The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

2027 Presidency: Early scenarios (2)

I don’t know when the whispers started that President Bola Tinubu was contemplating dropping Kashim Shettima as his running mate for the second term. As far as relationships between Numbers One and Two go in Nigeria, theirs has been relatively drama free. So, what could prompt the president to dump a man who had kept his nose scrupulously clean?

It was a measure of the seriousness with which some were taking the tales that a rally held by the Northeast Zone All Progressives Congress (APC) sometime last year dissolved into chaos after a motion to endorse to Tinubu for a second term was moved without a mention of Shettima.

An explanation that the party was primarily concerned with the top of the ticket and that the choice of running mate was the prerogative of APC’s flag bearer, left many cold.

At some point the president must have picked up on the controversy rumbling ominously in the background within his party and in the larger polity. That perhaps explains the fulsome praise he showered on his deputy on the occasion of his birthday last September.

Among other things, he said: “I deeply appreciate your vibrancy, loyalty, partnership, and support as my deputy. In choosing you then as a partner, I selected competence and other qualities that Nigeria could depend on.”

“Every day, as Vice President, you have justified that choice by strengthening our work, bringing fresh perspectives, and upholding our commitment to Nigerians. Your dedication reassures me that I did not make a mistake in choosing you as my deputy.”

In that one message he felicitated a close associate on his special day and also sent a clear political message to those who thought Shettima’s position was threatened. Clearly, not everyone got the message because in the last few weeks a number of reports in the mainstream media have sought to revive what was thought to be a dead horse.

One of those suggested that some unnamed ‘forces’ in the United States were pushing for a return to religious balancing in the ruling party’s ticket that would see a Northern Christian being picked to replace Shettima as running mate. Among those touted to be in consideration are the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Rev. Mathew Kukah, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara and Minister of Defence, Christopher Musa.

That was one end of the tales by moonlight. At the other extreme were speculations that rather than return to religious balancing, the president was minded to retain the same Muslim-Muslim formula, but effect a change in personalities with one-time Defence Minister and former Kano State Governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, said to be preferred.

This ruthless step would be justified by the fact that, supposedly, Kwankwaso brings to the table political heft that would guarantee Tinubu’s victory in the electorally pivotal Kano. The unconvinced argue that without the former governor’s support, APC didn’t do too badly in the state in 2023.

Matters haven’t been helped by Kwankwaso’s blunt declaration that he wasn’t averse to abandoning his Nigerian National Peoples Party (NNPP) and joining any of its larger rivals, provided he was made presidential candidate or running mate. So, there was room for give and take where there was sufficient desperation.

To the first scenario which suggests that Tinubu at this point in his political journey has a desperate need to appease advocates of faith balancing, let it be said that in our overheated political environment, speculation often acquires a life of its own. But subjected to cold logic, the idea that he would, or should jettison, Shettima collapses under its own weight.

For one thing, the influential pressure groups like the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) and notable clerics that made religion front and centre of the 2023 haven’t been agitating for a return to the status quo. Instead, they have largely been mollified by what they’ve seen of Tinubu in government. Some of his most powerful appointees are Christians as are the heads of key arms of the military and security establishment.

More importantly, the president made a strategic choice three years ago to pair with someone from the majority faith up North, himself being from the minority religion down South. There’s no evidence that his thinking has changed in any way to warrant shackling himself to an array of political paperweights just to please the gods of correctness.

More importantly, Northern Christian voters do not constitute a single, transferable bloc waiting to be activated by name recognition. Their voting behaviour is fragmented – shaped by ethnicity, local dynamics, party structures, and performance, not merely by faith affinity. Nigeria’s electoral history offers little evidence that elevating a Northern Christian to the vice-presidency automatically unlocks a decisive reservoir of votes.

Running mates are not ornamental. They are strategic calculations and products of electoral arithmetic. Tinubu’s choice of Shettima in 2023 was not accidental or sentimental. It was a carefully calibrated decision rooted in the realities of power, geography, party cohesion, and electoral survival. Those realities have not vanished. If anything, they have hardened.

Start with the Northeast. It is often lazily dismissed as electorally marginal compared to the Northwest, but that is a misreading of Nigerian politics. In any election the Northeast can be decisive. Shettima brought not just votes in 2023, but legitimacy. He faced a herculean task given that the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar, also hailed from the same zone.

As a former governor, senator, and political actor with deep roots across the region’s elite networks, he gave Tinubu’s ticket credibility acceptability and the electorate an attractive alternative to whatever Atiku had to sell.

Dropping Shettima would send a profoundly unsettling signal to the Northeast: that its loyalty is expendable. In a country where political grievances are easily stored and endlessly recycled, that would be an act of recklessness. Tinubu who’s a strategic politician understands this instinctively.

Read Also: Nigeria produces 19.66mbd in 2025

Then there is the internal arithmetic of APC. The party is already a broad and often uneasy coalition, held together less by ideology than by power-sharing expectations. Removing a sitting vice-president without an overwhelming, existential justification would reopen old wounds and manufacture new enemies.

The Northeast bloc within APC – governors past and present, legislators, financiers, and party organisers – would not quietly accept such a demotion. The backlash might not always be loud, but it would be effective: withdrawn enthusiasm, fractured mobilisation, and selective indifference on Election Day. No incumbent president seeking re-election courts that kind of avoidable instability.

Let’s not forget that for all the success of the incumbent in the Northwest in 2023, in the many places he placed second to Atiku who unashamedly ran a campaign that appealed to ethnic and regional sentiments.

Beyond electoral calculus lies Tinubu’s governing temperament. He does not reward noise but loyalty and utility. By all available evidence, Shettima has been a disciplined and dependable deputy – visible when required, restrained when silence was wiser. Those who mistake this restraint for weakness fundamentally misunderstand the president’s political DNA. From Lagos to Abuja, he has consistently preferred deputies who stabilise power rather than compete for it.

There is also a stubborn truth Nigerian politics sometimes pretends does not matter: loyalty still counts at the very top. Tinubu is not known for casually discarding allies, especially those who stood with him through difficult moments. Shettima did not merely share a ticket; he defended unpopular choices, absorbed blows, and helped steady the campaign during one of the most polarising elections in Nigeria’s recent history. That kind of political capital is not easily replaced – and certainly not for cosmetic balance.

Speculation will persist till voting day in 2027. But stripped of sentiment and examined through realistic lens, much of the permutations would be exposed for what they are – idle scenario building. Dropping Shettima may excite commentators and satisfy theoretical arguments, but in the real world it makes no political sense at all.

January 21, 2026
Renewing hope in higher education

The President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration has done it again! For hire education. First, it was the student loan for students who have secured admission into Nigerian public universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, or vocational schools. The loan pays full tuition directly to the student’s institution plus a monthly stipend of N20,000 paid directly into the student’s bank account.

This was followed by huge investment in skills acquisition in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET). The investment involves the allocation of N120 billion to launch major programmes to provide technical and practical industry-related skills training. Trainees will receive free tuition, monthly stipends, and starter packs and take-off grants upon completion of training. Over one million youths will be trained across 1600 centres in various trades, including electrical installation, welding, and digitals skills. The goal is to improve on the digital ecosystem, move Nigeria from a resource-based to a knowledge-based economy, and reduce foreign dependency on skilled technicians, a lesson the United States is learning so late.

The most recent stride is resolving government’s 16-year on-and-off crisis with the Academic Staff Union of Universities, As recently as last week, the Tinubu administration reached a monumental, comprehensive, agreement with ASUU on a host of issues that have led the Union to go on strike for as many as 1,200 days in the last 16 years.

The new agreement covers salaries; allowances; retirement and pension; maternity and paternity leave; welfare benefits; a national research council bill to provide for research funding; and a review of laws that impede university autonomy and academic freedom. The agreement is topped with a N30 billion restoration and stabilisation fund to be paid in three equal installments over the next three years.

Public discussion of the agreement has focused on the 40 percent across the board pay raise and a new, research allowance of N840,000 for Associate Professors (Readers) and N1.74 million for full Professors. Given the cost of research, N1.74 million is hardly sufficient to cover a search for relevant literature to write a proposal, let alone undergo a 9-month or longer research project. Nevertheless, this research allowance must be viewed along with the proposed bill to provide research funding to be made available to all cadres of faculty on successful peer-reviewed proposals.

Much less discussion is the government’s willingness to review laws that impede university autonomy and academic freedom. These include the Acts establishing government bodies, which regulate one aspect or the other of university traditional practices. They include JAMB, NUC, and TETFund. There is no doubt that President Tinubu believes in university autonomy and wants to remove the clogs in its wheel. He started with the removal of universities from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) so that each institution could manage the payment of staff salaries.

The real problem is not with government’s agreement wit ASUU but with the initial conflation of ASUU with higher education. The truth is that ASUU represents the universities, both federal and state, although it remains unclear whether state universities and sponsoring state governments were fully represented at the negotiation table. It is also unclear how and when the administrative staff of universities will be accommodated.

There also are other tiers of higher education that ASUU does not represent. These are the unions representing Polytechnics, Colleges of Education, and Vocational institutions. I pushed hard on the Committee of Chairpersons of Polytechnics and the Ministry of Education before I got the clarification that the Federal Government has plans to negotiate with these other unions. The negotiations had better come fast and be made comparable to the agreement reached with ASUU to avoid ASUU-like strikes from the unions of other higher institutions.

Read Also: Nigeria produces 19.66mbd in 2025

A related issue that came to mind when I reviewed the 35-page agreement with ASUU is the place of teachers in primary and secondary schools, which feed the universities and other tiers of higher education. It is important for the Federal Government to reach out to State Governors to take a close look at the state of primary and secondary schools in their states and take steps to review the salaries and conditions of service of their teachers.

There are also questions as to whether the substantial increase in professors’ retirement benefits could be accommodated in a pension scheme that has underserved pensioners for a long time. The Director General of the Nigeria Pensions Commission, Omolola Oloworaran, insisted that the scheme has enough funds to meet pension obligations but agreed that sustainability has always been a problem. She singled out President Tinubu by adding: “For the first time in almost two decades, the government has cleared long-standing pension liabilities, including pension differentials.” Nevertheless, questions remain about sustainability beyond the present administration. That’s why it is very important for a legal framework and firm implementation strategies be established that will be difficult for incoming administrations to set aside

There is no doubt that the current Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, appears to be in a hurry with the implementation of President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda on education. And he has accomplished a lot within 15 months or so. He should, however, take his time to ensure a comprehensive approach that takes into account historical precedents, current pedagogical practices, stakeholders’ views, and a futuristic outlook.

Finally, the Ministry of Education should henceforth take proactive measures and not wait for crisis to brew or criticisms to mount before taking action. Reactive policies tend to be made under pressure and in a hurry, short-circuiting comprehensive and long-term solutions.

January 21, 2026
U.S. felon, global outlaw

US felon, global outlaw? A grim logic, isn’t that? So, why is the globe acting surprised?

Whatever the utterly insecure US President, Donald Trump, tries with the world — thus making it far less safe — he had practised (and gone away with) in his own country. Will he get away with global outlawry? That is still in the womb of time!

Back to his American felony. On 30 May 2024, Trump earned due conviction for 34 felonies in his native New York. Instead of the state tossing him inside the can, though an ex-president, all he got was a confetti of votes to return to the White House.

In that theatre of the absurd, the US court that should sentence for felony duly proven, solemnly pronounced its own impotence. After being voted president though a proven felon, the court neutered its power to punish, after due process.

The final verdict? “Unconditional discharge” — to commit more felonies? That was 10 January 2025, after Trump’s triumph in the November 2024 presidential election.

Four years hitherto — 6 January 2021 — he had spat and shat on the holiest shrine of American democracy. That day, to reverse his defeat by Joe Biden in November 2020, he had marshalled his thugs to sack the US Capitol.

But by institutional self-loathing and partisan brinksmanship, the Republican segment of the US Senate gave Trump a slap on the wrist, though the House of Representatives did own duty to duly impeach.

Read Also: Top 10 Africa’s most powerful passports in January 2026

The moral of this judicial-legislative abandonment: if Trump’s own country fled from bringing the felon to heel — if not for out-and-out criminality, then for violent political chaos — what global order, which at best runs on conventions, can stop Trump from becoming a preening, dashing, unfazed global outlaw, unleashing US fearsome might to hide his personal shame and sate his sundry insecurities?

That’s the Trump global tragedy playing out! US felon, global outlaw!

On 25 September 2025 when Trump went to the United Nations General Assembly to ridicule everyone (see “Nebuchadnezzar”, 30 September 2025), this column dismissed the US president as the 21st century Nebuchadnezzar, doomed to falling on his sword, at the zenith of his hubris, just as the Babylonian original (reigned: 605 BC-562 BC).

But that image is a tad too restrictive. Nebuchadnezzar seems even truer of the American electorate. If a fella had sacked your parliament — the very sacred symbol of your republicanism, your liberty and your democracy — and was also duly convicted by your court — what sort of hubris would make you pick him as your president?

The haunting words of Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic Party opponent, still hang eerily in the air, an eternal rebuke, long after the deed had been done!

“On day one, if elected,” Vice President Harris had warned, “Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list … Donald Trump intends to use the United States military against American citizens who simply disagree with him. People he calls ‘the enemy from within’. This is not a candidate for president who is thinking about how to make you better. This is someone,” she insisted, “who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance, and out for unchecked power”!

Talk of Kamala hitting the bull’s eye, home and abroad! What prescience!

At home, Trump’s paramilitary US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with icy terror, wields raw power to maul, crush or even kill, particularly that Trumpian scum, called “immigrants”.

Incidentally, documented or not, Trump and fellow hypocrites and xenophobes, once belonged to this class, being settlers from Europe and elsewhere. Only the native Indians were no immigrants. They owned the land. But those had been near-blotted out by frontier savages, the western world imposed on their native horizon.

Then, the US president’s flagrant misuse of the National Guard, against Democratic states he dubs “enemies”, though he has been forced to retreat in some states, after being blocked by the courts.

But either by ICE terror or National Guard muscling, the “immigrant” scum aren’t the only victims. Collateral damage seeps into the Trump racial blue bloods, as the Minneapolis woman in Minnesota, Rennee Nicol Good, fatally shot by an ICE agent. She was neither Latino nor Black, nor was she an “immigrant”! The rich also cry?

Still, it’s on the global plain that Trump’s mail-fisted outlawry has been most rankling in its triumphalism.

After his initial rhapsody over seizing Canada as America’s 51st state, punching Mexico hollow with US trade tariffs and unilaterally renaming Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America — a move the world ignored with quiet scorn — Trump made the most brazen of his move, thus far, at the turn of 2026.

On January 3, he announced that his goons had captured and kidnapped Venezuela President, Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. In a fit that hovers between triumphalist glee and outright power lunacy, the US President, a few days later, even proclaimed himself “Acting President of Venezuela”, on his Truth Social platform, to a roar of applause from his MAGA fanatics!

Though he code-named that invasion “Operation Absolute Resolve”, it’s Trump’s own roguish “Operation Shock and Awe” — a parody of President George W. Bush’s 22 March-9 April 2003 Iraq II campaign, which not only nabbed Iraqi strongman, Saddam Hussein, but eventually hanged him on a Sallah day!

That Iraq invasion — crooked, to be sure, but glossed by the legal technicality of a UN Security Council approval — stole the Iraqi soul. But it also unleashed ISIS terror on the globe. What further chaos will the Venezuela invasion and Maduro capture unleash on the Americas?

Flush from this roguish victory — and his insane lusting after Venezuela’s oil — Trump has upped his ante to grab Greenland, a frigid, autonomous region of Denmark, whether “they like it or not!” Indeed, such is the gripping power lunacy, sweet and delirious, that Randy Fine, a Republican member of the House of Representatives has drafted a bill to cover the proposed Trump steal!

Just imagine: the US House of Representatives turning House of Representathieves over Greenland! Still, there’s a counter-Bill by a Democratic member, aside a bi-partisan Senate bill. Trump times!

A menacing, self-destruct image looms: a mad dog mauls foes, no big deal. But when it mauls its owner? That’s the Trump misadventure into Greenland! That land is under NATO protection, which guarantor-in-chief is Trump’s America! That he’s threatening his Europe opposers on Greenland, with hefty tariffs, is a classic bandit’s bay!

Much eerier: Trump’s global outlawry is flaring in 2026 — the year America clocks 250 years! At 250 years, the British Empire, hitherto the ruthless global lord of the manor, started melting. So did the Ottoman Empire, which peaked at 250.

By this year too, trust in US public institutions will sink below 20%. That fatal threshold (19% trust in public institutions), triggered the fall of the old Soviet Empire in 1991.

So, deja vu America at 250? We’ll see! That obtuse Trump can’t grasp the force of history is a red flag. So, are a FIFA President gifting Trump — a war monger — global football’s peace tinsel, and Maria Corina Machado, giving Trump her Nobel Peace Prize he’ll never own, in a fit of self-loathing! Both are a false lull, in a historical tempest.

But one thing is clear: the American century and days of blind global bullying is ebbing!

Nigeria — and other smart nations — should brace up for a post-American epoch.

Happy new year, folks! It’s nice to be back!

January 20, 2026
Rivers’ anomie season 2.0

Given how quickly the different actors in the Rivers’ political divide have gone back into the trenches, it is obvious that no lessons have been learnt either in the simple understanding of politics as art of the possible, not to talk of the body of organising rules on which the superstructure of governance is grounded and which the feuding parties are supposedly sworn to perform their duties. For if the period between March 18, 2025, when President Bola Tinubu clamped emergency rule on the state and September 17, 2025 when he rolled back the emergency, was supposed to afford the combatants sufficient window for introspection, what ought to be obvious now is how pretty little has changed in any sense. In fact, take out the restraining hand of President Tinubu, the state would probably be back on that uniquely perilous journey characterised by arson, sabotage, and other variants of anomie and delinquency. Remember, the jungle don mature as the governor once proclaimed in a fit of supposedly holy, self-righteous, rage.

And that was even long after the symbol of representative governance – the parliament was torched by – some will argue – agents of the executive. Of course, the bigger drama on the status of the assembly itself would follow later. Indeed, it came in a moment of unforced error, when the majority lawmakers – numbering 27, changed parties on television in Abuja – as against their wards where they registered!

I recall the governor swearing, at some point, that the legislature, not only existed at his pleasure but that the seats of the majority had been voided from then on! Thereafter, he opted to work with a parliament of three members, even when the self-appointed parliament fell short of a quorum in the eyes of the law. From then on, governance, in the Garden City state, simply became a charade – from the budgetary process, the procedural screening of the members of the state executive council, right up to the sham of a so-called local council elections; everything became a one-man show with a throng of conflict entrepreneurs egging the governor on!

Read Also: Shettima commissions first-ever Nigeria House in Davos

While these were going on, the dominant narrative was that the governor, Sim Fubara was the more sinned against, just as his sparring partner, Nyesom Wike, the supposedly vile godfather-Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, was the sinner. An element of that narrative was that Nigerians cared far less about the crimes of arson, the disregard to the constitution and the brazen outlawry that the governor had come to represent than they do of the godfather’s overbearing antics if not volubility! This was what the army of Wike’s opponents, armed with talking points, sold in their media rounds and duly amplified by their media house allies. They probably won that segment of the battle even if in the end, they lost the war rather ignominiously, where it mattered most – the Supreme Court.

February last year, the justices in their 62-page opinion signed by Justice Emmanuel Agim had pointedly accused the governor of democratic subversion.

“Having by his own admission engaged in a series of illegal activities just to prevent the other 27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly from participating in the proceedings of the House to carry out their legitimate legislative duties which they were elected to do, his resort to Sections 102 and 109 of the 1999 Constitution and the doctrine of necessity on the basis of his allegation that they have defected is a red herring to perpetuate his subversion of the Rivers State House of Assembly, the 1999 Constitution and democratic government in Rivers State”, part of the judgment read.

More seriously, the apex court would not even be persuaded that a government, properly defined, existed at the time in Rivers State: “A government cannot be said to exist without one of the three arms that make up the government of a state under the 1999 Constitution. In this case, the executive arm of the government has chosen to collapse the legislature to enable him govern without the legislature as a despot. As it is, there is no government in Rivers State”.

The court then made what I consider a point, which I consider particularly relevant at this time: “Political disagreements cannot justify…contempt for the rule of law by the governor of a state or any person. What the 8th respondent (Fubara) has done is to destroy the government because of his fear of being impeached”.

Familiar?

Remember: that was the charade that President Tinubu terminated with the expectation that the feuding parties would use the opportunity to mend their ways. But what do we see months after? The return of the same old playbook in slow motion; of exclusion, of deliberate, systematic emasculation of the legislature – a simple failure to perform a public duty – the constitution of the state executive council. The language though different, conveys the same unmistakeable message: Jungle don mature.

Like in times past, the lawmakers are vexed. And many argue that they have reasons to be – given that the law appears to be on their side. This is particularly so as they are the sole authority on how the monies belonging to the state are spent. And to the extent that they have neither received nor processed the budget instrument on the basis of which the governor could be spending the people’s money, the governor could be deemed to have broken the law. The other matter is that there is no state executive council, properly constituted to run the business of government.

To be honest, the minders of Governor Fubara have not been particularly convincing on either of the issues: the other day, one of them claimed that the governor is still implementing the appropriation passed during the emergency and that the governor has only chosen to run the business of governance with his team of advisers because it is convenient for him!

In the meantime, Nigerians are being asked to choose between the noxious play of the supposedly power-drunk politician and his band of supporters on one hand, and the opportunistic manoeuvres of a wayward godson and his tribe of jesters on the other. Surely, the last thing Nigerians want to indulge is the now familiar swagger of absolutism, of players acting and treating the law as if it exists for mere convenience, and the attempt to deodorise gross misconduct. And now the most tragic of them all: the judiciary being called upon to insert itself into a process that the constitution clearly pronounces as “off limits”!

Yes, I understand the politicians and their mind games and why some doses of madness from their quarters are sometimes necessary to spice up the democratic space. As for the elders – Rivers elders, I understand that those who haven’t gone AWOL have splintered into compartments of ethnicity and the pursuit of lucre. As for the judiciary, I am, sufficiently worried at the ease with which it has been called into the dirty job. The world, surely, is watching!

January 20, 2026
Rivers of free money

This writer believes that some privileged persons within and outside Rivers State benefit from the instability always plaguing the state. Otherwise, how does one explain the resurgence of the political warfare between forces loyal to Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his predecessor, Minister Nyesom Wike, few months after the state of emergency was lifted? The general belief was that the state of emergency provided an opportunity for the combatants and their foot soldiers to reach a political détente.

But alas, as Chinua Achebe said, in Arrow of God, “for when we see a bird dancing in the middle of the pathway, we must know that its drummer is in the nearby bush.” But who are the drummers for the combatants in Rivers State who must truly be in the nearby bush? For this writer, the drummers are those seeking access to what I call the “free money” in the state. For Wike, it is those who want a share of the humongous N600 billion, left behind by the departed sole administrator, Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas (retd).

Before Fubara took refuge in the All Progressive Congress (APC), his supporters had alleged that the fight between Wike and Fubara, was because of the former’s interest in controlling that “free money”. While the Rivers State 2025 budget of N1.846 trillion is enormous, there is a huge chance that the resources which causes the intractable debacles dating back to the beginning of this republic, may actually be the ones unbudgeted for.

Since the return of democracy in 1999, Rivers State has shown itself as the richest state with pots of “free money”. The evidence in support of that claim, is monumentally abundant. The first governor 1999-2007, Peter Odili, was given the acronym, “Donatus”, because he always donated handsomely at every public event he was invited to. To show that the money in question was not mere small change for donations, he became the biggest financier of the PDP in that era.

But for former president, Olusegun Obasanjo’s alleged interference, Odili, who ran the costliest campaign to succeed Obasanjo, had enough resources to appropriate the presidential ticket in 2007. The man, to whom Odili handed over, Rotimi Amechi, went on to repeat the same feat when he backed the election of late president, Muhammadu Buhari, against President Goodluck Jonathan. As Rivers State governor, he was reputed as one of the biggest financers of the election of the former president.

Read Also: Top 10 Africa’s most powerful passports in January 2026

To show that his resources is as deep as the oil wells in the state he governed, the former governor and later Minister for Transport, successfully ran a well-oiled campaign during the APC presidential primary. He came second behind the winner, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who went ahead to win the presidential election. Amaechi, was succeeded by Wike, who became a master class intervener in strategic capital projects, of national importance. Hardly ever worried about the flow of resources, he took many gigantic federal projects.

Wike, built massive infrastructure for a new Nigeria Law School, in Rivers State. He built houses for judges of federal courts, amongst several of such projects. Like his predecessors, Rivers money also flowed towards the presidential campaigns, during his tenure. First, he was reputed to have sponsored his former friend, Aminu Tambuwal, against Atiku Abubakar, in the Peoples Democratic Party primaries, in 2019. When he completed his second tenure, he sought the presidential crown for himself, in 2023, and if we are to believe Dele Momodu, he outspent the doyen of presidential election contests in Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar.

When Wike’s ambition was blocked at the PDP primary, which was as contentious, as a presidential campaign, Wike engaged his financial vehicle in a reverse gear, driving furiously and desperately, as if on a forward speed gear. The success of APC, which he supported, in 2023 election, earned him the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory. And with the power and influence he holds, he is more or less the most dreaded political leader in Rivers State. Presently, Wike’s eyes are on the 2027 election, not as a candidate, but as a supporter of President Tinubu.

Obviously, Fubara joined APC, the president’s party, to counter the enormous political weight of Wike. But, he did not take into consideration that Wike’s men may have planted several mines in APC, just as he did in PDP, awaiting Fubara to make his entry. Despite his entry into APC, the state lawmakers who had earlier joined APC, have started an impeachment proceeding against the governor. Thinking it may help, Fubara’s men threw mud on the lawmakers accusing them of helping themselves with Rivers “free money”, while the sole administrator held sway.

Many presidential election pundits have argued that any presidential candidate who wants to be successful at the polls must have his eyes trained on Rivers, Kano and Lagos states. While the general attention is on the enormous registered voters that the states have, the more underlining factor may be the enormous financial resources the three states boast of. While their various state budgets show their enormous financial powers, the unbudgeted financial resources, may be the critical factor which contenders seek to have influence over, by controlling the states.

The influence of the three states extend far beyond the states. Recall that while Wike was in power, as Rivers State governor, he had enormous influence in the elections in the entire South-south. Former governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki confessed that it was Wike who made his reelection possible after he defected to PDP, haven fallen out with his sponsors in APC. Wike, as governor of Rivers State, was also influential in who won election in Bayelsa State.

Sadly, for Fubara, Wike had used the last local government election to cement the rings he ran around Fubara in Rivers State and he showed what the future may look like, during his recent thank you tour of the councils. Wike, also has the state legislators firmly with him, and even the flicker of light for Fubara, when four members of the state House of Assembly demurred about the impeachment proceedings, dimmed almost immediately. Not surprisingly, the 25 present member legislators are presently in one accord that Fubara has committed gross misconducts, as envisaged by section 188 of the 1999 constitution (as amended).

Fubara, may need the help of President Tinubu to stop the impeachment proceedings, even though he is hoping to use the courts to emasculate the legislators. But, this writer wonders what the court would say to justify denying the legislators the power to engage in a constitutional process. And to compound the matter for Fubara, he may have engaged in several constitutional infringements in the fights that led to the declaration of state of emergency in the state and he can still be punished for those infringements.

This writer wonders why Fubara can’t play politics to survive, or perhaps summon the Rivers free money, to wash away his sins.

January 20, 2026
General Musa’s war against subversives

Nigeria’s Defence Minister, General Christopher Musa (rtd), last Thursday read the riot act to Sheik Gumi for describing those who have ravaged the Middle Belt, engaged in mindless killings of thousands of subsistence farmers and condemned thousands of their displaced families to IDP camps in their own country as “our brothers”. He frowned at his efforts and those of his group at providing “covert support to criminal elements seeking to destabilize our country”. And with foreboding finality, he threw a challenge at Gumi and his tribe of subversives: “The choice is clear. Stand with the law and the nation, or be counted among those enabling criminality” because for him, “a friend of a thief is a thief”.

One can understand General Musa’s righteous indignation. He has seen how rhetoric and actions of those who behave as if they are above the law not only endangered the lives of his soldiers but also increased the nightmare of Nigerians. He has witnessed how Gumi’s call for rehabilitation and payment of compensation to those who under the pretext of government marginalization killed thousands of innocent Nigerians has only increased the frustration of Nigerians. He equally understands that Nigerians are scandalized by betrayal of our country by respected Nigerian leaders like Sanusi Lamido Sanusi who directed Fulani settlers in in Benue to disobey anti-grazing laws of their host state; Abubakar Malami’s attempt to extend free movement constitutional right of Nigerians to cows, and Bauchi’s Bala Mohammed’s attempt to confer Nigerian citizenship on immigrant Fulani herdsmen terrorizing Nigerians with AK 47 which he said they needed to protect their cows from rustlers.

But I sympathize with General Musa because beyond Gumi and his tribe, most Nigerian elite have subversive tendencies and have engaged in serial betrayal of Nigeria since independence. Indeed, this is why many believe that the Nigerian educated elite are the scourge of Nigeria. Chief Obafemi Awolowo who in the run up to independence, believed Nigeria’s educated elite were driven by greed was also of the opinion that given a choice between them, our traditional rulers and the departing colonial masters, Nigeria would choose in reverse order.

Let us start with Book Haram insurgency that has dragged on for over 13 years, spreading violence at its pick from Borno State to Abuja. For instance, General Andrew Owoye Azazi, one time National Security Adviser to President Jonathan is on record as saying Boko Haram was a creation of PDP subversives. Today, leading lights of PDP currently taking refuge in ADC blame others for their folly as if it is possible to have today without yesterday.

Many believe terrorism in the northeast was a creation of dissident northern governors. For instance, Sharia law since it was institutionalized by the colonial masters was just a method of local adjudication in the north. But that was to change when anti-Obasanjo northern governors led by Ahmed Sani Yerima on October 27 1999, launched Sharia as a state religion in defiance of section 10 of the 1999 constitution, which states very clearly that “the government of the federation or of state shall not adopt any religion or state religion”. Thirteen other northern states soon joined Yerima to inaugurate sharia law in their states. Many of the ‘Sharia’ governors later sponsored some of our youths for indoctrination under Osama Bin Laden who was then taking refuge in Sudan. It was widely believed that some of the youths that went through that indoctrination formed the nucleus of insurgents groups that have brought nothing but misery to poor northerners. While the 13 Sharia states today remain the most underdeveloped part of the country, their other baleful legacies are millions of out-of-school children and street urchins known as ‘almajiris’.

Niger Delta’s violent militant groups were also the creation of Niger Delta dissident governors. At the onset of the 4th republic, agitation for resource control by self-serving Niger Delta elected governors forced the federal government to seek the Supreme Court’s interpretation of section 162(2) of the 1999 constitution. The court ruled that the plaintiff was obliged to comply with the provisions of the constitution on the 13% derivation from May 29 1999.

Read Also: Top 10 Africa’s most powerful passports in January 2026

That was all Niger Delta traitorous governors needed to invite disloyal VP Atiku Abubakar who was planning to oust his principal from power as their arrow head. Falsely swearing in the name of the people, they went on to arm frustrated jobless Niger Delta youths, victims of land degradation and water pollution.

Mujahid Asari Dokubo’s Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF) later accused of “siphoning oil and gas from pipelines, destroying energy infrastructure and declaring war on Nigerian state, was one of such creations. Others include Odili ‘s rival group, the Atake Tom’s “Niger Delta Vigilantes”(charged for treason and jailed in 2005) and the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) led by Ben Victor Ebikabowei, alias General Government ‘Boy Loaf’, responsible for the death of over 1000 people with over 300 others taken as hostages. This forced late president, Umaru Yar’Adua to negotiate and agree to pay each militant N65,000 monthly or N65b per annum. Non-faithful implementation of the programme after Buhari’s emergence in 2015 led to the emergence of the Niger Delta Avengers, whose attack on oil installations led to reduction in Nigeria’s oil production by half. This was what forced Nigerian government into the negotiation table.

General Government Boyloaf, who the late Pa Edwin Clark said could not secure government job because of lack of education, chased around by security officers on account of his criminal activities, has since obtained a first class degree in international relations from Abuja Base University and transited into a multi-billionaire business man with a big mansion in Abuja while Dokubo, his former principal has settled down as first class traditional Ijaw ruler routinely consulted by Niger Delta politicians. While the militant leaders have been integrated into the system, the lot of the poor in Niger Delta remains the same.

And if you believe they were driven by altruism to unleash terror on Nigeria, take another look at the profile of these self-serving leaders. First, they have all been accused of financial malfeasance against their states: – Peter Odili was saved by the court, Alamieseigha was chased by EFCC and foreign security agencies from Germany, through France, Britain where he had deployed his state resources to buy mansions to Nigeria; James Ibori was jailed in London. Ifeanyi Okowa is accused of deploying his state resources on Atiku’s 2023 presidential campaign. And as for Wike and Fubara, facts have emerged to show they generously deployed resources of Rivers to buy influence among PDP oligarchy and respectable Nigerian institutions like the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).

But perhaps the greatest threat to our survival as nation is the economic and political subversives.

In the seventies and eighties when the naira was stronger than the dollar, we produced our own food, manufactured our own refrigerators, television, car accessories such as batteries, tyres, windscreen and our own drugs. Ibrahim Babangida’s liberalization and commercialization policies were to turn us to importers of labour of other societies. The economic subversives who argued most vociferously in favour of globalization to justify change of policy from manufacturing to importation are today behind massive importation of foreign goods including substandard and fake ones. They have over the years also sabotaged government’s efforts at backward integration just as they are the most critical of current government’s policy aimed at changing the narrative.

And of course, the political subversives have continued to betray aspirations of Nigerians by preventing a return to where the rain started to beat us.

Unfortunately, most Nigerian youths and others below 70 may never appreciate how beautiful our country used to be at a period we operated a federal arrangement that guaranteed “unity in diversity”. Our three regions each with her own High Commissioner in the United Kingdom operated without interference even from the centre. That was the period Nigerians had no apprehension putting their 12-years old inside the train unaccompanied from Ibadan or Lagos to Kano, when Sam Ikoku, an illustrious son of an illustrious father, Alvan Ikoku contested under AG, a Yoruba party and defeated his father contesting under United National Independent Party (UNIP) in Aba.

This is why I sympathize with Defence Minister Musa. Subversive war whether in the north or in the south are only symptoms of our unresolved national question. We today spend millions on subliminal advertising campaign to decree unity as if possible to climb the palm tree from the top even after 55 years of repeated failure of military social engineering strategies to promote unity.

I wonder if it has ever occurred to our leaders why it was only the period Nigerians were not ashamed of belonging to their Igbo, Hausa /Fulani, Yoruba, Edo, Ibibio, Mumuye, Kataf, Gwong, Biron etc. ethnic nationalities that our identity as Nigerians was never in question.

January 20, 2026
Arrest of Ekpoma students

Powers of Nigerian Police to arrest and bring to book individuals or groups found to have run against the laws of the country are not in any doubt. Society would have been a jungle characterised by the atavism of the state of nature in the absence of modern institutions to regulate conduct and ensure compliance with law and order.

But the discharge of these duties should not be done in a manner that negates the very objectives these institutions exist to serve. That seems the dilemma brought to the fore by the police handling of last week’s protest against escalating insecurity allegedly by students of Ambrose Ali University (AAU), Ekpoma Edo State.

The students had reportedly embarked on the protest against rising insecurity and inexplicable killings in the area. In the course of their outing, the protest turned violent leading to the pulling down of some billboards mounted by politicians for the 2027 elections.

Some shops were also reported to have been looted by the protesters who were apparently joined by hoodlums. The palace of the Onojie of Ekpoma was not left out as it had its own dose of vandalization.

The protesters accused politicians of prioritising campaigns over the safety and welfare of the people of the state even when the lid on political campaigns was yet to be lifted.

Curiously, as the protest was on, there was no evidence of police presence either to guide the students or prevent it from sliding into lawlessness. So, the protest ran its full course and fizzled out even as some shop owners suffered losses.

About a day after the incident, the police in Ekpoma embarked on a midnight raid, arresting students from various hostels across the university town for allegedly participating in the protest. The action caused serious panic among students and residents, many of them having nothing to do with the protest. When the raids were over, about 52 students were taken into police custody.

Several students lamented that police operatives stormed their rooms in commando style as they were asleep and indiscriminately arrested those they found inside.

The absurd manner of police action was captured succinctly by one of the students: “they came to the hostel at midnight and started arresting students. Many of those arrested were sleeping in their rooms and were not even on the streets when the protest took place”. That captures the contradiction in the manner the police in Ekpoma went about arresting those suspected of involvement in the protest.

Those arrested were bundled into waiting vehicles only to be arraigned at an Edo High Court on sundry charges. The presiding judge, Justice William Aziegbemi said he lacked jurisdiction on the matter. He ordered the suspects to be remanded at the Ubiaja Correctional Centre and adjourned the case to February 26.

Events leading to the protest, the arrest and detention of the students have not gone down well with the public. And the reasons are not hard to locate given that the protest was primarily activated by escalating cases of kidnapping and bizarre killings within the area.

It should be seen for what it is – a spontaneous response to the breakdown of law and order, threat to human life in the area. Those protesting must have been so frustrated by the rising incidence of kidnapping and killings in the face of the inability of the security agencies to live up to their statutory duties. The resort to self-help should sufficiently challenge the authorities to the danger in allowing the degenerate security situation to fester.

Being a spontaneous and desperate response from people within the area, it was little surprising that the police had no inkling of it. Apparently frustrated by its inability to control the protest while in full swing, the police opted to storm the hostels of the students at midnight, arresting those they found there for allegedly being part of the protesting mob. There is everything wrong with this manner of indiscriminate arrests.

Even if the assumption was that AAU students masterminded the protests, what was the justification in storming hostels around the university town, arresting students found sleeping in their rooms for an alleged offence they may know nothing about? What evidence have the police to charge those arrested except that they are students of the university?

It is not only a faulty strategy but guilty of hasty generalisation by assuming that any and every student of AAU was involved in the demonstrations. How the police intend to prove a case of complicity on the part of those arrested remains foggy. But, it is a complete failure of intelligence that the protest ran its full course without the knowledge of the security agencies.

Even then, the statement by the Edo State government that the protest was not carried out by the students but stranger elements has injected complications into the police action. The president of the AAU students’ union equally corroborated this position when he said neither the union nor its national body was involved in the protest. That reinforces the narrative of spontaneity of the action.

How the Ekpoma police arrived at the initial assumption that the protest was the handiwork of the students remains curious. It is speculative and capable of inflicting grave injustice on the innocent ones. They may have been deceived by the preponderance of the students’ population in that university town. This is by no means to suggest that some students may not have been involved in the protest. That possibility cannot be ruled out.

Read Also: Umahi commends MTN Nigeria for Progress on Enugu–Onitsha road reconstruction

What has not gone down well with the public is the assumption that every student of the university took part in the protest – an assumption that led to the midnight hostel raids. Such a mind-set is loaded with the frightening prospects of muzzling students’ activism.

Nigerians students have before now played active roles in reshaping unpopular government policies. The cases of the Nigerian-Anglo Defence Pact of 1960 and the 1978 school fees increase tagged, “Ali Must Go” stand out distinctly in this regard. Things seem to have gone awry in this country with the docility of Nigerian students in the face of bad and unpopular government policies.

It is good a thing Edo State government said it has started releasing the remanded students with a promise to release the remaining ones. That process should be carried out expeditiously.

Beyond the arrests, the spontaneous protest in Ekpoma highlights the increasing frustrations by the public with the unabating insecurity. Citizens are increasingly getting impatient with the reign of terror by criminals masquerading under various guises in the face of the inability of the government to tame the monster.

The Edo State government and security agencies should address the dire security concerns that precipitated the protest. They should investigate further, the pattern of vandalization that occurred during the protest rather than exploit the vulnerability of the students as the line of least resistance.

January 19, 2026
Where is Enwonwu’s ‘Drummer’?

How can a public sculpture by a master artist vanish without any explanation from the authorities? The curious disappearance of the commissioned 1978 4-foot bronze masterpiece by the legendary Nigerian artist Ben Enwonwu, titled “The Drummer,” is the subject of a viral post by artist and writer Mudiare Onobrakpeya. His January post is titled: “The Missing Drummer: Ben Enwonwu’s Lost Landmark at NITEL House.”

The disappearance of this sculpture is a hot issue in the Nigerian art world. It was commissioned for the NET Building (later the NITEL/NECOM House), which was the country’s telecoms nerve centre, on Marina, Lagos. The work stood there majestically from 1979 until it disappeared mysteriously around 2022.

It depicted a traditional drummer and was meant to symbolise telecommunications—the drum being Africa’s oldest long-distance signaling system. “The Drummer was a masterstroke of symbolism,” Onobrakpeya observed.

The piece remains missing. Art historians and the artist’s family have raised questions about its “silent disappearance.” Onobrakpeya lamented: “Not relocated with ceremony. Not conserved in a museum. Not publicly documented. Simply absent—absorbed into the familiar silence that surrounds cultural loss in Nigeria.” He said: The seriousness of this disappearance lies not only in the artwork itself, but in what the building represented… proof that modern Nigeria could rise high without abandoning its cultural voice.”

According to him, “the story of the sculpture’s fate is riddled with contradictions. Some public records suggest it is still there. Others—more credibly—state that it was removed. A national newspaper quotes Enwonwu’s son confirming that the work used to be at NITEL before it was taken down. Architectural commentary suggests it remained visible until around 2022, making its disappearance recent, traceable, and verifiable.”

He argued: “This confusion is precisely how cultural assets vanish in plain sight. When certainty dissolves, accountability follows.

“NITEL’s institutional collapse and the murky afterlife of its properties created ideal conditions for heritage loss. But one principle must be stated clearly: the sale or transfer of a building does not automatically include the right to remove public art.”

The inevitable question: What happened to the artwork? “There are only three plausible scenarios,” Onobrakpeya reasoned. His thoughts: “First, removal for renovation or safety—if so, there should be records, condition reports, storage locations, and photographs.

“Second, quiet transfer into private hands—where silence slowly converts patrimony into property. Third, outright theft disguised by bureaucratic confusion.”

According to him, “Any of these scenarios is traceable—if the will to investigate exists. Public sculpture is not like private painting. A painting can disappear into a home. A public monument disappears in full view—and the public is told to move on. When a society accepts that, it signals that stealing from the commons is easy.”

There is no question that the situation demands action from the authorities. Onobrakpeya called for: “A public declaration of the sculpture’s status. A proper inventory of Enwonwu’s monumental works. Heritage and law-enforcement involvement. And a recovery effort focused not on scandal, but on restoration and public access.”

Ultimately, he argued, “The Drummer is not just missing bronze. What is missing with it is governance—the discipline of knowing what we own, where it is, who is responsible, and how it is protected.”

He added that until the missing sculpture is clearly accounted for, “every institution connected to that building remains part of the chain of disappearance.”

Ben Enwonwu, a painter and sculptor, died in Lagos in 1994, aged 76. He was born in Onitsha, in present-day Anambra State. Described as “arguably the most influential African artist of the 20th century,” he was “one of the first African artists to win critical acclaim.” He exhibited in Europe and the United States and was listed in international directories of contemporary art.

A beneficiary of a joint Shell Petroleum Company and British Council scholarship, in the 1940s he studied at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London, and the Ruskin School, Ashmolean, Oxford University. He received an honorary doctorate degree from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, in 1969.

He was appointed the first professor of Fine Arts at the University of Ife, Ile-Ife, from 1971 to 1975; and also, art consultant to the International Secretariat, Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in Lagos, 1977.

His public sculptures include “Anyanwu” (1954–55), commissioned for the Nigerian National Museum in Lagos; and “Sango” (1964), a 14-foot representation of the Yoruba god of thunder and lightning, holding his double-axe staff, symbolising power and energy, displayed in front of the Eko Electric Distribution Company (EKEDC) (formerly NEPA) on Marina, Lagos.

In two striking cases, the sale of Enwonwu’s art after his death highlighted the growing global recognition and value of African art. His portrait, “Christine” (1971), was in October 2019 sold at Sotheby’s in London for £1.1 million (around $1.4 million USD). Another portrait, “Tutu” (1973), was in 2018 sold at auction for £1,205,000 by Bonhams.

Read Also: Osun ex-lawmaker tasks NOA to increase sensitisation for Nigerians about the new tax law

It is thought-provoking that while Enwonwu’s private paintings are being rediscovered overseas and sold for millions, his public bronze monument, “The Drummer,” has disappeared from Lagos.

It is commendable that important advocacy groups are currently pushing the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) to move beyond “general audits” and launch a specific task force to locate “The Drummer.” These groups include the Ben Enwonwu Foundation (BEF), the Bruce Onobrakpeya Foundation (BOF), and the Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA). The NCMM is targeted as the agency responsible for enforcing recovery.

Curiously, there has been no formal confirmation from the Nigerian government or the current owners of NECOM House regarding the whereabouts of the sculpture. The entities involved in the building’s privatisation and current upkeep have not responded to public inquiries about whether the piece was moved for “safekeeping,” sold as part of the real estate, or stolen.

The crux of the matter is that the sculpture was commissioned for a state-owned corporation (NITEL) that was later privatised, making it vulnerable to being treated as private furniture rather than a national treasure.

The Federal Ministry of Art, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy and the NCMM must demonstrate a sense of responsibility, and pursue this issue to a logical conclusion.

January 19, 2026
No deadline for Oga Ray

We called him Yakky. We last met at the presentation of his memoirs, Beyond Expectations. When I left the NIIA venue, I did not know I was saying a final goodbye to Yakubu Mohammed.

He was one of the four Newswatch Magazine founders, and the project of a generation was even his idea. He organized the seed financier. I never met Dele Giwa, although he was a sort of mentor and inspiration from afar. I learned different traits from Dan Agbese and Ray Ekpu. The great trait I learned from Yakky was to lead without being a bully. No one feared him. He never wanted anyone to fear him. But he was immensely respected. That is how I have tried to operate as a manager. It is Machiavelli, who recommended that leaders should be feared more than respected. That is weakness.

Read Also: ‘How screwdriver trader in Onitsha influenced Trump’s missile strike in Nigeria’

When we were paying tributes to Agbese a few weeks ago, Yakky was alive. No one thought he would be rested in the earth before my beloved Dan the Butcher. The one man alive is Oga Ray. Whatever you do, Oga Ray, you are not permitted to go. We are praying to Olorun Jehovah on our part. But on earth, beware of what you eat. How you exercise. Don’t stress, don’t eat that thing that upsets your guts, or take that beer a sip too much.

You are a master of deadlines. There are no deadlines for Ray Ekpu. This is an order. Give us time to absorb the agonies and obsequies of Dan and Yakky. Please, spare us another. Not now.

January 19, 2026
Imam who saved Christians

Today, I reproduce my encounter with Abubakar Abdullahi, the genial matador for human coexistence, after he saved at least 500 Christians from a rage of bandits in Plateau State.

Before he was an Imam, he was a man. He was 90.

Before embarking on the journey, some locals said it was not far from Jos. Maybe 30 minutes. They may have been right if they reckoned with the landscape. The vision ahead promised booby-traps of bumps and body aches, even in a Toyota Land Cruiser that subdues rugged terrain into peculiar expressways.

A contrast to what I had always known of Plateau State, with its breath-taking verdure, arboreal paradise and climate imported from Eden. The road to Yelwa Gindi Akwati was bald and ferocious with its dips, sways and rises on a rocky ride. Past tin mining sites, past monster rocks, riding through sand-clogged streams, the air sometimes crisp, sometimes a riot of dust. On mine sites, the graders lay still in mud-spattered cradles. Wealth lay beneath but everywhere you looked, poverty snorted. Someone remarked it was the scar of a failing federal system. Plateau State Governor Simon Lalong has lamented how rogue oligarchs with brigands siphon its mineral bounty.

Peaks and valleys drape our vehicle with lights and shadows as we ride up and down the ragged road. We navigated a clump of trees here, a lone mango tree here and row of pear trees there, sometimes stunningly lush and some fading out of glory, all like sturdy fingers pointing to a baleful firmament. Also a cluster of grassy lawns had lost their lustre, but remain as insistent green carpets defying a birdless sky and an arid stretch of undulating land.

“That is the first house they attacked and killed people,” a guide said, pointing to a mud house. The blend of thatched and zinc roof, black from fire, scattered all over a broken wall. We saw quite a few of such houses. It happened June 23, when a band of renegades rattled into Yelwa Gindi Akwati about 4pm with AK47, and undertook an orgy of killings and made a bonfire of homes. Their targets: Christians. That village also tenanted our hero.

In the midst of this barbarous temerity, an 83-year-old man, Abubakar Abdullahi, stood for God and humans. He opened his mosque and his home. All who could enter he would defend. He had no arms, no brawn, no army. He, a fragile old man, with a soft voice and granite heart, asked the mosque to be locked, including an adjunct mosque. The mosques were filled. The overflow headed to his home of about five rooms. Men, women, children, all took shelter with their faith and an imam as their anchor. The goons came. The man stood at his door, between the militants and the helpless beings. The sky burst with rain, and the Imam fended them off with a plea. His mien appealed to them to save the souls.

“I didn’t say anything to them,” he told me. “I was praying in my heart and looking at them.” The men were hooded, and spoke Hausa, Fulani and English, he said. As he stood before them, he tripped and fell. Rather than step over him, they stepped away, banged at the door of the mosque as well, but also left. All the lives were saved. Most of them Christians, as attested to by the Birom I saw there and his fellow custodians of the mosque.

Were they 300? I asked. He said they were so many he could not count. I entered the mosque. If it was crammed full with people lying on the floor, it could have taken five hundred. It was not only Christians from his village but also those who fled there from neighbouring communities, including a place called Ex Land.

In a region where Christians and Muslims have been reported to be at daggers-drawn, where the so-called herdsmen and farmers only met in blood puddles, this Imam bucked the narrative. He dared to disdain his personal safety for others and valorised human life without prejudice to religion. Because of him, hundreds of Nigerian men, women and children, secure a second chance in a year of wanton waste of sacred lives under the slaughter of ethnic and religious militants.

He shunned the apocalypse of religious conflict and embraced peace now. Much was said about our Shero, Leah Sharibu, who stood her ground and would not surrender her Christian conscience on pain of death. She was a story of innocence and assertion of human resolve over the pressure of zealots. She represented the insistence of faith and human right. The Imam staked his life to save hundreds of children like Leah and fathers and mothers. She tempted sectarian fealty, while the old man hailed over borders.

Abubakar is a universal spirit. The Christian zealot will see remorse, the Muslim fanatic will find a new path, the atheist will coddle human pathos. He was a man with true evangelical zeal. A puritan of love and peace. A partisan of harmony, not sects. He is not like the clerics who yelled for revenge, some in churches and others in mosques, cutting human society in cleavages of faith and murder.

He did not abandon the Christians because they serve a different deity. “We are all children of God. Both faiths want peace.” He said.

He counters the narrative where Christians in the United States bar Muslims from their country, and radical Muslims in the Middle East rape and slaughter Christians, where in North East, Boko Haram turns blood-filled eyes at The Holy Spirit, where a minister of defence is howling for grazing routes. Also a misguided president utters a wry plea for neighbours to accommodate each other. Mass deaths, mass burials. Dusk rapines, night raids. Families in disarray. We had all these where a man said no to slaughter, and yes to life.

Read Also: ‘How screwdriver trader in Onitsha influenced Trump’s missile strike in Nigeria’

Abubakar moved there like other Hausa-Fulani folks have done over the decades. The village has been a model of inter-faith harmony and even marriages. He arrived there in the early 1950’s when the Sardauna became the premier of Northern region.

“The Christians welcomed us and gave us land,” he said. “We have lived together in peace ever since.” He noted that the Christians gave them the land where the mosque was built and they even contributed about N60,000 to build it.

He also said those who preach hate between the religions have not studied the books.

“I have read the Bible as well as the Qur’an,” he asserted. He read Hausa version. He spoke through translators. He said he saw many similarities between both faiths, and he read about Jesus’ miracles and all the stories, especially in the Old Testaments. “Jesus was mentioned about 25 times in the Qur’an and Mohammed five times,” he said. So he saw no reason for any frictions.

Unlike many clerics, Christian and Muslim, who never face the ultimate test of faith, Abubakar excelled. In the novel Middlemarch by George Eliot, a young man who was undertaking a training to be a cleric raised doubts in the minds of some young women.

A character said: “He would be a great hypocrite. But not yet.” It is like what Prophet Isaiah says of the weak,’’the children came to the birth, there is no strength to bring forth’’. Until a cleric excels like Abubakar, the potential of hypocrite hovers. Few are chosen.

As for courage, he has no equal. He even turned down the government’s offer for protection. He deserves one of our highest national awards.

He wanted to be a soldier and fight during the civil war. However, he had to remain at home to nurse his ailing father. When he died, Abubakar became Imam.

January 19, 2026