The House of Representatives has said the Federal Government is not buoyant enough to afford free WAEC, NECO and JAMB for the 2023/2024 secondary academic session.

The House rejected the motion that sought to compel the federal government to make the 2023/2024 secondary school examination free for Nigerian students.

The lawmakers kicked against the motion by Anamero Dekeri, who called on the federal government to make WAEC, NECO and JAMB free for this academic session.

Naija News reports that this development is coming at a time when lawmakers are being criticised for a planned purchase of exotic cars worth billions of naira as official vehicles.

In the motion, Dekeri suggested that the monies the federal government saved from the removal of petroleum subsidy should be used to help families that are struggling.

The lawmaker said the Ministry of Education should make the examinations free.

Dekeri stated, “Urge the Ministry of Education to declare 2023 and 2024 WAEC, NECO and JAMB examinations registration free, to enable the common man to have a direct benefit of fuel subsidy removal palliatives.”

However, the motion was kicked against by members of the House of Representatives.

The Majority Leader, Julius Ihonvbere, moved an amendment that lawmakers should instead fund the free examination. But the amendment was countered by Ado Doguwa, who said members are already paying the fees.

After a long debate, Awaji Abiante moved a motion for the House to step it down, and it was adopted unanimously.

Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, 60, is a medical doctor and retired army captain. But he has not had a job after retirement 37 years ago. His day job since has been bandits’ advocacy. He has become so used to getting away with saying what he likes when he likes and how he likes it, he hardly knows when he needs help to extract his foot from his mouth. 

He could use such help. Not only for his own good, but perhaps for the good of those taking him seriously as well.

In a rambling no-holds-barred sermon last week, Gumi lashed out at the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, for planning to make Abuja “an extension of Tel Aviv,” where anyone with a long beard would be treated like Osama bin Laden and murdered. He criticised Muslims for supporting a Muslim-Muslim ticket in the last election, forgetting that others, including Christians, also voted for that ticket.

“Satan” at work

His most deadly venom, however, was not for Wike. It was for Tinubu, the enabler of the “Satan” called Wike, and the hundreds of smaller Southern devils of all faiths roaming the woods of the country in a murderous rampage since 1966 but who have resurged with Tinubu’s election, holding the trigger. Their poor, dispossessed Northern compatriots are left to occupy empty shells as offices. This translation is a mild version of what Gumi said.

He spoke for himself and not for millions of Muslims across the country who recognise that after an election whoever emerges president has an obligation not just to one religious group but to all citizens, whether they are believers or agnostics. 

He spoke for himself and not for exceptional clerics and Muslim leaders like the Sultan of Sokoto Sa’ad Abubakar who have spent their lives building bridges across faiths. Gumi spoke for himself, and certainly not for voters in Abuja who, for the first time ever, elected a non-indigenous woman, Ireti Kingibe, and member of the Labour Party, instead of traditional candidates of the two dominant parties, to represent them in the Senate. Gumi was speaking for himself.

Life in Abuja

Of course, he has a fanbase – a remnant of die-hards who follow him in the mistaken notion that he would not inherit some of the incendiary rhetoric of his father, Sheikh Abubakar Gumi. Perhaps there are also a few closet admirers among temporarily displaced politicians who are happy with his bitter words. But what is Gumi complaining about, really?

That Wike is suspectedly talking to the Israelis for Abuja’s security? It doesn’t matter to me. And Gumi may not understand why. Living in Abuja, as Chinua Achebe once said about Lagos, has become like living at the warfront. 

But Gumi will not understand since he goes about with police escorts, which is strange because you would expect that the exploits from his bandits’ advocacy should have set him free from all security concerns by now. 

Unfortunately, life in Abuja, especially in recent times, has been dangerous with frequent reports of deadly attacks on commuters by so-called “one-chance” drivers. If talking to Mossad or Hamas or Hezbollah will keep Abuja safe, it really doesn’t matter to me. And Gumi, a retired army captain, ought to know better.

Red herring

The US, “a country of infidels”, has some of the largest military bases in the world in Muslim countries in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, where Gumi earned his PhD in Islamic jurisprudence, has five of such bases apart from a military defence pact with America. The UAE hosts 5,000 US military personnel at the Al Dhafra Air Base, just outside Abu Dhabi. President Donald Trump had planned to double it.

Wike talking with Mossad – which I suspect was just a Gumi red herring – does not make Abuja any more vulnerable than did military president General Ibrahim Babangida awarding Julius Berger, a German firm, the contract to build Aso Rock, where the Nigerian president resides.

But of course, that was not Gumi’s main grouse. He is offended by the “otherness” of Wike’s appointment. How can someone who is not like him, an intruder if you like, be appointed minister of the Federal Capital Territory? 

There are many things for which you can criticise Wike, not least of which is his politics, sometimes. His decisions to shuffle the FCT administration, demand overdue ground rent, and revoke hundreds of plots of undeveloped land that have in many cases become speculators’ lottery, have ruffled feathers. Yet, they can hardly be described as self-serving. 

To be fair, Gumi did not mention any of these complaints in his sermon. Even if he did, it would have been perfectly within his right to do so because public officers must be held to account. But that was not the point of his displeasure; it was not about requesting accountability, offering suggestions about a better way, if he thought there was one, or challenging the competence of the minister. 

Whose sacred ground?

His attack came from a much deeper place: resentment that Tinubu who emerged president by the grace of the North had the effrontery to bring an “intruder” into a “sacred ground,” without the approval of the Landlord. This brazen sense of entitlement dressed up as a “religious wrong,” offends decency. It’s unacceptable.

Abuja does not need to be saved from Wike. It is against people like Gumi that the capital and the country must now defend itself. The original builders of this place did not conceive of it as the Boys Quarters of one tribe, religion or ethnic group. It was precisely because of this sort of complication which Lagos presented, apart from it becoming a concrete jungle, that Abuja was conceived of as the new frontier of national unity. 

The original majority Gwari indigenes have complained, perhaps justifiably, of being marginalised; agitators from the creeks of the Niger Delta have complained, perhaps justifiably, that Abuja was built off the back of oil wealth from that polluted and forsaken region. 

What injury has Wike’s appointment caused Gumi? In Joseph Ona & another V. Diga Romani Atenda (2000), 5 NWLR (Pt. 656) 244, the Court of Appeal put to rest any special claim to Abuja by anyone or group. Abuja has no special status and therefore cannot be claimed as anyone’s special ground.

Changing demographics

If Gumi was looking, he would have seen, from the results of the last general elections that the city’s demographics, especially in the municipal areas, are changing. For the first time in its 47-year history as federal capital, neither the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) of which he is an undisguised sympathiser; nor the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), had the majority. Appointments must reflect competence and the changing demographics. 

In spite of Gumi, it’s a small step forward for unity and diversity that an APC president appointed a PDP minister in a federal capital where a woman and a non-indigene, represents Abuja in the Senate.

Gumi was right about one thing, though. That he didn’t particularly see eye-to-eye with former President Muhammadu Buhari. But it’s surprising that for eight years he didn’t see anything wrong with Abuja under former FCT minister Mohammed Bello. 

A man full of religious fervour, Bello was well on his way to pre-eminence in mullah-hood when Buhari diverted him with a ministerial appointment, which became his undoing. He lost his way and his catastrophic tenure has been largely responsible for Abuja’s current mess. 

Bello’s failure had nothing to do with religion or the fact that all seven ministers of the city in the last 24 years have all been Muslims. After all, Nasir El-Rufai, one of the two exceptional ministers in nearly 50 years, is a Muslim. 

Gumi’s followers won’t hear him say that. But the next time they listen to his hate sermon, they should ask him what matters more to him: result or religion? His extremism shames decency. He should find a job.

The Department of State Service (DSS) Wednesday evening freed Abdulrasheed Bawa, the former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

“DSS confirms release of former EFCC chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, a few hours ago (today 25th October, 2023),” DSS said in a statement.

Bawa reunited with his family amid celebration shortly after his release from DSS custody after 134 days in detention.

The former EFCC chairman was arrested by the DSS in mid-June following his suspension by President Bola Tinubu.

Although DSS spokesman Peter Afunanya said Bawa arrived DSS office to honour an ‘invitation’, he was not allowed to leave until after four months.

Afunanya said the ‘invitation’ by the Nigerian secret police relates to some investigative activities concerning Bawa’s tenure as EFCC chairman.

The Presidency and the DSS did not disclose the outcome of its investigation on Bawa as of the time of filing this report.

Bawa’s removal from office follows a similar pattern that previous EFCC heads – Ibrahim Magu, Ibrahim Lamorde and Farida Waziri – have been removed.

President Tinubu, a week ago, appointed a new EFCC chairman Ola Olukoyede to replace Bawa.

The Nigerian Senate confirmed Olukayode as chairman and Muhammad Hammajoda as the Secretary of the anti-graft agency.

The parents of the late singer, Ilerioluwa Aloba, popularly known as Mohbad, on Wednesday, told the Coroner’s Inquest that is looking into the cause of death of their son that he stopped going to shows for six months because of fear of the constant beating, harassment and bullying he got from his former label owner, Azeez Fashola, also better known as Naira Marley and his ally, Sammy Larry.

They also claimed he told them that he was being attacked because he said he didn’t want Naira Marley’s brother, Tunde Fashola, to be his manager anymore.

The father of the late singer, Joseph Aloba, said, “Mohbad was scared of going out for six months. He said he did not know if the substance he drank at the NDLEA will appear at the airport.”

He said the day Mohbad was inflicted with injury, he saw Naira Marley and his boys and claimed that Mohbad said it was customary for them to attack him.

On her own part, the mother said, “My son told us that there was a show that Naira Marley forced him to attend which he declined because it was Sammy Larry that was the organiser of that show.

“Whenever Mohbad was with me, he was always full of fear; he said it was Naira Marley who collected all the money for the shows he performed because the three-year contract that he signed with him had not elapsed.

“He always mentioned Naira Marley and Sammy Larry, and he was always shaking. I begged him several times to allow me to speak with them, but he refused, saying he didn’t want them to kill me.

“The last time he travelled for a show, after he came back, he mentioned to me that Naira Marley came to attack him, he reported the case to the police but I don’t know if the police invited Naira Marley,” the mother said.

She said she didn’t know that her son was a musician until she and Mohbad reconnected in 2019 at Ayobo after she had left him with his father when he was three years old.

Abosede said Mohbad was her second child and that he had two other siblings but when she and his father separated, she was not allowed to take the children with her except the last one because he was very young. She claimed he didn’t even stay long with her before the father took him away from her.

Mohbad’s mother said it was her younger sister who brought Mohbad and his friends to visit her and then they exchanged numbers.

She said when he told her that he sang, I told him that wasn’t the prophecy I got when I was pregnant with him. “You were supposed to be a pastor, I told him but he played with me and then left,” he recalled.

“After he left that night, somebody came to me and showed me a video that was circulating online that they were beating him and he was crying and said that Naira Marley wanted to kill him.

‘The following day, I got a call again that the deceased had been hospitalised. By the time I got there, they said he had been discharged and he was ok healthwise.

“Mohbad told me on the third day that he was inside the studio when he got a call that something was happening at Azeez Fashola (Naira Marley) house that the NDLEA came to raid his house,” she said.

The witness also stated that it was the information that the deceased heard that made him rush down to Naira Marley’s house because Zinoleesky, the deceased’s younger brother, Adutra Aloba, and the deceased’s wife, Omowunmi Aloba, were staying at Naira Marley’s house.

She also explained that by the time the deceased got to Naira Marley’s house, the NDLEA had taken Zinolesky and others away.

“The deceased followed the NDLEA to their office and he asked why they took his friends away he became thirsty due to the argument between him and the NDLEA, then he was given water, he later discovered that he was not feeling ok again after drinking the water.

“I asked him why he was shouting on the Internet, he said Naira Marley wanted to kill him. I asked him why does Naira Marley want to kill you, he said I shouldn’t worry, that I cannot understand.

“I and one Iya Lode went to Naira Marley’s house and on seeing Naira Marley, he explained that the deceased spoiled his name. I and his father apologised to him, but he still wrote a statement that he (Naira Marley) wanted to kill him.

“I was at the deceased’s house on Saturday when the deceased told me that he had a show on Sunday, September 10, 2023, at Ikorodu but the following Tuesday I received a call that the deceased was dead,” she said.

At the conclusion of her testimony, she said that for all the things she told the court, her son had warned her not to say it because they would kill her.

Earlier, the father of the late singer, Joseph Aloba, told the coroner’s inquest at Ikorodu that the reason they buried Mohbad the next day was that the mortuary rejected him.

He said that he was the one who pointed out where Mohbad was buried.

Aloba said the place where Mohbad was buried was his (deceased) land.

He also told the coroner that on the day his son died, when he got to the house he went straight upstairs to his room where he saw blood-soaked clothes before he was told that the deceased was in the living room.

The Department of State Services (DSS) has released a former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, Daily Trust can confirm.

Bawa has been in custody since June when President Bola Tinubu suspended him.

Willie Bassey, Director of Information at the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, had said Bawa was suspended as a result of weighty allegations of abuse of office levelled against him.

Former governor of Zamfara State and Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, had accused Bawa of demanding $2 million bribe from him, an allegation which he denied.

Bassey had said suspension was to allow for proper investigation into his conduct while in office.

President Bola Tinubu has approved the appointment of nine (9) new Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The appointment is for a term of five (5) years each, which is also subject to the confirmation of the Nigerian Senate.

Ajuri Ngelale, Tinubu’s media aide, noted that the appointment is justified based on powers vested in him by Section 154 (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999, Amended) and Section 6 of the Electoral Act (2022).

The new appointees include Mr. Isah Shaka Ehimeakne — Edo State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr. Bamidele Agbede — Ekiti State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr. Jani Adamu Bello — Gombe State Resident Electoral Commissioner and Dr. Taiye Ilayasu — Kwara State Resident Electoral Commissioner

Others are Dr. Bunmi Omoseyindemi — Lagos State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Alhaji Yahaya Bello — Nasarawa State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Mohammed Yalwa — Niger State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr. Anugbum Onuoha — Rivers State Resident Electoral Commissioner and Mr. Abubakar Fawa Dambo — Zamfara State Resident Electoral Commissioner

Ngelale said the President expects the new appointees to abide by the highest standards of professional and ethical conduct in the discharge of their duties, in accordance with his determination to facilitate the establishment of a new and sustainable standard of transparent, fair, and conflict-free electoral conduct in Nigeria

[DailyPost]

There is no three-month tenure extension for the ambassadors recently recalled by the Federal Government, the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs clarified yesterday. 

Also, the Federal Government has placed embargo on foreign missions’ accounts to check frivolous spending by envoys. 

The Ministry stated that the envoys’ October 31 exit date remained sacrosanct, adding that Foreign Affairs Minister Ambassador Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, who issued the notice, acted on the directive of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

It was learnt that non-career ambassadors had initiated moves to remain on their duty posts till December 31.

But the Presidency was not convinced on the excuse given to extend their stay, following alleged suspicious actions of some of the envoys to mop up funds.

The Federal Government has placed embargo on last minutes expenditure by the envoys.

As part of the recalibration of the nation’s Foreign Policy, President Tinubu had directed non-career envoys to return home.

Those affected have been lobbying traditional rulers, businessmen and influential politicians to remain in their host countries.

Tuggar, in a statement by his Special Assistant on Media and Communications Strategy, Alkasim Abdulkadir, said there was no directive to extend the exit date of recalled ambassadors.

He said the report that recalled envoys have had their diplomatic duties extended by three months is unknown to the minister.

According to him: “Some of the envoys have either signaled their host governments of leaving or have left and returned to the country already. 

“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s recall still stands and all envoys are expected to be back in Nigeria by the 31st of October as earlier communicated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, acting on the directive of the President. 

“This is a routine matter to recalibrate Nigeria’s foreign policy and international relations in line with the 4Ds (Democracy, Development, Demography and Diaspora) foreign policy strategy under the ‘Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr. President.”

On the embargo on expenditures by the outgoing ambassadors, a source said the Federal Government took the step to curtail alleged moves by some of them to mop up funds in their embassies.

The source added: “On the issue of the embargo on expenditures, it has been done. Some of the requests are not in line with routine expenditures. They are suspicious and look like last minute mop ups.

“Some of the envoys have continuously mounted tremendous pressures on the Heads of Chanceries and Accountants to pay them without recourse to due diligence. They have gone a step further to ask that personnel and capital budgets be turned into overhead budgets.”

According to the source,  payment of exit allowances to the recalled ambassadors has started.

He said: ”All payments have been completed. The payments, which started on the night of 24th October, 2023 were completed yesterday (25th of October, 2023).

“However, due to the difference in time zones and banking systems, it may not have reflected in some missions.”

A non-career ambassadors disclosed that the umbrella association of the group had written to the President to extend the deadline for their recall.

He said although the ambassadors also appreciated the President’s decision to recall them to “reengineer the foreign policy of his administration,” they asked for a three-month grace on their duty posts.

The envoy, who spoke in confidence, said: “We drew the attention of Mr. President to the fact that the deadline of October 31brings a major challenge to our children’s education.

“Most schools resumed some weeks ago, and our children are about half way into the school term. We don’t want any school calendar transition to cause setback for our children who will return to school in Nigeria.

“We have asked the President to extend the deadline for our return from October 31st to December 31st, 2023.”

[Nation]

Nigerian lawmakers, because of their antipathy towards laws put in place to guide their behaviour, are often derisively dismissed as law-breakers by Nigerians who believe they are out only to serve themselves and not those they represent. We didn’t need to search far for evidence. Our lawmakers so far have not tried to invalidate the claim by well-informed Nigerian opinion leaders that lawmakers in breach of the constitution and the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission’s (RMAFC) salary ceiling for lawmakers awarded themselves outrageous monthly salaries of between N20m-N30m in a nation where many states cannot pay the N30,000 minimum wages. Nigerian lawmakers have since acquired the unsavoury reputation as the highest paid lawmakers in the world with the influential London Economist in 2013 ranking Nigeria as “the country with the most unjust and lopsided pay structure in the world”.

Beyond humongous salaries they are allegedly paying themselves, it was obvious from  RMFAC published details of the remuneration package  for political, public and judicial office holders, that lawmakers  are not entitled to operational vehicles, but an optional car loan of between N7.9m and N8.1m for each lawmaker.  But the senate in spite of this went ahead to spend  N4.7 billion on Peugeot 508 saloon cars for themselves in 2015 and similar amount on Toyota Camry saloon cars in 2020. If Nigerians are outraged with the 10th assembly’s N160m financial frivolity on “operational vehicles” for each of its 469 members, at a period when Nigerians are experiencing economic pain, it was because the action was considered insensitive and treacherous.

First, this was at a time the voters on whose back the lawmakers rode to power are unable to go to work daily because of increase in cost of transportation as a result of fuel subsidy removal. It was a period of an ongoing government negotiation with Labour in order to prevent a general strike and a lock-down of the economy. It was also at a time the government was desperately trying to work out palliatives in form of money transfer to some thousands of the poorest and most vulnerable in the land.

With the naira in free fall against the dollar, many believe the  time is most inauspicious for legislators to spend our scarce foreign exchange on importation of toys when we have local brands such as Innoson, Nords, Pro-Force and others producing high-end vehicles, including SUVs currently patronized by some state governments in the country. As one local manufacturer puts it: “The National Assembly buying foreign-built vehicles at this time is dispiriting especially when you consider that we are all trying to promote buy Nigeria to grow the Naira”. “Exporting jobs by ordering from foreign brands instead of local brands” as the Centre for Social Justice also recently observed, many believe is a crime against the nation.

But if you ask me, I will say the antics of our lawmakers; their betrayal and corruption are but symptoms of greater malaise assailing our nation. We are probably expecting too much from our lawmakers who unfortunately cannot give what they don’t have.

 The military destroyed our political socialization process and when finally forced to step aside after almost 30 years, what was bequeathed onto us was a military-baked ‘new breed’ politicians that behave like army of occupation groomed in the art of sharing loot of conquered territories.

It was therefore not an accident that within three months of coming to power in 1999, the new government and legislature populated by retired Generals and other ranks and their business fronts came out with petroleum importation policy through which fuel import licenses were allocated to over 100 companies fronting for them. A House probe was to later confirm the theft of about N1.7t through the fuel subsidy regime exploited by lawmakers, PDP stalwarts and their children without importing a pint of fuel.

It was not a surprise that with Obasanjo’s privatization policy, they sold to themselves Nigeria’s total investment of about $100b for a paltry $1,5b while with Obasanjo/Jonathan monetization policy, civil servants and lawmakers including Speaker Dimeji Bankole, Senate President David Mark and CBN Governor Chukwuma Soludo allegedly bought their official residences at a fraction of their real cost.

It was not also a surprise that the new-breed successive leaders of the National Assembly were all discovered to be men with feet of clay. Senate presidents Evans Enwerem was removed from office on November 1999 for falsification of name, Chuba Okadigbo was removed as Senate President in August 2000 by 81-14 votes over inflation of contract costs while Anyim Pius Anyim out of office was grilled by EFCC for shortfall of about N396 billion in ecological fund deductions as well as over $1.3B Centenary City project.  Bukola Saraki sold the victory of his party to the opposition by cutting a deal which ceded the deputy senate presidency to the opposition, in what Itse Sagay described as “a victory for impunity, a victory for fraud and a victory for political desperation and indiscipline”.

In the Lower House, Speakers Salisu Buhari was removed for certificate and age falsification, Patricia Ette was removed in 2007 over award of about N628m for the renovation of her official residence and that of the deputy speaker,  Dimeji Bankole bought his palatial official quarters for N45m after N200m provision had been provided in 2008 budget for its renovation. There was also  Abdul Mumin Jibrin who, when  accused of ‘unilaterally padding the 2016 budget to the tune of N4.1 billion to his Kiru/Bebeji federal constituency in Kano State, attributed his travails to his inability “to admit into the budget almost N30 billion personal requests from Mr. Speaker Dogara and the three other principal officers”.

The excesses of our lawmakers did not go unnoticed by Nigerian concerned opinion leaders. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as governor of Central bank on December 1, 2010 during a lecture at the University of Benin was the first to inform Nigerians that federal legislators had cornered about 25% of federal government budget. The late former Justice of Supreme Court, Justice Kayode Eso on November 21, 2010 warned that ‘for any senator including absentee senators to take home N30m every month without accountability as a foundation for revolution”.

While ex-President Obasanjo at the public presentation of the autobiography of Justice Mustapha Akanbi, in Abuja, in November 2014 ridiculed the National Assembly, as “largely an assemblage of looters and thieves”, it was the view of Biodun Jeyifo that “if you want to know why looting and thievery became so pervasive in the 4th Republic, you must pay attention to the legalization and institutionalization of greed and sleaze in our predatory legislature”.

Lawmakers’ infidelity, perfidy of ethnic nationalities and political intrigue and economic sabotage by those who have no faith in the country are but symptoms of our greater malaise. Our malady is our superstructure. General Abdulsalami Abubakar’s Decree 24 as Pa Ayo Adebanjo has repeatedly warned, will not take us to the Promised Land.

President Bola Tinubu might have tried to prove that separation of power in presidential system is an illusion, the N5.7b Prado toys’ treachery is a sad reminder that even if an angel operates a unitary constitution in a multicultural society, he will fail. To guard against the fate of his predecessors therefore, the president must ensure we stop playing the ostrich and return to where the rain started to beat us.

It is said that the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled on humans was to make them doubt his existence. The quip, dating back to as far back as the 1836 book by John Wilkinson and memorably quoted in a 1995 Hollywood film, The Usual Suspects, is perhaps accurate only as far as Western society is concerned. The dirtiest trick the Devil has played on Nigerians is to make us believe that though he is an omnipresent source of mischief, he somehow manages to reside only in the people whose existence annoys us.

Since the Kaduna-based Muslim cleric and attention-seeking troublemaker, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, managed to grab some spotlight last week by describing the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory,  Nyesom Wike, as “Satan,” it has been amusing reading his defenders’ denunciation. Of the plenty words available —from the printable to the cringeworthy—that Gumi could have selected, he chose an evocative one like “Satan.” If he had asked me very nicely, I could have helped his vocabulary range by supplying him with a few words that suit Wike’s crass character better. Since his days as education minister when he and the archenemy that has defined his politics, Rotimi Amaechi, were involved in a public contest of wills, I had determined Wike to be a clown and a mere vulgarian. If anything has improved since then, it is the intensity with which he proves me right.

Those who took offence at the “satanic” attack on Wike were quick to point out the provocation, and that Gumi’s intemperate language could cause religious divisiveness. Under some other set of circumstances, that could be true except that accusing someone of being “Satan” is hackneyed. As recently as mid-last month, a Peoples Democratic Party chieftain, Pedro Obaseki, described Wike as “Satan’s lieutenant” for how he diminished their party before joining the All Progressives Congress cabinet. Fine, I agree that the difference between being Satan himself and being his mere lieutenant is like a five-star review and a three-star. Still, Wike can at least take some consolation that someone thinks he is a social terror.

That said, what Wike’s defenders missed is that there is perhaps no other politician who has banalised identifying Satan in political exchanges better than Wike himself. There are many examples, but let us start with December 2016, during a Christmas service at the Rivers State Headquarters of the Living Faith Church in Port Harcourt where Wike announced to the church that, “No power can bring me down because I am solidly and comfortably rooted in God. My belief in God strengthens me at all times. We want you to continue to pray for this state because Satan is at work. If God be for us, nobody can be against us. We have had turbulent times, but we have always come out victorious. This state is a Christian state. Therefore, we shall continue to collaborate with the Church.”

Then, in February 2017, when Vice President Yemi Osinbajo visited Rivers, held a town hall meeting in the Government House with Wike, and then turned around to hold a stakeholders’ meeting with Amaechi, he criticised them saying, “Since the Acting President began his tour of the Niger-Delta, this is the first time he will be sleeping in a state. This is the first time he will be passing a night outside his region. What does that tell you? It means Rivers State is safe. But you know Satan will never sleep. Lucifer will always stay awake. Anywhere Satan sees light, he will always want to turn it into darkness.”

Please also note that on some occasions when Amaechi’s defenders stood up to Wike, they also accused him of using “satanic elements and witchcraft.”

In the same 2017, at an interdenominational service to thank God for the Supreme Court ruling that declared the Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led Caretaker Committee of the PDP legal, Wike once again displayed his unique talents for identifying Satan when he said, “God saved the PDP because of Rivers State. We don’t have Plan B. Every other state had Plan B. Our enemies will be put to shame from time to time. Rivers State is the strongest PDP State. While we are reconciling, we must be vigilant. Nobody will take me unawares. Satan will never sleep. Satan will always find ways to cause havoc.” That same year, Wike tweeted that, “The APC is the house of Satan. They have brought so much problems to Nigeria. Nigeria has never been this divided.”

When he quarreled with his Edo State counterpart, Godwin Obaseki, he did not stop at accusing him of betrayal and lack of gratitude. He had to fall back on his go-to language of identifying the devil in them. He said, “Satan has agents. Most of the people you see are agents of Satan. I am not in the class of Obaseki.” Also, last year when Amaechi ridiculed the people ecstatic over Wike’s supposed achievements in Rivers State, his riposte was that those unhappy were the children of Satan. While still a  presidential aspirant of the PDP, his campaign was liberally peppered with describing the APC using the idioms of satanism. In Jalingo, Taraba State, Wike especially blamed the growing insecurity in Nigeria on satanic operations perpetrated through his agent, the APC.

There are several other instances of him denouncing the APC as Satan or “agents of Satan.” If it were not Nigeria we are talking about, his serving in Satan’s cabinet would have been dramatic irony. But the turn of events surprises no one. Men like Wike have neither principles nor scruples. Their tongues are like wind vanes; it blows in whichever direction best assures power access. As inconsistent as he is, how Wike conveniently whips out “Satan” to confront political rivals also gives an insight into the nature of evil in political discourse. The Satan in our public culture is not particularly malicious nor wanders the earth to do evil for its mere sake. The Satan in our centres of power is gravely incompetent, lacks any moral convictions (or even the capacity for reflection), and wreaks havoc merely to keep busy.

A part of me wants to feel bad for Gumi that he could not find anything original to antagonise a man whose stock in political trade is satanising his rivals. Calling Wike “Satan” sounds rather desperate. While I can guarantee that attacking Wike will keep him busy for a while, he should also know that that man is going nowhere. Wike is not the FCT minister today because he has an original idea about urban development and regeneration, or even relevant managerial expertise. He came this far as payment for his role in helping the present government to power and as an APC ploy to systematically diminish whatever is left of the PDP. His endurance in that office will be contingent upon his playing both roles effectively. There is nothing the likes of Gumi can do about it.

Gumi’s desperation must have been so intense that he even played the 2027 election card. He did not base the reason the Bola Tinubu administration will not deserve a second term on its crushing dysfunctionality, only on the political symbolism it fails to sustain. Much of his rant in the press conference where he called Wike “Satan” was about how the spaces that “we” occupied but which have been shrunk by a new tribe of political grabbers. Little minds like him think Nigeria was made for them and everyone else is an interloper. He can cry all he likes, but the reign of this “Satan” will be long.

And if the silliness Gumi portrayed in that video is his best tactic for sustaining his relevance now that banditry no longer makes front-page news, then I am afraid he will be out of consequence for a long time.