The Nation Newspaper

Author: The Nation

  • Will smaller powers acquire weapons of mass destruction?

    Will smaller powers acquire weapons of mass destruction?

    • By Andreas Umland

    Manifest expansionist ambitions of the three most powerful countries in the world – China, the United States, and Russia – are undermining the current world order. Since its founding, the People’s Republic of China has expressed interest in Taiwan; Beijing may now be on the verge of attempting to conquer the island. In 2025, the new US President Donald J. Trump announced his desire to incorporate Canada and Greenland into the United States.

    The most consequential development that has led to the erosion of the post-war order over the past 11 years has been and continues to be the behavior of Russia – like China and the US, a member of the UN Security Council and nuclear-weapon state under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Since 2014, Moscow has been engaged in demonstrative land grabbing and, since 2022, a full-scale invasion with signs of genocide on the internationally recognized territory of Ukraine. As a former Soviet republic, Ukraine was a founding member of the UN in 1945. It has been an official non-nuclear-weapon state under the NPT since 1996.

    Politicians and strategists from other revanchist powers are not the only ones observing the course of Russia’s attack and the reactions of other states and international organizations. Decision-makers and opinion leaders in many countries around the world may be less interested in the consequences of the war for Russia and Putin’s regime. Instead, they are watching the fate of Ukraine and the behavior of its friends and enemies.

    Ukraine has been rocked by a corruption scandal in its energy sector as the country enters its fourth winter at war. More comments from European media.

    Relatively weaker countries are learning from Ukraine’s experience that one cannot rely on international law, organizations, and solidarity. One should not make the mistake, as Kyiv did, of trusting in “security assurances” or “guarantees,” “friendship treaties,” “strategic partnerships,” and the like. Such agreements are of little significance, as demonstrated by the irrelevance of Ukraine’s respective agreements with Russia (1994, 1997), China (2013), and the United States (1994, 2008).

    Russia’s expansion and genocide on the territory of Ukraine, which is neither a NATO member nor a nuclear weapons state… cannot simply be ignored.

    Can the small ones balance out the big ones?

    The standard solution to the security dilemma of smaller powers is to join defense alliances, ideally ones that include at least one nuclear-weapon state. But as Tbilisi and Kyiv, among others, have learned the hard way, gaining full membership in a powerful defense alliance is neither easy nor risk-free. In response to Georgia and Ukraine’s applications for NATO membership in April 2008, the alliance told them that they “will become members.”

    What followed, however, was neither their accession to NATO nor the start of a process of admission to the North Atlantic alliance, i.e., the implementation of a so-called Membership Action Plan (MAP). Instead, Georgia has been dismembered by Russia since 2008 and Ukraine since February 2014. The only consolation for the two countries may be that Moldova, also a post-Soviet republic but a constitutionally neutral state with no ambitions to join NATO, has also been dismembered by Russia for more than 30 years. The fate of Finland, which has a long border with Russia, is a counterexample: Unlike Georgia and Ukraine, Finland successfully began a NATO accession process in 2022, leading to its accession to the alliance in 2023.

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    The examples of Finland and Moldova show that a former Russian colony’s intention to join NATO is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for a Russian invasion. Other things being equal, Georgia and Ukraine would probably have become targets of Russian expansionism, like Moldova, even without an aspiration to join NATO. They could only have avoided losing their territorial integrity to Russia by submitting to the Kremlin, for example via entry into the Moscow-dominated Eurasian Economic Union and Collective Security Treaty Organization. Ukraine would likely have been pressured to co-sign the 1999 Union Treaty between Russia and Belarus, which was concluded exactly eight years after the dissolution of the USSR agreed upon by Kyiv, Minsk, and Moscow on Dec. 8, 1991.

    The experiences of Ukraine and Georgia with NATO on the one hand, and Russia’s response to them on the other, illustrate the risks associated with attempting to join a powerful international coalition. For countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, which are less embedded than Finland and have an irredentist neighbor, external balancing is complicated. Joining a relevant defense alliance can be an uncertain and risky undertaking. This is especially true for those states that are most interested in potent and preferably nuclear-armed allies and most in need of security guarantees.

    The current geopolitical upheavals seem almost as if they were orchestrated by Moscow, Beijing, and Washington. They are being carried out in parallel by three of the world’s most powerful countries, permanent members of the UN Security Council, and official nuclear weapon states under the NPT. This accumulation of factors undermines confidence in both the future international behavior of relatively stronger states and the continued relevance of international law and organizations for protecting relatively weaker countries from land grabbing and genocide by major powers.

    Today’s transformation of the world order may seem unproblematic from the perspective of Beijing, Washington, and Moscow. However, it is likely to cause concern among non-nuclear-weapon states with little international integration. Countries that have potentially expansionist neighbors and operate outside NATO or other relevant defense alliances must now rethink their national security strategies. The leaders of China, the US, and Russia can ignore, dismiss, or take seriously these reactions from third countries to their expansionist ambitions. As long as they do not counteract the nervousness triggered by their statements and actions, a backlash from smaller powers is to be expected sooner or later.

    One reaction of relatively weaker countries to the possible end of the postwar order could be to acquire weapons of mass destruction for deterrence and defense purposes. Such decisions by some states could in turn trigger similar steps by their neighbors, who distrust the exclusively defensive motives behind an accumulation of weapons of mass destruction on their borders. This could trigger regional arms races and a domino-like proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The influx of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons into state arsenals, in turn, increases the likelihood that such weapons will also fall into the hands of non-state actors.

    The seriousness of such a subversion of future international security should not lead to its dismissal as an unlikely doomsday scenario. Russia’s expansionism since 2014 and the recent escalation in the foreign rhetoric of China and the United States represent a turning point in world politics. For observers from countries that possess weapons of mass destruction and/or are full members of alliances possessing such weapons, these may be regrettable but secondary phenomena. For states that have neither, Russia’s expansion and genocide on the territory of Ukraine, which is neither a NATO member nor a nuclear weapons state, as well as the ambivalent response of other major powers to Moscow’s escalation, cannot simply be ignored.

    The changes in global security policy triggered by Russia’s territorial expansion and multiple war crimes in recent years raise existential questions for smaller powers. This effect intensifies with each day that the war continues. It would increase dramatically if Russia were to achieve a military victory or would be able to impose on Ukraine an unjust Siegfrieden (victorious peace). Relatively weaker countries bordering potentially expansionist states may then begin discussing the development or acquisition of weapons of mass destruction.

    • This article was originally published in www.kyivpost.com
  • Fiscalisation: How Nigeria’s digital invoicing can passively expand tax inclusion

    Fiscalisation: How Nigeria’s digital invoicing can passively expand tax inclusion

    • By Olanrewaju M. Lassise-Phillips

    Introduction

    When Nigeria introduced the e-invoice solution as part of its fiscalisation framework, public attention largely focused on compliance enforcement, that is, the ability of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to monitor transactions in real time and curb revenue leakages. But beneath that immediate compliance objective lies a more transformative potential: passive tax inclusion.

    The e-invoice platform does more than validate invoices; it brings visibility to the invisible economy, especially the informal sector that accounts for over half of Nigeria’s economic activity but contributes a fraction of the tax take.

    1. The Visibility Problem

    For decades, tax administration in Nigeria has been constrained by the opacity of the informal sector. Millions of micro and small enterprises transact daily without record, receipt, or reporting. Traditional enforcement methods such as audits, field registration drives, and information requests have proven costly, inefficient, and often adversarial.

    The e-invoice solution may have quietly or inadvertently changed this dynamic. Every time an invoice is issued electronically, the data travels (in real time or near-real time) to the FIRS system. This simple process creates a digital footprint for transactions that were previously invisible.

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    2. Passive Inclusion through Data

    The system is “passive” largely because there is no need for intrusive investigations or taxpayer drives. Instead, visibility itself becomes a compliance driver. By mapping transaction trails, FIRS can identify:

    ✔         suppliers or service providers who have not registered for tax;

    ✔         businesses whose declared income is inconsistent with their invoicing volume; and

    ✔         sectoral turnover patterns that inform more accurate presumptive taxation.

    Each data point becomes a lead, not for punishment, but for gradual onboarding into the formal tax system.

    3. Why This Matters for Nigeria

    Nigeria’s tax-to-GDP ratio is considered one of the lowest in Africa. A major reason is the exclusion of informal operators. Yet, fiscal expansion cannot rely solely on new taxes or higher rates; it must rest on broadening the base. The e-invoice mechanism provides a non-confrontational path toward this goal by embedding fiscal visibility within everyday business operations.

    4. Building an Intelligent Tax Ecosystem

    The long-term potential lies in integration. When e-invoicing data connects with national identity numbers (NIN), bank verification numbers (BVN), and business registration databases, Nigeria will possess the infrastructure to administer a smart tax system. Such a system shifts the administrative burden from enforcement to analytics and behavioural nudging, identifying gaps, prompting compliance, and automating returns for small enterprises.

    5. From Compliance to Collaboration

    The e-invoice project also redefines the relationship between tax authorities and taxpayers. Rather than viewing fiscalisation as surveillance, it can be positioned as a trust-building tool where data transparency reduces arbitrary assessments, eliminates invoice fraud, and supports fairer taxation.

    A more transparent value chain benefits everyone as follows:

    ✔         government gains predictable, real-time revenue insights;

    ✔         businesses gain audit trails, credibility, and easier access to finance; and

    ✔         Informal operators gain a gradual path into formal recognition.

    6. The Way Forward

    To unlock its full promise, fiscalisation must be accompanied by:

    ✔         simplified onboarding for micro and small enterprises;

    ✔         awareness campaigns that highlight benefits, not just penalties; and

    ✔         integration with MSME finance initiatives to ensure visibility translates into opportunity.

    If properly implemented, the e-invoice system will not only seal revenue leakages but also quietly transform Nigeria’s tax landscape from coercion to inclusion, from opacity to transparency, and from enforcement to engagement.

    In essence, fiscalisation is not just about control. It’s about connection. The e-invoice solution offers Nigeria a chance to see and serve the informal economy, not as an enforcement challenge but as a fiscal partner.

    • Olanrewaju M. Lassise-Phillips, the Immediate Past Chairman, Tax Appeal Tribunal Lagos Zone 1 (2018 – 2024) and Partner, The Law Gates, writes in from Lagos.
  • Finding a cure for madness

    Finding a cure for madness

    Perhaps the most important aspect of writing a weekly column is to retain relevance throughout the period of its existence. Your readers deserve to come away with something tangible from reading any of your articles as this is the only way that they would come back week after week to share a few minutes with you. This does not mean that they would always take sides with your argument. Indeed, if this is one of your motives for writing then, you are bound to be disappointed if only because your readers arrive at your column with many different perspectives and there is no way that you can give satisfaction to all your visitors. You can only try but, no matter how hard you try, the thought must always be at the back of your mind that all you write will sooner or later  find its way to a rubbish dump both physically and figuratively, no matter how hard you try. And yet your primary focus must be to give some measure of room to your readers, to complete a circle of trust within which you derive the authority with which you command the attention of those who take the trouble to bring themselves up to date with the current state of your mind.

    When I turned my mind to writing this week’s edition of this column, my first inclination was to continue where I left off last week in my discussion of the current dire situation of academia in Nigeria. After all, whatever relevance I have cannot be separated from my academic career. Whatever the colour of my academic experience however, I cannot expect everyone to share my enthusiasm or interest in that subject, especially in the light of recent developments all around us. Midway through the first paragraph which was to launch my discussion on the travails of contemporary Nigerian lecturers, I found that my mind had strayed into fields of other pressing issues stirring the hearts and minds of the great Nigerian public to the virtual exclusion of everything else, except of course, the issue of the pressing matter of settling the issue of keeping body and soul together. In the interest of satisfying my readers I have therefore chosen to pivot to what I can only describe as a more exciting field of interest this week.

    I remember with startling distinction, the horror I felt that day, it was a Saturday, when I read in a newspaper that the leader of the Boko Haram group (or sect) had, to use contemporary description, been neutralised whilst in what should have been safe custody of the Nigerian Police. There was a time during the civil war when the term wasted was used to describe such an act. However, whichever way we care to say it, the man had been summarily executed and I knew quite instinctively that grave consequences were bound to follow that extrajudicial murder. What I had no way of knowing at the time was the quantum of the mayhem with which we were going to have to cope with, a decade and a half down the line. So many years of our discomfiture have passed and a huge deluge of dirty water has flowed under the bridge since then. And yet, the only thing we are clear about at this time is that our collective suffering over this matter, however painful it has been, is very far from over. The intensity has increased past fever pitch from time to time. It is no wonder that it has flared up recently and begun to raise our temperature in the manner of a herpes attack. The sad thing about herpes is that it is incurable. It comes and goes unpredictably but it is always there waiting to remind the sufferer of its maddening presence. Boko Haram and other related off shoots of this group have inserted themselves

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    with murderous intent into the very soul of our country. Curing it is presenting the level of difficulty associated with curing cancer. It cannot be done without inflicting a great deal of pain on the patient. Even after going through the terrible pain associated with this attempt at a cure, there is no guarantee that the attempt, any attempt at a cure, is eventually successful.

    One of the phrases trending these days and one from which you cannot get away is that you cure madness with madness. The madness of insurgence, whatever its form, can only be cured with the madness of high intensity military action, a form of insurgence on its own. The people responsible for our current troubles answer to many names; Fulani herdsmen, kidnappers, plain old fashioned terrorists, bandits and the odd armed robbers who operate within urban spaces. Their activities have made nonsense of our security and are now in a position to dictate terms to the government of Nigeria. In other words, they have left our sovereignty in utter ruins. Long gone are the days when our roads, all of them, in different parts of the country could be traversed with confidence at any time of day and night. This brings back to my mind a journey I made from Ife which ended in Kano at 3.30 am in Kano. Even as we made our lonely way through that dark night not once did any fear of danger cross my mind. That was in 1998, a date which has now been completely swallowed up in the murky mist of time.

    Gone also are the days when going to the farm to till the compliant soil was just part of everyday living. Now, farmers carrying on their calling in any part of the country, even those very far from the active theatre of insurrection have become members of a seriously endangered species. They are hunted down like vermin and their farms systematically looted and turned into sterile spaces where only sadness grows. When will the government, responsible for our collective security, dredge up the madness with which to cure the madness of those people who think that their madness is a ticket to some fantastic paradise. A massive time bomb is ticking in this respect.

    The threat of societal collapse in the face of the madness which has been unleashed on the country is a common factor which binds the disparate groups involved in undermining the sovereignty of Nigeria together. Another crucial factor they have in common is their stated allegiance to the Muslim faith and this is a complication which we could deal without. The vast majority of Muslims in this country have not been inflicted with the madness of insurgency but have not been spared the pain of the violence dealt out by some of the adherents of their faith. As a matter of fact, it may even be true to say that because the area of operations for these insurgents are inhabited mainly by Muslims, they are the primary victims of this madness. However, the equation is further complicated in those areas of majority Christian inhabitants. These people stand nakedly vulnerable to this mad situation and the charge of genocide or at least ethnic cleansing has has become increasingly difficult to refute. In some parts of the world this charge has become irrefutable and this has precipitated the furore which has gripped the nation in the last couple of weeks and continues to reverberate through it, picking up an unhealthy head of steam with every passing day. According to Donald Trump, the self proclaimed strong man of the United States and also the self appointed policeman to the world, he has ordered his sidekick in the so called Department of War to develop plans for the invasion of Nigeria. He has made it clear that this decision had been taken in the light of his determination to rescue Nigerian Christians from the hell that Nigeria has become.

    Quite predictably, this announcement has gathered a great deal of interest within the country. It is generating a great deal of heat but very little light and heating up the polity to no discernable purpose. It is however important to point out that it is wishful thinking for us to look up to foreigners, least of all, any American of whatever hue or stripe, to prepare and administer what would be a magic potion with which to cure the madness with which we are now afflicted. This is a home grown affliction which requires a local remedy for any expectations of an eventual cure to be entertained.

  • Thoroughly absurd.

    Thoroughly absurd.

    • Naval officer’s unruly conduct to FCT minister deserves stiff reprimand

    The video showing a confrontation between the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Nyesom Wike, and one naval Lieutenant A. M. Yerima, who was protecting a private property allegedly belonging to a former Chief of Naval Staff, impugns the authority of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, who is both the chief executive and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The minister had confronted the lieutenant for disrupting the enforcement of the land use allocation policy of the ministry, while the naval officer claimed to be under instruction to guard the land belonging to a former naval chief.

    The minister, who serves at the pleasure of the president, is indeed the alter ego of the president in the Federal Capital Territory. To challenge him in the lawful performance of his duties amounts to challenging the authority of the president over the land use allocation laws in the FCT.

    The crux of the dispute, which is the use to which land in Abuja can be put to, is within the purview of the minister, and it is within his powers to enforce the laws made pursuant to that power.    

    Where someone is making an illegal use of any land within the FCT, the minister in exercise of his powers has every right to stop any such abuse.

    The information in the public domain is that the land is earmarked for parks and garden, and a private company which got approval based on that use had applied to the agencies of the ministry for change. While the application has been rejected, the company sold the land to the naval chief, who started development on the land.

    Since his assumption of office, Mr Wike has shown determination to stop abuses associated with land use in the FCT, and that has amassed for him a lot of enemies. His style of not caring whose ox is gored in his restoration programme of Abuja master plan, has made his office a target of attacks by the high and mighty, who are mostly responsible for those abuses.

    Even for those who may disagree with his combative style, no one can deny the fact that the minister has been very effective at his duty post.

    ‎For the young military officer, the first question should be what was he doing as a guard at a private property? If as he claimed in the video, he was sent there to guard the property; who sent him? If he was sent by a retired naval chief, does it fall within the remix of authority of the retired naval chief to have military officers guard his empty landed property? We wonder if the military has fallen into the challenges faced by the Nigeria Police, where officers are engaged in domestic services, while battle fronts are under-manned.

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    ‎As a military officer, the naval lieutenant should distinguish between regimental duties and private assignments. Resisting public servants engaged in their lawful duty amounts to acts capable of bringing the military to disrepute. Refusing to obey an unlawful order cannot be a ground for his superior to punish him, unless we now have a military of anything goes.

    As an officer, he ought to know that while he has raw power, the minister has authority, which is superior.

    The former naval chief who sent the young officer on a private duty should know that while guarding him, his family and residence, even after retirement may come within his earned privileges, guarding a disputed land cannot fall within his earned benefits, as a retired naval chief.

    Such limitation with respect to the protection of the retired naval chief does not derogate from the honour, respect and gratitude the nation owes him for his long service to his fatherland.

    The military chief must realise that while the nation holds him in the highest esteem for services rendered to the country, his privilege does not extend to sending a junior officer to engage in unlawful duty. If the naval chief was scammed to buy a land not meant for residential purposes, he should seek a refund from the fraudulent scammer, and not resort to raw power to normalise the anomalous situation.

    Even with the most lethal force, he cannot grant himself title to the disputed land. He must resort to the legitimate issuing authority, which is the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, acting  for the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, which the young naval officer in his ignorance has insulted and restrained from engaging in his lawful duty.

    The statement by the Minister of Defence, Mohammed Badaru, that the military will defend a military officer engaged in lawful duty, is legitimate.

    But, those who frame the statement to mean the young officer has been exculpated, should ask themselves whether he was on a lawful duty? We condemn the attempt by retired Lt. Gen Tukur Buratai, to turn the logic of the matter on its head. He clearly has a hangover that the military is not subordinate to any civilian authority.

    We demand for a detailed investigation of the imbroglio.

  • Trump: If Ambassador George Obiozor were alive

    Trump: If Ambassador George Obiozor were alive

    • By Uche Obiozor

    Memories linger but there are days when a people actually wish that there departed relatives, friends or compatriots are still very much around. One of such moments in our dear country, Nigeria, is now. In the last couple of weeks that President Donald Trump issued a threat to Nigeria, there is a sudden realization that our country seems to suffer a depletion of seasoned diplomats who would helped their fatherland navigate this troubled times. Either they are no more or those still around have either lost steam or are suffering from a certain inertia that arises from the “trouble with Nigeria”. Given the consensus that what Nigeria needs now is deft diplomatic moves, one of such persons whom Nigerians would certainly wish he were still around is the late Professor (Ambassador) George Obiozor who departed three years ago.

    Ambassador Obiozor served as Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United States of America between 2004 and 2008. Apart from being one of the longest serving in that mission, his appointment was unique. Obiozor had before his posting to the United States, served as Nigeria’s Ambassador to Israel between 1999 and 2003, with concurrent responsibility as High Commissioner to Cyprus. This earlier exposure  put him in a very good stead to carry out further work of diplomacy in the US especially given the relationship between the latter and Israel.

    Given that Obiozor served in those positions in the formative years of the current democratic dispensation, he helped in no small measure in shaping the relations between Nigerian and the two countries. It was no doubt a challenging period because Nigeria was just beginning to wear a new look in the eyes of the rest of the world after several years of military dictatorship, more so in the immediate five years before the transition in 1999.

    But even before going into the field of diplomacy proper, Obiozor had been involved in a deep study of international diplomacy,both bilateral and multilateral. It was in the course of that involvement that he published some of the world’s most renowned books on international relations and diplomacy. They include, Nigeria’s Participation In the UN (1985); Nigeria And the World: Managing The Politics of Diplomatic Ambivalence In A Changing World, (1986); Uneasy Friendship: Nigerian-American Relations (1992); The United States And The Nigerian Civil War (1993) and The Politics of Precarious Balancing: Analysis of Contending Issues In Nigeria’s Domestic And Foreign Policy (1994). Each of these books stood out on its own but the situation today sets Obiozor aside both as a diplomat and, indeed, a prophet especially with respect to the last two books .Details of “Uneasy Friendship …” were not available at the time of putting this write up together but its title  sounds prophetic given the circumstances of today.

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    Obiozor wrote the book when thing were good – so to speak – but the unease, he wrote about is now here. In other words, even though the circumstances then and now are not the same, I believe it is possible to glean from Obiozor’s 1992 book insights that could help navigate the current situation, at least in a broad sense. It would be proper, therefore, for those saddled with the responsibility of carrying out the current diplomatic assignment to go grab a copy of “Uneasy Friendship…”. The big question, however, is, what would have been Professor Obiozor’s response to President Trump’s threat were he to be around today?

    But first, let’s look at what those – former Nigerian Ambassador to the US – still alive have had to say on the matter. Hassan Mohammed, Nigeria’s former Ambasador to the United States in an interview with ARISE News on November 3, 2025, faulted President Trump on his threat of invasion to Nigeria. Mohammed noted that while the United States has the legal authority to pressure countries failing to uphold freedom of religion under its 1998 International Freedom of Religion Act, (IFRA), the law does not grant the US the right to declare war on carry out military action over such matters. The former envoy recalled that Nigeria had been previously listed under the Act in 2001 and 2002, but the issue was resolved amicably through dialogue.

    Another diplomat, Ambassador Danjuma Nanpon Sheni, reacting to the designation of  Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” and threat  of military action against her by President Trump ,over alleged religious persecution of Christians,had this to say: “As a Christian, I find it difficult to fully agree that Christians are being systematically persecuted in Nigeria. What I see is that human beings are being killed regardless of faith. People are being killed by insurgents and bandits across communities… but do I believe that the federal or state government are sponsoring the killings? My answer is no”. Asked how he feels the situation should be handled based on his experience, Ambassador Shani said: “Nigeria’s diplomatic enagement is poor … we should have ensured this designation never happened in the first place. We saw the warning signs …. Nigeria must put its best diplomats forward, both retired and serving, alongside respected elder statesmen, to begin a serious lobbying mission in Washington”

    Another former Nigerian Ambassador to the Philippines, Mr Yemi Farounbi, in his own reaction warned President Bola Tinubu against visiting President Trump in the US, describing such a move as “politically unnecessary”. Ambassador Farounbi said President Tinubu must avoid actions that portray Nigeria as seeking validation from leaders who have little regard for Africa’s dignity. “Nigeria’s president represents over 200 million people. He should not visit anyone who once called African nations ‘shit hole countries’. We must act like a nation that values itself, not one begging to be recognized”.

    Ambassador Farounbi, however, blamed the current development on Nigeria’s poor diplomatic response to international criticism and described the US action as a predictable outcome of silence and in action. “We cannot claim we didn’t see this coming. For years, Catholic Bishops from Benue and Plateau states have appeared before the US Congress and European Parliament presenting statistics of Christians killed by militants yet Nigeria offered no stronger counter narrative”.He added: “When you refuse to speak for yourself, others will speak for you… and when they do, they will not tell your story with fairness”.

    Now back to the question, what would have been Ambassador Obiozor’s own reaction to the current situation. First, it is important to note that Professor Obiozor was an Establishment man. In his public career that spanned over a period of forty years, there was no THINK TANK in the country Professor Obiozor was not part of, even though those who set up such bodies ended up doing without the recommendations given to them. Throughout the military era, Professor Obiozor was one of the few intellectuals the “Khaki Boys” took into confidence after they had discovered in him a man of his own. bold and with the courage to speak truth to power. Since the advent of the current democratic dispensation, administration after administration has also taken him into confidence, as illustrated by the fact that even the tough-talking and cunning President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed him to two of the world’s most strategic missions – Israel and the US.

    This, coupled with the fact that Obiozor was an African patriot, would have most probably made him to stand up against any real or potential intimidation to Nigeria. However, he would have recommended dialogue, not a “What Do You Think You Are”? posturing. As revealed by Ambassador Hassan Mohammed, Nigeria was first listed for sanction under the U.S IFRA in 2001 and 2002 but the matter was resolved amicably through dialogue. The time is significant. The listing was in 2001 and 2002 and Professor Obiozor arrived the international diplomatic turf first in Israel in 2003 and then U.S in 2004. That being the case, he must have played a key role in the dialogue that led to the delisting of Nigeria’s name as an offender on the IFRA.

    Yet, Professor Obiozor, would not have hesitated to tell the Tinubu administration where it went wrong. He wouldn’t even have waited for Trump to come up with his threats. Given that signs of an imminent global concern over Nigeria was already palpable, Professor Obiozor would have proactively galvanized other intellectuals like him, especially on the diplomatic turf , for a subtle push back over wrong perceptions and prejudices on Nigeria.               

    • Obiozor wrote from Ubachima, Awo-Ommama, Imo State.
  • More on Trump declaring Nigeria ‘Country of Particular Concern’

    More on Trump declaring Nigeria ‘Country of Particular Concern’

    As I ended this column last Sunday, I write again: “the President owes it a duty to peace – loving Nigerians, to first rein in these enemies within, no matter their status or how untouchable they consider themselves”.

    This has become of considerable importance now that he has to dispel the unverified, trending video of a Northern Lady, who claimed she refused an appointment, early in his presidency because he said he cannot fight sponsors of terrorism in the North as doing so would eventuate in his being killed.

    My instant reaction to that balderdash was that this would certainly not be the doughty Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu I have known for well over two decades.

    Today I go further into what I described as the predisposing factors for the mercurial and egocentric U.S President Donald Trump declaring Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern whereas in truth, both Christians and Muslims are being Killed in Nigeria’s orgy of unrelenting bloodletting in the North of the country where, by far, too many Christian communities had been deliberately targeted for annihilation and expulsion from their ancestral lands.

    To do this, as is fast becoming my wont, I re- publish below, an article that was first published here in 2021 titled:

    Insecurity In Nigeria Can Become History If The Buhari Government Is Sincere In Fighting It

    Happy reading.

    The chicken has, indeed, come home to roost. I have always known that the predominantly, mono – thought process underpinning the Buhari administration, majorly a result of his North- centric appointments into critical areas of government, was bound, sooner or later, to impact Nigeria negatively. The evidence is all over the place:  that the monopoly a  particular culture – one that believes that an elder cannot / should not, be controverted on any issue, was going to have its consequences. This is the same culture that made the North an arid zone for newspapering for a very long time in the region. Other than the New Nigerian, Newspapers die off as soon as they were established because there were simply too many cultural taboos.

    This situation worsened by the coming to power, of the awe- inspiring persona of President Muhammadu Buhari. All over Nigeria, at least  until he became president and began to show a seemingly unquenchable love of the North over the others, he was massively loved and respected.

    Indeed, more than being respected, he was lionised as a highly principled military General who, unlike many of his compeers, was not tainted with corruption.

    When the highly respected Tai Solarin came up with the allegation of some  stolen oil money, Nigerians so disbelieved it had anything to do with Buhari until Pa Solarin confessed that it was a mere molue (public transport) gossip.

    Such was General Buhari’s incandescent honesty and widespread respect then. Indeed, both when Boko Haram named him one of its representatives at negotiations with the federal  governmenr and  when he led a Miyetti Allah delegation to the Oyo state governor, Lam Adesina, to protest on behalf of Fulani herdsmen,  most Nigerians believed  that it was  those groups – Boko Haram and Miyetti Allah – which wanted  to profit from his huge profile; a profile that was fast approaching that of a god, nationwide.

    Unfortunately, these past six years have so reduced this halo to only within his government circle where happenings in the country suggest that people closest to him are too respectful of him, if not overwhelmed by his persona, to offer him any good advice.

    Nothing affirms the truism of the diminution of how the president was held, pre office, more than bandits going to    his home state of Katsina to kidnap school children who would not be freed from the kidnappers’ embrace until two weeks later, and after hundreds of millions of naira must have been paid in ransom.

    And to resolve the problem, President Buhari must have assembled an entirely Northern group, probably all Muslims, military and civilian.

    Even if he has been magnanimous enough to involve  his entire security council, the group would have been more than 80 per cent Northern – that same group that not only think alike  but are culturally forbidden to oppose their elders.

    According to the Report of  The Chinua Achebe Foundation Research Project on Fulani Herdsmen, “Most Nigerian Fulanis are no longer migratory herdsmen. They are either Emirs, Sultans, heads of parastatals, oil barons, Imams, Christian Pastors, Governors, Federal Reps and Senators. However, they all maintain their cultural ownership of cattle. These wealthy Nigerians increase their wealth astronomically through cattle rearing by using their not well off brothers, impoorted from outside Nigeria, to rear these cattle. Instead of investing in ranches or buying of grasses from the South, they chose the cheaper alternative of having their kinsmen, imported from outside the country, arm them with AK 47’s, and order them to take these cattles from the north to the south seasonally. For these people, the entire Nigerian space is their “grass kingdom”.These cattle, in turn, destroy farms on their path, rendering farmers economically bankrupt to further enrich the wealthy Fulani “remote herders”.

    All these, under the Buhari administration, and probably now, under President Tinubu, with no security agent – military or police – bold enough to question them.

    What the above shows is that non – Fulani Nigerians are wrongly accusing poor Fulani herders of all the criminalities they commit whereas the various cattle owners mentioned above are the real troublers of Nigeria, the reason the President simply has no interest in solving  the  massive insecurity problem caused by these people.

    This is why they attack in hundreds on motor cycles, kill in scores but with a single one of these terrorists, never arrested nor tried.

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    Indeed, in the one case tried, the victim, who barely escaped before he eliminated the Fulani herdsman terrorist, was sentenced to death in a case that went up to the Supreme court.

    I was not surprised when I heard Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), say that security agencies were informed of the killings in Igangan, Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State, over a week before the attack but that nothing was done by the Nigerian security.

    I was not surprised, thanks to the same research of the Chinua Achebe Foundation which took the team to the

    “Ama Hausa and Garki” camps in both Enugu and Abia States where they  interviewed neighbors from the local communities living within and around the Hausa communities in both states. They affirmed that  both the Northerners and the local community were very open and volunteered valuable information to their team.

    Below is how the report captured a typical Fulani herdsmen attack:

    “Fulani Herdsmen Attack”:.

    We learned from the surrounding communities and from some of the Hausa elders about what constitutes a Fulani herdsmen attack. According to information we received, when there is a disagreement between host communities, or between herdsmen and farmers, the Fulani herdsmen who accompany the cattle will locate the nearest Fulani settlement and if there is none, they will locate the nearest Garki or Ama Hausa. When they arrive, they will narrate their story. The Fulani (Nigerian middlemen) cattle managers will notify their top Fulani Herdsmen which in this case, include governors and other top Fulani top officers who own the cattle. 

    A decision will be made about whether there should be an attack or not on the said village or host community. If an attack is sanctioned, then modalities will be mapped out and a date will be chosen for the attack. Most times, Fulani herdsmen in the military and police are notified and everyone sends a representative. Neighboring settlements sends out representatives and arms cache are opened and arms are distributed to the participants. The major participants are the 20 to 40 Fulani herdsmen who reside in the Garkis and Ama Hausas. These are the Fulani warriors whose job is to kill.

    During an attack, every Fulani person in the area knows there will be an attack and all will contribute to make sure it goes on successfully. Fulanis in the higher levels of the military will ensure all commands under them stand down, and the top Fulani police officers will do the same. The road is then clear for the Fulani herdsmen to carry out their attacks.,

    Based on the findings from which they understood that the attacks are never carried out by the herdsmen we see escorting cattle on the roads and bushes, but are well coordinated and  most times sanctioned by very influential Northerners,  nearly  all of  them, herd owners.

    The Foundation proposed the following solution:

    “Many of those who interacted with us suggested solutions that are very interesting. Most of the northern Hausas and the local communities suggested a ban on grazing in the affected states. A total ban would be the only way to solve this problem. Some argued that with the Fulanis’ nature of encroaching on other people’s land and territories, any attempt to give them land would aggravate the problem and not solve it.

    Most villagers from Abia State suggested that these cattle be penned in the north while government releases money for people in the South to cut grasses, process the grass, and send to the north. This is the practice all over the world. They indicated that any attempt to take their lands and give to the Fulani would definitely result to a civil war.

    We agree, the solution is very simple; ban grazing, establish ranches for the cattle in the north, pay the southerners to harvest grass and send to the north. With this, everyone would be pleased with the outcome. This solution is expected to generate 1 million jobs in the South and about 500,000 jobs in the North. Also Fulani herdsmen terror will be totally eliminated”.

    The correlation between this 2021 article and President Trump’s threat of an attack on Nigerian killers, not Nigerians, is that nothing has changed between then and now, whether they were protecting their herd or killing and running Christians away from their ancestral homes.

    Otherwise the likes of Sheik Gumi, who is in and out of these killers’ lairs would long have been run out of town, and our prisons would, by now, be crawling with concicted terrorists as well as their sponsors, at least those ones criminally  protected from trial by President Buhari and his attorney – General after they had been convicted and sent to Nigeria by the UAE.

    The lesson of all these is that to solve the menace of insecurity and  avoid constant external embarrassment, the Nigeran government must put its house in order.

  • On the Wike-Yerima incident

    On the Wike-Yerima incident

    In a nation still bearing the scars from years of military rule, where our democratic institutions remain frail and the supremacy of civilian authority over the armed forces is a hard-won principle, a section of Nigerians recently found themselves cheering what amounts to an affront on the Nigerian constitution.  The incident involving Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, and a naval officer identified as Lieutenant Yerima, who blocked the minister’s access to inspect a contentious piece of land in Abuja, has generated a peculiar kind of national jubilation—one that reveals more about our collective democratic immaturity than it does about accountability.

    The facts are straightforward, even if the public reaction has been anything but. Wike attempted to inspect a parcel of land in the FCT that had allegedly been irregularly allocated. According to available information, the land was originally acquired by the government for the construction of a recreational park—a public amenity meant to serve the residents of the Federal Capital Territory. However, somewhere along the administrative chain, this public land was reportedly subdivided and sold off for residential purposes, transforming what should have been a communal green space into private real estate. When the Minister sought to inspect the property in line with his statutory duties, he was met by naval personnel who refused him entry, with Officer Yerima leading the resistance.

    The confrontation that ensued was captured on video and rapidly circulated across social media platforms, generating what can only be described as a national spectacle. Nigerians, it seemed, had found their hero—not in the minister attempting to investigate alleged land fraud, but in the military officer who stood in his way. The hoopla was immediate and deafening. On Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, Nigerians celebrated Yerima’s defiance with memes, adulatory posts, and commentary that framed the incident as a David-versus-Goliath narrative, with the naval officer cast as the righteous underdog standing up to a bullying minister.

    But this narrative, as emotionally satisfying as it might be for those who harbor personal distaste for Wike, fundamentally misunderstands what transpired and, more dangerously, what it represents.

    Section 11 of the Land Use Act is unambiguous: the Minister of the FCT, or any public officer duly authorized by him, has the statutory right to enter upon and inspect any land held under a statutory right of occupancy at reasonable hours. This is not a courtesy or a privilege—it is a legal mandate designed to enable government to monitor land use, prevent illegal allocations, and ensure compliance with approved purposes. The occupier of such land has a corresponding duty to grant access. There is no exception carved out for military installations, no clause that permits armed personnel to substitute their judgment for that of the law.

    Officer Yerima’s obstruction, therefore, was not an act of courage or principle—it was a violation of the law. More troublingly, it was an assertion of military authority over civilian governance, a regression to a mentality that should have been buried with our last military regime. Section 217(2)(c) of the 1999 Constitution explicitly subjects the armed forces to civilian authority. This is not decorative language; it is the bedrock principle that distinguishes democracies from military states. When a uniformed officer prevents a civilian minister from exercising his lawful functions, alleging that he is under orders he is not defending order—he is subverting it.

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    Yet Nigerians, blinded by their antipathy toward Wike, chose to celebrate this subversion. The irony is as bitter as it is dangerous. A population that spent decades chafing under military dictatorship, that watched soldiers truncate elections and suspend constitutions, that mourned journalists and activists who died resisting military impunity—this same population now applauds a military officer for obstructing civilian authority because of the civilian in question.

    This is the peril of allowing personal sentiment to override legal principle. Wike is undoubtedly a polarizing figure. His tenure as Rivers State governor was marked by controversies, his political maneuvering has earned him enemies across party lines, and his confrontational style alarms  many. These are legitimate grounds for criticism. But they are not grounds for suspending the rule of law or celebrating its violation. The law does not discriminate based on likability. It applies to the charming and the abrasive alike, to the beloved and the reviled.

    When we cheer its breach because we dislike the intended beneficiary, we are not striking a blow for justice—we are undermining the very framework that protects all of us.

    Consider the implications. If a military officer can lawfully prevent a minister from inspecting land today because some Nigerians find that minister distasteful, what prevents another officer from preventing an election official from accessing a polling station tomorrow? What stops a colonel from obstructing a governor he dislikes, or a brigadier from overruling a judge whose decisions he finds inconvenient?

     The principle of civilian supremacy is indivisible. Once breached, it invites a cascade of violations, each justified by the subjective grievances of those wielding arms.

    To be sure, Wike himself is not blameless in how the situation unfolded. Many watched the minister resort to hurling insults at Officer Yerima—language that was unnecessary and unbecoming of his office. As a senior government official, Wike could have simply documented the obstruction, presented the evidence to military authorities and, if necessary, escalated the matter to the President. A measured, procedural response would have demonstrated the dignity of civilian authority without descending into a shouting match. His decision to exchange barbs with the officer muddied what should have been a clear-cut case of lawful authority being unlawfully obstructed.

    But even acknowledging Wike’s missteps, the central issue remains: what the officer did was illegal, and what Nigerians celebrated was the erosion of a constitutional principle. We cannot afford to be so consumed by our dislike of individuals that we lose sight of the institutions and norms that sustain our democracy.

    The land at the center of this controversy reportedly represents yet another instance of the endemic corruption that has turned Abuja’s public spaces into private commodities. Land meant for a recreational park—a space where families could gather, children could play, and communities could find respite—was allegedly carved up and sold to the privileged few who could afford it. This is the real scandal, the genuine outrage. Yet instead of demanding accountability for this theft of public patrimony, Nigerians directed their attention to the personality clash, choosing sides based not on law or principle but on which party they found more objectionable.

    This is how we lose our democracy—not to a sudden coup, but to a gradual acceptance of illegality whenever it serves our immediate emotional needs. We must do better. We must learn to separate our assessment of individuals from our defense of institutions. We must recognize that celebrating a military officer’s defiance of civilian authority, regardless of the civilian involved, is a betrayal of every Nigerian who fought, bled, and died to end military rule.

    Nigeria’s democracy is young and fragile. It requires constant vigilance, not just against obvious threats like electoral fraud or executive overreach, but against the subtler danger of our own inconsistency—our willingness to abandon principle when personality intervenes. The Wike-Yerima incident should serve as a wake-up call: our hatred for individuals must never eclipse our commitment to the rule of law. The alternative is a return to the chaos we claim to have left behind.

  • The opposition’s ‘Nigerians’

    The opposition’s ‘Nigerians’

    Vagueness, the insufficient specification of the meaning of an utterance, is one of the characteristics of political language. This characteristic makes political utterances potentially ambiguous. Ambiguous utterances possess more than one clear meaning; and vagueness and ambiguity often create conflict between what speakers intend by their utterances and what hearers perceive the utterances to mean. This conflict is one of the reasons why politicians are said to lie and create confusion.

    In Nigerian politics today, one interestingly vague and increasingly popular opposition utterance which concerns the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is: “The 2027 election is going to be between APC and Nigerians.” It’s not clear who first uttered this statement. It’s however certain that it has become an opposition catchphrase. According to Merriam Webster dictionary, a catchphrase is “a word or expression that is used repeatedly and conveniently to represent or characterize a person, group, idea, or point of view.”

    On 3 November, 2024, Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, who belongs to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), addressed party members as follows: “If you’re accusing the ruling party that they are the ones putting their hands into all other parties to ensure that they don’t get their acts together so that there will be no opposition in 2027, … please let us all work together, unite our base. That is all we need to do. The next elections will be APC versus Nigerians. It is not even APC versus PDP.”

    Moreover, on 15 April, 2025, in a Channels Television interview, Governor Makinde said: “Most people in this country, what they’re saying to us is that, look you guys, go and get yourselves together and then leave the rest to us. And I kept saying it, 2027 election … won’t even be PDP versus APC. It will be Nigerians versus APC.”  Furthermore, on 14 October, 2025, Governor Makinde said in a media chat in response to the spate of defections of legislators and governors from PDP to APC: “[A]bout governors defecting, senators defecting, … we’re not concerned and we’re not bothered, because the ultimate decider here will be the Nigerian people.” Then in a rhetorical flourish, he said: “[T]he only time I’ll be concerned or … that we will be concerned as a party is when we see hunger defect from the ordinary people on the street and join APC.”

    A stalwart of the PDP, Mazi Dickson Iroegbu, also reacted to the possible effects of the defections as follows in a 28 October, 2025 News Central TV interview: “[Our party] is the Peoples Democratic Party, not ‘Governors Democratic Party’, ‘Senators Democratic Party’, not ‘House of Representatives Democratic Party’. … Like the Governor of Oyo State rightly stated, until hunger defects, until poverty that is ravaging the nation defects, until insecurity defects to the ruling party, … we will [not] worry. … Let me put it on record … that 2027 is going to be Nigerian people against the APC, because we are the ones directly affected [by APC’s governance].”

    The catchphrase has been used by other opposition politicians. For example, in a 16 October, 2025 Premium Times piece titled “Defections: ADC says 2027 elections will be between APC and Nigerians,” the National Publicity Secretary of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Bolaji Abdullahi, was reported to have said: “2027 would be between Nigerians and the governors ‘who deserted them politically.’” Two readers of the Premium Times report demonstrated their sharp perception of the acute vagueness of the opposition catchphrase through their comments. One of them, Eugene Igiewe, said sarcastically: “Those who will vote for APC are from the moon.” The other one, Adeyinka Peter Kolawole, asked rhetorically: “Are the governors from Ghana? Are they not Nigerians?”

    Even as late as 10 November, 2025, the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, former member of APC and current ADC chieftain, Mr. Babachir Lawal, while reacting to the remarkably poor performance of his party relative to that of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in the 8 November, 2025 Anambra State governorship election said: “[O]ur battle is in the coming election in Nigeria versus APC, not APGA.” This is another example of the appropriation of the label ‘Nigerians’ by the opposition and the exclusion of members of the ruling APC from the term’s coverage.

    The opposition catchphrase seems to be a mark of despondency and the abandonment of any hope of offering any meaningful challenge to APC in 2027. In a research article titled “What kind of opposition do citizens want?” and published online on 9 June, 2025 in the journal West European Politics, Tom Louwerse and Elina Zorina note that one of the functions of opposition parties is “providing voters with alternative, both in form of policies different from the ones proposed by the incumbent government, but also in form of an alternative cabinet [or government] at the next elections.” This is the democratic duty of legally recognised Nigerian political parties like PDP and ADC, and not that of the nebulous ‘Nigerians’ to whom the opposition seem to have voluntarily ceded electoral responsibility.

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    Another tired opposition catchphrase or even buck-passing cliché which has resonated with some Nigerians is that APC is working towards creating a one-party state. The charge had been so strident that Iniobong Ibok and Taofeek Oyedokun published a 4 May, 2025 report in BusinessDay titled, “Is Tinubu plotting a one-party state in Nigeria?” The report stated: “Notably, 17 prominent Nigerians, among them human rights advocate Chidi Odinkalu, legal activist Richard Akinnola, and former presidential adviser Babafemi Ojudu, issued a joint statement on April 25, 2025, titled ‘Defending democracy: A call to resist the march toward a one-party state in Nigeria.’”

    Furthermore, with respect to allegations that the incumbent government had been unduly pressurising or bribing opposition members to defect to APC, the report noted: “Although the fears are not unfounded given Nigeria’s political history, the current wave of defections lacks hard evidence of coercion or systemic abuse. The claimants have not presented documents, recordings, or testimonies that substantiate allegations of bribery or blackmail originating directly from the presidency or federal authorities.”

    Ironically, the main opposition party PDP, which has been stridently promoting the one-party state narrative, has been dragged to court by a founding member of the party, Alhaji Sule Lamido, for depriving him the right to purchase an application form to enable him to vie for the position of National Chairman in the anticipated elective national convention of the party. He prayed the court to order the convention to be stopped until a level playing field has been guaranteed. In reaction to the 11 November, 2025 Federal High Court, Abuja, restraining order issued in favour of Alhaji Lamido and against the holding of the convention, a former PDP Deputy National Chairman, Southwest, Eddy Olafeso, in an interview with Channels Television’s Seun Okinbaloye, said that the agenda of those who did not want the national convention of the party to hold “is to entrench a one-party state.”

    Related to the defeatist opposition catchphrase is also the claim that the opposition is not bothered by the recent defection of governors, especially from the PDP, into the ruling APC. The opposition’s argument, in this respect, is that a governor has only one vote, and that in 2023, for example, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu lost elections in some states with APC governors. The fallacy in this argument is that the new defections of governors into the party give no cause to cheer. Well, an English proverb, associated with the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, says, “You can’t step in the same river twice.” The political circumstances in 2023 were radically different from those of today, and would most certainly be different from those of 2027.

    Having created the impression, through the opposition catchphrase, that they have washed their hands off any responsibility to give the electorate a credible alternative come 2027, the opposition seem to have a lot of idle time on their hands to engage in all sorts of political shenanigans. For example, on 31 October, 2025, shortly after a Federal High Court in Abuja ruled that the National Convention of the PDP scheduled for 15 to 16 November, 2025 did not follow due process and ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) not to observe the convention and not to recognise the resolutions from it, a chieftain of the PDP, Umar Sani, condemned the judgement in his interview with Trust TV’s Hamza Idris.

    He also said that the fear that the National Legal Adviser of the party, Kamaldeen Ajibade, SAN, was working against the party in cahoots with the incumbent PDP-member Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nyesom Wike, was the reason the National Chairman, Ambassador Umar Iliya Damagum, appointed a legal team led by another lawyer, Chris Uche, to represent the party rather than allow the National Legal Adviser to coordinate the party’s legal defence in court, as specified by the party’s constitution.

    The National Secretary, National Legal Adviser, Deputy National Legal Adviser, and National Organising Secretary of PDP, who presumably belonged to Wike’s group, were subsequently suspended from the party by the National Chairman and his group. Counteracting the suspension, the Wike group led by the National Secretary announced their own suspension of the National Chairman and some officers of the party for incompetence, financial misconduct and disregard for court judgement. Abdulrahman Muhammed was thereafter declared the new Acting National Chairman of PDP. Shortly after, his faction declared their disbandment of the Board of Trustees of the party and the appointment of a new one. The other opposition parties, probably with the exception of APGA, are bedevilled by their own debilitating crises.

    The results of the 2025 Anambra State governorship election seem to show what the consequences of such crises could be. INEC announced that out of 584,054 accredited voters, the ruling party in the state, APGA, scored 422,664 votes; the ruling party at the federal level, APC, scored 99,445 votes; the less well-known Young Progressives Party (YPP) scored 37,753 votes; Labour Party (LP), the party of the former governor of the state and 2023 presidential candidate of the party, Mr. Peter Obi, scored 10,576 votes; ADC scored 8,202 votes; and the main opposition party in the country, PDP, scored 1,401 votes. 

    It is hoped that, moving forward, the opposition would recalibrate and strive to hold themselves up as a credible alternative to APC, rather than throwing up their hands and defeatistly saying that the 2027 election is going to be between APC and ‘Nigerians’. As things stand now, that vague and uninspiring expression seems to be a euphemistic repudiation of democratic or electoral responsibility. It is like the proverbial one finger pointing at APC, while the remaining four are pointing at the opposition parties themselves in a most unflattering manner. 

  • Tinubu’s clarion call for nationalist reawakening

    Tinubu’s clarion call for nationalist reawakening

    Last week may well go down as one of those defining junctures in President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s leadership—one in which he deliberately set aside the noise of politics, the distractions of the moment, and the burdens of statecraft to deliver a clarion call rooted in the soul of the Nigerian project. It was a week of patriotic reawakening, of reminders, of responsibilities, and of the subtle but unmistakable tone of urgency: Nigeria must be built, protected, and dignified, by all of us.

    That call began on Thursday afternoon in Abuja, when the President received senior military officers enrolled in the National Defense College (NDC) Course 33. It was, a sober reaffirmation of what Nigeria must urgently become: a nation sufficiently productive, sufficiently unified, sufficiently advanced, and sufficiently equipped to defend its sovereignty without fear or apology.

    Standing before the participants, the President delivered what may be his strongest statement yet on the patriotic obligation shared by every citizen, civilian and soldier alike.

    “It is our joint responsibility to ensure that this nation, Nigeria, is productive, governed inclusively, and takes care of the future of our generation yet unborn,” he declared, his voice firm, measured, and prophetic. “It is our patriotic duty to look further into the horizon, to be determined and resilient… to train our people, develop our economy, promote industrial development, and ensure that sovereignty is assured, protected, and remains resilient.”

    This was more than a charge to a roomful of uniformed officers. It was, in essence, a call to Nigeria’s last line of defense, those entrusted with the integrity of the borders, the protection of the people, the deterrence of foreign aggression, and the preservation of the authority of the Nigerian state. Coming on the heels of recent provocations and mischaracterisations by certain foreign interests, the President’s tone was unmistakable: Nigeria must rise above internal divisions and external distortions. Nigeria must be strong, strong in economy, strong in industry, strong in knowledge, and strong in the spirit of nationhood.

    Yet the President did not stop there. With the precision of a statesman linking national security to national productivity, he challenged the NDC participants to deepen their analytical capacity and interrogate Nigeria’s vulnerabilities without sentimentality. “We challenge our intellectual curiosity by being highly inquisitive,” he said, urging them to study what other nations have done, understand where Nigeria currently stands, and examine the forward path.

    The research theme submitted to him: Harnessing Indigenous Manufacturing for Enhanced National Security by 2040, fit neatly into his wider national vision: Nigeria must not depend forever on imported solutions; sovereignty in defense requires sovereignty in production.

    But the President’s nationalist message did not begin with the military, nor did it end there. Just a day earlier, he had delivered another stirring address, this time to an audience that, in his words, “shapes how the world perceives Nigeria”: the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE).

    At the opening of the 21st Annual Conference of the Guild (ANEC 2025), the President stepped into uncharted territory as the first Nigerian leader to formally declare a Guild conference open. But beyond symbolism, his message carried a tone of expectation. If the NDC represents the defense of Nigeria’s territorial integrity, then the Nigerian media, particularly the editorial gatekeepers, represent the defense of its image, its narrative, and its psychological fortitude.

    “It is our country,” the President reminded the more than 400 editors and senior journalists present. “What should be worrisome to you is the image of the country we project to the outside world. Your institutions must help build a nation of credibility and integrity.”

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    It was not a plea. It was a patriotic nudge. For in the era of globalisation, perception is power; misinformation is weaponry; journalism is diplomacy; and national cohesion depends as much on facts as on framing. A nation that speaks poorly of itself cannot attract investment, cannot rally confidence, and cannot evoke the esprit de corps required to surmount internal challenges.

    President Tinubu’s call to the editors echoed the same theme he delivered to the NDC officers: nation-building requires shared responsibility. It requires truth, not weaponised partial truths. It requires perspective, not cynicism. And most importantly, it requires a recognition that the Nigerian story is not the enemy; the enemy is the impulse to diminish the country in the eyes of its own people.

    Even as he acknowledged the severe pressures facing the media industry; declining revenues, rising operational costs, and the struggle to adapt to digital disruption, the President assured editors that their requests for tax reliefs, VAT extensions, and economic incentives would be considered within the framework of broader fiscal reforms. It was an affirmation of partnership, not patronage; of accountability, not appeasement.

    But perhaps the most symbolic moment in the week-long narrative came on Thursday evening, after the stadium lights in Gabon had dimmed and the Super Eagles had secured a resounding 4–1 victory. For a nation often united mostly by football, the President seized the moment to amplify his theme of patriotic resilience.

    In his message celebrating the victory, he described the performance as “a powerful display of Nigeria’s resilience and winning spirit”, a metaphor that extended far beyond the confines of sport. “Every match,” he said, “is an opportunity to show discipline and character. This is the true Nigerian spirit of resilience against all odds.”

    It was as if the victory had become a living illustration of the very nationalism he had been preaching all week: courage under pressure, unity in purpose, and an unwavering determination to rise.

    And so, as the week closed, a pattern emerged, clear and coherent. The President had addressed three constituencies; soldiers, journalists, and footballers, but his message was intended for more than 200 million Nigerians.

    To the military: Defend the nation, by strength, by strategy, by intellect, by readiness. To the media: Protect the narrative, through truth, responsibility, and patriotic balance. To the footballers: Inspire the nation, with discipline, resilience, and the spirit of victory. And to the citizens: Believe in Nigeria, build Nigeria, and defend Nigeria.

    In a period when global pressures weigh heavily on the country and domestic cynicism threatens national cohesion, Tinubu’s call for nationalist reawakening could not be more apt. For nations are not simply built by policy, they are built by spirit. They are sustained by shared purpose. They endure through collective effort.

    Last week, President Tinubu reminded Nigerians of that simple but profound truth: Nigeria will become what Nigerians choose to make of it.

    Beyond the weighty calls to patriotic duty that defined his engagements, the President’s week was textured with moments that reflected the breadth of leadership; moments of statesmanship, compassion, national acknowledgement, and deliberate continuity in governance. On Sunday, he opened the week by congratulating Anambra State Governor, Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo, on securing a second term in office—a victory he described as an “affirmation of visionary leadership.” It was a presidential nod to democratic continuity, a recognition of performance, and an encouragement to a people who conducted themselves peacefully at the polls.

    By Monday, the President’s attention turned to more solemn duties. He mourned the passing of retired Justice Mukhtar Muhammad Dodo, a former Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court, paying tribute to a jurist whose integrity and fearlessness left deep imprints on the nation’s judiciary. He also extended warm felicitations to former Kano State Governor Ibrahim Shekarau on his 70 th birthday, celebrating a career defined by discipline, scholarship, and humanity. And in the same breath, he reached out empathetically to two political contemporaries; former Bauchi State Governor, Ahmed Muazu, and Environment Minister, Balarabe Abbas Lawal, commiserating with them over the loss of their mothers, both women remembered for moral strength and lifelong service to family and community.

    The President’s Monday also carried the imprint of policy seriousness, as he hosted a delegation from Siemens Energy and reaffirmed that the administration is taking power supply “very seriously.” His message was blunt: Nigeria’s industrial, educational, healthcare and transportation ambitions rest squarely on a stable electricity backbone. It was another reminder that the nationalist call he sounded throughout the week is not rhetoric—it is anchored in reforms that determine the country’s future competitiveness.

    On Tuesday, the President honoured the Emir of Ilorin, Dr. Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, on the 30th anniversary of his ascension to the throne, calling him a custodian of dignity, justice and peace. He also celebrated Senator Ibrahim Oloriegbe at 65, praising hisexceptional service to the health sector.

    By Thursday, tributes flowed again, this time to the Asagba of Asaba, Professor Epiphany Azinge, on his 70 th birthday, and to veteran journalist Tajudeen Ayodeji Kareem, whose four decades in media have shaped national discourse.

    The week closed on Friday with continuity in public service as the President reappointed Brigadier-General Mohammed Buba Marwa (rtd) as Chairman of the NDLEA, extending a tenure that has brought renewed vigour to the nation’s anti-narcotics fight.

    So, whether in celebrating excellence, consoling the bereaved, strengthening institutions or pushing reforms, President Tinubu’s week ultimately threaded into one narrative: a leadership calling a nation to believe again, to build again, and to rise together.

  • Adieu Taofeek Ademola Bello: eulogy to life and the weight of loss

    Adieu Taofeek Ademola Bello: eulogy to life and the weight of loss

    • By Tunji Olaopa

    I have celebrated, in all my writings, the significance of my triple heritage—how my upbringing was conditioned by the confluence of the Islamic, the Christian/Western and the traditional Yoruba cultural influences. This is a fact that many homes in colonial Yorubaland were familiar with. It was not all a rosy narration as the tension that often flares in the cracks of the relationships among these religious and cultural elements conditioned children, the families and their relationships. That was exactly what happened in the evolution of my Olaopa-Olagunju family of Aawe town in Afijio LGA of Oyo State.

    Aáwé, my home town, was an exemplar of the best accommodationist spirit of the Yoruba race. It was a town that had a strategy for managing differences within a secular and cultural framework. And yet, the uneasy relationship between Christianity and Islam within a traditional Yoruba cultural context prevented what could have otherwise been a beautiful marriage between Baba Adebowale Olaopa and Mama Muniratu Apinke Olagunju, the daughter of an Islamic cleric. However, while the lovebirds were prevented from solemnizing their affection in a marriage, the love had already been consummated. By the time they were forced to part ways because of religious differences, Mama Muniratu Olagunju was already pregnant with my father, Festus Adeyemo omo Adebowale Olaopa. Mama Muniratu remarried eventually, gave birth to other children including Mama Abibat Apinke who married Malam Suleman Bello from Aáwé. Their first child was Taofeek Ademola Bello.

    This was a brother in whom I am well pleased. He was the closest of all my Muslim cousins and indeed my other siblings in the Olagunju clan. And I concretized that relationship by naming my son, Ademola Olaopa, after him. And this makes this eulogy one that carries a very deep weight of loss for me. The prostrate cancer that took his life was not brief. He had valiantly struggled against the disease, as he was wont to all his life, before finally capitulating. And the inevitability of that demise still did not make the death less painful for me. This is one brother I did not want to be separated from under any circumstances. Indeed, he grew into a stature that qualified him to be one of my mentors for life. He was exactly ten years older than I am, and his constant presence was a very firm and strong formative influence on my impressionable mind while growing under the loving tutelage of Mama Muniratu in Aáwé.

    Brother Taofeek was street-smart and rascally in a way that all youth are usually susceptible to, especially those who had a taste of growing up in Lagos. He was full of life, intelligent, energetic, boisterous, confident, value-propelled, focused, a star-sportsman on the relay race sprints at Fidi-Grams (FGS, Fiditi), and ambitious. And yet, the complex dynamics of sociocultural formation in an extended family such as ours did not provide him with the requisite incentives to acquit himself to his fullest extent. But brother Taofeek was not one to quit easily. Within the context of his sociocultural limitations, he achieved the superlative feat in form five at Fiditi Grammar School, of qualifying to be included in the concessional admission list that got him into the prestigious University of Ibadan to study agriculture, with a specialty in soil science. That was a huge acclamation and feat for those of us toiling educationally at Aáwé. I was then in primary school, and awestruck! That singular feat easily made it possible for me, a young and aspiring lad, to include him and his friend, Adesola Ogunniyi—who later went on to become a renowned African neurologist of stature and emeritus-professor of medicine at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan—in my growing list of mentors made up, at that point, of the famous Aáwé indigenes: Professor Latunde Odeku, Prof. Ojetunji Aboyade, Dr Adegbite, and more.

    We became increasingly inseparable as we kept growing. We both graduated from being brothers to being friends. But the Yoruba are wise. The wisdom that our cultural heritage delivered for our existential reckoning are resources we often do not pay close attention to. Ogún ọmọdé ò lè ṣ’eré f’ógún ọdún (twenty children cannot socialize for twenty years). Death is always the great leveler that brings ambitions and aspirations to nought. Death separates between loved ones and leaves a void of deep loss. When Taofeek Ademola Bello finally lost the battle against prostrate cancer on 11 November 2025, and breathed his last at the age of 76, I was once again forced into a reflective engagement with life and its essence. I had grown so accustomed to having brother Taofeek at close quarters that I lost all bearing about his imminent demise.

    Death always leaves a paradoxical traumatic taste in one’s mouth. And Virginia Woolf, the English modernist writer, captures it best: “Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more.” That seems so cruel but so axiomatic. I suspect this is why the Bible insists that it is better to be in a house of mourning than that of feasting (Eccl. 7:2). The house of mourning, like the one we have been thrown by the departure of my brother, and cousin and friend, focuses our existential attention on what is crucial—on what counts when all is said and done. Death makes our consciousness of life even more acute. But then someone has to die. Taofeek is gone forever. And suddenly we are reflecting on what life entails for the living.     

    Death signals finality; a cessation of all hopes and possibilities. It leaves a very sour existential taste in the mouth. Since brother Taofeek passed, I have sat and examined the trajectory of his existence. Did he fulfill his life in the best possible ways he aspired right from the commencement of his consciousness about life itself and what could have been possible? When he laid helpless on his hospital bed and could almost feel the cancer ravaging his body, what were his thoughts? What motivated his contentment with life? Brother Taofeek was a man who accepted his station in life with almost childlike resignation and joy. So, even when he gave life his very best in terms of striving to better his lot, he was never determined by inordinate ambitions. Did he regret his resignation? Did he think he could have done more to better his lots in life? 

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    Even though death is inscrutable in its impartiality, life can be really unfair. I think brother Taofeek deserves more in life; for someone who embodied wisdom, zest, abilities and a depth of cultural resources. I imagine growing up with all the possible exuberance and ambitious enthusiasm of youth. I imagine the zestful energies of someone who thought he could take on the entire world without breaking a sweat. That was brother Taofeek. He was taking on the world in leaps and bounds, and according to his own determinations of what he wanted. Until life began to cut him to sizes. And he recognized in time that it was futile to debate with your lots in life. He was solidly stoical in his resignation to his existential circumstances.

    All these make the thought of the finality of separation even more painful. The dead can no longer be helped. When a loved one dies, especially in such a traumatic situation like the one that took the life of my brother, those left behind are filled with a deep sense of loss, and even maybe an even deeper sense of lament. We run our minds through all the possible scenarios that could have been deployed to alleviate the deceased’s pain or prevent the final departure. In my own case, that loss is a yawning void. It is a void that is not only riddled with pains and sorrows, but one filled with institutional foreboding. Even in my deep state of debilitating loss, I am still compelled to ask: in what ways does diseases like prostrate cancer, which a nation like Nigeria fails to confront, rid that same state of valuable human resources?

    Death like this force even a nation to reckon with its own failures. How do death and diseases undermine a nation’s developmental drive? Governance is a potent force that has the capacity to stay off the hands of entirely needless death, like that of brother Taofeek, only if the state is proactive enough to facilitate a functional healthcare system that handles diseases proactively before it begins to ravage the minds and bodies of the citizens. Our hospitals and medical centres are not meant to be hospices where citizens go to die. On the contrary, they are meant to be sites of hope and regeneration that complement a state’s search for a human capital development that reinforces its productive forces. Every needless and unnecessary death is therefore a loss for a state. The death of brother Taofeek Ademola Bello is not just familial; it is crucially national. Policies are therefore required at the boundaries of governance and institutional reforms to ensure that the social contract the government has with its citizens involves staying the march of sicknesses and diseases on many fronts. The reign of some diseases and illnesses ought to have been ended many decades ago. Every death decimates a nation.

    • Olaopa is Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission & Professor of Public Administration, Abuja