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[OPINION] How Doctored Images and Viral Falsehoods Are Undermining Trust in Nigeria’s Politics - Isaac Asabor
AdminIn an era when a single manipulated image can ricochet around the globe in seconds, our collective grasp on reality teeters dangerously on the brink. The media office of former Anambra State governor and Labour Party presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, this week dismissed as “clearly photoshopped” the photographs circulating on social media that purported to show him kneeling before President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at a Vatican ceremony graced by the Pope’s moral authority.
According to Mr. Obi’s Media Adviser, Mr. Valentine Obienyem, these doctored images are “not reflective of the actual proceedings at the solemn occasion attended by global dignitaries” and would have “made the front pages of major newspapers” had they been real. That no credible outlet reported such a spectacle, Obienyem noted, speaks volumes about the lengths to which political mischief–makers will go to bend public perception to their will.
This latest affront is but the tip of a swelling iceberg: Nigeria today is drowning in a tsunami of fake news, filter-bubbled rants, and recycled rumors masquerading as fact. From the bogus “death” of Nollywood icons to fraudulent videos designed to inflame ethnic tensions, we’ve grown jaded, and dangerously complacent, about verifying what we consume. Yet beneath the surface of this chaos lies a simple truth elucidated by Source Credibility Theory: if the messenger is suspect, so too is the message. And in our Twitter-obsessed, like-driven world, we have surrendered our right to question not just the content of a story, but the very credentials of its originator.
To clearly understand the foregoing situation, it is germane I recount that years ago, long before I fully grasped the media industry’s nuances, I found myself in the corporate trenches delivering “news” of a prominent Nigerian politician’s death. My boss, the very picture of seasoned detachment, leaned back, arched a single eyebrow, and crooned, “Which newspaper reported it?” When I named the outlet, he snorted and waved the rumor away. “Forget it. It is fake.”
At the time, his flippancy stung. Was I so naïve as to believe every headline? Yet as I transitioned into journalism, I realized his skepticism was not borne of cynicism but of wisdom: information is only as valuable as its source. His instinctive application of what scholars call the Source Credibility Theory in Mass Communication would have made him a star pupil in any journalism school.
At its core, Source Credibility Theory argues that a message’s persuasive power is directly proportional to how trustworthy and expert its originator appears. Trustworthiness gauges perceived honesty and integrity; expertise measures knowledge and competence. Together, these twin pillars dictate whether an audience will accept, or reject, a claim.
Mainstream Nigerian dailies such as The Guardian, Punch, and ThisDay once, or still, command high scores on both counts. They painstakingly buttress each report with multiple sources, fact-checkers, and editorial oversight. Their hard-won reputations lend weight to every headline, strengthening democracy through informed debate. But today, the rise of digital influencers, amateur gossip blogs, and hyper-partisan WhatsApp chains has turned that paradigm on its head. Reach has eclipsed reliability; virality trumps veracity.
Every smartphone is now a de facto newsroom. Every social media user a self-declared journalist. The only qualification needed to break “news” is a large follower count, and a flair for the dramatic. Fact-checking? Optional. Attribution? Overrated.
This shift has unleashed a maelstrom of fake death announcements (remember Ngozi Ezeonu? Olu Jacobs?), conspiracy videos, and clickbait meant to enrage, not enlighten. Ned Nwoko, the politician-businessman, has had to publicly debunk false reports of his demise, twice.
Back to Peter Obi, an image claiming to show him meeting the Pope might as well have had a watermark from the “Emperor’s New Clothes” for all the truth it bore. Yet such doctored visuals spread faster than any correction could catch up.
Meanwhile, audiences judge credibility not by scrutinizing sources but by how an item makes them feel. Emotional resonance, confirmation bias, and the illusory-truth effect ensure that the more we see a lie repeated, the more we believe it, even if it originated from an anonymous handle with zero track record.
The Vatican incident crystallizes this crisis. A solemn gathering, featuring the spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics, is reduced to a political stunt by opportunists wielding Photoshop as their paintbrush. Mr. Obienyem’s statement underscores three sobering realities:
1. “Silence Speaks”: “If such an event had occurred, it would doubtless have made the front pages of major newspapers.” The absence of mainstream coverage is, in itself, evidence.
2. “Procedural Protocol”: Pope Francis “extended personal greetings only to Heads of State, their official representatives, and members of the diplomatic corps”, a category not inclusive of Mr. Obi.
3. “Selective Targeting”: Of all Nigerian attendees, only Mr. Obi was slapped into the political crosshairs, a sign of malice, not accident.
This is not a mere prank. It is a calculated effort to redirect attention from the Pope’s real message, justice, peace, and care for the poor, and ethical leadership, toward specious clickbait that serves no purpose but to inflame partisan passions.
We are complicit in our own deception. We no longer pause before retweeting a fiery headline; we do not pause to check if the handle belongs to a reputable journalist or a newly-created sock puppet. The default assumption is: social media = truth. This blind faith undermines both the Source Credibility Theory and the very function of a democratic press.
Confirmation bias only deepens the wound, as we gravitate toward stories that validate our worldviews, regardless of their factual footing. In a country as ethnically and politically polarized as Nigeria, such bias becomes a weapon of mass distraction, one that drowns out serious discourse and corrodes civic trust.
If Nigeria is to stem the tide of fake news, we must re-embed Source Credibility Theory at the heart of our information ecosystem:
In fact, from primary schools to churches, it should be expedient to teach Nigerians to interrogate sources like they would inspect medicine labels. Who is speaking? What are their credentials? Have they cited evidence?
In a similar vein, legacy media must beef up their verification teams and publicly shame purveyors of fake content. Organizations like Dubawa and Africa Check need more funding, and higher profiles.
Also in a similar vein, social networks must be compelled to filter out manipulated media and penalize repeat offenders. Algorithms optimized for engagement should be recalibrated for accuracy.
In fact, the state can play a role without trampling press freedom. Legislation against malicious misinformation should target intent and patterns of deception, not stifle legitimate critique.
Again, brands and NGOs must vet the platforms they sponsor. If money stops fueling fake-news mills, their incentives evaporate.
On our own parts, we should always bear it in mind that each of us bears a responsibility. Before forwarding “breaking news” on WhatsApp, ask: “Who originated this? Have I seen it elsewhere? Could it be manipulated?”
My former boss never read Hovland and Weiss, yet he instinctively applied the lessons of Source Credibility Theory. He knew that the merit of any claim flows from the integrity of its messenger. Today, as a journalist, I stand alarmed at how easily our collective guard has been lowered. If we continue to elevate sensationalism over substance, amplify Photoshopped stooges over seasoned reporters, and reward clicks over credibility, then Nigeria’s democratic prospects will be undone by our own blindness.
In a world awash with “pixels of deceit,” we must reclaim the bedrock principle that trust and expertise matter. We must champion truth over tactics, ethics over expedience. Otherwise, we risk becoming a nation guided by the loudest liars rather than the most reliable sources, and in such a nation, democracy, development, and dignity will be the first casualties.
My daughter, Ifeoluwa, called on Monday to ask why I was in Jos. I explained that I had been appointed as a member of a fact-finding committee on the incessant attacks on communities in Plateau State and the inauguration was scheduled for the next day. She replied, “you have a way of getting yourself involved in all these strange assignments.” Those words echoed in my mind on Tuesday when, inaugurating the panel, Governor Caleb Mutfwang mandated us “to conduct an in-depth assessment of the persistent security breaches, understand the root causes, and propose actionable recommendations for lasting peace, justice, and stability in affected communities” in Plateau State.
My daughter is right. I don’t know what can be stranger than being asked to proffer solutions to the ethno-religious killings that have claimed thousands of lives over a period of more than three decades. But I am in good company here. Our chairman, Major General Nicholas Rogers (Rtd)had commanded ‘Operation Lafiya Dole’ against Boko Haram/ISWAP terrorists in the Northeastern part of the country and ‘Operation Safe Haven’ in the same Plateau State. Having also served in the United Nations African Mission in Darfur among other assignments, he understands the nature of the crisis we are facing. Another member, AVM Ibrahim Shafi’i (Rtd), also has extensive experience in such matters given his military service and current legal practice. And then we have Jonathan Kure, a retired deputy Director General of the State Security Service (SSS) who once served in Plateau and Lawan Usman Safana, a retired Assistant Director General and former SSS State Director in Plateau State.
Other members of our panel include Yakubu Bawa, a Jos-based legal practitioner, Esther Lolo, a retired Judge of the Kaduna State High Court, Gad Shamaki, a civil society activist and Amina Elelu-Ahmed, a former Director of Legal Service at the National Orientation Agency (NOA). Our Secretary, Timothy Parlong, a legal practitioner and retired permanent secretary in the state civil service, has institutional memories, having served in some of the previous committees on the never-ending crises. Parlong happens to be the only indigene of Plateau State on our panel, which the governor said he carefully selected to demonstrate transparency on the issue.
By our mandate, we are expected to establish the number of communities that have been attacked and the approximate number of casualties from 2005 to date; establish the identities of persons who perpetrated the attacks and their possible motives and sponsors; and identify possible routes for bandits into the state and recommend measures to limit their access. We are also to recommend appropriate succour to identified victims and communities and suggest how to stop further occurrences. Though we are expected to engage with community leaders, victims, security agencies, and other relevant stakeholders across the state, we have just two months to complete our assignment!
Before the defining violence of 2001, the reprisal attacks of 2004 and the subsequent ones in recent years under the current democratic dispensation, there were similar violent eruptions under the military. In 1992, we witnessed the Mwaghavul communal crisis in Mangu local government area which recurred in 1995. In 1994, there was the famous ‘Jos Riot’ and in 1997, there were clashes in Lakushi and Sabon Layi in Langtang local government. The consistent pattern in all these crises, resulting in the loss of thousands of lives, is that victims appear to wait to plot their revenge. Hence, one cycle of killings inevitably leads to another.
Indeed, the gravity of our assignment hit me last Friday when I was with Sunday Dare, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Information. Although he did not discourage me, I could deduce from his comments that attempting to seek enduring peace in Plateau State is an uphill task, to put it mildly. A journalist of repute who served as Minister of Youth and Sports under President Muhammadu Buhari, Dare was born and raised in Jos which his family knew as home. But 16 years ago, in December 2009, Dare lost a number of those family members in a gruesome manner. “My only elder brother was hacked down with knives and machete and left to burn” along with their house, Dare recounted in January 2010, following that bout of violence. A year earlier, “precisely November 2008, my immediate junior sister’s husband was burnt down in his house while trying to escape after helping his family to safety. The 10-bedroom family duplex of my in-laws was razed to the ground,” Dare wrote in his recollection. “Two of my childhood friends were knifed to death in the open streets. The three days of reporting for the Voice of America that I spent in Jos after the November 2008 riots were scary. I saw a war zone with survivors walking around like zombies.”
Like most tragic occurrences across the country, there have been numerous panels of inquiry regarding the killings in Plateau State. Governor Mutfwang said as much on Tuesday both at the official inauguration and our private session that followed. He told us we were carefully chosen to reflect the diversity of Jos which is “mini-Nigeria” – a city in which many foreigners have also settled for decades and call their home. “There have been many inquiries in the past. I can assure you that by the time you do that sitting (a public hearing), every critical stakeholder to your assignment will be present,” the governor assured us. “We want to get to the root of these problems and resolve them.”
From the Bola Ajibola Judicial Commission of Inquiry (2009) to the Niki Tobi Judicial Commission of Inquiry (2002), there have indeed been many reports. But I understand why Mutfwang set 2005 as baseline for our assignment. A similar committee chaired by Mr Thomas Kagnaan had revisited the violence between 2001 and 2004 with its report submitted in October 2004. According to that report, 53,787 persons, comprising almost 19,000 men, more than 17,000 women and 17,000 children were killed during 32 months of tit-for-tat violence. The committee arrived at the figure after visiting affected communities where survivors listed the relations they had lost in the fighting between rival armed militia groups. No fewer than 280,000 people were forced to flee their homes, according to the report, with at least 25,000 houses razed to the ground and some 1,300 cattle slaughtered. That was 21 years ago, and several (and more violent) battles have been fought since then.
I have written dozens of columns on the violence that has reduced the people of Plateau State to little more than undertakers. My most recent, ‘When Will the Killings End?’ was published last September. In July 2023, barely six weeks after assuming office, President Bola Tinubu confronted this problem after a spate of killings. In a statement, ‘Plateau Killings: We Must Break this Cycle of Violence’, he expressed sadness and grief. “It is most unfortunate that in this orgy of violence, an innocent eight-month-old baby in Farin Lamba community of Vwang District, Jos South Local Government, died in a conflict she knew nothing about”, the president said. “A major consequence of perennial conflict is always the tragic loss of innocent lives.”
I agree with the president, but his administration should offer more than mere preachments that have become the defining response from the federal government over the years. It is also commendable that Mutfwang is determined to end the orgy of violence and bloodletting that has defined the state for decades. But other stakeholders, especially religious and traditional rulers, have larger roles to play. Fortunately, this assignment has given me the opportunity to engage some of them in the weeks ahead. And my message is this: With each side attempting to eliminate the other through what has become a bilateral genocide, to borrow a phrase coined in Rwanda, they must be prepared to end all appeals to hate and guilt by association.
As we drove to town from the airport on Tuesday, I beheld the luscious vegetation. And I wondered why we tend to waste all the resources bestowed upon our country by mother nature. That feeling came back yesterday morning when I decided on an outdoor walk in very cool weather one only gets to experience outside the shores of Nigeria. “Everybody knows that if you eat vegetables, there’s every likelihood that they came from the Plateau,” Mutfwang said on Tuesday while explaining why peace in his state is good for our country. “This is a state that can contribute significantly to Nigeria’s food security and in many respects, when it comes to farming potatoes, for example, you don’t have anywhere outside the Plateau.”
I am not under any illusion that our panel is guaranteed success considering that there had been so many such attempts in the past. The best approach, as Shafi’i counselled on Tuesday, is for each of us to keep an open mind. And that will be our guiding philosophy in this assignment. Perhaps I should conclude with my take two years ago after another round of what I described as a cycle of multilateral killings.
At the end of the day, all the contending parties in the violence must come to the sober realization that they have only been losing lives, wealth and their peace of mind. Their children are de-socialized due to religious and cultural teachings about the sanctity of life being cheerfully violated. A land that was once renowned as a haven of peace and agricultural productivity now exports only tales of man’s inhumanity to man. I hope that by the end of our assignment we can contribute to changing that narrative for an enduring peace in Plateau State.
Amaechi at 60
I first met Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi at the inauguration of the National Stakeholder Working Group (NWSG) of the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) by President Olusegun Obasanjo on 16th February 2004. Then Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Amaechi was the representative of Southern Speakers with then Gombe State Speaker representing his Northern colleagues. I had been nominated to represent the Nigerian media in the group chaired by Mrs Oby Ezekwesili. Amaechi has, of course, since progressed in his political career. He served eight years as Governor of Rivers State and eight years as Minister of Transportation under President Muhammadu Buhari. Meanwhile, I have kept reminding him in the last 21 years that a friend with political power and influence is a friend lost. But on a serious note, even his most implacable foes would concede one thing to Amaechi: What you see is what you get. As he therefore clocks 60 next Tuesday, I wish him long life and good health.
At a time when the whole country is rejoicing and proud of the fact that President Tinubu embarked on a two day trip to Rome to attend the inaugural Mass of the newly- installed Pope Leo X1V, Babachir Lawal, the former Secretary to the FG, has decribed his attendance as a "non-event" and alleged that it came about "as a consequence of the work of lobbyists".
I have always had immense respect for this man and considered him a friend but I am constrained to ask whether he has lost his senses?
He has refused to recognise the fact that, as I pointed out on X on the day our President went to Rome, that no Nigerian President has ever honored the Pope in this way and neither has any ever been given the honor by the Vatican to personally attend such an occassion.
The fact that President Tinubu went, even though he is a practising Muslim and not a Christian, speaks volumes for him and our nation and is an eloquent testimony to the fact that religious tolerance and harmony is alive and well in Nigeria and that even though we have a Muslim President and Muslim Vice President, the Christian community is being treated with the utmost respect.
I expected no less. Archbishop Kaigama of the Catholic Church commended President Tinubu for going to Rome as did millions of other Christians.
Does Babachir know better than them all? Who does he think he is?
Even though people like him had given the world the impression that Christians would suffer under this Government he has been proved wrong and the opposite is the case.
Under the Tinubu/Shettima Presidency the Christians of Nigeria have not only been treated equally and fairly but they have also been given pride of place which is far more that I can say happened under the Government that Babachir served.
Having a Christian Vice President is not the issue but rather having a President and a Vice President, regardless of their faith, that are ready to treat Christians and Muslims in a respecful and equitable manner.
When President Buhari was in power with his so-called Christian Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo, Christians were slaughtered like flies all over the North and every single operational head of each of our security outfits and arms of the military were Northern Muslims.
A Christian VP could not stop this shameful indignity and gratuitous insult against his fellow Christians from happening but under Tinubu and Shettima the aberration was remedied and the leadership of our Armed Forces and security outfits have been balanced in an equitable and all-inclusive manner.
In the light of this Babachir is the last person that should be complaining about insults to Christians and the first to repent of his obvious sins and seek prayers and deliverance from his bitterness, hate, resentment and anger.
He does not speak for the Christian community and he should keep his mouth shut and stop always trying to see and define matters of governance through a religious prism.
Finally his disrespectful and utterly absurd description of Vice President Kashim Shettima as a "flat spare tyre" the other day has not gone unnoticed.
I am not the VP's spokesman and I am aware that he is quite capable of fighting his own battles but surely Babachir, with his age and experience, would accept the fact that in attempting to subject the Vice President to ridicule he has only proved the fact that he is as asinine and uncouth as many had suspected.
If we are looking for "flat spare tyres" and I daresay "chicken-hearted ice cream sellers", Babachir should look towards the Vice President that he happily served and worked under and not Kashim Shettima who is doing an excellent job and supporting the President in a profound and eloquent manner.
Unlike the VP he served Kashim did not turn a blind eye, remain silent and hide under the bed when both Christians and Muslims were being slaughtered by terrorists without consequence under the previous regime.
Babachir can criticise the Government as much as he wants and no one is losing any sleep over it but he should stop doing so in the name of Christianity.
This is the greatest insult of all and he would be wise to desist lest he provokes a more robust response.
(FFK)
[OPINION] “If Na Your Papa Dey There Nko?” — One Man’s Street Truth That Nigeria Needs To Hear About Mr. President And Nigeria’s First Son - Isaac Asabor
AdminIn the heat of the afternoon bustle in Ogba, Ikeja, a single voice pierced through the simmering air of frustration, rice steam, and boiling politics. Amid the clatter of plates and the sizzle of stew, a well-known restauranteur interrupted a political argument unfolding at his buka and thundered, “If na your papa dey there nko? You go dey sleep for house?”
The question, raw and honest, stopped everyone cold was not just a rhetorical jab. It was a reality check. And more than that, it was a social mirror, one held up to a nation that loves to criticize from the sidelines but would, if given the same opportunity, do exactly what it condemns.
The subject of the now-viral question? Sheyi Tinubu, son of Nigeria’s sitting president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a young man who has, over the past year, become a lightning rod for outrage, envy, and everything in between.
At this juncture, it is expedient to ask, “Who is Sheyi Tinubu and why Is everyone talking?” The foregoing question cannot be farfetched as Sheyi Tinubu is not a stranger to power. As the son of a political colossus who has now ascended to the highest office in Nigeria, Sheyi has always lived in a world of privilege. But since his father became president, Sheyi’s public profile has grown in ways many Nigerians find unsettling.
From attending official functions, with some Nigerians even accusing him of meddling in governance, his visibility has stirred resentment. People are asking, “Who elected Sheyi?”, “Why is he being given so much access?”, and “Why is he everywhere?”
And while these questions are not without merit, especially in a democracy that demands accountability, they are not always born from civic duty. Sometimes, they are born from envy, tribal bias, or deep-seated frustration at a country where opportunities seem sealed off for the masses.
That is what makes the restauranteur’s voice so profound. His question drips with realism, not idealism: If it were your own father, would not you do the same thing? Let us not pretend we would not.
Let us remove the mask. Most Nigerians, if they were to wake up tomorrow as the child of the president, would likely do what Sheyi Tinubu is doing or even worse. We know it. We have seen it.
We have seen people in government place their children in plum positions. We have seen nepotism take root in churches, companies, and family businesses. You get a job in the civil service and your first thought is how to fix your cousin. Your uncle becomes a local government chairman and suddenly your younger brother is the “Personal Assistant on Environment.” So why is Sheyi’s case different?
Because he is visible. Because the nation is angry. Because hunger is everywhere. Because salaries cannot buy a bag of rice. Because the masses are disillusioned. And when you are broke, hungry, and jobless, privilege feels like an insult.
But again, “If na your papa dey there nko?” The real problem is not Sheyi. It is the System. Let us get one thing straight: Sheyi Tinubu is not Nigeria’s problem. At least not the main one.
The problem is that our institutions are so weak that family members of politicians often step into unofficial roles of power without consequence. The problem is that proximity to the president in Nigeria grants unchecked access, influence, and control, no matter your official designation.
This should not be about Sheyi. It should be about the absence of boundaries between personal and state affairs.
In working democracies, presidents’ children are rarely seen at official events, and certainly not running government affairs behind the scenes. But Nigeria is not a fully matured democracy. It is a hybrid, somewhere between oligarchy and organized chaos, where institutions bent for personalities and power is passed down like family inheritance.
Aptly put, the hypocrisy in our anger is obvious enough. It is high time we admitted that a lot of our outrage is selective. We did not raise as much dust in the past political dispensations when children of politicians in various offices enjoyed perks of office. Many of us stayed silent when children of governors drove exotic cars in university campuses and flaunted wealth they clearly did not earn.
But we only find our voice when it is someone we do not support politically. That is not justice. That is partisanship. And it is hollow.
Besides, let us also be honest about our class warfare. Much of the anger towards Sheyi is not rooted in policy or fact, but emotion. Why him and not me? It is the pain of exclusion wrapped in fake moral outrage.
Against the backdrop of the foregoing view, it is germane we request for systems that work, not scapegoats. This is as dragging Sheyi Tinubu online daily might give some Nigerians a momentary sense of justice, but it would not change anything. The only way to stop the influence of unappointed individuals is to strengthen our institutions.
There should be clear rules about who can attend cabinet meetings. There should be transparency about appointments and decisions. If Sheyi is playing a role in government, let us demand to know what it is officially, and scrutinize it like we would any other political appointee. If he is not, then public appearances should not be confused with political interference.
In fact, when the structure is fixed, the individuals would not matter. Therefore, let us talk about the bigger picture At its core, this debate goes beyond Sheyi Tinubu. It touches the wound Nigerians do not want to talk about: the pain of exclusion.
The truth is, everyone wants to be “connected.” Everyone wants access. The same people dragging Sheyi online are praying for a phone call from a senator, a federal board appointment, or a political godfather.
That is the real tragedy of Nigeria, not Sheyi. The tragedy is a country where who you know matters more than what you know. Until that changes, there will always be another Sheyi, and another round of outrage.
At this conclusive juncture, it is not out of place to opine that the restaranteur was right. He may not have gone to Harvard. He may not write op-eds. But his one-liner carried more weight than most think-pieces ever could.
“If na your papa dey there nko?” It is not an endorsement of abuse of power. It is a challenge to all of us to stop pretending we are better than those we criticize. Let us demand better. Let us fix the system. Let us build a country where even the president’s child must follow due process.
Until then, before you cast the next stone, ask yourself: “If na my papa dey there nko?”
Despite being a fundamental principle of democracy, the doctrine of separation of powers appears to be under threat in Nigeria, as recent remarks by Senate President Godswill Akpabio suggest a troubling fusion of legislative and executive roles. This article explores how the National Assembly’s posture under Akpabio undermines Montesquieu’s vision, blurring the lines meant to prevent tyranny and preserve liberty.
When Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, formulated the doctrine of the Separation of Powers in his seminal 1748 work, The Spirit of the Laws, it was intended as a safeguard against tyranny. By advocating for the division of government into three distinct branches, legislative, executive, and judicial, he proposed that liberty could only be preserved if each branch functioned independently and served as a check on the others.
Fast-forward to contemporary Nigeria under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and what we see playing out under the watch of Senate President Godswill Akpabio is the complete opposite of that ideal. The principles Montesquieu passionately laid out to prevent authoritarianism have not only been diluted, they have been brazenly turned on their head.
Senator Akpabio’s recent assertion that “lawmakers were not elected to confront the executive but to partner with it” is not only misguided but dangerous to the very foundation of democratic governance. His statement reflects a chilling truth about Nigeria’s current political reality: the walls between the arms of government have crumbled, and what remains is a unitary structure masquerading as a democracy.
Akpabio made the remarks in a documentary marking President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s two years in office, emphasizing legislative-executive collaboration and ongoing national reforms, according to a statement on Tuesday by Presidential Media Adviser Bayo Onanuga.
“When elected into the National Assembly, whether in the Senate or the House of Representatives, your constituents will not give you boxing gloves. It’s not a boxing tournament,” Akpabio said. “You are there to work in a bipartisan manner for the interest of Nigeria.”
To understand the gravity of Akpabio’s declaration, we must first acknowledge the constitutional role of the National Assembly. Under Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution (as amended), the legislature is empowered to check the executive, not massage its ego. It is the voice of the people, and its loyalty should rest with the electorate, not with the presidency.
Yet, Akpabio’s words and actions have continuously undermined this principle. His claim that “if you spend all your energy fighting the executive, who will work for Nigeria?” is emblematic of someone who fundamentally misunderstands, or deliberately subverts, the watchdog role of the legislature. This is not about political infighting; it is about institutional oversight and accountability, which are hallmarks of any functional democracy.
In a bid to justify his camaraderie with the executive, Akpabio flaunts the fact that the current administration features a president, vice president, and first lady, all former senators. According to him, this shared pedigree has fostered “unprecedented cooperation.” But cooperation, in the context he describes, is merely subservience in disguise. It is a scenario where the legislature becomes an extension of the presidency, a rubber stamp, rather than a check and balance.
The Nigerian democracy today, particularly under the Tinubu administration, is suffering from a dangerous synchronization of powers. Nowhere is this clearer than in the following observations:
From the approval of massive loans without rigorous scrutiny to the quick passage of bills forwarded from the presidency, the National Assembly has acted more like a civil service department than an independent arm of government. Laws like the Student Loan Act and Minimum Wage Bill may be lauded by Akpabio, but they are often passed without robust public consultation or debate. The question is not whether laws are passed, but whether they are passed through a process that reflects legislative independence.
The judiciary, the supposed last hope of the common man, has become increasingly politicized. Judicial appointments are heavily influenced by the executive, and judgments on politically sensitive matters often tilt in favor of the ruling party. The separation of powers cannot exist where judges are afraid to rule against the government for fear of retribution or lack of promotion.
The core function of the National Assembly, to hold the executive accountable through oversight, has become more theatrical than substantive. Committees summon ministers and heads of agencies more for show than for genuine interrogation. Reports are swept under the carpet, and corruption probes often end without consequence.
Akpabio boasts that the Senate has rejected some of the president’s nominees, as if that alone proves independence. But rejecting a handful of appointees while approving dozens of questionable decisions does not restore credibility. It is a tactic to project a façade of impartiality while maintaining the status quo.
Montesquieu wrote: “When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty.” This is exactly what Akpabio is institutionalizing. The Nigerian Senate, under his leadership, has become a co-pilot in a plane that the executive solely navigates.
Rather than serve as a balancing force, the legislature has surrendered its identity, its dignity, and its purpose. The claim that legislators are elected to “work in a bipartisan manner” sounds noble on the surface, but in Nigeria’s context, it often means turning a blind eye to injustice, incompetence, and impunity, all in the name of unity.
The effect of this breakdown in the separation of powers is dire. Nigeria is teetering on the edge of elected authoritarianism, where elections still happen but the institutions that should guarantee fairness, accountability, and transparency have been neutralized. The legislature no longer asks tough questions. The judiciary is slow or reluctant to challenge the executive. And the executive rules almost unimpeded.
The average Nigerian citizen, reeling from economic hardship, insecurity, and poor governance, is left with nowhere to turn. When all three arms of government sing the same tune, dissent becomes a crime, and the interests of the people become secondary to the interests of the ruling elite.
What Nigeria desperately needs is not lawmakers who see themselves as partners in governance, but as protectors of the people’s trust. They must reassert their constitutional role, not for the sake of confrontation but for the preservation of democratic integrity.
Senator Akpabio’s model of legislative-executive “synergy” may win him applause in the corridors of Aso Rock, but such relationship would not in history be seen as a legacy that should be replicated. By turning Montesquieu’s principle of separation of powers on its head, he is helping to erode the very fabric of democratic governance in Nigeria.
In this precarious moment in Nigeria’s history, the question is not whether the arms of government should work together, but how they should work together without compromising their constitutional independence.
For if the legislature continues to abandon its oversight role and the judiciary its impartiality, then Nigeria will not just be a flawed democracy. It will become a democracy in name only, a sad irony for a country that once fought so hard to escape the yoke of military dictatorship.
[OPINION] Peter Obi, Do Not Be The Desperate Graduate Job Seeker, It Is Presidency Or Nothing In 2027 - Isaac Asabor
AdminIn Nigeria’s current political theatre, a headline recently broke with thunderous resonance: “2027 Coalition: Atiku Camp Offers Obi VP Role in One-Term Deal.” According to reports, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has allegedly offered Mr. Peter Obi a Vice Presidential slot in a coalition arrangement that would see Atiku contest for president and serve only one term before supposedly handing over power to Obi.
On the surface, this sounds like political maturity, a show of compromise to oust the All Progressives Congress (APC) and bring in what they call a “Government of National Salvation.” But beneath the carefully crafted headlines lies a deeper question about self-worth, political identity, and how Nigeria’s long-suffering electorate perceives true leadership.
Peter Obi, this is not just about political arithmetic. This is about legacy. This is about knowing your worth and not settling for less. And to be blunt: accepting a vice-presidential slot in 2027 would be akin to a first-class graduate begging for “any job” after waiting five years post-graduation.
For the sake of clarity, let us at this juncture unpack the analogy. There was once a graduate, brilliant, qualified, loaded with potential, who walked from office to office, CV in hand, only to be asked repeatedly, “What kind of job are you looking for?” And each time, out of frustration, he would say, “Any job.” That answer, although sincere, always came across as desperate and undefined. Nobody hires “anyone” for “Any job.” The real world does not work that way. Just like in politics, perception is everything.
Peter Obi is no political novice. He is not “anyone.” In 2023, he became the poster boy for Nigeria’s youthful aspirations, a beacon for issue-based politics, and the only candidate who forced the status quo to reckon with new political realities. He inspired a generation of first-time voters and civilly engaged Nigerians who rejected both APC and PDP not out of rebellion, but out of reason.
To now consider playing second fiddle again in 2027, after running a formidable presidential campaign that shook two political giants to their core, would be nothing short of political regression.
To in this context explain why this is the wrong move, it is germane to first talk about credibility. In 2019, Peter Obi ran with Atiku under the PDP and lost. That loss was not only because of the APC machinery, but also because the duo failed to inspire genuine transformation. When Obi broke away in 2022 to pursue the presidency under the Labour Party, it was a masterstroke. It was not just a change of party, it was a change of politics. That bold move drew in young people, professionals, and first-time voters in droves.
Now imagine trying to tell those same people in 2027, “I’m back as number two to the same man I left behind.” It would be seen as a betrayal of hope. The “Obidient Movement” was not built around Atiku. It was built around Peter Obi. If he accepts to return as a Vice Presidential candidate, he risks not only losing the movement but diluting its very essence.
Second, there is no guarantee Atiku will keep his one-term promise. Nigerian politics is not built on trust. If there is anything history has taught us, it is that political agreements, especially unwritten ones, are hardly worth the paper they are not written on. Even if it is documented, there is no legal obligation for Atiku to hand over after one term. Power, once tasted, rarely gets relinquished easily.
Furthermore, let us not forget: Atiku is a serial contestant. He has been on the ballot more times than most Nigerians care to count. Each time, he says it is his “last try.” Why should anyone believe 2027 would be any different?
Given the backdrop of the foregoing views, it is not out of place to opine that desperation should not be mistaken for Strategy. Let us return to our graduate job seeker analogy. What does it mean when a qualified person says, “I will take any job”? It means he or she is not thinking clearly. Such graduate is tired, and vulnerable. And more often than not, exploited.
Peter Obi must not become the desperate graduate of Nigerian politics. He must not act like a man who just wants to enter Aso Rock by any means, even through the servant’s quarter. Because, like the graduate who undersells himself, he would be telling Nigerians and the world: “I don’t know my worth.”
Without mincing words, this is not the Peter Obi Nigerians followed in 2023. The Peter Obi they followed was bold, precise, intentional, and principled. He did not wait to be offered a position, he declared his interest, challenged the establishment, and proved that a new Nigeria was possible. That Peter Obi cannot and must not be reduced to a “Spare Tyre”
It is time to go all in, or step aside. This is as 2027 must be all or nothing. It must be a presidential bid or none at all. If there is no room for him to run as president under the Labour Party due to internal crisis, then let him rally the Obidient Movement, civic groups, and credible political stakeholders to create or adopt a platform that truly represents the people’s interests. Nigerians are tired of recycled promises and tired political marriages that do not translate into better governance.
Obi must not allow Atiku to rebrand himself using his clean slate and integrity. He must not allow the political establishment to piggyback on his credibility simply to gain votes and then dump him once power is secured.
If Atiku is truly serious about making way for Obi, then let him step aside now and support Obi as the coalition’s presidential candidate. Anything less than that is deception.
To the millions of Nigerians who stood in the sun and rain to vote for Peter Obi, in the last presidential election in 2023, do not let this pass quietly. Politics is not a one-man game. Movements only succeed when they are loud, persistent, and clear. Make your voices heard. Let Obi know that anything short of a presidential ambition in 2027 is unacceptable. Let him know that he was not chosen to be a second option. He was chosen to be a first choice.
Peter Obi has a chance to go down in history as the man who redefined Nigerian politics, or as the man who played safe and faded into political footnote. He must decide whether to rise like Nelson Mandela or shrink into a supporting role that history would not remember.
This is not the time to act like the jobless graduate begging for any job. Peter Obi is overqualified for the vice presidency. He is presidential material. Let it be presidency or nothing. Nigerians are watching. The world is watching. And history will judge.
It was, perhaps, no surprise that when President Bola Tinubu spoke to newsmen after the coronation of Pope Leo XIV in Rome on Sunday, the theme that he chose was the diversity of the Nigerian nation. The significance of the invitation and the symbolism of Tinubu’s presence at the Vatican were widely perceived against the background of the perennial question of diversity in this multi-religious and multi-ethnic country. Here was the President, a Muslim, leading the Nigerian delegation to the epochal Christian ceremony that attracted many leaders across the world. Tinubu said of his presence: “(It is) consistent in the true sense of unity in diversity… We must continue to work on it. It’s a work in progress…”
Now, identity politics is a global phenomenon. It is a challenge to nation-building in many countries. In the specific case of Nigeria, the manifestation of identity politics is more pronounced in the religious, ethnic and regional dimensions. In particular, the question of ethnic identity will be examined in this column. Virtually every issue in the polity and society is now ethnicised, thereby compounding the process of finding solutions.
To start with, a lot of conceptual problems becloud rational discussions. Terms are used without clarity about their meanings. So, during debates there is hardly any mutual understanding of the words being employed to advance arguments from opposite sides.
One of those often-misused words is “tribe.”
It is in this light of the foregoing that a revised copy of a piece entitled “So, where are the tribes?” published here on April 14, 2021, is being reproduced as follows:
Simply put, there is no tribe anywhere in Nigeria today. There are instead communities, ethnic groups and nationalities making up the country. These categories are different from tribe.
Despite this obvious sociological fact, in official documents and public discussions ethnic groups comprising tens of millions of people are incorrectly referred to as “tribes.” Hence, from the professor to the senator and from the pundit to the roadside mechanic, comes the conclusion that the problem of Nigeria is “tribalism.”
When you make a statement at the police station, you have to indicate your “tribe” on the paper. A line in the Nigeria’s resurrected national anthem even says: “Though tribes and tongues may differ; In brotherhood we stand…”
It’s often considered supremely charitable when you say a political personality is “detribalised.” But, this is grossly erroneous. To be “detribalised” is to be removed from a tribe. Here is the definition of “detribalise”, according to the Oxford Dictionary: “remove (someone) from a traditional tribal social structure.” The dictionary further gives the examples of usage of the word “detribalise” as follows: “these policies attempted to detribalise native people by extricating them from their land base; (detribalised as adjective): the 250,000 include many detribalised urban people. “
It is, therefore, a monumental insult to say, for instance, that an Igbo man belonging to an ethnic group of over 40 million people is “detribalised” when what you simply mean to say is that he is no ethnic chauvinist. When you describe a man as “detribalised” what you are saying unwittingly is that the gentleman has just been taken out of a primitive enclave and relocated, perhaps, in an urban civilised setting. And it doesn’t strike some pundits as strange that while the British discuss the issue of “Scottish nationalism” Nigerians talk of “Yoruba tribalism” even though the Yoruba population in Nigeria is larger than that of the Scottish in United Kingdom. You will never read in British newspapers stories about Welsh or English tribalism. No, they don’t discuss “tribalism” because they know the implication of inferiority in the meaning. Rather, they talk of “nationalism” Britain.
It should obviously sound offensive that over 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria are derogatorily referred to as tribes. Some persons talk of their “tribe” when the appropriate word should be nation, nationality or ethnic group.
It is amazing that some pundits seem not to be rankled by these conceptual contradictions.
Imprecision is a social and intellectual malaise in Nigeria. This is because the scientific approach is hardly adopted in solving everyday problems. Scientific method is not yet entrenched in the national culture. It takes discipline to do so. The imprecise use of terms is part of the deficit in the current debate of the Nigerian condition. Hardly is there any agreement on the meanings of many of the buzzwords used in discussing the nation’s problems. For instance, despite the legitimate impatience of some well-informed advocates of “restructuring” with those still ask for the meaning of the term, a lot of clarification is still necessary in some quarters. This may sound indulgent or pedantic; but it is important.
In the specific case of the inappropriate use of the category “tribe,” the concern here transcends academic anthropology. The error is in a sense a measure of Nigeria’s social and political development. Historically, the colonialists in their perverted sociology used the word “tribe” to describe a people they regarded as primitive. It was part of the ideological hegemony of the racists to portray the colonised people as inferior with no social or political history. It didn’t matter that kingdoms and empires existed for centuries in places the colonialists later described as tribal enclaves. Imagine still describing Edo as a tribe centuries after the Benin Kingdom established relations with Portugal. Today, the Portuguese will not refer to any part of their country as a tribe. Talking about sociological evolution, it was a racist insult to describe as tribesmen the producers of the masterpieces of art stolen by the white man during the colonial conquests.
The irony is that decades after independence well educated Nigerians continue to describe their ethnic groups and nationalities in the same pejorative term those sociologists in the service of colonialism describe black people in the 19th Century.
To be sure, members of a tribe belonged to one of the lowest rungs in the ladder of human civilisation; they were still at the pre-state stage in political evolution. The tribal space is the universe of some members of the tribe. As a member of a tribe you might not even be aware of the existence other tribes in the same region.
It is noteworthy that in the West, in contemporary discussions of inter-group relations the category “tribe’ is reserved only for those regarded as backward with all the socio-economic and political connotations. So the Aborigines in Australia are described as “tribal’” people. In the American context, ethnic and racial groups are not called tribes. The category of tribe applies only to some native Americans still consigned to the dungeon of underdevelopment by virtue of racist policies. Tribesmen as a group and as individuals are markedly separated from other people in terms of development and modernisation. The areas occupied by the extremely disadvantaged groups are still described as “tribal.”
However, none of the Nigerian ethnic groups, nationalities and, some would even say, nations, could be described as caves of primitive tribesmen. No part of Nigeria today could be said to be occupied by people completely detached from civilisation.
Regional disparities are, of course, undeniable. No ethnic group is immune to the socio-economic underdevelopment which defines the Nigerian society. Yet no group is excluded in the process of elite formation regardless of the size.
It was quite instructive watching a retired service chief on television the other day telling his remarkable life story which illustrates the point at issue. He belongs to “a minority group within a minority area.” Yet he rose to be a defence chief some years ago. Similarly, a former senator told his own story. If you use language as the yardstick of ethnic classification, his mother tongue is spoken by only a few hundreds of people. The distinguished senator became a reputable principal officer of the senate. There are several examples of citizens belonging to small ethnic groups who have gained national prominence on their own individual merit. Certainly, these ladies and gentlemen cannot be described as tribesmen and women. In contrast, it was great news in the United States early four years ago when a native American was appointed into a high political office.
It is pertinent to draw attention to the error of calling ethnic groups tribes because of its consequences for the current identity politics. There is a way in which tribal identification tends to eclipse the factor of national integration in discussions. The description of ethnic groups as tribes is, perhaps, an unconscious denial of the currents of integration. Those who employ the category tribe in identifying themselves and others in puristic terms ignore these obvious currents.
For instance, the sensibilities of the products of inter-ethnic marriages are routinely ignored when some separatists beat the drums of war by peddling ethnic prejudice against members of other groups. The biological products of the cosmopolitan trends in the Nigerian society can definitely not be tribesmen by the very definition of their birth. A person may decide to identify with the ethnic group of his mother or father; but that doesn’t make him a tribesman or woman.
The matter even becomes more absurd when the dynamics of integration is considered. Those who still talk of tribes and tribalism have static view of things. Take a sample. A citizen is born outside the homestead of his grandparents. He is of the third generation of his family members who have made the place outside their place of origin home. He has only visited the place of origin only on a few occasions. In every material sense the man is integrated into his place of abode where he works, pays his taxes and builds his family. But in this upsurge of identity politics in the land, the man described above would likely be told by some ethnic champions that he doesn’t belong to the “tribe” that owns the place in which he lives. To talk of tribe in this context is an insult to the man as well as those accusing him of being a stranger to the so-called tribe.
It is astonishing that this racist categorisation is embraced in everyday conversations by Nigerians themselves in the playing identity politics.
Doubtless, identity politics will be enriched by bringing conceptual clarity to the issues in dispute. A requirement for this is a good understanding of the meaning of words and phrases used in the debate because of their implications. Far from being pedantic on this topic, it is worth stressing that precision in terms of the use of concepts is important for the urgent task of diversity management. Those employing categories to describe groups should be clear about what they mean precisely.
In sum, the Nigerian diversity is not defined by differences among tribesmen.
Among the diverse groups are ethnic groups and nationalities. Some even proclaim their own groups as nations. National integration is, therefore, not about forging an amalgam of tribes. Indeed, integration could be achieved with the instruments of well-articulated policies to promote equity in inter- ethnic and inter-regional relations and social justice for all citizens wherever they choose to reside in the country.
This should be an urgent task for all the tiers of government so that the promotion of national unity could be a legacy of this generation of leaders.
Last Thursday, May 15, 2025, a news report has it that a bill to amend the Electoral Act 2022 to make voting compulsory for Nigerians of voting age has passed second reading in the House of Representatives. The proposed legislation was sponsored by the Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, and Daniel Ago. Leading the debate during plenary, Ago said the bill aimed to encourage citizens’ participation in the electoral process, noting that voter apathy during elections would be addressed if the bill scales legislative scrutiny. The proposed legislation stipulates penalties for eligible voters who fail to vote without valid justification, including a fine of N100,000, a six-month jail term, or both.
According to PBS News of November 3, 2014, 22 nations around the world make voting mandatory for their citizens, often starting at age 18. They are Australia, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, Belgium, Congo DRC, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Greece, Honduras, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Nauru, Singapore, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, Thailand and Paraguay. In Australia, failure to vote can result in a $20 fine. I quite understand the motive behind the bill, which is to shore up voters’ turnout and cut enormous waste being incurred at every poll by the Independent National Electoral Commission. This economic loss is found in unused ballot papers printed with billions of naira.
Nonetheless, making voting compulsory in Nigeria currently and even in future is a no-brainer. Indeed, it is a joke taken too far and a needless distraction! It is against the fundamental rights of citizens. Do the sponsors of the bill think that this is a panacea or an antidote to voter apathy? Did they do their research well enough to know that this piece of legislation, which to me is dead on arrival, is a priority for Nigerians? Granted that there is abysmal voter turnout in Nigeria, the drivers of that ugly phenomenon are not known to include optional voting.
I watched a video over the weekend about Indian elections and learnt that the Asian country has over 980 million registered voters as of 2024. Out of this number, 646 million voters voted in the May 2024 general elections. By the way, India has over 1 million Polling Booths, over 2,500 registered political parties and a population of 1.438 billion (2023 estimate). How come India recorded about 70 per cent voter turnout in its last general elections, and Nigeria, with 19 registered political parties, 93,469,008 million registered voters and 176,846 polling units, recorded a mere 27 per cent in the 2023 general elections? Meanwhile, elections in India are not compulsory.
According to the Independent National Electoral Commission, there has been a steady decline in voter turnout since 1999. The commission said there was 57.54 per cent of voter turnout in 2007 (remember, this was adjudged as the worst election in this Fourth Republic), 53.68 per cent in 2011, 43.65 per cent in 2015, 34.75 per cent in 2019, and 26.72 per cent in 2023. There are multiple reasons for voter apathy. These include lack of good governance; labourious voters’ registration and Permanent Voters Card collection process; late commencement of voting due to INEC’s logistical challenges; restriction of movement on election day; limited voting hours (six hours i.e., from 8:30 am-2:30 pm); a lack of trust in the election management bodies that votes will count and not rigged in favour of preferred candidates as well as electoral violence. Others include inadequate voters’ mobilisation by stakeholders, such as the political parties, candidates, INEC, civil society organisations and the media; perceived miscarriage of justice by the judiciary especially in election matters; a lack of multiple voting techniques, such as early voting, voting by proxy, out-of-country voting, diaspora voting, and voting by prisoners.
As I said in my column on December 4, 2024, there are several things Nigeria needs to do if it wants to improve voters’ turnout in subsequent elections. These are as follows: INEC needs to hold all general elections on one day. Having polls over two Saturdays is wasteful and illogical. In the August 2022 Kenyan elections, polls were conducted for six political offices in one day! Also, locking down the country or state during elections is counterproductive. Many people whose polling units are not near their residences are automatically disenfranchised.
Furthermore, there is a need to increase voting hours. In Egypt and the US, where I have been privileged to observe elections, polls are held for 12 to 13 hours. In Nigeria, voting hours are just six. In addition, the late arrival of INEC officials for duties has led many potential voters to leave in frustration without exercising their franchise. There should be provision for early voting so that millions of registered voters who are going to be on election duties, such as poll officials, security agents, accredited journalists, and observers, can vote ahead of the main election day. Recall that ahead of the November 5, 2024, elections in the US, 85 million registered voters had cast their ballots days and weeks before that day.
Another thing Nigeria should do is amend our laws to allow for out-of-country and diaspora voting. In the last general elections in Kenya, Kenyans living in 12 other countries were allowed to vote for the presidential candidate of their choice without having to travel home. Also in Kenya, prisoners are allowed to vote. This is not the situation yet in Nigeria. Allowing independent candidates to contest for political offices also has the potential to increase voters’ participation. Peaceful campaigns devoid of arson, killing, maiming, and fake news can instill confidence in voters to participate in elections. Pre-election violence has the power to scare away voters on election day.
How candidates emerge victorious in Nigeria’s election is too simple. For legislative positions, it is first-past-the-post. For executive positions, you need 25 per cent of valid votes cast in two-thirds of the country, state, or wards, depending on whether it is a presidential, governorship, or local government chairmanship poll. In other climes that have adopted the French model, a contestant needs to score 50+1 votes, which is an absolute majority, to be declared the winner. In countries like Ghana and most Francophone countries, voter mobilisation is taken seriously by political parties and candidates, unlike in our clime where this onerous responsibility has been abdicated to INEC, National Orientation Agency, and CSOs.
Of course, as earlier said, there is a need for improved governance with palpable dividends of democracy to the people. All these measures, if taken, will lead to a significant improvement in voters’ turnout.
Rather than making voting compulsory, what should be made mandatory is good governance! Imagine if public education and health services are made free; if there is no self-aggrandisement by the political class and there is low-level corruption; high-level of infrastructural development, security and welfare of citizens. Voters will not need to be coerced to perform their civic responsibility.
Though he may not like being in the headline of a newspaper, Dr Michael Olawale Omolayole will admit two things: He is a goldfish that has no hiding place, and his name will help draw attention to the colloquium on malaria that is taking place today in Ijebu-Imusin, his hometown.
The colloquium is midwifed by the Michael and Theresa Omolayole Centre for Community Development, a non-government organisation set up by Omolayole and his late wife, Theresa, for interventions in community development issues.
The colloquium, to be addressed by Prof. Oyeku Oyelami, specialist in paediatric and adolescent medicine, and Provost of Federal College of Medicine, Ila Oragun, Osun State, reflects the theme, “Malaria Ends with Us: Reinvest, Reimagine, and Reignite”, that marked Malaria Day of April 25, 2025.
Dr Titi Hassan, professor of zoology at of University of Ibadan, will respond to Oyelami’s submissions, and ophthalmic surgeon, Dr Kunle Hassan, proprietor of the White Shoe Eye Foundation Hospital, is the chairman.
The 2025 Malaria Day global campaign is to re-energise efforts, from global to community level, to expeditiously eliminate malaria. Nigeria’s National Strategic Plan 2021-2025 is to achieve a malaria-free Nigeria, by keeping malaria parasite prevalence to less than 10 per cent and reducing mortality to less than 50 deaths in 1,000 live births by 2025.
According to Omolayole, the colloquium will provide “vital knowledge about the prevention and treatment of malaria, which is a dreaded disease in the whole of tropical Africa. It particularly affects and kills millions of children below the age of 5”.
Those old enough will remember that West Africa was described as a “White man’s graveyard” because yellow fever and malaria led to a high mortality rate of Europeans. Some suggest that Caucasian and Arab settlers chose temperate Southern and North Africa to escape the scourge of mosquitoes.
Hinting at his approval of alternative medicine, Omolayole revealed that Oyelami was in a position to “demonstrate… how some herbs and plants that surround us can help considerably in the matter (of battling malaria)”.
He adds that he had heard and read extensively “about neem (dongoyaro), lemon grass and oruwo plants” that are cheaper and more readily accessible for use to combat the devastating scourge of malaria fever.
By the way, ethnopharmacology, which Omolayole seems to be interested in promoting, is the study of what Western orthodox medicine practitioners prefer to derisively label as traditional medicines and their uses.
A more academically arrogant definition of alternative medicine is that it aims to achieve the healing effects of orthodox medicine, even though it lacks biological plausibility, testability, repeatability or evidence of effectiveness.
But, then, any form of medication, orthodox or alternative, must be taken with a pinch of salt. That is probably why doctors suggest that patients should always seek second opinions. Some have even suggested that patients could use orthodox and alternative medicine to complement each other.
Perhaps a more acceptable definition of alternative medicine is that it includes medical practices that are not considered to be part of conventional or orthodox medicine and focuses on holistic approaches, natural therapeutics and alternative systems of healing, many of which are backed by a long history of usage and cultures.
It is also important to stress that there is a need to ensure the safety of the medications and the qualification or expertise of those who will dispense the alternative medicine options, as it applies to the use of Western orthodox medicine.
In addition, the methods of alternative medicine are not taught by regular university medical schools. But it is obvious that alternative medicines have returned with a vengeance, to the extent that vendors of herbal medicines are sometimes allowed to hawk their remedies to patients even in the wards of some Nigerian medical teaching hospitals.
Perhaps the biggest blow to Big Pharma is that alternative medicine gives patients very easy access to exceedingly cheaper herbs. Alternative medicine includes herbal medication, acupuncture, homoeopathy, massage therapy, yoga and meditation and significantly reduces the need to pop pills that come with significant negative side effects.
The lobby for alternative medicine, or at least another approach to the use of medication, was taken to another level by Dr Stella Immanuel, a Cameroonian, who studied medicine at the University of Calabar in Cross River State of Nigeria.
She led an audacious crusade for the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat patients of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, America’s food and drug administration agency, in panic mode on behalf of Big Pharma, promptly shot the idea down with reports of “serious heart rhythm problems” and other ill-defined health issues.
But Dr Immanuel’s effrontery rang throughout the world as Donald Trump, in his first term as America’s President, seemed to have weighed in on her side. But Dr Anthony Fauci, Director of America’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was on the side of orthodox Western medicine and the financially munificent Big Pharma lobby.
But the world took notice of the debate, and many in the metropolitan economies of North America and Western Europe and the peripheral economies of South America, Africa, Asia, and Central and Eastern Europe stampeded in droves to patronise outlets that sold herbal medicines to combat the dreaded Covid-19 grim reaper.
Two state governors in Nigeria, Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State and Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, publicly admitted to having been cured of COVID-19 after taking herbal medicine. Testimonies of the efficacy of herbal medicine thus suddenly became more fashionable.
Dr Olorunninbe Mamora, a medical doctor and Minister of State for Health to former President Muhammadu Buhari, even promised that the government would work with herbal medicine practitioners to find solutions to COVID-19.
However, the cynicism of the Western orthodoxy against alternative medicine is so high that the world may miss the little steps that are capable of delivering the great benefits of cheaper and less complicated drugs to the world.
Little do these Euro-American cynics know that South African botanist, Dr. Zimara Dubeni, found out that Moringa oleifera leaf extracts can enhance food safety, reduce synthetic additives and improve public health if used to preserve raw chicken meat that can otherwise breed foodborne diseases.
The intervention of the Omolayoles’ MATOCCODEV is timely, considering the recent report of a breakout of Lassa fever that has caused 138 deaths in 15 Nigerian states. To be sure, Lassa fever is somewhat different from malaria fever.
Lassa fever is a viral illness transmitted by rodents, and malaria fever is a parasitic infection that is spread by mosquitoes. Whereas symptoms of Lassa fever are headache, fatigue, and, sometimes, bleeding, vomiting and kidney issues, those of malaria fever are chills, sweats, and, when it really gets worse, include seizures, fainting, coma and even death.
Today, MATOCCODEV is going to be facilitating the sharing of knowledge on the prevention of malaria fever and distributing, for free, 25 units of treated mosquito nets that were popularised by Rotary International.
Omolayole expects that the colloquium will attempt to explain the nexus between orthodox medicine and herbal medicine that is considered to be more cost-effective and more readily available, especially in rural communities.
Maybe Nigeria’s healthcare policymakers should give more than passing attention to the malaria colloquium taking place at Ijebu-Imusin today.
[OPINION] Public Service in Nigeria and the Big Questions of Public Administration - Tunji Olaopa
AdminOne of the founding theses of public administration reform philosophy is that the dysfunction and reconstruction of the administrative system must be figured out both in theory and in practice, and public administration had therefore historically functioned within frameworks of communities of practice and service and their knowledge networks. And that, among other things, implies that theory and practice must first be seen as being two sides of the same coin rather than two mutually exclusive frameworks. When I made the decision so early in my public service career to study the theoretical foundations of the Nigerian public service system, it dawned on me that dissecting the dysfunctional dynamics of the public service system provokes theoretical insights by which to engage with these same dysfunctions.
However, the gross anti-intellectualism of the policy space in Nigeria contributes to one of the fundamental deficiencies in the institutional framework of the public service in Nigeria: a mix of conception-reality and passion without knowledge gaps that manifest in terms of a mismatch between theoretical and reform paradigms on the one hand, and local conditions, circumstances and realities on the other. Indeed, administrative reforms are conceived and implemented to a significant extent with scant recognition that public administration has a theoretical foundation that is way distinct from the theoretical assumptions of the core management science.
We therefore arrive at a most significant reason why the public service system has been struggling to constitute the institutional mechanism to backstop democratic governance and its dividends for Nigerians. If we take it as axiomatic that the bureaucracy is a necessary complement to democracy, then it implies that the public service must be in topnotch shape—in terms of human resource management, performance accountability and productivity metrics—to be able to deliver on the imperatives of good governance. The public service system in Nigeria has however been struggling with the necessity for institutional reform that will transform it into a worldclass mechanism that could serve the need of a developmental state and its democratic requirements.
Ultimately, the fate of the public service and its optimal functionality—its capacity readiness to service democratic governance anywhere—lies firmly in the type of theoretical questions we ask in terms of what should drive the practice of public administration. The big questions are fundamental questions that articulate the relationship between theory and practice, and provide the directions that enable theorists and practitioners to make sense of any endeavor. The big questions that public administration is confronted with help to shape how it grounds its frameworks, dynamics and paradigms, especially when applied to the working of the state and the imperatives of governance.
Three initial big questions have been offered that are meant to ground public management. One: how can public managers break away from non-innovative fixation with excess of procedural rules which prevent pubic agencies from achieving measurable result and outcome? In other words, how might we ignite the shift from current input-process fixation to an output-outcome-impact-results-based management framework? Two: how can public managers motivate their workforce to achieve more in performance terms? Three: how can public managers measure these achievements?
These how-questions underscore the capacity of the public manager and her capacity to facilitate the capacity readiness of the public bureaucracy. This approach, especially in public administration, focuses on the public managers and their objective of capacitating the public agencies as an organization with its own unique character. However, as the objection goes, such an approach is limited in its failure to connect the functionality of the public bureaucracy or agency to the institutional demands of a democratic government. Public administration in a democracy is a whole ballgame all by itself. Once we see the intimate connection between public administration and a democracy, then we immediately see how there is a need for new set of big and fundamental questions that will adequately guide public administration practice within a democratic context.
Seven of such questions have been provided in the literature. “(1) What are the instruments of collective action that remain responsible both to democratically elected officials and to core societal values? (2) What are the roles of nongovernmental forms of collective action in society, and how can desired roles be protected and nurtured? (3) What are the appropriate tradeoffs between governmental structures based on function (which commonly eases organizational tasks) and geography (which eases citizenship, political leadership, and societal learning)? (4) How shall tensions between national and local political arenas be resolved? (5) What decisions shall be “isolated” from the normal processes of politics so that some other rationale can be applied? (6) What balance shall be struck among neutral competence, representativeness, and leadership? (7) How can processes of societal learning be improved, including knowledge of choices available, of consequences of alternatives, and of how to achieve desired goals, most importantly, the nurturing and development of a democratic polity?”
Unfortunately, it is not just sufficient to align public administration and public management to the imperatives of democratic government, as these seven questions by John Kirlin of the University of South California has attempted to do. A further criterion is missing. And this, because the experience of public administration and democracy differs from context to context. The contextual criterion ensures that the fundamental big questions we need to ask will be those that will take seriously the peculiarities and uniqueness of the context within which public administration will be expected to interact and backstop democratic governance. This is even more so in the Nigerian context where public administration and democratic government must factor postcolonial circumstances into the type of fundamental questions they are meant to engage with.
The Nigerian state, since its post-independence trajectory, has generated its own unique experience of public administration. This can be framed in terms of the myriad attempts at achieving institutional reform of the public service system inherited from the British colonialists. The commencement of the democratic experiment in 1999 puts a new spin on the urgency of bending public administration to the demands of democratic governance that will transform the quality of life of millions of Nigerians who have been promised the dividends of democracy. How then can we articulate the fundamental questions that should guide our understanding of the relationship between public administration and democratic governance in Nigeria? What are the critical issues that the government, its bureaucracy and public administration theorists ought to make the core of their reflective endeavor?
In what follows, I frame seven of such big questions in line with my many years of theoretically and practically engaging with the perils and promises of the public service as a mechanism for democratic fulfilment in Nigeria.
One: How can public managers break away from non-innovative fixation with excess of procedural rules and regulations that prevent public agencies from producing results and outcomes that translate to better life to the people in a democracy? This question speaks to the centrality of the “I-am-directed” Weberian tradition and the centrality of the input and process-oriented business model that undermine the output-oriented model which demands performance, efficiency, productivity.
Two: How can the public service resolve the seemingly jinxed pay and remuneration policy problem which has prevented the public service from achieving an excellent talent management regime that enables attraction and retention of talented professionals and some of the scarce skills the service requires to perform at optimal levels? This is a question that stems from government’s loss of status as the employer of choice which in turn has eroded civil service’s prestige as a brand, as well as the inability of the public bureaucracy to attract and retain the brightest and the best while managing adversarial industrial relation that undergirds employer-employee contractual obligations.
Three; How can public managers measure the achievements of their agencies in a way that is game-changing for performance of government and the productivity of the national economy? The success of democratic governance in Nigeria is aligned to the urgent need for a shift in the productivity paradigm that ensures that the public service system becomes motivated by a performance management that increases the productivity profile of the Nigerian state.
Four: How can the nature and role of the state be sustainably redefined and how to leverage same to organize and utilize government resources to better achieve the collective good? The nature and the role of the state keeps changing in relation to its governance responsibility. And this demands that the success of public administration is seen in terms of the state’s relationship to other non-state and nongovernmental actors that are stakeholders in the governance space.
Five: How can the public service regain public trust and foster social equity within framework of stewardship relationship with the people in a democracy? This question addresses the modalities by which the public service system function as a democratic institution that is transparent, accountable and open to the citizens as the most significant component of a democratic government.
Six; How should NGOs be empowered so they can play more positive role in society and in getting public policy to achieve the common good, and how can their desired roles be better protected? NGOs, as a nonstate actor, opens up the governance space (hitherto dominated by government and its agencies), and serve as the critical mediator between the government and the citizens.
Seven: How can the public service strike a balance between the values of being neutral and non-partisan as basis for strengthening professional ethics and the public servants’ capacity to speak truth to power? The founding dichotomy in public administration—the politics/administration distinction—insists that the politician and the administration must operate on different level of the policy divide. However, this dichotomy must be balanced with the capacity of the public servant to confront and engage with policy somersaults that fails the test of policy intelligence and action research.
These big questions constitute core issues which the public administration profession in Nigeria must foreground as the central reflective points for rethinking the functionality of the public service in Nigeria’s quest for democratic distinction on the continent.
*Olaopa, a Professor of Public Administration, is the Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission, Abuja
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There has been a lot of brouhaha over the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results. Over 2 million candidates registered for the examination, and about 1.94 million sat for it. Over 75% (1.5 million+) scored below 200. This development has not gone down well with parents and candidates who took to social media to express outrage.
However, according to Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, the performance data for the 2025 UTME falls within the expected range based on trends from the past 12 years. “This is not peculiar to this year. The performance statistics are consistent with those of the last 12 years,” Oloyede stated. He cited previous years to support his claim, noting that in 2024, 76 per cent of candidates scored below 200, while in 2022, 78 per cent of the 1.7 million candidates also fell below that mark. In 2021, only 803 out of 1.3 million candidates scored above 300.
The 2025 UTME has become one of the most controversial in recent history, not just due to the number scoring below 200, but because of the complaints revolving around the efficiency of the system and the credibility of the results. The problem also raises critical questions about the exam process, integrity, and educational equity. The controversy is resulting in efforts aimed at understanding what could have gone wrong, if anything was indeed wrong.
In the latest turn of events on May 14, 2025, a very emotionally regretful JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, apologised to the public in a press outing reported by major national newspapers. He accepted that there were indeed regrettable technical issues from their end that had affected the outcome for some candidates. According to the analysis, a total of 379,997 candidates across the 157 centres in Lagos and the South-east would retake their examinations. Prof. Oloyede said the board has decided that all candidates affected in 157 out of 882 (17.8%) centres will be contacted to retake their examinations starting Friday, May 16th.
“So, I appeal to the candidates and those affected by the error of our system to accept this explanation as the truth of the matter without embellishment, please. I apologise and take full responsibility, not just in words,” Prof. Oloyede stated. He informed the media that affected candidates would be contacted by JAMB through text messages sent to their registered phone numbers, email addresses, profiles, and phone calls. He directed them to reprint their examination slips for the rescheduled examination dates.
He said the board has contacted the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), which is currently holding its West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE), to allow JAMB some slots for candidates to take the exams, and WAEC has agreed. “Any candidate with a clash of timetable, particularly for Agricultural Science on Friday, would be rescheduled,” Prof. Oloyede said.
“However, we have endeavoured to ensure that no such thing exists. Most, if not all, such candidates are scheduled for Saturday. Fortunately, the prescribed texts for SSCE are also the prescribed texts for UTME, apart from the reading text of the UTME, which carries just 10 marks in our Use of English test.”
While 206,610 candidates were affected in the 65 centres in Lagos zone, 173,387 candidates were affected in 92 centres in Owerri zone. JAMB reportedly examined samples from across the country, but no sign of any abnormality has been detected in any centre other than the ones mentioned. Prof. Oloyede, however, added that the exercise continues.
National Readiness for Digital-Only Exams
Many factors could account for why about 75% of candidates have been annually underperforming at UTME. It is a national shame that we have been accepting this situation as normal at the annual JAMB meetings with University Vice-Chancellors. This national acceptance of low quality as normal has been forcing Universities to scramble for the 25% above 200 and then set very low standards to fill up vacant positions. After all, profit is now the major part of setting up Universities, especially in the private sector.
The 2025 UTME imbroglio throws up several issues that have been yearning for solutions. There has to be more readiness in embracing digital-only exams, both on the part of the examining agencies/service providers and the service users/candidates. For instance, some supervisors noticed system malfunctions at CBT centres – freezing screens, login problems, and loss of answers. Some candidates reportedly logged out without submitting or could not navigate between subjects. Those were absolutely no faults of the service users/candidates.
The digital divide is a problem for the use of CBT centres for UTME. Many candidates, especially from rural or low-income backgrounds, lacked basic computer literacy. A supervisor’s report highlighted that some candidates didn’t know how to operate a keyboard or mouse, much less navigate the CBT interface. In simple terminology, technological illiteracy or, at best, semi-illiteracy is yearning for solutions. Not many candidates or customers of JAMB grew up with the advantage of using computers as a regular everyday life item. There has to be some middle ground for inclusivity.
However, the answer is not to opt out of technological change but to come up with answers on how to democratise the availability of knowledge on technological change that is spreading in our world to all Nigerian children who are actively motivated towards education. Though JAMB could play a role in deploying some of its earnings for such a purpose, the answer should involve society and its governance structures at large. We must be more intentional with issues that affect the destinies and future of young Nigerians. The UTME exercise should not just be seen as a mere exercise, but as a very important platform through which the future technocrats and crop of people who would take over the skilled manpower machinery of the country are practically filtered. It is good that the public reaction has met with responsible action from JAMB in this case.
Recommendations on the Way Forward
Beyond being a revenue-generating tool for the government, with special commendations on the registrar’s commitment to returning funds to the Federal government, JAMB must continue to recalibrate, fine-tune its structure, and ensure it delivers excellently.
Nigeria requires massive digital literacy campaigns in secondary schools, especially rural ones. The 774 local governments, with more funding expected to result from the autonomy they are expected to have under the present dispensation, should invest in computer-based modern libraries. Private entities could also be encouraged to spend some of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds on setting up computer-based libraries.
CBT Simulation Workshops should become mandatory for all candidates before UTME and similar exams. Independent Audit of CBT Centers and Software Providers should be a regular effort of regulatory bodies, including JAMB.
Despite the uproar over the 2025 UTME, it’s important to recognize the integrity-driven leadership of Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, who has consistently fought corruption and pushed for reforms. However, even strong leadership needs to be adaptive and listen to the cries of the people. A calm, evidence-based review of 2025’s UTME is not only necessary—it’s urgent.
The JAMB Registrar has indeed demonstrated maturity and good leadership. He readily showed empathy by agreeing truly that there was failure in the system and took responsibility, with corrective follow-up actions. Currently, what should be key are preventive solutions, such that there is no future recurrence of the underperformance at UTME.
Prof. Babafemi A. Badejo, author of a best-seller on politics in Kenya, was a former Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Somalia, a former Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Chrisland University, Abeokuta, and currently a Legal Practitioner and Consultant at Yintab Strategy Consults. He is the 2025 Nelson Mandela Distinguished Africanist Awardee of the African Annual Conference at the University of Texas at Austin, USA.
[OPINION] Rethinking Death and Dignity: From Fundraising Committees to Funeral Insurance in Nigeria - Sonny Iroche
AdminIn recent years, Nigeria has witnessed a cultural shift in how communities handle the death of loved ones. Gone are the days when families relied primarily on close kin and neighbors for support in organizing funerals. Instead, a new practice has emerged—forming 'Committees of Friends' to raise funds for lavish burials. While this may seem like a noble gesture, it reflects a concerning trend: the increasing commodification and public performance of grief. Shakespeare’s timeless observation that 'Death is a necessary end, that will come when it will come' reminds us that dignity in death must not come at the cost of unnecessary burden on the living. This essay explores how funeral insurance can restore financial and emotional balance to Nigerian funerary practices.
The Evolution of Nigerian Funeral Culture
Traditionally, Nigerian funerals were community-led events grounded in cultural and spiritual beliefs. Families, friends, and neighbors would rally around the bereaved, contributing food, livestock, labor, and cash voluntarily. In Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, and many other ethnic groups, the burial of a loved one was an intimate and reverent affair. However, as society modernized and urbanized, the nature of funerals transformed. Social status, prestige, and public display began to play larger roles. Funerals are now sometimes seen as an opportunity to showcase wealth or honor the deceased through extravagant events. This evolution has led to a rise in financial pressure on bereaved families who feel obligated to meet rising expectations.
The Rise of Committees of Friends
The 'Committee of Friends' is an informal group of friends, associates, or colleagues that organizes to raise funds and support a bereaved family. Often, these committees are created immediately after a death and begin their task through social media platforms like WhatsApp. While they are meant to offer support, they also reflect a growing cultural dependence on public fundraising to meet funeral costs. Unfortunately, many families have come to rely entirely on such committees, expecting friends and distant acquaintances to fund most or all of the burial. This has diluted the original communal ethos of mutual care, replacing it with performative generosity. At times, more resources go into planning the fundraising event than into comforting the family.
The Rising Cost of Dying in Nigeria
Funerals in Nigeria have become an expensive affair. The average cost ranges from ₦1.5 million for basic burials in rural areas to over ₦10 million in urban centers for high-profile ceremonies. These costs include embalming, casket purchase, mortuary fees, venue hire, catering, music, obituary adverts, clothing (Aso Ebi), and transportation. In some cultures, additional ceremonies such as wake-keeping, church thanksgiving, and anniversary celebrations are customary. These mounting expenses often leave families in debt. Some delay burials for months to raise enough money, while others cut essential costs or sell property. This financial burden exacerbates grief and pushes families into cycles of hardship.
Global Perspectives: Funeral Insurance in Other Countries
Around the world, funeral insurance is a common financial product designed to ease the burden of burial costs. In South Africa, companies like AVBOB and Old Mutual offer family-wide funeral cover with added benefits such as free services. In the United States, companies like Colonial Penn and Mutual of Omaha provide final expense insurance plans that pay out amounts between $5,000 and $25,000 upon death. The UK offers Over-50s plans through firms like SunLife and Legal & General. Closer to home, Ghana and Kenya have embraced mobile funeral insurance. In Ghana, aYo (powered by MTN) allows mobile users to subscribe to funeral cover for as low as 1 cedi daily. Kenya’s Britam and CIC Insurance offer funeral policies through banks and saccos, making them accessible to informal sector workers.
Why Nigeria Needs Funeral Insurance
Funeral insurance offers several key benefits. First, it ensures affordability. With small, regular premiums, policyholders can prepare for inevitable expenses without resorting to emergency fundraising. Second, it restores dignity. Families can grieve in peace, rather than engage in financial appeals during mourning. Third, insurance is sustainable. It creates a structured safety net that does not rely on social pressure or personal connections. Lastly, funeral insurance encourages financial planning. By bundling it with mobile money platforms, it becomes accessible to Nigeria’s vast unbanked population. With nearly 40 million Nigerians working in the informal sector, insurance companies have an untapped market. Funeral insurance also creates new revenue streams for insurers while promoting social impact.
Charting a Path Forward: Policy, Products, and Public Awareness
Nigeria must act decisively to embed funeral insurance into its financial landscape. First, insurance companies should create simple, mobile-first products with flexible premiums, especially for low-income earners. Second, partnerships with telcos, banks, cooperatives, and churches can broaden access and trust. Third, the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) can provide incentives or regulatory frameworks to promote funeral insurance uptake. Fourth, public education campaigns are essential. Traditional and social media should emphasize the value of funeral cover. Religious leaders, Nollywood celebrities, and influencers can help normalize insurance culture, making it aspirational and relatable. Digital apps and bulk SMS can also be used to drive awareness.
Changing the Narrative: Celebrate the Living, Prepare for the Inevitable
Nigeria must change its cultural mindset around death. Lavish burials should not substitute for love, care, and support shown during life. Committees of Friends should not be a default financial plan. It is time to shift from spectacle to substance. Instead of planning elaborate ceremonies, families should prioritize elder care, access to healthcare, and education. Funeral insurance helps achieve this by providing a structured, dignified way to deal with life’s final reality. More importantly, it allows society to refocus on celebrating the living rather than overemphasizing the dead. Respecting the dead should not impoverish the living.
Conclusion
Death, though painful, is inevitable. Nigeria’s current approach to funerals—with increasing reliance on committees and costly events—is unnecessary and unsustainable. While the intention behind fundraising may be noble, it often places undue strain on both the bereaved and contributors. Funeral insurance offers a practical, respectful alternative that aligns with financial prudence and cultural dignity. By developing inclusive insurance products, partnering with distribution networks, and launching national awareness campaigns, Nigeria can revolutionize how it manages death. It’s time to prepare for the inevitable with wisdom and compassion, not pressure and debt.
Of all Nigerian political elite, our current military-baked ‘new-breed’ politicians have come to be regarded by most Nigerians as the most cynical. Twenty-six years into the Fourth Republic, Nigerians remember with nostalgia that not even the departing colonial British administrators were this contemptuous.
Unlike our founding fathers that put their differences and individual ambition aside to foist a working federal constitution which defined how we were to live together in peace and justice, as brothers even though tribes and tongue may differ, our current leaders, driven more by greed for power and its dividends, have continued to take Nigerians for a ride. Thinking they could decree unity or wish away tribes, forgetting that tribes are the building blocks of African society, they have wasted billions of taxpayers’ money tinkering with our current unworkable ‘unitary’ constitution. They have done everything except revisiting the national question, which is about the challenges of living together in justice and respect as civilised human beings as was the case until January1966.
Of course, we have had different administrations, including that of President Obasanjo, who probably genuinely believed attainment of economic justice, equitable allocation of resources, and effective and sustainable production and distribution of appropriate goods and services is the ultimate solution to the national question. But we have seen how this was marred by massive looting of the nation’s resources under Obasanjo and Jonathan, especially by those who saw undermining the nation’s economy as an answer to distributive injustice arising from non-resolution of the national question.
We have also seen the effort of the current administration of Tinubu, who believes promoting efficiency within the existing structure will usher in all-round prosperity and life abundant for people of Nigeria, leading to equitable and peaceful cohabitation of the various communities in Nigeria. Even while the jury is out, there is already a basic misconception that leaders of ethnic nationalities in Nigeria who are at different levels of cultural development want life more abundant for their citizens.
It is just as well that the House of Representatives, last Tuesday, rejected a constitutional amendment bill seeking to rotate the office of the president and vice president among the six geopolitical zones of the country. Deputy Minority Leader Aliyu Madaki led the opposition to the bill, saying that issues the bill intends to cure have been addressed by the Federal Character Commission, warning that the issue of rotation should not be included in the constitution, but allowed to remain the way it is.
The dead proposed bill was at best diversionary. The truth is that rotation of the presidency, like past social engineering efforts of the military, including NYSC, quota system of admission into tertiary institutions and bureaucracy, and other government brainwaves turned into government policies in a desperate attempt to ignore the national question, would have failed.
Zero sum struggles for power at the centre is a symptom of our unresolved national question, just as it is a phenomenon associated with our new-breed politicians.
With our independence constitution, which indeed addressed the national question, the centre was not as attractive. Ahmadu Bello did not think twice before ceding it to Tafawa Balewa, a minority from southern Bauchi, where the Fulani were only being tolerated. Zik had a chance to be prime minister at the centre, but conceded it to Tafawa Balewa, according to him, to promote the unity of the country. The only national leader that seriously aspired to go to the centre, ostensibly to replicate his miracle in the west, was Obafemi Awolowo. And having lost the 1959 election, he offered to serve as Finance Minister under Zik.
That the north has since 1954 dominated the centre was not an accident. At the 1950 Ibadan constitutional debate, the North’s demand for control of fifty percent of members of the House of Representatives, which was not informed by the population factor, as a condition for remaining a part of Nigerian federation, was acceptable to all stakeholders, including the outgoing colonial government, which was ready to do anything to accommodate their preferred successors.
The northern leaders, who never hid their desire to belong only to Nigeria they could control, got what they wanted. The Yoruba, being federalist by nature, wanted a federal constitution or regionalism where the centre will not interfere in how they manage their own affairs The Igbo, a landlocked nation with hostile neighbours, canvassed for a unitary system for a multicultural and heterogeneous society. But in the end, they succumbed to the superior argument of the British umpires, including Oliver Stanley, who reminded them that Nigeria is a multicultural and multilingual society where ethnic nationalities were at different levels of cultural development.
That the age of ‘divine right of Kings’ ended around 1600 did not stop northern leaders from developing a mindset of being born to rule. There was, therefore, continued insistence by the northern hegemonic class including Ahmadu Bello, who according to Clark, swore he would never support southern leaders with real executive power. There was also the late elder statesman, Maitama Sule, Nigeria former permanent representative to the United Nations, who said,” Everyone has a gift from God. The Northerners are endowed by God with leadership qualities. The Yoruba man knows how to earn a living and has diplomatic qualities. The Igbo are gifted in commerce, trade and technology.” Similarly, not too long ago, the immediate past governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El Rufai, tried to justify the northern monopoly of power on the grounds that the north has the population, especially if we accept that democracy is a game of numbers.
Except for the new-breed politicians of the Fourth Republic that breed nothing but corruption, I am not sure old politicians from the east and the west envied the north for its monopoly of power that has brought nothing but misery to the northern masses.
As for the east, despite being out of power but serving only as ever- willing bride to the northern hegemonic group to satisfy the demand of politics of participation and identification, the east was adjudged the fastest growing economy in the world in the early sixties. The west, which accepted its role as that of opposition, was ahead of the two other regions, paying higher minimum wage than even the federal government and sending more western region youths on foreign scholarship than the colonial master ever did for the whole of Nigeria in three years.
What made all the difference was the independence constitution, which not only provided an answer to the national question by defining how we live as human beings in control of different culture, language and the education of their children, but also allowed groups/regions to develop at their own pace without interference from others.
But the coalition partners made up of the hegemonic ruling cast in the north and their ever-willing bride were envious of the independence and giant strides of the western region. They, in breach of the constitution, interfered in the affairs of the west. In 1962, Chief SL Akintola, the premier of the west, was removed from power by 82 votes to 29 for anti-party offences. Chief Adegbenro was constitutionally sworn in as replacement. Premiers Ahmadu Bello and Okpara refused to recognise him as stipulated by the constitution, despite the Privy Council judicial pronouncement that upheld the action of the governor of western region. A subsequent attempt to pass a vote of confidence in Adegbenro at the western house was resisted by a few NCNC members who started throwing chairs. This was all the coalition partners who did not declare a state of emergency in the north or in the east, where there had been Tiv popular uprising and Isaac Boro insurrection suppressed by the military, needed to declare a state of emergency in the west.
With the declaration of a state of emergency, Awo was detained in mosquito-infested Lekki while Akintola was installed premier of the west without an election. While in detention, Awo was charged with treasonable felony – attempt to overthrow her majesty’s government and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. The military finally intervened in January 19666 to end the First Republic while the ‘living’ constitution was thrown into the dustbin.
While our current new-breed leaders play the ostrich, concerned Nigerians stakeholders are saying if we don’t know where we are going after 59 years in the wilderness, it makes sense to return to where the rain started to beat us. It is for this reason many Nigerians believe we had more freedom and attracted more respect from the colonial masters than our new-breed politicians that have since the beginning of the Fourth Republic swindled Nigerians of billions of naira on self-serving periodic constitutional review without addressing the fundamental issue of the national question.
We all know that our current crisis of nation building, including the Boko Hara insurgency, immigrant Fulani herdsmen criminals, bandits, kidnapping for ransom, massive corruption, are all but symptoms of the unresolved national question.
Last Thursday, I was going through This Day and, on Page 34, I saw a news story titled “DSS Files Charge Against Utomi Over Planned Shadow Government”. I didn’t know how to react, whether to fall on the floor rolling with laughter because it sounded so ludicrous, or whether to cry, because such a serious security agency which Nigerians look upon to take care of their internal security, could be wasting precious time on such instead of concentrating fully on Bandits, Kidnappers, Insurgents, so-called Herdsmen, and all the other new criminals that have emerged to cause Nigeria‘s internal insecurity. The news story stated that the Department of State Services (DSS) had gone to the Federal High Court, to get a perpetual injunction to stop Professor Pat Utomi and his associates from establishing a Shadow Government! The DSS claims that the Shadow Government is contrary to Sections 1(1), (2) & 14(2)(a) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended)(the Constitution).
One wonders if the DSS or its legal representatives understand what a Shadow Government is, at least, in Prof Utomi’s context, as the term ‘Shadow Government’ could have several appearances, and how needless their action of filing a suit in this regard is. To most Nigerians, it appears like a not-so-subtle attempt to stifle Nigerians’ right to freedom of thought and expression, which is enshrined in Sections 38(1) & 39(1) of the Constitution. See Shuaibu & Ors v Utomwen & Ors (2022) LPELR-58237(CA) per Biobele Abraham Georgewill, JCA on the right to freedom of expression. How does inaugurating a group that shadows government, monitoring whether government delivers good governance and churns out sound economic and public policies, translate to being a group that wants to control government and seize the sovereignty of Nigerians contrary to Sections 1(2) & 14(2)(a) of the Constitution? This is called accountability, checks and balances, encouragement of transparency in governance, and possibly opposition, if the Shadow Group disagrees with government policies; these are essential elements of democracy, and cannot be said to be unconstitutional. Unless there are many more facts that the public is unaware of, beyond Prof Utomi’s television interviews and social media activities which were referred to in the aforementioned news story, it is preposterous to conclude that he’s in breach of the aforementioned Section 1(2) & 14(2)(a) of the Constitution.
Appearances of Shadow Government
In the first context, you have a Shadow Government which is a clandestine group, such as a secret cult, populated with members from the different arms of government and all walks of life, and together, the members exercise immense powers over every aspect of government and its policies. This context is not applicable to Prof Utomi’s group, as it’s neither clandestine (some of the names of the members and their designations were published in the aforementioned news story), nor does his group wield any power.
In the second context, a Shadow Government could be an informal group that isn’t publicly accountable, possibly one that comprises of family members, cronies and associates of a political leader/top government official, but is well informed about all the important aspects of governance, even more so than those who may hold office and wields power over government policies, aka ‘Kitchen Cabinet’. We know that this certainly does not and cannot describe Prof Utomi and at least, one of the alleged members of his team, Dele Farotimi, who is a critic of Government. Even as a Politician aspiring to be the APC Delta State Gubernatorial candidate for the 2019 election, sometime in 2018 after the Delta State APC Primaries, a video trended in which Prof Utomi described his fellow APC Members as ‘evil’, because not only was he excluded from the Party Primaries which he was to participate in, the venue of the intra-party event wasn’t even shared with him! Obviously, Prof Utomi, who one can safely conclude has since left APC, is certainly not an inner caucus member of the powers that be, and this context of the definition of Shadow Government is inapplicable to his group, as he is even seen by some as a disgruntled former APC Member who turned sour after failing to achieve his political goal. Prof Utomi wasn’t even given any usual consolation prize appointment, like other party members who don’t get or don’t win their elective positions are usually given.
In the third context, like in the UK, a Shadow Government is simply the strong opposition having its own Shadow Government complete with a Shadow Cabinet who study the policies of the corresponding Cabinet actually in office, criticise them, develop alternative/substitute policies and hold government accountable. For example, the UK Secretary of State for Education is Bridget Phillipson (she had been Shadow Minister with the same portfolio when Labour was the opposition), while the Shadow Minister of Education is now Laura Trott of the Conservative Party. It is in this third context that it makes sense to consider Prof Utomi’s Shadow Group, though they do not appear to have a full Shadow Cabinet, nor can they be said to be a strong opposition, at least, not in the way and manner the Conservative and Labour are to each other.
In the first context of the clandestine Shadow Government, there should certainly be concern, because no one but the members of their secret group know what their motives and goals are; even the knowledge of the existence such groups or their membership is usually mostly cloudy. In the second and third contexts, the essence of a Shadow Government is obviously not to overthrow the incumbent government. If anything, the second group wants to keep the government in office, so they can continue to wield power, while the third group gains popularity and experience from their shadowing, in preparation for taking up office if their Party wins the next election, as in the case of Bridget Phillipson who took over the substantive Education portfolio she had previously shadowed, when Labour won the election. In short, in the third scenario, such as Prof Utomi’s, unless government is trying to stifle all opposition and in so doing, this may be tantamount to breaching some fundamental rights such as the right to freedom of thought, expression, peaceful assembly, association and freedom from discrimination contrary to Sections 38(1), 39(1), 40 and 42(1)(a) of the Constitution, ordinarily there’s really nothing wrong in having an organised opposition. In Ransome-Kuti & Ors v AGF & Ors (1985) LPELR-2940(SC) per Kayode Eso, JSC, the Supreme Court held inter alia that, fundamental rights stand above the ordinary laws of the land.
Functions of SSS
The action filed against Prof Utomi, is civil in nature. But, since what the Plaintiff is asking the court for in the case appears to be misconceived, seeing as trying to form a viable opposition is Prof Utomi’s right and cannot by the stretch of a vivid imagination, be said to be him trying to take control of the Government of Nigeria contrary to Section 1(2) of the Constitution, nor can him and his group be said to be trying to wrestle sovereignty from the people of Nigeria whom it belongs to, contrary to Section 14(2)(a) of the Constitution, I decided to examine the action of Prof Utomi through a criminal lens, particularly because the SSS (DSS) exercises criminal jurisdiction.
The National Security Agencies Act 2006 (NSA Act), the establishment law of Nigeria’s Security Agencies, namely the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and State Security Service (SSS) makes no mention of the DSS as one of the three national security agencies (see Section 1 (a)-(c) of the NSA Act), though the claim by the SSS is that DSS is its alter-ego, the same as SSS, or something like that.
The functions of SSS which are not at large, but border on dealing with crimes that affect the internal security of the country, are set out in Section 2(3) of the NSA Act; and we can easily rule out Section 2(3)(b) which deals with non-military classified matters. See Section 9(1) of the Official Secrets Act 1962 on the definition of classified matter. Prof Utomi, who wasn’t informed of the venue of the Party Primaries in which he was to participate in, and was unable to discover the location of the venue through his own investigative efforts, is unlikely to be in possession of any classified information. There’s nothing classified about Government’s public policies, and letting Nigerians know the pitfalls therein, whether better ideas are put forward or not. This is called freedom of expression. It is bad enough that Chapter II of the Constitution, that is, the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy that makes Government accountable to the people, is not directly justiciable, then to use all kinds of means of stopping people from expressing their opinions/displeasure resembles an autocratic, and not a democratic environment.
As for Section 2(3)(a) of the NSA Act which provides for the prevention and detection of crimes that affect the internal security of Nigeria, internal security includes things to do with treason, insurgency, terrorism, subversion, spying and sedition. The first three offences have to do with violence, the fourth and fifth, leaking political or official information/secrets to another country and we can rule them all out in Prof Utomi’s case, since the DSS has brought a civil and not criminal against him. The sixth, Sedition, is inter alia, publications or actions which tend to bring the Government, President or Governors into disrepute, or incite hatred and disaffection against them, or promote hostility amongst different sections of Nigerians. See Sections 50 & 51 of the Criminal Code Act (CCA). However, in DPP v Obi (1961) LPELR-24982(SC) per Adetokunbo Adegboyega Ademola, JSC, the Supreme Court, inter alia, enumerated circumstances in which a publication or an action wouldn’t be seditious, such as when it shows that the President or Governor was misled or made a mistake in any measure, or pointing out errors in the measures. It appears that Prof Utomi’s actions fall within this exception, and are also protected by the aforementioned fundamental rights.
Even Section 2(3)(c) of the NSA Act which endows the National Assembly and the President with powers to assign other responsibilities to the SSS that are deemed necessary, such responsibilities are also not at large - they must be related to Nigeria’s internal security.
Conclusion
Is the DSS now trying to insist that everyone must support the Tinubu administration, and those who are not in support are a threat to its existence? With the wave of defections to the ruling APC going on at the moment, Nigerians are asking whether the country is moving towards a one-party State, which could be undemocratic, because one of the drawbacks of a one-Party State is that it promotes less accountability from the ruling party. In a country where the level of accountability on the part of the Federal Government has been rather low, and that of the Governors, even less, it would be like having no opposition and zero accountability in a one-Party State.
As for the SSS or DSS, they already have their work very well cut out for them with the numerous threats against Nigeria’s internal security, and they should face this squarely without distraction. Insurgency in the North East and Banditry/Farmer-Herder Crisis or whatever it is called in the North Central, seem to be on the rise again. It would be better if the SSS (DSS) concentrates more on these important matters bordering on insecurity, instead of wasting time on absurdities. Have they even watched any of Prof Utomi’s interviews on television? Mostly, only people who have some basic knowledge of economics can relate to his submissions. The average man on the street may not even have a television to watch Prof Utomi, or electricity supply to tune in, let alone understand and be influenced by Prof Utomi’s economic theories.
The irresistible conclusion about the DSS’s suit against Prof Utomi is, as we say in legal parlance when we want the court to dismiss our opponent’s application, that it is ‘misconceived, frivolous and vexatious’!