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[OPINION] Governor Alex Otti’s Rare Display Of Nigerianess In Appointing Edo-born Benson Ojeikere As Abia Head Of Service - Isaac Asabor
Admin![[OPINION] Governor Alex Otti’s Rare Display Of Nigerianess In Appointing Edo-born Benson Ojeikere As Abia Head Of Service - Isaac Asabor](/media/k2/items/cache/936ddb2f236a0776e50ccfba354e5f4d_L.jpg)
In a nation often riddled with parochialism and sectionalism, the decision by Governor Alex Otti of Abia State to appoint an Edo State-born civil servant, Benson Ojeikere, as the Head of Service stands out as a shining testament to meritocracy and national unity. This rare and remarkable act deserves to be celebrated, not just for its symbolic significance but for its potential to inspire a new wave of inclusivity and excellence in governance across Nigeria.
Governor Alex Otti’s appointment of Benson Ojeikere, a man who hails from Edo State but has dedicated over two decades of his career to the Abia State Civil Service, is groundbreaking. In a country where political and administrative appointments are often viewed through the narrow lens of “Indigeneity”, this move defies convention and sets a precedent for putting competence above other considerations.
In his remarks at the swearing-in ceremony, Governor Otti reiterated his administration’s commitment to upholding excellence and meritocracy. He enjoined Ojeikere to justify his appointment by delivering on the government’s vision of a robust and efficient civil service. These words reflect a deep understanding of leadership rooted in fairness and results, rather than pandering to regional or ethnic sentiments.
Ojeikere’s appointment is not an act of charity or political maneuvering. It is a recognition of his exceptional qualifications and contributions to the Abia State Civil Service. His own astonishment at the appointment speaks volumes about the entrenched belief among non-indigenes that their career progression in another state’s civil service has a glass ceiling. Governor Otti has shattered that ceiling, proving that excellence knows no tribe or geography.
At this juncture, it is germane to clarify that appointing non-indigenes as special advisers, commissioners, or director-generals in many states in Nigeria, particularly in Lagos, is not uncommon and has become a testament to the cosmopolitan nature of such states. However, the appointment of a non-indigene as the Head of Service, as demonstrated by Alex Otti, is a rare and groundbreaking move that transcends conventional practices. By making this bold decision, Otti has shattered glass ceilings and set a precedent for inclusivity and meritocracy in governance, signaling a shift toward embracing competence over ethnicity in critical state roles.
Governor Otti’s action is particularly significant in the Nigerian context, where non-indigenes are often treated as second-class citizens, especially in the distribution of public offices. Despite constitutional provisions against discrimination, many states prioritize indigenes in employment and appointments, relegating others to the background regardless of their qualifications or contributions.
This discriminatory practice not only stifles national unity but also deprives states of the opportunity to leverage the best talents available to them. It perpetuates a parochial mindset that weakens governance and fosters mediocrity. Governor Otti’s decision to appoint Ojeikere challenges this status quo and offers a blueprint for a merit-driven approach to governance.
In appointing a non-indigene as Head of Service, Governor Otti has sent a powerful message: that the Abia State Civil Service is an inclusive institution where dedication and competence are rewarded, irrespective of an individual’s state of origin. This move also reinforces the idea that the public service is a civic institution, not an ethnic enclave.
By recognizing Ojeikere’s contributions and capabilities, Governor Otti has demonstrated true Nigerianess, a quality that transcends tribal or regional affiliations. His action aligns with the ideal of a united Nigeria where every citizen, regardless of origin, has an equal opportunity to contribute and excel.
Governor Otti’s bold step should serve as an example for other leaders across Nigeria. The appointment of competent individuals, regardless of their state of origin, is not only morally right but also strategically beneficial for the development of state institutions. By prioritizing merit and inclusivity, leaders can build stronger, more effective administrations that inspire trust and confidence among citizens.
This approach also has the potential to foster national unity, breaking down the barriers of distrust and division that have plagued Nigeria for decades. When people see that their efforts and abilities are recognized and rewarded fairly, they are more likely to develop a sense of belonging and commitment to the nation.
While many leaders in Nigeria pay lip service to the ideals of national unity and inclusivity, Governor Otti has shown what it means to practice these values in action. His decision to elevate Benson Ojeikere should not be an isolated case but part of a broader shift toward governance that prioritizes competence and fairness.
To achieve this, political leaders must challenge entrenched biases and systems that perpetuate discrimination. They must embrace policies that promote diversity and inclusivity in appointments, ensuring that public institutions reflect the rich tapestry of Nigeria’s population.
Governor Alex Otti’s decision to appoint Benson Ojeikere as the Head of Service in Abia State is a bold and commendable act that exemplifies true leadership. In a country often divided along ethnic and regional lines, this decision is a beacon of hope and a call to action.
It is a reminder that Nigeria can only reach its full potential when leaders prioritize merit over mediocrity, inclusivity over parochialism, and unity over division. Governor Otti has set an example for others to follow, proving that governance can be a tool for national integration rather than division.
Other leaders must now rise to the challenge, emulating this act of fairness and foresight. By doing so, they will not only strengthen their states but also contribute to building a more united and prosperous Nigeria, a country where every citizen, regardless of their origin, feels valued and empowered to contribute to the common good.
[OPINION] Why Nigerian Politicians Must Learn From Trump, Obama, And Pence’s Civility At Carter’s Funeral - Isaac Asabor
Admin![[OPINION] Why Nigerian Politicians Must Learn From Trump, Obama, And Pence’s Civility At Carter’s Funeral - Isaac Asabor](/media/k2/items/cache/f6229669c721a5ba1547b9d12cc1871d_L.jpg)
In the often polarizing world of politics, moments of civility and grace can seem like a relic of a bygone era. Yet, the funeral of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter offered a rare glimpse of what respectful political coexistence can look like. It was a moment where ideological adversaries and estranged allies set aside their differences to honor a man whose life epitomized public service and humility. Former President Donald Trump shook hands with his one-time vice president, Mike Pence, and exchanged a rare and serious dialogue with Barack Obama. These simple acts of civility are a masterclass in decorum that Nigerian politicians would do well to emulate.
In Nigeria, where the political landscape is often marred by acrimony, unrelenting rivalry, and an utter disregard for decorum, this moment offers a valuable lesson. It underscores that even in the face of deep disagreements, mutual respect can, and must, prevail. Nigerian politicians need to imbibe this lesson, particularly as the country continues to grapple with divisive political narratives and an economic crisis that demands unity of purpose among its leaders.
The handshake between Trump and Pence was no ordinary gesture. It was a moment laden with historical significance, as it marked the first public reconciliation, however tentative, between two men whose relationship had been severely fractured. Pence had refused Trump’s demands to overturn the 2020 election results, a decision that incited Trump’s supporters to storm the Capitol on January 6, 2021, endangering Pence’s life. Yet, both men put their differences aside, if only for a day, to pay their respects to Carter.
Even more striking was Trump’s engagement with Barack Obama, a president whose legacy he had spent much of his own presidency trying to dismantle. The image of the two men talking, Obama nodding seriously before breaking into a smile, served as a powerful reminder that politics need not always be a zero-sum game. It is possible to disagree vehemently without dehumanizing one another.
Contrast this with the Nigerian political arena, where such moments of grace are almost unheard of. The bitterness of electoral campaigns often lingers long after elections are over, poisoning relationships and perpetuating divisions. Political opponents are not just rivals but are often treated as enemies to be vanquished. Even within parties, internal disagreements frequently lead to public spats, defections, and long-standing grudges.
Nigerian politicians must recognize that statesmanship goes beyond winning elections or securing political appointments. It involves fostering unity, building bridges, and maintaining a standard of civility that sets a positive example for citizens. The handshake between Trump and Pence, as well as the dialogue between Trump and Obama, is a reminder that true leaders prioritize the collective good over personal grievances.
Nigeria’s recent political history is littered with missed opportunities for such statesmanship. The fallout between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his deputy, Atiku Abubakar, is a case in point. Their public feud, which began during their time in office, continues to reverberate in Nigerian politics today. Similarly, the longstanding animosity between President Bola Tinubu and his political ally-turned-rival, Akinwunmi Ambode, serves as another reminder of how personal vendettas often take precedence over governance.
If Trump, Pence, and Obama, men with significant ideological and personal differences, can demonstrate civility on such a public stage, what excuse do Nigerian politicians have? Their inability to rise above petty squabbles not only undermines governance but also erodes public trust in the political process.
The importance of civility in politics cannot be overstated. It fosters a culture of mutual respect that makes constructive dialogue possible. In a country as diverse as Nigeria, where ethnic, religious, and regional differences often intersect with political affiliations, such a culture is essential for national unity. Civility also sets the tone for how ordinary citizens engage with one another. When politicians treat each other with respect, it sends a powerful message to their supporters about the importance of peaceful coexistence.
Moreover, moments of civility can have a calming effect during periods of national crisis. Imagine the impact it would have if political leaders from opposing parties came together to jointly address Nigeria’s economic challenges or the ongoing security crisis. Such a gesture would not only inspire hope but also demonstrate that the country’s leaders are capable of putting national interest above personal ambition.
To achieve this level of statesmanship, Nigeria must address the underlying political culture that perpetuates animosity. This includes fostering a political environment where dissent is not seen as betrayal, and where losing an election does not mean exclusion from governance. Political parties also have a role to play in promoting internal democracy and resolving conflicts amicably.
The media, too, has a responsibility. Just as the American media highlighted the significance of the interactions at Carter’s funeral, Nigerian journalists must focus on promoting narratives that encourage civility rather than sensationalizing conflicts.
Nigerian politicians must rise to the occasion. The challenges facing the country, from a struggling economy to widespread insecurity, require leaders who can set aside their differences and work collaboratively. The rare moment of civility at Carter’s funeral serves as a blueprint for how this can be achieved.
As we approach another election cycle, it is imperative that Nigerian politicians reflect on the example set by Trump, Pence, and Obama. They must ask themselves whether their actions contribute to the unity or further division of the country. The handshake between Trump and Pence may have lasted only a few seconds, but its implications are timeless. It is a reminder that even the bitterest rivalries can be softened by a shared commitment to something greater than oneself.
Let this moment be a wake-up call for Nigeria’s political class. Civility is not a sign of weakness but a hallmark of true leadership. In the words of former President Jimmy Carter, whose life was being honored on that day, “We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.” For Nigerian politicians, one of those unchanging principles should be respect for one another, regardless of differences.
![[OPINION] Yoruba are Indeed a Race - Akin Osuntokun](/media/k2/items/cache/6ee86c103d8a5734fe8d74e8d53cb467_M.jpg)
“Two thirds of people in Scotland identify only as Scottish, not British, according to new findings from the census”
“1.8 million people identify as Welsh only (58% of the population) and 218,000 identify their national identity as Welsh-British (7% of the population”)
I was reintroduced to the controversy over the origins, wherewithal and proprietary rights of the name Yoruba, by the altercation between Professor Peter Ekeh and Dr Bala Usman in 2001.
The original introduction came from “Colonialism and the Two Publics of Africa: A Theoretical Statement” by Professor Peter Ekeh. It was published by the Journal of Comparative Studies in 1975
The first salvo was fired by Dr Bala Usman whose ‘imperial historiography’ started with this bombast: “The fact is that, the earliest record we have of the use of the very name “Yoruba” was in the Hausa language and it seems to have applied to the people of the Alafinate of Oyo”.
“This came from the writings of the seventeenth century Katsina scholar, Dan Masani (1595-1667), who wrote a book on Muslim scholars of the ‘Yarriba.’ But it was from a book of the Sarkin Musulmi Bello, written in the early nineteenth century, that the name became more widely used”.
“The Bishop Ajayi Crowther, the Reverend Samuel Johnson, and his brother Obadiah Johnson, among others, came, in the nineteenth century, to widely spread this Hausa name to the people who now bear it, in their writings”
‘Anybody who has read the scholarly writings that have come out of the University of Ibadan from the early 1950’s knows that there has never been and there is nothing like a Yoruba “Race”. There is no way ignorant people can lead. Unless something is done these nincompoops will continue to shout true federalism”
In response, Ekeh countered in (The Mischief of History: Bala Usman’s Unmaking of Nigerian History By Peter Ekeh, Urhobo Historical Society)
“In the week of April 18th through 25th, 2001, the Nigerian internet community received an ample supply of Bala Usman’s essay titled “Misrepresentation of Nigeria” and “Ignorance, Knowledge and Democratic Politics in Nigeria”..
It is the text of his presentation at a symposium at Bayero University, Kano, on Tuesday, 17th April 2001..” It was a frontal attack on the notion that the Yoruba and Igbo had their own autonomous history, independent of Nigeria”.
“Bala Usman is telling us in his two essays that the Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw, and Urhobo — his principal examples — had no histories until they were created by British imperialism”
“So what is Bala Usman’s proof that the name “Yoruba” is an “Hausa name”? It is so, to repeat, because, he says, “the earliest record [sic] we have of the use of the very name ‘Yoruba’ was in the Hausa language” — from the writings of a man born in 1595!
“But in fact the name Yoruba was used by a Timbucktu theologian, Ahmad Baba, who was already a distinguished scholar long before Dan Masani was born in 1595. Moreover, Ahmad Baba (1556-1627) wrote in Arabic, not in the Hausa language”.”
I like to upgrade Ekeh’s rebuttal with the disclosure that Usman actually exhibited ignorance in his agitation “that there has never been and there is nothing like a Yoruba race”. To think that he actually titled his missive “Ignorance, Knowledge and Democratic Politics in Nigeria”
He was, of course, writing to the answer of a predetermined conclusion conspicuously manifested in his “misrepresentation of Nigeria”. My former boss at the Guardian, Godwin Darah referred to him in his response as an ‘ideological point man of the Fulani oligarchy for decades’
Regardless of the plausibility of the myth of Oduduwa, the conception of this “Yoruba race” is not determined by biology…or the Oduduwa myth.
Long before Usman passed on, the conception of what constitutes a race has gone beyond biological determinism. ‘Many scholars now consider race to be a social construction.
This means that racial categories, such as “black,” “white,” or “Asian,” are not based on natural or inevitable human differences but are the result of social ideas, values, and practices’
The more the embarrassment for Usman given his affectation of structuralism and socialism while intermittently spewing fascist outbursts.
Of a similar Pan Muslim North ideological orientation, Professor Farooq Kperogi turned on Mrs Kemi Badenock, the leader of the Conservative Party in the UnitedKingdom, UK. “Well, since Ms. Badenoch hates northern Nigeria that much, she might also consider rejecting even the term Yoruba, as it originates from—of all places—northern Nigeria!”
Professor Moyo Okediji rightly made the point. “Why do they assume that if x is found in Yoruba language and it is also found in the Arabic language, x must be an Arabic word by default, but not a Yoruba?. His editor at the Saturday Tribune seconded Okediji in similarly argued article four years ago.
There is also the manipulation of the translation of what Ahmad Baba actually said.The reproduction of his original text (as translated by John Hunwick and Fatima Harrak for the Institute of African Studies Rabat), reads:
“Those who come to you from the following [sic] clans: the Mossi, the Gurma, the Busa, the Yorko, the Ku Tukul, the Yoruba, the Tanbugbu, the Bobo) are considered non-believers who still adhere to non-belief until now…. You are allowed to own all these”
In his book, titled “Partitioned Borgu: State, Society and Politics in a West African Border Region” to which Kperogi made copious reference Dr. Hussaini Abdu rationalised “It’s obvious that Ahmad Baba “Yoruba” as “Yariba” in his 1613 essay because Arabic, the language in which he wrote, does not have the vowel “o.”. The three dominant vowels in Arabic are “a,” “I,” and “u.
So how, then, does Abdu account for the use of the vowel ‘o’ in the words “the Mossi, the Yorko, the Bobo, as they appeared alongside Yoruba in the original text? ie (“Those who come to you from the following [sic] clans: the Mossi, the Gurma, the Busa, the Yorko, the Ku Tukul, the Yoruba, the Tanbugbu, the Bobo”).
It is not that Kperogi was not aware of the crucial point made by Olagunju and Okediji …it is just that it does not serve the purpose of his neo Bala Usman scholarship.
He thereafter embarked on a relentless heckling of the Yoruba in his Saturday Tribune column (“Kemi Badenoch’s Yoruba Identity Meets Inconvenient Truths”)
Surprisingly, there are some simple historical facts that one would not expect an average general reader to get confused about.
Kperogi wrote “I was shocked to read recently that even Ibadan, the administrative capital of Western Nigeria, was founded by a northern Nigerian of Borgu origins”. Oluyole, the founder of modern Ibadan, was the scion of Bashorun Yau Yamba, who was of Borgu ancestry”.
From 1820 when Ibadan was founded, the order in which they ascended the Ibadan throne was Baale Maye Okunade,1820-1826; followed by Baale Oluyendun Labosinde (1826 to 1830); Baale Lakanle (1830-1835) and Basorun Oluyole who reigned for 15 years (1835-1850).
From this chronology, how does anyone extrapolate that Oluyole was the founder of Ibadan, ancient or modern?
Kperogi equally wrote “More than that, several towns and villages in Oyo were founded by Borgu people. For instance, Ogbomoso, a major Oyo town, was founded by a Baatonu (Bariba) prince. The title of the town’s monarch, “Soun,” is a corruption of “Suno,” the Baatonu word for king”.
First, from all available evidence, Soun Ogunlola was of Ibariba ancestry but I’m yet to come across any information that he was Ibariba prince. He was a hunter from a neighboring community to Oyo metropolis who helped get rid of a fiend, Elemosho, who had besieged Oyo.
“The Alaafin was so impressed by Ogunlola’s prowess that he, the Alaafin, requested Ogunlola to stay in the capital (Oyo-Ile) instead of returning to his settlement”.
“Ogunlola politely declined saying “Ejeki a ma se ohun” meaning “let me manage that place” (This is precisely what Soun connotes in Yoruba language).
“His majesty, the Alaafin, granted Ogunlola’s wish to return to his settlement”. Literally, Soun is Yoruba word for, keep minding the other place.
We have to wonder why a principal sovereign monarch, of the status of Alaafin, would have to look outside Yoruba cultural heritage, to pick a title for a subordinate monarch.
For that matter, were any eccentric Alaafin to contemplate any such self-abnegation, the title should be Sonu (which means king in Baatonu language, according to Kperogi) not Soun.
Two more contenders on this evergreen Yoruba nationality consciousness syndrome have come to my notice.
According to the Cambridge University Press “English ethnologist Richard F. Burton reports of a Yoruba account in 1861, noting that the name “Yoruba” derives from Ori Obba, i.e. -The Head King. It was applied ex-situ originally in reference to the Yoruba sociolinguistic group as a whole. Centuries later however, it evolved to be applied exclusively to the oyo subgroup when this subgroup rose to attain imperial status, particularly at its apogee (c.1650 – c.1750) until in the mid-1800s when this trend was reversed back to the original context.
If this account is true then it turns many previous accounts on their heads. It claims that Yoruba have identified themselves as such long before the Oyo empire appropriated the identity (or was appropriated to them). It is doubtful whether a man of this description was mindless or spinning a yarn.
The other says “the people who call themselves Yoruba today, said in Hausa what they usually say when they go to their own markets, to other merchants. Apparently as far back as the 16th century and right up to the 19th..when they get to the market places where they met the Hausa people, they inquired from them in their usual courteous manner, Ya meaning “How”, or Yi meaning “How about” and ribà, meaning “profit” (See the Dictionary of Hausa-English). Ya-ribà or Yi-ribà- How about profit? Hence they were known as the people that say Ya-ribà” (Posted in: Rhythms of Shekere). It will be interesting to know what Yariba theorists have to say on this.
Meanwhile, according to the same Cambridge University Press-”The word “Yoruba,” used to describe a group of people speaking a common language, was already in use in the interior of the Bight of Benin, probably before the sixteenth century”. I’m certain this will not be the last word of the syndrome.
![[OPINION] Fundamental function of an educator 1&2 - Shosanya Babatunde](/media/k2/items/cache/d6a395e4eb858b350a887f29c6e38ea0_M.jpg)
What is the fundamental function of an educator? Part l
The joy derived from my students is unparalleled. I have dedicated my time and made sacrifices to ensure their success, continually nurturing their potential through my role as an educator. It is essential to recognize that the teaching profession is foundational in cultivating future professionals. Teaching stands as one of the most influential careers worldwide. Within the classroom, we have the power to transform the lives of our students through our instruction.
We inspire aspirations, and our contributions hold significance, even if they go unacknowledged. Regrettably, the current landscape of the teaching profession is disheartening, primarily due to inadequate compensation. Nevertheless, it is imperative that all stakeholders and individuals shaped by this esteemed profession come together to uplift it. In many advanced nations, such as Finland, Germany, Singapore, Dubai, and Japan, teaching is held in high regard, with educators recognized as the cornerstone of society. In stark contrast, the situation in Nigeria is troubling, where teachers are often undervalued. Who will advocate for this esteemed profession? Who stands as a supporter of educators?
I encourage everyone to reflect on the impact a teacher may have had in their lives—someone who has inspired, motivated, and facilitated change. It is crucial to show appreciation, whether through gifts or small tokens of gratitude. My aspiration is for other professionals to contribute back to the teaching profession and support educators. I aim to leverage social media and the internet to advocate for the teaching profession, address issues affecting educators, and promote their welfare within society. Before exploring this subject further, let us consider the role of a teacher.
What is the fundamental function of an educator? Part ll
John Dewey articulated that the role of a teacher extends beyond merely imparting knowledge or instilling habits in students. Instead, teachers serve as integral members of the community, tasked with selecting the influences that will shape a child's development and aiding them in responding appropriately to these influences.
In this capacity, educators become collaborators in the learning journey, facilitating students' independent exploration of meaning within their subjects. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all educators worldwide, particularly in my home country, Nigeria. It is a privilege to be involved in the lives and journeys of students. While they may not retain every word spoken, they will undoubtedly remember the feelings evoked by their teachers.
Confucius wisely noted that those who possess all the answers have not been asked all the questions. Our fundamental responsibility transcends mere instruction; it encompasses the shaping and transformation of a nation through education.
Teaching is undoubtedly one of the most challenging professions globally. We serve as mirrors, role models, leaders, and mentors for our students. Let us strive to challenge and inspire them. In closing, I would like to share a thought of my own: Teachers possess a wealth of knowledge, and one cannot engage in this noble profession without continually learning. My students are my greatest source of joy, and my mission is to contribute to the development of our nation through my teaching, both inside and outside the classroom.
Shosanya Babatunde Oluwaseyi Ph.D in view Music education
![[OPINION] Trump, again…. - Azu Ishiekwene](/media/k2/items/cache/c5fe2c79b8a15b1968ccdd29d4e5c0c8_M.jpg)
On the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 45th President of the U.S., on January 19, 2017, I wrote an article I could easily write now. It was entitled “A Memory of America on Obama’s Last Day.” With minor edits, it’s worth repeating as Trump happens again as the 47th President of the U.S.
Only exceptionalism could have offered that opportunity. Only exceptionalism could produce a Barack Obama and, eight years later, bring forth a Donald Trump—one neoliberal and the other a neo-anything-is-possible.
The peculiar aspect of the U.S. is that everything is extraordinary. If any doubt remains, the election of Donald J. Trump, who takes office on Friday as the 45th President of the United States of America, resolves the matter.
Everything about Trump is unsettlingly peculiar. He has weakened his party, exploited voters’ most basic instincts, ignored the media, and mocked U.S. allies. Nonetheless, he has secured a victory that has made him even more powerful and audacious. Everyone else, including the party and the nation, seems weaker, more bewildered, and divided.
In Trump versus the rest of the world, Trump is the indescribable enigma. The rest are demystified and stranded.
As the new Trump world order emerges, exceptionalism – once a distinctly American concept – assumes a different significance. I grappled with that word when I first encountered it from my lecturer, Ayo Akinbobola, many years ago in school.
Exceptionalism. How do I explain it? It’s that special quality for which most people love America; the idea that you can become whatever you wish to be, whoever you are, regardless of your background; that through hard work, persistence, and innovation, you can attain grace from grass; that America is the only place on earth that confronts its diversity with courage, not shying away from its own worst demons; that America is a land of both genius and demagogue, each pursuing their path, but within a system that also strives to protect the weak and vulnerable while, some would add, paradoxically creating its own weak and vulnerable.
I learned from my US-trained teachers in school and saw from the cowboy movies I watched growing up that this made America unique.
My first American friends embodied the generosity of spirit I had always heard about. Melvin and Paula Baker, whom my family and I met during a holiday in Florida over ten years ago, have consistently treated us like family, offering themselves and everything they have at our disposal whenever we visit.
Melvin and Paula are white, but colour or creed has never been a concern—whether we or they are visiting. Occasionally, I’m amused to see them sweating over a meal of pepper soup, even when it contains the mildest spices.
America is exceptional not because it is perfect but because, despite its flaws, people like Melvin and Paula made it extraordinary.
Then 9/11 happened. Fear took hold, and exceptionalism faced its most significant test since Vietnam. The political elite and the military leaders started a catastrophic war in Iraq by dressing up fear and suspicion as facts.
That changed everything. Al-Queda, the Taliban, ISIL and other terror franchises around the world were born by the mother of all wars from which America and the world have not recovered.
I felt the change around this time seven years ago when I visited the U.S. before Christmas. A young Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had planted a bomb in his pants to bring down a commercial plane over Detroit. Coming at America’s vulnerable moment, there was a severe backlash from that incident.
During my visit in January 2010, many U.S. airports and border posts opened a black book for Nigerian travellers. The intrusive body searches at these airports and the cold, hostile stares at non-whites left me in no doubt that something was changing in America
But Barack Obama’s election was supposed to halt the tide; it was supposed to send a message that America had not wholly forsaken exceptionalism, that if a black guy with a funny Muslim-sounding name could become president in America, you could be what you want to be – no matter who you are – if you work at it.
That’s Obama’s story, which he calls “the audacity of hope.” How else could someone born to a Kenyan father and raised by an Indonesian stepfather become a senator and then the 44th president of the United States?
Yet, some say that it is precisely this exceptional quality that is the trouble with America. They say it is exceptionalism that produced an Obama who is not black enough to meet black expectations, not white enough to be accepted by whites, and not brown enough to attract the sympathy of those in between.
Evangelicals regard him as the anti-Christ for endorsing stem cell research and despise him for his late remarks on gay rights. Millions of Nigerians will also not forgive him for never once visiting the world’s most populous black nation during his eight years in office, opting instead to throw stones from Ghana, the country’s backyard.
It’s a deep bucket, but who can deny that America’s exceptionalism produced a miracle that Martin Luther King could only dream of?
Eight years ago today, America was on its knees, broken by a catastrophic terror war and greedy Wall Street.
Globalisation was also taking its toll and would become a significant factor in U.S. politics. To think that this was the moment when the country elected its first black president –when the lines of failure seemed to have fallen in the most unpleasant places – is hard to imagine now.
But it happened, and Obama made the most of his lemons. In several ways, he’s leaving America better than he found it: jobs growing, the country cured of its addiction to oil, its economy in better shape, and its youth unleashed and innovating.
Obama is leaving without the scars of scandals that marred many of his predecessors. The dignity of his office is intact.
Only exceptionalism could have provided that chance. Only exceptionalism could produce an Obama and eight years later produce a Trump – the one neo-liberal and the other neo-anything-is-possible.
In the days ahead, no one is exactly sure what to expect – not pollsters, pundits, or even members of Trump’s cabinet. But we’ll see, one tweet at a time, just what is left of what has made America exceptional.
Ishiekwene, Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP, is the author of the new book Writing for Media and Monetising It.
![[OPINION] Obi’s New Year message and ‘Obidients’ threat - Jide Oluwajuyitan](/media/k2/items/cache/741d01e31093abaad01f719d3baa96ec_M.jpg)
Peter Obi in his New Year message reminded Nigerians of the obvious: the worsening political, economic and security situation of our country. Food insecurity that has become our new national norm; our nation and its fortunes are in clear reverse, while Nigeria remains one of the poverty capitals of the world, with over 100 million people living in extreme poverty and more than 150 million in multidimensional poverty.
To change the narrative, Obi wants President Tinubu to cut down what he considers as his “wasteful foreign trips; travel around Nigeria by road to observe the condition of most of our collapsed highways; visit our national hospital, make both impromptu and planned visits to our tertiary institutions, visit various IDP camps and assure these Nigerians that they will soon return to their communities.
Finally, he wants the president to ensure “future elections are credible and truly reflect the will of the people”.
The president has already acknowledged some of these problems and the harsh effect of his economic policies. What he said was that to avoid mortgaging the future of our children the way PDP did by selling or sharing properties kept in their care for our children, we needed to make some sacrifices today.
In fact, the expectation of most Nigerians was that the president’s first act in office was going to be resettlement of those driven from their land to IDP camps back to their land. That is distributive justice.
Nigerians did not only expect the president to visit the hospitals, they had expected him to sponsor a bill stopping all political appointees and lawmakers from embarking on medical tourism. This is the only way to equip our teaching hospitals.
Obi is also allowed to make few exaggerations including his claim that Tinubu’s less than two years administration should be held responsible for the current figure of 100,000 Nigerians living in extreme poverty despite ARISE Television’s admission during the interview that the figure as at the time Buhari took over power 10 years ago (2015) stood at 70%. After all, government is a continuum.
Obi who claimed victory despite coming a distant third in the 2023 election and who is yet to congratulate the winner of the contest despite INEC’s verdict and the Supreme Court’s celebrated judgment also has the right to call on the president to guarantee the sanctity of the 2027 contest.
I think what Felix Morka decries is Obi “crossing the line of truth and peddling false narratives, arrogant unwillingness to acknowledge obvious markers of progress, mobilizing outrage and stoking tension against the government’ which he thinks are not exactly the most admirable hallmarks of leadership.”
He also frowns at the fact that Obi led a restless band of online mobs, who continue to attack, intimidate, bully and issue death threats to other citizens who dare disagree or criticize Obi or his opinions or position on any subject or matter of national conversation.
Even here Obi has not crossed any red line. The beauty of democracy is that no one has the last say especially in a world where the media is a captive of the dominant ruling class and where no newspaper or news platform can be said to be truly free. We have seen selective coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza by CNN and presentation of alternative reality by the Fox News which aided Trump’s triumph in his re-election bid despite his election denials and sponsoring of an insurrection against his own government.
This is why I also think ARISE television cannot be accused of crossing any red line for its decision to play the devil’s advocate following attempt by APC and its spokesman, to discredit Obi and his message. It was obvious whose battle was being waged when Felix Morka, the National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), was confronted during an interview on its THIS WEEK program on Saturday, January 4, with a question such as – “You have actually hit back with a volley of attacks, calling Peter Obi a prophet of doom. Some of you have said he is always embarking on voodoo economics that are not in line with current realities. Don’t you think that is a slingshot that has gone beyond normal politicking?
Morka’s: “No, he is the one throwing darts. Mr. Obi is shooting from the hip… Obi has crossed the line so many times. And, I think that, at this point, he has coming to him whatever he gets. He should manage it” would have been sufficient answer for those not engaged in politics of mischief and subterfuge. But for ARISE reporters “it is a threat to free speech”; for Obi it is an indication of impending crackdown by an intolerant federal government while for former VP Atiku Abubakar, “an alarming disdain for democratic principles.”
I sympathize with Morka who, as a result of “Peter Obi’s allegations has received about 400 documented threats, about 200 of which are explicit death threats messages, individuals have detailed how they plan to harm me—threatening to shoot me, behead me, and carry out other gruesome acts”. But even in spite of the above, I still don’t think anyone has crossed the red line. Free speech is another name for democracy.
The beauty of democracy is that it is not without its democratic ethos which for instance celebrates character. In this regard, the messenger is often the message. Probing the character of purveyors of messages is as important as free speech.
Unfortunately, the common denominator between Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar is opportunism. Atiku Abubakar has moved from PDP, through ACN to PDP, back to APC from where he went back to PDP where he first served as vice president in 1999. Upon his return, he waged war against those who kept the party together while he was shopping for presidential tickets from other parties. And tragically his breach of PDP’s constitution was to put the party in disarray in the run up to the 2023 election.
Peter Obi is tarred with the same brush. He first rode on the back of Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu’s APGA party to power. After publicly declaring he would never abandon APGA, he jumped boat after his second term to join PDP. He rose rapidly and became Atiku’s running mate in the 2015 but following Atiku Abubakar’s breach of PDP constitution which would have allowed Obi to emerge as PDP candidate in the 2023 election, Obi decided to pull down the edifice on the heads of everyone.
Obi decided to play identity and religion politics by exploiting the sentiments of his Igbo people that had since 1999 supported PDP to victory. Close to 70% of his six million votes in the 2023 election came from Southeast and South-south populated by his Igbo brethren,
For Atiku and Obi’s infidelity and opportunism, Tinubu’s eight million votes would have been no match for PDP and Labour’s close to 14m votes. Their loss was Tinubu’s gain. Sadly despite being deficit in character, both men still pretend to be part of solution to Nigerian crisis of nation building.
Peter Obi, the Obidients’ best candidate to govern Nigeria, displayed no special skill as governor of Anambra, a state he left as a jungle. As a business man once described as ‘a container economist’ by President Tinubu, all he has told us publicly is that he was a wine importer. And for Atiku Abubakar, Obasanjo’s testimonial on him was damning.
I think we must start to interrogate how we got to this sorry path while remembering with nostalgia, the role of Nigerian youths in the evolution of the Nigerian state. While the nation is today being haunted by a mob ready to fight and kill for a man who believes in nothing, we easily recollect how it was that 20 Nigerian law students who in 1920 first proposed the idea of a Nigerian federation patterned after Switzerland to the colonial masters.
While we today have in Lagos some youths who do not behave much differently from the Almajiris of the north, visiting violence and destruction on government and private properties, what we had in the forties in Lagos were youths who organized debates and strategized on how to get rid of the colonial masters.
It is on record that Chief Anthony Enahoro who went on to become one of the best parliamentarians Nigeria has ever produced was an editor of a national newspaper at 22, and that Bode Thomas, the deputy chairman of Action Group who died at 33, was the author of ‘regionalism’ despite his principals’ preference for federalism. Even military boys who did not have advantage of education but joined the military to be able to climb the social lather ended up ruling our country in their twenties and thirties.
![[OPINION] How do you ‘cyberbully’ someone who can hire the police? - Abimbola Adelakun](/media/k2/items/cache/17b07729d30178209e7e7cb0d27ab2b2_S.jpg)
Underlying the definitions of bullying in dictionaries is power imbalance. To bully someone is to direct aggressive behaviour at them, to intimidate or threaten them, to act cruelly towards someone, or to coerce them. For one to do these, there must be a power dynamic that makes the person at the receiving end vulnerable. Such a tilt of strength can either be embodied by an individual with a disproportionate physical or social power or a group of individuals converging on a weaker party to diminish them. Since the word “cyber-” got appended to bullying in Nigeria, it has acquired a new meaning that has virtually subverted the logic of power that underlies it.
Now, and no thanks to the police’s tendency to meddle in every matter in which a “big man” cries about being inconvenienced with public embarrassment activated by a previously unknown entity, a supposed victim of bullying these days is frequently someone who can commandeer the resources of the state. If you have enough clout to send the police on your errands, can you really claim to be a victim of cyberbullying?
Let us begin with the now infamous case of the singer Burna Boy (Damini Ogulu) at whose behest a singer cum comedian Darlington Okoye (Speed Darlington) has been reportedly incarcerated for months. As the story is told—and which Burna Boy has not denied—Speed Darlington is in jail because he taunted Burna Boy about his association with disgraced artiste Sean Combs (aka P Diddy). In December, the court ruled that his arrest and detention constituted “a gross violation” of his constitutional rights to dignity, liberty, expression, and movement. Despite a direct court order, the police have refused to release him. That makes you wonder, is Burna Boy really a “victim” if the police can sacrifice institutional integrity for his sake?
Meanwhile, the same insinuation Speed Darlington made about Burna Boy has been hurled at several US celebrities who as much as took a photograph with P Diddy. None has asked a man to be incarcerated indefinitely because they got butthurt. Please note that these are people whose reputation far outpaces that of an arriviste like Burna Boy. Yet, they will not take that track because they are self-assured enough to understand the price of celebrity. Unlike the quintessential African “big man”, they are also sensible enough to realise that power should have a more productive function than to abuse others cheaply.
Then, there is the case of Olamide Thomas, who was arrested and incarcerated for cursing the President’s son, Seyi Tinubu. This was another case of the police torturing logic just to satisfy a big man with small feelings. They claimed the curse “placed Seyi in fear of death, violence or bodily harm”. That would be hilarious if were not tragic. How does the law assess the effectiveness of a curse? If curses worked the way people who watch too many Nollywood films think they do, something should have happened to Seyi long ago, given that people have been cursing his father (and their family) since 1999! I am genuinely curious as to why Seyi would be so unsettled by curses that it would compel the police (and the court) to overreact to superstition.
Add to that the ongoing case of bloggers, Precious Eze, Olawale Olurotimi, Rowland Olonishuwa and Seun Odunlami, hauled before the Federal High Court in Lagos for “acts of cyberbullying” (some reports describe the allegation as “cyberstalking”) against the CEO of Guaranty Trust Holdings, Segun Agbaje, when they published uncomplimentary remarks about him. I am by no means defending those bloggers (who have long pulled down the publications anyway), but accusations of nepotism, power play, and self-enrichment are so commonplace in Nigeria that accusing a CEO will not elicit as much as a gasp. They certainly do not warrant holding people in custody for upward of three months. The police cannot fight cyberbullying with judicial bullying, sorry.
Even more laughable is the amended charge against them that states their alleged offence can potentially cause “a breakdown of law and order in the Nigerian banking system”? How can anyone cause a breakdown in law and order within the banking system when that sphere is not an extricable part of regular life? The officers who came up with that idea will surely have a profitable gig doing comedies in their police uniform. If they must know, the operational deficiencies and the decline of the high standards for which GTB used to be known (and renowned) will result in “a breakdown of law and order in the Nigerian banking system” faster than the opinion of a blogger no one would have otherwise read.
Add to the growing list of police overreach the case of Abraham Daniel, a former minister at Dunamis International Gospel Centre, Abuja. He was recently summoned for questioning regarding an “investigation” into “cyberbullying”’ following his accusations against his former principal, Pastor Paul Enenche, for reneging their “gentleman’s agreement.” While the police summons appeared civil enough, it is still intimidating, especially given that the issue at stake is a matter of personal differences between two individuals who should resolve their matter privately. If one party can get the police to act on his behalf even in a petty issue, can he still be “cyberbullied”?
These cases are worrisome because they show a growing pattern of judicial abuse that began under the previous administration and is becoming gradually routinised. Do not forget that under alleged civilian President, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), the DSS arraigned a man for treason in the courts for, among other spurious offences, insulting the President. Buhari’s wife also had a young man stalked, arrested, detained, and later charged to court for basically calling her “fat”. What astounded me most was that the police spent six months tracking the guy before they apprehended him. If they demonstrate a similar diligence toward their responsibilities to Nigeria, the country will not be so insecure.
Look at all the spheres all the supposed victims of cyberbullying represent—popular culture, politics, industry, and religion—and understand why this pattern is worrisome. Figures representative of virtually every sphere of our socio-political life are one-trick ponies whose only recourse is to use their clout with the police to perpetrate abuse. That is not good for society by any measure. Even worse, at the rate the police are going with their trivialisation of the law by filing sensational charges over minor issues, they will turn every rabble-rouser into an anti-establishment hero. We should properly delineate what constitutes “cyberbullying” (or “cyberstalking”) so that it stops being exploited by anyone who has some money in their pocket and can purchase justice.
No matter what you think or how you feel about any of those people standing trial for cyberbullying, we should not be so numb that we fail to ask if the issue is about legal protections against malevolent speech or just an increasing pattern of intolerance for human rights. When people who have commensurate power say nasty things against each other on social media, the police never swoop in to “investigate”. Regardless of how vicious the exchange by the warring parties gets, the police never take sides to lament “injurious speech” that therefore warrants filing charges of cyberbullying, cyberstalking or even criminal defamation. It is when the matter becomes a case of the top dog vs an underdog that they become animated. Their conduct calls into question the whole idea of “bullying” as an act of aggression and intimidation. If bullying (cyber- or wherever else it takes place) is about a powerful person preying on a weaker party, what constitutes it when the supposed victim is the one who can afford to hire the police?
![[OPINION] 2025: Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Azuta-Mbata and Igbo renaissance - Ikechukwu Amaechi](/media/k2/items/cache/4abb5debe003a28c452772469870ff3a_S.jpg)
In the three weeks before January 11, 2025 when I returned, I was away from Lagos back in Mbaise, my ancestral home, to bury my mother-in-law, Ezinne Eunice Egowure Okahia. During that period, a lot happened, the most consequential being the election of Senator John Azuta-Mbata as the President-General of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, despite the vile machinations of some wet blankets. We will come back to that shortly.
Contrary to the fears of many that the Southeast would typify the Hobbesian state of nature where “man’s life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short,” Alaigbo was bubbly. Getting there was the problem. Those who chose to travel by air, paying exorbitant airfares that seemed to have been reservedly exclusively for Ndigbo, still endured flight delays and sometimes outright cancellations.
But it was even worse for those who travelled by road as I did. The journey on the approximately 543 km stretch from Lagos to Owerri was nightmarish, much of the highway, especially the Benin City Bypass in Edo State, having become a death trap. If nothing is done to rehabilitate the Bypass before the rains return, it will be impossible to drive on it. Am I optimistic that something will be done? Not at all as long as the Federal Government remains distracted with its ?15.6 trillion Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.
Then the humiliation by policemen and soldiers. Most of the checkpoints on the roads are nothing other than extortion centres. The soldiers in particular act with impunity, whimsically blocking major roads and orchestrating needless traffic gridlock just for the fun. There is the particular case of the military checkpoint at Eziama-Obiato on the ever-busy Onitsha-Owerri Road where soldiers act with reckless abandon without regard for consequences. They block the road at night until about 6.30am. It does not matter to them that there could be emergencies. In the daytime, motorists are not allowed to drive past the barricade with passengers on board. They disembark and trek to meet the driver. It is all an attempt to humiliate the people. Definitely, there are more civilized ways of securing lives and properties.
But the Second Niger Bridge was a beauty to behold, a testament to the positive impact quality infrastructure could have on the lives and economy of a people. Much of the homeland was peaceful, a pleasant reminder of what was before the storm started. There was record homecoming particularly those living in the Diaspora and a palpable resurgence of the well-known Igbo values of hospitality, family, community, life, and respect for elders. The fabled Igbo communalism spirit (onye aghala nwanne ya) was in full display. The few that had shared with the many that didn’t have, no matter how little.
In all, except for the unfortunate and condemnable incidents of violence in Anambra and Imo, particularly the tragic killing of no fewer than 18 people in several communities in Orsu LGA, Imo State, on January 5; the murder of Father Tobias Okonkwo, a Catholic priest, at lhiala on December 26; abduction of Vincentia Maria Nwankwo and Grace Mariette Okoli, reverend sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mother of Christ, in Orumba North LGA, Anambra State, on January 7, there seemed to have been a consciousness among the people that the indiscriminate violence and sundry acts of criminality were counter-productive and inimical to the economy of the region.
It behoves the entire Igbo elite – political, economic and socio-cultural – not only to denounce these atrocious acts of violence but also ensure that going forward, the Southeast does not relapse to the Hobbesian state of nature. While there may be some forces from outside involved in these heinous crimes, the truth is that majority of the culprits are Igbo youths, a reality that calls for introspection.
And that takes me back to the historic election of Senator Azuta-Mbata, who represented Rivers East in the Senate between 1999 and 2007, a bonafide Igbo of Ikwerre extraction as the President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide on January 10. Ndigbo will continue confounding those who claim to know them and their disunity heterodoxy. Azuta-Mbata’s election, once again, punctures that hackneyed stereotyping of a people they deliberately chose to misrepresent because his election is a measure of the unity of purpose and clarity of vision of the Igbo elite.
When the plot of those who thought money could buy them the Ohanaeze presidency failed as it should, they resorted to puerile blackmail and name-calling, sponsoring protests on the harebrained ground that Ikwerres are not Igbo. But how can a man whose name is Chibuike, Nwaike, Uchendu, Chukwuemeka, etc. claim he is not Igbo? Going by the etymology meaning of language, which is the study of the origin of words, the Ikwerre dialect is even more relatable to what some people refer to as Central Igbo, also known as Standard Igbo or Izugbe, which is the most widely understood dialect of the Igbo language, than the Nsukka, Ohafia or Izza dialects, for instance.
In a video, one Eze Godspower Onuekwa, who claims to be the President-General of Ogbakor Ikwerre Cultural Organisation, threatened fire and brimstone. “It is now rumoured that Ohanaeze Ndigbo intends to make an Ikwerre man the President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo… Any person, no matter how highly placed, who may decide to accept this offer eventually becomes an enemy to the Ikwerre people,” he declared.
Who says? Onuekwa cannot claim to be a more accomplished Ikwerre than Azuta-Mbata. So, on what basis will he declare him or anyone else who proclaims his Igbo heritage a quisling and pronounce a fatwa? In any case, if Onuekwa and his co-travellers think it is their right to claim a phantom Bini Heritage, why deny others who think otherwise the same right? When that childish gambit failed, they came up with the claim that zoning the Ohanaeze presidency to Rivers State is a territorial expansionist ploy by Ndigbo.
How? Ohanaeze is an umbrella organisation of all Igbos worldwide. While it is true that majority of them live in the five Southeast states, a significant number also live in other states outside the Southeast. So, does an Igbo man from Rivers being in the leadership of Ohanaeze translate to “annexation” of the State by Southeast? Will Rivers become the sixth Southeast State?
If there is nothing wrong with a Yoruba from Kogi or Kwara identifying with Afenifere or his kith and kin in the Southwest, why will that of Ndigbo be different? Are there no Ijaw people that are bonafide residents of Lagos and Ondo? Does the fact of state of origin make them less Ijaw? Are Ijaws from Delta, Edo, Rivers not bonafide members of the Ijaw National Congress (INC)?
The irony is that all the losers who are making noise because they lost out were waiting in the wings to see if the Southeast Igbos would breach the Ohanaeze Constitution on rotational presidency by denying Rivers its turn to produce the President-General. They would have used it as one more evidence in their war of attrition against Ndigbo, their bête noire. They failed.
Now, the job of Senator Azuta-Mbata is clearly cut out. Article 2:3 of the Ohanaeze constitution, says the organization is to to serve as a focal point of reference, of direction and of collective leadership in matters affecting the interest, solidarity and general welfare of the Igbo; to promote, develop and advance Igbo language and culture, to promote honour, dignity and self-respect among Ndigbo and encourage their achievement orientation in various aspects of life, to assist and encourage the formation of Igbo self-help, mutual assistance and improvement organizations wherever Ndigbo may reside and to promote peaceful coexistence with other ethnic nationalities in Nigeria.
With what I witnessed in the Southeast during and the election of a bridge-builder as Ohanaeze president, 2025 may well be the beginning of Igbo renaissance after the years the locusts ate.
![[OPINION] Where Is Our Humanity? - Ifeanyichukwu Afuba](/media/k2/items/cache/363e557ae480d452cad251c9018e5dcd_S.jpg)
Between 1985 and 2000, the Aka Circle of Artists was a prominent feature in Nigeria's art scene with her yearly group exhibitions. On the occasion of her 1990 outing, Nsikak Essien, a member of the 13 man fraternity, came up with a work titled Armageddon. It was a montage of horrifying news stories, each as shocking and saddening as the other. The long run of tragedies, natural and man - made, all happening in a few years, truly evoked a feeling of damnation. Where are we headed, was the natural reaction the artist's portrait elicited. And yet, those were the days of "innocence" compared to the present hellish times. Thirty - five years ago, we heard of kidnapping only in thriller fiction. Today, kidnappers, ritualists, cultists, killer herdsmen, bandits, separatist gunmen, and what have you, rain havoc everywhere, leaving the streets flowing with blood. The violence of criminality has inflicted a climate of desperation on many of us; eroded reason in much of Nigerian society, triggering an upsurge in the terrorism of jungle justice. We seem caught helplessly in this double tragedy that tears at the moral fabric of our society. Where do we go from here?
Daily, the base side of our being is on the ascent, nurturing and spewing hate; as it were, overwhelming the natural instincts of compassion and brotherhood. How have human beings, born with emotions of pity and fear turned into beasts; into unfeeling sadists; into savages with insatiable appetite for torture? This is the question that comes to mind when you watch videos of the harrowing experiences kidnap victims are subjected to in the bush. What kind of heart condemns fellow humanity to sleep in thick forests, exposed to the elements? How do the captors activate the cold - mindedness to beat their hostages routinely and ruthlessly in the bid to speed up ransom payment? Are their ears sealed with wax that they do not hear the anguished cries of their captives? Are their stimuli castrated that they cannot be moved by the painful cry of the tortured? In one particularly heart - wrenching video, the sadistic gunmen set fire to a plastic container and let the balls of fire drop on the hostages. Are these monsters or human beings? Can anyone who has not sold himself or herself to the devil act so outrageously?
And there are responsible - looking men and women who collaborate with these heartless barbarians in various ways. Theirs too is another abhorrent story; an equally dangerous angle draped with deceptive cover of respectability. There are the spies who monitor the roads for the terrorists, who feed the criminals with information on security deployment and movements. They communicate the ruffians in the bush on the location of checkpoints, the strength of security personnel manning them and when the patrol teams depart. There are the other set of spies who identity and mount surveillance on individuals with high kidnap value. Their daily routine is quietly studied, processed and followed up for some time to determine regular movement patterns. This intelligence gathering is provided by harmless - looking individuals in our communities who nevertheless know the horror that awaits those they prey on. We have those who help the extortionists collect and put the blood ransom to use. At this stage, you must wonder, how with the flow of funds that pass through their hands, these outlaws always look gaunt and wretched? And there are those who provide them with needed supplies on a regular basis. These accomplices mingle with other citizens on the streets daily, managing to put on calm, smiling faces. Where is their humanity?
We also contend with the unrestrained violating the sanctity and dignity of life, right on the streets, in our homes and neighbourhoods. What do we make of the scary stories that make headlines in both traditional and social media? In the second week of January 2025 we had: "Man Rapes 3 Year Old Girl"; "Female Corper Butchered By Gospel Singer"; Man Sets Wife Ablaze Over And there's the video of a lady staff accused of theft in a boutique being brutalised by three men. And so on and so forth. Now, it seems a worst case scenario, a vicious cycle of violence that we have on our hands. Except a formidable security team intervenes promptly and decisively, a suspect caught at public crime scene will most probably receive jungle justice. And people do not flinch at the thought of deliberately setting a human being on fire. Some of us can stand at close quarters to watch the victim writhing in unspeakable pain of consuming fire - without wincing empathically. Then, one more form of dehumanisation - stripping and parading suspects naked. This madness of the mob is not restricted to crime suspects. Sexual offenders are also subjected to this sleazy assault. A few days ago I saw photos of a young man and woman accused of adultery in Cameroun forced to squeeze themselves into a pair of jeans trouser!
What do the mobs gain from these contemptible humiliation of accused persons? How does stripping a fellow of his human dignity address the wrong they presumably committed? The very idea is sick; enforcing such arbitrariness as social order is nothing but descent to animal level. And as always with mob action, the danger of condemning innocent persons guilty is always there. Remember the Aluu 4? In the blind rage of a mob, four young gentlemen, undergraduates of University of Port Harcourt were pronounced robbers, beaten black and blue, then slowly burnt to death on October 5, 2012! And here was one of them, cringing and drawing his body away from the flames only to be pushed back again and again to the furnace of excruciating pain. The video I watched showed an acquiescing crowd comprising teenagers, youth, middle aged and a sprinkling of elderly people. If you could not save the young men, did you have to encourage the murderers in their evil deed?
Perhaps, psychoanalytic theories offer some help in understanding extremist behaviour. They are generally viewed as bordering on "maladjustment and personality dysfunction." While some experts believe that abused childhood could trigger violent reactions later in life, Freudian studies indicate that an individual's id, quest for power and dominance could brew a monster. Thus, care should be taken not to adopt a simplistic explanation of barbarism.
Would the rationalisation of abandonment and dispossession by society advanced in analysis of those camped in the forests also apply to domestic aggressors? If want of money alone was the prod to crime, what do we say about rising cases of hostages killed even with payment of ransom? Even in cases of ritual killing to make money, we must distinguish between need and greed. Just as the ego and superego offer the means to overcome raw instincts of the id, modern society still produces heroes of humanity. These testaments of universal brotherhood, accommodation of the other, empathy for the distressed and the common good have capacity to heal society if widely embraced.
On a hot, dry afternoon sometime in 1977 or 1978, we idled about in the dormitory at College of the Immaculate Conception, Enugu,waiting for the lunch bell. We were generally tired after the day's classes. But from one end of the dormitory, I heard rising voices, a growing altercation, scuffles and seconds later, a fight broke out. As efforts were made to separate the two boys locked in tight grips, word got to the house master who lived close by. Five minutes later, the two combatants and a small number of house members were at the court of Mighty, the house master, sitting in the porch of the quarters where he lived. After listening to the accounts of what led to the fight, he went inside the house. Everyone was expecting him to emerge with canes. Reappearing shortly after, he held two ten Kobo coins, emitting shimmering rays of fresh mint, in his hands. "It's the hunger", he said as he stepped out. We all moped at him as though he had spoken Greek. Handing out a coin to each of them, Mighty continued. "You buy a loaf of bread for yourself. A hungry man is an angry man." The assembly erupted in excitement, and as it did so, tension, ill feeling, grudges gave way to lightheartedness, grace and sense of overcoming.
The likes of Mr Auwal Dankode, a cleaner, who in August 2024 returned ten thousand dollars found in an aircraft in Kano, counter the argument that poverty compels resort to crime. Nelson Mandela proved himself a hero of humanity when on becoming President of South Africa, he resisted the temptation to take revenge against those who put him behind bars for twenty - seven years. And this was a man whose mid life, the crucial stage between youth and old age when major achievements are recorded - had been brutally taken away from him. But he came out from prison preaching reconciliation. On May 13 1981, a Turkish gunman, Agca Mehmet Ali fired four shots at Pope John Paul II at close range as he greeted a crowd at St Peter's Square, Vatican City. The Pope was hit in the abdomen, right arm as well as left arm and had to undergo a four hour surgery. On regaining consciousness, the pontiff made a short broadcast assuring that he was out of danger, and asked for prayers, not for himself, but for his attacker. On discharge from hospital, the Pope promptly visited Agca in his cell and told him: _I forgive you._ Following a release application by the now acclaimed saint, Agca was set free in 2000. Many would have seen the picture making the rounds on social media of a white lady picking up a thoroughly emaciated toddler said to have been abandoned somewhere in Calabar. The kid, so skinny, could barely stand. But there's an accompanying photo of the same lad, now an able bodied youth, beaming with smiles on matriculation gown with the angelic lady hugging him. What a powerful win for humanity!
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![[OPINION] January 15th 1966: A Morning Of Murder, Mayhem And Carnage - Femi Fani-Kayode](/media/k2/items/cache/1a2a82a6c1b3dd8fdb2b3e89aabe3fef_S.jpg)
In the early hours of the morning of January 15th 1966, a coup d’etat took place in Nigeria which resulted in the murder of a number of leading political figures and senior army officers. This was the first coup in the history of our country and 98 per cent of the officers that planned and led it were from a particular ethnic nationality in the country.
According to Max Siollun, a notable and respected historian whose primary source of information was the formal police report compiled by the Police’s Special Branch Department immediately after the failure of the coup, during the course of the investigation and after the mutineers had been arrested and detained, names of the leaders of the mutiny were as follows: Major Emmanuel Arinze Ifeajuna, Major Chukwuemeka Kaduna Nzeogwu, Major Chris Anuforo, Major Tim Onwutuegwu, Major Chudi-Sokei, Major Adewale Ademoyega, Major Don Okafor, Major John Obieno, Captain Ben Gbulie, Captain Emmanuel Nwobosi, Captain Chukwuka and Lt. Oguchi.
It is important to point out that I saw the Special Branch report myself and I can confirm Siollun’s findings. These were indeed the names of ALL the leaders of the January 15th 1966 mutiny and all other lists are FAKE.
The names of those that they murdered in cold-blood or abducted were as follows. Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the Prime Minister of Nigeria (murdered), Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto and the Premier of the Old Northern Region (murdered), Sir Kashim Ibrahim, the Shettima of Borno and the Governor of the Old Northern Region (abducted).
Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, the Aare Ana Kakanfo of Yorubaland and the Premier of the Old Western Region (murdered), Chief Remilekun Adetokunboh Fani-Kayode Q.C., the Balogun of Ife, the Deputy Premier of the Old Western Region and my beloved father (abducted), Chief Festus Samuel Okotie-Eboh, the Oguwa of the Itsekiris and the Minister of Finance of Nigeria (murdered), Brigadier Samuel Adesujo Ademulegun, Commander of the 1st Brigade, Nigerian Army (murdered), Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari, Commander of the 2nd Brigade, Nigerian Army (murdered). Colonel James Pam (murdered), Colonel Ralph Sodeinde (murdered), Colonel Arthur Unegbe (murdered), Colonel Kur Mohammed (murdered), Lt. Colonel Abogo Largema (murdered), Alhaja Hafsatu Bello, the wife of the Sardauna of Sokoto (murdered), Alhaji Zarumi, traditional bodyguard of the Sardauna of Sokoto (murdered), Mrs. Lateefat Ademulegun, the wife of Brigadier Ademulegun who was eight months pregnant at the time (murdered). Ahmed B. Musa (murdered), Ahmed Pategi (murdered), Sgt. Daramola Oyegoke (murdered0, Police Constable Yohana Garkawa (murdered), Police Constable Musa Nimzo (murdered), Police Constable Akpan Anduka (murdered), Police Constable Hagai Lai (murdered) and Police Constable Philip Lewande (murdered).
In order to reflect the callousness of the mutineers permit me to share under what circumstances some of their victims were murdered and abducted.
Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was abducted from his home, beaten, mocked, tortured, forced to drink alcohol, humiliated and murdered after which his body was dumped in a bush along the Lagos-Abeokuta road.
Sir Ahmadu Bello was killed in the sanctity of his own home with his wife Hafsatu and his loyal security assistant Zurumi. Zurumi drew his sword to defend his principal whilst Hafsatu threw her body over her dear husband in an attempt to protect him from the bullets.
Chief S. L. Akintola was gunned down as he stepped out of his house in the presence of his family and Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh was beaten, brutalised, abducted from his home, maimed and murdered and his body was dumped in a bush.
Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari had held a cocktail party in his home the evening before which was attended by some of the young officers that went back to his house early the following morning and murdered him.
Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun was shot to death at home, in his bedroom and in his matrimonial bed along with his eight-month pregnant wife Lateefat.
Colonel Shodeinde was murdered in Ikoyi hotel whilst Col. Pam was abducted from his home and murdered in a bush.
Most of the individuals that were killed that morning were subjected to a degree of humiliation, shame and torture that was so horrendous that I am constrained to decline from sharing them in this contribution.
The mutineers came to our home as well which at that time was the official residence of the Deputy Premier of the Old Western Region and which remains there till today. After storming our house and almost killing my brother, sister and me, they beat, brutalised and abducted my father Chief Remi Fani-Kayode.
What I witnessed that morning was traumatic and devastating and, of course, what the entire nation witnessed was horrific. It was a morning of carnage, barbarity and terror.
Those events set in motion a cycle of carnage which changed our entire history and the consequences remain with us till this day. It was a sad and terrible morning and one of blood and slaughter. My recollection of the events in our home is as follows.
At around 2.00 a.m. my mother, Mrs. Adia Aduni Fani-Kayode, came into the bedroom which I shared with my older brother, Rotimi and my younger sister Toyin. I was six years old at the time.
The lights had been cut off by the mutineers so we were in complete darkness and all we could see and hear were the headlights from three or four large and heavy trucks with big loud engines.
The official residence of the Deputy Premier had a very long drive so it took the vehicles a while to reach us. We saw four sets of headlights and heard the engines of four lorries drive up the drive-way.
The occupants of the lorries, who were uniformed men who carried torches, positioned themselves and prepared to storm our home whilst calling my fathers name and ordering him to come out.
My father courageously went out to meet them after he had called us together, prayed for us and explained to us that since it was him they wanted he must go out there.
He explained that he would rather go out to meet them and, if necessary, meet his death than let them come into the house to shoot or harm us all. The minute he stepped out they brutalised him. I witnessed this. They beat him, tied him up and threw him into one of the lorries.
The first thing they said to him as he stepped out was “where are your thugs now Fani-Power”. My father’s response was typical of him, sharp and to the point. He said, “I don’t have thugs, only gentlemen.”
I think this annoyed them and made them brutalise him even more. They tied him up, threw him in the back of the lorry and then stormed the house.
When they got into the house they ransacked every nook and cranny, shooting into the ceiling and wardrobes. They were very brutal and frightful and we were terrified.
My mother was screaming and crying from the balcony because all she could do was focus on her husband who was in the back of the truck downstairs. There is little doubt that she loved him more than life itself.
“Don’t kill him, don’t kill him!!” she kept screaming at them. I can still visualise this and hear her voice pleading, screaming and crying. I didn’t know where my brother or sister were at this point because the house was in total chaos.
I was just six years old and I was standing there in the middle of the passage upstairs in the house by my parents bedroom, surrounded by uniformed men who were ransacking the whole place and terrorising my family.
Then out of the blue something extraordinary happened. All of a sudden one of the soldiers came up to me, put his hand on my head and said: “don’t worry, we won’t kill your father, stop crying.”
He said this to me three times. After he said it the third time I looked in his eyes and I stopped crying.
This was because he gave me hope and he spoke with kindness and compassion. At that point all the fear and trepidation left me.
With new-found confidence I went rushing to my mother who was still screaming on the balcony and told her to stop crying because the soldier had promised that they would not kill my father and that everything would be okay.
I held on to the words of that soldier and that morning, despite all that was going on around me, I never cried again.
Four years ago when he was still alive I made contact with and spoke to Captain Nwobosi, the mutineer who led the team to our house and that led the Ibadan operation that night about these events. He confirmed my recollection of what happened in our house saying that he remembered listening to my mother screaming and watching me cry.
He claimed that he was the officer that had comforted me and assured me that my father would not be killed. I have no way of confirming if it was really him but I have no reason to doubt his words
He later asked me to write the foreword of his book which sadly he never launched or released because he passed away a few months later.
The mutineers took my father away and as the lorry drove off my mother kept on wailing and crying and so was everyone else in the house except for me.
From there they went to the home of Chief S.L. Akintola a great statesman and nationalist and a very dear uncle of mine.
My mother had phoned Akintola to inform him of what had happened in our home. She was sceaming down the phone asking where her husband had been taken and by this time she was quite hysterical.
Chief Akintola tried to calm her down assuring her that all would be well. When they got to Akintola’s house he already knew that they were coming and he was prepared for them.
Instead of coming out to meet them, he had stationed some of his policemen inside the house and they started shooting. A gunbattle ensued and consequently the mutineers were delayed by at least one hour.
According to the Special Branch reports and the official statements of the mutineers that survived that night and that were involved in the operation their plan had been to pick up my father and Chief Akintola from their homes in Ibadan, take them to Lagos, gather them together with the other political leaders that had been abducted and then execute them all together.
The difficulty they had was that Akintola resisted them and he and his policemen ended up wounding two of the soldiers that came to his home
One of the soldiers, whose name was apparently James, had his fingers blown off and the other had his ear blown off. After some time Akintola’s ammunition ran out and the shooting stopped.
His policemen stood down and they surrendered. He came out waving a white handkerchief and the minute he stepped out they just slaughtered him.
My father witnessed Akintola’s cold-blooded murder in utter shock, disbelief and horror because he was tied up in the back of the lorry from where he could see everything that transpired.
The soldiers were apparently enraged by the fact that two of their men had been wounded and that Akintola resisted and delayed them.
After they killed him, they moved on to Lagos with my father. When they got there, they went to the Officer’s Mess at Dodan Barracks.
He was rescued, after a dramatic gun battle, by loyalist troops led by Captain Paul Tarfa (as he then was) and Capt. S.G. Tokida who were under the command of Lt. Col. Yakubu Jack Gowon.
At this point permit me to mention the fact that outside of my father, providence also smiled favourably upon and delivered Sir Kashim Ibrahim, the Shettima of Borno and the Governor of the Old Northern Region from death that morning. He was abducted from his home in Kaduna by the mutineers but was later rescued by loyalist troops.
When the mutineers took my father away everyone in our home thought he had been killed. The next morning a handful of policemen came and took us to the house of my mother’s first cousin, Justice Atanda Fatai Williams, who was a judge of the Western Region at the time. He later became the Chief Justice of Nigeria.
From there we were taken to the home of Justice Adenekan Ademola, another High Court judge at the time, who was a very close friend of my father and who later became a Judge of the Court of Appeal.
At this point the whole country had been thrown into confusion and no one knew what was going on. We heard lots of stories and did not know what to make of what anymore. There was chaos and confusion and the entire nation was gripped by fear.
Two days later my father finally called us on the telephone and he told us that he was okay. When we heard his voice, I kept telling my mother “I told you, I told you.”
Justice Ademola and his dear wife who was my mother’s best friend, a Ghanian lady by the name of Aunty Frances, were weeping with joy. My mother was also weeping as were my brother and sister and I just kept rejoicing because I knew that he would not be killed and I had told them all.
I believe that whoever that soldier was that promised me that my father would not be killed was used by God to convey a message to me that morning even in the midst of the mayhem and fear. I believe that God spoke through him that night. Whoever he was the man spoke with confidence and authority and this constrains me to believe that he was a commissioned officer or a man in authority.
These mutineers who carried out this mutiny and coup were not alone: they got some backing from elements in the political class who identified with them. Some have said that it was an Igbo coup whilst others have said that it was an UPGA (referring to the political alliance between the Action Group and the NCNC) coup but that is a story for another day.
Whatever anyone calls it or believes two things are clear: the consequences of the action that those young officers took that night were far-reaching and the way and manner in which they killed their victims was deplorable and barbaric.
Such savagery had never been witnessed in our shores. There has never been another night like that and the results of that night have been devastating and profound.
In my view not enough Nigerians appreciate this fact. Some in our country cannot forgive those who participated in the mutiny and though I do not share that sentiment or disposition this is understandable.
Others believe that those young men (they were all in their 20’s) did the right thing and claim that those killings were necessary and heroic. This is a sentiment which I not only despise but which I also find unacceptable and appalling.
There is nothing heroic about rebellion and the cold-blooded murder of innocent and defenceless men and women. The coup affected the country in an equally profound manner because the events of that night led to a counter-coup six months later. It was a devastating and disproportionate response.
Sadly after that came the horrendous pogroms and slaughter of the Igbo in the North which eventually led to the civil war in which millions of people died, including innocent children. This was also horrendous and deplorable.
Yet the bitter truth is that if the new Head of State, General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi who himself happened to be Igbo, had done the right thing and actually prosecuted the ringleaders of the coup namely Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, Major Anufuro, Major Ademoyega, Major Timothy Onwuatuegwu, Captain Emmanuel Nwobosi, Captain Okafor, Captain Ben Gbulie and all the other young officers that planned and executed the mutiny of January 15th 1966 after it was crushed, there would have been no northern revenge coup six months later.
I have not added Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna (who was actually the leader of the coup) to the list because he could not have been locked up or prosecuted by General Aguiy-Ironsi simply because he ran away to Ghana immediately after the mutiny in Lagos failed and after he and his co-mutineers were routed by Lt. Col. Jack Yakubu Gowon and his gallant officers.
For some curious reason after the coup was successfully crushed, General Aguiyi-Ironsi just locked these young mutineers up and he refused to prosecute them. This bred suspicion from the ranks of the northern officers given the fact that Aguiyi-Ironsi himself was an Igbo.
The suspicion was that he had some level of sympathy for the mutineers and the fact that they did not kill him during the course of the mutiny only fuelled that suspicion. The northern officers also felt deeply aggrieved about the wholesale slaughter of their key political figures that night.
In my view that, together with Aguiyi-Ironsi’s insistence on promulgating the Unification Decree which abolished the federal system of government and sought to turn Nigeria into a unitary state, made the revenge coup of July 29th 1966 inevitable.
The revenge coup was planned and led by Major Murtala Ramat Muhammed (as he then was) and it was supported and executed by other young northern officers like Major T.Y. Danjuma (as he then was), Major Martins Adamu and many others.
This is the coup that was to put Lt. Col. Jack Gowon (as he then was) in power and when they struck it was a very bloody and brutal affair.
The response of the northern officers to the mutiny and terrible killings that took place on the night of January 15th 1966 and to General Aguiyi-Ironsi’s apparent procrastination and reluctance to ensure that justice was served to the mutineers was not only devastating but also frightful.
300 hundred army officers of Igbo extraction who were perceived to be sympathetic to the January 15th mutineers were killed that night including the Head of State General Aguiyi-Ironsi and the Military Governor of the old Western Region who was hosting him, the courageous Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi. This was very sad and unfortunate.
What happened on the night of January 15th 1966 was indefensible, unjustifiable, unacceptable, unnecessary, unprovoked and utterly and completely barbaric.
I beg to differ with those that believe that there was anything good about such a mutinous bloodbath and this is especially so given the fact that it was carried out by a small handful of ungrateful, cowardly and treacherous men. Blood calls for blood: when you shed blood, other people want to shed your own blood as well and sadly this is the way of the world.
The minute the shedding of blood in the quest of power becomes the norm we are all diminished and dehumanised: and this applies to both the perpetrators and the victims.
The January 15th coup set off a cycle of events which had cataclysmic consequences for our country and which we are still reeling from today.
I repeat with greater detail, this includedes the Northern ‘Revenge’ coup of July 29th 1966 in which 300 Igbo officers and an Igbo Head of State (Gen. Aguyi-Ironsi) were killed, the pogroms in the North in which over 30,000 Igbo civilians were killed and a civil war in which 3 million Igbos (including 1 million children) and hundreds of thousands of Nigerians were cut short.
What a tragedy. Coups may have happened in other countries in Africa but it did not mean that it had to happen here. In any case the amount of blood that was shed on the morning of January 15th 1966 and the number of innocent people that were killed was unacceptable.
It arrested our development as a people and our political evolution as a country. Had it not happened our history would have been very different. May we never see such a thing again.
Yet regardless of the pain of the past I believe that we should do all we can to put these matters behind us.
We must not allow ourselves to become prisoners of history. Rather than being propelled by pain and bitterness and becoming victims of history, we must learn from it, be guided by it and move on.
We must learn to forgive, even if we do not forget and, equally importantly, we must first establish the truth about those ugly events and understand what actually transpired.
What happened that night traumatised the nation. None of us has been the same since
I can identify with that because I was a part of it, I witnessed it and i was a victim of it.
Yet by God’s grace and divine providence my father’s life was spared: not because he was special but simply by the grace of God.
Every day I think about those that were killed that night and I remember their families.
We share a common bond and we are all partakers of an ugly and frightful history
I tell myself: “were it not for divine providence, my father would have also died and I would not have been what I am today, because he was the one who educated me and did everything for me.” If nothing else I know there was a purpose for that.
We must resolve among ourselves that never again will people be attacked in their homes, dragged out, abducted and shot like dogs in the middle of the night.
Never again will women, wives, children and the unborn be slaughtered in this way; Never again shall we witness such barbarity and wickedness in our quest for power; Never again must any Nigerian suffer such brutality and callousness.
May the souls of all those that were murdered on January 15th 1966 continue to rest in peace and may God make Nigeria great again.
•Fani-Kayode is a former Minister of Aviation
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![[OPINION] New World Order: Lee Kuan Yew’s Hypotheses - Tim Akano](/media/k2/items/cache/bf52bc69b784ac1f8b1bf60115a203f1_XS.jpg)
What Time Is It?
The world is at a historic inflection point, transitioning into a new world order. Today, I am on a mission to x-ray how the world’s ecdysis works, connect vital dots and form patterns, and to derive timeless, universal and useful principles that anyone can leverage while navigating the blizzards of change on the horizon. Just as snakes shed their old skin through the process of ecdysis to remove parasites and grow new skin, our world is currently undergoing a similar ‘molting moment’.
The world is radically and rapidly shifting in ways unprecedented in our lifetime, though not without parallels in history. History still rhymes with the signs of the times. Our exploration takes us back to the 17th century, a period when the concept of modern nation-states emerged following the Thirty Years’ War in Europe. Before this, it was the era of antagonistic states and kingdoms. Britain, for instance, transitioned from a kingdom to a country and eventually to an empire, and now, back to base. At its peak, she controlled nearly 75% of the world.
When Britain was the world’s “Kabiyesi” it monopolized the seven critical Levers of power: education, currency (with the pound sterling as the world’s reserve currency), trade, military might, high productivity, London as the world’s capital, and the “3Vs (voice, vote, and veto). Shortly before Britain’s dominance, the Dutch Empire thrived with the Dutch guilder. Though other great empires came, ruled and disappeared, none matched the British Empire in spread, size, or scope. The author, Lu Guanzhong was right: ‘’The empire long divided must unite, and long united must divide. Thus, it has ever been’’
Since the end of WW2 on September 2, 1945, the United States has been the world’s de facto General Overseer (GO). The USSR, much like today’s Russia, was a military power but lacked economic dominance. Consequently, the world has been considerably “Americanised” using western democracy, globalization, trade, media, financial aid, blackmail, and, at times, military force in hawking and selling the American values. For example, less than half of the 99 internationally recognised states in 1945 were democratic, but today about167 countries practice democracy, courtesy of America.
Money was once “hard” meaning it was backed by gold under the British Empire. This changed on Sunday night, August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon announced that the United States would no longer honor its commitment to allow paper dollars to be exchanged for gold. With this singular broadcast, money became “soft or fiat”, devoid of equivalent gold backing. That decision granted America an unprecedented and unfair geopolitical advantage that continues to shape the global economy.
Today, the BRICS countries are pushing for de-dollarization, which is a move capable of reducing America to a glorified third-world country with nuclear weapons. China’s miraculous emergence as a strategic competitor to America seems to be altering the global power and wealth dynamics.
History appears poised to repeat itself. The fate of the world’s 8 billion people today highly hinges on seven state power bases and three significant non-state actors. These include the United States, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, India, Israel, Europe, the World Economic Forum (WEF), social media, and Elon Musk.
Recall that it was the irreconcilable global power struggles among the seven dominant state actors, Italy, France, Japan, the Soviet Union, America, Germany, and Great Britain that triggered WW2 between 1939 & 1945 resulting in the deaths of 60 million people.
Today, the potential triggers for World War III are evident such as:
China invades Taiwan.
Russia nukes Ukraine, Poland, or the United Kingdom.
Iran invades Saudi Arabia to establish Shia and oil dominance.
Pakistan invades India over the unfinished business of 1947 Kashmir dispute.
BRICS junks the dollar and adopts a new world reserve currency.
China attacks India over LAC control
And the mass spread of misinformation on social media, causing the False Flag resulting in nuclear Armageddon.
The current international landscape is shaped by strongmen with grand geopolitical ambitions to make their respective countries GREATER using unorthodox means, much like Adolf Hitler’s attempt in 1939 when he invaded Poland with a view to creating a Greater Germany.
Vladimir Putin’s desire to recreate the old Soviet Union (Greater Russia) has led to the ongoing war in Ukraine. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is pursuing a neo-Ottoman vision (Greater Turkey), evident in Turkey’s disruptive actions in the Middle East and Africa.
In Israel, Bibi (The Jews’ modern-day King David) envisions “Greater Israel” as seen in his military campaigns in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, said , paraphrased, he will take over the Panama Canal and Greenland over by money or by military might and convert Canada to America’s 51st state (Greater America agenda). Lastly, President Xi Jinping’s declaration that no power can stop the annexation of Taiwan underscores China’s pursuit of a “Greater China.”
The world stands at a crossroads, shifting from Globalism to Trumpism with history and ambition colliding in a state of confusing political conundrums.
The dynamics of today’s power triangulation differ slightly from those of the 1940s due to the emergence of non-state actors wielding considerable and often unaccountable power, such as the World Economic Forum (WEF), social media platforms, and Elon Musk, a private citizen who . metamorphosed to a Super Power overnight.The WEF’s influence on global politics and policies is concerning, profound and incomprehensible. WEF’s Young Global Leaders (YGL) has produced several Heads of Government. Elon Musk, on the other hand, represents a unique and unprecedented power base in modern geopolitics. The world has finally found the missing ‘’X’’ in Elon Musk!
As the world’s richest man, with a net worth exceeding $450 billion, Musk is on the trajectory to becoming the first trillionaire. By January 20, he is projected to become the second most powerful individual in America, and probably, in the world. Globally, if Twitter (now X) were considered a country, Musk, with 28 patents, would effectively be the president of the third most populous nation, with over 600 million monthly active users. In a paradox inexplicable, he has become the new MAINSTREAM MEDIA, his control over information is overwhelming.
Furthermore, Musk’s ventures extend beyond Earth. Through SpaceX, he holds the unique privilege of interacting with extraterrestrial possibilities (Aliens & Ghosts) and exploring uncharted territories in space. His influence on global politics is exemplified by his 2023 tweet suggesting that Ukraine cede Crimea to Russia, this is an idea that later became the official position of Trump’s envisioned 2025 administration. He has set Europe on fire from Germany to the UK, France, Canada, his love for the Far Right Movements is indescribable.
The Trump-Musk nexus has triggered something of a renaissance within the Far Right Movements globally which will impact immigration negatively, especially against Africans With Trump and Musk metaphorically positioned as the driver and conductor of the global limo tagged “TRUMUS limo” poses a significant gamble to geopolitics. The stakes are high, and the world watches with fingers crossed.
We are in a season of reimagining the global order amidst the welter of change and the interrelatedness of the forces of order and disorder. For instance, Caucasians are grappling with the irreversible decline of their aging, facing the reality of becoming a minority in their own countries by 2040. Simultaneously, concerns about de-globalization keep Beijing and Washington awake at night, while the threat of de-dollarization challenges America’s financial dominance. In Europe, the fear of Russia is the beginning of wisdom. For Africa, this is not the time for ‘’ostrich diplomacy’’. The continent must wake up and pursue her strategic agenda.
In the paragraphs that follow, we shall examine analogous historical moments to address pressing questions:
How solid are the blocks that hold BRICS together?
What is the probability of China replacing America as the new global superpower?
How will Trump 2.0 affect international relations?
Can Africa avoid a second wave of colonization?
Will humanity split along a new digital divide between rival tech empires?
What is the future of work, wealth and education?
Decoding geopolitics is akin to interpreting tea leaves, not always black and white. Which is why, to navigate this maze, I turn to the wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew (LKY), the ‘’Singaporean god’’ who transformed his country from a third-world nation to a first-world powerhouse in just 20 years. With the help of “Professor Google” I’ve set up a virtual conversation to seek his insights.
Tim: Compliments of the season, LKY. The world is aging, and it seems the Chinese dragon and the American bison are ready for a showdown. Meanwhile, Africa remains a passive spectator, and Nigeria remains enmeshed in multidimensional poverty. Can you share with me what you see in your geopolitical crystal ball in this transition hours?
LKY: Tim, it’s a pleasure having this virtual conversation with you. I can see your relentless effort (reading great books, digging into statistics and archives, interacting with Great Minds like Albert Einstein & Elon Musk) all with a view to making the world a better place. These are noble ideals, I must admit.
Your country, Nigeria, is one of the most blessed nations on earth. It appears God specially created America, China, and Nigeria on the same day as premium brands, late on a Friday night. Unfortunately, while the American and Chinese elites stayed awake, watching God intently during the creation process, Nigeria’s elites went clubbing. They returned by 4:05 a.m., inebriated, sleepy, and unconscious, whereas God had completed His work by 4a.m.
That, Tim, is why much of Nigeria’s wealth remains in the hands of foreigners who stayed vigilant on the Creation Day. You possess cobalt, nickel, lithium, Uranium, rare earth metals, oil, zircon, rhodium, liquefied natural gas (LNG) which are badly needed by the tech industry. Yet, many Nigerian elites remain clueless about the value of resources like the sands, stones and gravels which foreigners cart away daily from Nigeria.
Tim, you must do more than critical thinking, writing, mentoring, and advocacy in order to prevent the country from descending into a state of unmanageable mega mess.
Nigeria is terminally ill, with inflation at almost almost 40%, bank interest rates on loans at 40%, electricity at 300% increase, gasoline at 500% increase, currency devaluation at almost 200%, all happened with 15 months, do you need any economist to tell you that Nigeria is on a life support machine. What keeps Nigeria alive are essentially the remittance economy and the increasing opportunities for ICT remote jobs for the Youths.
Singapore, with less than 1% of Nigeria’s resources, has a GDP per capita for 2024 estimated to be between $89,369.71 and $104,127, compared to Nigeria’s meagre $1,000.
Your leaders travel the world, cap in hand, begging for what your nation already has in abundance. Nigeria has been awaiting “Arab money” since 2023 to stabilize its foreign exchange. Chinese engineers are relied upon to fix your roads and railways, Indian investors are expected to revamp your oil & gas industry, Russian experts are tasked with completing the Ajaokuta Steel Mill, while your elites receive medical treatment in France, drink Italian wine and drive Japanese cars! ‘’Na wa o, Tim’’
Where is Nigeria’s national self-esteem? No nation has ever been built solely through the transplantation of external “kidneys”. China was built with Chinese kidneys; Japan was built with Japanese kidneys. What, then, is the purpose of education in Nigeria if everything the country needs is imported, and all its challenges are outsourced?
For instance, against all odds, Ukraine in a dangerous war environment managed to grow in 2023. Its GDP increased by 5%, investments rose by 17%, tax revenue jumped by 25% year-over-year, and over 37,000 new businesses were registered
Yet, Nigeria that is at peace with her neigbours still looks up to Ukraine for food!!! ‘’una well done o” in Nigeria’’!
Tim: Tell me, LKY, great empires typically last an average of 250 years. America is now 251 years old as a nation and 80 years old as a superpower. China is eyeing the position of world’s class captain. What’s next?
LKY: Hmm, Tim. Let us search for the truth amidst the forest of facts and figures. As of 2024, the size of China’s economy stood at $18.28 trillion, while America’s was $29.167 trillion. China’s national debt stands at $14.9 trillion as against America’s $36.1 trillion. America spent $860 billion on research and development (R&D) compared to China’s $668 billion. China’s manufacturing sector contributed 28% of global output, whereas America accounted for 18%. According to WIPO, China filed about 1.64 million patent applications in 2023 as against America’s 418,262.
In terms of the Global Innovation Index (GII), America ranked as the third most innovative country, after Switzerland and Sweden, while China was eighth. Numerically, China boasts the world’s largest army and navy, though both remain largely untested. On the other hand, America maintains 800 military bases across 70 countries and operates 12 supercarriers compared to China’s two active carriers.
Regarding military budgets in 2024, America spent $916 billion, while China spent $296 billion. In R&D investment as a percentage of GDP, Israel leads the world, with America ranking third and China eleventh. China’s greatest strength lies in its control of the global supply chain, as 40% of China’s GDP comes from value-added industrial output.
China’s ambition to build “One China” by reclaiming all annexed territories, starting with Taiwan, may be historically desirable but it would trigger World War III, a conflict that China cannot win.
Peace is profitable, war is costly. The “lost China” extends beyond Taiwan to territories in Russia (Outer Manchuria, 910,000 km²), Japan (the Senkaku Islands, about 330 km²), and India (the Line of Actual Control, stretching 3,488 km from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh).
Former President Deng Xiaoping understood the complications of reclaiming “China’s stolen lands” and thus developed the strategy of a “Peaceful Rise” If China’s main motivation is to control the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s most consequential technology company with a market capitalization of $874 billion, the better route would be to emulate South Korea’s success in building a Samsung.
Contextually, history shows that whoever wins the technology war wins the economic and military wars, in the ultimately analysis. Similarly, whoever is the best -in-class in innovation plus R&D wins the global technology game of throne. The new world order is a case of a prisoner’s dilemma- America knows she can’t control the wind, therefore, she is adjusting the sail of re-industrialization, reclaiming energy supremacy (Greenland has about 15% undiscovered hydrocarbons -oil and gas underground), sustaining her slim lead in Technology, especially in semiconductor by building a chip factory in Arizona in partnership with TSMC costing $6.6 billion under the new Chip and Science Act. Semiconductor is the Golden Fleece of technology power!
Even then, it took America about 65 years (1880-1945) of consistent superior performance over Britain (the then superpower) before emerging as the world’s class captain. This indicates that for China to replace America, it must outperform America in all critical sectors for about half a century, ceteris paribus.
Tim: Can you tell me, LKY, where is BRICS headed? Nigeria is anxiously waiting to be admitted. The bloc represents 35% of the world’s GDP and 45% of the world’s population. BRICS seems determined to supplant the Dollar which currently accounts for about 56% of foreign trade invoices globally. Also, what’s the future of globalization?
LKY: BRICS is going nowhere Period! Who are the policymakers in Nigeria advising President Tinubu to take Panadol for China and Russia’s headaches by joining BRICS? *What Nigeria is engaging in is “me-too diplomacy”.
BRICS consists of traditional rivals with no shared ideology, values, or vision. The dollar’s main “offense” is its abuse by America, but who says BRICS will not eventually be hijacked, abused, and manipulated by China like RMB?
Why is BRICS not advocating for the replacement of the United Nations since she has failed to prevent the outbreak of wars in the world? The solution to Dollar’s abuse is to compel America and the rest of the world, through the United Nations and the World Bank to revert to the pre-Nixon era monetary system of 1971. Moving forward, America’s Bullion Depository in Fort Knox, Kentucky, must hold gold bars equivalent to the dollars it prints. The same principle should apply to China’s RMB and Europe’s EURO and others. The World Bank should be empowered to go round and verify the quantum of gold bars in each of the 200 countries in the world, to avoid a repeat of what happened in the past when America inflated its gold reserves. Consequently, there will be a gold rush which benefits Africa more than aligning with China to kill the Dollar. Africa needs to put mechanisms in place to stop illegal gold mining in her forests.
Secondly, Africa should not waste the current currency crisis, it is an opportunity to create a single Africa currency to facilitate trade among the 52 Africa countries. About 23% of the global trade is done with Euro currency. With Africa owning over 30% of the remaining raw materials left globally, ‘’AFRO currency’’ is a game changer.
India just pulled out of BRICS war against the dollar.
If you give a gun each to China, Russia, India and America and lock them up in a room with an instruction that each of them should kill their worst two enemies: China will rather kill India and Russia first with a view to reclaiming her lost territories, while Russia will finish-off China and India first and India will annihilate China and Russia first. By the time you open the door, the last and the only country you will meet standing will be America.
The other three nations have beefs to settle with one another which are more existential than the hatred they jointly have for America out of envy.
Globalization has not achieved its goal of creating a world of shared prosperity, rather, the income inequality between the global North and the emerging Global East vis-a-vis the Global South is growing bigger. Nonetheless, President Trump’s proposed ISOLATIONISM, in the name of ‘America First’ will be counterproductive. Africa must maintain a delicate balance between globalism and Africanism.
Made-in-China 2025 (MIC2025) was designed for the 8 billion world’s population; therefore, death of globalization connotes sudden death for China and slow death for America and ultimate death for the world at large.
Concerning Trump 2.0 foreign policy, the world will be in commotion if President Trump goes ahead to annex the Panama Canal and Greenland with military force and overwhelm Canada to surrender her sovereignty. There will be no modicum of moral justification left to criticize Putin and President Xi Xiaoping if both, too, go ahead to annex Ukraine and Taiwan respectively Welcome to 1939?
Though, those three countries are ‘’BEST BUY’’ for America, provided there is unanimity of interests between the buyer and the owners.
Tim: Tell me, LKY, what kind of deal should President Trump put on the table on January 21, 2025, to end the war in Ukraine? The World Bank has estimated that it will cost $486 billion to get Ukraine back on its feet.
LKY: Russia currently occupies almost 20% of Ukraine, amounting to about 100,000 square kilometres since 2014, including regions like Donetsk and Crimea. Approximately 3.5 million Ukrainians are estimated to be living under Russian occupation. Moreover, 17.3% of Ukraine’s population is of Russian ethnic nationality. On the other hand, Ukraine has encroached into Russia’s Kursk region, capturing around 1,000 square kilometres (386 square miles). There are no easy solutions to this crisis, as both warriors are running out of body bags to bury the dead. However, President Trump should take the following steps:
Call for an immediate ceasefire on January 20, 2025.
Hold a tripartite meeting with Putin and Zelenskyy in Switzerland. The proposed deal should include the following.
Ukraine must withdraw from all Russian territory immediately
Russia must withdraw from all Ukrainian territories.
A referendum, supervised by the UN, should be conducted within six months. This will allow Russian-speaking Ukrainians to decide which country they wish to belong to. The referendum results, determined by a simple majority, must be enforced by the UN.
Russia and Ukraine should be admitted into NATO by April 4, 2026, coinciding with NATO’s 77th anniversary.
All sanctions on Russia should be lifted, and the country should be readmitted into the G8 and SWIFT payment Gateway. Furthermore, all criminal charges against Putin should be dropped.
America and Europe should establish a Ukraine Reconstruction Fund (URF) to raise $500 billion over ten years to rebuild Ukraine.
History shows that what Russia has done is not as grave as the atrocities committed by Germany and Japan during WW2, yet both nations were forgiven, rebuilt, and readmitted into the “Western Club” What prevents the West from adopting a similar approach today with Russia? It is worth noting that Putin has long expressed his desire for Russia to join NATO, albeit without “standing in line with countries that don’t matter”.
Tim: What about the Middle East? Lend us your wisdom, LKY, how can we end the cycle of crises there?
LKY: The Middle East is akin to one of the most complex mathematical problems; the Diophantine Equation, sometimes called the “summing of three cubes”. This equation challenges mathematicians to find values for x, y, and z such that x³ + y³ + z³ = K, for every value of K from 1 to 100.
“Summing up the three cubes” of the Middle East geopolitics is akin to looking for a needle in a haystack.
The region’s issues are multilayered and complicated, much like solving the Diophantine equation. There is also a spiritual dimension to the crisis. Ending the cyclical crises requires a multi-faceted approach, involving local solutions rooted in trust, mutual respect, and external mediators who are genuinely unbiased. The path to peace in the Middle East is less about quick fixes and more about patience, sustained dialogue, and a commitment to equitable resolutions that underscore Israel’s security and Palestinian’s dignity. Tim, I read your 7th October 2023 article proposing a 4-state solution. It was radical yet doable. However, because common sense is currently uncommon in the Middle East, all proposed solutions, 4-state, 2-state, or 1-state, should be parked for now. Tim, as you rightly proposed in the said article, there are no religious, legal, political, or military solutions to the Middle East problem. There is only one solution, and this is “Humanity”. For now, Hamas must release all the remaining 92 Israeli hostages alive, and the IDF must stop the bombings.
Ultimately, for the sake of FATHER ABRAHAM (so that he can rest in perfect peace) these two antagonistic siblings must find a way to coexist as neighbors, even if not as friends.
Tim: I’d like to hear your thoughts, LKY, on technology convergence. Where is technology headed?
LKY: The future of technology lies in Quantum computing with Artificial Intelligence (QCAI).
The world will increasingly be controlled by efficient and super-intelligent robots that are capable of reasoning independently of their creators, much like how humans’ reason independently of God. These “spiritual machines” with conceptual understanding comparable to humans, bring us ever closer to Singularity.
In the short term, this presents immense possibilities as humans collaborate and compete with machines. However, in the long term, humanity faces existential dangers, chiefly the risk of losing control over its creation, or the technology fall into the hands of bad guys- Armageddon is not impossible!
I foresee QCAI massively disrupting job markets sooner than expected, with unemployment rates soaring. Simultaneously, income inequality will widen drastically between AI tycoons and consuming countries like Nigeria
Tim, if you have influence over your government, urge them to invest in empowering Nigerian youths with skills in Quantum computing with artificial intelligence among other 4.0 industrial revolution skills.
For example, Lagos State can become the California of Africa and potentially grow its GDP to $1 trillion within 36 months, this is five times larger than Nigeria’s current GDP, by leveraging customized solutions powered by QCAI and distributed ledger technologies. On the darker side, QCAI’s militarization is an existential threat. Imagine a nuclear bomb operating independently of the President in the White House in an apocalyptic scenario, a false flag could trigger an uncontrollable cascading catastrophe.
I also foresee humanity splitting into antagonistic, competing digital empires along a new silicon boundary. If President Trump continues to pursue an anti-globalism agenda. China would be left with no choice than to come up with a separate computer network and architecture, rendering international collaboration difficult.
Moreover, QCAI tycoons may introduce Universal Basic Salaries (UBS) for those labelled as the “useless population” as suggested by Yuval Harari of the World Economic Forum. Finally, if Africa doesn’t get its act together, a second wave of colonization is not impossible.
Tim: Let’s turn our focus back to Nigeria. As the “Singaporean god” how did you build an education system that outperformed the West and catapulted Singapore to the First World in record time? I put it to you; you were a magician!
LKY: Tim, it wasn’t magic. Africa has black magic, but I don’t believe it works for nation building, otherwiseAfrica should be the greatest continent on earth today.
We built Singapore’s education system on three pillars, they are meritocracy, pragmatism, and relentless pursuit of excellence. We designed our curriculum to focus on critical thinking, science, and technology while aligning it with Singapore’s economic needs. Furthermore, we didn’t romanticize degrees or paper qualifications.
Vocational and technical education were given equal prominence. We built strong partnerships with global tech giants and invited them to set up R&D hubs in Singapore, ensuring our students were trained in future-ready skills.
Amazing discoveries in science, technology, mathematics, and extraordinary innovations never occur when students are taught, tested, and graded on cookbook formulas, especially by demotivated instructors in poorly furnished classrooms lacking modern infrastructure.
Students’ creativity gets lost in the maze of memorized physics equations and biology definitions.
Children learn to ride a bicycle by riding it, not by reading about it in a book.
Nigeria’s education system is broken, obsolete, and rotten, it needs a complete reimagining. Eking out infinitesimal improvements from a gravely sick system and relying on wrong metrics as measure of success will not catapult Nigeria to the top of the class.
Nigeria needs an entrepreneurial-oriented curriculum aligned with its core strengths, needs, and aspirations.
The new roadmap should be powered by QCAI focusing on the seven C’s that equip students with life-decisive skills, such as “Critical Thinking, Communication, Character, Complex Problem-Solving, Creativity, Cognitive Social Skills, and Citizenship Responsibilities”.
The world no longer rewards “knowledge workers” unlike in the pre-Google, pre-ChatGPT era because information and knowledge are now as accessible as sachet water. What the world needs are problem-solvers.
Over the past ten years, Nigeria spent more than $40 billion on education and medical tourism, according to the CBN Governor, Mr Yemi Cardoso. Yet, instead of dedicating $2 billion yearly for the next five years to upgrading six universities and two teaching hospitals to world-class standards yearly, thereby solving these twin problems over a period of ten years, your priorities are ambiguously lousy. Example? Your Judges got 300% salary increase, plus free accommodations for keeps, your teachers are in financial famine, wallowing in penury.
With due respect, Tim, Nigeria’s elites have always ruled the country like a Monkey Republic, where the Baboons Bandits have hijacked all the ripe and unripe bananas. Now, the Jungle has Matured, there is uncontrollable commotion across the land, as the monkeys run amok.
Tim, history has not provided us with an example of a society where the Baboons Bandits has played this type of game successfully without dropping the ball!
Tim: What is your final word for Nigeria?
And what do you say to individuals who desire a better deal from life in 2025 and beyond, LKY?
LKY: First, Nigeria must decentralize to survive and thrive. No PLAN B! Ordinary Tax Reform Bill and CBN operations are politicized, and in 46 years, you can’t complete the Ajaokuta steel company and you have practically nothing to show for your oil wealth compared with Norway or UAE, it’s certain the superstructure you are operating is fundamentally flawed.
Where would Singapore be today if she had remained under the toxic partnership with Malaysia’s? The old Malaysia and Nigeria shared something in common, they are both House of commotion! Whereas, without peace and Elites consensus, Nigeria’s chances of modernization are ZERO.
Mandela, Rawlings, Ghaddafi, Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello, Balewa, etc all advocated or fought for a decentralized system as the ONLY VERITABLE way to make a plural, heterogeneous society like Nigeria work.
Are your elites saying they are smarter than the above named leaders and their counterparts in the UK, Canada, Switzerland, USA etc who established decentralization as the ONLY WAY to govern an heterogenous society like Nigeria successfully
Even from here, we can hear the long whistling, a dangerous, high pitched siren noise of the Nigeria’s pressure cooker. To avoid a blow out: decentralize.
Don’t wait for Nature’s caesarean operation in Nigeria. Nature’s C-Section is worse than an abattoir.
Finally, In the QCAI age: academic qualification is overrated; the winner is… SKILL. The new world order is going to be a gold-driven world, where Platform Economy is a game changer. Land and water will command the same respect as gold.
When Elon Musk coughed out a whopping $44 billion to acquire Twitter (now X) the uninitiated called him names. But today, he is the first private citizen in recent history to become a ’SUPERPOWER’, courtesy of the humongous power of the X Platform.
Gerit? If you don’t gerit, forgrit aborit!
Tim: Please, LKY, can you pray for Nigeria’s breakthrough in 2025? We are tired of hugging the global headlines for the wrong reasons.
LKY: Frankly speaking, Tim, my team and I didn’t rely on prayers to build Singapore. President Deng once confirmed to me that he and his team didn’t use prayers to build China either. Similarly, Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko, the Japanese Prime Minister said himself and his team didn’t depend on prayers in rebuilding Japan after its destruction in1945. What else should God do for Nigeria? You are the apple of God’s eyes but you are, unarguably, laid-back. That said, I have nothing against prayers. After all, Thomas Jefferson, America’s third president, included daily prayers in his solution-mix to build America. It worked then, and it continues to work today.
I came away convinced that prayers without diligence, diligence without character, and character without godliness have been the bane of Nigeria for decades.This, Tim, is what I call spiritual 419, the greatest sin against God.
All told, since you are so passionate about Nigeria’s transformation and you believe strongly in the efficacy of prayers as part of the required solutions, I challenge you to draft an honest National Rebirth Prayer (NRP) that addresses the spiritual lacuna which makes your old and new National Anthem and Pledge ring hollow. Your country’s First Lady who adopted and launched a National Unity Fabric can equally champion and get the citizens to recite the prayers twice daily (7am & 7pm) and in all public gatherings, starting with the Federal Executive Council Meetings.
Tim: Well, LKY, here is my take concerning the National Rebirth Prayer:
“Almighty God, who has blessed Nigeria with this amazing and enviable land as our heritage, we kindly beseech Thee that we may prove ourselves a people conscious of Thy love and thankful to do Thy will. Teach us, O Lord, to love this land and its people. Open our leaders’ eyes to see that there are no pockets to keep dollars, euros, or pounds in burial shrouds, and no First Bank branch in heaven! Bless the citizens with common sense to be awake to their responsibilities. In our lifetime, we pray to witness Nigeria’s true rebirth as a land of righteousness, with elites who stand for the Common Good, liberty, truth, beauty, and justice turning Nigeria’s limo wheel, Amen”.
Tim: What time is it? 3:00 a.m.
Where is LKY?
Unzipping 2025… with a dream!
![[OPINION] The GDP of Sex, Drugs, Rituals - Olusegun Adeniyi](/media/k2/items/cache/b8dd70a48a28bf23faf622c23bfcad2e_XS.jpg)
Last weekend, The Nation newspapers published a gripping story of 47-year-old twin brothers who lured a young girl to their hideout in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital, where they murdered and dismembered her body for ritual purposes. Now in the custody of the Ogun State Police Command, one of the twins is already singing. “We usually kill our victims and sell their body parts for money rituals, grill some and grind them into powder for consumption with alcohol or mix them with soap for a magic bath that would bring good fortunes,” he said. “We sell ordinary body parts for N20,000 and hands or limbs for N50,000. We sell a leg for N50,000 while the heart goes for N100,000.’’ Those interested in the gory story can look for the report, but my main concern is that ‘professionals’ in the business of rituals, among other crimes like drug trafficking, banditry, as well as prostitution may soon enjoy official validation.
Going by the new National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) parameters for assessing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Nigeria, contributions of these ‘entrepreneurs’ will not be ignored when rebasing the economy. “If you are into, for instance, drugs, there are some countries where the drug trade drives their economy. It is illegal here because there is no legal backing. Also, prostitution earns income. Some even live better than those in the formal sector,” said Baba Madu, the NBS Head of National Accounts during a sensitization workshop last Thursday in Abuja. “The challenge is the legal backing and how do we gather accurate data? These sectors contribute significantly, but they remain underreported due to their hidden nature.” But despite these challenges, Madu assured Nigerians that those activities deserve to be captured in the new rebased economy, and that’s what the NBS intends to do in the coming exercise.
Let me state upfront that there is nothing wrong with rebasing the economy and Nigeria is indeed long overdue for one. In April 2014, the GDP was rebased by the NBS to propel our economy into first position in Africa and 24th in the world (with Belgium and Poland), overtaking South Africa. Among other contentions at the time, I recall a few people arguing that placing Nollywood above India’s Bollywood was carrying fantasy too far. But notwithstanding some misgivings back then, there was consensus about the credibility of that exercise. More significantly, then NBS Director General, Yemi Kale, also placed a rather instructive caveat on the figures: “While GDP depicts how rich a nation is, this is not necessarily the same as showing how rich individuals in the nation are, due to problem of unequal distribution of wealth. Similarly, growth in GDP is not synonymous with job creation…this is the challenge of non-inclusive growth.”
Now, the current debate is on whether certain activities should be included in the GDP, and I offer background to my concern. According to the NBS 2024 Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey, a staggering sum of N2.2 trillion was paid as ransom to kidnappers between May 2023 and April 2024. Against the background that the 2024 Budget of ‘Renewed Hope’ as proposed by President Bola Tinubu outlined a projected revenue of N18.32 trillion and just about half that amount was realized, according to most reports, the NBS figure meant that within a period of 12 months kidnappers alone took about 25 percent of the federal government revenue for last year. If we extrapolate with the same methodology to calculate the ‘take-home pay’ for prostitutes, ritual killers, Yahoo Plus experts, bandits etc. then we are looking at a super jumbo rebased economy that raises more questions than answers.
Beyond the issue of accuracy is the character of the national economy itself and the implications of adding dubious/criminal activities as components of our GDP. The NBS is citing a self-serving System National Account (SNA) 2008 to bamboozle the people without telling us that most serious countries(including the United States from where we photocopied our presidential system of government) do not compute crime proceeds as part of their GDP. In a December 2019 piece titled, ‘GDP Doesn’t Include Proceeds of Crime. Should It?’ published in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Science Bureau Chief, Jo Craven McGinty wrote, “When the U.S. calculates its gross domestic product, it only includes things that are legal. But if the wares of drug dealers, pimps, bookies and other black-market denizens were included, the GDP would expand by more than 1%, according to one estimate.” Proceeds of drug trafficking alone, McGinty added, “would have added $111 billion to U.S. gross domestic product, according to estimate.”
Why does the US leave out illegal activities that fetch humongous amounts of money from its GDP? That question was partly answered by a former American diplomat and national security official, David M. Luna. “As some have underscored, the illegal economy obeys no laws except the law of the strong, the corrupt, and the criminal; impunity, coercion, lawlessness, unrest and violence reign,” argued Luna in 2012, as Director for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affair at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). “From an economic perspective, all these illicit activities divert money from the balance sheets of legitimate businesses and put cash in the hands of criminals, who build larger and larger illicit networks. These networks threaten the stability of governments and the prosperity of our economies.” In societies that have been corrupted by such criminal networks, according to Luna, “market- and state-building become more unattainable, economic growth is stunted, efforts towards development and poverty eradication are stifled, and foreign direct investment is deterred.”
Ordinarily, rebasing the economy of a country should be rooted in certain values. In a nation where the line between right and wrong is increasingly becoming blurred—with many young Nigerians believing there is no correlation between wealth and legitimate work—I fail to see the essence of adding these illicit activities to our GDP. Besides, I believe that the financials from these sources are already captured in some form, either through the formal sector (banks and other money deposit institutions) or the informal sector without making those who engage in them imagine they are legitimate activities. In any case, the NBS can only engage in speculation when it comes to putting figures to these illicit activities and it has admitted as much.
What I find hard to understand is what stands to be achieved by a GDP that only serves to massage the ego of politicians while the broad majority sink deeper into misery and avoidable penury. More importantly, a GDP re-basing exercise that legitimizes criminal and dark economic activities can only license the drift to an immoral nation. At a period when drug trafficking, cyber crimes, prostitution, trade in ritual body parts, ransom for kidnapping, terrorism etc. have compromised the integrity of our nation, legitimising them as components of our GDP would only embolden some of our young people who just want to ‘make it’ by hook or by crook.
Highlighting the benefits of GDP rebasing, the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) Chief Executive Officer, Tayo Aduloju, said Nigeria’s debt-to-GDP ratio, a critical indicator of fiscal health, dropped from 19% to 11% after the 2014 exercise. “This improved Nigeria’s creditworthiness, making us a more attractive destination for foreign direct investment. Investors are drawn to transparency and growth potential, and rebasing sends a clear message: we understand our economy, and we are open for business,” Aduloju said. “Second, rebasing sharpens policymaking. It provides a detailed map of our economic terrain, enabling governments to identify high-growth sectors for scaling and low-growth sectors that require targeted interventions to drive impactful and balanced development.”
If we adopt the NBS approach, we are not likely to achieve those lofty objectives and we may give ammunition to those who already criminalise our country. By openly admitting that our GDP includes the same illegal activities that are already emblems of shame for our country and have stigmatised otherwise innocent citizens, we may just be validating the social media slang that ‘Nigeria is a crime scene’. Therefore, while the NBS occasional reports on the ‘economic value’ of these criminal activities are okay, adding their ‘contributions’ to the national economy as part of a rebased GDP is not the way to go.
Yes, an elevated GDP is good. But even in George Orwell’s, ‘Animal Farm’, a time came when most animals realised that statistics were being used to make fools of them. In normal circumstances, a responsible government would set as its target the elimination of criminal economic activities as a mark of progress. Converting illegal activities into statistical advantages for the purpose of a phantom GDP showmanship is unconscionable. The NBS should just perish the thought!
Still on Pastor Adeboye and Soun
By Fifelomo Dawodu
Dear Segun,
I agree with your perspective on the leadership lessons in the Tik tok message of Pastor Adeboye in your piece on the Soun of Ogbomosho. Indeed, the dimensions of the clip are several and I have just written about it in a draft personal statement I am putting together for an application for some doctoral research work. Some of the contradictions of interest that I am looking to interrogate are implicated in the clip. I endorse the idea of Pastor Adeboye (rightfully) insisting on speaking to the Soun in Yoruba. But there are several questions to pose from that. Will the successor to the throne of Soun when Oba Ghandi, in ripe old age, goes to join his ancestors speak any Yoruba? Should a ‘born again’ Soun reckon with the powers and principalities of the land to ensure a long peaceful reign? How do we reconcile the phenomena of western educated, urbane/cosmopolitan persons as traditional rulers and custodians of our culture? How many people are left who can transmit messages through the talking drum? Eti melo lo ku to gbo ilu? (How many of us are left with an ear for the message of the talking drum?).
Westernisation has robbed us of our cultural vestiges and left us with generic symbolisms. We celebrate that our traditional rulers have College degrees even where they may be unable to speak the language needed to appease the spirit of the land. How odd that the new Alaafin-elect does not have tribal marks! These are marks of identification, beautification and distinction of lineage and royalty. Should we continue to keep faith in the belief that the oracle picks who would ascend the throne? Or resort to AI for less fallible choices? The answers, I guess, are in the womb of time!
- Mrs Dawodu, a solicitor and graduate student of comparative education, resides in Lagos.
THE BOAT PAINTERS!
(It’s one of those stories on WhatsApp that have been in circulation for years. But no matter how many times it is forwarded, you always find it inspirational. Also, like many things you find on social media, the author is unknown. But the message is profound and speaks to diligence, attention to detail and integrity. It was forwarded to me again on Tuesday by a respected senior citizen and I consider it worthy of sharing, at least for the benefit of those who may not have come across it before.)
A man was hired to paint a boat. With his paint, brushes, and a steady hand, he began coating the boat in a vibrant red, as the owner had requested. As he worked, he noticed a small hole in the hull, barely noticeable to the untrained eye. Without saying a word, he repaired it, considering it part of his job. Once he finished painting, the owner paid him, and the man left, content with his day’s work. The next morning, however, the owner returned, holding a check far more generous than what was owed for the painting. Surprised, the painter asked, “Sir, you’ve already paid me for the paint job. What is this for?” The owner smiled and said, “This isn’t for the painting. It’s for fixing the hole in the boat.” Puzzled, the painter replied, “But that was such a small thing—certainly not worth this amount.”
“My friend, you don’t understand,” the owner began. “When I asked you to paint the boat, I didn’t even remember about the hole myself. After you finished and the paint dried, my children took the boat out on a fishing trip without telling me. I was away, and when I got home, I was horrified to realize they had gone out in a boat with a hole in the hull.” The painter listened intently as the man continued, his voice now thick with emotion. “I was terrified, thinking they might never return. But when they came back safely, I rushed to check the boat and found that you had repaired the hole. You didn’t just fix a boat—you saved my children’s lives. That’s something I can never fully repay.” The painter stood silent, absorbing the weight of the man’s words. The owner added softly, “Sometimes, the smallest gestures can have the greatest impact. What seemed insignificant to you meant the world to me.”
In life, we may unknowingly fix many “holes” for others—offering help, mending hearts, or simply being there when needed. We often don’t realize how much those small actions can mean to someone else. You never know when your quiet kindness might save a life. Keep helping, keep caring, for the world needs more boat painters.
[OPINION] From Heaven, DIG Moses Ambakina Jitoboh Speaks: “I Knew I Was Right, Remember My Name and My Fight, Day and Night, President Bola Tinubu and IGP Kayode Egbetokun - John Egbeazien Oshodi
Admin![[OPINION] From Heaven, DIG Moses Ambakina Jitoboh Speaks: “I Knew I Was Right, Remember My Name and My Fight, Day and Night, President Bola Tinubu and IGP Kayode Egbetokun - John Egbeazien Oshodi](/media/k2/items/cache/a70db02b31728950bd6401e7757a4621_XS.jpg)
The heartbreaking story of Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Moses Ambakina Jitoboh’s forced retirement and posthumous reinstatement by the National Industrial Court exposes deep and painful systemic flaws within Nigeria’s institutions. DIG Jitoboh, once the most senior officer in the Nigeria Police Force, was tragically and unjustly retired in 2023 at the age of 53, a decision that was not rooted in his performance or ability but in a politically motivated maneuver to install a more politically aligned figure in the role of Inspector General of Police. The retirement of Jitoboh was a blatant political decision, orchestrated not out of necessity but to make room for Kayode Egbetokun’s appointment. This was not about what Jitoboh could or could not contribute, but about political agendas that disregarded his years of service, his experience, and his merit.
Despite having not yet reached the mandatory retirement age of 60, nor having served for 35 years, Jitoboh’s removal from office was unjust and deeply demoralizing. He had given his all to the Nigeria Police Force, yet he was discarded like an expendable item. After seeking justice, he fought tirelessly in the courts to challenge the illegal termination of his career. Yet, the legal battle was delayed, dragging on until his death on December 28, 2024. At just 54 years old, Jitoboh passed away two weeks before the verdict in his case was delivered. The truth is, it’s impossible to ignore the toll this prolonged injustice took on his physical and emotional well-being. It is no stretch to say that his death was, in part, the result of the crushing emotional strain and frustration of fighting against a system that appeared to have no regard for his rights or dignity.
While it is official protocol for the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to express condolences in such situations, and the public messages of sympathy may reflect a sense of standard practice, the real, deeper background behind Jitoboh’s story cannot be ignored. He was forced out of his job at a time when he still had the right to serve, still had the dedication, and still had so much to contribute. The emotional pain of being so abruptly removed from the position he loved is immeasurable. What added to the weight of this injustice was the stark reality that a junior officer—someone who was promoted not based on merit but political manipulation—was installed in his place. This promotion, not a result of professional qualifications or service, but rather political games, would have undoubtedly been a source of immense personal and professional anguish for Jitoboh. How would it feel to watch, helpless, as someone who wasn’t necessarily qualified, who wasn’t there through the long, grueling years of service, climbed to the top? The weight of that emotional turmoil is beyond words.
In the face of such systemic injustice, Jitoboh’s life was consumed by stress—financial, legal, and emotional. It wasn’t just about the career he loved; it was about trying to reclaim what was unjustly taken from him. Fighting against a system that continued to delay justice, sitting in the uncertainty of legal battles, facing the profound loneliness of knowing the injustice done to him—it all took its toll. All of this, the frustration, the waiting, the emotional burden of seeing his career stolen away by political agendas, surely impacted his physical health. The chronic stress and the emotional toll of watching the job he dedicated his life to slip away—these are the invisible forces that can affect the body, mind, and soul.
The IGP, in his public statement expressing condolences for the death of Jitoboh, may indeed reflect an official sentiment of loss. The message may even sound sincere, acknowledging the contributions of both Jitoboh and Pastor Bola Longe. However, we all know the inner background to this tragic situation. It is one thing to express sympathy publicly; it is another to acknowledge the deeper, systemic issues that led to Jitoboh’s untimely and unjust removal. It is easy to send out official messages, but how often do we examine the emotional, physical, and psychological toll such systemic failures take on individuals? The true loss here is not just that of an officer—it is the personal, institutional, and moral loss of a nation that continues to let power and political manipulation rule over fairness, justice, and merit.
The reality is, Jitoboh’s death wasn’t just about his passing; it was the culmination of months of emotional suffering, financial uncertainty, legal battles, and the slow erosion of his dignity—all at the hands of a broken system. This isn’t a story of a man just losing a job. It’s a story of a person losing their identity, their sense of purpose, and ultimately, their life. It is not merely a loss for his family, but a tragic reflection of a justice system that has failed him in every sense of the word.
The situation surrounding Jitoboh’s forced retirement raises significant concerns about the very integrity of the Nigeria Police Force. His removal was not a result of any professional failings but of an underlying political and ethnic agenda. His forced retirement opened the door for the promotion of a junior officer, which may have been motivated by the desire to ensure that a more politically favorable candidate could step into the role. The message this sends is clear: in some institutions, loyalty to the political establishment takes precedence over professional merit, experience, and the ability to serve the country effectively.
Now, with the ruling vindicating Jitoboh’s fight for justice, the real question remains: How will those in power respond to the systemic issues highlighted by his case? Will the current Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, step up and take responsibility for the injustices that led to Jitoboh’s premature retirement? Will he speak out against a system that allowed such egregious actions to take place, or will he choose to remain silent and allow the cycle of political manipulation to continue unchecked?
The silence of those in power in the face of such blatant injustice only serves to perpetuate the problem. The political games that have been played for far too long within the Nigeria Police Force must come to an end. This is a moment for true leadership to shine. The question is: will it? How many more careers, how many more lives, must be sacrificed before those in power recognize the damage they are causing to the integrity of the police force and the country as a whole?
As Professor Chidi Odinkalu, former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), poignantly noted on January 13, 2025, “Ambakina Moses Jitoboh was the senior-most officer in @PoliceNG when he was prematurely retired in 2023. He sued. Judgment was due last month but wasn’t ready. Two weeks thereafter, Moses died prematurely at 54. Today, @NatIndCourtNig nullified his retirement & reinstated him. #RIP.” These words, shared by one of Nigeria’s leading human rights figures, echo the frustration that many Nigerians feel about a system that continuously fails its people, a system that continues to delay justice and perpetuate inequality. For Jitoboh, justice came too late, but his posthumous reinstatement remains a powerful symbol of the legal and moral victory he deserved.
The true cost of DIG Moses Ambakina Jitoboh’s forced retirement goes beyond his personal loss—it is a devastating loss to the entire nation. The promotion of junior officers, not based on merit but driven by political and ethnic considerations, sends a dangerous message about the state of leadership in Nigeria. It undermines the professionalism and integrity of the police force, creating divisions that harm its ability to protect and serve the people. This system of favoritism must end. Nigeria’s institutions must be restored to their rightful place as impartial, merit-based systems, where the best interests of the nation come before all else.
The Ijaw Diaspora mourns the loss of DIG Moses Ambakina Jitoboh, a man whose life embodied integrity, excellence, and a deep commitment to justice. His untimely death is a profound tragedy, not only for his family but for the Ijaw people across the world. From the United States to Europe, Ijaw communities have united in grief, lamenting the loss of a leader who could have redefined Nigeria’s police force. “Moses Jitoboh was one of our brightest, a man whose potential was denied by a system blinded by politics and tribalism,” they said. His repeated sidelining for the role of Inspector General, despite being the most qualified, has left the Ijaw people heartbroken. “His fight was our fight,” a leader in the UK said. “We lost a son who could have led us to a better future.”
His passing is a painful reminder of the systemic bias that continues to marginalize the Ijaw community. Yet, Moses Jitoboh was more than an officer—he was a symbol of hope, a voice for justice, and a beacon for change. His death does not erase the impact of his vision and his ideals. Even in death, his legacy continues to inspire, and his name will be remembered, day and night, by the Ijaw people. Rest in peace, Moses. Your fight was not in vain.
From the heights above, DIG Moses Ambakina Jitoboh now watches over us. Though taken from this world at the tender age of 54, his spirit remains unwavering. His life was tragically cut short, but it was filled with unwavering service and dedication to justice. From the heavens, he gazes down on President Bola Tinubu and IGP Kayode Egbetokun, speaking softly yet powerfully: “It took time, but I knew I was right. The injustice I faced, the battles I fought—my truth has always been clear. Well, I am gone now, but I hope you remember my name, day and night. My fight was not for myself, but for the integrity of the police force and the future of our nation. Remember my legacy, not just in passing, but in action. Let my name remind you that justice cannot be delayed, and integrity must always lead the way. Even from the heavens, I continue to stand for truth, reform, and a Nigeria where justice is not a game, but a reality.”
Jitoboh’s death must serve as a wake-up call to us all. The time for power games must end. We can no longer tolerate systems that sacrifice justice and fairness. Leadership in the Nigeria Police Force must be defined by integrity and dedication, not political or ethnic allegiances. This is the lasting legacy of DIG Moses Ambakina Jitoboh—justice, integrity, and reform. Let his story ignite a new era of transparency and fairness, one that honors the sacrifices of those who have given themselves to the service of the people.
[OPINION] Political Cross-Carpeting: A Threat To True Democracy And Good Governance In Nigeria - Isaac Asabor
Admin![[OPINION] Political Cross-Carpeting: A Threat To True Democracy And Good Governance In Nigeria - Isaac Asabor](/media/k2/items/cache/77173a45ea2a09d8918d55a709b86148_XS.jpg)
In any democracy, political parties serve as the lifeblood of governance, ideology, and policy direction. They provide platforms for citizens to align with visions and philosophies that reflect their aspirations. In Nigeria, however, this foundational role has been subverted by the rampant culture of political cross-carpeting, where politicians shamelessly decamp from one party to another, often without ideological justification. This behavior undermines democracy and erodes good governance.
The term decamping has become synonymous with Nigerian politics. Hardly a month passes without news of a high-profile politician defecting to a new party. The reasons cited often range from internal party crises to vague claims of alignment with a new party’s ideology. However, a closer examination reveals a different story: selfish ambitions, personal vendettas, and a quest for political survival at the expense of the electorate.
Consider the 2018 wave of defections before the general elections. Several prominent politicians, including former Senate President Bukola Saraki, switched allegiances between the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC). These moves were neither driven by ideological considerations nor policy differences but by political calculations aimed at retaining or acquiring power. Similarly, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has changed party affiliations multiple times, oscillating between the PDP, APC, and even forming new parties when his ambitions were thwarted.
Without a doubt, democracy thrives on ideological commitment, party discipline, and respect for the electorate. Unfortunately, political decamping in Nigeria blatantly violates these principles. It turns political parties into mere vehicles for accessing power rather than institutions built on shared beliefs and visions.
When politicians abandon their parties, they betray the trust of voters who elected them based on specific party platforms. A case in point is the 2020 defection of Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State from the PDP to the APC. His move sparked outrage among his constituents, who argued that they had voted for him based on the PDP’s manifesto, not the APC’s. Such actions render elections meaningless, as voters cannot trust politicians to stay true to their commitments.
Furthermore, the culture of political cross-carpeting encourages a lack of accountability. Politicians who face criticism or challenges within their parties often see defection as a convenient escape route, avoiding the hard work of resolving internal conflicts. This lack of accountability weakens the internal structures of political parties and stifles democratic growth.
In fact, the consequences of political decamping extend beyond party politics; they directly affect governance. When politicians prioritize personal ambitions over party loyalty, it creates instability within governments and weakens policy continuity.
For instance, during the 2019 elections, the mass defections between the APC and PDP led to significant political instability. Legislators and governors who defected often realigned their priorities to suit their new parties, abandoning ongoing projects and policies. This lack of continuity disrupts development and leaves citizens at the mercy of a chaotic political landscape.
Moreover, political cross-carpeting fosters a culture of opportunism that undermines meritocracy. Politicians who frequently switch parties often do so to align themselves with those in power, securing positions and benefits without necessarily contributing to governance. This creates an environment where loyalty to individuals, rather than competence or service to the people, becomes the criterion for appointments.
In mature democracies, party loyalty and ideological consistency are cornerstones of political practice. In the United States, for example, party-switching is rare and often viewed with suspicion. When politicians like Senator Arlen Specter switched from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party in 2009, he faced significant scrutiny, with his motives questioned by both parties and the public.
Similarly, in the United Kingdom, party defections are uncommon and usually result from profound ideological disagreements. Even when defection occurs, the defecting politician often resigns from his or her position to seek a fresh mandate from the electorate. This practice underscores the principle that voters, not politicians, should determine political representation.
Nigeria’s political landscape, in contrast, has normalized defection to such an extent that it is seen as a strategic move rather than a breach of democratic principles. This normalization erodes public trust in the political system and diminishes Nigeria’s standing as a democracy.
One of the reasons political cross-carpeting persists in Nigeria is the lack of stringent legal and institutional frameworks to deter it. While the Nigerian Constitution provides some guidelines on party defections, these provisions are often ambiguous and inconsistently enforced. For example, Section 68(1) (g) of the Constitution states that a legislator should vacate their seat if they defect from the party on whose platform they were elected, except in cases of a division within the party. However, this clause has been subject to varying interpretations, allowing politicians to exploit legal loopholes.
Against the foregoing backdrop, it is expedient to opine that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the judiciary must take a firmer stance on this issue. This is as clearer guidelines and stricter enforcement mechanisms are needed to hold defecting politicians accountable. Additionally, political parties must strengthen their internal governance structures to resolve conflicts and discourage defections.
Therefore, to address the menace of political cross-carpeting, Nigeria must adopt a multi-pronged approach that cut across strengthening electoral laws, promoting internal party democracy, educating the electorate, enhancing political ideology and exercising judicial oversight.
Explanatorily put, The National Assembly should amend the Constitution to include more stringent provisions against defections. For instance, defecting politicians should automatically lose their seats and be required to seek a fresh mandate from the electorate.
In a similar vein, political parties must prioritize internal democracy, ensuring that members have a voice in decision-making processes. This will reduce grievances that often lead to defections.
Also in a similar vein, citizens must understand the importance of holding politicians accountable for their actions. Voters should demand explanations from defecting politicians and resist the normalization of cross-carpeting.
Added to the above is that Political parties in Nigeria must move beyond being platforms for winning elections. They should develop clear ideologies and policy frameworks that guide their members’ actions and decisions.
Also, the judiciary must adopt a more proactive role in interpreting and enforcing laws on party defections. Swift and decisive rulings will deter opportunistic politicians from abusing the system.
Political cross-carpeting is a cancer that threatens the foundations of Nigeria’s democracy and good governance. By prioritizing personal ambitions over ideological commitment, politicians have turned elections into a farce and governance into a game of survival.
To preserve democracy and ensure effective governance, Nigeria must confront this issue head-on. Political parties, the judiciary, electoral bodies, and citizens all have a role to play in curbing this destructive trend. The time for action is now; the future of Nigeria’s democracy depends on it.