starts with Wike, apparently totally loyal to the other party; until he secures a better and more powerful client. Thereafter, the turnaround is so swift and brazen that the wounds left never heal. Last week, one of his former benefactors, former President Jonathan, was forced to comment on the dangerous situation which declaration of emergency has created in Rivers State.

When Jonathan and Amaechi had a quarrel, Wike immediately became a staunch loyalist of the President. He was rewarded with the governorship of Rivers State. Today, if Tinubu asks Wike to blast GEJ, he would do it gladly and with all the venom at his disposal. What Jonathan left unsaid must have been his regret that he helped to build the force that is threatening the PDP now. Below is what Jonathan said about the problem Wike has created for Tinubu and Nigeria: “They are pretending to sleep; and waking such a person is extremely difficult because the person knows the right thing — a clear abuse of power and power cutting across all three arms of government.”

Brief, but impactful. Rotimi Amaechi, ex-this, ex-that, was governor of the state (Rivers) on PDP platform; when he nominated “loyal” Wike for ministerial post. Once a rift developed between Amaechi and Jonathan, Wike wasted no time. Amaechi was not only dumped, his former friend became the most vicious tag team partner of Jonathan. Every former Rivers State governor must now be regretting helping Wike. They thought he was a friend. Wike’s only friend is Wike.

Tinubu’s turn

“Show me your friends; and I will tell you who you are.”

Granted not every person appointed to high office by a President can be regarded as his friend. Some are imposed by the political party or close acquaintances. But, one or two are his personal choices; based on his personal assessment of their utility value. Tinubu and Wike operated like two parallel lines most of their political lives that there was very little chance of their being political friends – until the opportunity for perfidy, by Wike, occurred. Everything being fair in war and politics, Tinubu cannot be blamed if a top official of another party was willing to act in bad faith.

It was mutually beneficial to both of them – Tinubu became President and Wike was once more a Minister. That should ordinarily have been the end of the matter. A President has every right to expect every Minister to focus on his duties totally; and the other ex-governors on the cabinet – Umahi for instance – have done just that. Only Wike, among the Ministers, apparently has a personal agenda; he wants to run the Ministry as well as Rivers State. And he is not hiding the fact. Every adult Nigerian, who follows political events, knows this and believes that power-greed by Wike is at the heart of the political crisis in Rivers State.

Tinubu obviously approved of Wike’s divided interest and the attempt to privatise Rivers State. So, he has not called the Minister to order. Meanwhile, Wike’s plans have met a stiff resistance. Governor Fubara has refused to be a figurehead Chief Executive Officer. The political stalemate which threatened to erupt into political and ethnic violence has forced Tinubu to take a controversial measure which constitutionality is in doubt. I will shortly offer my own opinion regarding the declaration of emergency in Rivers. However, two things are clear to me. First, it has not solved the problem; and, second, the Presidency, the National Assembly and the federal judiciary have been thrown into the midst of another political crisis by selfish and unpatriotic politicians who don’t wish the people of Rivers State and Nigeria well.

Was the declaration advisable?

“A journalist should be pursuing a fair rendition of truth without regard to popular moods; the journalist should not be swayed by public opinion; only by the pursuit of truth, as close as he can get to it” – Malvin Kalb, American journalist, 1997. I am not a professional journalist; only a media contributor. But, I have accepted the basic rules of journalism as my guide each time an article is published. As much as possible, sentiments are discarded; bias against or in favour of individuals or groups is suppressed.

Thus, even though a staunch Christian, I have no opposition to the introduction of the Sharia Law, anywhere in Nigeria – as long as it is applied only to Muslims. My approach to this matter is the same. This is one of those devilish cases which most thoughtful people pray they are never called upon to offer an opinion. That notwithstanding, when they occur, each of us must stand up and be counted. It is not easy; believe me. My approach to this sort of thing is to ask two simple questions: What would have happened if Tinubu did not declare the state of emergency?

And what would have been the general opinion of his competence as a leader for allowing it? In my view, the contending parties – pro-Wike and pro-Fubara – in and out of government have reached such a stage that dialogue and peaceful solution was impossible. Both sides were moving gradually and surely towards mutual violent destruction. Once it starts, such conflicts don’t end in days or weeks; and sometimes, not even months. Rivers State would have been locked down for a long time; and healing would have taken years to achieve. The Nigerian economy would have been damaged beyond redemption. Every Nigerian alive and millions unborn would suffer immeasurably.

Truth is Rivers State, right now, is the most important state in Nigeria from the standpoint of dollar revenue – given its dominant position on oil and gas. It is our egg basket; which a bunch of blockhead politicians were about to scatter. Fubara, Wike and the legislators were totally obstinate and uncommonly uncompromising as to have left the state without access to its own funds; and the stalemate would have continued indefinitely – if left unchecked. The only power left to bring a halt to the lunacy is the President of Nigeria. Granted, he might have, deliberately or inadvertently, contributed to the mess. But, the fact remains that, having observed the drift of events, he had no choice other than to call a halt. The only instrument at his disposal was the declaration of emergency – which he has done. Unfortunately, Tinubu missed the last step which would have brought nationwide approval; instead of condemnation.

What should have been done?

“The buck stops here” – US President Harry Truman, 1884-1892. That was the statement of a former American President whose Secretary of State was fomenting trouble in his own state on account of ambition to dictate to his successor as state governor. The fellow was doing exactly the same thing Wike has been attempting to do in Rivers. Although, the incident occurred long before Harry Truman pronounced the obiter dictum for all Presidents everywhere, it still has relevance today. No President should encourage possible breakdown of law and order in any part of his country; neither should he retain a Minister who does. Tinubu should also have sacked Wike; who is the cause of the problem.

[OPINION] In memory of Humphrey Nwosu - Simon Kolawole

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Dead or alive, Professor Humphrey Nwosu always evoked extreme emotions. I am not by any chance surprised by the outbreak of controversy over whether or not to immortalise him. The former chairman of the National Election Commission (NEC, now INEC), who died at 83 and was buried on Friday, is best known for conducting the June 12, 1993 presidential election. The watershed election was annulled by Gen Sani Abacha, the minister of defence, while Gen Ibrahim Babangida, the president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, watched helplessly and innocently from his balcony. (If you believe that fantastic story, you can as well believe I am the Queen of Yugoslavia.)

I recall that on Monday, June 14, Nwosu announced results from 15 states, 11 of which were won by Bashorun MKO Abiola, candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). The highlight was Abiola’s victory over Alhaji Bashir Tofa, candidate of the National Republican Convention (NRC), in his own backyard. Abiola did not only win Tofa’s ward, but he also won Kano state. It was total humiliation for Tofa and sweet victory for Abiola, whose backbone in Kano was Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, the former governor. On June 16, NEC suspended announcement of results citing a court injunction, although the electoral laws ousted the jurisdiction of the courts in the conduct of the transition elections.

On Wednesday June 24, Babangida told the nation that the annulment of election, based partly on the need to “protect the judiciary” (don’t laugh). By the way, fake news did not start in the age of social media. The best sites for fake news in those days were newsstands where, depending on the algorithm, you could be served the best rumours and conjectures tailored to your taste. We were told then that as Nwosu insisted on announcing the remaining results, he was arrested by soldiers and given the beating of his life. As a result of the torture, the “bloggers” at the newsstands explained, Nwosu was taken ill and could not continue with the announcement. We believed it.

I pitied Nwosu, whom I saw as the last man standing in a dishonourable and duplicitous military government bent on truncating democracy and holding on to power. He thereafter disappeared from the public eye, perhaps out of trauma, perhaps out of remorse. He refused to grant any media interview. In 2001, when I was editor of TheWeek magazine (a weekly publication founded by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar), I thought Nigerians should hear from Nwosu. A story is best enjoyed from the horse’s mouth. I sent the political editor, Raphael Duru, to Nwosu’s village in Anambra state to search him out. The professor of political science chased him away, shouting: “Leave me alone!”

For long, there was some frustration about Nwosu. Nigerians had many questions lined up that only he could answer, but he refused to come out. Who was really behind the annulment? What role did Babangida, in particular, play? What were the roles of Abacha and other top military officers? Why did Nwosu suddenly stop announcing the results? Why did he not go ahead to announce Abiola as the winner in spite of the court injunctions since the electoral laws expressly ousted judicial jurisdiction? Was it true that he was arrested and manhandled by Brigadier Halilu Akilu, the director of the dreaded Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), for insisting on announcing the results?

In 2008, he announced that he had written a book on the election. He picked an interesting date for the presentation: June 12 — exactly on the 15th anniversary of the election. The book, titled ‘Laying the Foundation for Nigeria’s Democracy: My Account of June 12, 1993 Presidential Election and its Annulment’, was published by Macmillan Nigeria. It was presented at the Abuja Sheraton Hotel and had in attendance Akilu, the man reputed to have arrested and slapped him. I looked forward to devouring it, although I felt he was telling the story too late. By the way, both Akilu and Nwosu used the occasion to deny that the professor of political science was arrested and manhandled in 1993.

But I was generally disappointed with the book. We did not wait for 15 years for Nwosu to come and tell us that the president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces was not to blame for the annulment. Babangida himself had taken responsibility in interviews. More so, he stepped aside in August 1993 and conveniently left Abacha behind as minister of defence and, technically, commander-in-chief. This allowed the Goggled One to sweep away the interim national government, led by Chief Ernest Shonekan, in a matter of 83 days. Abacha had saved Babangida by foiling the Orkar Coup in 1990. This 1993 arrangement looked like a case of one good turn deserving another.

My conclusion after leafing through Nwosu’s book was that Babangida had his nudes, so he felt obliged to defend the former president till his dying days. I also believed Babangida was preparing to launch a comeback into politics and had sent Nwosu ahead to help in rehabilitating him in the minds of Nigerians. In one word, I wished Nwosu had not written that book at all. Silence is golden. I began to view him differently and the respect I had stored up for him in 15 years started evaporating. But years down the line when I watched his interview with Sahara TV, my hard line on him began to dissolve. I could see that he put in a decent shift under the difficult circumstances he found himself.

The irony of it all is that it was Babangida’s memoir, ‘A Journey in Service’, published last month, that finally made me cut Nwosu some slack. To me, Nwosu appeared to have been quite brave in going ahead to conduct the June 12 election despite the body language of the powers that be following the late-night injunction issued by Justice Bassey Ikpeme. From similar narrations by both Babangida and Nwosu, it was clear that senior members of the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC) — the highest ruling body in the country then — did not want the election to go ahead despite the illegality of the injunction stopping the election. The NDSC appeared divided but the consensus was clear.

The easiest thing for Nwosu to do — were he to be, indeed, complicit in the annulment plot — was to put things on hold until the injunction was vacated, even though the electoral laws had clearly stated that no court had the power to entertain matters concerning the conduct of the election. But in the end, was it not court injunctions that were relied upon by Babangida to annul the election? We should resist the temptation to discount the fact that Nwosu insisted on conducting the election despite the implicit and explicit opposition from the military authorities. Nwosu specifically recounted that Babangida told him he was on his own if he went ahead to announce the winner.

Abacha was obviously more straightforward than Babangida in his opposition to Nwosu’s position. At a meeting with the NDSC after declaring the first batch of results, Nwosu recounted: “I told them to allow us to complete the exercise. Abacha screamed at me when he heard this. He told me who do I think I was. He said I was not a member of the national security council and that I went ahead and held an election even after the court had declared it illegal.” This was Abacha’s way of telling Nwosu: Are you a baby? Can’t you read our lips? Do you expect us to talk with the whole of our mouths? Unlike Abacha, Babangida was typically playing the Pontius Pilate and going through the corners.

Perhaps half the story has not been told, but with what is in the public domain, Nwosu did his best to serve Nigeria within the context of a brutal military regime that was notorious for curtailing civil liberty, arresting activists at the slightest provocation, closing down media houses at will, and sacking political appointees without any compunction. It may also be of interest at this stage to point out the fact that the NEC actually filed an appeal in Kaduna on June 20 to quash the various injunctions against the June 12 election and submitted the full results to the court. Guess what happened next? Babangida (or is it Abacha?) dissolved the commission and sacked Nwosu as chairman on June 23.

June 12 election aside, Nwosu did many things. He was a political scientist who performed many experiments to improve the electoral system. He first brought back the open ballot system, mandating voters to queue behind the posters of their candidates and be counted. The idea was to avoid inflation of figures but it ended up killing the secrecy of ballot, eroding the principle of free choice (imagine the possible consequences of husband and wife openly voting for different candidates). He also introduced staggered presidential primaries, by which a party did not have to hold its primary on a single day. It was held in states in different rounds, based on the timetable.

There was serious criticism of the open ballot system as voters complained about intimidation while commentators said it was archaic and regressive. Nwosu tinkered with it and came up with the modified open ballot system (MOBS) which is still in use today. Ballot boxes used to be inside polling booths. This created room for multiple voting and stuffing. With MOBS, voting would be in secret but ballot boxes would be in the open. Everyone could see that no stuffing is taking place. Asked at a press conference why he changed his mind after having defended the open ballot system and declared it as the best, Nwosu replied: “My friend, can’t a good thing give way to a better thing?”

Nwosu also came up with the Option A4 system (which many mistakenly refer to as open ballot till this day). Through Option A4, presidential candidates had to go through four stages before they could pick their party’s tickets. First stage was to contest and win at the ward level, after which they would contest and win at the local government level (stage two) and then proceed to contest and become the state’s flag bearer (stage three). The final (fourth) stage was the national convention, where all the flag bearers from the states would contest for the party’s ticket. No matter the controversies postmarking his life and death, Nwosu was a thinker. He served Nigeria creditably.

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…

IBAS’ RIVERS

Bob Marley sang it: “Give them an inch they take a yard/Give them a yard they take a mile.” Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas, the emergency administrator of Rivers, is recreating the state in his own image. Standing on President Tinubu’s mandate, he has sacked all Siminalayi Fubara’s political appointees — as if the governor would not return. He fired the SSG, the chief of Staff, commissioners, board members, special advisers, special assistants and senior special assistants. He appointed a military officer, Commodore Aminu Shehu, as chief of staff, and is now more or less probing the councils. This is somebody that was brought in to stabilise the state. What next? Remove the chief judge? Agenda.

OBI AND OBA

I almost passed out when I watched a video in which Mr Peter Obi was speaking glowingly about how democracy flourished under President Olusegun Obasanjo. And to make matters worse, the audience erupted in applause. Only those who don’t bother to check their facts would take Obi’s eulogy seriously. Where do we even start from? Is it the illegal impeachment of dissenting governors, sometimes by six lawmakers? Is it the abduction of a governor and the withdrawal of his security? Is it the declaration of a meaningless public holiday in April 2007 to stop the Supreme Court from delivering a ruling that was going to favour Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, his estranged deputy? Amnesia.

JUSTICE FOR TEEJAY

Mr Adetunji Opayele aka TeeJay, the 32-year-old co-founder and CTO of Bumpa, was reportedly knocked down on his bike on March 4, 2025 along Ozumba Mbadiwe, Victoria Island, Lagos. There is much to be said about the motorist but a sad part for me is that in the year 2025, there are no functional emergency services in the so-called “Centre of Excellence”. Many motorists refused to help the bleeding and unconscious victim to the hospital, apparently to avoid police trouble. Above all, several hospitals turned him back maybe because of who would pay the bills. He eventually died. What a sad, sad, sad story. When are we going to start valuing human life in this country? Sickening.

NO COMMENT

After using voice vote to determine two-thirds of 360 members in endorsing the state of emergency in Rivers state, the house of reps has been pretty much busy trying to justify the billions of naira we pour into their pockets yearly. On Wednesday, they passed two bills for second reading, a vital legislative stage. One strips the vice-president, governors and deputy governors of immunity. The other bill abolishes the death penalty. If you thought they knew what they were doing, you were giving them too much credit. Less than 24 hours later, our honourable lawmakers gathered again and rescinded the bills. That is the level of diligence that goes into lawmaking in Nigeria. Hahahaha.

[OPINION] How “free” is the “Free World”? - Bolanle Bolawole

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Lech Walesa, remember him? He was the Labour union leader who succeeded in forming and leading a broad anti-Communism and anti-Soviet Union mass uprising under the banner of the Solidarity Movement which, in 1989, ended Communist rule in Poland and ushered in a chain of events that led to the disintegration of the behemoth called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) and brought an end to the Cold War as it was then known - even if temporarily and for a season as recent events appear to demonstrate.

For his efforts, Walesa, an electrician by profession and Polish dockworkers’ union leader, was awarded the Nobel Peace prize, going on to win the 1990 Polish presidential election and becoming the first democratically-elected president of his country (1990 - 1995) since 1926 and the first-ever Polish president elected by popular vote. Recently, I read him complaining about the United States’ President Donald Trump’s alleged (mis)treatment of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the superpower United States’ apparent abandonment of its leadership of the so-called “Free World”. And I began to wonder and ponder.

Who constitutes the Free world? “Freed” and or “free” from what, who? According to Google, the term Free World “refers more broadly to all liberal democracies collectively, as opposed to authoritarian regimes and communist states. It has traditionally primarily been used to refer to the countries allied and aligned with the United States, the European Union, and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation).”

In practice, the Western world, as the US and its economic and military allies are called, are the Free World. These, majorly, are the countries of Western Europe, the United States, and Canada. They are also known as the “West”. They are the "metropoles" or metropolitan powers while other countries allied or aligned to them from the other parts of the world are their satellites. The United States of America, beginning from the end of the Second World War in 1945, leads the hordes. Hence, it is referred to as the leader of the Free World. Derisively and derogatively, it is also jeered at as “the policeman of the world”!

Policing and protecting what, who? Policing and protecting, ostensibly, the sovereignty, territorial integrity, freedom, and liberties of its members and their satellite states against any encroachment from external forces and or factors. It stands to reason that the arch enemies of the Free World are the other side or section of the world that is not “free” and which is assumed to be opposed to the freedom of others. These are the countries whose political, economic, and social systems are opposed to those of the countries of the Free World.

While the countries of the Free World practice capitalism or what they call the free market or deregulated economy and flaunt as democracy the regular election of its leaders by popular vote, their opponents practice a regulated communist or socialist system where the freedom and liberty to run haywire on all fronts and fly on spoils granted by the Free World is reined in to ensure a more equitable distribution of resources towards the establishment of an egalitarian and more just society.

Led by the defunct USSR, Moscow was the metropole while the satellite states were also spread across the world. Until recently, China, then a sleeping giant (to quote the French general, Napoleon Bonaparte), stood aloof from the Cold War that raged between the US and the NATO countries/forces it led on the one hand, and the USSR and the Warsaw Pact countries/forces led by it on the other. Most of the east European countries belonged in the Warsaw Pact/Communist Bloc. They were known as the Communist Bloc or the Eastern Powers. Derisively and derogatively, they have been referred to by the West as the “Evil Empire”.

The disintegration of the USSR in 1991, which resulted in 15 of its constituent republics gaining independence and moving away, one-by-one, from the eastern axis to the western axis, whittled the power and influence of what remained as the rump of the old USSR, which is the Russian Federation, but which, as a superpower, is still strong enough to command immense influence and exert commensurate power in regional and world politics. The meteoric rise of China from the backwoods of superpower politics to the centre stage of power and recognition and its alignment with Russia, so far, has all but ended the sole superpower status enjoyed by the US and its NATO allies in the post-USSR disintegration era.

This is the realisation that must have dawned on Trump but which the likes of Walesa, still marooned in the past and remaining nostalgic of its heroics, want the US to still forge ahead with. The US disastrous policy of policeman of the world is unwelcomed in many parts of the world. Whatever has a beginning must have an end - with the exception of He who is the Alpha and the Omega.

1776 was when America made its declaration of independence. Before then it had been a colony of Great Britain. It also had to fight a civil war, buy and grab territories before it became the behemoth that it is today. Even at that, it was not originally interested in world dominance but in the preservation of the Americas as its own “sphere of influence”, which is the import of the Monroe Doctrine (1823) by the 5th US President James Monroe (1817 - 1825).

If the first World World (1914 -1918) opened the eyes of the US to the fact that it had a role to play in world affairs, the second (1939 - 1945) confirmed to it that it must not only assume the leadership of the (Free) World but also put in place mechanisms to create it in its own image, assiduously preserve it, and beat everyone into line. We have since been in that era - the era of the United Nations Organisation - with the enforcement tools of NATO, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, among others.

“Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains” bemoans the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Little wonder, then, that the battle cry of the French Revolution of 1789 was “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” in its “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizen”. The Americans, in their 1776 Declaration of Independence, stated unequivocally that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Please, don’t rejoice yet! Whenever the West speak such eloquent words and espouse noble principles that make the hair stand on the body, they mean it only for themselves, the so-called Free World, and not for anyone else! Otherwise, there would have been no centuries of Slave Trade when the human resources of Africa especially were pillaged and carted in the most inhuman, horrid, horrible, and despicable conditions to develop the so-called New World. Walter Rodney’s seminal work, “How Europe underdeveloped Africa” graphically depicts the effects of this inhuman trade on the underdevelopment of Africa and Africans.

Otherwise, too, there would have been no decades of colonization of the African continent following immediately after and the Berlin conference of 1884/1885 where Africa’s head was shaved behind its back (to quote MKO Abiola). There would have been no gruesome murder of African leaders demanding the same “unalinable rights” that the same leaders of the so-called Free World had so eloquently propounded and so forcefully demanded, fighting even to the death to earn them. Patrice Lumumba! Kwame Nkrumah! Walter Rodney! Conscientious African and other satellite-country leaders that raised their heads to demand equal rights for their own people were murdered, were hounded out of office, and were prevented from taking office. Salvador Allende! Sylvanus Olympio! Obafemi Awolowo! The list is endless!

Neo-colonialism or imperialism, which Vladmir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, described as the highest stage of capitalism, has replaced direct colonial rule. What we have in many satellite countries today is Frantz Fanon’s black mask or faces hiding the face of the white colonial masters still calling the shots. Africa’s mineral and material resources are pillaged for the benefit of the metropoles. Peanuts are what the Free World pays for these resources.

Just one example here: While France paid $0.8 per kilogram of uranium to its former colony, Niger Republic, it paid $200 for the same quantity of the same commodity to Canada, a member of the same “Free World” like itself! We may mouth the same cliches, but they mean different things to different folks. We may be rallied to fight for the same principles (as was the case during the Second World War), but when the chips are down the same principles and ideals will be interpreted and implemented differently for different peoples.

Their freedom is our slavery. Their rights, our chains. They are the Free World. We are the Enslaved World. They have reasoned - and reckoned - that we cannot both be free together. One has to be enslaved for the other to be free. One has to be looted and deprived of its resources, human and material, for the other to enjoy the good life. One hand must be down for the other to be on top. Their prosperity and our poverty are inversely proportional one to the other. For those who may not understand that mathematical expression, what it means is that they are rich because we are poor and we are poor because they are rich. To get rich, they first make us poor. Another way of putting it is that they must make us poor before they can become rich.

There is no moralization involved here. Or, better put, the morals of the situation is that, to break their yoke from off our neck, we must stand up and fight, like the French did, and like the Americans did. This has got nothing to do with religion; in fact, religion was, has been, and remains one of the tools they employed for our subjugation. It is the reason Karl Marx described it as the opium (sedative) of the people. If we cannot turn the tables and employ the same religion against them - now that we cry more than the bereaved and act holier than the Pope on the matter of religion - we should at least see beyond the veil.

Morals play no role in the Free World’s code of conduct. Their ethics revolve around the good life for themselves and themselves alone. To achieve this, their doublespeak and deceit even make the few conscientious folks among them blush. Otherwise, how can second- or third-generation immigrants and sons of immigrants like Trump sit in judgement over - and begin to deport - the descendants of those who have been there centuries earlier?

Bob Marley then was right: Them crazy/Them crazy/We gonna chase those crazy baldheads out of town/I an I build a cabin/I and I plant the corn/Didn’t my people before me/Slave for this country?/Now you look me with that scorn/Then you eat up all my corn/…Hate is your reward for us/Telling us of your God above/We gonna chase those crazy…”

Only by first freeing ourselves shall we help to free the so-called Free World from their pride and prejudice, hatred, bigotry, jaundiced worldview and oppressive manipulation of the other parts and peoples of the world.

Eid Mubarak to my teeming readers and all our moslem brothers and sisters all over the world! But should I put it on record that none has yet considered sending me ram, rice, and condiments for me to also hillariously join them in the celebration?

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[OPINION] On Rivers: Letter to President Tinubu - Ugoji Egbujo

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My dear president, Ramadan Kareem.

On your mandate, I stand, sit and sleep. The country now knows you can bark and bite. You are not all braggadocio and Tinubu dance. Even though you are a progressive, you can be as ruthless as Abacha.

In one fell swoop you sent an elected governor and house assembly packing. Then the NASS acted like a living rubber stamp in approving the proclamation. In a move reminiscent of a stepover in football, they out-maneuvered the Constitution. Some say it was roguery. I think it was routine political opportunism by a man of political timbre and calibre. Not worse than Trump. You are now the strongest president in Africa. You can be Paul Biya or Mobutu if you choose.

When you were a governor, you championed true federalism. You sought out Osinbajo so you could use his constitutional law acumen to check the excesses and incursions of the federal government. Those were the days of sovereign national conference. That was the format to fight Fulani hegemony. Old things have passed away. Now you are ‘the federal’, you are using Lateef Fagbemi to undermine true federalism. People say they can’t fathom you. They say you are not principled. Do they expect you to weaken your authority? This authority you dreamt of for over thirty years? They need to be patient.

They now call you a chameleonic dictator. These people should have looked beneath the surface to know that your brand of democracy is benevolent autocracy. Did you ever hide it? You were the only governor to force out two consecutive deputy governors. Total Babasopecracy. So they should stop calling you a chameleon. Did they see you practice internal party democracy in Lagos? You are a democrat with a benign autocratic philosophy; is that not so? You are a leopard. You have never changed your spots. Your spots are not made of chalk.

Talking about the constitution, do they think you don’t know there is no express provision of the constitution authorizing you to suspend a governor? Aren’t they aware you fought for the autonomy of local governments at the Supreme Court? Why can’t they use their tongue to count their teeth? Power is not donated. It is grabbed. Let them go to court. You can now remove any stubborn governor anytime you like and use voice votes to seal it. If any governor dares to remove a local government chairman, you can seize his funds. And if he tries anything, you remove him. The opposition parties thought they could hide under the constitution to build a coalition. Rivers is a strong message to all governors. If they do anyhow, they see anyhow.

Let them go to court. They don’t know that you can even disobey the Supreme Court. Is it because you promote the rule of law? After all, what can the Supreme Court do? You have the army, police and legislature. You have the traditional rulers and bishops and imams. You have the student union. You have contained the Labour union. If you can remove the governor and state legislature then why can’t you dissolve the supreme court in a time of emergency? Didn’t they hear the Attorney General define it as extraordinary measures? It’s called emergency powers. Didn’t Buhari say that state security had priority above the rule of law? They don’t know you are bigger than the courts.

Some of them are digging up old newspapers and tweets. They want to tell the whole world that their president is a blooming hypocrite who preached one thing in 2015 and 2013 and is doing the exact opposite in 2025. The worst the international community can do is to say that you don’t have integrity. But who has integrity helped? Is Trump better than you? The country comes before everything including integrity. Do they want you to remain an activist forever? President Jonathan and Obasanjo can cry all they like. They are doing aluta about. When you leave office, you will join them to preach constitutionality too. For now, it’s about 2027

2027 is around the corner. And the opposition thinks you can allow them to have Rivers to fund their operations. Haba, you are not as naive as Jonathan and Buhari. Baba, have you told Fubara he needs to use the six months well? To return himself to being a puppet, sorry, a good boy under the control of the honourable minister. How can an apprentice who has done ‘freedom’ declare himself oga overnight?

You had to stop Fubara; otherwise, he would have overwhelmed Wike and sent a message to other apprentices, like Sanwo Olu. It’s good you used the Obasa matter to make yourself very clear to that one in Lagos. You can’t play with your home structure. And that’s why these elders who come to you to make peace for Wike and Sim have to have their heads examined. Don’t they know you and Wike are comrades in godfatherism? Wike may be a small garrulous godfather with little emotional intelligence, but he is still a godfather. That political industry has to be protected from rampant breach of trust, no matter how illegal.

That brings me to the elephant in the room. You spent energy and resources to prevent the country from becoming a one-party state. Many critics are saying you are manipulating the country into a one-party nation. Many of them don’t think. In the spirit of benevolent autocratic democracy underpinned by the Babasope philosophy, if the country goes into a one-party state under your masterful watch, then isn’t that the best kind of democracy it can have? I expect your spokesmen to learn the spinning art.

The public needs to know that that is the best way to stabilize the polity. Thankfully, with the Rivers precedent, you need not tell other governors in the opposition to move into the ruling party. No, you don’t. They have got the message. If they don’t move, you move them without looking backwards. The lawmakers are like sheep. And they can’t be afraid of losing their seats after defecting. The Supreme Court has said only the speaker or senate president can declare a seat vacant. So once they are given some carrot and the promise of a ticket, they will all move and nothing will happen.

Some say the dangerous precedent you have set with Rivers will come to haunt you. Wasn’t that how they said the precedent you set in Lagos by handpicking your successors would haunt you in 2023? They don’t know you are Idan. You can eat your cake and have it. They are saying that a northern president coming after you may suspend the governor of Lagos for political reasons and appoint a sole administrator from Sokoto. I know you will resist it if it happens. Nobody can take Lagos from you. But who even told them you are leaving? Leaving to where? If these people can’t read your body language from Rivers’s proclamation, then they are lost.

The good thing about the Rivers action is that everybody has sat up. The police, INEC, and judges. They must have received the message. If you can remove a sitting governor, then shouldn’t they all be scared? So the opposition can forget about 2027. That ship has sailed. But I want you to think Lee Kuan Yew. Beni sir. He was there for thirty years. They won’t like the thought of it. But sick people don’t like injections. So, you have to arrange constitutional amendments in early 2028.

Apart from deleting term limits, you can just increase tenure to ten years. While amending, you can strip governors of immunity. So you can use the EFCC to control them. Seyi has told everybody you are the best president ever. So why change a winning team? You should be president like Paul Biya. Don’t worry about the intentional community, the EU isn’t troubling Paul Biya. Don’t worry baba, the plan will work. The governors will cooperate. After all, if they refuse, you can just declare a state of emergency in the

36 states. You can leave Abuja for Wike. Once you declare it, the NASS will approve with voice votes and you can appoint sole administrators in the entire country. With a mandate to maintain law and order, they can be there for many years. The governors know that Rivers has made you almost a sovereign. They won’t dare you. So they will cooperate and allow you to amend the constitution and stay in office for as long as you want in the interest of the country.

On your mandate, we must stand sir.

[OPINION] Barbaric Mass Burning of Innocents in Edo - Farooq A. Kperogi

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I woke up on Friday morning to a deluge of forwarded, unwatchably terrifying videos showing 16 Hausa hunters, who were traveling from Port Harcourt to Kano for the forthcoming Eid-el-fitr festivities, being lynched and burned alive by a mob of blood-thirsty savages in the town of Uromi in Edo State. I've been sick to my stomach.

My inquiry has led me to understand that the Uromi community has been gripped by abductions for ransom, which sometimes result in deaths. Seething with rage and vengeance over the incessancy of deadly kidnapping by “Fulani herdsmen,” the community was primed for jungle justice.

When local vigilantes accosted a bus traveling northward through the town, they found Hausa hunters armed with hunting guns and machetes aboard. In the bigoted, know-nothing estimation of the Uromi vigilantes, Hausa hunters were one and the same as Fulani kidnappers.

So, they burned the innocent Hausa hunters for the crimes of anonymous Fulani bandits. I honestly couldn’t bring myself to watch the dreadfully nightmarish videos to the end. I broke down at the point when one of the hunters was thrown into a flaming fire from a wheelbarrow and he exclaimed “Wayyo Allah!” in anguish. It was too much for my fragile heart to handle.

These sorts of savage slaughters of innocents persist in Nigeria not just because of a progressive loss of faith in formal institutions for the redress of communal grievance, heightened anxieties about safety, and increasing faith in the efficacy of jungle justice but also because of the absence of consequences for them.

As I pointed out when Deborah Yakubu was extrajudicially murdered by a mob of unhinged fanatics in Sokoto in May 2022, there is no greater enabler of jungle justice than a lack of consequence for it.

Sadly, when tragedies like this occur, there is a habitual, safe, standard, prepackaged rhetorical template that people in government effortlessly regurgitate. They promise to bring the perpetrators to justice, make performative arrests to quench public thirst for justice, and nothing else happens. That can’t continue.

When I called for the prosecution and public execution of the murderers of Deborah in 2022, I warned that it was necessary “to serve as an example to other would-be murderers.”

Of course, Deborah’s murder wasn’t the first example of jungle justice. Harira and her four children were ferociously murdered by maniacal thugs in Anambra State, and nothing was done about it. The list is too long to fit in a newspaper column. But I argued that it’s never too late to do the right thing.

I will repeat my plea. The murderers of these innocent travelers are easily identifiable from the videos that are circulating online. They should all be apprehended, tried, and executed in public to deter a repeat.

But, in the interest of proportionality of justice, this should not be limited to this Uromi incident. All cases of jungle justice should equally be punished the same way. The punishment for murder in both the Criminal Code and the Penal Code is death. The law should be followed.

Another thing that this incident instantiates is the danger of toxic ignorance. Before Muhammadu Buhari became president, all northerners in southern Nigeria used to be “Hausa,” irrespective of their ethnic and religious identities.

After Buhari became president, every northerner, especially if the northerner is also Muslim, became “Fulani,” which led me to write a June 5, 2021, column titled, “‘Fulanization’ of the North by the South.” The South, I wrote, was relentlessly rhetorically Fulanizing the North, particularly the Muslim North, just to fertilize and sustain a simplistic narrative.

This simplistic, misbegotten narrative probably led the Uromi mass murderers to assume that Hausa people with hunting instruments must be Fulani bandits since they have internalized the wrongheaded notion that all northern Muslims are “Fulani.”

Never mind that Hausa and Fulani communities in many northwestern states are at daggers drawn over kidnappings for ransom by Fulani outlaws, or that more northerners are kidnapped for ransom than people anywhere else in the country.

Trust TV, the broadcast arm of Daily Trust, did an informative documentary on March 5, 2022, titled “Nigeria’s Banditry: The Inside Story” that brought the tension between Fulani herders and Hausa people into focus.

A subsequent July 25, 2022, BBC Africa Eye documentary titled “The Bandit Warlords of Zamfara,” which got the hackles of the Muhammadu Buhari administration up, amplified the tensile relational dynamics between Hausa and Fulani communities in the northwest since kidnapping for ransom took roots in the region, transmuted into full-on terrorism, and finally morphed into the full-scale Hausa-versus-Fulani ethnic war, particularly in such states as Zamfara, Kebbi, and Katsina.

In response to the rural and urban banditry by mostly Fulani brigands against Hausa people in the northwest (Fulani people have also accused Hausa people of cattle theft, indiscriminate murders, and systematic exclusion), the BBC documentary tells us, Hausa people formed or strengthened preexisting vigilante groups called yan sakai or yan banga for self-defense against bandits.

Yan banga groups originally come from traditional Hausa hunters' associations and draw upon the skills and rituals commonly associated with traditional hunters (such as using charms, dane guns, and other traditional weaponry) for vigilante duties.

In other words, most of the Hausa hunters that the Uromi homicidal beasts murdered in cold blood to avenge the banditry of Fulani herders would be targets of elimination by Fulani bandits in the northwest. That’s double jeopardy.

The northwest is the theater of a ceaseless spiral of recrimination and reciprocal violence between the Hausa and Fulani communities, thereby imperiling the longstanding, Islamically-inspired ethnocultural synthesis that historically unites them.

Remarkably, this volatile dynamic persisted largely unnoticed by both national and global media until it was thrust into international consciousness through BBC Africa Eye’s seminal July 2022 "The Bandit Warlords of Zamfara" documentary.

The documentary revealed the paradoxical reality wherein, despite substantial overlaps in culture, religion, heritage, and linguistic traditions, the Hausa and Fulani populations remain predominantly segregated, particularly in rural areas. Intercommunity relations are characterized by persistent tensions that manifest in conflicts over scarce resources such as land, water, and sustenance.

But the rest of Nigeria has a hard time grasping the existence of tensile ethnic stress between Hausa and Fulani people in the north on account of banditry because the southern-dominated institutional news media in Nigeria, which help frame how we make sense of our social and cultural realities, lack ready-made, stereotypical mental representations with which to frame the conflict, so they either avoid reporting it altogether or minimize its horrors if they report it at all.

The news media thrive on Manichean binaries, conflictual differences, and sensation, which a conflict between Hausa and Fulani people doesn’t present. After all, a popular Yoruba epigram says, “Gambari pa Fulani ko lejo ninu,” which roughly translates as “If a Hausa person kills a Fulani person, there is no case,” implying that the Hausa and the Fulani are indistinguishable.

I have also read many northerners on social media encouraging a retaliation over the Uromi massacre of Hausa hunters. That would be most unfortunate for at least three reasons. First, the people who committed the murders are easily identifiable. Indiscriminate murder of innocent southerners in the north for a crime committed by a recognizably small group of people violates not just the law of the land but also Islamic precepts.

Surah Al-Ma'idah (Chapter 5, Verse 32) of the Qur’an says, “whoever kills a soul…it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one—it is as if he had saved mankind entirely."

Second, based on the experiences of the past, one can almost guarantee that innocent, law-abiding Igbos in the north would bear the brunt of any “retaliation” even though Uromi in Edo State isn’t an Igbo town.

The town is populated by the Esan people who, although they constitute a major ethnic group in the state, are not the majority in the state. They also don’t have a numerically significant presence in the North, so innocent southerners would be murdered in cold blood.

Finally, killing innocent southerners in the North for the crimes of a few people would be identical to the crimes of the Uromi vigilantes that the retaliators are supposedly avenging.

I hope the president and the governor of Edo State will act expeditiously to contain this upheaval and prevent it from snowballing into a bigger problem than it should.

[OPINION] PBAT@73: A Leader of Bold, Audacious, Tenacious Reforms, Renewed Hope - Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo

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The world stood still on Monday, May 29, 2023, when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu made the now-famous “Subsidy is gone” declaration at Eagle Square, Abuja, in his first address to the nation upon his inauguration as the 16th President of Nigeria, the biggest black nation on earth.

This declaration not only caught everyone by surprise, but observers, analysts, and commentators were also stunned and wondered how much courage the President had mustered before uttering those three words. “Did the President know what he had just said?” many asked.

But today, we can all testify to the stability and growth within Nigeria’s oil and gas sector. In other words, the average Nigerian enjoyed a festive period without queues at fuel stations across the country in December 2023, and this trend continues. Nigeria has already bid farewell to “Egypt,” symbolising its emergence from a period of hardship.

Leadership is neither a title nor an office; it is an act of responsibility, a burden borne by those courageous enough to chart a new course for their people. In President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigeria has found a leader whose governance philosophy is built on the foundations of resilience, reform, and renewal. Since assuming office, he has made the difficult decisions others feared to confront, prioritizing long-term stability over short-term populism. The measure of a leader is not in comfort but in adversity. He took office at a time of economic turbulence, structural inefficiencies, and social discontent. Yet, rather than retreat, he advanced—ushering in policies that, while bold and sometimes uncomfortable, are shaping a Nigeria that is stronger, more stable, and primed for sustainable growth.

This is not just the passing of another year in the life of a statesman; it is a moment to reflect on the breadth of his reforms, the depth of his vision, and the courage with which he has navigated one of the most challenging periods in our nation’s history. Upon assuming office, President Tinubu faced economic challenges, including policy inconsistencies, unsustainable debt, and a distorted forex market. His administration swiftly addressed these issues. Today, one of his boldest moves was removing fuel subsidy to save trillions of naira for infrastructure, health, social safety nets and education just to mention a few. He also rallied the Central Bank of Nigeria to unify the exchange rate, restoring investor confidence by clearing $5 billion in forex obligations. Government revenue has doubled to over N9 trillion, while debt servicing costs dropped from 97 percent to 68 percent.

In the oil and gas sector, production rose to 1.61 million barrels per day, and the Port Harcourt Refinery resumed operations. His Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Initiative has cut transport costs by 60 percent. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) deals worth over $500 million are boosting job creation.

His administration prioritizes education and youth empowerment, launching the Student Loan Scheme with N45.6 billion already processed and N50 billion allocated. Programs like Skill Up Artisans (SUPA), Nigerian Youth Academy (NiYA), and National Talent Export Programme (NATEP) are equipping youths with employable skills.

His governance reforms also include financial autonomy for local governments, a 300 percent salary increase for judges, and a minimum wage hike from N30,000 to N70,000. His leadership fosters efficiency, innovation, and impactful governance that are shaping and strengthening Nigeria’s progress.

For setting up a team comprising young people, technocrats and experts who have shown competence across their fields, the president’s vision was clear: governance must work for the people, and every institution must function with efficiency, integrity, and accountability. This guiding principle has empowered all appointees to drive historic reforms in various Ministries, Department and Agencies.

For instance, the Ministry of Interior has transformed border security with a state-of-the-art Bola Ahmed Tinubu Technology Innovation Complex (BATTIC) commissioned to serve as the technological nerve centre with sophisticated facilities such as the 8.3 petabyte Tier-4 Data Centre, the ECOWAS Biometric Card Production Centre, Visa Approval Centre, the Command and Control Centre and the deployment of the Advanced Passenger Information System (APIS) and Passenger Name Record (PNR) which has revolutionised border management. Today, through the support of Mr President, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) can now pre-profile travellers before they arrive into the country.

While this facility is a game-changer in the use of data-driven approach and technology to beef-up our border management, the solution also integrates global security databases into our immigration systems.

The introduction of e-gates at our international airports has streamlined immigration processes, while centralised passport application process and a contactless renewal system have made travel documentation seamless. Even more is that it saves the government billions of naira annually as well as gives Nigerians comfort without compromising national security.

For the first time, Nigeria has been enrolled in ICAO’s global security system including the PKD/PKI (Public Key Directory and Public Key Infrastructure), a system that is instrumental to enhancing passport acceptability in compliance with global standards. This was done after the service had cleared its backlog of passport applications over of 200, 000 within three weeks.

With a new visa policy set to be activated, Nigeria is opening up its space for tourists, investors and foreigners. This is the Renewed Hope agenda of Mr. President in action, creating a conducive business environment for all without jeopardising national security.

Nigeria has also expanded electronic border surveillance, now covering 60 percent of Nigeria’s 4,047km border space following the deployment of technological solutions. Over 30 operational vehicles have been added to the fleet of vehicles dedicated to the surveillance and patrol of our borders, ensuring better territorial integrity.

Reforms in the Nigerian Correctional Service have seen biometric registration of all inmates, aiding security efforts. Within few months of the Tinubu government, over 4000 inmates held in custody for their inability to pay petty fines were released via a collaboration with the private sector to raise about N600 million to this end. This singular act decongested the already overcrowded correctional facilities by five percent. This also saved the government over a billion naira that could have been appropriated to feeding these inmates.

As of today, the government has approved and commenced the implementation of a 50% upward review of the feeding allowance of inmates across correctional centres in the country. Beyond feeding allowance, the government has also swiftly swing into action in ensuring inmates are given the best of care with the renovation currently ongoing in the correctional facilities across the country. Kuje Correctional Centre and at least 10 other have worn a new look.

The government has also approved the relocation of 29 correctional centres already encroached by urbanisation across the country. For instance, the Agodi Correctional centre in Ibadan, Oyo State is situated right inside a market while the Ikoyi Correctional centre shares a fence with the Polo club. Not only is this against international practices and protocols, it is also a violation of the Nigerian Correctional Service Act (2019) which provides for a 100m buffer between a correctional facility and the next building.

In making the correctional centre a place of correctional, reformation, transformation and reintegration rather than a place of incarceration, deformation, and condemnation, the government has trained thousands of inmates in vocational skills to reduce the rate of recidivism.

Today, inmates can now dream again and can fulfil their dreams of acquiring degrees even up to PHD level with a lot of them now enrolled in different courses in the National Open University.

Furthermore, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) has been empowered to fulfil its core mandate of protecting critical national assets and infrastructure.

The corps has swiftly moved to address critical issues such as oil bunkering, pipeline vandalization, protection of power and telecommunications facilities across the country. In the last few months, it has destroyed over one thousand illegal refineries and over 200 illegal oil dumps.

The NSCDC has secured over 345 convictions, with 187 cases in court, while new operational vehicles, gunboats, and 10,000 trained agro-rangers now safeguard farms and the Mine Marshals now keep mining sites safe.

The Fire Service has undergone a comprehensive rebranding, featuring world-class infrastructure designed to significantly reduce fire-related incidents nationwide. With the support of the President, 15 Rapid Response Vehicles and six heavy-duty fire trucks have been procured to enhance operational efficiency. Additionally, extensive renovations are underway at the National Fire Academy, with the goal of remodelling the institution to meet international standards and hub of capacity building for the west Africa sub region

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) only within few weeks last year cleared a backlog of over two million National Identification Number modification requests. This aligns with ongoing efforts to enhance identity management services in the country.

The commission currently boasts of over 120 million enrolment in the national digital database. Also, in line with its commitment to streamlining the National Identity Management Commission’s database, the ministry has uncovered about 6,000 individuals from foreign countries who prior to this administration have illegally obtained National Identity Numbers (NIN). Furthermore, through collaboration with 257 institutions, a total of 332,715 students have been successfully registered for loans, with over 18,000 students already receiving payments under the student loan initiative.

With the new Expatriate Administration System by the Ministry of Interior, the government is better poised to securing the country as well as supporting economic recovery plan by ensuring that all Expatriates working within the shores of Nigeria are documented in the database of the Nigeria Immigration Service.

We cannot thank the President enough. He has used his good office to turn challenges to opportunities for growth and development. All inherited promotion backlogs for paramilitary officers have been cleared with over 50,000 paramilitary officers across agencies under the Ministry of Interior promoted within eighteen months. Since its establishment in 1986, the Civil Defence Correctional Fire and Immigration Services Board had never commenced and completed promotion exercise in a calendar year. As we speak, the 2025 promotion exercise has started and is scheduled to be completed in the next few months.

In strengthening the Board, the government has approved the expansion of its establishment structure to create vacancies and career path and growth.

These acts of Mr President brought an end to career stagnation. Needless to talk about the approval and payment of peculiar and rent allowances for paramilitary officers to keep their morale high.

Recently, the government approved the establishment of the National Paramilitary Academy which is a degree-awarding institution, like the Nigerian Defence Academy, that will train young persons. Young Nigerians will be admitted through the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and undergo a rigorous four- to five-year training program. Upon graduation, they will receive certification and be deployed to manage paramilitary operations nationwide efficiently.

Today, through the foresight of Mr President, we have moved from talks to action, a stage where policies don’t end on papers but are translated to actions —going on to become the foundation of a more secure, efficient, and accountable Nigeria.

Beyond the achievements of our ministry, the impact of the Renewed Hope Agenda is evident across various sectors, driven by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s strategic interventions and leadership.

One of the most significant infrastructure projects in Africa is the ongoing Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, a 700-kilometer expressway designed to improve connectivity and economic activity across nine states. Construction of the first phase, spanning 47.47 kilometres from Lagos, commenced in March 2024 and is set for completion by May 2025.

The ongoing reconstruction of the Lagos-Ibadan Motorway, the completion of the Second Niger Bridge, and the expansion of the rail network further reflect the government’s commitment to infrastructure, facilitating trade, reducing travel time, and creating employment opportunities.

The ambitious 1,068 kilometres Sokoto – Badagry super highway project which first phase will be completed in 2027, and traversing nine states along that corridor, speaks to the commitment of the government to the connectivity of one end of Nigeria to another end for economic prosperity. In the process, about 63 dams would be built to guarantee the enhancement of Nigeria’s agricultural potentials, as well as help to generation of power. These are legacy projects that would outlive the president himself.

Today, Nigeria has also secured billions in investment commitments from international partners, including India and the Netherlands, and successfully issued a Eurobond, demonstrating strong investor confidence.

The launch of the Nigerian Minerals Resource Decision Support software, a digital platform designed to facilitate investment in the sector, and the establishment of the Nigeria Solid Minerals Corporation with the approval of a 50% equity stake for the private sector, 25% for Nigerians, and 25% for the Federal Government, will significantly transform the mining sector and lay the foundation for its sustainable development.

Strategic diplomatic efforts have further strengthened Nigeria’s economic prospects. Renewed cooperation with Brazil has led to large-scale investments in agriculture and industry. This has facilitated the launch of the Green Imperative Agricultural Technology Initiative that is designed to advance food security and mechanized farming.

In the fight against corruption and national asset recovery, the government has facilitated the transfer of millions of dollars in forfeited assets from the United States, reinforcing its commitment to transparency and accountability.

The administration has also made notable progress in healthcare by improving access, infrastructure, and service delivery. The first-ever Sector-Wide Joint Annual Health Review enabled strategic planning. Free caesarean sections were introduced to reduce maternal and infant mortality. The launch of the Nigeria Climate Change and Health Vulnerability Assessment Report addressed climate-related health risks.

The approval of the Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative (NHSRII), demonstrate this administration’s resolve to enhance Nigeria’s health infrastructure.

So also the approval of employment of 774 National Health Fellows, this is a pivotal initiative led by the Federal Ministry of Health to foster sustained improvements within Nigeria’s healthcare system.

The federal government’s approval of 80 percent subsidy on kidney dialysis services, thereby cutting the price from N50,000 to N12,000 at eleven federal hospitals nationwide, is a testament that this administration is committed in its bid to alleviate the financial burden of kidney disease treatment on Nigerians.

Health data systems were strengthened, 53,000 health workers were retrained, and the Basic Health Care Provision Fund was expanded to cover 10 million Nigerians, with 2.4 million enrolling in the national health insurance scheme.

In the Federal Capital Territory, major infrastructure projects have improved connectivity, benefiting urban and rural communities. Schools have been rehabilitated to create a better learning environment.

The establishment of the Mandate Secretariat for Youth Development and other governance reforms has enhanced service delivery. Rural infrastructure improvements have also spurred economic growth.

Agriculture has attracted over $20 billion in investments, including $14 billion from India and $250 million from the Netherlands. Additional commitments have been made for lithium development in Nasarawa State and partnerships with Germany.

The aviation sector has undergone significant transformation, enhancing Nigeria’s compliance with the Cape Town Convention and strengthening its creditworthiness and safety standards. These reforms have positioned Nigeria as a key hub for aircraft maintenance in Africa through a partnership with Boeing. Upgrades to airport infrastructure have enhanced efficiency. The finalization of Bilateral Air Service Agreements has boosted connectivity, increasing opportunities for tourism and trade.

The four tax reform bills currently before the national assembly, including the Nigeria Tax Bill 2024, the Nigeria Tax Administration Bill, the Nigeria Revenue Service Establishment Bill, and the Joint Revenue Board Establishment Bill underscore the government’s desire for a responsible fiscal federalism.

These bills, no doubt will overhaul tax administration and revenue generation in Nigeria, as many of the provisions contained in them are landmark in nature.

Similar to this are the regional bodies being established especially with the President assenting to the South-west Development Commission Bill and the South-south Development Commission Bill, South East Development Commission Bill, North West Development Commission Bill, the North Central Development Commission Bil, leaving no geopolitical zone without its region body. This will become a mechanism to trickle down development and dividends of democracy to the grassroots.

The government has recorded success in the area of security with a drastic decline in some of the security threats and challenged that faced us a couple of years ago.

The government has secured the release of more than 4,600 hostages, neutralised over 9,000 terrorists, bandits, and kidnappers, and arrested more than 7,000 others.

Large quantities of assorted weapons and ammunition have also been recovered and some of the rescued individuals had spent as much as three years in captivity and had long given up hope of freedom till the government came on board, through the rapid responses to rescue operations, of school children to the release of students abducted from the Federal University of Gusau, and the recent rescue of Kogi students will go down in history as defining moments of this government.

These achievements reflect a clear vision for national development, economic growth, and stronger international partnerships, laying a foundation for long-term progress.

Across the various sectors, these are accomplishments that speak to bold decision-making and reform, encouraging a forward-thinking approach to governance. Through this, public servants have been inspired to embrace innovation and pursue impactful change.

Mr. President has diverted focus on results over rhetorics and has created an environment where governance is centered on delivering tangible improvements in the lives of Nigerians.

This is defined by principle rather than political expediency. The President does not shy away from difficult decisions but instead leads necessary conversations that drive transformation.

This administration is restoring faith in governance, institutions, and the nation’s future. Bold reforms have not only stabilized the economy but have also rekindled hope among Nigerians, fostering a belief in a future where hard work is rewarded, governance is accountable, and opportunities are available to all.

From government offices to markets, from classrooms to factories, there is a renewed sense that the country is on the right path. Economic recovery is underway, social safety nets are expanding, and young Nigerians can now envision a future where their government actively works for their success. This is the essence of the Renewed Hope Agenda—building a Nigeria where governance is effective, democracy is strengthened, and every citizen has the opportunity to thrive.

It is a consensus that a presidential, Bold, Audacious and Tenacious (PBAT leadership) is not just one that takes the people to where they want to be but where they ought to be. To say we are on our way to the promised land may not be out of place at this critical juncture of our nation’s history because we can all agree that we are not where we used to be.

The days of uncertainty are fading, replaced by the steady march toward progress. The economy is rebounding as we continue to build investors confidence, social safety nets are expanding, and young Nigerians can now dream bigger, knowing their government is working for them.

Hon. (Dr.) Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo is the Minister of Interior

[OPINION] Soludo Solution and Solvent - Okey Ikechukwu

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“I applied for this job, my brother, and I am here to do it”; he said. That was Soludo a few months after he was sworn in as the governor of Anambra State. I ran into him at the Anambra airport. He had the air of: “I will dig it out here with everyone and everything that tries to stand in my way to saving Anambra State from everything that is holding it down today”.

While talking about his determination to do all the right things, he explained that he was in Anambra state to stay for good. Hear him: “I am not planning to go and live anywhere else after this job, so Obodo anyi ga-adi nma, ka anyi nolu ebe ndi fulu uzo no kitaa (our homeland shall be made good, so that we shall be where the rest of the enlightened world is today). We have to bring home and domesticate the 21st Century World many of us are already familiar and comfortable with out there. Will nilly, anyi ga afu isi ya. Anambra State must become the right type of living space and economic destination for any 21st Century person”. I wished him well, assured him that i was always a phone call away and we parted.

All things considered, Soludo is in Anambra Government House today as part of the project of actualizing an over two decades old vision and developmental perspective he has always had for his home state. Back in 2006, at an event organized by the League of Anambra Professionals (LAP), Soludo declared in his keynote speech that Anambra State was geographically, providentially and strategically positioned to be for Africa, and the world, all the good things for which Dubai and Taiwan are known and celebrated.

His speech at the aforementioned occasioned was titled “Envisioning Anambra as the African Dubai Taiwan Silicon Valley” (ADTS). He laid out this vision and dream on that occasion. Then he sought the office of governor through the electoral process, for vision actualization. That was a few years after the speech. The outcome of the election did not favour him. But he held unto the roots of his much-talked-about, and not always well understood, African Dubai Taiwan payoff line until he go the chance to try his hands on governing the state.

Several things are clear so far. Soludo does not back down. Right or wrong, depending on your perspective on any issue. He is not known to be afraid of his own voice, or of any other voice for that matter. Whether as a student union activist in the university of Nigeria Nsukka back then, or in all the positions he has held at various levels within and outside the country, he leaves a mark in broad outlines – and often with colourful strokes. He will always say “No complaints and no excuses, I will use my grey matter”.

Concerning Anambra State he said from the beginning: “I knew the problems, the economic challenges and the financial handicaps here before I became governor”. He believes in himself, his vision and his methods. He is poised to keep going, glitches or not, and is resolute about fully implementing a vision that has left him no peace for so long.

The governor is armed with a document that can best be described as a 50-year development plan, as the anchoring peg for the Soludo solution towards a greater Anambra; as the Peoples Manifesto. The Manifesto and vision are to lay the foundations for that new Anambra he envisioned in 2006, and which he has further fleshed out since then. It is a schematic framework for making the state a liveable and prosperous mega city, as well as a preferred destination to live, work, learn, and expand in.

Soludo wants the Anambra State to be “a destination”, rather than a bus stop, or departure lounge.

But a destination must be welcoming and not inclement. Yes, Anambra has the right combination of possibilities for greatness. To make the state the Dubai, Taiwan Silicon Valley of Africa, is to explore and exploit what it shares with Dubai, like location and the type of borders and neighbours it has; and it’s having the largest market in west Africa.

The Taiwan element is about the peculiarities Taiwan shares with Anambra State, as a tiny physical space with abundant human capital. This is the primary resource that Taiwan has made the bedrock of its current industrialized status. It simply mined and deployed its human capital, without apologies. And Soludo is saying, as he has been saying for over a decade, that this is part of the cocktail of what needs to happen, for Anambra State to fully actualize its possibilities in Nigeria and Africa.

Coming to the much-misunderstood talk about Silicon Valley, it begins with a simple acknowledgement of the fact that technology is the future. It then moves on to the thesis that whoever refuses to follow current and emerging technologies, in addition to innovations, in today’s world is heading straight into oblivion with a first-class ticket. And Soludo was saying, back then in 2006, not only that Anambra has the human capital, knowledge and creative spirit to create a Silicon Valley but that it can and should be created.

The state is currently building its own Silicon Valley, but that’s not the point. The essential issue for me here is a Hub in African that can become outstanding by exhibiting capacity, keying into the Global knowledge industry at the highest level of technology, and strategically deploys the very things that make Dubai and Taiwan what they are

That’s aspiration Soludo anchors on five main pillars, designed to dovetail into each other in such a way that a mutually reinforcing ecosystem of variegated developmental possibilities is created. These pillars include, but are not limited to, security,, economic transformation, infrastructural development and rehabilitation, human capital reengineering and a holistic social Agenda. All of these are capped with an overarching focus on completely reforming the way government works, as well as the underlying value system for sustainable service delivery; with sustainable institutional efficiency.

Surely an “African Dubai Taiwan Silicon Valley” will not be possible without the right the right kind of human beings. Values, not resources, define a people. It is because he was convinced that a new leadership culture for Anambra State must be simultaneously undergirded by a determination to create and entrench a new leadership and organizational culturebthat Soludo has been trying to drive and entrench the right kind of values with a view to holistic and lasting impact.

His “Solution”, as the process of designing, developing, installing, nurturing, reinforcing and drilling down accountability and responsible citizenship rests on a long-term perspective. It is the desire to bring about a habitat with the right type of value chains and viable dependencies, wherein progressive backward integration creates and drives an ecosystem that would make Anambra the hub Soludo has in mind.

It is within this context, and against this background, that government should epitomize transparency and digitised services project an expanded understanding of his notion of “environment”. This means seen “environment”; beyond the purely physical to include value-laden Rules of Engagement, the Regulatory Climate, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and much more.

Now, lets step back some five years ago, as the idea began to float in the air that Soludo would replace Willy Obiano as governor of Anambra State. His call came in, concerning a Development Agenda for Anambra for the next 50 years. “This is a serious discussion for only the best, and it needs to be thought through in detail and objectively. You just have to be available, because, as our people say “Achuzia aja ma afuro udene, i malu na ife melu an be ndi nmuo” (Literally, and in context: “There should be cause for concern if certain things are done without the involvement of certain people).

A Draft Document was available for detained discussion and we were to deal with that over dinner, with a team from a very reputable international organization that would fly in to join us. The rest, as they say, is history.

Today Anambra state has the national price of 700,000 dollars for primary health. It is also the South East champion, with a Cash Price of 500,000 dollars. All government programmes in the state are intentional. The refurbishment of 326 primary health centres in the 326 electoral wards, complete with solar power, water and equipment, in addition to the recruitment of over 1000 medial personnel are extant realities.

Secondary level healthcare in the state, with telemedicine to secondary call centres for access to a doctor are real. So are five new general hospitals and three refurbished ones. That is in addition to free antenatal services, including free medication, and free caesarean sections. The state now has the biggest trauma centre, at amaku, with a new smart nursing college that will most probably come on stream before the end of the year. We say nothing about a comprehensive international cancer centre, which is part of a complete ecosystem that has the primary healthcare framework at the base of this pyramid.

The Ochanja roundabout that was once a dreaded refuse dump now hosts a water fountain. The government is talking about 120 sterling achievements over the last 3 years. There are gains in security, through a synergised targeting of illicit drugs supply channels, distribution networks and consumption patterns. The nexus established between the foregoing and kidnapping, land grabbing, and warped value system has now been developed into a template for tackling the growing menace of youths trying to get something without working for it. It is a new social enterprise with, with churches community, traditional rulers and markets all in tow.

Some 650 kilometres of fibre optics are emplaced, for a digital state with internet access all round. Anambra State is Rated number one on fiscal transparency, under Soludo. It is number three in terms of fiscal sustainability in the country. It has digitized land administration to over 90 per cent. Its Clean and Green initiative has planted over a million trees, to save the environment. Some 2.2 million coconut, palm and other commodity trees have been given to 200,000 households, at the rate of 10 per households.

The state now boasts of free education, with over 8000 new teachers employed.

The other, more visible,visible achievements, mainly in road infrastructure, include the Amansea–Ndiukwuenu–Ufuma, the dualisation of the Amawbia–Ekwulobia road, extending towards the Imo State border. Then there is the impressive flyover at Ekwulobia and another at Awka. He has completed the new Governor’s Lodge.

There is a rail master plan for the state which, if implemented, would be revolutionary. All said, so far so good. More can still be donespecially in tax administration and related matters.

Page 5 of 213

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