The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Extraordinary rendering in Caracas

    Extraordinary rendering in Caracas

    Global attention in the past week has riveted on developments in the beautiful Venezuelan capital of Caracas. It has been a surreal supercharged drama, the type normally reserved for enthralling science fiction. The entire world has been on edge, like the audience at a movie that has become too real for comfort. You have a feel that this is history as it has been, as it really is and as it is going to be. So get on with it. But you also begin to doubt the collective health of humanity.

      History is made by history-makers and not by those at the receiving end of historical developments; the passive receptacles who are nothing but canon fodders of human development. The Americans, astute choreographers of historical developments that they have proved to be, have even added a touch of eerie certitude to the extraordinary and outlandish development. It was exactly thirty five years since a former American minion, Manuel Noriega, was flushed out of the presidential precincts in Panama City before being taken into American custody after days of wondering in the same country he had ruled with iron severity.

    This time around, the Americans have even scaled up the chilling expertise in high-tech human vaporization. Whether we like the American rampart militarism or not, whether we admire Donald Trump’s manic war-mongering and malevolent exhibitionism , his obtuse insensitivity  to the plight of fellow humans, you have to go give something to  him and his compatriots. The military operation to capture Nicolas Maduro was a classic of its genre showcasing human military ingenuity and capacity for brutal violence at its summit. It was from start to finish, brilliantly coordinated, clinically executed and tellingly enacted, leaving no room for any margin of error.

      The Americans have been showing the world why they are emphatic and unquestionable masters of the universe and worthy successors to the mantle of the Roman Empire. It would have felt very good and immensely reassuring if our world were to be under the threat of an attack by some invaders from some outer planets. But we are not. We are our own worst enemies. Some twenty five years ago when the Americans blitzed their way through Saddam Hussein and his empire of venality, it was advanced by military experts that after America, the combined military might of the next twenty five countries could not approach the military dominion of the most successful country that the world has seen. The suspicion is that this disproportion would have increased ever since as an exhausted and historically superannuated Europe began to cynically offload its responsibility to defend itself on the American big brother which takes its divine mission, his manifest destiny and notion of American Exceptionalism to a new level.

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      So, before we begin to castigate the Americans for disturbing the peace of the world and for disrupting the extant global order, we must factor in the dereliction of duty and the sense of historic ennui and sheer fatigue, the disorienting weariness, that seem to have overtaken the lapsed empires of Europe. We can then ask the legitimate question as to whether the world has become a better place to live, whether there has been increased prosperity and whether the plight of humankind generally has become more humane under the aegis of America’s unexampled might and total dominion.

      But under a rightwing resurgence and the relentless hammer of a man with a ledger and balance sheet vision of history, the Americans are having none of that. We must first pay for past services and make arrangements to repair current debts. The world has taken America for a ride for a long time and this business of being your brother’s keeper only impoverishes Americans and set the citizens permanently on the boil while the Europeans go on their luxury holidays and the Africans wallow in their historic turpitude  underwritten by American generosity and compassion. Charity must return to the home of charity and in order to make America great again, the Father Christmas nonsense must stop. As Oscar Wilde famously admonishes, we must avoid the careless habits of accuracy. The need for America to continue to parade as the global policeman while also insisting that it is all done in the interest of America’s supremacy is the central contradiction of the Trump enterprise and will see to its eventual unraveling.

       Nevertheless, self-summoned duty has its summoned obligations. The concept of extraordinary rendition by which Nicolas Maduro, the ousted president of Venezuela and his wife, have found themselves in American custody this past week, is one of those unique American extralegal inventions which does not brook scrutiny because it has its foundation in the use of overwhelming force to arrive at predetermined and often illegal objectives. Redolent of brisk and extreme brutality in apprehending and transporting those on its wanted list of designated terrorists, It is America’s preferred mode of international abduction.  But as it becomes an omnibus dragnet snapping up high-profile global personalities including serving heads of sovereign nations, the threat to extant global order cannot be overemphasized.

       As America sets about establishing and projecting its bona fide as the undisputed master of the universe and its principal cop, the Treaty of Westphalia, the grundnorm of the modern nation-state paradigm, stands diminished and attenuated. After unending wars among the global principalities of the period, the treaty established the notion of sovereignty and territorial integrity based on dominated space rather than sphere of religion. Even then, succeeding global powers have often scoffed at the idea of sovereignty based on legal fiction rather than real power and authority.  Superior French artillery put paid to the idea of Italian city-states, just as the French themselves could arguably be called the first masters of extraordinary rendition as seen in the tragic abduction of the Haitian leader, Toussaint L’ Overture, and his subsequent death in French incarceration.

        In our era and in this particular conjuncture, however, no country has been more gung-ho in imposing its interests on the global order and more adept at projecting a rampart militarism and capacity for brutal preemption as the cornerstone of its foreign policy than the United States. Apart from capturing Nicolas Madura, Donald Trump has directly threatened Iran, Cuba, Colombia and has steamrolled even mighty Russia on the high seas aided by the British RAF. The American strongman has also resumed his psych-op and relentless baiting of Greenland asking the autonomous Arctic enclave to voluntarily relinquish sovereignty and surrender its age long autonomy. The danger in all this if care and caution are not taken and given Donald Trump’s combustible nature, is the possibility of a military overreach at some point which can have some apocalyptic consequences.

       Let us now bring in literature in service of troubled reality and life as science fiction. As I was about returning to Nigeria last week, my first daughter pressed into my hand as part of Christmas gift, a recently reissued edition of the magical masterpiece by the Columbia master, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The Autumn of the Patriarch is an unforgettable portrait of decaying splendour and splendid state paralysis enacted against the dismal background of an expiring Latin American despot holed up inside the presidential palace. It was a sumptuous feast of decadence and desuetude; a classic study in the epidemic of human dereliction. Huge vultures take position ready to feast on the remains of the dying emperor. The courtesans and couriers of power had all left, abandoning the old man to his fate.

    The irony of Marquez’s novel could not have been more pronounced when three days later the Americans staged the extraordinary rendition of Nicolas Maduro and his spouse from the Caracas presidential palace. As a result of what is known as biological coup d’etat, the aging autocrats who swarmed the president palaces of Latin America, the Trujillos, , the Somozas, the Stroessners, the Duvaliers, the Ugarte Pinochets etc when the novel was published fifty years earlier have all disappeared. Time is the ultimate master of tyrants. Rather than being an aging dictator, Maduro was a caudillo in his prime. It was obvious from the swamp of bandage that the spouse had to be physically restrained. And rather than having vultures swarming over, it is drones that seem to relish devouring fresh human flesh in real time.

       This is where this engrossing Venezuelan story finally turns on its head. What ought to be celebrated as a victory over communism gone rogue and liberation from the clutches of an antidemocratic fascist is fast transforming into a nationalist liberation struggle against foreign tyranny and a stirring rally for sovereignty. Extraordinary rendition has produced its own extraordinary rendition. With America hinting at full militarization and unwisely suggesting that its stay in the embattled country is unlikely to be a short an uneventful one, this is likely to provoke some ancient nationalist cadres in Venezuela to resuming what they know best: guerrilla sabotage. With Columbia actively hostile across a three-thousand miles border, we may be seeing another major American quagmire developing.

       A strong person without discretion is often likened to a weak, ineffectual protagonist. One of the most remarkable consequences of the abduction of Nicolas Maduro is the global pushback it has spawned against authoritarian rightwing politics even in the Trumpian homeland. The obvious retreat of President Trump from a precipitate military overwhelming of Venezuela and the attempt to woo the hard men of Colombia is coming when the horse of resurgent nationalism had already bolted from the stable. Either as collective entities or as individuals, both countries are likely to dissolve into chaos and civil war.

    Something is beginning to stir anew in humanity all over again.  This has laid the condition for the possibility of a new benign type of leftwing politics to act as countervailing rallying point against the global dominance of xenophobic populism and rightwing authoritarianism. It will not in the short run halt the rampaging momentum of Donald Trump’s Wehrmacht. But it is likely to contain its excesses in the long run for the benefit of humanity.

    Some new music is beginning to sound in the remote horizon. It is the time of extraordinary rendition. We may have to thank President Donald Trump for the lack of moral and political encumbrances which has allowed us to see the old global order for the unworthy charade it has become. But we can also see the limits of sledgehammer geopolitics in a world far more conflicted and convoluted than the time of Westphalia. It is time for a new global order.

  • Goodbye to the good doctor

    Goodbye to the good doctor

    The son of a master-fryer of akara balls does not want another master-fryer in business. (Omo alakara ko fe k’enikeji o din, Baba Yekemi) It is not often that you find a columnist paying respect and homage to another, particularly from the same newsgroup. Art is indeed a jealous master and writers can be a notoriously truculent and difficult brood. After paying copious tributes on this page to  Dr Femi Orebe on the occasion of his reaching the octogenarian benchmark, the autumnal Ekiti warrior waited patiently for yours sincerely until the actual reception before collaring the columnist. “You this chap, so you cannot even pay me a common tribute without abusing me, abi?” the great man rumbled with ominous conviviality. Yours sincerely took mental note of all the possible and potential headhunters in the hall.

      And while still talking about the tribe of celebrated pen-pushers and their infamous thin skin, it is meet to report that after a nasty tiff at a reception in the most rarified ambience of upper crust New York, Norman Mailer, the great novelist and celebrated hell-raiser, dumped the equally celebrated Gore Vidal on a pile of prime pancakes and Christmas decorations after a flurry of exploding punches. Mailer, a decorated boxer and World War Two hero, had little time for Vidal’s upper class pretensions. After being helped to his feet in all his Kilimanjaro-like heap, Vidal noted with aristocratic displeasure: “Words have failed Norman again”.

    READ ALSO; Obi’s defection sets teeth on edge

    All this by way of tribute to a retiring fellow columnist on this newspaper who let it be known in a valedictory rally last Wednesday that his much cherished combo was calling it quit. Dr Tony Marinho, an illustrious scion of the illustrious Marinho clan, has been a tremendous asset to this newspaper right from inception. He was there from the word go even serving as a columnist on board of The Comet, the paper that transformed into The Nation. That is over twenty years of continuous exertions, relentlessly poleaxing the unjust, the unfair and the mindlessly incompetent while pointing the way to a better society. Before being publicly unveiled as a noted columnist, he had served as a member of the Anonymous Authors Association of Nigeria, his first letter to the editor having been published exactly fifty years ago  in 1976 while serving as a second set NYSC medical doctor.

       Dr Marinho writes with an “up and at ’em” gusto, a discernible British bull dog tenacity which leaves no stone unturned and no turn unstoned, as it was once famously noted. There is a stirring immediacy to the writing; a fierce sense of the urgency of now which makes the leisurely ambulatory gamboling of elderly stylists like yours sincerely a tad complacent and even faintly complicit. There is always something about the doctor which reminds one of the unforgettable poetic renditions of Simon and Garfunkel: The Boxer.

       It is therefore not surprising to learn that in his youth, Marinho had been an apprentice boxer in the Abalti Barracks gym of the iconic boxer, Hogan Kid Bassey, former World Heavyweight Champion. The lessons learnt and imbibed, particularly the minatory crouching gait reminiscent of Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart, the science of relentlessly advancing without being poleaxed by a sucker punch, would have stood the eminent medico in good stead in the modern coliseum of Nigeria. This was the calling of Medicine at its most medicinal. There are some physicians who happen to be true healers just as there are some natural healers who happen to be physicians. Given his moral clarity, his passionate adherence to simple and elementary decency, his noble altruism and abiding sense of obligation to the poor and needy, it was inevitable despite his obvious disdain for hustling and aversion for self-promotion that he would attract attention at the highest quarters.

    Legend has it that he was once offered appointment at the highest level of his calling. But when his questioning became too intrusive and invasive, it led to a protest by his mentor and potential benefactor, Professor Ladipo Akinkugbe, the imperious and aristocratic Ondo-born medical avatar, who wondered whether the young man was going for national service or national inquisition. The offer fell through. In the event, the nation’s loss was the gain of The Nation. But no matter the condition and circumstances, you cannot hide a star under a bushel. Marinho will be missed by his teeming readers and admirers. May his tribe continue to grow.

  • The quiet American

    The quiet American

    When the thought of writing this piece popped into my head, the title that popped into my head with it was The ugly American because I was going to anchor it on Graham Greene’s iconic novel. It was only when I tried to find some information with which to refresh my memory  about the book that I found that I had, at least in my mind conflated the title with another book which incidentally, I have never read but which I have always believed was an apt description of the American depicted in that ageless Graham Greene classic, The quiet American. In deference to Graham Greene, I changed the title of my article to The Quiet American even if the adjective that first popped into my mind was the one on the title page of the other book.

    In December of 1982, I was passing through Heathrow airport and as was my habit at the time, I popped into WH Smith, the dedicated bookseller to travelers in train stations and airports throughout the length and breadth of Britain. I went in to browse through the books on display and found that for some reason which I no longer remember the bookshop was celebrating the extremely rare, if not singular genius of Graham Greene. The sight of all his books on display flew to my head like potent liquor. Goaded by this sight, I rushed around the display in the manner of a country yokel come to town, picking up books as if I could not believe the evidence of my eyes and feared that the books were liable to go up in smoke right before my eyes. Such was my admiration for Greene that in the end I took a selection of six books to the cashier whose eyebrows shot up in a surge of emotion when she found that all the six books I had put before her, had been written by, as far as I was concerned, the incomparable Graham Greene.

    In those heady days when paperbacks cost less than a couple of quid and we had not yet been crushed by the yoke of foreign exchange, I paid up with the flourish of a man with a lot of money in his purse and left the shop with a spring in my step. I then went on to find a convenient spot from whereI immediately started to read one of the books I had just purchased. With my head in one of my recently purchased books, I waited almost unconcernedly for my flight to be called. It must be clear to my reader by now that Greene is one of my all time favourite authors. As a well brought up Anglican in those days, my response to Greene’s obviously Roman Catholic themes was one of considerable bewilderment but I soon overcame this feeling when I came to realise that religion came with such a personal feeling that it could be regarded as binding only to those who are moved to express an opinion on any subject connected with it. The rest of us are free to interpret any message to fit our own belief or lack of it. I thus came to a liberating conclusion which allowed me to communicate effectively with Greene and even be one with him on many occasions.

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    The American depicted as the quiet American in Greene’ s book was far uglier than quiet but at the same time quite quintessentially American. He was quiet alright, after all, he was a spy. But beyond that, he was earnest, idealistic, well intentioned but naive to the point of stupidity thereby giving proof of his genuine American identity.

    For well over a century, the USA has been a land of opportunity for people from all over the globe. Her educational institutions have attracted the brightest talents from all over the world and her scientists have crossed frontiers of knowledge in many different directions. They have conquered space and landed several men on the moon for good measure and even now they are talking realistically of the possibility of colonizing Mars in the near future. American technology drives the world in many areas and their search engines keep us in touch with all forms of knowledge in every aspect of human endeavour.

    Away from knowledge, the Americans keep all the world entertained with their music, films of all genrés and modern dance. In various sporting arenas, American performers keep the rest of the world thrilled with their superlative performances just as their writers have weaved veritable magic in their offerings to the muses. In other words, the Americans are collectively the salt of the earth. That is, however, as long as they keep their mouths shut and are quiet. Just get any everyday run of the mill American to open their mouth however and you will be bowled over by the filth which proceeds therefrom.

    Almost immediately, you will be gratuitously informed that Americans are the freest people on earth. Not only that, their President is the leader of the free world whatever that means. Just as you are trying to process this because you know the USA has the highest number of people incarcerated per capita in the world, you will be told that every American has the constitutional right of free speech through the First Amendment whilst the Second Amendment gives every full blooded American the right to bear arms and to use them as they seem fit. You immediately see why somewhere everyday that the country is blessed with, at least one person goes off his head and shoots at least a few people quite randomly. You think for all their vaunted intelligence they would put some check on gun ownership  in place but no, gun makers, sellers and users spend millions of dollars to ensure that legislation to control the ownership of guns never gets passed.

    Everything considered, the US  is an ocean liner floating on a sea of paradoxes. On top of the American pile are a few thousand billionaires. In case you are wondering, those are people who have at least a thousand million dollars to their name and they are still busily engaged in all kinds of deals, a healthy proportion on the shady side, to make even more money. In the meantime there are millions of Americans who have nowhere to lay their head in the depth of winter and are constantly wondering where their next meal is coming from or when.

    There are many interesting stats associated with the USA right about now but none of them is more important than the 40 trillion dollars which that country owes to the rest of the world. This means that the leader of the free world is by far the largest debtor nation in the world and it is clear that she lacks the capacity to pay back any of it soon, if ever. Instead of even thinking about paying her creditors the US government under Trump is holding the rest of the world to ransom using the over-equipped American armed forces as a weapon of mass of extraction of resources from other parts of the world. If the quiet American epitomises the the good American, that garrulous fellow in the White House can only be described as the ugly American as described by Graham Greene.

    The series on highways continues next week.

  • Ekiti 2026: election that should firm up BAO’s political paradigm shift

    Ekiti 2026: election that should firm up BAO’s political paradigm shift

    Most observers of Ekiti political history, pre  BAO, should be ‘ad idem’ on the fact that it was atavistic and cold blooded; something akin to “bo ba o pa, bo ba o bu lese”, that is,  just harm your political opponent, any which way. Nobody could ever have believed, based on our politics then, that we are the most homogeneous people in Nigeria.

    It was with that scurrilous situation in mind that I wrote as follows on this column a whole sixteen whole years ago, on 31 October, 2010 shortly after the Apeal Court, Ilorin, ruled in the Fayemi Vs Oni election case, while reflecting on the way forward for  the state in: ‘Ekiti – Beyond Politics: “As William Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar, “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures”.

    You would think  the Bard of Avon had Ekiti in mind when he penned those memorable words as they fit us so uncannily, looking like a clarion call to every Ekiti, young and old, to take our destiny in our hands and blow off  the shibboleths that have stuck to us like  ‘amutorunwa spots’.

    The time is not now to ask how we got here. Rather, it is a time for total reconciliation: first, with our God, and then amongst ourselves, Ekitis. 

    The appropriate questions for us now are: what is the way forward? How do we rediscover, hold , cherish and nourish again, those pristine and immaculate Ekiti cultural traits which have served generations of Ekiti so splendidly? How do we get back that bonhomie, that espirit de corps that total strangers saw in us and thought we were all born of one mother? How do we begin to re- discover those economic traits that galvanized and enabled the poorest of our fathers to see his children and wards through college; how do we begin to seriously contend with the multi-faceted problems that today confront all of us, Ekitis, but especially our youth, educated  thousands of them, who are paving the streets of Abuja, Lagos and Ado-Ekiti in search of non-existent jobs?

    READ ALSO; Obi’s defection sets teeth on edge

    How do we take Ekiti back into the main economic artery of our country? How do we get our respectability and honour back? Where do we go from here?”

    These are questions I believe that governor Biodun Oyebanji, then only an incoming commissioner in the emergent Fayemi administration, must have ruminated over, wondering if he could ever be in a position to attempt answering them.

    The past three years have seen him doing exactly that because Ekitis, in the words of Shakespeare, have through the auspices of the governor, “taken the current when it served”, and as captured by Wole Olujobi, the sagacious and very accomplished journalist, observer and writer on Ekiti politics when he wrote, inter alia, in  ‘Oyebanji: Three Years Of Focused Leadership and Service Delivery:

    “Three years after, Ekiti people now wake up daily to tell stories of peace and progress in a state once notoriously renowned as a state of one day, one trouble”. “In a state where adversarial politics was the norm, Oyebanji, who is firmly rooted in the ideological nuances of the Ekiti ‘omoluabi’ credo, has put his hands on the plough, building coalitions and erecting a maze of relationships, never seen in the state, to achieve unprecedented peace as old animosities among diverse political gladiators, for the very first time ever, gave way to a mutual amity for  development”.

    In the article:’BAO -Mania: How Biodun Oyebanji Reset Ekiti Politics’, I

    examined what factors assisted him in breaking what can be described as ‘the Ekiti Crises Conundrum’, not only in our politics, but in everything; so all -encompassing we had a one- day governor unlike any other state in Nigeria, saw an inchoate impeachment orchestrated by President Obasanjo, just as we witnessed a series of politically motivated assassinations. 

    I also unearthed how the governor  birthed a  paradigm shift from Ekiti’s negative, minimally developmental politics of many decades.

    Since the essence of this essay is how the governor should, during his second term, fully solidify the socio- political peace he has birthed in the state, let me recap the reasons he had been so successful in achieving what he did.

    I start with how the management of Marketing Edge, Nigeria’s leading Marketing and Advertising Magazine which named him winner of its 2024 Most Outstanding Governor of the Year in the Inclusive Leadership and Grassroots Development category captured him.

    According to the magazine, “Gov. Oyebanji was unanimously voted winner of the coveted category after painstakingly evaluating his approach to governance, development and leadership, alongside other Nigerian governors.

    The award, the magazine noted, was in recognition, and celebration, of his not only impacting the people of the state with laudable projects and policies, but for also using his exalted position to redefine governance by promoting peace, and uniting leaders in the state irrespective of their political and social background”.

    Before BAO politics in Ekiti was like a slugfest, ensuring that the state was always in the news for the wrong reasons.

    Truth be told, politics in the state had not always been that terrible. While that is not to suggest that there were no fierce inter, and intra – party contestations,  especially during the UPN vs NPN days, politics in Ekiti was a lot more friendly as elders, the likes of Chiefs Babatola, Akerele, Akomolafe, Dr N.F Aina, Professor Banji Akintoye, Chief S.K Babalola and other leaders of the UPN, and their counterparts in the NPN, ensured that.

    Things, however, changed rapidly for the worse from around 2003 for two main reasons.

    One of these can loosely be described as ‘sibling rivalry’, while the other, and much more virulent one, was the intrusion of busybodies from outside the state, spearheaded by none other than then President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose  effect on Ekiti was totally deleterios.

    As to what I describe loosely as sibling rivalry, it was a question of a good intention turned awry.

    E -11, a socio – cultural group from which a slew of Ekiti state governors would subsequently emerge, was an

    ensemble of highly regarded, well educated young Ekiti professionals who had started out intending to positively impact the state’s politics and economic development. That was until there was a collision of ambitions.  The group then floundered very badly, and its members headed into the two major political parties, and ferociously fought one another.

    Had E.11 remained united they would have taken Ekiti to great heights. It was a missed opportunity.

    What then are the factors that informed governor Oyebanji’s decision to attempt a paradigm shift to the debilitating political situation?

    Oyebanji has been a long-term observer/participant in the affairs of the state, and there can be no doubt, he must have many times belly- ached over the state of permanent crisis, and its negative consequences on the state’s economic development.

    Without a doubt, he must have heard or read the Avatar, Chief Obafemi Awolowo say, severally, that  the ‘raison detre’ of government, qua government, is the welfare and happiness of the governed and must have long hoped to be part of the solution to the Ekiti crises.

    With his election  as  governor, therefore, he must have thanked God for the opportunity to try bring peace to this very unique state.

    As to what factors  played a role in his success, I summised as follows in the article.

    UPBRINGING

    The highly perceptive Yoruba people have this saying that: ile lati nko eso rode’, meaning that good upbringing underpins good manners.

    Without, a scintilla of doubt, governor Oyebanji has  a solid home training to thank for all he has been able to do. This is an  upbringing rooted in strict discipline,  respect, not only for elders, but for everybody he may interact with, just as loving your neighbour which the bible teaches. I also feel certain that his parents must  have inculcated in him  the essence of contentment.

    How do I know these?

    Governor Oyebanji demonstrates them in his interactions with people, no matter how lowly they are, in spite of his high office.

    I have not, for instance, once seen him unduly angry, or raise his voice and I didn’t know him yesterday.

    You will not find in him, any hint of unrestrained ambition.

    Work Experience,  Knowledge of Ekiti State & Tutelage Under Two  former Governors.

    As a young man, Chief Deji Fasuan had tapped Oyebanji as Secretary to the Committee For The Creation of Ekiti state. That was, however, only the beginning of his always being in vantage positions to know the state probably far more than his peers.

    In the course of his service in the state, he was privileged to have worked directly with two former Ekiti state governors.

    He also served in various positions including as Secretary to the State Government before being elected governor.

    Apart from  the leadership and managerial qualities these positions require, he must have many times seen his bosses seriously agonise over the terrible state of Ekiti politics,  and how it hampered  development.

    He must have decided, therefore,  to  try to use his lofty office to change the direction of politics in the state.

    He has equally had, in all these, the support of his wife, with whom he must have bounced off everything  to get the most honest, non political advice.

    Thanks to her efforts, governor Oyebanji’s government enjoys the pride of place as about Nigeria’s most gender friendly administration. This is because the government has been relentless in “investing in the well-being of women, advocating for better policies and programes that target widows, youths and women, with the goal of fostering economic independence and reducing poverty level across the state”, as the wife once perspicaciously put it.

    The governor’s modus operandi was simple but very effective.

    He started off by jettisoning partisan politics and, instead, extended a genuine hand of friendship to all his predecessors, inclusive of those from other political parties. He showed them a level of respect that was absent even between some governors who were of the same party.

    Opposition party members also came to accept, and respect him when they saw how he was treating their leaders.

    By acknowledging, and respecting past governors from other parties, governor Oyebanji killed more than two birds with one stone as the decibel of state – wide political antagonism became significantly reduced; meaning that  the simple act of respecting his predecessors, acted  like a magnet in enhancing his acceptance by   members of the other political parties and the citizenry in general.

    The governor also turned attention to the welfare of the people, ensuring that nobody was left behind.

    He made sure that  workers, as well as the long – suffering pensioners, women and the youth are all appropriately factored into governance, as much as state finances permit.

    How then will his second term enhance and solidify his achievement to date?

    Any perceptive reader would note that I have already assumed BAO’s victory in the forthcoming election. Yes indeed. And this cannot be considered farfetched, or presumptuous because even in the trully competitive election of 2022, he defeated his formidable co- contestants hands down at a time he hadn’t demonstrated any of his exemplary capabilities.

    The coming election should, therefore, be a walkover.

    Ordinarily, governor Oyebanji should need no lessons in how to further enhance the unity amongst the state’s leading politicians as well as the state of socio – political peace currently in place in the state.

    He will, however, need to do much more and not rest on his oars.

    He must continue to be inclusive in his governance as that will increase understanding.

    God forbid that the governor will ever be too important in his own eyes, a possibility which i very much doubt, he will finish in flying colours.

    Apart from interpersonal relations, especially with his predecessors, he must extend hands of friendship to members of the other political parties, especially, those who would have contested with him at the election.

    To further solidify peace, camaraderie and overall well -being, he must make every effort to further improve on the economy as well as the overall development of the state.

    Indeed, this is the most important part.

    As Olujobi put it in his aforementioned article:”His development agenda includes: youth development, agriculture and job creation through micro, small and medium scale enterprises (MSME) financing and support, providing facilities for the acquisition of digital and vocational skills, the Ekiti Knowledge Zone, sports development; education; healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and social investment sectors including heavy investments in the power sector and reconnection to the national grid of several communities that have been in the dark for over 10 years”.

    “These are areas where the governor has performed so creditably he had received laurels from even outside the state where he grabbed newspaper headlines”. 

    Of particular interest to me, personally, is the Youths in Agriculture programme, started in 2012 during the Fayemi administration, when a young medical doctor simply dropped his stethoscope.

    Under BAO this has grown in leaps and bounds with the objectives being the following: to create jobs, reduce poverty, and boost food security.

    Through these, the government engages young graduates and the youth in commercial farming through training,funding, land clearing, provision of inputs, and market linkages for high-value crops, livestock as well as processing.

    These initiatives are also  focussed on making agriculture a viable and dignified career path for young Ekiti  entrepreneurs rather than have young and educated  Ekiti Youths daily paving the streets of Lagos and Abuja,  doing nothing worthwhile.

    Concluding, there can be no better reset of politics, whether in Ekiti or anywhere, at all, than these, because once the youth which are always the canon fodder for  over – ambitious politicians are yanked away from them by being kept gainfully, and profitably engaged, politicians who are keen on fouling the air, would have nobody to recruit into their asinine projects.

    I wish the governor well as he prepares, by God’s grace, to ride into his second term.

  • In memoriam: Chief Charles Amilo (1945-2021)

    In memoriam: Chief Charles Amilo (1945-2021)

    December the 31st last year would make it 4 years since the demise of Chief Charles Amilo,  a one time Commissioner for Information in Anambra and also a member of the Old Anambra State House of Assembly during the Second Republic.

    I have thus come to celebrate this man, — to extol the virtues of a man who was no mere mortal, but a titan among men, one of the last of a dying breed. Even in death, even in the cold embrace of the earth, Udobodo remains a towering model for generations yet unborn.

    In Amilo’s death four years ago, Anambra and the SouthEast region did lose more than a politician; we lost a scholar, an encyclopedia of knowledge,a voice for NdiIgbo, a champion of the Igbo culture and one of the finest image makers our state has ever produced. In an age increasingly characterized by mediocrity and opportunism, Amilo stood as a colossus of principle, intellect, and unwavering loyalty—qualities that have become almost extinct in our contemporary political landscape.

    Born in 1945, Chief Amilo’s journey began like that of many young lads in Eastern Nigeria, navigating his primary and secondary education during a transformative period in our nation’s history. But it quickly became apparent that this was no ordinary child. His brilliance shone through early, a harbinger of the intellectual giant he would become. From 1967 to 1974, during some of the most turbulent years in Nigerian history—years that saw the devastating Civil War tear our nation apart—Amilo pursued his undergraduate studies at the prestigious University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he obtained a degree in Microbiology. That he completed this academic journey during such chaos speaks volumes about his determination and focus.

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    But the golden fleece of knowledge beckoned further. Like the ancient Greek hero Jason, Amilo ventured abroad in search of greater enlightenment, obtaining his Master’s Degree from Rutgers University between 1976 and 1978. This international exposure would later inform his cosmopolitan outlook and deepen his understanding of governance and development, tools he would deploy effectively in service to his beloved Anambra State.

    What set Chief Amilo apart, however, was not merely his formal education but his insatiable appetite for knowledge and his remarkable gift for retention and recall. He was, in the truest sense, an encyclopedia of knowledge—a living library of Nigerian history and politics. To sit with Udobodo was to embark on a journey through time, to relive the intrigues and triumphs of Nigeria’s political evolution. He could summon history at his beck and call, weaving narratives with such vivid detail that the past became present.

    I remember vividly the numerous occasions when he would regale us with stories of the First Republic’s politics—tales of the alliance between the NCNC and the Action Group that formed the United Progressives Grand Alliance (UPGA), accounts of political maneuvering that shaped the destiny of regions and peoples, and poignant recollections of the Civil War that redefined our nation. These were not dry academic recitations; they were living testimonies delivered with passion, nuance, and the authority of someone who had lived through those times and understood their profound implications.

     What made Udobodo stand out in his numerous interactions and exchanges remarkable was not just the passion with which Udobodo defended his positions, but the depth of knowledge, the command of facts, and the intellectual honesty he always brought to the debate. This earned him the respect of all, even those who disagreed with him could not help but admire his intellectual finesse.

    Perhaps the most defining characteristic of Chief Charles Amilo was his unwavering loyalty to causes he believed in and to people he called friends. In our current political dispensation, where loyalty is a commodity bought and sold in the marketplace of political convenience, where today’s ally becomes tomorrow’s enemy based solely on calculations of personal advantage, Udobodo’s steadfastness shines like a beacon in the darkness.

    Amilo’s loyalty was not the transactional kind we see so prevalently today—loyalty only to those who occupy offices, who control resources, who can offer immediate patronage. No, Udobodo’s loyalty ran deeper, rooted in principle and genuine human connection. He stuck with his convictions and with his friends, both young and old, through seasons of plenty and seasons of drought, through times of political favor and times of political wilderness.

    A clear and powerful example of this rare virtue was his relationship with former Governor Chris Ngige. After Ngige left office, as is typical in our clime, a huge majority of his lieutenants scattered like leaves in the wind, seeking new camps, new patrons, new sources of political sustenance. The exodus was both swift and comprehensive. But Udobodo, true to character, stuck with Ngige. He remained loyal despite the invitations  he received from many politicians and sweet offers, Udobodo stuck to his guns despite the potential costs to his own political fortunes.

    This principled stand makes Chief Amilo a shining example to our youth and a rebuke to our generation. In an era where politicians switch parties at speeds faster than light, where allegiances shift with the political winds, where yesterday’s solemn oath becomes today’s forgotten promise, Udobodo stood like Hercules, unmoved by the temptations of expediency. His loyalty was not naive; it was informed by a moral compass that many of us have misplaced or deliberately abandoned.

    As Commissioner for Information in Anambra State, Chief Amilo brought to bear his vast knowledge, his communication skills, and his deep understanding of our state’s identity and aspirations. He was not merely a government spokesperson; he was an image maker in the truest sense, someone who understood that the story of a people is as important as their material development, that how we are perceived shapes how we perceive ourselves.

    Today, as we remember the passing of this great son of Anambra, we must also celebrate the legacy he has left us. Chief Charles Amilo has shown us that it is possible to navigate the treacherous waters of Nigerian politics without losing one’s soul, that loyalty and principle need not be casualties of political ambition, that knowledge and intellectual depth remain invaluable currencies even in an age that often seems to value neither.

    Udobodo may lie in the cold ground, but his example remains warm and vital. He was indeed one of the last titans, and we are diminished by his passing. Yet, if we honor his memory by emulating even a fraction of his loyalty, his intellectual curiosity, and his principled engagement with our world, then Chief Charles Amilo will never truly die. He will live on in every young person who chooses principle over expediency, knowledge over ignorance, loyalty over opportunism.

    Keep resting Udobodo, Anambra salutes you. History will remember you. We will not forget.

  • Transforming Nigeria’s economy: Policies, progress and continuity

    Transforming Nigeria’s economy: Policies, progress and continuity

    Today’s article is an adaptation of the keynote speech this columnist delivered at the Southwest Integrity Summit 2025 held in Osogbo, on 17 November. The summit was convened by the National Chairman of the Integrity Group of Nigeria (The Renewed Hope Ambassadors), Dr. Oke Idawene, and hosted by the Osun State branch of the group headed by the state Chairman, Comrade Salam Mustapha Olamilekan.

    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, has demonstrated that, however much a person may have noble and workable economic ideas, they must first acquire the requisite political power in order to be able to put into practice those great ideas. So, he made huge intellectual, psychological, emotional, physical, social and material investments into seeking presidential power. Once he got it through pragmatic patience and strategic sacrifice, the President acquired the ability to institute economic policies he believed could enhance the welfare of Nigerians.

    As is now common knowledge, then-presidential candidate Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu promised to remove fuel subsidy; and he kept that promise right from his inaugural address as president on 29 May, 2023. The President also embarked on the floating of the naira and the unification of the multiple exchange rate regime. These policies led to a fall in the value of the naira and high inflation.

    Notwithstanding, some economists believed that the policies were sound, and would eventually stabilise and generate growth in the economy. However, critics condemned the President for being hasty in the introduction of the policies. This argument was countered by those who thought that delaying the implementation of the policies would have given the fuel subsidy cabal and exchange rate racketeers the opportunity to re-strategise and mobilise against the corrective economic policies to protect their obscene privileges.

    President Tinubu acknowledged the fact that the economic policies had come with some unintended pains. He also assured Nigerians that those pains were like the pangs of childbirth which are normally followed by pleasure after safe delivery. The President therefore used every opportunity he got to plead with the citizens to be patient and to show understanding.

    To ease the pains, the government introduced Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses; CNG vehicle charging centres; the monthly award to federal civil servants of thirty-five thousand naira for six months; the upward review of the minimum wage of federal workers from N30,000 to N70,000; the increase in the salary of judges; the approval and signing into law of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) to ensure that nobody who desired to acquire tertiary education was prevented from fulfilling the noble dream due to lack of funds; and the introduction of the Tertiary Institution Staff Support Fund (TISSF), a loan scheme under which a beneficiary could get up to ten million naira, subject to the ability to repay.

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    Moreover, in line with the proverbial principle that when the issue of food has been sorted out, poverty abates (“Tí oúnje bá kúrò nínú ìsé, ìsé bùse.”), the government put in place a number of policies. These include the temporary removal of tariffs on grains and essential food items; enhancing irrigation facilities and improving water resource management; increasing agricultural mechanisation; enhancing access to credit for farmers through the Bank of Agriculture; establishment of the National Commodity Board; addressing the challenge of insecurity through the establishment of Forest Guards; introduction of dry season farming; and the creation of the Federal Ministry of Livestock Development, among other measures.

    In addition, undergirded by the principle that “Health is wealth,” the government removed tariffs on some imported pharmaceutical products to halt the worrisome rise in the cost of medicines. The government also embarked on the direct importation of essential medicines to ensure their availability and affordability. Furthermore, cancer centres were established in the six geo-political zones to reduce the need for medical tourism and relieve the pressure on the country’s foreign exchange reserves. 

    Meanwhile, power supply had become a huge challenge to the nation’s economic well-being. The unstable supply or very high cost of electricity had aggravated inflation, and made goods produced in Nigeria more costly than the same kind of goods imported from abroad. To address this and related problems, on 8 June 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed the Electricity Bill 2023 into law as Electricity Act, 2023.

    In a June 2023 article titled “Commentaries on the Electricity Act, 2023,” Ayo Salami, Partner & Head, Energy and Natural Resources Group, at KPMG in Nigeria, noted: “Section 63(2)(b) allows persons to operate an undertaking for generation, transmission, distribution, supply, and sale of electricity within a State, pursuant to the law enacted by the House of Assembly of the relevant State …” This means that a state, a group of private investors or individuals can participate in the generation, transmission, distribution, supply and sale of electricity and other renewable forms of energy in this country today.

    In fact, in a 16 October, 2024 Nigerian Tribune report titled “I generate about 15% of Nigeria’s electricity – Davido’s father, Deji Adeleke,” Adam Mosadioluwa stated: “Adedeji Adeleke, the father of award-winning Nigerian artiste, Davido, has revealed that his company, Pacific Energy, generates about 15% of Nigeria’s electricity. … The billionaire businessman highlighted his investments in the nation’s power sector, particularly focusing on his thermal power plant, which is expected to become fully operational by January 2025.”

    So, the next time you find a post on social media claiming cynically that President Tinubu said that if he does not provide stable electricity in Nigeria, the electorate should not vote for him for a second term in office, let the critics know that, in fact, rather than merely providing Nigerians with fish, the President has, as the proverb goes, taught them how to fish. As such, if the stakeholders do not seize the opportunity for electricity sufficiency provided through the liberalisation of the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI), that would be their fault, because as our elders say, “Alágemo ti bímo rè tán, àìmòójó dowó rè.” (‘The chameleon has already performed its duty of giving birth to and enabling its child; if the child does not know how to dance, that’s the child’s fault.’)

    Moreover, with respect to the “Crude-for-Naira Deal”, a piece in The Nation newspaper of 6 October, 2025 reported the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, as stating: “The sale of crude oil and refined products in Naira has officially begun as directed by the Federal Executive Council. This initiative marks a bold step towards economic sustainability and currency stability.”

    A 10 April, 2025 report in The Nation newspaper also quoted the Federal Ministry of Finance as stating: “The Crude and Refined Product Sales in Naira initiative is not a temporary or time-bound intervention, but a key policy directive designed to support sustainable local refining, bolster energy security, and reduce reliance on foreign exchange in the domestic petroleum market.”

    With respect to blocking revenue leakages in the mining sector, President Tinubu has been reported to have directed that all new mining licences must have local value. That is, licences would be issued only to those who give a commitment to process, locally, minerals they extract in Nigeria, as a means of boosting local employment opportunities, rather than export them in raw form.

    This range of policies and many related ones have cumulatively had a positive impact on the Nigerian economy. This has earned positive ratings by various international institutions, resulting in increased confidence in the Nigerian economy. In an 18 November, 2025 story in The Nation, the Controller-General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, was reported to have said: “In the first half of 2025, Nigeria’s trade with other African countries reached N4.82 trillion – an increase of more than N600 billion compared with the previous year.”

    Moreover, internally, state governments have been receiving increased allocations from the federation account and have been able to pay their employees more easily. Dr. Muda Yusuf, CEO, Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprises (CPPE), commenting on the Nigerian economy on 21 November, 2025 in a TVC news interview said: “We’re heading in the right direction.” He noted that there was a stable and even marginal rise in exchange rate, steady decline in inflation, and robust external reserve (which according to the Central Bank, has risen to $46.7 billion as at 14 November, 2025).

    Dr. Yusuf further observed that the impact of these achievements is already visible in the drop in the prices of consumer goods. For example, a 50kg of rice which was around N120,000 last year, has fallen to around N58,000 this week. He also cited the price of a street motorcycle (Okada) which was around N1,200,000 last year, but is around N800,000 now. Checks with sellers of food items and motorcycles confirm a remarkable reduction in prices. The reduction in the prices of medicines has also been confirmed.

    To sustain the positive economic trend the nation is experiencing now, it is important to implement robustly the 11 July, 2024 Supreme Court landmark judgement affirming the autonomy of Nigeria’s 774 Local Government Councils. This would enhance the optimal participation of a significant proportion of Nigerians living at the grassroots level in the economic life of the nation and consolidate the efforts of the federal government. It would also minimise the alienation and disengagement of a large section of the citizens from the government. This alienation has made it attractive for them to exchange their votes for a piece of gala, a can of malt and N500 or N1,000.

    A more intense engagement of the youth in the economic progammes to the government would also be immensely invaluable in ensuring the continuity of the well-directed policies. The youth are energetic, resourceful and exceptionally courageous. They therefore constitute invaluable components of any enterprise. It is for this reason that the former Lagos State Governor and former Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), asked recently in Lagos, why our youth have not been sufficiently oriented towards participation in the affairs of the society at large, such that there would be students wings of political parties even in our universities. These exist in the Botswana political culture.

    Meanwhile, even some of the traditional critics of President Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) are acknowledging the improving economic situation of the country, as the Renewed Hope Agenda is steadily progressing towards full actualisation. It is this happy trend that the factional National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Kabiru Tanimu Turaki (SAN), a former Minister of Special Duties, set out to disrupt when he invited United States President Donald Trump and other leaders to invade Nigeria, to help PDP to resolve its internal crises and ‘save democracy’.

  • When his reforms find proof at ₦100trillion, his resolve meets terror head-on

    When his reforms find proof at ₦100trillion, his resolve meets terror head-on

    Though he has been away in France in recent days, what aides described as a deliberate pause, a moment to reload ahead of an unforgiving workload, Bola Ahmed Tinubu never stepped away from the burden of state. If anything, the just-concluded week showed a president more present in consequence than in ceremony, more visible in outcomes than in optics. From the trading floor to the terror front, the signals were unmistakable: the reforms are working, and the resolve to secure the republic is hardening.

    Above all other developments, one moment stood taller than the rest. Quietly, without the fanfare that usually accompanies economic milestones, Nigeria crossed a psychological and historic threshold. At the start of trading in early January 2026, the Nigerian Exchange surged past a market capitalisation of ₦100 trillion, an all-time high, and the first in the nation’s history. By January 5, the numbers were undeniable: equities had leapt from ₦99.94 trillion the previous week to about ₦101.8 trillion. Nigeria had entered new territory.

    Markets celebrated, as markets do. Careers were validated, portfolios smiled, and boardrooms found reasons to toast. Yet, beyond the clink of glasses and bullish charts, the milestone carried a deeper political and economic meaning. For President Tinubu, this was not merely a stock-market story; it was a referendum on the path he chose on May 29, 2023, a path paved with difficult reforms, unpopular decisions, and a stubborn insistence that Nigeria must first be stabilised before it can be prospered.

    Nothing about the ₦100 trillion moment was accidental. Analysts spoke of the “January effect,” that seasonal optimism that greets a new trading year. But this rally was broader and deeper than calendar psychology. Banking stocks, industrial giants, consumer goods, insurance, oil and gas, all moved in concert. Confidence, long elusive, returned with conviction. Trading volumes widened, foreign interest strengthened, and domestic investors re-entered the arena with renewed faith.

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    Regulatory credibility mattered too. Stronger enforcement, transparency, and the steady hand of the market regulator reassured investors that Nigeria’s capital market was no longer a gamble but a governed space. Macroeconomic indicators reinforced the mood: a firmer naira, easing inflation, healthier reserves, and a current account surplus pointing to an economy learning, at last, to breathe on its own terms.

    President Tinubu watched. He did not rush to claim victory. The news broke on Monday; he spoke on Thursday. That pause was instructive. When he finally addressed the milestone, his words framed the achievement not as an endpoint, but as evidence.

    “With the Nigerian Exchange crossing the historic ₦100 trillion mark,” he said, “the country is witnessing the birth of a new economic reality and rejuvenation”. He reminded Nigerians that in 2025, when many global markets struggled, the NGX delivered a 51.19 per cent return, outperforming major indices like the S&P 500 and FTSE 100. Nigeria, he declared, was no longer a frontier market to be ignored, but a destination where value is being discovered.

    Yet, the President anchored celebration in substance. Inflation, once at a suffocating 34.8 per cent, had eased to 14.45 per cent by November 2025, with projections pointing lower. Non-oil exports surged. Manufacturing found its rhythm. Foreign reserves crossed $45 billion and looked poised for $50 billion. Rail lines stretched, roads rose, ports stirred back to life. Students accessed loans. Hospitals improved. The stock market, Tinubu argued, was merely reflecting an economy finally aligning with itself.

    This was the moral booster of the week: proof that the projections were not fantasies, that the sacrifices were not in vain, and that the promise of lifting millions out of poverty was beginning to materialise, line by line, index by index.

    But even as capital found confidence, violence sought attention.

    On Saturday, before the President spoke of markets and milestones, tragedy struck in Niger State. Communities in Agwarra and Borgu council areas were invaded. Lives were lost. Women and children were abducted. It was a daring and dastardly reminder that economic progress means little without security.

    Tinubu’s response was swift, firm, and unsparing. On Sunday, he directed the full weight of the security architecture; the Defense Minister, Service Chiefs, the Inspector-General of Police, and the Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS), to hunt down the perpetrators, rescue the abducted, and end the terror.

    “These terrorists have tested the resolve of our country”, he declared. “They must face the full consequences of their criminal actions”. It was not the language of condolence alone; it was the language of command. He assured the people of Niger State that vulnerable communities would be protected, forests reclaimed, and sanctuaries denied.

    Here, too, the pattern of leadership emerged clearly. A president no longer willing to tolerate the embarrassment of unchallenged criminality. A leader fed up with reacting and determined to conclude. Unity was his call, but action was his instrument.

    Between ₦100 trillion and a terror-hunt directive lies the story of the week. One hand steadying the economy, the other clenched against insecurity. One eye on global capital, the other fixed on local communities under threat. It is in this balance, between capital and command, that President Tinubu’s governing philosophy is becoming unmistakable.

    Nation-building, as he reminded Nigerians, is a process. But processes demand proof. This week, the numbers spoke, and so did the orders.

    The Week, Beyond the Headline Victories

    Beyond the thunderclap of the ₦100 trillion milestone at the Nigerian Exchange and the steel-edged directive to security chiefs after the Niger killings, the week also revealed something quieter but equally instructive about President Bola Ahmed Tinubu: the steady rhythm of leadership that attends to people, institutions, memory, and the long architecture of the state.

    On Sunday, even as grief and resolve framed the national mood, Tinubu paused to felicitate Abba Kabir Yusuf, Governor of Kano State, at 63. The message was not perfunctory. It praised modesty, integrity, and disciplined leadership, values Tinubu deliberately elevates as public virtues. Kano, he noted, remains a crucible of progressive politics, and Yusuf’s administration, whatever its partisan origins, was acknowledged for responsibility to the people. It was a reminder that governance, under Tinubu, is capacious enough to recognise merit across political lines.

    That same Sunday, the President celebrated his Chief Police Security Officer, Usman Musa Shugaba, at 45, publicly affirming professionalism, loyalty, and vigilance. In a week dominated by security anxieties, the gesture mattered. It underscored a leadership culture that rewards discipline and quiet competence, especially in institutions that guard the state itself.

    Monday shifted the lens to structure. Tinubu sent names to the Senate, among them Magnus Abe and Adegbite Ebiowei Adeniji, to chair the boards of the petroleum regulators created by the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA). It was institutional housekeeping with strategic consequences: regulators steady, boards constituted, and the energy sector governed by rules rather than improvisation. In France the same day, a private lunch with Paul Kagame signalled Tinubu’s comfort on the continental stage, Africa conversing with itself about a shifting world.

    Tuesday brought reflection and reform. Tinubu mourned Seth Sunday Ajayi, a pioneer whose life bridged science, food security, and biodiversity. In honouring Ajayi’s legacy, the President linked nation-building to knowledge. Then came a decision heavy with symbolism: appointing Olugbemisola Titilayo Odusote as the first female Director-General of the Nigerian Law School. It was reform expressed as opportunity, history nudged forward by merit. The day closed with tributes to Labour icon, Hassan Adebayo Sunmonu, at 85, reaffirming a lifelong covenant with workers.

    Wednesday sustained the cadence. Tinubu celebrated Issa Aremu at 65, and Noimot Salako-Oyedele, the Ogun State Deputy Governor, at 60, salutes that elevated activism, professionalism, and the productive fusion of private-sector discipline with public service.

    Thursday and Friday turned intimate and forward-looking. He hailed Zacch Adedeji, the Chairman of the Nigerian Revenue Service (NRS), for revenue reforms meeting targets; he condoled renowned writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, in personal loss; he rejoiced with Ifedayo Abegunde and congratulated Ade Omole for service at home and abroad.

    Read together, these moments complete the picture. Markets may roar and commanders may order, but nations are also built in acknowledgements, appointments, condolences, and quiet recognitions. That, too, was Tinubu’s week.

  • ‘Civil defence’ to the rescue

    ‘Civil defence’ to the rescue

    Tinubu deserves applause for replacing VIPs’ policemen with NSCDC personnel instead of pandering to the wish of the spoilt elite

    Sequel to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s order to the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Kayode Egbetokun, to withdraw policemen protecting certain categories of Very Important Persons  (VIPs), the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) has requested presidential approval to recruit about 30,000 additional personnel, to enable it cope with the surge in the demand for its personnel, as the sole security outfit to fill the vacuum created by the withdrawal of the policemen.

    According to ‘The Punch:, the request was the follow-up to the meeting that President Tinubu  held with the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, and the Commandant-General (CG) of the NSCDC, Ahmed Audi, last month.

    The 30,000 personnel is separate from the ongoing 30,000 personnel recruitment currently being carried out across the paramilitary services.

    President Tinubu last November said the withdrawn policemen should be deployed to concentrate on their core police duties. The presidential directive came days after a series of attacks that saw the kidnap of at least 300 people, mostly schoolchildren, across Kebbi, Kwara and Niger states.

    “Henceforth, police authorities will deploy them (policemen) to concentrate on their core police duties,” a statement signed by the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, read. According to Onanuga, “VIPs who want police protection will now request well-armed personnel from the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps.”

    The President subsequently approved the recruitment of 30,000 additional police officers even as the Federal Government is collaborating with the states to upgrade police training facilities nationwide.

    It is instructive that the presidential directive was issued at the security meeting President Tinubu held with  the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Waidi Shaibu; the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sunday Kelvin Aneke; Egbetokun; and the Director-General of the Department of State Services, (DSS), Mr. Oluwatosin Ajayi.

    The IGP promptly complied with the order.  “In line with the President’s directive, we have withdrawn a total of 11,566 personnel from VIP protection. These officers are being redeployed to critical policing duties immediately,” he said.

    What followed was to be expected: the affected officials, suddenly discovered, like our credulous parents, Adam and Eve, that they were bare, without the policemen. They protested and pleaded with the president to rescind the decision.

    One such protest came from the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, who spoke on behalf of his fretting colleagues. Akpabio told the President during the 2026 Budget presentation last month that “Some members of the National Assembly say I should let you know that they may not be able to go home today. We plead with the President to review the decision.”

    It is commendable that President Tinubu stuck to his guns. This is especially so against the backdrop of what led to his order to withdraw the policemen in the first place, and the skepticism in some quarters that the order was a mere political statement that would never be implemented, and even if it was, it was not the answer to the country’s security challenge.

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    Of course, we cannot blame those who believed the directive would not last before exemptions from various quarters would render it useless.

    President Tinubu’s order on such withdrawal was not the first. Successive IGPs had issued similar directives that lasted only as the ink with which they were written.

    But there is hope that Tinubu’s order on it could be the last, other things being equal. This is because past directives, apart from coming from the IGPs (as against the President in this instance) did not provide alternative. Tinubu’s alternative is what has brought the recourse to the 30,000 more personnel that the NSCDC has asked for presidential approval for.

    We never had any such arrangement before. What we have always had was a situation where the policemen were withdrawn without any alternative. That explained the relative ease with which such policemen soon returned to their previous beneficiaries. As they say, Nature abhors a vacuum.

    What this tells us is that the president is not unmindful of the risks in exposing these public officials and political office holders to the general insecurity in the land. It is just that fair is fair. The old order of about five to 10 policemen guarding one VIP when millions of Nigerians are left in the lurch is ungodly and unfair. It is unsustainable.

    It is this resort to NSCDC personnel as alternative to the withdrawn policemen that gave me the confidence that we may never have the recurring experience of such withdrawn policemen being surreptitiously returned to the VIPs. A source in the NSCDC reportedly said “The CG and the minister have met with the President. They explained the need for more personnel, especially with the increasing demand for VIP protection. He added that “The president has given his word that justice will be done to the request, with possible recruitment of about 30,000 personnel.”

    At least Nigerians are no longer left alone to suffer for the ills that are plaguing our police force. Come to think of it, the force should not be in its present sorry state if those elites who protested the withdrawal of their police security men had been alive to their responsibility.

    Let us even forget the military era when soldiers did not take good care of the police force, either due to fear of ‘rivalling’ them, or for whatever reason, politicians have had more than ample time to right the wrongs since May 29, 1999, when we returned to civil rule. That was 26 years ago.

    That they failed largely in that regard explains why the country cannot boast the adequate quantity and quality of policemen to take charge of internal security that is their primary responsibility.

    It is shameful that we keep failing to address the problems bedevilling our policemen; from being underfunded to being under-kitted, Ill-motivated, and what have you. We hear stories about police stations not having patrol vans; and where they do, there won’t be petrol to hit the roads in case of emergency. A few years ago, we saw pictures of some students in our major police training institution sharing one fish head!

    It is like the changing never changing with our police force despite the reported efforts of successive IGPs to make things better.

    Unfortunately, our elite, particularly the political elite (those in the National Assembly in particular) who have the power to turn things around in the police force have not done much, either to increase their numbers or even if they want to keep their figure manageable, at least it should be lean and mean.

    Now that the country has serious security challenges and it has become obvious that it cannot continue to pamper a tiny minority at the expense of the larger society, it is the very people with the capacity and capability to improve the lot of the police but failed to do so who want to continue to enjoy the services of the few available policemen.

    Our political elite should be taught that life should not start and end with them. They should know that life has no duplicate, whether for the rich or the poor. For too long, they have lived under the illusion that they are more special than their electors.

    Apart from depriving the majority of Nigerians the adequate protection that is the inalienable right every government owes the citizens, allocating policemen to special people robs the policemen of their dignity. Many of those they are supposed to protect have turned them into glorified house helps, drivers, errand boys, etc. Nigeria’s elite have this penchant for showoff and turning virtually every privilege into status symbol. These are the same people we see comporting themselves in public trains outside the country.

    The withdrawal of the VIPs’ policemen is also expected to boost professionalism in the police force. The job of the police is basically internal security; not VIP security. We have it on record that the country has some of the best policemen one can come by,  in spite of structural and other deficiencies.

    Our policemen had excelled among their peers at international engagements. Some of them had brought home laurels from such engagements

    But the same political elite that needs the policemen for protection are pinchy when it comes to remunerating them. These same people who would have nothing to do with locally-produced vehicles do not seem to know that the police force deserves to be well taken care of so that it can in return do its job well.

    The United Nations (UN) might not have set any single, official global standard for police-to-citizen ratio, but it often cites benchmarks suggesting around 222 officers per 100,000 people (or 1:450). Indeed, some sources mention 1:400 or 1:460 as a general UN guideline, while acknowledging that it varies greatly, with technology influencing needs. Nigeria’s police strength of about 371,000 to the country’s about 236 million population means about one policeman to 636 persons. This is far from the average even in countries where there are better facilities and the policemen are well kitted and well motivated.

    Our political elite should aim at improving on this, particularly the lawmakers that are supposed to make laws for good governance as well as keep an eye on the executive to make sure they do the right thing.

    If they had done that, perhaps they wouldn’t have needed any special protection because the country would have been safe for all.

    At any rate, what is it that is pursuing our political class, particularly those in the National Assembly, who always want to go about in bulletproof vehicles and want security around them all the time? What is it that they are doing that makes them so vulnerable unlike their counterparts in other parts of the

    world who move about freely; no airs around them? Are they not supposed to be representatives of the people?

    Something just does not add up here! Somebody help me!

    Anyway, again, I commend the President for thinking out of the box in order to satisfy both the ordinary Nigerians and the affected VIPs. He should do all within his power to ensure the new deal works. If the NSCDC is well taken care of, better trained and kitted, it would rub off positively on security generally in the country.

    It is also time to pay more attention to the needs of the police force, even as the governments, state and federal, continue to keep State Police in view.

  • SNAPSONG 274

    SNAPSONG 274

    Not for me the centurion

    who hundreds worship

    and a hundred thousand obey

    whose word is sword

    to which uncountable necks surrender,

    godlet of unmanning dread*

    A loud, unruly Emperor

    Is trending in the storm

    His crown is made of mud

    His scepter a fiery whip 

    His army boots and pounds

    Our earth in its softest spots

    His submarines disembowel the oceans

    Dying dolphins collide with wailing whales

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    Strike and slaughter,

     Boast and bomb

    Raiding distant lands for their precious treasures

    Transport their kings as cargo in crippling chains

    Might is right

    When the wrong are strong

    When Justice changes its name

    To just-as-it-is

    When penpoint bows to gunpoint

    And those who know so little

    Now ply the globe as leaders of thought

    While the Emperor reads the book, upside down

     It is a long, long time now  

    Since cruelty found a place in

    Our Bill of Rights. But if night

    Precipitates its darkest hour

    Can Dawn be far behind?     

    From “Grass in the Meadow”, Village Voices, p. 62, 1984

  • Trump becomes bull in a China shop

    Trump becomes bull in a China shop

    Two contrasting theories have been advanced to explain United States president Donald Trump’s greed for foreign lands and resources. One, that his rapaciousness accords with his private and natural inclination for coveting other peoples properties. Alarmingly for the rest of the world, this greed sits very well with America’s historical fundamentals that saw their founding fathers seize and expropriate native Indian and Mexican lands. For both the US and Mr Trump, eyeing, co-opting and seizing other people’s resources have become an existential necessity. Mr Trump knows no other way of existence than to plunder and pillage, while explaining that malfeasance away as a display of strength in a world populated by weak, undeserving and expendable people. His private business is a litany of plunder, and his personal life an exemplification of cruelty and unscrupulousness. It, therefore, gives him immense pleasure to now sit atop the American throne and project that greed around the world, receiving plane gifts here, signing private and national contracts there, and attempting to buy or coerce lands in Greenland or elsewhere for the US.

    A second explanation relates to what some experts have described as the strategic projection of America’s national security interest. America now has a president totally averse to democracy and one who has not once enunciated any lofty ideal of democracy. Seizing Venezuelan oil, dispensing with that country’s controversial and repressive leader Nicolas Maduro, and exerting total and long-term control over the world’s largest deposit of crude oil is said to be a ploy to weaken China, neutralise Russia and Iran, and determine the price of oil. But China is transiting to clean energy at a bewildering rate, buying over 11 million electric vehicles of the 18.5m sold globally, at a time when the US is fixated on oil production at home and engaged in costly military adventures for oil abroad. Years ago, former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez had explained American hostility to his country as inspired by the desire to control Venezuelan oil. While that desire has finally been accomplished, and regardless of the pacification of Venezuela’s weak, colluding and greedy elite, no one can accurately what the long-term consequences would be.

    Many European countries have equivocated on the US attack on Venezuela, blaming the victim for its domestic antidemocratic practices, repression of the opposition, and rigged elections. But nothing really justifies US outlawry, for as it has become immediately obvious, Mr Trump who ordered the attack on Caracas had no interest whatsoever in democracy, fair elections or the rule of law. He knew what he wanted, and he had the boldness and defiance to go for it. In 1938 and 1939, much of Europe also condoned the adventurism of Adolf Hitler whose policy of Germany’s living space or Lebensraum took the continent apart and sucked the world into a devastating maelstrom. The predictable end was a war that led to the death of an estimated 50-80 million people, nearly half of whom were civilians. The world sees a disturbing parallel between Mr Trump and Hitler, but it is unclear how a vacillating Europe, which has also been bullied and derided by the American president, sees him. The US president expresses the fear that he might be impeached should his unpopular policies lead to the Republicans losing the midterm elections. In other words, he is already signaling that the ossification of US political divisions could be exploited to thwart democratic change.

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    The world order has been destroyed, as this column concluded last week, but eventually the US will face resistance, and from resistance will flow alliances that will inevitably trigger another major conflagration. Great war is the natural outcome of the destruction of world order, a cyclical inevitability to redefine, reorder and impose a new global order, whether it has the capacity to last or not. For now, the US has lost virtually all its friends as well as global respect, accompanied by the even heftier losses of democratic ideals and cultural imperialism it had projected for decades. Mr Trump’s first term was viewed as an aberration. His second term, not to say his domestic popularity that is underscored by racism, has cemented the view of America as an imperialist bully, a danger to world peace for its scores of sponsored terrorism against many countries, and completely destitute of the principles and ideals it had sold the world. Might had always been right, as history shows, but that might remained right only until a mightier force came along. From the Assyrians to the Babylonians, and on to the Chaldeans, and then the Greeks and Romans, it is a long, bloody history of one empire usurping another.

    The world is not about to shed its toga and change its trajectory. As contemporary history shows, particularly as exampled by the despairing responses of France’s Emmanuel Macron to the US provocation, Britain’s keir Starmer’s, and Kemi Badenoch’s feeble twaddle over the morality of the attack, there are few brilliant and perceptive leaders left anywhere. Great leaders were not always in abundant supply even before now; but the scarcity is now so sever and punishing that the world must blanch with horror at the ubiquitousness of mediocre leadership. The US president has shown that the world is clearly more endangered by visionless and incompetent leadership than by the challenges nations relentlessly face, whether economic, social or political.