The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

Highways are happy way

I have on several occasions in the last few years decided to write an article or even a series of articles about driving on Nigerian roads. Until now however, my resolve has faltered on each occasion for one reason or the other. This is probably because the only reason why I have always wanted to write about this subject is to encourage safer driving habits on our roads. After careful consideration I have come to realise the futility of doing that and this has become a stumbling block to putting my thoughts on this subject down on paper. And yet the urge to write has never really left me which is why I suppose I am writing these lines at this time.

The futility of making any attempt to change this situation for the better should be fairly obvious to anyone who has taken a short trip along any road anywhere in this country. The fatalism attending any such journey is palpable. Just think of the number of times that gatherings do not break up until someone gets up to beseech God for what is described as travelling mercies for all those present and who need to travel back to their respective homes. To be frank, I have always wondered how this phrase was coined because its meaning cannot be immediately obvious to anyone who learnt to speak English anywhere outside Nigeria. The sentiment behind it is however immediately understood in any gathering. The point is that your arrival at your chosen destination is dependent on you finding favour with a rather capricious deity who bestowed favours to travellers or could withdraw them as he very well pleased. Go to any so-called garage or motor park and you are bound to find blackmailers in the form of beggars; men and women who prey on the fears of intending travellers who are never sure of their standing with the travel deity and are willing to part with some money to enhance their chances of surviving the journey before them. The reason why money is parted with at this time is so that the deity could be appropriately approached on their behalf by professional supplicants who know how to make their case to the deity effectively.

The sad truth is that in spite of the large volume of prayers offered up for what is described as a safe journey, a distressingly large number of vehicular accidents happen on our roads on a daily basis. Motorcycle accidents happen so often that they are no longer thought of as being worthy of any report in any medium.I am sure of this because although I am seldom on the road these days, I have witnessed several motorcycle accidents in the last few months alone. This is by no means a deterrent to the millions of Nigerians who daily blithely take their lives in their hands by climbing behind okada riders and undertake journeys long and short, at considerable risk to their continued earthly existence. All people riding on a motorcycle are required to wear a helmet but that law is more respected in the breach than in its observance. And, whatever danger that they were courting by riding on an okada is more than doubled by the refusal to wear a helmet. To complicate matters a little bit more, there are occasions when as many as four riders are squeezed together on one bike. The danger from such an arrangement is monumental to say the least but who cares? a crumpled note slipped into the hand of some policeman at a conveniently situated checkpoint solves any problems caused by this egregious breach of a law of the land. And there is no limit to what can be carried on an okada. To make this point without any ambiguity, I once saw a corpse being transported on a motorcycle. The give away here was when the dead weight of the corpse

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caused the motorcycle to become overbalanced, leaving both the living and the dead sprawled out on the cold tarmac. I am sure that every reader can provide their own personal example of this phenomenon.

Motorcycle accidents have become so common that they are self reported anywhere even though orthopaedic wards all over the land as well as makeshift facilities manned by self styled bone setters are virtually overflowing with victims of motorcycle accidents.

The number of casualties associated with motorcycle accidents are seldom impressive. Not so with a single form of mass transit; cars, SUVs, minibuses, so-called luxurious buses and even open trucks, more suited to transporting livestock. These are frequently stocked full of fee paying passengers and driven many miles at great speed cross country. As soon as you step into any of these vehicles or if you prefer, contraptions, you can consider that you have surrendered your life to blind fate. You will pick up the responsibility for your life at the end of your journey wherever that is. Unfortunately, many of such journeys are terminated abruptly, many of them far from the desired destination and for many of the people involved, they become grim items of statistics. The gory ends of such journeys are reported on the pages of newspapers or as brief reports on radio and television. To fit the tenor of today, videos shot at the scene are sent round the world on social media. The number of casualties of such accidents, which are almost inevitably described as ghastly by reporters, vary from one of two to several dozen. Never mind the number as it is soon forgotten. The injured are invariably reported as having been conveyed to the nearest hospital and the dead are always deposited, according to reports, in the mortuary. End of story.

There are of course many reasons for the recurrent carnage on our roads. And the reasons keep growing. For example, motorists now have to contend with the insecurity challenges on our roads. The fear of kidnappers, bandits and the occasional plane armed robber must now be regarded by the understandably wary traveller as the beginning of wisdom. This is because fatalities which occur in the course of these operations are frequently reported. Gone, perhaps forever are night travels. Older readers may remember that until recently, night buses had converted our roads to busy traffic arteries in the dead of night. Now, there is a rush to get off the roads at dusk in order not to become an insecurity statistic. An unsung but quite lucrative casualties of the current state are outposts, many of them out in the bush, offering catering services to drivers and their passengers throughout the night. Without the traffic generated by night travellers, these establishments, many of them that were quite famous, have had to be closed down. Unfortunately, the various agents of insecurity at work all over the country, are showing that they can do away with the cover of darkness and have turned virtually every trip on any road in Nigeria into something of a lottery. This has added another point to the prayer for journeying mercies.

January 4, 2026
Northern Nigeria: between theocracy and modernity

Through mass murders, kidnappings, bombings, and other acts of terrorism, Boko Haram remains an enduring threat, principally to Northern Nigeria, but also to the whole country. Surprisingly, not the wanton destruction it daily wreaks, nor the fact of Nigeria spending trillions fighting it, as well as trying to beat back banditry which is, unfortunately, spreading fast, have been sufficient enough to mobilise the Northern elite behind the efforts to rein in these twin evils. Nor has the existential danger murderous herdsmen constitute to large chunks of the country been deemed sufficient to draw any reaction from this educated, and very knowledge-able, section of the Northern society to, at least, indicate that they are awed by what a negativity the North now constitutes to Nigeria’s well- being.

And as to the question what can they do? I say, a lot” – being the introductory part of my article of Sunday 23 February, 2020.

In the same article I also wrote:

“You cannot be happy with about 87% of poverty in Nigeria being in the north. You can’t be happy with millions of northern children out of school. You can’t be happy with nine states in the north contributing almost 50 per cent of the entire malnutrition burden in the country”. “You can’t be happy with the drug problem. You can’t be happy with the Boko Haram problem. Or with banditry. If the North does not change, it will destroy itself” – Quoting the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, CON.

During the past few weeks two gentlemen – my friend of over a decade, Tony Sani, former Secretary of the Arewa Consultative Forum, but better known as the Forum’s Publicity Secretary and Moh’d Yusuf, who I just met on these pages reacting to my articles, trenchantly criticising my views not only on the North but also on President Muhammadu Buhari – have spent considerable time interrogating the place of the North in contemporary Nigeria.

Because I know that most of Yusuf’s criticism are misplaced, I have reminded him that long before many Nigerians fell in love with the late President, I wrote on these pages, when President Buhari was only a Presidential aspirant, that Nigeria needed him much more than he needed Nigeria. I was then relying on his incandescent inorruptibility as he has long displayed in public office.

As to my love, or otherwise for the North, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria was my first choice University and I spent two weeks in Congo campus before I relocated to another University. I shall never forget that the fees I paid was returned, pro rata, something not many Nigerian Universities would do, even now.

I can say, with all boldness, that my views about the North, and Northerners, have always been honest and down to earth. For instance, twice in “Psycho-Analysing Sanusi Lamido Sanusi” (1 & 2), I wrote supporting the appointment of the latter Emir as Central Bank Governor in September, 2009 when it was not the most popular view.

So when my views seem anti- North to some, it is certainly not out of malice.

Today, I am taking a critical look at the choice/s before the North as it continues to constitute a major embarrassment to the whole country, so bad a foreign country had come, “gun – a – blazing”.

Northern Nigeria today stands at a critical juncture, that is, at the choice between theocracy and modernity.

As the Emir postulated above, the North, to survive as a modern conglomerate, must acknowledge the critical need for change.

By embracing modernity, Northern Nigeria can unlock its vast potential, contribute to Nigeria’s growth, and become a beacon of hope, not only for that part of the country alone but for the entire country.

Presently, Northern Nigeria, rich in cultural heritage and history, finds itself at the crossroads. It

is grappling with the challenges of balancing its traditional values with the demands of modernity. The dichotomy between theocracy and modernity has led to a myriad of problems, including poverty, illiteracy, and insecurity, all of which have become a significant drain on Nigeria’s resources.

Northern Nigeria has a long history of Islamic influence, with many states adopting Sharia law and although insecurity can be attributed to many reasons, the most fundamental is religion.

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Insecurity in the North is, in my view and above anything else, mostly driven by the desire of the greatest percentage of Northern Moslems, if not all of them, to have Sharia declared all over Nigeria and the country, itself, proclaimed an Islamic country.

This is precisely what nurtures insecurity, be it it’s funding, the not insignificant communal support it enjoys, as well as the ease with which the various gangs recruit new members from the bazaar of out – of – school children roaming the streets.

Whoever denies this is only just talking.

Knowing full well that the preponderance of their numbers in the National Assembly cannot foist sharia on the country, a greater percentage of Northern Moslems, no matter their position in life, would quite easily turn a blind eye to the activities of all these Islamic terrorist gangs terrorising Nigeria, from the sahel to the shores of the Atlantic ocean, if only to achieve the objective of having an Islamic country.

It is a well known fact that this is the primary purpose of all Islamic terror gangs the world over and it enjoys local support everywhere, not minding the collateral damage of losing some of their members.

It is the reason why the United State’s first point of call was Sokoto state, an area the Nigerian security has never once declared as a terror stronghold.

Never.

But unlike Nigeria’s successive governments, the U.S has nobody, or anything, to fear.

This fear of the unknown is also the reason successive Nigerian governments have never been able to name terror financiers and did, absoluely nothing, when foreign countries obliged the Buhari government with some of their names.

But for America, Nigeria would have remained in limbo never able to touch terror kingpins, only relying on reeling out the names of mere hired guns for public consumption.

It is time for the North to realise that the forces of globalisation and technological advancement have made modernity an unavoidable reality.

It must, therefore, adapt to these changes if it is to ever compete with the modern world. The North must realise that Education, innovation, and entrepreneurship are key drivers of modernisation, in all of which the region, unfortunately, lags behind.

Not unexpectedly, the North’s reluctance to embrace modernity has come at a great cost. For instance, its human development indicators are among the worst in Nigeria and, therefore, in the world, and are coupled with extra-ordinarily high rates of poverty, illiteracy, and infant mortality.

Lack of economic opportunities has naturally fueled insecurity, with Boko Haram and a host of other killing and kidnapping gangs roaming the region, daily leaving trails of blood and anguish.

The North must make a choice between continuing to cling to a theocratic model that has failed to deliver development or embrace modernity and its attendant benefits.

This is not a call to abandon tradition or faith but to recognise that modernity and progress are not mutually exclusive with cultural heritage.

What then is the way forward?

There are a few of them.

First, the North must, willy nilly, invest in education, especially education for girls and women, aimed at empowering individuals and driving economic growth. It must launch programs to improve education access, both quantity and quality – wise. Efforts must be made to drastically reduce the number of out-of-school children.

Indeed the world would not collapse if Almajirai is officially prohibited and the study of the Holy Book streamlined into the expanded school syllabi. This is not too much if Northern states’ governments are prepared to turn around the fortunes of the region.

The leaders must also put enough resources into ICT which is the future.

Economic Diversification will be key too. Reliance on primary products of agriculture must give way to medium scale industrialisation to create a more diversified economy. Incentives could be offered to businesses to invest in the region to facilitate employment, especially in dairy products.

Mining should have been beneficial to the local economy but for the ranka dede culture which makes the poor or not so rich behave like slaves to the rich, and thus cannot revolt against the rich who indulge in illegal mining together with their foreign partners and supported by hundreds of terrorists who, in addition engage in kidnapping.

Equally important is good governance which is mostly lacking in Northern states as a result of the uncritical culture of the people.

Serious effort must also be made to strengthen institutions, promote transparency and hold leaders accountable.

There must also be a cultural evolution which mass education should facilitate and promote. This should include a culture of tolerance, openness, and innovation.

Finally, Northern region can significantly benefit from exchange programs with other regions, even other countries, to promote understanding, innovation and faster economic development.

The North must seize this moment to redefine its place in all ramifications.

The future beckons – it’s time for the North to make a choice.

January 4, 2026
Benjamin Kalu, Alex Otti and Abia 2027

The political landscape of Abia State has been charged with tension following recent exchanges between Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Kalu, and Governor Alex Otti. What ought to have been a straightforward political conversation has devolved into an unnecessary conflagration, revealing the temperament and character of those involved.

Kalu, keen to bridge the SouthEast to the Centre, had repeatedly invited Governor Otti to join the All Progressives Congress, an act that is nothing short of a brotherly gesture—an olive branch extended from one son of Abia to another. It is a call rooted in pragmatism and the desire to see Abia State fully aligned with the progressive agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration. Yet, rather than receiving this overture with the dignity and grace expected of a state executive, Governor Otti has chosen to respond harshly and through proxies, commissioning what can only be described as a platoon of attack dogs to savage the reputation of the Deputy Speaker.

Such a “tigbue zogbue’’ response is as telling as it is disappointing. For a governor who publicly claims to be unperturbed by Kalu’s looming stature and challenge, Otti’s actions betray a man deeply threatened by the person of the Deputy Speaker, readers would do well to recall that in the early days of Kalu’s ambition to run for the Office of Speaker and then Deputy Speaker, he preferred supporting a candidate from another state, deeming Kalu’s ambition as a threat to his tenure as governor and such histrionics have continued to dictate his relationship with Kalu.

Now, if Kalu’s invitation was indeed inconsequential, why the orchestrated campaign of vilification? Why deploy state resources and youth groups to attack a federal legislator whose only crime was extending a political invitation?

The Deputy Speaker has every right to make such overtures. Politics, after all, is about building coalitions and expanding one’s political tent. Kalu’s invitation was consistent with the APC’s national agenda of bringing progressive-minded leaders into its fold. Governor Otti, exercising his constitutional right, could have simply and politely declined. He could have issued a statement affirming his commitment to the Labour Party while thanking the Deputy Speaker for his consideration. Instead, he has chosen the path of petty politics—mobilizing attack machinery funded, suspiciously, by Abia taxpayers’ money to diminish a man who has brought unprecedented glamour and prestige not only to Abia to the Southeast region.

Since his emergence as Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu has been a beacon of hope for the Igbo nation. He has restored dignity to Southeast representation at the federal level, ensuring that the voice of Ndigbo is heard in the corridors of power. His legislative achievements, his advocacy for Southeast development, and his strategic positioning within the national political framework have elevated not just his profile but that of the entire region. Perhaps, it is this success, this elevation, that seems to unsettle Governor Otti.

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One must also examine Governor Otti’s political trajectory to understand the irony of his current posturing. This is a man who has sought the governorship of Abia State on three different occasions, under three different political platforms—APGA, APC( When this failed he returned back to APGA in 2019), and finally, the Labour Party. Seemingly, his political journey is a testament to opportunism rather than ideological consistency. When APGA did not serve his purpose, he moved to APC. When APC proved difficult,he pole vaulted back to APGA and then to the Labour Party. Now, as governor, he wishes to lecture others about party loyalty and principle.

Otti’s political chicanery is transparent to discerning observers. He is currently engaged in a delicate balancing act—attempting a sort of Ribbentrop/ Molotov rapprochement with President Tinubu and the federal government while remaining safely ensconced within the Labour Party. This is politics at its most cynical. If Governor Otti were truly committed to the Labour Party and its ideals, why is he not in active collaboration with Peter Obi, whose presidential campaign created the political tsunami that swept him into office in 2023? Where is the solidarity with the man whose popularity gave him the gubernatorial seat he now occupies?

The answer is simple: Otti is hedging his bets. He knows that the LP may appear as a lesser evil to the rampaging APC machinery than the ADC. He knows that antagonizing the Tinubu administration would be detrimental to his governance agenda. So he plays both sides—courting federal favor while maintaining his Labour Party membership as insurance. This duplicity is precisely what Deputy Speaker Kalu is resisting.

For Benjamin Kalu, politics is not a game of deception. It is about clear positions and principled stands. His philosophy is straightforward: you are either with President Tinubu and the progressive agenda of the APC, or you are against it. There is no middle ground, no room for political gymnastics. This clarity of purpose is what Nigeria needs—leaders who state their positions clearly and stand by them.

The question Abia citizens must ask themselves is this: Who truly has their interests at heart? Is it a governor who burns through taxpayers’ money to fund political attacks against a federal legislator who is working to bring development to the state? Or is it a Deputy Speaker who, despite the attacks, continues to advocate for Abia and the Southeast at the highest levels of government?

Governor Otti’s charade is wearing thin. His pretense at being above the fray while simultaneously orchestrating attacks through youth groups fools no one. His attempt to maintain plausible deniability while his surrogates do the dirty work is a strategy as old as politics itself, but it is unbecoming of a state governor.

As Abia looks toward 2027, citizens must evaluate leadership not by rhetoric but by character. They must assess who has consistently delivered, who has brought honor to the state, and who has the vision and federal connections to drive sustainable development. On these metrics, Benjamin Kalu stands head and shoulders above the political fray.

The Deputy Speaker’s invitation to Governor Otti was an opportunity for unity, for Abia to speak with one voice at the federal level. Otti’s response—through attack dogs rather than dialogue—reveals a leader more concerned with protecting his political turf than advancing the collective interest of Abia people.

History will judge both men by their actions during this period. One has chosen the path of statesmanship, elevation, and regional advocacy. The other has chosen attack politics, duplicity, and opportunism. The people of Abia are watching, and they will remember.

January 4, 2026
When reform meets responsibility

After a year that tested both the stamina of the state and the nerve of leadership, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu boarded a flight out of Lagos on Sunday, headed for Europe. Officially, it was part of his end-of-year break, a short pause before proceeding to Abu Dhabi for the 2026 Abu Dhabi Sustainability Summit. Unofficially, and more importantly, it was a moment of recalibration, mental, physical and strategic, before stepping into a year that will be even more demanding, politically and economically, as Nigeria inches towards the 2027 election cycle.

Predictably, the critics came early and loudly. To them, the timing was “wrong”, the optics “poor”, the security situation “too critical” for the President to be anywhere outside the country. It was the familiar refrain, delivered with performative outrage and little reflection. As if Nigeria’s criminals and terrorists take operational cues from the President’s travel itinerary. As if governance in a modern republic is reduced to a man sitting permanently behind a desk at the State House.

What such arguments conveniently ignore is that Tinubu did not drift into this trip from a season of leisure. The closing days of 2025 were anything but restful. From high-profile public engagements, including cultural appearances like the Eyo Festival in Lagos, to an endless stream of visitors, briefings and decisions, the President spent the period keeping the machinery of state steady at a time of heightened national anxiety. Beyond the physical exertion was the heavier burden, the psychological weight of security challenges, economic expectations and the relentless pressure of reform in a country impatient for results.

Rest, in that context, is not abdication. It is preparation.

More instructive still is the fact that from Europe, the President did not retreat into silence. Throughout the week, he remained visibly engaged with national affairs, taking decisions and addressing issues as they arose. And in that same week, he delivered two interventions that spoke directly to the soul of the Nigerian project, one on leadership responsibility, the other on citizen responsibility.

The first came on Tuesday, with his firm, unambiguous message on the take-off of the Nigerian Tax Reform Acts. By then, the public space had been flooded with half-truths, deliberate distortions and opportunistic alarmism. Some actors, well aware of how poorly understood tax policy is among the general public, chose to weaponise ignorance. They muddled facts with fiction, hoping to provoke resistance not because the reforms were harmful, but because they were consequential.

Tinubu’s response was characteristically resolute. The new tax laws, he insisted, would commence as scheduled on January 1, 2026. They were, in his words, a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to build a fair, competitive and robust fiscal foundation for Nigeria. Not a revenue grab. Not a punishment for the poor. But a structural reset, one designed to harmonise taxes, reduce distortions and strengthen the social contract between the state and the citizen.

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What stood out was not just the firmness of his tone, but the clarity of his intent. While acknowledging public debate and alleged discrepancies, he refused to allow unverified claims to derail a reform central to Nigeria’s economic survival. At the same time, he left the door open for institutional correction, pledging collaboration with the National Assembly to address any genuine issues identified during implementation. Reform would move forward, but due process would not be sacrificed.

It was leadership without drama, authority without arrogance.

Two days later, on New Year’s Day, the President addressed the nation again, this time with a wider lens. His goodwill message reviewed the gains of 2025, from macroeconomic stability and declining inflation to improved investor confidence, rising foreign reserves and a resurgent stock market. It outlined plans for 2026 across security, infrastructure, agriculture, social development and inclusive growth. It reaffirmed commitment to decentralised policing, forest guards and sustained action against terror networks.

But the most profound part of the address was not the statistics or the projections. It was the final section—A Call to Unity and Responsibility.

In that passage, Tinubu did something many leaders avoid: he turned the mirror towards the citizens. Nation-building, he reminded Nigerians, is a shared responsibility. Patriotism is not a slogan reserved for speeches; it is a daily ethic expressed through honesty, restraint, civic duty and respect for the common good. A model nation, globally respected and internally cohesive, cannot be built by government action alone if citizens continue to undermine the system through corruption, indiscipline and abuse of freedom.

It was an uncomfortable truth, but a necessary one. For years, Nigeria’s discourse has often assumed that leadership failure alone explains national stagnation. Tinubu’s message challenged that convenient narrative. If citizens insist on taking freedom to the point of lawlessness, if public morality continues to erode, then even the best leadership in the world will struggle to deliver lasting progress.

That call to patriotism framed everything else, the tax reforms, the security measures, the economic restructuring. Without responsible citizenship, reform becomes fragile. With it, reform becomes transformative.

Seen through that lens, the President’s week, from Europe to Abu Dhabi, from tax reform insistence to a sober New Year message, reveals a consistent thread: nationalism expressed not in noise, but in difficult choices. Tinubu’s actions reflect an ultruistic intent to stabilise Nigeria today so it can stand stronger tomorrow, even when those choices attract resistance.

As the country steps into 2026, the question is no longer whether the President is working hard. The record suggests he is. The more urgent question is whether Nigerians are ready to answer his call, to match reform with responsibility, leadership with citizenship, and ambition with discipline. Only then can the promise of growth, unity and national dignity truly take root.

When Presence Transcends Geography

If any doubt lingered that President Tinubu stepped outside the country without stepping away from governance, the sequence of his engagements through the week quietly put it to rest. Even from Europe, the President remained firmly at the centre of national life, demonstrating that leadership is not defined by physical proximity but by consistency of attention and purpose.

The week opened on a sombre note. Following the fatal auto crash on the Lagos–Ibadan Expressway involving Nigerian-British boxing star, Anthony Joshua, Tinubu publicly expressed deep sympathy, describing the incident as a tragedy that cast “a deep shadow on this season”. Beyond the public message, the President placed a personal phone call to Joshua, and another to his mother, offering prayers, comfort and reassurance. It was a gesture that underscored a human side of power, one that recognises grief, reaches out in moments of pain and reminds citizens that the state can still speak with compassion.

By Tuesday, the tone shifted from consolation to recognition and institutional stewardship. Tinubu congratulated the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, on his appointment to the Royal Victorian Order by King Charles III. The honour, rooted in years of commitment to youth development through the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award, subtly reinforced Nigeria’s growing international credibility, not just through markets and diplomacy, but through service and values.

That same day, the President approved the appointment of Rotimi Iseoluwa Oyedepo as Director of Public Prosecutions. In a reform-minded administration, such decisions are rarely dramatic, but they are foundational. They signal continuity, seriousness about justice-sector governance and attention to the quiet but essential architecture of the state.

Tinubu also used the period to reflect on leadership as sacrifice and service. His tribute to Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani at 55 recalled a generation shaped by pro-democracy struggle and personal conviction, drawing a line between past courage and present responsibility. Similar themes echoed in his message to Benue politician Mathias Terwase Byuan, whom he praised for principled party loyalty and grassroots engagement, values often drowned out in Nigeria’s noisy political arena.

As the week progressed, the President’s engagements broadened to embrace Nigeria’s institutional and generational diversity. From celebrating the 97th birthday and 52-year reign of Eze Isaac Ikonne of Aba, to congratulating Kogi State Governor, Ahmed Usman Ododo, on his birthday, Tinubu acknowledged both traditional authority and youthful leadership as pillars of national stability. His tributes to Professor Abiodun Adeniyi at 60 and Hadiza Bala-Usman at 50 further highlighted his emphasis on intellect, reform and disciplined public service.

Even the congratulatory notes to figures like Saleh Ahmadu, former FRSC Corps Marshal, Haladu Hananiya, and presidential aide, Abiodun Essiet followed a pattern; celebrating enterprise, integrity, community service and quiet dedication to nation-building.

Placed beside his firm insistence on the take-off of tax reforms and his New Year call to patriotism, these engagements complete the picture of a President governing on multiple planes at once. From Europe, Tinubu showed that authority does not dissipate with distance, and that leadership, at its most effective, is a continuous act of firmness, empathy and recognition.

January 4, 2026
Venezuela attack: Trump destroys world order

Yesterday was seismically significant as President Donald Trump ordered United States Special Forces nighttime operation to seize Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife. They have been flown to the US to be tried, according to the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, in US courts. Charges had previously been filed against Mr Maduro in the US in 2020. The bombing of Iran last year, the airstrike on Nigeria last Christmas, the abduction of Mr Maduro, and the torrent of threats Mr Trump issued against US traditional allies and foes alike are all indications of the upending of the rules-based global order in favour of a power-based world order. Long after the Peace of Westphalia in the 17th century had established the concept of sovereignty, among other variables, as the foundation of global peace and stability, the world order was nevertheless repeatedly broken at least four times in the past two centuries. Each time the order was broken, war followed. Mr Trump is about rounding up his first year in office; by the time he is through, it is uncertain what would be left of the global order, or how long it would take for the consequences of his disruptions and dictatorship to manifest.

Mr Trump may be picking on small and less powerful nations incapable of retaliating against the US, but by balkanising the world into two camps, pro-US and anti-US, and by first alienating his allies before taking on his enemies, the American president may be setting the stage for his country’s isolation and vulnerability. The US may have the most powerful military in the world at the moment, but until it is truly tested by near equals, no one can say whether the US military is as invincible as Mr Trump has repeatedly boasted. Until Russia took on Ukraine in 2022, few expected that even with external help Kiev could last for as much as it has done, one month shy of four years. Russia has so far failed to expand its sphere of influence, and if peace is finally brokered, it will have gained only a little territory at the cost of over 300,000 men. China is not content to maintain its huge and expanding zone of economic influence. If it makes a bid for Taiwan, there are no indications it would not be a very costly misadventure.

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The Saturday morning attack on the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, lasted barely 30 minutes before the country’s leadership was decapitated. No one is sure whether the US would make no other move, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio promised, or whether the ease with which the abduction took place would tempt Mr Trump into something more far-reaching and catastrophic. However, the attack followed months of sabre rattling as the American president baited President Maduro, and weeks of gunboat diplomacy that effectively shut-in an already distressed Venezuela in a crippling economic blockade. Back in 2020, in the Southern District of New York, Mr Maduro had been indicted in a US federal court on charges that included narco-terrorism and possession of weapons against the US. Additional charges might now be included in a fresh indictment. Like Panama’s Manuel Noriega who was also seized exactly 35 years ago during the presidency of George H. Bush, it is clear that no one can save Mr Maduro: he will face the charges, and he will get a guilty verdict, for the US had expended so much resources in abducting him.

But the unlawful arrest and trial of Mr Maduro is the smallest of the world’s headaches. Since the advent of President Trump, and for the past one year, the United Nations (UN) has been shunted aside, forced to reenact the dying throes of the League of Nations, its voice reduced to little more than whispers. And when it manages to speak loudly, it sermonises. It will get worse in the months and years ahead. The US under Mr Trump has forsaken soft power in favour of brute force. Unopposed, its enemies and friends alike cowering before it, the sole surviving superpower will flaunt its wealth and throw its power in everyone’s face. It may in the short term limit himself to taking on less powerful and non-nuclear countries, but ultimately it will look for formidable opponents. President Trump has no sense of history, nor even studied history, and has paid little attention to the principles that undergird the rules-based order he is dismantling. So his instincts, short attention span, and what a psychologist called his malignant narcissism, will conjure the deadly spasms the world must experience in the years ahead.

But overall, Mr Trump is a historical accident. Men like him have ruled empires, destroyed empires, and reshaped the world in ways neither they nor their successors, nor the rest of the region which they dominated, anticipated. For instance, the Assyrian Empire which peaked between 10th to 7th centuries BCE under rulers like Assurmasirpal II, Tiglath-Pilesar III, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal may have collapsed as a direct consequence of a 60-year megadrought experienced in the 6th century BCE, but it took only three months for Babylon to overrun it and sack Nineveh, the capital, because the empire had become weakened by a combination of many factors. Take a roll call of powerful empires and kingdoms, and observe the eerie parallel with Mr Trump’s shallow understanding of power, regional and global dynamics, and the internal factors that conduce to or corrode state power. It will be evident that the empires of the Romans, Mongols, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Persians, and the Greeks tell cautionary tales. But it takes a leader schooled in the art and dynamics of power to safeguard an empire. Mr Trump is not adept or schooled. It is a matter of time before the world and circumstances take on the might of the US.

Most condemnations of the abduction of Mr Maduro will be tame, for the prevailing unipolar world cannot withstand Mr Trump’s destructive projection of power. Nigeria was fortunate to get away with a face-saving joint attack on terrorists targets in the Tangaza forests of Sokoto State last Christmas. Had the US decided to go it alone, Nigeria would have been powerless to raise a finger. Even the Nigerian promoters of religious hegemony and ethnic exceptionalism as well as sponsors of terrorism had suddenly become deathly quiet. Had Nigeria united behind its leaders and managed its differences well, no outsider could attack. Had Venezuela united behind its controversial and flawed leader, the US would have thought twice before embarking on the crude and insane colonial exploitation it has embarked upon.

In the end, the ultimate consequence of the demolition of a rules-based global order is the rekindling of global arms race. Small and medium level countries will from now onwards strive to develop weapons capable of projecting power on such a scale that even the big powers would think twice about meddling in their affairs. North Korea did it, and has been left alone. Iran needed brilliant and circumspect leaders to do it, but it made a lot of noise, threatened genocide against Israel, and showed itself to be a regional nuisance. It will need time and perhaps change in leadership and ideology to be able to achieve military self-sufficiency and political latitude. Other ambitious countries will quietly take the lessons of history made possible in real time by the US to rearm. In the end, like every era when the world order was undermined, war will be inevitable.

January 4, 2026
Needless, partisan bickering over tax laws

Two main reasons explain the ongoing bickering over Nigeria’s new tax laws promulgated last year after intensive and bad-tempered legislative and political processes. One, few people like to pay tax. The new tax laws make evasion difficult. Two, and closely leashed to the first, financial dealings previously conducted largely outside prying tax eyes will also become difficult to hide. Indeed, before the four bills were transmitted to President Bola Tinubu mid-June, they had inspired animated discussions and disagreements among the political class, and sometimes across regional lines. Even the National Economic Council (NEC) was not left out of the turbulence, as their consideration of the bills reportedly led to sharp disagreement among officials at the highest echelons of government. But once transmitted, the president wasted no time in appending his signature on June 26.

However, some six months later, just as the January 1, 2026 implementation date loomed, a carefully orchestrated and fiercely politicised campaign to discredit the tax laws again took centre stage. The reason for the new campaign was the alleged alterations made to the laws by unnamed persons who inserted themselves between the legislature and the presidency. The National Assembly has promised to open to the public the bills they transmitted to the president as well as the gazetted copy to enable a transparent comparison. By forging ahead, the presidency seems convinced that either there were no alterations or that whatever changes were made were nothing but correction of clerical errors, or that whatever changes were noticed merely rendered the laws more readable.

Significantly, those championing the suspension of the laws, most of them politicians campaigning under the aegis of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), have seized upon the fallacy that the laws would raise taxes, stymie economic recovery, and worsen hardship particularly among the poor. Knowing full well that most Nigerians have not read the laws nor, if they did, understand them, the campaigners recognise that crying wolf where there is none is always an effective tool of political mobilisation or social revolt. On top of this, no one wants to pay tax, regardless of whether the economy is stable or in recession. The adversarial campaigns have, however, achieved limited effectiveness, fortunately because it is coming outside the election year. Had the administration deferred its implementation to the end of the first quarter as some, including the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), advocated, the seemingly innocent act of procrastination would have restricted the government’s elbow room and risked weakening or derailing its political campaigns.

Read Also: Reps release CTC of Tax laws to public, describe NASS as institution of records

The four legs of the Tax Reform Act 2025 are (1) The Nigeria Tax Act (NTA) 2025; (2) The Nigeria Tax Administration Act (NTAA) 2025; (3) The Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Act (NRSA) 2025; and (4) The Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Act (JRBA) 2025. Opponents of the laws rarely bothered about the second, third and fourth laws. They have been particular about the first one, The Nigeria Tax Act 2025. It is understandable. This Act, as the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reform Committee put it, “is the core of the reform, consolidating over a dozen federal tax laws into a single, unified statute.” It argued further that “it replaces previous laws like the Companies Income Tax Act, Personal Income Tax Act, and Value Added Tax Act, among other outdated tax laws.” The NTA not only simplifies what was a complex and misaligned tax laws, it provides relief for low-income earners and small enterprises. Even as far as VAT is concerned, the new sharing formula benefits states (55%) and local governments (35%), much more than the federal government (10%). The resurgent campaigns have been based on nothing significant, as President Bola Tinubu put it, but on the unprovable supposition that the tax laws would raise taxes.

The president was more assertive in a statement he issued before the laws took effect. According to him: “These reforms are a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a fair, competitive, and robust fiscal foundation for our country. The tax laws are not designed to raise taxes, but rather to support a structural reset, drive harmonisation, and protect dignity while strengthening the social contract…Our administration is aware of the public discourse surrounding alleged changes to some provisions of the recently enacted tax laws. No substantial issue has been established that warrants a disruption of the reform process.” Though President Tinubu rightly approved the implementation of the tax laws to begin on schedule, unwary members of the public were probably spooked by opposition falsehoods to see the tax laws as their worst nightmare. The reality is, however, different. In fact, the poor as well as small enterprises, not to talk of those who have nothing to hide, will be the chief beneficiaries.

There will of course be implementation hiccups at the beginning, but despite the stifling opposition to the reform, it should improve Nigeria’s fiscal space, ultimately enthrone tax equity, energise small and medium enterprises, and simplify the social contract by making the public more responsible and the government more accountable. What the administration should worry about is that the initial hiccups do not grow into a monster, engender gridlock, or empower detractors of the laws to make more sanctimonious noise.

January 4, 2026
Malami cuts a sorry figure

Former attorney general Abubakar Malami spent weeks in detention with the EFCC and the New Year and many more days in jail pending the determination of his bail application by a court. He was not alone. His wife and one of his sons were later remanded with him. In the previous Muhammadu Buhari administration, Mr Malami was one of the most powerful ministers, indeed a cabal all by himself. He excused tyranny, waffled over court processes, rode roughshod over governmental negotiations, and refused to speak up when the rights of murdered Nigerians were abridged. He will predictably be bitter about his ordeal, and might even believe that his circumstances were inspired by the government of the day.

Read Also: Troops recover large cache of ammunition in Maiduguri

Never in his wildest imagination would he have expected to be incarcerated for weeks on end. He probably thinks his ordeal is politically motivated, and as a governorship aspirant in the opposition his fellow travellers have encouraged his miscomprehension of his legal troubles. A third-rate lawyer himself, he seems to believe the lies. But what did he expect? The courts wait patiently for men like him, powerful people who think they are untouchable, who when they were in office connived at the raids on residences of judges and mistreatment of court officials. He will of course get his bail, but he will now be more enlightened about the transience of power and how the system ruthlessly exacts vengeance.

January 4, 2026
No battle for ADC presidential ticket

No one is certain who first mooted the fallacy that with the defection of former Anambra governor Peter Obi to the African Democratic Congress (ADC) there would ensue a healthy struggle for the party’s presidential ticket. Mr Obi defected only last week, while those who hungered for the ticket were either present at the party’s formation or funded the party almost entirely. To presume he stands any chance at all of picking the ticket simply because of some fanciful permutations is sheer nonsense. There will be no battle whatsoever. More accurately, Mr Obi himself knows there will not be any battle, nor if there was one, that he stood any chance.

Read Also: Reps release CTC of Tax laws to public, describe NASS as institution of records

Former president Goodluck Jonathan was briefly afflicted by that political hyperbole, leading him to saunter into the party’s informal caucus meeting one sunny day only to receive a devastating rebuff. Deflated, he sauntered out like he came in and has since not been heard from again on the subject, not even to joke about it. Mr Obi may fancy himself a modern-day pied piper, and may sometimes not know when he is fairly and thoroughly beaten in an electoral contest, but he has no illusion who his political masters are. At any rate, he had once encountered the ADC panjadra before; now he knows that they will master him once again.

After dithering for more than two years, not knowing what to do or where to go, and unsure of everything but his pet foreign statistics, he has finally berthed at the ADC. His stay in the Labour Party (LP) had become untenable, for he lacked the acumen to manage or reform complex entities, and was therefore not adding value to the beleaguered party. In the end, his clearly outsized ambition to rule Nigeria impelled him to seek refuge anywhere. For a man so feckless, returning to his vomit appeared the logical choice, indeed, the logical end. He will, as he was wont, eat humble pie before former vice president Atiku Abubakar.

January 4, 2026
Obi and his 2027 calculations

Peter Obi, former governor of Anambra State and serial defector, has jumped ship again.

He has deserted the Labour Party (LP), which rescued him, gave him a refuge and offered him a platform to contest the 2023 presidential poll.

His new abode is the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the Siamese half of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on which platform he paired with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as presidential running mate during the 2019 poll.

Obi has been involved in the coalition talks from the beginning. But he may have delayed his official declaration in anticipation of a concession. After the defection, the question is: what next? Will Atiku jettison his long-standing presidential ambition and step down for him during the national convention of the party?

If Atiku steps down, it means the prediction of the marabouts that he will one day rule Nigeria is false. If the Adamawa-born politician comes down from that Olympian height to now become the sponsor of a running mate – a mere spare tyre – to Obi, it is not a good crowning of an illustrious political career.

Has Obi agreed to serve as the running mate to Atiku in 2027? Will that not be contradictory to his boasting that he never travelled round the world to learn governance just to become a vice president, a footnote or an addendum?

Is Obi now ready, after a careful self-reassessment, to eat the humble pie and accept being the running mate again in 2027, when Atiku will be 81, with an intention to succeed him later, if he wins the poll?

READ ALSO; Guru Maharaj Ji predicts Tinubu, APC’s victory in 2027

Has the ADC made any pronouncement on zoning or rotation to either the North or South in the next general election?

Have Atiku and Obi agreed to step down to allow another person, from the North or South, to run, with the two veteran contenders joining hands to build support for the candidate, in the spirit of national sacrifice?

What is the joker?

Obi has something going for him. Although he lost the 2023 poll, it was a historic outing for him. After borrowing the LP, he threw his hat in the ring a few months before the election and scored over six million votes, trailing Atiku’s over seven million votes and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s over eight million votes.

At Enugu, capital of Enugu State and political headquarters of the Southeast, the former Anambra State governor tried to showcase the relic of his personal structure. Typical of an ethnic champion, Obi attempted to regionalise his new party, the ADC. The Enugu gathering was largely an Igbo affair, with few chieftains from other regions as spectators. But his supporters rationalised the ethnic outing, saying that charity begins at home.

Those who attended the defection were in two categories. The first category comprised the Atiku gang of Southeast origin, the same old faces of aggrieved co-travellers and former men of power now smelling the aroma of power from afar. The second category had Obi’s followers from the LP, who had hibernated in the party with him for three years.

Apart from few negligible federal legislators who defected along with him, those keeping Obi company are spent forces who have lost mobilisation prowess. Whether or not Obi, who ditched Atiku after the 2019 general election, could be trusted by associates of the former Vice President now in ADC would have to be ascertained.

Obi’s speech at the defection event was unimpressive. It was a mere rambling that lacked coherence. It was devoid of substance, focus, depth and clarity. It smacked of self-glorification. His remarks showed that the charm that endeared him to many has faded.

Expectedly, the APC government came under attack. But no alternative programme was articulated. Obi said he had read new books on Indonesia and Malaysia, and promised to implement the theories he came across in the books written by some scholars.

His departure from LP underscored his lack of leadership ability to rebuild and put the house in order. He left behind a party in tatters, factionalised, polarised, used and dumped. That Obi could not resolve the protracted crisis soiled his profile. It queries his capacity to broker effective reconciliation at a critical moment in the party’s journey. He appears to be concerned about his personal ambition and not the collective survival of the party. It is ironic that a man who could not foster unity in a small party like the LP is promising to promote the unity of Nigeria.

The is no alignment of ideas. Ideology has long been discarded in Nigerian politics. The motivation for the retracing of steps is interest. Whether or not a clash of interests will occur with the passage of time depends on Obi’s permutations, which drove him to the desperate coalition, which the All Progressives Congress (APC) has described as a schism of chaos.

Obi left the LP in distress and confusion, which the Julius Abure faction attributed to his style.

The faction, which apologised to Nigerians for giving him the 2023 ticket, said the former governor would not be missed. This may not be true because between 2023 and 2025, Obi was the main issue in the party, its leadership crisis notwithstanding.

The details of the pact that became the driving force for Obi are unknown. Atiku has been chasing the presidency, like a shadow chaser, since the 1993 Jos convention of the Social Democratic Party (PDP). In this dispensation, the former vice president has tried his luck six more times – in 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019, and 2023 – but without success. Is the Wazirin Adamawa now fatigued or poll weary?

The general feeling is that ADC was borrowed from the original owners for the purpose of realising Atiku’s aspiration. That is why many people believe that ADC is the Atiku Democratic Congress. Is Atiku being persuaded to step down and concede the space to Obi to fly the ticket of ADC in the next general election, while regressing into a status of a dignified onlooker or godfather?

Obi said he decided to team up with ADC in the interest of national unity. Observers were taken aback that the politician who campaigned on ethno-religious platform in 2023 has suddenly turned around to project himself as an advocate of unity.

He goes down in history as a politically unstable and electorally inconsistent actor, whose hallmark is desperation. From being an All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) governor, through his struggle to occupy the number two position as a PDP chieftain, to an LP presidential candidate and now an ADC stalwart, the political roaming in circles is complete.

Obi, like Atiku, lacks the pedigree of a party builder. For a politician who miraculously got over six million votes to fail to build on that novel score and momentum speaks volumes about a deficiency in self-awareness.

That shortfall in perception and dearth of knowledge predisposed him to seeking a rented apartment in ADC when he had the chance to erect an edifice in LP, where he ultimately drew the ire of chieftains as a deserter.

The protracted leadership squabble in the LP was a major test he failed woefully. How would someone who cannot fix his party promise to fix Nigeria, a country of over 200 million heterogeneous people?

But that was also among those inadequacies, apart from the lack of political patience and sound strategy that created a hollow in the career of Atiku and other politicians who inherited the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) from their leader, the late Tafidan Katsina, Major-General Shehu Yar’Adua, only to allow it to collapse irredeemably. The PDM, a formidable platform, went with the wind because the supposedly arrowheads could not properly invest in its survival. Like Obi, Atiku’s motive is just ambition, and nothing more.

Obi is taking his ‘Obedient’ followers to the ADC. They cannot transform into core party men and women. Since he is only interested in the party’s ticket and not the party itself, the challenge of harmonisation of party structures may not arise. That may be why it is convenient for him to abandon those who actively supported him, particularly the members of the National Caretaker Committee, led by Senator Esther Nenadi-Usman, and the lone LP governor, Alex Otti of Abia State, who has refused to defect along with him.

Where does the defection leave Abure and Nenadi-Usman? Is that the end of LP? Will the factions fight on?

Neither is any cogent consideration accorded the interest of Obi’s 2023 running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, who has been his loyal envoy to both the LP and the ADC.

But has Obi been assured of the ticket? He is not known for participating in a competitive presidential primary. He only targets a political party that will hand over the ticket to him without stress. It is noteworthy that ADC’s Publicity Secretary Bolaji Abdullahi said recently that there was no guarantee about an anointed candidate. He also said there was no discussion about how the candidate would be chosen. Judging by Atiku’s antecedents, the fate of the ADC presidential candidate would be determined at the primary.

What is the position of ADC on zoning? If the party zones its presidential ticket to the North, would there not be an uproar in the South because the zone deserves eight years?

If it is zoned to the South, would the North be comfortable with another eight years for the South, after President Tinubu’s first term of four years? The North is conscious of the fact that the promise of a single term is a fallacy. Would the North not show preference for another four years for President Tinubu instead of conceding eight more years?

But how intact is Obi’s support base? The argument is that if Obi’s six million and Atiku’s seven million are combined, they will surpass President Tinubu’s eight million. That was in 2023. Are the dynamics not different today as Nigeria gazes at 2027? Introspectively, in 2019, when Atiku and Obi paired in the PDP, did they defeat the Buhari/Osinbajo ticket of the APC?

The only implication, for now, of Obi’s defection is that the presidential election may strictly be a three-horse race with President Tinubu of APC and flagbearers of the ADC and PDP slugging it out on poll day.

January 3, 2026
Tax mischief

Against all odds, President Bola Tinubu’s much heralded tax reforms have come into force.

The new acts are supposed to ensure uniformity in tax revenue administration across Nigeria, eliminate double taxation, use taxation to encourage private sector investment in critical industries and boost disposable incomes through targeted tax exemptions.

The poorest in society are expected to be winners under the new arrangement. Individuals earning below the minimum wage are exempted from the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) tax. Similarly, small businesses with annual turnovers of N50 million or less would be excused from paying taxes.

The new laws reduce corporate income tax rate from 30% to 25% over the next two years as a way of alleviating financial pressures on businesses and foster investment.

From the very start the legislations have been greeted with intense suspicion, especially up North.

Most people who have taken the trouble to read through the legislations or even familiarise themselves with summaries, admit that while not perfect, the bills are a massive improvement on what we currently have. Of course, they challenge states which are currently content with heading to Abuja for the monthly handout from FAAC, to do more about boosting economic activity in their domains.

READ ALSO; Why I walked away as Finance Minister – Kemi Adeosun

But, surely, no one can quarrel with tax exemptions for the poorest of the poor, or cuts for struggling families. Fair minded persons cannot be against reducing the taxation burdens on MSMES and other companies.

What is most exhausting is that, in typical Nigerian fashion, what should be discourse about the economic wellbeing of citizens has been reduced to a political shouting match about plots to disadvantage one region or the other.

Some of the most hysterical voices have been those who don’t even know what the new laws contain, but are content to recycle ignorant posts on social media.

Others have even taken their mischief-making a notch higher. For instance, the story is told of how some months back farmers in parts of the North were misinformed that if they produced four baskets of onions or tomatoes, the government would take one of those baskets as tax! That is to say 25% of their produce.

This caused quite a flap. In no time, clerics were already preaching inflammatory anti-government sermons about the supposedly evil new tax burden in their mosques on Fridays.

Informed about the dangerous information being spread by these unknown individuals whose only goal was to torpedo the new legislation, some members of the Presidential Tax Committee quickly engaged influential clerics and stakeholders from the region in a town hall of sorts.

By the time the engagement was halfway through, they had managed to calm inflamed emotions with proper information about what the new laws were about and what they were not. The bemused clerics kept glancing at each other in confusion because what they hearing wasn’t what they were told.

Opponents of tax reforms got second wind because of the so-called alterations in the gazetted laws. But those who make these claims haven’t been able to show what was changed and for what purpose.

The deliberate injection of falsehoods and innuendoes into what should be a sober conversation just speaks to the hidden agenda of these forces.

January 3, 2026