The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • NYSC challenge

    NYSC challenge

    Given mounting criticisms on the continued relevance of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme, the inauguration of a committee to comprehensively review its operations is a welcome development. This is especially so as the objective is to make the scheme stronger, more useful to national development and better suited to the needs of our youths.

    Minister of Youth Development Ayodele Olawande touched the crux of the matter when he said at the inauguration ceremony that issues of corps members’ safety, infrastructural challenges and the broader question of the scheme’s relevance in an increasingly dynamic socio-economic environment are among the key concerns. But he was quick to add that these also present opportunities that demand urgent, visionary and determined efforts.

    Part of the mandate of the committee is to look into how the NYSC works, and suggest ways of making it safer, more creative and more impactful. The committee will also review current NYSC policies, talk to people and suggest changes to laws, policies and the operational modalities of the scheme.

    “The outcome of this review must align with broader national development objectives, positioning the NYSC as a strategic tool for youth empowerment and nation building,” the minister further charged the committee. These are, no doubt, high-minded goals that if realistically addressed will position the scheme to meet the challenges of the times.

    The NYSC programme was established by the Gowon administration in 1973, three years after the civil war. In view of the exigencies of that war, the programme was part of the efforts to rebuild and reconstruct Nigeria, imbuing participants with a new sense of national belonging and identity. NYSC was envisioned to promote national unity and integration, inculcate discipline, patriotism in our youths, obliterate extant prejudices thereby promoting national development.

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    By mandatorily requiring corps members to serve in cultural areas other than their own, the scheme’s target was to foster better understanding and harmony among participants as leaders of the future. In the early years of its establishment, the scheme was very popular among the youths and commanded considerable respect as fresh graduates were deployed to rural communities for their primary assignments.

    The local communities were equally appreciative of the contributions of the corps members, offering them any assistance that could enhance their stay. That uniform commanded respect and was the pride of participants. Then also, the number of participants was quite limited and made for easy and effective management.

    When the first batch of members were deployed, there were about five universities in the country. It is estimated that the first batch of participants were about 700 participants. The number has since continued to grow. And with the exponential increase in the number of universities (federal, state and private), prospective participants have grown in geometric progression. These have also brought in their wake peculiar challenges.

    Instead of the single batch, we now have about three batches and many streams due to the astronomical increase in the number of participants and attendant management constraints. The national environment has since changed with information technology, increasing civil strife and cascading insecurity across the country. Issues are not made any easier by the reluctance of employers to accept corps members in their establishments.

    Even then, the federal government has been finding it difficult to fund the scheme. It took several months for it to implement the N70,000 minimum wage approved last year for corps members. The number of universities in the country is still growing with the recent licences given to more private universities by the federal government. This will further bloat the number of participants. All these are bound to adversely affect the effective functioning of the scheme unless far- reaching measures are taken to align it to the dynamics of the times.

    That is where the recent inauguration of the review committee comes in handy. Before now, there have been calls for either a radical review of the scheme to align it with the demands of the times or have the programme scrapped outright. Attahiru Jega, former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), had at a lecture marking NYSC’s 50th anniversary called for drastic pruning of the number of participants or have the scheme operate on a voluntary basis.

    Jega’s position stems from rising concerns about the increasing inability of the scheme to manage the high number of graduates churned out by our universities. He seems to admit the continued relevance of the scheme but wants the number of participants pruned or make it voluntary for willing participants. That is not the only grouse against the scheme. Many have questioned the continued relevance of the programme vis-a-vis the goals it was set up to achieve, especially in view of evolving national dynamics.

    There are changes and fundamental alterations in our national life that

    interrogate the objectives for which the NYSC exists to serve. Issues of national unity, integration and the inculcation of a common sense of national identity have suffered incredible reverses in recent times. Nigerians have become more divided along the fault lines of our national order due largely to the inability of political leaders to manage our diversities.

    Not only is the country confronted by an assortment of insurgency groups, non-state actors have been having a free reign. The lure of primordialism, ethnic ascendancy and self- determination is on such a high scale that the NYSC scheme can do little to ameliorate.

    Nigeria is more divided now than ever before and the signs are palpable. So, there is a disconnect between the objectives the NYSC exists to serve and contemporary developments in our national life.

    These can be seen from the constant recourse by sections of the country to the issuance of quit orders to non-indigenes in their zones. And such quit notices, over flimsy and sometimes contrived excuses, have been coming quite regularly. They reinforce our differences and forewarn corps members serving in such areas that they are at risk because they do not belong.

    The damage such quit orders does to the psyche of corps members counters any lesson on unity and patriotism which the scheme is meant to instill in them. That is the reality of the environment in which the NYSC scheme is expected to foster national unity and integration.

    The grim reality of the danger corps members face was brought close by events following the 2011 presidential elections when more than 800 persons were killed in the northern states. Corps members were among those selectively targeted and killed because they were non- indigenes.

    Kidnapping of NYSC members for ransom while travelling to their places of posting has also been on the rise. In August 2023, eight corps members from Uyo in Akwa Ibom State travelling to Sokoto were kidnapped in Zamfara State. Some of them languished in captivity for between five and 11 months before they were released after paying millions of naira as ransom.

    Managers of the scheme have been compelled by insecurity to deny some local governments in the country the services of corps members. In some other instances like Benue State, they were withdrawn as their safety could no longer be guaranteed. All these should instruct that NYSC cannot continue in its present form.

    The programme has a serious place in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society where primordial proclivities are in ascendancy. It is still relevant to our needs but the number of participants have to be drastically pruned to align with the developmental objectives of the country. Even as the committee was charged to address the issue of funding, the fact remains that the federal government is hard put to fund the programme in view of extant economic realities.

    Pruning the number of participants should be followed up with making the exercise voluntary. It makes little sense carrying a huge programme the government cannot fund. When the Peace Corps started in the United States of America, it was a voluntary scheme. But due to changing realities and funding cuts, it pruned its membership from a peak of 15,556 in 1966 to 8,500 in 2011. According to data from its website, it currently deploys between 3,500 and 4,00 annually.

    That is the way to go for the NYSC scheme. At the current trajectory of the country, national unity, nation building and the inculcation of a common sense of belonging among our youths should be addressed from the top. Effective management of the country’s diversities, inclusion, equity and fairness to the constituents hold the aces.

    It is doubtful whether the bottom-top approach to nation building which the NYSC scheme represents can still serve that need in the face of the polarisation of the country. The leadership should show the direction through their actions.

  • Corruption and failed refineries

    Corruption and failed refineries

    News of the corruption-related investigation of three recently sacked managing directors of Nigeria’s government-owned oil refineries gave an insight into why the facilities remain problematic.  The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was reported to have arrested the former managing directors and some senior officials of the Port Harcourt Refining Company, Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company, and Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company. They allegedly mismanaged funds for the rehabilitation of the facilities, amounting to almost three billion US dollars.

    The EFCC was reported to be probing the disbursement of $1,559,239,084.36 to the Port Harcourt refinery, $740,669,600 to the Kaduna refinery, and $656,963,938 to the Warri refinery. The commission said it was “a case of abuse of office and misappropriation of funds.”

    Following the removal of fuel subsidy by President Bola Tinubu when he assumed office in May 2023, making the inoperative government-owned local refineries operational was expected to lower the cost of fuel.  The high cost of fuel resulting from the removal of fuel subsidy is among the major factors responsible for the cost-of-living crisis in the country. Economic analysts blame the grim situation mainly on naira depreciation, higher food and energy prices and logistical costs, among others.

    The alleged mismanagement of funds meant for the rehabilitation of the state-owned refineries has grave implications for the amelioration of the cost-of-living crisis. If the cost of fuel does not reduce significantly, there is unlikely to be a significant softening of the crisis.

    There was understandable excitement, especially in Nigerian government circles, following the announced revival of the Port Harcourt and Warri oil refineries, which had been inoperative for years.

    In November 2024, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) declared that it had revived the 60,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Port Harcourt refinery in the Niger Delta. In December 2024, the company said it had resumed some operations at its 125,000 bpd Warri refinery, also located in the Niger Delta, which was shut down in 2015.

    The country’s oil problems had been partly blamed on the four inactive state-owned refineries with a combined capacity of 445,000 bpd, including the 110,000 bpd Kaduna plant in the north and another one in Port Harcourt with a capacity of 150,000 bpd.

    However, the revived refineries failed to deliver the expected result. The Port Harcourt refinery has been operating below 40 percent of its capacity since its applauded refurbishment while the Warri refinery was shut down less than a month after it resumed operations due to safety issues. 

    For instance, regarding the non-production of petrol at the Warri refinery, months after the announced completion of its repair, the Delta State Chairman of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Harry Okenini, was reported saying, “Since the inauguration of the rehabilitated Warri refinery on January 5, 2025, there has been no green light for IPMAN to lift petroleum products from the facility.

    “For the past months, there has been no product for marketers here, and we cannot just stay idle, so we decided to source products from the private depots.

    “These private depot owners, today they will increase the price; tomorrow they will increase it again. So, the whole thing has caused problems for the business.”

    Evidently, the failure of the revived refineries is counter-productive: The oil marketers are faced with high-cost issues as a result of being forced to patronise private depots; and the public bears the brunt of the situation.

     Notably, in January, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) put a dampener on the euphoria over the revived refineries, demanding that the then Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of NNPCL, Mele Kyari, should “account for and explain the whereabouts of the alleged missing N825bn and $2.5bn meant for ‘refinery rehabilitation’ and other oil revenues, as documented in the 2021 annual report by the Auditor-General of the Federation.”

    “The Auditor-General fears that the money may be missing,” the group stated. SERAP said the report was published on November 27, 2024. It is unclear why the 2021 annual report was published in 2024. 

    In a letter to Kyari, dated January 4, 2025, SERAP had raised these issues and urged him “to identify those suspected to be responsible for the disappeared oil money and hand them over to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).”

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    According to the group, the NNPCL “reportedly failed to account for over N82bn meant for ‘refinery rehabilitation and repairs.’ The ‘money was deducted from the sale of Crude Oil and Gas between 2020 and 2021.’

    Founded in Nigeria in 2004, SERAP is a non-governmental and non-profit organisation that “aims to use human rights law to encourage the government and others to address developmental and human rights challenges such as corruption, poverty, inequality and discrimination.” The group observed that mismanagement of public funds “has undermined Nigeria’s economic development, trapped the majority of Nigerians in poverty, and deprived them of opportunities.” So, it was not only a case of public funds allegedly mismanaged by the NNPCL’s management; it was also about the consequences.

    Kyari was the company’s boss in the period covered by the 2021 annual report by the Auditor-General of the Federation. So, he was expected to provide answers to the questions raised. He was appointed Group Managing Director of the former Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in July 2019. Two years later, in 2021 the NNPC was restructured into a limited liability company. He was the first GCEO of NNPCL.

    It remains to be seen if the ongoing probe of former top officials of the company will clarify the state of the government-owned refineries. The Federal Government has been accused of staging the revival of the refineries to deceive the public. Indeed, some observers argue that it was a waste of money trying to rehabilitate the refineries in the first place. The authorities need to address these negative views.

    The ongoing corruption-related investigation should be comprehensive and thorough, leaving no room for untouchable suspects.

    In April, President Tinubu reconstituted the NNPCL board and appointed Bashir Ojulari as its new GCEO. The reorganisation is expected to be the beginning of a new chapter at the company. The new leadership must ensure that the refineries work. This is critical to easing the country’s unrelenting cost-of-living crisis. 

  • Phony Traore

    Phony Traore

    They are part of a new trend of anti-western sentiment, seeking to indigenise heroism.

    This new leader projects youth and vigour in his red beret, pullover and camo trousers.

     Above all, he exudes an African nationalism, as though he were a rebirth of the negritude movement with quite a few French thinkers, from Senghor to Diop, in its wake.

    Looking at once like an athlete and a soldier, he wants to claim a hero from a past. Thomas Sankara, that is.

    An untested Burkinabe leader, Sankara has grabbed myth out of martyrdom.

    Even then, he was a martyr of hope. That is, people dress him up as a martyr because of what many expected of him. He did not live long enough to be a hero or villain, or neither.

    In Sankara’s days, the boys of Karl Marx incarnated his profile. The idealist’s song grew dark when his fellow traveler and traitor swept him aside in a stab-in-the-back coup that squelched not only him but also his dream.

    Even his executioner, known as Blaise Compaore, also has eventually vanished in a blaze of populist revenge.

    Enter Traore. The man was nearly removed in a coup, and that set him into a fever. He has made himself a hero by default.

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     When he and his French colleagues in Mali, Niger and Guinea fomented coups to power, they stirred up two contradictory emotions.

    They fed an anti-French imperialism. But a worldwide democratic impulse was up in arms against a military return to power.

    These two are resolving themselves in his favour for two reasons. One, the coup that failed to oust him but lionised him as a hero. Two, a charm offensive from Russia.

    Traore is taking advantage of a fear of the West. The French have looked down on their black West African for generations.

     They were their colonial subjects. During that era, they imposed a system known as assimilation.

    It was a racist ideology that meant the French did not govern but assimilated them into French culture and way of life. It was a delusion of equality, a throwback from the failed French Revolution.

     They assumed the French had a superior civilization and they planted it after using their colonial force known as the Senegalese Sharp shooters to mow down resistance from valiant kingdoms in the region.

    Their assimilation system guaranteed them free access to the wealth of the region. But it implied that the people were not capable of deciding anything for themselves.

    They treated them like children. Paris dictated every part of their life.

    Algeria resisted this in the days of De Gaulle. Guinean leader Sekou Toure, in the Loi cadre episode, also asserted Guinean independence.

    The average French has resented this post-colonial slavery but had done nothing about it. A set of soldiers, with no idea how to govern but how to hold on to power, saw their chance.

     They plotted a coup, and have used French tyranny as an alibi. It is a cynical view of power. It is them versus us.

    But they are heroes without spine. Rather than stand as African nationalist, they are switching one master for another.

    The Russians have seen their opportunity. They have swathed the social media with pictures, videos and narratives that brandish Traore as a hero. For them, the man lives in a humble home, whereas it is fiction. He turned down IMF loans, whereas it is false.

    That he turned down American offer of visit, another lie. Traore is making his myth on the go.

    They have turned the opportunist into who he is not. The Russians, on the other hand, have been doing deals and posting their outfit known as Wagner Group to provide army, materiel, and propaganda. The Russians are building schools, hospitals, etc as tokens of empathy. More like tokens of contempt. Immediately, after the failed coup, Traore signed a sweetheart deal for gold mining.

    This is the making of an exploiter, in the mould of cynics we saw during the Cold War when the Soviet Union and the United States carved spheres of influence in Africa. History has also told us that leaders tend to look to the past as a refuge.

     They hide in the shadows of men of quality. In Nigeria we have had small men who wanted to be like the big men. For instance we have had little Awolowos, little Ojukwus.

     In the United States, Ronald Reagan birthed Lilliputians known as Reagan Republicans. Reagan Democrats, the most unlikely, emerged as well.

    Napoleon lit up young passions all over Europe that Ralph Waldo Emerson described as Little Napoleons. Napoleon III arose and saw himself as Napoleon reborn. The novelist Victor Hugo wrote a pamphlet that put him in trouble.

    He mocked the fellow in the piece Napoleon, The Little.

    It was a writing that turned into a mathematical formula in showing how a people can be sold any lie. Hugo asserted that in trying to distort the truth about the stature of Napoleon The Little, two plus two equals five.

     It was an idea that other writers took up to poohpooh how leaders turn realities upside down, including Dostoyevsky, Samuel Johnson, and of course George Orwell in his famous Nineteen Eighty Four. In his short novel of ideas, Notes From The Underground by Dostoyevsky, “Two plus two is no longer life but the beginning of death.”

    It is indeed a battle to the death from a man like Traore, who must secure his position by subterfuge, by living in the disguise of a hero. What they are exploiting is, as Ebenezer Obadare demonstrates in a recent piece for The Council of Foreign Relations, a cult of personality.

    They are exploiting the hunger for a hero who would transform their lives. That yearning for a hero makes them easy preys to adventurers in power.

    They are not only exploiting Russia. They are turning their fellow African leaders who run democracies as foes of their good fortune.

    Yet, for us, the danger signal is that the radicals among us who bow to his phony profile are not different from those who had a vigil at the Defence Headquarters over a year ago asking for military rule.

     They are not different from the underage kids in the North who never witnessed an army rule but asked soldiers to return. It is the bastardisation of the heroic concept.

    Hence in his play Galileo, Bertolt Brecht said: “Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.” Need is the operative one. It implies mass surrender to fate. Such surrenders yield phonies with combat pullovers, red berets and sweetheart deals with Putin.

  • Tinubu’s charm, reforms and the quiet revolution in Nigeria’s politics

    Tinubu’s charm, reforms and the quiet revolution in Nigeria’s politics

    In the shifting sands of Nigerian politics, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is proving that substance and style, when blended astutely, can shape an enduring political movement. His week, perhaps more than any other in recent memory, exposed the depth of his political magnetism and the breadth of his economic reform impact. It was a week where the strength of policy met the power of personality — and the result was a cascade of high-profile defections, rare bipartisan goodwill, and a compelling assertion of national unity.

    The crowning jewel of the week was the news of Nigeria’s repayment of the $3.4 billion COVID-19 loan borrowed from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under the previous administration. Not only was this symbolic of economic recovery and credibility, it was a vindication of Tinubu’s reform agenda, a powerful retort to critics who had long dismissed his policies as painful without payoff. With fiscal discipline at the centre of his strategy, the Tinubu administration has steadily implemented structural adjustments, from subsidy removals to foreign exchange unification, and the fruits are finally ripening.

    Even critics had to admit as much. Dr. Reuben Abati, a well-known media voice and Arise TV anchor, took a rare moment during The Morning Show on Friday to acknowledge the real-world impacts of Tinubu’s economic reengineering. He didn’t just talk about the federal level, he dug deep into states’ improved financial profiles, citing debt repayment progress across the board. For the first time in years, Nigerian states are experiencing fiscal breathing space, largely because the federal structure under Tinubu is deliberately empowering sub-national governments.

    It is this empowerment that is now causing political tremors nationwide. The opposition is haemorrhaging prominent figures to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and it’s not because of coercion or manipulation, as Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa made clear during his visit to the State House. It’s because President Tinubu’s brand of leadership, firm yet inclusive, is drawing people in. The President is not asking politicians to cross party lines; they’re crossing on their own volition, because they see a new political centre of gravity forming around him.

    In just one week, Nigeria witnessed an extraordinary wave of defections. Delta State Governor, Sheriff Oborevwori, his deputy, his predecessor Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, and former Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, all influential PDP stalwarts, joined the APC. The entire Delta State House of Assembly followed suit. So did the entire Edo State Assembly, with its 18 members defecting en masse to the ruling party. Then came Kebbi, where three sitting PDP senators — Adamu Aliero, Yahaya Abubakar Abdullahi, and Garba Maidoki — met the President and announced their move to the APC.

    Each of these defections is significant on its own. Together, they represent something more profound, a quiet revolution in Nigerian politics. Opposition figures are not only leaving their parties; they are also aligning with Tinubu’s vision of national renewal. As Ganduje noted after the Kebbi senators’ defection, this isn’t just about numbers. It’s about “quality and capacity.”

    Indeed, Tinubu has shown a rare political acumen: the ability to unify divergent interests without erasing identities. He’s not trying to flatten Nigeria’s political diversity; he’s building a broad coalition within it. Take his Thursday visit to Anambra State, a region historically distant from the APC’s base. In Awka, Tinubu was welcomed not just as a President, but as a brother, an ally, and a partner in progress. From Governor Charles Soludo to traditional rulers and civil society leaders, the President received accolades not merely for showing up, but for showing results.

    Soludo, in a powerful gesture, emphasized Anambra’s ideological alignment with Tinubu’s progressive vision. He praised the President’s economic policies, the federal government’s attention to abandoned infrastructure projects, and the symbolic importance of the Southeast’s inclusion in the National Rail Master Plan. In return, Tinubu assured the people of Anambra that his administration would tackle erosion, complete roads, reactivate gas utilization plans, and ensure the region is no longer left out of Nigeria’s development map.

    The President’s remarks were as strategic as they were sincere: “We are one family… our diversity must lead to prosperity.” That was not mere rhetoric. It was the tone of a man who sees leadership not through the lens of party supremacy, but national stewardship. And the people responded. From chieftaincy titles to public declarations of support, it was clear that Tinubu’s visit had shifted perceptions, and perhaps, the political calculus, in the Southeast.

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    There is also a message here for those outside Tinubu’s growing coalition, particularly the faction of the opposition led by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Kaduna Governor Nasir El-Rufai. Their efforts to galvanize a fragmented coalition have been loud, but largely unconvincing. While they project strength through sporadic media salvos and echo-chamber critiques, Tinubu is projecting unity through action, results, and direct engagement with people and places once considered politically unreachable.

    Tinubu’s strategy is not without risk. Consolidating power can invite charges of political monopolization. But as Governor Sule wisely noted, this is not a slide into one-party rule; it’s a competitive democracy in motion. Nigerians are gravitating toward results, not slogans. And right now, Tinubu is producing results that resonate, economically, politically, and socially.

    Consider the lithium breakthroughs in Nasarawa State. Governor Sule proudly informed the President that a 3-million metric ton facility has already been commissioned, with another, three times the size, due in weeks. These are the dividends of peace, policy, and partnership. States like Nasarawa are emerging as hubs of clean energy, mining, and agriculture, not in spite of the federal government, but because of its new posture.

    This is what makes Tinubu’s presidency unique. He governs with the confidence of a tactician and the instinct of a bridge-builder. His open-door approach to governance, his refusal to alienate critics, and his consistent focus on economic reform are changing not just how Nigeria is run, but how Nigerians perceive politics itself.

    So, as the defections mount and the narrative shifts, it is clear: Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not just consolidating political power. He is reshaping the very architecture of Nigerian democracy. Through economic reform, national outreach, and inclusive leadership, he is drawing Nigerians, even his former adversaries, into a common vision of progress.

    This last week, the opposition blinked. The people moved. And the President smiled, not in triumph, but in resolve. That smile is now Nigeria’s most potent political force.

    Governance, Gratitude, and Growth

  • APC, April showers and May flowers

    APC, April showers and May flowers

    April showers bring May flowers.” This climatic-cum-horticultural English proverb is significant for Nigeria’s developing political story. Incidentally, we’re currently in the April-May weather nexus, and the proverb is metaphorically relevant for the current state of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

    The party was formed on 6 February, 2013 from a merger of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), General Muhammadu Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and part of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). Thereafter, a group of members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) called “New PDP”, including former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, defected to APC.

    In this column on 17 November, 2024, in an article titled “Nigeria’s somnolent opposition,” it was shown how the country’s opposition parties seemed to have been in slumber due to, among other reasons, the victory of APC in the 28 March, 2015 presidential elections. Now, it seems that the opposition have woken up, but have done so on the wrong side of the bed, resulting in their befogged perception of the state of the nation’s politics.

    This befuddlement is manifested in the tendency to see the opposition’s different woes as caused by malevolent agents of the ruling APC. So, rather than face their own demons, the opposition and their sympathisers have been blaming APC for striving to create a one-party state. Even the Social Democratic Party, which is itself already receiving defectors, has joined the opposition bandwagon of offloading their problems on to the APC.

    Ironically, it has been APC’s President Tinubu who, since 18 December, 2023, has been making widely-acknowledged efforts to resolve the crisis between the PDP’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesom Wike, the PDP’s now-suspended Governor Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers State, and the suspended PDP legislature. Moreover, Wike said in a media parley on 18 April, 2025: “Two governors under APC … came to talk to me, and I said, ‘Look, I’m not the governor, I’m FCT Minister. … I said, look, I’m here for peace. What does he [Fubara] want? … And they said, ‘We’ll do everything to make [peace happen].’”

    According to Britannica, a one-party state is “a country where a single political party controls the government, either by law or in practice. Examples of one-party states include North Korea, China, Eritrea, and Cuba.” With the constitution declaring the country as a multiparty democracy, with the multiplicity of parties in the nation’s legislatures and with multifarious parties running different states and local governments, Nigeria is neither a one-party state by law nor in practice, and its prospects of becoming one are farfetched. Indeed, the current unfettered, publicly-dramatised attempts to cobble together an opposition coalition to wrest power from APC in 2027 are inconsistent with the movement towards a one-party state.

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    April 2025’s dizzying torrent of defections to APC from different opposition parties show that, as the English proverb says, “It never rains but it pours.” And the one-party phantom in the country seems to be the escapist excuse of politicians who have shirked their responsibility for stabilising, reforming or rebuilding their parties, but who still want to sleep easy. The accusation of working to establish a one-party state is also a ready weapon in the arsenal of APC’s political detractors, and has become a self-deluding form of political denigration.

    For some, the motive for defecting is the attraction of being part of the winning team; for some it is the desire to benefit from inducement; for some it is the need to seek refuge; and for some, it is primarily existential, with respect to the survival of their political careers. The conflict bedeviling the different opposition parties are of importance in this regard, especially concerning those who look forward to contesting elections into executive or legislative offices between now and 2027.

    The Secretary of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) sent a reminder to political parties on the procedures for submitting nominations of candidates for the 2013 Anambra State governorship election as follows: “a) Every political party shall submit the list of the candidates the party proposes to sponsor in Form CF 002 duly signed by the National Chairman and National Secretary of the Political Party. b) The list shall be accompanied with a covering letter duly signed by the National Chairman and National Secretary of the Political Party.”

    As Nyesom Wike alerts, these subsisting INEC procedures put at risk of improper nomination a candidate in whose party there is controversy about who the legitimate National Chairman or National Secretary is. And this is not speculative, as was shown in the relatable Zamfara State APC crises of the recent past. Some members of the party successfully challenged in court the legitimacy of all of the party’s candidates for all of the positions for which they contested, on the ground of improper nomination.

    This is the way the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room reported the matter on 28 May, 2019: “After a protracted legal tussle, the Supreme Court Friday, 24th May 2019, delivered a judgment nullifying the victory of all Candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Zamfara State in the 2019 General elections. APC Candidates who had been declared winners of thirty-six elective positions in the State, comprising the Governorship, National and State Assembly positions have lost their seats to Candidates of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), who were the first runners-up in the elections. Describing the votes scored by APC in the State as a waste, the Court held that the party did not conduct primaries in Zamfara State and as such, could not field Candidates in the General elections.”    

    In an 8 May, 2025 interview on TVC News, the Leader of the Labour Party Caucus in the House of Representatives, Hon. Afam Ogene, noted with respect to defectors from his party: “And why are they defecting? They are not sure that the Labour Party offers a credible platform to run elections and sustain it. They don’t want a situation [as] happened in Plateau State to happen where they will go for primaries, campaign, win elections, only to be told by the courts that this man has been long thrown overboard as Chairman of the party. And that is why they are seeking their political fortunes elsewhere.” For this, you can’t blame the receiving or ruling party. Even babies don’t spit out honey.

     Considering the gale of defections into APC, the Acting National Chairman of PDP – Ambassador Umar Damagum – and PDP chief Segun Sowunmi warn that APC faces the risk of implosion. Though this counsel comes from opposition sources that cannot easily be said to wish APC well, it is invaluable in the sense that it nudges the party not to lose sight of the fact that even dry land may be slippery. Another Yoruba idiom similarly admonishes: “Acquiring too many friends leads to acquiring treacherous friends.” (“Àyànjù òré tíí mú’ni yan èké.”). It is also believed that the size of the head determines the intensity of its headache. (“Bí orí bá se tóbi tó níí se fó olórí.”) The message here is that grace has pains.

    This brings us to the APC’s Oyo State sore thumb. Oyo State was a solid APC domain. Its troubles in the state started with what some members regarded as the imposition of governorship candidate for the 2019 election. Taking offence at what was believed to be this perverse treatment, some of the other aspirants defected to other parties, and some stayed on but worked against the party. Consequently, APC lost the gubernatorial election to PDP in the state that year.

    History repeated itself in APC’s primary elections for the 2023 elections. The primaries were believed to have been grossly manipulated and some disaffected candidates and members of the party defected from the party. Some even contested the elections on the platform of other parties. Some of those who did not defect worked against the party from within. So, with this protest, complemented by PDP’s incumbency factor, APC lost the governorship election again. The 2027 governorship election would be the third consecutive one. Will APC work to lose again this time around? There’s already grumbling in the air, and APC needs to act right before the grumble becomes a rumble.

    There is also the problem of the zonal dominance of source of governorship candidates in Oyo State. There are five geo-political zones in the state. These are: Oke-Ogun 1 (with Iseyin, Kajola, Iwajowa, and Itesiwaju Local Governments) and Oke-Ogun 2 (with Atisbo, Saki-West, Saki-East, Oorelope, Irepo and Olorunsogo Local Governments), Ogbomoso zone (with Ori-Ire, Ogbomoso North, Ogbomoso South, Surulere and Ogo Oluwa Local Governments), Oyo zone (with Atiba, Oyo West, Oyo East and Afijio Local Governments), Ibarapa zone (with Ibarapa North, Ibarapa East and Ibarapa Central Local Governments), and Ibadan zone (with Ido, Akinyele, Lagelu, Ibadan North, Ibadan North-East, Ibadan North-West, Ibadan South-East, Ibadan South-West, Egbeda, Ona Ara and Oluyole Local Governments).

    Of these five zones, with the exception of Ogbomoso, all of the civilian governors of the present Oyo State, since its creation on 27 August, 1991, have hailed from the Ibadan zone. Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde put this problem in perspective in a 15 April, 2025 Channels Television interview. Asked by Seun Okinbaloye which zone of Oyo State his successor would come from, he replied: “Politics is a game of numbers. … Still at this particular time, about almost 50% of the population of Oyo State is still domiciled within Ibadan.”

    Governor Makinde continued: “However, well before I became a governor, I told them that the only way the governorship would leave Ibadan is when you have a governor that has performed excellently well, that has had the trust of the people, and if he’s able to find a successor from any zone, then he can push that through. We’re still on this journey. I don’t know if we have … 100% trust from people just yet, but if we focus on what we’re doing, by the end of this year, we will definitely hear what people are saying.”

    Propositions have been made for a constitutional review to stipulate the rotation of presidential candidacy between the different zones of the country, governorship candidacy between the different senatorial districts of a state, and chairmanship candidacy between different parts of a local government. This is the time to give these equitable proposals impetus to facilitate the accommodation of diversity, boost faith in the political system and enhance socio-political stability.

    As has been shown in Nigeria and Botswana, dominant parties don’t last in ascendancy out of sheer size. They last due to methodical politics. Meanwhile, let APC, blessed with April showers of defection, continue to enjoy its May flowers – its increasing chances of victory in the 2027 elections.

  • Nigeria’s foreign policy, from Afrocentrism to ambiguity?

    Nigeria’s foreign policy, from Afrocentrism to ambiguity?

    Nigeria as the most populous black nation in the world has for some time now been punching under its weight for some time now. In the complex theater of international relations, Nigeria’s foreign policy evolution tells a story of adaptation, ambition, and at times, ambiguity. As President Bola Ahmed Tinubu completes his second year in office, a critical examination of his administration’s foreign policy thrust reveals a landscape where historical foundations meet contemporary challenges, raising important questions about Nigeria’s place on the global stage in 2025.

    Nigeria’s foreign policy has undergone significant transformations since independence. Under Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa and subsequent military administrations, Nigeria adopted a non-aligned stance during the Cold War, refusing to be drawn into either the Western or Eastern bloc. This position allowed a young nation to assert its sovereignty while navigating the bipolar international system. In addition to this, the Balewa government navigated its foreign policy in favour of Africa as a continent and to this end it faulted the French Nuclear test in the Sahara desert leading to the nation’s protest and the expulsion of the French Ambassador.

    By the 1970s, under General Murtala Mohammed, Nigeria’s policy evolved into what scholars term “Africa-centrism” – declaring Africa as the “centerpiece” of Nigerian foreign policy. This principle manifested in Nigeria’s leadership role in the formation of ECOWAS, its anti-apartheid stance, its recognition of the Augostinho Neto’s MPLA government as the authentic government of the people of Angola and significant contributions to peacekeeping operations across the continent. The oil boom provided economic leverage that amplified Nigeria’s voice in international affairs during this period.

    The administration of Ibrahim Babaginda to his credit did attempt to raise the tempo, his regional interventions in Liberia was revolutionary whilst his attempt to create a concert of medium powers was largely a scheme to give Nigeria alongside other developed nations which were not amongst the big five a place under the sun.

    The democratic transitions of the late 1990s and early 2000s saw Nigeria attempting to repair its international image after years of military rule. President Olusegun Obasanjo leveraged his international connections to reintegrate Nigeria into the global community, focusing on debt relief and foreign investment.

    President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua introduced a more deliberate economic emphasis to Nigeria’s foreign policy through his “citizen diplomacy” approach. This framework positioned the welfare of Nigerians both at home and abroad as the central consideration in foreign relations decisions. His administration sought to use foreign policy as a tool for domestic economic development, aligning diplomatic initiatives with poverty reduction goals.

    Despite Yar’Adua’s brief tenure, his economic diplomacy orientation laid groundwork that influenced subsequent administrations. President Goodluck Jonathan continued elements of this approach, particularly in seeking foreign investments and regional economic integration.

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    When Muhammadu Buhari assumed office in 2015, he inherited a foreign policy apparatus weakened by numerous domestic challenges. As correctly noted, terrorism, kidnapping, banditry, and endemic corruption had severely damaged Nigeria’s international reputation. The refusal of several Western nations to sell military equipment to Nigeria for counterterrorism operations highlighted the country’s diminished standing on the global stage.

    Buhari’s foreign policy adopted a pragmatic stance focused on three priorities: combating corruption, addressing security challenges, and diversifying the economy. His administration sought to rebuild international confidence through anti-corruption campaigns while pursuing regional security cooperation to address the Boko Haram insurgency. The appointment of Geoffrey Onyeama as Foreign Minister brought stability to diplomatic engagements, though critics argue the administration never fully articulated a coherent foreign policy doctrine.

    Since taking office in May 2023, President Tinubu’s approach to foreign policy has displayed both continuity and change. Working alongside Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, the administration has shown signs of prioritizing economic diplomacy while attempting to restore Nigeria’s regional leadership position.

    However, nearly a year into governance, observers continue to question the coherence and direction of Tinubu’s foreign policy. Several patterns have emerged, such as an  economic focus with limited strategic

    framework.

    Tinubu’s foreign engagements have heavily emphasized investment attraction and trade expansion. His administration has launched diplomatic initiatives aimed at positioning Nigeria as an investment destination, particularly following domestic economic reforms including the removal of fuel subsidies and exchange rate adjustments.

    Minister Tuggar has frequently articulated the “Renewed Hope Agenda” as driving foreign policy, focusing on Nigeria’s economic interests. Yet, these economic engagements often appear reactive rather than flowing from a comprehensive strategic framework. The administration has yet to publish a formal foreign policy white paper outlining its long-term international relations vision.

    The Tinubu administration like past administrations initially signaled a return to robust regional leadership, particularly in responding to democratic backsliding in Niger and other West African states. Nigeria’s stance on ECOWAS sanctions against coup leaders demonstrated willingness to assert regional influence.

    However, this assertiveness has been inconsistent. The administration’s response to similar situations across the continent has lacked uniformity, raising questions about whether a coherent Africa policy exists. Furthermore, Nigeria’s economic challenges have limited its capacity to back diplomatic positions with substantial resources, undermining its traditional leadership role.

    Minister Tuggar has pursued engagement with various global powers, including traditional Western allies, China, Russia, and emerging economies. This approach reflects a multipolar worldview appropriate for the current international system. Yet, the administration appears reluctant to articulate clear priorities among these relationships.

    The result is a foreign policy that sometimes appears to chase multiple opportunities without that strategic selectivity. This is particularly evident in Nigeria’s positioning regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict and US-China competition, where the administration has avoided firm alignment while attempting to extract benefits from all sides.

    Of a truth, the  Tinubu administration inherited a Foreign Affairs Ministry suffering from years of underfunding and declining professional capacity. Despite Minister Tuggar’s diplomatic experience, the ministry’s effectiveness remains constrained by structural limitations.

    Diplomatic missions abroad continue to face operational challenges, limiting Nigeria’s ability to project influence and protect citizens’ interests overseas. The promised “diplomatic architecture review” announced early in the administration has yet to produce visible reforms in foreign service operations.

    What ultimately remains unclear is whether the Tinubu administration possesses a distinctive foreign policy doctrine that defines its approach to international engagement. Previous administrations, despite their flaws, established recognizable principles: Africa-centrism under the military regimes, shuttle diplomacy under Obasanjo, citizen diplomacy under Yar’Adua, and Buhari’s security-focused pragmatism.

    Tinubu’s foreign policy, by contrast, appears predominantly transactional – seeking economic benefits and diplomatic capital without articulating a coherent worldview or grand strategy. This approach offers flexibility but sacrifices the consistency and predictability that international partners value.

    Minister Tuggar’s emphasis on “Nigeria first” rhetoric suggests potential parallels with economically nationalist foreign policies seen elsewhere globally. Yet, the administration has not translated this concept into a systematic framework guiding Nigeria’s international engagements.

    For the remainder of his term, President Tinubu faces the task of transforming tactical diplomatic engagements into a coherent foreign policy architecture. This requires addressing several fundamental questions:

    1. How can  Nigeria balance regional leadership aspirations with domestic economic imperatives?

    2. What principles will guide choices between competing international partnerships?

    3. How can our diplomatic capabilities be rebuilt to effectively project Nigerian influence?

    4. Where does Nigeria position itself in evolving global governance structures?

    The opportunity exists to develop a foreign policy that genuinely serves national development while restoring Nigeria’s international standing. This demands not only diplomatic skill but strategic vision – the vision we saw with the Garba’s and the Akinyemi’s something critics suggest has been notably absent in Nigerian foreign policy formulation for decades.

    As Nigeria navigates increasingly turbulent global waters in 2025, the Tinubu administration stands at a foreign policy crossroads. While economic diplomacy provides a practical focus, a comprehensive foreign policy requires more than commercial opportunism. It demands clarity of vision, consistency of principles, and capacity for implementation.

    The historical journey of Nigerian foreign policy offers valuable lessons for crafting a more effective approach – drawing from the principled non-alignment of the early years, the continental leadership of the Africa-centric era, and the citizen-focused pragmatism of more recent times. Whether President Tinubu and Minister Tuggar can synthesize these traditions into a coherent doctrine that addresses contemporary challenges remains one of the defining questions of their administration’s legacy.

    Nigeria’s international partners and citizens alike await clearer signals about where Africa’s most populous nation is steering its ship of state in global affairs. Until then, Nigerian foreign policy under Tinubu appears to be a work in progress – with the blueprint still very much under construction.

  • Reactions to: Taking the wind out of Benjamin Kalu’s indigeneship Bill

    Reactions to: Taking the wind out of Benjamin Kalu’s indigeneship Bill

    Iwrote the above-referenced article, published on these pages Sunday, 4 May, ’25 out of the anxiety that Yorubas may soon find themselves  standing between

     a rock and a hard  place if we do nothing about Igbo’s plan to capture Lagos – TAKE LAGOS, as they describe it –  so they “can lock us up and put us (Yorubas) in jail”.

    Surprised at that?

    Please read my original article to hear the discussion, first hand, and understand the entire macabre plan, in addition to hearing what Igbos actually think of their Yoruba hosts, not only in Lagos but in the entire Yoruba land where many of us would stupidly think nothing of selling ancestral lands to them, to be paid for from monies whose sources they dont know. And that is when they actually don’t tell you that Lagos is a no man’s land.

    Add that scenario to murderous Fulani herdsmen having already completely over ran Southwest  forests and it becomes obvious we cannot afford to stand akimbo,  doing nothing.

    While we were fortunate that the less educated, but abrasive of Igbos exposed their plan via an on- air dialogue, the more coy, like their highest ranking member of the National Assembly, the Rt. Hon, freshly minted, Dr Benjamin Kalu, who was more discerning dropped the innocuous Indigeneship Bill on the House of Representatives, presenting it as a bill to unify Nigerians, thus confirming the Yoruba saying that: ‘oro ta ni ki aditi ma gbo, enu were lati ngbo – meaning that secret you are keeping away from the deaf, he will hear from the mad man.

    Hon Kalu should please tell us how many Nigerians( from other parts of the country) are likely to take advantage when his bill becomes Law to become a citizen of any Southeastern state, 10, 20? Compare that to the millions of Igbos in Lagos and other parts of Yorubaland.

    As should be expected the article generated considerable reactions, some of which are published below.

    The first is from a younger, very close friend of mine, whose articles I have severally got published on these pages. He is a distinguished Professor of Igbo extraction.

    He wrote:

    “Good morning dear uncle.

    I have read your well scripted article (as usual) and I find it quite amazing.

    Kindly permit that I make two observations, perhaps three :

    1. The article reminded me of Mien Kampf, one of those great literary works that changed the direction of the world almost a hundred years ago. It’s exceptionalism  still endures.

    2. By my character and upbringing, I do not accept the blanket ascription of the “Igbo’s inexplicable, and totally uncontrolled, desire to own things which belong to others, especially land”.

    It is just not for me.

    3. I had thought that the greatest danger facing southern Nigeria today is the presence of armed Fulanis in many forests across the south, especially the south west. And I have often wondered about their intentions and their mission.

    However, looking at the real and present danger revealed in your article, the Fulani menace pales into insignificance, a child’s picnic more or less.

    This is because a humongous plot by the Igbos to take over Lagos and drive the indigenous population into the lagoon (via an obscure whatsapp group) have been uncovered. May God help us all.

    Dear uncle, I once penned a personal message where I tried to explain a bit of myself to you. I said, among other things, that I see myself as a human being and I see the next person the same way.

    I stand by that, whatever happens, even though many will see me as naive, even foolish. But that is my choice and I am comfortable with it. What’s more, I will keep it that way to the end, irrespective of what happens around me. That is where I derive my peace”.

    The second from the owner of Tel no: 0806 – 78 – 689 reads:

    “If not because of covetousness, I am baffled about why or how you can claim to be an indigene of a place simply because you have lived there for 10 years or because you are married to an  indigene of the place? That is if the person has not changed his/her indigeneship over the years.

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    Both my parents were from Ode-Rẹ́mọ in Ogun State under Rẹ́mọ North Local Government. I was born in Ibadan where I lived for 17 years in different local governments before I moved to Lagos State where I’ve lived for 52 years. In Lagos State, I lived for 12 years in Ajegunle under Ajeromi Local Government. I lived for 5 years in Ijeshatedo. I lived for 17 years in Ejigbo under Oshodi-Isolo Local Government. I now live at Isheri-Oshun under Alimosho Local Government (Ìgandò/Ikotun LCDA) for the past 18 years. Please let the sponsor of the bill tell me which indigene I am and under which local government.

    I am very proud of my ancestral origin. I have no intention of claiming indigeneship of any other place than where I am a native by my parents (with all the ìjẹ̀bú-Rẹ́mọ DNA in me), even as I have not resided there continuously for up to two years at a time. Even as my visits there most of the time were usually short stays. This is what I have filled as my origin in all my documents all my life (National Identity, Census, Driver’s License, Employment form, etc). This is also the case with my children, even as their mother is from a different place from me.

    Why should an Ohafia man from Abia State wish to jettison his ancestral indigeneship for that of Ọ̀jọ́ local government in Lagos State when he is not a bastard of his original place? Is he ashamed of his origin? Or being an intrepid traveller (onyi ije), is he going to be toggling in his claims between all the places he has lived for over ten years in Nigeria? Why do some people like to cause confusion because of inordinate desires?”

    The 3rd, from @Lawrence Ibe,.

    was not sent to me directly but  forwarded to me by one of those I regularly forwarded my articles to.

    It is, however, being published because it is authored by a honest Igbo and patriotic Nigerian.

    It reads as follows:

    “I am a full blooded Igbo man but I believe the Yoruba’s need to rise up and defend their identity, land, and culture. It’s unfortunate to say this but the truth needs to be said by someone. We the Igbo’s can no longer continue to be territorial in another mans land. We go to a place, they welcome us with an open hand, we establish there and prosper and the only way to show appreciation to them is to declare their land a “no man’s land” How is this possible? Every land has indigenes.

    What the Yoruba’s are tolerating even we the Igbo’s will not tolerate in our land.

    Why is it possible I can move to Lagos or any Yoruba land and willfully acquire any choice land at any part of Yoruba land as long as I have the means yet we cannot accord the same opportunity and privilege to Yoruba’s in Igbo land? In my place no matter how much a Yoruba man is willing to buy land, that land will not be sold to him.

     There is a serious need for equity from all sides. The Yoruba’s must be accorded what they accord us. The Yoruba’s must demand what is theirs. In Igbo land, Igbo’s speak with one voice and foreigners cannot Influence things in our land. If we have Eze Igbo in Yoruba land, why then can’t we have Oba of Yoruba in Igbo land?  Yoruba’s must stand up and defend that which is theirs. The liberality of the Yoruba’s must be reciprocated by others.

    You can easily be a house of assembly member in Yoruba land even as an Igbo man or Akwa Ibom person but can we say the same in Igbo land? 

    You people must rise and defend what is yours. Elections in your land cannot continue to be decided by foreigners. It cannot happen in my place, so why would you Yoruba’s allow it? Being too nice is foolishness. Defend what is yours now or forever lose it.”

  • FOR SEAMUS HEANEY

    FOR SEAMUS HEANEY

    (Digging with it….)

    Our world will never

    Witness the death

    Of the Naturalist

    As long as stones sigh

    Trees twit

    Rivers rumble

    And  the road’s serpentine sentence  

    Is governed by the tortuous syntax     

    Of lore-ful  peregrinations     

    History’s  vigilant nails tattoo

    The scaffoldings of  waiting habitations  

    As the hammer sings its song

    In thunder and calibrated murmurs

    Below a lean, suspenseful sky

    Unsure of  the temper of the sun

    Green memories, green incantations

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    Curious rains in search of reluctant roofs

    Tendrils dancing  to the top of swaying bowers

    Between ardent Wisdom and a Kindness

    Ever so steady in its communion with the human spirit

    Your verse lives on in sound and simmering sense

    For yours is the government of the tongue

    Of syllables which sometimes saunter into silence

    The unsaid which outspeaks the said

    Yours, the endless navigation of

    That fine line between the necessity of Beauty

    And the imperative of Truth. . . .

    Farmer-born, peasant-bred

    I too hail from the digging clan whose

    Harvest laughter succeeds the hoe’s insistence

    Hearable throughout in  this tribute are hints from Heaney’s iconic essay, “The Government of the Tongue”.

  • Juju Eyes for the downfall of many

    Juju Eyes for the downfall of many

    Title: Juju Eyes

    Author: Sam Omatseye

    Reviewer: Edozie Udeze

    This tale, Juju Eyes, is in all facets and facts the typical story of a runs girl, a high-class professional whore. But it is also the story of Nigeria, more so a young lady, beautiful to the hilts who set out to wallow and prowl in the euphoric impulse of a society. It is a society peopled by fraudsters and Oluseyi Ekanem now code-named Shay cleverly keyed into it to spill and strut a life of lies and tricks and all sorts of dubious mannerisms and nuances. The author actually uses the tale about Shay to explore and describe and indeed mirror into the society that is riddled with all manner of characters, who come ready to swindle, squabble and hoodwink the world. Shay is only a vessel through which this tale is told and embellished. And it is told in a way that there is hardly any aspect of this frosty and fake society that is not included in the story.

    Shay is an embodiment of the perilous times where the beautiful live as a prey and a predator, where lies have taken over the place of decency. What else can one say when Sam Omatseye, this ubiquitous author of this encyclopedic tale impugns the person of Shay as, “She did not come from this land, which, for lack of proper translation, meant Shay did not belong to this earth as we knew it. On some afternoons she looked so fair skinned, she became spectral, an “albino”. Sometimes, she was set to devour-a sleek, charming canine. At other times she looks so meek, all the children wanted to be like her, just like Jesus wanted little children to come unto me. At such moments her beauty contrasted with what Mista Naija would later call Juju Eyes. At times she was thin, spindly.

    On some nights like a gala event on a month ago, the same legs shone like the flame of an ethereal polish…at other times too she was a clipped goddess…” (pg. 48). The truth of this fantastic tale by one of Nigeria’s greatest and most prolific story tellers is that Shay is expertly used to explore the larger Nigerian society. A goddess of beauty in the real sense of the word, Shay comes fully prepared to expose and exploit the many inanities of the kingdom of evil and the not so evil, in Nigeria. The author does not spare the big and the small-dubious leaders, people in high places who are indeed the primary attention of this tale.

    Using Shay who is born Oluseyi Ekanem to an Efik father and Yoruba mother the author delves into more complicated and profound ways the society is run and run dubiously by criminals in human clothing. It is run by those whose intentions have not been too luxuriant or hopeful for the common goals of the people. So, chancing in on this, Shay surreptitiously decides to be a whore, a whore that is bigger than all whores. She preys on them, both rich and old. She is like a hawk who knows how to catch her preys. She operates with no draw backs or regrets. Her conscience is often deadpanned and she reaches out to those ready to do her biddings. She also often has her libido handy for the highest bidder. Often enough her libido is determined and controlled by her immediate need for it.

    Here is a lady who was first deflowered by her uncle, Uncle ID. From then onwards the monstrous urge and the penchant to have men, to deploy her beauty and charm and infectious aura with the juju eyes in tow, she enwraps and destroys men and their destinies. Here again Shay symbolizes all the runs girls and their wayward life and all their activities in highbrow areas like Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja and so on. At Lekki in Lagos, her type abounds. They live exclusively on their bodies and the bodies and pockets of men they reach out to.

    Shay is not your everyday type of lover girl. She pretends to love but it is short lived. Y0u can’t make her your pet either. Her aim is to seek, find and devour men along with their wealth and powers and connections. In making the story carry on with the weight of a tale that is all engrossing, Omatseye subtitles the chapters. The purpose is to be deliberate in which it provides enough rooms to involve all the numerous escapades of a ravenous young woman given to an insatiable gusto of all sorts. From the moment when she was born, Shay even as young as four years old had chosen to be an absurdity. She was meant to be a priestess of a goddess. But her powers overwhelmed that of the goddess and this made her a bigger disaster. That disastrous outing immediately helped to set her on a part of societal perdition.

    Shay is therefore both a witchcraft and a priestess who destroys all the powers of witches. She is indeed on a mission to implore her juju eyes at random. Her juju eyes are wired by the goddess and other evil forces of her kingdom essentially to achieve her aims on earth. And so, she lived a stupendous life, lugubriously so that the well to do in the society are attracted to her easily. In this case it is both wealthy men and sometimes the well to do women in the society. Her pride remains in her propensity to be rapacious, self-centered and tricky in all her dealings with both genders. She only goes where her bread is buttered and her road is paved.

    With her crown as the most beautiful girl at the University of Calabar and later at the NYSC orientation camp, Shay chooses on time to parasite on politicians and their allies and co-travelers. Her story progresses with measured acumen and accuracy, Omatseye is painstaking. He is deliberate. He creates a bigger room for other interesting characters, some good, some innocuous to join her in her obnoxious world of fantasy and deceit. The story rigmaroles, often summersaulting, touching on the fabrics of the society. It meanders. It goes on and on rippling through the lives of Governors, Senators, political hoodlums, political bandits and thugs. It touches on fake men of God, fake miracles, fake and dubious society women and their lifestyles, fake friends and so many others. Shay is comfortable when she tries all these, but yet comes out of it all. When she is depressed or have some regrets or under the spell of the goddess she seeks for deliverance. Meanwhile this is short-lived as she goes back immediately to her vomit. She belongs to life of cosmetic friendship.

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    Her life revolves around the whims and caprices of a typical ogbanje. So, from one man to the next she pitches her tent, mesmerizing at her own pace and dictate. She catches a man, leads him on until the man loses his guard, then in a flash Shay disentangles and begins once more to look back to her first love, Ese, on campus. Ese her first love is her idol but she lost the opportunity.

    It indeed shows that those evil forces which she refuses to honour will never let her be. One moment she goes for deliverance, the other time she is back to continue where she stopped. Yet they all turn into a façade. Shay is one of the reasons why some men fail to bolster their star. Politicians squander money, public money in hard currency to satiate her. This story has to be read by those who love faction – a story of facts turned into fiction, the story of the real runs girls of this generation. They have no qualms about their immoral exploits. They owe no one the decency or otherwise of their groins. For them life is meant to be lived anyhow it comes. Money is the master and it counts in all situations. They are not accountable to anybody, not even to their folks or men of God they run to when too much confusion beclouds their sense of rationalization.

    Then after the several rollicking scenes, Shay suddenly runs into Negel, a white man who turns himself to Mista Naija. It is there like it is said in smattering English, wayo jam wayo. And so, the tale goes on and on and on as Shay makes Mista Naija the center of her life. And in return Negel, the rich and regal Mista Naija hits the nail on the head. He tells Shay “You have juju eyes”. And Shay truly uses those bewitching eyes for destructive tendencies and to achieve her aim and get what she wants.

    In all, it is an overview of the story of a rotten society in all facets where everything goes and no one cares. Decorum and decency have taken a flight in this clime and Omatseye has not hesitated to lay them bare.

    As an audacious novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, journalist and public commentator, Omatseye is critical in matters of literary offerings. He is daring, sincere and profound. His works elucidate. They explore and teach and are sometimes exclusively different and penetrating. So JuJu Eyes shows Shay as a gifted sorcerer who is able to hold the entire society in the jogular ,almost choking all to death with her incessant evil deeds and demands. What a story. What a society. What a narrative.

  • Ikeja Electric’s phantom estimates

    Ikeja Electric’s phantom estimates

    • Metering is much more urgent than appropriate pricing of power because that is a ruse under the present arrangement where figures are allocated to over seven million customers monthy

    I have been perpetually subjected to questionable debts decreed by Ikeja Electric in the last few months just because I was without prepaid meter for only four months.  As a ‘Band A’ customer, I had been spending between N50,000 to N55,000 monthly long before my meter packed up in October, last year. That means, at the maximum, I should have paid about N220,000 to the company for the four months had my meter not been faulty and retrieved. But, at the end of the four months, I had already incurred a bill of N317,774.85. Add that to the months from February to April; that should have fetched the DisCo about N385,000 considering my average consumption that the company can verify, over probably one year.

    But as at today, I have paid N436,600.58 to vend, including sundry fines and surcharges that the company never had the courtesy of breaking down for me, other than just yanking off 60 per cent of whatever amount I vended, giving me only 40 per cent since about March 30, save on two occasions when one of their workers intervened. Interestingly, as at yesterday, I was still said to be having a debt overhang of N81,367.22, the same amount there before I paid N30,000 on Thursday, May 8, 2025!

    Cumulatively, therefore, I would have coughed up about N517, 967 for seven months by the time I finish paying the debt, (that is assuming the company does not have to shift the goal post again, because my various contacts with them via their customer care have hardly produced the same result) as against the N385,000 I would have paid were my meter to be working. So, where and how did the N132,000 difference come from?

    One would think this is simple arithmetic. Unfortunately, with Ikeja Electric, it has become a jigsaw puzzle.

    But I needed to summarise the story first so that the Federal Government and its relevant agencies responsible for regulating the power sector and consumer protection would know how urgent it is to provide Nigerians with meters. They need to know there is need to declare emergency on metering for power consumers.

    Now to the details.

    My former meter was retrieved in October, last year, by Ikeja Electric because it was faulty. It was replaced early February, this year. In effect, what I had feared eventually became my lot. I have been subjected to all manner of forced payments and deductions by Ikeja Electric that should never have been.

    I was given a bill of N53,600.58 for October, 2024 and I paid all because it represented a fair average of my monthly consumption. In November of the same year, I was given the same amount and I was able to pay N43,000. The problem started in December, 2025, when I was slammed N104,273.39. I paid N50,000 because I couldn’t understand the basis for doubling the amount. I was given the same high bill of N106,300.30 in January, 2025. Again, I wondered how come. Somehow, I couldn’t pay on the bill until the meter was replaced early February, 2025.

    To my surprise, a debt of N114,000+ had been recorded against my meter as at December! Just like that? This ballooned to N171,174.17 the following month. Indeed, it would interest readers to note that that was still the debt against my account in one of their portals. It has been there, as we used to say in those days, ‘from time immemorial’!  As you would have noticed earlier, this contradicts the other figure in the same account as at yesterday, Saturday, May 10, 2025 which was put at a ‘benign’ N81,367.22!

    We have been at this since around January when I started writing emails to the company about my objections to the December 2024 and January 2025 bills. I sent emails again in March, even as I visited the customer care office at Akowonjo in Lagos on March 6.

    Surprisingly, there, I was told I was owing the company about N170,000 and that I MUST pay at least N130,000 to have access to electricity. You see, they would not write you or inform you about anything, knowing full well that they would always stop you when you want to recharge or vend, as they call it. They hardly respond to emails beyond the recorded message of telling you your complaints had been received and passed to the appropriate section for attention.

    Imagine a debt nobody informed me about, and which I probably would not have had any knowledge of if I had not gone to their office, suddenly leading to my coughing up N130,000 minimum to vend overnight or staying in darkness. In fact, at a point during the numerous chats I had with the customer care, they told me I had a credit balance of N41,000. How do you reconcile this with a debt of over N170,000 against my account!  Anyway, I had to look for N130,000 to pay to have access to electricity.

    As I told their business manager in one of my emails (SR 5564762), ‘’It would interest you to note that I had paid a total of N324,600.68 on my meter concerning the bills for four months and the so-called debts, including the forced deductions whenever I vend… This is one reason I have always wanted to avoid estimated billing. I had a running battle with the company on it a few years back and I would be glad if that history does not repeat itself.

    ‘’As far as I am concerned, Ikeja Electric could not have given me bills of over N100,000 plus in a month when it has a record of my monthly consumption, the basis of which, I guess, informed the rational bills of less than N55,000 that the company gave me in the first two months after retrieving my meter.’’

    I disagreed vehemently with the idea that I should bear cost of meter replacement because I knew that as a ‘Band A’ customer, I was not supposed to pay for it. But even when I tried to register for the meter, it was not going because I always refused to fill the space for payment for meter. This was the situation until around November or early December, 2024, when the company sent me text message that I was qualified for free meter. Again, I was always stuck as I refused to fill the space for payment as that, to me, meant consent to pay for the meter. As far as I was concerned, that aspect of the form should have been flexible, especially with the exemption of some group of consumers from payment. I knew that if I paid, the company would never refund the cash if they eventually agree on their own to refund. Rather, they would tell me that the thing would be converted to electricity units.

    Indeed, this is another bone of contention with the system, as it was what their customer care personnel always harped on whenever I confronted them; they always told me not to worry because the company would eventually refund me if they discovered they were wrong. But what gave them the impression that it is all customers that have such huge money to tie down in today’s economy (at about N130,000 for the cheapest single –phase meter), as if power supply is the only need of man? So, it was not for lack of trying that my application for meter was delayed till I eventually got their sms to apply for free meter. Even after that, getting through with the application processing was another hell.

    Unlike many other KYC websites that I patronise, when filling such forms, you merely continue later wherever you are stuck. With Ikeja Electric website, it was not so. Once you were stuck, you began again.

    To make matters worse, the company’s website was down for about three weeks in December, 2024. I was forced to tell the company in another email that its website was not customer-friendly as a result of all these challenges that one does not encounter elsewhere. As a matter of fact, I made all of these known in an email I sent to the company. None of these assertions was controverted and they could not have been because, in the first place, they represented a true picture of the website from my own experience. Secondly, as I said earlier, they hardly reply emails. It is annoying that despite the epistles I sent to the company on this matter, none was replied. It is only when companies or organisations reply communication that they can agree or disagree with certain assertions about them.

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    But, all of these are just one leg of the story.

    The other leg has to do with the 101 units in my meter that was retrieved. I ensured the personnel who retrieved it put it in the form he filled and gave to me and I had also sent emails to the company concerning this. I also have evidence of that. As a matter of fact, I did a photoshot of the form where the man boldly wrote in his beautiful handwriting that I was to bear the cost of replacement of the meter and also recorded the 101 leftover units in that meter which ought to have been credited into my account. It is unfortunate that the company seems to be less concerned about this, harping only, on areas that could fetch it money, whether legitimately or by duress.

    I guess this matter would still proceed appropriately to the next level, but I felt sufficiently concerned because I have heard many stories similar to mine, in some cases the so-called debts reaching very alarming proportions. Reconciliation properly so-called cannot happen within one party, and a concerned party at that. Which is what Ikeja Electric has done; and which is what many other DisCos do and keep doing, in a country that has government! In this matter, the company has served as the accuser, prosecutor and judge without the courtesy of informing me of the outcome of its findings (despite promising to do so). Their response is communicated through blocking vending channels. Is it such a company that you would trust that it would willy-nilly refund customers?

    Successive governments have helped these DisCos enough, with little or nothing to show for it. It is time to help Nigerians. And the only way to do that satisfactorily is by making metering top priority. What I see on ground as the response to the metering gap falls far short of expectation. That we have not metered over half of the 14 million power subscribers in more than 11 years of privatisation does not speak well of us as a country truly serious of making these power DisCos efficient.

    Let the metering be completed within one year, with the government focusing its aid to the firms on meters, and it would be clear that those of them who cannot survive because power consumers now have meters should be allowed to die naturally. After all, several other opportunities are now open for more investors to come into the market.

    Nigerians are tired of being inundated with government can no longer sustain subsidy in the power sector. That is not our most pressing issue. At any rate, whatever we have with the present order cannot give us a true pricing for power. A situation where figures are allocated to over seven million power customers can never guarantee that. Millions are suffering in silence.