The Nation Newspaper

Author: The Nation

  • Atiku hyperbolic on loyalty

    Atiku hyperbolic on loyalty

    During last week’s public presentation of The Loyalist, a book written by Bolaji Abdullahi, National Publicity Secretary of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), former vice president Atiku Abubakar pontificated grandly on the subject of loyalty. Though his short take was laced with hyperbole, he tried to give the impression that he understood the subject, and even attempted to turn it against his political opponents. As the chief promoter of the party, and consumed with the ambition to preside over Nigeria, especially considering the fact that he sees this election cycle as his very last chance, he has steered the coalition party into vehemently posturing as a government-in-waiting. His pontifications, however, create doubt in the minds of many Nigerians as to his grasp of issues and his readiness to assume high office.

    In penning the book, Mr Abdullahi said on television that the loyalty subject was itself somewhat nuanced. This was probably why he titled it, The Loyalist: A Memoir of Service and Sacrifice, substantially different from In the Shadow of the Godfather, which he had originally toyed with. Answering a question on Channels TV, the author insisted that despite still retaining his respect for former Kwara State governor and senate president, Bukola Saraki, he could no longer trust him nor remain loyal to him for a number of reasons. No one should begrudge him his opinion. But here precisely is the crux of the matter. Mr Abdullahi once considered himself loyal to Dr Saraki, or at least to a phantom idea of what he believed the former governor stood for in politics. But in his public disquisition, Alhaji Atiku vigorously posited that unlike in the regimented services, politicians should define and approach loyalty from a normative perspective that is ideologically consistent, if not prescriptive.

    Here is a somewhat lengthy excerpt from what Alhaji Atiku said at the book presentation: “…I have personally faced exile as a result of loyalty. I have survived assassination attempts as a result of loyalty. What you may have found through research is not unusual; it is part of the price many of us have paid. For those of us who come from the military and paramilitary professions, loyalty is non-negotiable. There is no reservation, only absolute obedience. But having joined political life over the last almost four decades, I have realised that loyalty in politics is not as rigid as it is in the military. Loyalty should strengthen the common goal, not narrow the circle of belonging. It requires accountability, transparency, and the ability to listen and learn, especially from those with whom we disagree. True loyalty embraces diversity of thought and protects the dignity of every citizen. As leaders and aspiring leaders, these are lessons we must bear in mind for leadership and public service. The book invites us to examine loyalty to country, community, institutions, and to our own moral compass vis-à-vis personal loyalty. It challenges us to consider how loyalty can unite us in the service of a shared and just future.”

    Read Also: Atiku’s son hails Tinubu’s economic policies, backs re-election

    The former vice president’s friends and enemies will take his disquisition apart, block by block, without even trying so hard. He talked of loyalty as a tool to strengthen the common goal rather than narrow the circle of belonging. He was simply being theoretical. In the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the platform upon which he anchored his ambition for the presidency in 2023, he violently repudiated his own thesis of ideological loyalty by sticking to his party chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, even when it was both no longer realistic to do so and when it seemed poised to cost him dearly. If his ‘loyalty’ to Dr Ayu was not a narrowing of circle of belonging, nothing else in this world qualifies. Alhaji Atiku’s political history is in fact a testament to the most egregious and contradictory understanding of loyalty, his expectation of loyalty from his own circle of belonging, and when it serves his ambition, his provocative and enduring refusal to give loyalty, whether to an idea, no matter how profound, or to a person, no matter how objectionable.

    What is well known about the former vice president’s politics is that his entire understanding of loyalty is whatever serves and advances his ambition to win the presidency. His several junkets in and out of political parties do not demonstrate a clear understanding of what loyalty means, particularly in the ennobling sense he has tried to paint and deploy it. Instead they reflect a man unstable in his ways, a man obsessed with being president, someone consumed with a messianic presumption of his capabilities, a leader eager both to betray others and exact sacrifice of untold proportions, and a conjuror of unsubstantiated tales of exile and assassinations. He spoke last week on a subject he should have stayed away from, for there are many aspects of Mr Abdullahi’s book that offer themselves for easy discourse by someone like him so superficial in his general understanding of policy and strategy.

    In rounding off his brief remarks on the book, Alhaji Atiku says it “invites us to examine loyalty to country, community, institutions, and to our own moral compass vis-à-vis personal loyalty.” Incredible. There was nothing he said or did in his ‘nearly four decades in politics’ that demonstrated his loyalty to country, community, institutions, or moral compass. Nothing. His time as vice president to Olusegun Obasanjo was truly dismaying. The only sense of community he has is his dear and autarkic self, the ultimate John Donne man ‘entire of himself’. As for any loyalty to institutions, he approaches it like a courtesan. And moral compass? Why, it is a miracle the former vice president can still find his way around what is wrong, not to talk of pontificating on a general moral code on what is right.

  • Soludo, Kanu and befuddled Onitsha traders

    Soludo, Kanu and befuddled Onitsha traders

    Anambra State governor Chukwuma Soludo was justified to order a one-week closure of the Onitsha Main Market due to the traders’ defiance of the repeated appeal to end their Monday sit-at-home order emplaced by Nnamdi Kanu’s Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). If they could obey non-state actors who are in jail in Sokoto (Kanu) and Finland (Simon Ekpa), and which obedience is costing the state an estimated and astronomical N8bn weekly, the governor found it distasteful that the traders stubbornly disobeyed lawful state orders to keep the market open for business.

    Even more galling to Anambrarians is the fact that the traders responded to the governor’s one week closure by organising protests to force him to back down. This is utter shamelessness. The so-called unknown gunmen killings and Monday shutdowns in the Southeast never elicited the kind of protests that greeted the Soludo order. This indicates massive elite connivance at IPOB’s self-immolating tactics. Now, the traders are protesting and, together with a sizable section of their elite, have refused to condemn Mr Kanu’s counterproductive legal histrionics and political grandstanding. They objurgate Finland’s legal system for jailing Mr Ekpa, and are threatening Nigeria and the ruling party for jailing Mr Kanu.

    Read Also: Soludo commissions 5km community road, hails public-private-community partnership

    Prof Soludo will be advised not to back down. He has sensibly limited his market closure order to one week. He should let the punishment run its course despite the subterfuge of some analysts cynically equating the governor’s order with IPOB’s Monday order. The Onitsha traders have obeyed years of Monday sit-at-home orders. One week of closure will not kill them. They have after all generated the stamina to stomach the punishment.

  • In memory of memory

    In memory of memory

    • The long passage to eternity

    From birth to death, human existence is one drama after another. Life is perpetual theatre. Many have even stretched this to conception itself and the very act of consecrating life. Imagine how many doughty fighters fell in the very struggle to overwhelm and overpower a single egg before one nuclear warhead finally succeeds in breaching the fortress of creation, leaving the others to perish in a watery tomb, unsung and unmourn, a mere surplus to requirement. It is an oceanic plenitude, a mammoth graveyard which is also the fountain of life. As long as humans are around, there will always be surplus troops available for the project. Life and death can be very wasteful.

      In circumstances of extreme scarcity or forced cohabitation brought about by geopolitical upheavals, different human races have been known to mix and interbreed. In the Caribbean, the Indians, having been transported across more than half of the globe as an indentured workforce, began coupling and interbreeding with Black slaves and other aboriginal entities to stave off the possibility of extinction. The same thing happened in South Africa. In old Sierra-Leone, freed Black slaves who had chosen to be offloaded on the African coast, were allowed to bring their white mistresses whose conditions were no less appalling than the dire circumstances of their spouses. Simon Schama, the great Dutch historian, is an invaluable and unrivalled authority on this development.

     In Brazil, Angola, Mozambique and their other colonial possessions, the Portuguese, whose level of civilization at that point in time was only marginally superior to those they have suppressed by gunpowder, began procreating and breeding among the indigenous people on an industrial scale producing a hybrid of mestizos in the process. The Spaniards did the same thing by force and by fire in Latin America. Henan Cortes, the famed Spanish conquistador, already boasted of a native mistress, a slave interpreter, who was accused of betraying the secret of the people to the invaders. Love does not brook any obstacle or objection to self-satisfaction. It must be added that recent historical excavations suggest a more nuanced conclusion.

    The human capacity for self-magnification and hence self-actualization is the source of our strength. This is what has allowed the human species to leap beyond our animal cousins and to overwhelm other rival hominids in the struggle for power and earthly possessions. It is what Obafemi Awolowo, the great Nigerian philosopher, has called mental magnitude. Any race that does not possess mental magnitude is doomed to a life of failure and stagnation. Mental magnitude is what allows humankind to dream big and to find the will and capacity to bring these dreams to fruition. This is what is behind the growth of civilizations, of big cities, great scientific advancements, outlandish strides in communication, medical feats that banish superstitious imbecilities and a prodigious intellectual self-awareness which nudge humanity to a higher telos but which also deceives humankind into believing that they are actually greater than what they truly are.

      To dream at such level requires great brains. The secret of human success and triumphs is our brains. But great brains also require constant nurturing, constant nourishment and constant cultivation which lead to self-modulation, self-modifications and self-corrections. The lack and loss of memory is the Achilles’ heel of modern civilization and is at the root of our contemporary tribulations as memory is politicized by both ideologues of the extreme right with their bogus nationalism and xenophobia and the extreme left with their hallucinations about a coming commune. The more things change, the more they don’t change. This epoch is beginning to feel very much like the prelude to the Second World War as men without capacity for global memory and without the ability for ironic self-reflection seize control of some apex countries and begin to push the human race towards a date with Armageddon.

    Walter Benjamin, the Jewish-German philosopher and cultural critic of note, was a political mystic far ahead of his time. He was neither fooled by the modern pyramids springing up all over Europe and particularly in the wonder continent-country behemoth known as America, nor was he dazed or dazzled by the glittering monuments and the outstanding technological savvy behind it all. It was a sign that modernity had come into its own and the human race was on top of his brief. He was far more interested in providing a balance sheet of the immense toil and the unspeakable horrors and human suffering behind it all. He had noted cryptically that “there is no record of civilization that is not at the same time a record of barbarity”.                  

       In 1940 as Adolf Hitler bared his fangs, Walter Benjamin fled his beloved homeland hoping to reach the safety of America. But it was not to be. He was stopped at the French-Spanish border on the grounds of insufficient documentation. Facing sure death, if he was deported back to Germany, Benjamin promptly committed suicide. Miguel De Unamuno, the great Spanish writer and philosopher, who had famously noted that under tyranny men seek liberty and under liberty they seek tyranny was only luckier by a stretch. No two individuals could be more dissimilar, intellectually, spiritually and ideologically.  But both were united by their passion for freedom and abhorrence of fascism.

    After a cat and mouse game, Unamuno finally came under the crosshair of the fascist inquisition. In a rousing speech at the University of Salamanca where he was rector, Unamuno denounced fascism and its attempt to turn everybody into a cripple morally and intellectually. It was a brave thing to do. Sitting testily among the guests was a favorite Franco general who had lost an eye and one arm in great partisan exertions. “Death to life!” the warrior spat out. Only the fear of an international uproar prevented Unamuno from being summarily executed. He was placed under house arrest from where he died two months later on the last day of 1936.  

    Read Also: From memory, not mimicry

        President Donald Trump is a man without any capacity for self-reflection and a sense of momentous irony. As his self-described “armada” rumbles towards Persian waters in all its Pericles-like might and omnipotence one cannot but feel a sense of Deja vu. From the old Greek empire, through  the Roman and Persian civilizations to modern day and technological wonders like the American super fleet, this has always been how military wizardry decoupled from common sense and political wisdom sometimes eventuate in civilizational overreach.  In any society, whenever the aggregate of common sense and political wisdom is outstripped and put in its place by the hubris and self-endorsing narcissism of those whom the leadership lottery has thrown up, such a society has reached the optimal limits of its possibilities.

    In our modern world and although it is often in denial, America is about the only proper empire we have known in the real sense of the world. There are empires and there are empires. The American empire did not truly come into its own until its primogenitor, the British Empire, went into terminal decline. If we are to put a date to it, the America empire which had been threatening since the mid-nineteenth century did not achieve global hegemony and unrivalled dominion until the end of the Second World War when it stamped out the German and Japanese threat. The Soviet Union fell later to a combination of economic and military blackmail and intimidation. Now, after only eighty years of supremacy the empire appears to be creaking at the joints in a way that suggests that the end might be approaching or not very far away.

    The question to ask for the sake of elucidation and global enlightenment. Why do some empires, that is discounting differences in epochs, seem to do better in empire maintenance than others? The Greek and Roman empires lasted centuries. The Persians did not lag very far behind in empire sustenance. Because of sheer longevity the British boasted that theirs was an empire on which the sun never set. Even some ancient African empires seemed to go on forever.  Among other factors, the loss and lack of memory, particularly institutional memory, triggers a process of internal decaying which eventuates in  fracturing and fragmentation. This is as true of empires as it is of nations whether colonial or postcolonial.

    The maintenance and sustenance of political and institutional memory is one of the principal functions of the state whether in traditional or modern society. If you forget where you are coming from, you cannot remember where you are going. To maintain political memory a society requires constant remembrances, constant reminders and the ceaseless production of organic intellectuals. Organic intellectuals are accessories of the deep state. They supply the narrative glue that binds the society together. Organic philosophers are not products of colonial school but of society. Products of colonial education, unless they commit class seppuku, can only serve as functionaries of the postcolonial state. This is the rationale and raison d’etre of their educational grooming.

    Socrates did not go to school. But he was an organic intellectual of the ancient Greek state. When he was asked to drink the hemlock for being a corrupter of youths, he knew his tormentors and interlocutors were wrong. But to disobey would have meant to demystify the ancient Greek state in all its sanctity, superiority and supremacy. Socrates died to preserve the sanctity of state and empire. The Deep State was very deep indeed. Despite constant warfare and strife, the empires of yore took their time coming together. Unlike the modern epoch, with its geopolitical sieges and constant ideological pressures, there was plenty of “time”. 

     The current turmoil and fissures with their overlay of resentments, bitterness and abiding biases smouldering just below the surface show just how far America is from being a truly organic society. Despite its fundamental cohesion, the timeliness and orderliness of its electoral procedure and the political genius of its founding fathers, America remains a postcolonial nation of implanted and transplanted nationalities clumsily clobbered together suffering from a collective loss of memory about how they got to where they are, the stellar antecedents of the nation, and where they are going from there.

       Whether this collective loss of memory is a temporary aberration remains to be seen. It is too early to count America out. But it shows how all nations are vulnerable to geopolitical pressures and seismic shifts of identity occasioned by ruptures. However, if there is anything worse than lack or loss of national memory, it is its substitution with politicized memory.

  • The return of the man from Taki

    The return of the man from Taki

    Omo won ni Taki, oyinbo ara Ijeru

    Idera to wo le e oo

    Oba ma ma je ko o pofo oooo

    Ernest Tunde Nightingale’s praise song of Yomi Akintola

    This is the bane of a postcolonial nation like Nigeria. To be sure, there is always a tinge of politicization about memorializing. But where it becomes the be-all and end-all of everything, it portends a grave danger to the health and existence of the nation since it relies on fabrication and the fictionalization of reality. In a fractured and fissured nation, it is a political weapon of choice. Not even the dead are safe. Nothing is sacred or sacrosanct; no gallery of national heroes however flawed or canvas of avatars and iconic martyrs of the ceaseless struggles for national redemption. It is a dark panorama of rogues and timeless villains. But since it lashes out in all directions, since everybody is game, it makes the business of building a national consensus which is very critical to resolving the foundational impasse almost impossible.

     Last week as the nation marked the sixtieth anniversary of the military upheaval that torpedoed the First Republic, the consensus is that the intervention was not in the best interest of national cohesion and accelerated economic development. Violent animus is not a strategy. May be if we had had a group of military interventionists who were more clear-headed, more strategically accomplished and more ideologically focused, the conclusion would have been different. No one would have argued that Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Muammar Ghadaffi and J.J Rawlings did not make a difference to the fortunes of their respective countries.

    Read Also: LASUSTECH: Taking digital literacy  notches higher

      But it seems time is the greatest enemy of ancient wounds and ancestral memory. Like the grim curator of a full cemetery of horrors, time wears and grinds out the bones of old animus without which there can be no room left for fresh animosities. Last week, it was obvious that while old rancor and the Maginot Line of impregnable divisions subsist in some quarters, majority of Nigerians are gradually coming to terms with their wounds and the trauma of loss. There have been some significant plays of political signifiers across rigid binary divisions. The landmark presidential tribute paid to Chief S.L Akintola by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at a conference in honour of the late premier of the old west in Ibadan last week was a classic example of pan-national consensus seeking. Akintola himself is beginning to shed the toga of a political ogre, revealing a man of profound wit, warmth, learning and personal compassion. This would have been unthinkable in the climate of hysteria and hate following his assassination sixty years earlier. Time is the ultimate antidote to politicized memory and adjuster of traumatic loss.

  • Tinubu returns to Abuja after Türkiye state visit

    Tinubu returns to Abuja after Türkiye state visit

    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu last night returned to Abuja after a state visit to Türkiye, where he held high-level engagements aimed at strengthening bilateral relations and expanding economic, security and strategic cooperation between both countries.

     The President’s aircraft landed at the Presidential Wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, at 8:55 p.m.

     He was received on arrival by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike; the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun; the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle; and other senior government officials.

    Read Also: Tinubu’s reforms yielding positive results – Idris

     President Tinubu’s return followed a series of bilateral meetings in Ankara with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during which both leaders agreed to intensify cooperation across trade, investment, defence, energy and counter-terrorism.

     At a joint press briefing in Ankara, President Erdogan reaffirmed Türkiye’s commitment to achieving a $5 billion trade volume with Nigeria, noting that discussions toward the target had already commenced.

     Current trade volume between the two countries stands at about $2 billion.

     The Turkish leader said the planned establishment of a Joint Economy and Trade Committee would unlock opportunities to expand bilateral trade and support Turkish investments in Nigeria, describing it as a critical mechanism for reaching the $5 billion target.

    Erdogan praised President Tinubu’s commitment to attracting investment, noting that the presence of several Nigerian ministers and senior officials underscored that determination.

    He also hailed ongoing reforms in Nigeria’s energy sector, expressing optimism that cooperation between the Turkish Petroleum Corporation and Nigerian counterparts would yield positive outcomes.

  • Anxiety in Southeast over IPOB’s fresh sit-at-home call tomorrow

    Anxiety in Southeast over IPOB’s fresh sit-at-home call tomorrow

    • Ignore directive, organisation’s lawyer urges residents

    The South East States of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo are in the grip of fresh anxiety over safety of life and property after the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) called for a sit-at-home protest across the region tomorrow.

    The group branded it Biafra-wide solidarity lockdown to show support for Onitsha traders in the aftermath of the closure of the city’s main market for one week by Anambra State Governor Charles Soludo.

    The planned sit-at-home is also meant to press for the release of leader of IPOB Nnamdi Kanu from jail.

    In a swift reaction to the IPOB statement yesterday, lead counsel for the group, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, asked South-East residents to completely ignore the strike.

    He called it fake and fraudulent.

    Governor Soludo ordered the market shut for one week last Monday following the traders’ continued compliance with the IPOB sit-at-home directive.

    He expressed disappointment that the traders chose to obey “the long-standing, fear-enforced Monday sit-at-home order; a ghostly mandate from non-state actors that has strangled businesses and normalised weekly Monday sit-at-home for years.”

    He described his closure order as the latest and perhaps most drastic approach to determine who controls time and economic life in Southeast Nigeria on Mondays.

    Soludo said government would not stand by while a few individuals willfully undermined public safety and disregarded official directives meant to restore normalcy.

    Read Also: Military refutes viral video of ‘captured’ IPOB commander ‘Gentle the Yahoo’

    He said if the market did not reopen for business after the one-week shutdown, it would be sealed for a month.

    On Friday, the governor, accompanied by some of his commissioners, undertook another visit to the market to map out areas for remodeling in the complex.

    The market, according to him, has lost much of its functionality owning to years of unplanned development and the crippling effects of the Monday sit-at-home.

    “The Onitsha Main Market, in its current state, is no longer functional. We have done the study. The main market is no longer what it was designed to be. It has literally died,” he said.

    Soludo recalled that in the late 1970s, the market operated with wide streets, organised stalls and ample parking space, allowing smooth movement of trucks and shoppers—conditions he said no longer exist.

    He said persistent adherence to the Monday sit-at-home order has “further worsened the situation with billions of naira lost weekly and customers diverted to neighbouring states.”

    “Leadership requires taking inconvenient steps to secure the future. The closure of the market is a corrective measure to reclaim the state’s economic life,” he said.

    “This remodeling aligns with our manifesto to build planned and sustainable markets, communities and cities. Leadership beckons us to take these difficult but necessary steps.”

    He told the traders that he would be back there tomorrow to supervise resumption of business.

    Chairman of the Onitsha Main Market, Chief Chijioke Okpalaugo, said the traders were in tune with the government’s vision, but appealed for a brief grace period to secure their goods.

    “After careful consideration of the proposals presented by the state government, we, the leadership and traders of Onitsha Main Market, have chosen Option 2 (remodeling and stop sit-at-home) as the preferred path forward,” he said.

    However, IPOB did not take kindly to the governor’s action in shutting the market.

    It said the market closure amounted to economic strangulation of the Igbo and called for a “Biafra-wide solidarity strike” tomorrow.

    It said: “This total shutdown is a direct, peaceful and unified response to the tyrannical actions of Governor Soludo, who shut down the Onitsha Main Market and threatened further closures, demolitions and revocation of land ownership.

    “Soludo’s war on Onitsha traders is a war on all Biafrans. Touch one, touch all.”

    It asked traders, public transport operators, banks, schools, civil servants and residents across the region to observe the  peaceful “solidarity lockdown.”

    The group said the sit-at-home was a voluntary act of civil disobedience and warned that Soludo’s actions could provoke wider resistance.

    We’re fully prepared to maintain police —Police

    The Anambra State Police Command declared its readiness to maintain law and order following the latest statement by IPOB.

    The State Police Public Relations Officer, Tochukwu Ikenga, said the initial stage of the security crisis involved attacks on security operatives and destruction of government facilities by criminal elements seeking to instill fear in residents.

    According to the police, “the state government, in collaboration with Ndi Anambra, has now resolved to correct harmful practices arising from the security situation, including the illegal sit-at-home and closure of markets on Mondays.”

    The police assured residents of their safety and their property, adding, “security agencies are not the enemy but those who seek to inflict suffering and hardship on the people.”

    Also, members of the state security outfit, Agunechemba, have vowed to storm the Main Market to protect the lives and property of the citizenry.

    The leader of the Agunechemba outfit in the state, Prince Ken Emeakayi, said the group would not allow anyone or group to invade Anambra again, saying,”we are battle ready.”

    IPOB lawyer to Southeast residents: Ignore sit-at-home order

    Reacting to the IPOB statement, counsel to the group Ifeanyi Ejiofor urged Southeast residents to ignore the strike.

    Ejiofor said the call to strike was fake; a phantom and a calculated falsehood.

    He said: “Once again, the well-worn theatre of misinformation has opened its curtains, this time with a particularly lazy script and an insultingly predictable cast.

    “Late yesterday, a report was widely circulated alleging that a total lockdown of Ala-Igbo had been ordered under the guise of a sit-at-home directive purportedly issued by ‘Emma Powerful,’ slated for Monday, February 2, 2026.

    “Let it be stated clearly, unequivocally and without ambiguity: this directive is fake, a phantom, a calculated falsehood.

    “Upon careful inquiry and diligent verification, especially considering the delicate and hard-won calm presently returning to our homeland, it became glaringly obvious that the so-called ‘Emma Powerful’ platform has been fatally compromised.

    “It has been hijacked by vested interests whose business model thrives on fear, disruption, extortion, and the cynical exploitation of vulnerable communities.

    “The peaceful global movement of the IPOB has formally and decisively disowned this fabricated publication, categorically distancing itself from the false sit-at-home order and directing Ndi-Igbo to go about their lawful and normal activities without fear.

    “Going forward, the message from IPOB is unmistakable: any publication attributed to ‘Emma Powerful’ should be treated with extreme suspicion, if not outright contempt.

    “Frankly, one cannot but express astonishment, bordering on disbelief, that at such a critical juncture, when relative peace is cautiously resurfacing in Ala-Igbo, anyone would recklessly circulate information capable of reopening wounds and inviting criminal infiltration.

    “History has taught us, at unbearable cost, what happens when fake directives fall into the hands of violent opportunists masquerading as enforcers.

    “It is therefore no longer sufficient to merely advise our people to ‘ignore’ publications from this source. The time has come for greater clarity and firmness.

    “The platform known as ‘Emma Powerful,’ in its current corrupted state, has positioned itself as an adversary to Ala-Igbo’s peace, progress, and collective well-being.”

    Ejiofor said IPOB must go further by publicly and definitively explaining why this source has become unreliable, compromised and hostile to the collective interest of Ndi-Igbo.

  • LP crisis deepens as INEC removes Abure-led executive from portal

    LP crisis deepens as INEC removes Abure-led executive from portal

    • Faction kicks, vows to upturn judgment of lower court on appeal

    The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has removed the names of the Julius Abure-led executive of the Labour Party from its portal following its sack by the Federal High Court.

    The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Obiora Ifoh, confirmed this in a statement in Abuja yesterday.

    The party described the decision by the commission as “strange,” vowing to protest it. 

    It said that the judgment of the Federal High Court in Abuja as well as the removal of the names of its executive from INEC’s portal will not deter its plans to put up a strong show in the 2027 general election.

    The party vowed to ensure that the judgment of the lower court is upturned at the Appeal Court.

    The party called on Nigerians to rise against the strangulation and monetisation of democracy in the country by a few power-drunks in the country, warning that Nigeria may be heading for the precipice if the inordinate ambitions of some politicians are not checked. 

    The statement said: “Some persons who are applauding the impunity by some politicians should retrace and do some introspection, because this was how in the past they applauded injustice in our democracy because they were beneficiaries.

    “At the end of the day when their enthroned leaders began to abuse power, they started complaining.

    Read Also: Court orders INEC to recognise Nenadi-led caretaker as LP national executive

    “For us in Labour Party, our faith is strong that the appellate court will do the right thing and therefore we advise our members to remain calm. We will continue with the struggle to take our party from the godfather.

    “Labour Party is a party that is based on social democracy where no one man is permitted to appoint everybody.

    “It is against the principles of the party that one man will sit at a place and gather everybody and appoint everybody from the National Working Committee to the state, down to the ward executive.

    “That is impunity of the highest order. This, I believe, negates the principles of the party.

    “If we say there is no party ideology in Nigeria, this is how it starts.

    “We are very sure that it will be quashed on appeal.

    “The celebration of the Abia state governor, Alex Otti, Nenadi Usman and their cohorts on the appearance of their names on the INEC portal will be short-lived.

    “It is for a short time. Their victory is pyrrhic and there is nothing to celebrate because the doomsday is closer than they will imagine; which I believe will be very catastrophic for them.

    “Moreover, it is very clear that the appointment of the caretaker committee did not go through the normal procedure. Proper notice was not given in line with the party constitution and the electoral act.”

  • Kefas’ defection strengthens national cohesion – APC

    Kefas’ defection strengthens national cohesion – APC

    • Ruling party formally receives Taraba gov in Jalingo
    • Shettima: State pivotal for food, energy security

    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has pledged a stronger development partnership with Taraba State following the formal entry of Governor Agbu Kefas and his supporters into the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    The assurance was conveyed yesterday by Vice President Kashim Shettima, who represented the President at a grand reception in Jalingo to receive Governor Kefas into the ruling party.

    Shettima said President Tinubu had instructed him to reassure the Taraba governor of his full place in the party and of a continuing relationship focused on accelerating development in the state.

    In a statement issued by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Communications, Office of the Vice President, Stanley Nkwocha, Shettima described Taraba as strategic to Nigeria’s food and energy security.

    “What makes us different from other political parties is that we believe that nations endure when they learn to recognise their quiet strengths. We believe that Taraba is one of such strengths.

    “It is a land that feeds, powers, and steadies the nation without demanding applause,” the Vice President said.

    Conveying the President’s message, Shettima added: “My dear brother, His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has asked me to assure you of your place not only in the party, but in our continuing relationship to prioritise the development of our people.

    Read Also: APC gains momentum in Kano as Doguwa welcomes commissioner, ex-NNPP leaders

    “He has demonstrated that no region is expendable. No state is ornamental.”

    He said the occasion was not about discovering Taraba’s relevance but acknowledging its long-established role in national cohesion and stability, noting that the APC was conceived as a unifying platform to bring Nigeria’s diverse regions together around a shared national purpose.

    According to him, Taraba’s entry into the ruling party strengthens that convergence strategically, politically and economically, given its endowments.

    “Taraba sits where food security meets energy security, where fertile land meets flowing water, where mineral wealth meets industrial possibility,” he said.

    Welcoming Governor Kefas, Shettima said the decision reflected an understanding of governance as partnership rather than isolation, adding that the APC grows “by conviction, not compulsion; by inclusion, not exclusion; by performance, not noise.”

    Also speaking, the Senate President, represented by Deputy Senate President Senator Jibrin Barau, congratulated Governor Kefas, describing the move as a decision that would enhance agriculture, infrastructure and the economy of Taraba State.

    He said the National Assembly was fully supportive.

    The National Chairman of the APC, Nentawe Yilwatda, thanked Governor Kefas for joining the party, saying alignment with the centre would help fast-track development and prosperity in the state.

    “The best thing is to align with the centre so that all the good things and policies happening at that level will come to Taraba State,” he noted.

    In his remarks, Governor Kefas said his decision was driven by purpose rather than politics, stressing that it was taken in the interest of youth, infrastructure, elders and the overall progress of Taraba State.

    He said the state needed to align with the centre to benefit fully from federal policies and programmes.

    Ekiti State governor, Biodun Oyebanji, who represented the Chairman of the Progressive Governors’ Forum and Imo State Governor Hope Uzodinma, said the defection would help attract dividends of democracy to Taraba.

    The highlight of the event was the presentation of the APC flag to Governor Kefas, formally recognising him as the leader of the party in the state.

  • Nigeria on ‘healing journey’ to $1trn economy by 2030 – Presidency

    Nigeria on ‘healing journey’ to $1trn economy by 2030 – Presidency

    • Says reforms restoring confidence, investor interest

    The Presidency has said Nigeria is on a “healing journey” and firmly on course to build a $1 trillion economy by 2030, as it intensifies efforts to deepen economic and financial inclusion and reposition the country as Africa’s leading hub for a borderless digital economy.

     The Technical Adviser to the President on Economic and Financial Inclusion, Office of the Vice President, Dr. Nurudeen Zauro, stated this at the weekend in Abuja during a media parley where organisers unveiled details of the 2026 RegTech Africa Conference and Expo.

     Zauro said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu set a clear economic target from his first day in office, anchored on reforms aimed at restoring confidence, expanding inclusion and attracting investment.

    “From day one, Mr President set a target of deepening Nigeria’s economic and financial sector to achieve a $1 trillion economy by 2030. To get there, we must build trust, infrastructure and inclusion, supported by policies that promote partnership and collaboration. That is the essence of a borderless economy,” he said.

    Nigeria is set to host the continental conference from May 20 to 22, 2026, under the patronage of the Office of the Vice President.

     The event, themed “Building trust, infrastructure, inclusion and policy for a borderless economy,” is being organised in partnership with the Presidential Committee on Economic and Financial Inclusion and in collaboration with the Inter-Governmental Action Group Against Money Laundering in West Africa.

    Zauro acknowledged that recent policy changes have been difficult for citizens but insisted they are necessary to restore long-term economic health.

     “It takes a bold decision for a father who knows his child is sick to take him to the hospital, allow him to go through surgery and come out hale and hearty. Nigeria has gone through painful reforms, but today we are on a healing journey,” he said.

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    According to him, key economic indicators are beginning to improve as investor- confidence gradually returns.

    “The numbers are changing. Investors are coming, and Nigeria is back on its trajectory to success. Our leadership position in Africa is being reinforced,” he added.

    He said the administration is deliberately leveraging the African Continental Free Trade Area to strengthen Nigeria’s regional influence, noting that the President and Vice President have been engaging global partners to attract collaboration and investment.

    On financial inclusion, Zauro said the push is driven by a presidential directive and anchored on the ASO Accord on Economic and Financial Inclusion, which underscores commitment, partnership and collaboration across government.

    He added that the inclusion agenda has been elevated to the National Economic Council to ensure full buy-in by states.

    “It is not enough to make policy at the centre; it must reach the sub-nationals so that every Nigerian is part of it. Our principle remains that no one should be left behind,” he said.

     Organisers of the conference said multi-stakeholder engagement is critical to resolving persistent challenges facing citizens and businesses, particularly in rural and underserved communities.

    They noted that access to markets and efficient payment systems could significantly boost productivity and economic output.

    “If people have access to markets and can receive payments seamlessly, even from remote communities, productivity will increase,” they said, stressing that inclusive conversations and practical solutions are key to unlocking Nigeria’s economic potential.

  • Tinubu’s reforms yielding positive results – Information Minister

    Tinubu’s reforms yielding positive results – Information Minister

    The Federal Government says the economic reforms initiated  by President Bola Tinubu, specifically, the removal of petrol subsidy, foreign exchange unification, and the 2026 tax laws are yielding positive results, citing a resurgence in foreign investment and the successful disbursement of N174 billion in student loans.

     Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, made this disclosure yesterday while delivering the 34th Convocation Lecture of the Federal University of Technology, Minna, titled “Youth and Nation Building: Navigating Opportunities in an Era of National Reforms”.

     Idris stated that the administration’s bold and ambitious reforms were necessary to reset the economic landscape and end the cycle of doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting different results noting that contrary to fears of an exodus, multinational corporations are renewing their interest in the Nigerian market.

     “The renewed attention of domestic and foreign investors, occasioned by these reforms, is opening up opportunities in every sector of the economy.

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     ” Many firms that had previously considered exiting the Nigerian market are now making a U-turn, given the scale and steadiness of the stability we have seen in the last 18 months. Serious investors are paying attention and responding positively,” Idris said.

     He highlighted that the Central Bank of Nigeria’s monthly survey of business confidence has recorded 13 consecutive months of expansion while citing a recent visit by Shell Plc’s CEO, Mr. Wael Sawan, who attested to the improved investment climate, stating that the new stability propelled the oil giant to invest for the long term.

      Speaking on  the tax laws which took effect on January 1, 2026, Idris dismissed reports of negative impact as misinformation and scare-mongering.

     “In recent weeks, many salary earners have received higher take-home pay following implementation. The goal was never to take more from Nigerians but to simplify taxation and make it fairer and more transparent” he asserted, adding that the objective was to simplify taxation rather than overburden citizens.

      On the impact of these reforms on the education sector, the minister revealed that the National Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has received nearly 1.5 million applications since its launch in May 2024.

     “Over ₦174 billion has so far been disbursed as tuition fees and monthly upkeep allowances to more than 900,000 beneficiaries,” Idris confirmed, describing the scheme as incontrovertible proof of the administration’s Renewed Hope Agenda.

     The minister also provided sobering demographic projections, noting that within 25 years, Nigeria will become the world’s third most populous country with 400 million people, surpassing the United States. He challenged the graduating students to reject cynicism regarding government programmes, citing the success of the 3 Million Technical Talents (3MTT) programme and the Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation as evidence of available opportunities.

     “Opportunities do not automatically transform lives unless they are sought, seized, and harnessed. They are merely potential in raw form and of little use if left untapped. It is possible for affordable credit, student loans or technical and vocational programmes to exist and yet to benefit, either due to lack of awareness or because you have given in to the cynical voice that says you don’t bother about such opportunities,” he warned.

     Idris concluded by urging the graduates to engage with the ongoing reforms and leverage technology for empowerment rather than distraction.