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Onitsha Main Market closure

It is getting clearer that the shut-down of Onitsha Main Market by Anambra State government did not offer the best option in addressing concerns on the market’s continued closure in compliance with the sit-at-home ritual on Mondays. Not with the spontaneity of protests and demonstrations the measure escalated last Tuesday. Not with the pro-Biafra sentiments and agitations it re-ignited for the release of jailed leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.

The social media was so awash with such sentiments that Anambra State Police Command in a statement expressed concerns about what it called the “pattern of individuals using social media platforms to incite violence, disrupt public peace as well as the sharing of unverified videos regarding the security situation in the area”.

Before then, the state government had amassed an armada of security agencies to ensure traders did not gain entry into the market with prospects for unpredictable outcomes. Good enough, the security agencies were able to manage the situation in the most professional and competent manner as there have been no reports of any fatality. Even then, the meeting summoned by the state government last Thursday during which they dialogued with the traders’ unions on issues relating to continued observance of the sit-at-home order long suspended by the IPOB signposts lack of adequate consultations before the market shutdown.

It is immaterial whether the meeting was summoned at the instance of the traders’ unions as the state government claimed. The very fact the government saw sufficient reasons to hold the meeting is suggestive of one or two things.

It goes with the unmistakable impression that Governor Chukwuma Soludo did not exhaust all avenues for the peaceful resolution of the matter before resorting to the one-week closure of the market. There is no evidence that he consulted with the traders’ unions widely before shutting down the market with an armada of security agencies.

Had there been such discussions, neither the traders’ unions nor the state government would be quick in seeking or acceding to last Thursdays’ meeting. Issues that arose at the meeting would have been factored into government’s decision to mitigate the ruffled atmosphere created by the closure. It is probable the state government underestimated the capacity of its action to escalate sentiments surrounding the sit-at-home order.

Video footages from the demonstrations showed the traders expressing solidarity with Kanu and calling for his release. The protest even entered the second day when some of the traders blocked the Niger Bridge linking Onitsha to Asaba, preventing entry and exit into the commercial city. It took the efforts of the security agencies to clear the obstacles and restore free movement on the bridge.

There is no doubt the market shutdown had the potentials of injecting complications into the fragile security situation of the state but for its mature handling by the security agencies.

Soludo may have justifiable reasons for seeking normalcy to return to the market. The state government estimates that a whooping N8 billion is lost each Monday the traders do not open the market.

That is a huge revenue loss. Ironically, the same state government has further increased that loss by the closure of the market for one week. It even threatened to shut it for a further one month if the traders refuse to open with a further threat to bulldoze and pull down the market.

A government that is genuinely concerned about the losses incurred every Monday and desirous of reversing the trend should not be seen issuing such drastic and counterproductive threats.

Soludo may have been led to these extreme threats by frustration. But he should not be seen through his actions to be exacerbating the same situation he seeks to remedy. Besides, it is improbable whether the use of force or high-handedness offers the best option in addressing the issues to the sit-at-home observance.

At the centre of it all is insecurity. Attempts in the past by some traders to resume activities on Mondays had attracted dire outcomes including loss of lives in the Onitsha axis. So, those who refuse to venture out on Mondays do so out of safety for their lives in the absence of adequate security protection from the law enforcement agencies.

One of the protesters in Onitsha captured this contradiction succinctly when he said in a trending video clip, if the security presence amassed to enforce the market closure could be deployed to safeguard traders, he will have no problem opening his shop. But that says only part of the story.

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That angle cannot diminish the groundswell of dissatisfaction in the zone with the judicial rather than political resolution of the Nnamdi Kanu matter. It is not for nothing that the closure immediately re-ignited sentiments for self-determination and the release of Nnamdi Kanu. So, it not just a matter of re-opening the market and doing away with sit-at-home. We may have to contend with the sentiments surrounding it for a long time to come. That is why political resolution as demanded severally by key leaders and socio-cultural organisations in the zone cannot be wished away.

Just last week, reports had it that Yoruba self-determination leader, Sunday Adeyemo (Sunday Igboho)’s name was taken off the wanted list. In fact, he returned to Ibadan triumphantly to a rousing reception. There are parallels between what he stood for and the campaigns mounted by Kanu.

No less a group than, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) latched on to such parallels to pick holes with what they described as presidential pardon given to Sunday Igboho. They listed the harm to lives and property which the activities of the Yoruba self-determination leader allegedly wrought on the Fulani living in Oyo State.

The point MACBAN seemed to have elevated to the fore by such comparison is that political solution can also be found for the Kanu case. That may offer a better prospect for the full resolution of all issues to the sit-at-home observance and eventual return of peace and tranquillity in the zone.

Even then, force in getting the traders re-open their shops is of questionable value. The relative return of normal activities in some state capitals was neither procured by force, intimidation or blackmail. It stemmed from enhanced confidence in law and order and feeling of safety from harms’ way by residents. The situation is remarkably different in the hinterlands because of the absence of these conditions.

Former Anambra State Police commissioner, Aderemi Adeoye, captured this dialectic on one occasion with Soludo standing, when he said “it is not the duty of the police to drag people out of their homes as it will infringe on their fundamental human rights. Our duty is to make the environment conducive for those who want to come out. We have a duty to protect them”.

Soludo should show evidence that he has caged those Christians whom he said were killing Christians in Anambra State for the traders to be sure of their safety on Mondays.

February 2, 2026
The Dean departs

I walked into Lewis Obi’s office at the African Concord, and I saw a man of deceptive simplicity. Babafemi Ojudu had hinted me there was an opening in the magazine for a staff writer position.

Obi, soft-spoken and grave, said he had been reading me, but wanted me to prove my mettle.

None of my scripts with Newswatch had impressed him as much as a hand-written note on a fading post-it paper from Dan Agbese. Agbese, who passed recently, had commended me for a series of stories I did where I filled the magazine from cover to cover, from soft stories to an international piece. Bylines are no guarantees you wrote them yourself. Great editors redeem poor writers.

So, I started a journey with African Concord and with the editor I must give credit for making me bloom uninterrupted.

Newswatch editors shaped me and honed my skill. Obi allowed me blossom. He is one of the underappreciated journalists in our history. He became editor of African Concord and the magazine was nondescript for a while until he did something extraordinary.

He recruited some of the best minds of the trade. Some of them have become the backbone of the industry for a generation. They include Ohi Alegbe, Babafemi Ojudu, Dele Momodu, Kunle Ajibade, Femi Macaulay, Kunle Solaja and Seye Kehinde. We joined Okey Ifionu and Victor Omuabor.

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No intruder, Obi had Bayo Onanuga as deputy and he was a sort of operations manager. The magazine became the best in the country in style, courage and content. When Obi became editor in chief, Onanuga was editor and Dapo Olorunyomi joined the crew.

I moved to the newspaper’s political desk. No newspaper or magazine has had such a constellation before or since. Each of the fellows in that stable turned out to become leading lights. It is credit to Obi for his genius in getting all of us under one roof and engineering great intellectual discussions that lasted late into the night.

Under Obi, I started writing essays and cover stories. He handed me a copy of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses mailed overnight by Onanuga from London, and I had four days to read it and do a review and story of the crisis it generated.

I returned on Friday only to be told there was a Hezbollah threat fueled by a staff of the company. A glum Obi said not to publish.

I called him Dean of Nigerian columnists then because from the late 1980’s to mid-1990’s he wrote the best columns in the country. Few will forget his masterpiece, The Caliphate’s army. Oga Lewis, thanks for the memory.

February 2, 2026
Did Akintola commit suicide?

History often likes its villains, sometimes more than its heroes. Heroes titillate but can make you yawn. Virtue stirs the soul. Vice pushes us over the cliff. So, Villains make us gasp for exploits of the unknown. In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Satan tempts with tempests in contrast to Christ’s even temper.

In the Southwest, a familiar villain is Samuel Ladoke Akintola. He was a premier, a polyglot, a wordsmith, a thinker, a wit, a maoeuvrer and a political thespian. If he had all these before he departed history, he would still be a boring, if an eminently accomplished, man. But his imprint on time is what many of his Yoruba folks highlight: his epic betrayal.

There have been efforts in the past few decades to nuance his tale, to pose him as a man of principle and an icon of governance, and even a faithful follower of the great Yoruba avatar: Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

This season marks 60 years since he was dispatched during the 1966 coup. Some thought he met his comeuppance while inking their displeasure at the reason behind the episode when a certain Captain Okoro led some soldiers to his Agodi Residence.

But a question remains quiet in the tale. Why did Akintola not surrender? His deputy, Chief Fani-Kayode, was not killed. They grabbed him, and Akintola was aware. After initial gunfire exchanges, the soldiers ordered him to drop his gun. But the premier would not. He battled to the death.

This act may benefit from historical insight from a book largely ignored. Aristocratic Rebel is a biography of Nigeria’s top spy in the 1960’s and later an inspector general of police, M.D. Yusufu.

The book is written by Ayo Opadokun, former secretary of NADECO.

The book was presented with Yusufu in attendance in 2006, which means he endorsed all that Opadokun wrote in that underplayed classic of the Nigerian story.

According to Yusufu, Akintola had been invited over to Kaduna by the then premier of Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello on the eve of the coup. What was the reason? According to Yusufu, the NPC with then governor Kashim Ibrahim had asked the Sardauna to convey the decision of the Northern People’s Congress (NPC).

“It is very clear that the Yoruba don’t like Akintola. Please, call Akintola and tell him that this alliance is off. Let him go and sort out his problem with the Yorubas.” That was the message the Sardauna conveyed to S.L.A.

“I was the most senior Federal officer, so I had to receive Chief Akintola at the airport. The Sardauna sent along with me one of his ministers – Abuto Obekpa. That is why the New Nigerian (newspaper) photograph on the day of the coup captured me receiving Akintola at the Kaduna airport,” said Yusufu.

According to Opadokun, …”if Major Kaduna Nzeogwu and his fellow plotters had lingered past that week before staging their coup, perhaps the course of Nigerian history would have altered.” History does not follow a script. It happens based on a constellation of forces. Hence, all true historians know that nothing is inevitable. It does not follow a dice. Hence, we cannot say the coup was inevitable.

When Akintola returned to Ibadan, what might have boiled over in his mind? We shall never know. But it was obvious from the meeting with his coalition partners, he was a lonely man. Could he have gone back to his Yoruba folks? Could he have bended a knee to Awo and his people? Could he have apologized for his alliance with the NCNC against Awo, for his role in the wetie and the conflagration in the West? For his attitude to Ogunde and the songs of the minstrel that made him a pariah of the region? As professor Jide Akin Osuntokun has reminded us, he was disappointed with appointments at the centre with the Tafawa Balewa government. He was beginning to see that his quest for justice was now belly up. He was already seeing the fruits of treachery. He was not only isolated by his federal allies but also the Yoruba street where some had corrupted his initials S.L.A to Ese ole, that is the leg of a thief.

Did he welcome the coup as denouement? Was his act of defiance to the soldiers actually a bravado of surrender to fate. Was it an escape route for his pride? Was the Are Onakakanfo playing out the last act of a Yoruba eschatology?

This is not only a material of historical inquiry but also for a sort of psyco-history. Did death save him from disgrace? For the realist, this is a grist to investigate the last chapter of valour, a man who had been a fellow traveler of Awolowo and his Action Group, and was such a loyal deputy that he was a natural to take over from Awo as the premier of the region.

He was a great administrator who actualized much of Awo’s dreams, from Cocoa House to the now Obafemi Awolowo University. Yet, as Shakespeare wrote, the “spirit of men is in their blood.” Akintola saw power and imbued its hubris. The artist, novelist and playwright might see the conflict between character and ambition unfold in a brilliant soul. The playwright may tempt the premise that the man saw death as an opportunity and his great escape from a public apology or opprobrium. That is what a Gibbons or Tacitus or, Ibn Battuta or any classic historian may dig up from an Akintola narrative.

But there is another angle, for the traditionalist or cultural historian. One, it is the belief that the Are Onakakanfo, the post of the Yoruba generalissimo, is fated to tragedy. Afonja set the blood-strewn stage. By taking that position, he had signed a cultural death warrant. Did he contemplate it that night of bullets?

The other point was farther back when the young men of the Yoruba race went to Ife to swear an oath to accept Awolowo as the leader of the Yoruba. The deal foreordained the AG. The other part of the oath is not this essay’s remit. But Akintola was part of the young men. And a line in that oath is, eni to ba dale abale lo. He who betrays will die.

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Eminent lawyer Rotimi Williams also swore. When he turned his back on Awo, he did not oppose him. It is said that his mother warned him against defying the oath. The man turned to his profession and was never a politician again till he died.

Was S.L.A’s fate tied to his breaking an oath, or it is mere superstition? This is the sort of story that excites political scientists and historians. Insights into the past and its big men are not just about what they do but how they are framed by the societies they made and made them.

In Sophocles’ King Oedipus, the Greek playwright teases the audience as to whether the story of Oedipus’ end is a matter of prophecy or hubris, or both. Our own Ola Rotimi has no patience in his adaptation, he thunders “the Gods are not to Blame.”

He is taking the realist tack while the play nurtures doubt and sometimes endorses the agenda of the mystical.

In his essay about such artistic quandary, Soyinka writes of Achebe’s Arrow of God and the author’s contempt for cultural mystery.

The Nobel laureate describes it as “the secularisation of the profoundly mystical.” Shakespeare addresses this ambiguity in his Macbeth, a king who thinks no man born of a woman can kill him. Mystic fuels hubris to death.

But to begin any such dialogue here, historians and biographers must address the riddle: Did S.L.A. commit suicide?

February 2, 2026
Atiku hyperbolic on loyalty

During last week’s public presentation of The Loyalist, a book written by Bolaji Abdullahi, National Publicity Secretary of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), former vice president Atiku Abubakar pontificated grandly on the subject of loyalty. Though his short take was laced with hyperbole, he tried to give the impression that he understood the subject, and even attempted to turn it against his political opponents. As the chief promoter of the party, and consumed with the ambition to preside over Nigeria, especially considering the fact that he sees this election cycle as his very last chance, he has steered the coalition party into vehemently posturing as a government-in-waiting. His pontifications, however, create doubt in the minds of many Nigerians as to his grasp of issues and his readiness to assume high office.

In penning the book, Mr Abdullahi said on television that the loyalty subject was itself somewhat nuanced. This was probably why he titled it, The Loyalist: A Memoir of Service and Sacrifice, substantially different from In the Shadow of the Godfather, which he had originally toyed with. Answering a question on Channels TV, the author insisted that despite still retaining his respect for former Kwara State governor and senate president, Bukola Saraki, he could no longer trust him nor remain loyal to him for a number of reasons. No one should begrudge him his opinion. But here precisely is the crux of the matter. Mr Abdullahi once considered himself loyal to Dr Saraki, or at least to a phantom idea of what he believed the former governor stood for in politics. But in his public disquisition, Alhaji Atiku vigorously posited that unlike in the regimented services, politicians should define and approach loyalty from a normative perspective that is ideologically consistent, if not prescriptive.

Here is a somewhat lengthy excerpt from what Alhaji Atiku said at the book presentation: “…I have personally faced exile as a result of loyalty. I have survived assassination attempts as a result of loyalty. What you may have found through research is not unusual; it is part of the price many of us have paid. For those of us who come from the military and paramilitary professions, loyalty is non-negotiable. There is no reservation, only absolute obedience. But having joined political life over the last almost four decades, I have realised that loyalty in politics is not as rigid as it is in the military. Loyalty should strengthen the common goal, not narrow the circle of belonging. It requires accountability, transparency, and the ability to listen and learn, especially from those with whom we disagree. True loyalty embraces diversity of thought and protects the dignity of every citizen. As leaders and aspiring leaders, these are lessons we must bear in mind for leadership and public service. The book invites us to examine loyalty to country, community, institutions, and to our own moral compass vis-à-vis personal loyalty. It challenges us to consider how loyalty can unite us in the service of a shared and just future.”

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The former vice president’s friends and enemies will take his disquisition apart, block by block, without even trying so hard. He talked of loyalty as a tool to strengthen the common goal rather than narrow the circle of belonging. He was simply being theoretical. In the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the platform upon which he anchored his ambition for the presidency in 2023, he violently repudiated his own thesis of ideological loyalty by sticking to his party chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, even when it was both no longer realistic to do so and when it seemed poised to cost him dearly. If his ‘loyalty’ to Dr Ayu was not a narrowing of circle of belonging, nothing else in this world qualifies. Alhaji Atiku’s political history is in fact a testament to the most egregious and contradictory understanding of loyalty, his expectation of loyalty from his own circle of belonging, and when it serves his ambition, his provocative and enduring refusal to give loyalty, whether to an idea, no matter how profound, or to a person, no matter how objectionable.

What is well known about the former vice president’s politics is that his entire understanding of loyalty is whatever serves and advances his ambition to win the presidency. His several junkets in and out of political parties do not demonstrate a clear understanding of what loyalty means, particularly in the ennobling sense he has tried to paint and deploy it. Instead they reflect a man unstable in his ways, a man obsessed with being president, someone consumed with a messianic presumption of his capabilities, a leader eager both to betray others and exact sacrifice of untold proportions, and a conjuror of unsubstantiated tales of exile and assassinations. He spoke last week on a subject he should have stayed away from, for there are many aspects of Mr Abdullahi’s book that offer themselves for easy discourse by someone like him so superficial in his general understanding of policy and strategy.

In rounding off his brief remarks on the book, Alhaji Atiku says it “invites us to examine loyalty to country, community, institutions, and to our own moral compass vis-à-vis personal loyalty.” Incredible. There was nothing he said or did in his ‘nearly four decades in politics’ that demonstrated his loyalty to country, community, institutions, or moral compass. Nothing. His time as vice president to Olusegun Obasanjo was truly dismaying. The only sense of community he has is his dear and autarkic self, the ultimate John Donne man ‘entire of himself’. As for any loyalty to institutions, he approaches it like a courtesan. And moral compass? Why, it is a miracle the former vice president can still find his way around what is wrong, not to talk of pontificating on a general moral code on what is right.

February 1, 2026
Soludo, Kanu and befuddled Onitsha traders

Anambra State governor Chukwuma Soludo was justified to order a one-week closure of the Onitsha Main Market due to the traders’ defiance of the repeated appeal to end their Monday sit-at-home order emplaced by Nnamdi Kanu’s Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). If they could obey non-state actors who are in jail in Sokoto (Kanu) and Finland (Simon Ekpa), and which obedience is costing the state an estimated and astronomical N8bn weekly, the governor found it distasteful that the traders stubbornly disobeyed lawful state orders to keep the market open for business.

Even more galling to Anambrarians is the fact that the traders responded to the governor’s one week closure by organising protests to force him to back down. This is utter shamelessness. The so-called unknown gunmen killings and Monday shutdowns in the Southeast never elicited the kind of protests that greeted the Soludo order. This indicates massive elite connivance at IPOB’s self-immolating tactics. Now, the traders are protesting and, together with a sizable section of their elite, have refused to condemn Mr Kanu’s counterproductive legal histrionics and political grandstanding. They objurgate Finland’s legal system for jailing Mr Ekpa, and are threatening Nigeria and the ruling party for jailing Mr Kanu.

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Prof Soludo will be advised not to back down. He has sensibly limited his market closure order to one week. He should let the punishment run its course despite the subterfuge of some analysts cynically equating the governor’s order with IPOB’s Monday order. The Onitsha traders have obeyed years of Monday sit-at-home orders. One week of closure will not kill them. They have after all generated the stamina to stomach the punishment.

February 1, 2026
In memory of memory
- The long passage to eternity
From birth to death, human existence is one drama after another. Life is perpetual theatre. Many have even stretched this to conception itself and the very act of consecrating life. Imagine how many doughty fighters fell in the very struggle to overwhelm and overpower a single egg before one nuclear warhead finally succeeds in breaching the fortress of creation, leaving the others to perish in a watery tomb, unsung and unmourn, a mere surplus to requirement. It is an oceanic plenitude, a mammoth graveyard which is also the fountain of life. As long as humans are around, there will always be surplus troops available for the project. Life and death can be very wasteful.

In circumstances of extreme scarcity or forced cohabitation brought about by geopolitical upheavals, different human races have been known to mix and interbreed. In the Caribbean, the Indians, having been transported across more than half of the globe as an indentured workforce, began coupling and interbreeding with Black slaves and other aboriginal entities to stave off the possibility of extinction. The same thing happened in South Africa. In old Sierra-Leone, freed Black slaves who had chosen to be offloaded on the African coast, were allowed to bring their white mistresses whose conditions were no less appalling than the dire circumstances of their spouses. Simon Schama, the great Dutch historian, is an invaluable and unrivalled authority on this development.

In Brazil, Angola, Mozambique and their other colonial possessions, the Portuguese, whose level of civilization at that point in time was only marginally superior to those they have suppressed by gunpowder, began procreating and breeding among the indigenous people on an industrial scale producing a hybrid of mestizos in the process. The Spaniards did the same thing by force and by fire in Latin America. Henan Cortes, the famed Spanish conquistador, already boasted of a native mistress, a slave interpreter, who was accused of betraying the secret of the people to the invaders. Love does not brook any obstacle or objection to self-satisfaction. It must be added that recent historical excavations suggest a more nuanced conclusion.

The human capacity for self-magnification and hence self-actualization is the source of our strength. This is what has allowed the human species to leap beyond our animal cousins and to overwhelm other rival hominids in the struggle for power and earthly possessions. It is what Obafemi Awolowo, the great Nigerian philosopher, has called mental magnitude. Any race that does not possess mental magnitude is doomed to a life of failure and stagnation. Mental magnitude is what allows humankind to dream big and to find the will and capacity to bring these dreams to fruition. This is what is behind the growth of civilizations, of big cities, great scientific advancements, outlandish strides in communication, medical feats that banish superstitious imbecilities and a prodigious intellectual self-awareness which nudge humanity to a higher telos but which also deceives humankind into believing that they are actually greater than what they truly are.

To dream at such level requires great brains. The secret of human success and triumphs is our brains. But great brains also require constant nurturing, constant nourishment and constant cultivation which lead to self-modulation, self-modifications and self-corrections. The lack and loss of memory is the Achilles’ heel of modern civilization and is at the root of our contemporary tribulations as memory is politicized by both ideologues of the extreme right with their bogus nationalism and xenophobia and the extreme left with their hallucinations about a coming commune. The more things change, the more they don’t change. This epoch is beginning to feel very much like the prelude to the Second World War as men without capacity for global memory and without the ability for ironic self-reflection seize control of some apex countries and begin to push the human race towards a date with Armageddon.

Walter Benjamin, the Jewish-German philosopher and cultural critic of note, was a political mystic far ahead of his time. He was neither fooled by the modern pyramids springing up all over Europe and particularly in the wonder continent-country behemoth known as America, nor was he dazed or dazzled by the glittering monuments and the outstanding technological savvy behind it all. It was a sign that modernity had come into its own and the human race was on top of his brief. He was far more interested in providing a balance sheet of the immense toil and the unspeakable horrors and human suffering behind it all. He had noted cryptically that “there is no record of civilization that is not at the same time a record of barbarity”.

   In 1940 as Adolf Hitler bared his fangs, Walter Benjamin fled his beloved homeland hoping to reach the safety of America. But it was not to be. He was stopped at the French-Spanish border on the grounds of insufficient documentation. Facing sure death, if he was deported back to Germany, Benjamin promptly committed suicide. Miguel De Unamuno, the great Spanish writer and philosopher, who had famously noted that under tyranny men seek liberty and under liberty they seek tyranny was only luckier by a stretch. No two individuals could be more dissimilar, intellectually, spiritually and ideologically. But both were united by their passion for freedom and abhorrence of fascism.

After a cat and mouse game, Unamuno finally came under the crosshair of the fascist inquisition. In a rousing speech at the University of Salamanca where he was rector, Unamuno denounced fascism and its attempt to turn everybody into a cripple morally and intellectually. It was a brave thing to do. Sitting testily among the guests was a favorite Franco general who had lost an eye and one arm in great partisan exertions. “Death to life!” the warrior spat out. Only the fear of an international uproar prevented Unamuno from being summarily executed. He was placed under house arrest from where he died two months later on the last day of 1936.

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    President Donald Trump is a man without any capacity for self-reflection and a sense of momentous irony. As his self-described “armada” rumbles towards Persian waters in all its Pericles-like might and omnipotence one cannot but feel a sense of Deja vu. From the old Greek empire, through the Roman and Persian civilizations to modern day and technological wonders like the American super fleet, this has always been how military wizardry decoupled from common sense and political wisdom sometimes eventuate in civilizational overreach. In any society, whenever the aggregate of common sense and political wisdom is outstripped and put in its place by the hubris and self-endorsing narcissism of those whom the leadership lottery has thrown up, such a society has reached the optimal limits of its possibilities.

In our modern world and although it is often in denial, America is about the only proper empire we have known in the real sense of the world. There are empires and there are empires. The American empire did not truly come into its own until its primogenitor, the British Empire, went into terminal decline. If we are to put a date to it, the America empire which had been threatening since the mid-nineteenth century did not achieve global hegemony and unrivalled dominion until the end of the Second World War when it stamped out the German and Japanese threat. The Soviet Union fell later to a combination of economic and military blackmail and intimidation. Now, after only eighty years of supremacy the empire appears to be creaking at the joints in a way that suggests that the end might be approaching or not very far away.

The question to ask for the sake of elucidation and global enlightenment. Why do some empires, that is discounting differences in epochs, seem to do better in empire maintenance than others? The Greek and Roman empires lasted centuries. The Persians did not lag very far behind in empire sustenance. Because of sheer longevity the British boasted that theirs was an empire on which the sun never set. Even some ancient African empires seemed to go on forever. Among other factors, the loss and lack of memory, particularly institutional memory, triggers a process of internal decaying which eventuates in fracturing and fragmentation. This is as true of empires as it is of nations whether colonial or postcolonial.

The maintenance and sustenance of political and institutional memory is one of the principal functions of the state whether in traditional or modern society. If you forget where you are coming from, you cannot remember where you are going. To maintain political memory a society requires constant remembrances, constant reminders and the ceaseless production of organic intellectuals. Organic intellectuals are accessories of the deep state. They supply the narrative glue that binds the society together. Organic philosophers are not products of colonial school but of society. Products of colonial education, unless they commit class seppuku, can only serve as functionaries of the postcolonial state. This is the rationale and raison d’etre of their educational grooming.

Socrates did not go to school. But he was an organic intellectual of the ancient Greek state. When he was asked to drink the hemlock for being a corrupter of youths, he knew his tormentors and interlocutors were wrong. But to disobey would have meant to demystify the ancient Greek state in all its sanctity, superiority and supremacy. Socrates died to preserve the sanctity of state and empire. The Deep State was very deep indeed. Despite constant warfare and strife, the empires of yore took their time coming together. Unlike the modern epoch, with its geopolitical sieges and constant ideological pressures, there was plenty of “time”.

The current turmoil and fissures with their overlay of resentments, bitterness and abiding biases smouldering just below the surface show just how far America is from being a truly organic society. Despite its fundamental cohesion, the timeliness and orderliness of its electoral procedure and the political genius of its founding fathers, America remains a postcolonial nation of implanted and transplanted nationalities clumsily clobbered together suffering from a collective loss of memory about how they got to where they are, the stellar antecedents of the nation, and where they are going from there.

   Whether this collective loss of memory is a temporary aberration remains to be seen. It is too early to count America out. But it shows how all nations are vulnerable to geopolitical pressures and seismic shifts of identity occasioned by ruptures. However, if there is anything worse than lack or loss of national memory, it is its substitution with politicized memory.
February 1, 2026
The return of the man from Taki

Omo won ni Taki, oyinbo ara Ijeru

Idera to wo le e oo

Oba ma ma je ko o pofo oooo

Ernest Tunde Nightingale’s praise song of Yomi Akintola

This is the bane of a postcolonial nation like Nigeria. To be sure, there is always a tinge of politicization about memorializing. But where it becomes the be-all and end-all of everything, it portends a grave danger to the health and existence of the nation since it relies on fabrication and the fictionalization of reality. In a fractured and fissured nation, it is a political weapon of choice. Not even the dead are safe. Nothing is sacred or sacrosanct; no gallery of national heroes however flawed or canvas of avatars and iconic martyrs of the ceaseless struggles for national redemption. It is a dark panorama of rogues and timeless villains. But since it lashes out in all directions, since everybody is game, it makes the business of building a national consensus which is very critical to resolving the foundational impasse almost impossible.

Last week as the nation marked the sixtieth anniversary of the military upheaval that torpedoed the First Republic, the consensus is that the intervention was not in the best interest of national cohesion and accelerated economic development. Violent animus is not a strategy. May be if we had had a group of military interventionists who were more clear-headed, more strategically accomplished and more ideologically focused, the conclusion would have been different. No one would have argued that Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Muammar Ghadaffi and J.J Rawlings did not make a difference to the fortunes of their respective countries.

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But it seems time is the greatest enemy of ancient wounds and ancestral memory. Like the grim curator of a full cemetery of horrors, time wears and grinds out the bones of old animus without which there can be no room left for fresh animosities. Last week, it was obvious that while old rancor and the Maginot Line of impregnable divisions subsist in some quarters, majority of Nigerians are gradually coming to terms with their wounds and the trauma of loss. There have been some significant plays of political signifiers across rigid binary divisions. The landmark presidential tribute paid to Chief S.L Akintola by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at a conference in honour of the late premier of the old west in Ibadan last week was a classic example of pan-national consensus seeking. Akintola himself is beginning to shed the toga of a political ogre, revealing a man of profound wit, warmth, learning and personal compassion. This would have been unthinkable in the climate of hysteria and hate following his assassination sixty years earlier. Time is the ultimate antidote to politicized memory and adjuster of traumatic loss.

February 1, 2026
The lucky 12

For 12 teachers in the country, Tuesday, January 27 would forever remain a day to remember. It was a day they would thank God and whoever or whatever led them into the teaching profession. If they had been sad all their years in service, that melancholy was replaced with joy on January 27. If they had been shedding tears and lamenting their pitiable plight as teachers, their tears were wiped away on that fateful day that destiny bestowed on them awards for outstanding performance in their line of duty. For them, the saying that ‘teachers’ rewards are in heaven’ became nugatory as they got their own rewards right here on earth; not posthumously, but even while they are alive and still in service.

The occasion was the maiden edition of National Teachers Summit held at the State House Banquet Hall in Abuja. The theme of the summit was: “Empowering Teachers, Strengthening the System: A National Agenda for Education Transformation and Sustainability”. It was also an occasion where the Minister of Education, Dr Olatunji Alausa, launched the EduRevamp Portal, a national digital platform for continuous teacher professional development, aimed at improving teaching quality across Nigeria. Its features include provision of audio/video lessons, text-based learning, and case studies, to foster skills.

The lucky teachers are: Solanke, Francis Taiwo from Ogun State, who was recognised as the overall best teacher. Other awardees included Mrs. David Kachollom Joseph (Plateau State), Malam Musa Abubakar Garba (Kaduna State), Ifetike Hope Chekwube (Anambra State), Obafemi Peter Lawal (Lagos State), Johanna Gilando and Bashar Hantsi (both from Kebbi State), Blessing Ikong, Chinwe Ituma, Gombo Lawan, Khadijat Galadima, and Okide Ochike.

Each of them, selected from the six geopolitical zones, got N25 million. But Solanke, who was recognised as the overall best teacher for 2025 got an additional N50m, a car, and a two-bedroom flat, to boot. The selection process was based on merit and covered different education levels.

Alausa said at the occasion that “This is more than a reward. It is a national signal that teaching is a noble, respected, and valued profession in Nigeria.”

This may be the destination, but we are not there yet. Ours is a country where teachers are rarely appreciated. It is heartwarming though that some of those in the teaching profession were recognised for award that could be described as mouthwatering, given the paltry nature of what many teachers are paid in the country, whether in the public or private schools.

While it may be a little better in the public schools where many things like their remuneration and conditions of service are defined, it is worse in many private schools where greedy proprietors call the shot. At least, in the public schools, you are even entitled to pension after retirement. There is nothing like that in the private schools.

Again, while one may not be able to blame some of the proprietors of the private schools, particularly those that are just managing to survive, there are still others that could be described as ivy private schools whose proprietors are greedy; they take so much from the students’ parents and yet pay so little to their teachers. Unfortunately, many of them get away with this shabby treatment of their teachers either because there is, unlike in the past, no regulation, or the regulators have been compromised.

It is against this background of poor pay that many teachers combine teaching with other things, some of which eat into their school periods. Some of them become emergency traders, selling all manner of things like clothes, shoes, groundnuts in bottles, foodstuffs, etc. Anything, just anything that they think is moving, so as to augment their meager pay. This would not have been an issue if the merchandising takes place after school hours. But sometimes, it is not only during school hours, but within the school premises.

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I remember the private school that my children attended in Lagos. The school allowed the teachers the freedom to organise lesson after school hours but the teachers had to pay a token to the school authorities for maintenance because the lesson was being done on the school premises. Some of these teachers were not satisfied and they began to organise private lesson for the pupils whose parents were ready to pay for it right during the school hours.

And, guess what? These lessons took place right under the nose of the school authorities! But they did not know! What happened was that one of the parents who happened to be our family friend had cause to visit the school one day. The teacher in the classroom had divided the pupils into two; those she had private teaching arrangement with their parents on one side, and those whose parents could not afford the payment or simply refused to join, like my wife, on the other side. This was before 12 noon. The children, as young and innocent as they were (generally under–10) knew this was what was going on as the son of our family friend told his mother during the visit that the teacher was focusing on those that had private lesson arrangement with her! She neglected the rest of them.

Not only that, those pupils who were doing the private lesson also had some other benefits; like double promotion, pampering and slaps on the wrist for offences they committed. All of these the other pupils did not get. If you did not belong in the category of the private lesson, your son or daughter even in the baby care section would also be neglected. You may come to pick him or her with soaked and smelly diapers.

When our family friend reported what she saw to the proprietor of the school (the school is owned by a couple), he dismissed her story rather than pledge to investigate, even if he wouldn’t. That, to me, was the beginning of the school’s descent in the area. This was a school that should be the toast of the environment, but see what teachers turned it to.

And to think that most of the teachers involved in this cruelty to children were women!

But, can we in all honesty blame the teachers alone for this?

One of them at a point approached my wife for home lesson for our son. Apparently, she had not known her stance on such matters. When she asked her to name her price, the teacher said we should pay N15,000 per subject! Meanwhile, her salary at the time was about that amount. So, she wanted us to pay her monthly salary for only one subject!

The interesting thing is that by the time my children gained admission into the university, many of those pupils that those wicked teachers were pampering unduly by awarding them marks and double promotions they never deserved (but just to justify that their private coaching was working) were nothing near such progress. It was at that time I realised what my wife was always saying then that ‘’she would never buy someone else child’s glory for her children’’. Of course we withdrew our children from that school to other places.

Many of those teachers are now retired or had been sent packing from that school. Many of them try to hide their faces when we come across them now because they no longer look like human beings. They look and dress like some deranged persons. Not that they were doing well even when they were getting all the illegal monies they were collecting without delivering value; just that they were a shade better then.

And, when we talk about the ridiculous pay that teachers earn generally in the country, it does not exclude the lecturers in tertiary institutions. It was on this page I lamented what many professors earned at least until December, last year, about two weeks ago, and I felt so sorry for the country. Mercifully, the Bola Tinubu administration has managed to somewhat redress this through its enhanced salary structure that it just put in place, the impact of which those affected would have felt when they received alerts for their salaries last month (January, 2026) because that was when the new salary structure in the federal public universities was supposed to take effect.

Hopefully, that, and some other measures that the Tinubu government has taken will bring some tranquility into our universities that have been citadels of strike rather than learning in the past three or so decades.

I narrated this personal story because I know many people would have shared from this kind of horrible experiences. Some might even have gone through worse scenarios. True, we have neglected our teachers for so long. But, the personal experiences I just shared, just like many others that others have experienced at whatever level of our educational pursuit, show the difference between ‘born teachers’ and other teachers.

It should be surprising that in the midst of this madding crowd, we still have teachers that have received their calling as their fate. They are unmoved by what is happening around them. Materially, they may not be rich but they are contended with the little they have. They do their job without minding what they get in return.

But their type is going into extinction in an ever-increasing materialistic country that Nigeria has become.

This should worry us.

Public officials often speak so glowingly about teachers and the teaching profession, yet do little or nothing to lift them up. Without teachers, no person of substance would be whatever they are today; doctors, journalists, engineers, lawyers, bankers, or what have you. I therefore implore our governments, federal and states, to do something about teachers in their employ. It is good that we often spare some thought for them on World Teachers Day or during National Teachers Summit as in the present instance. They are treasures that we must cherish always rather than treat like Australia that many people know where it is but are not willing to go to.

I congratulate these lucky 12 whose levels have changed and wish others would emulate them. I congratulate Dr Alausa too for being so thoughtful, especially concerning EduRevamp Portal and the teachers’ summit. As the First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, who gave the keynote address at the event said: “Teachers are the quiet architects of great nations, shaping young minds, instilling values, and nurturing hope. I understand firsthand the demands of teaching and the enduring impact of teachers in shaping societies.’’ She is a teacher herself.

Alausa echoed a similar sentiment, even if in different words: “No nation can rise above the quality of its teachers. No reform, no matter how well designed, can succeed unless teachers are empowered, motivated, supported, and respected.”

So, the summit should not end up being a talk shop; action must follow the talks. The nation is the better for it when we do our teachers well. Teachers used to be respected in Nigeria. We must return to that glorious era in the national interest.

February 1, 2026
A word from Davos

But for a quirk of fate, you would have been forgiven for having never heard of the existence of a small town in the Swiss Alps called Davos. After all, it is no more than a ski resort with less than ten thousand permanent inhabitants offering no interest for anyone in Nigeria or anywhere else in the world for that matter. But Davos, for all its previous obscurity, is now famous the world over. This is because since January 1971, at the invitation of Dr. Schwarb, a German academic, stakeholders in various aspects of the ordering of the global economy have descended on the otherwise sleepy village of Davos. For a few January days, Davos takes its place in the wintry sun as the most influential CEOs in the world hold discussions with each other, with heads of state, academics and other groups of people who have been recognised as contributors to the global economic order.

According to Perplexity AI, the guest list at the last Davos meeting which occupied a good part of last week included about 3,000 participants from roughly 130 countries. This included around 400 senior political leaders and more than 60–65 heads of state or government. Roughly 800–850 CEOs, founders and chairpersons of major global companies. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala in her capacity as the Director General of the World Trade Organisation was also present but not representing Nigeria at that venue. This distinguished guest list is a far cry from the few CEOs of European companies who were invited to the first Davos forum in 1971. Now, private jets of every magnificent description annually turn all the airports around Davos into a massive jet parking lot for the world’s richest CEOs, heads of state and others with enough clout to operate expensive private jets, for a few days. They come on this yearly pilgrimage to meet and discuss what exactly?

One would have thought that their major preoccupation would have been to jointly improve the flow of world trade with a view to decreasing poverty in those parts of the world where degrading poverty is making a mockery of human existence. These are places where people have no choice but to battle on, on less than $2 a day. Their attention should also be turned on people in the rich countries who are marginalised to the level of those wretches facing anonymity and extinction in the poorest parts of the world. What is the use of all those words poured out in Davos every year if a significant minority of the world is left staring into the abyss of extreme economic disadvantage whilst a miniscule minority swims in an ocean of unimaginable wealth?

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I became interested in the World Economic Forum (WEF) about ten years ago when I came across an article on Davos by Oxfam, the British organisation which has dedicated itself to global charity and is currently active in more than seventy countries all around the world. Founded in 1942 at the height of WWII, Oxfam has dedicated itself to fighting poverty and injustice with the conviction that both have their root in inequality. The focus on the reduction of inequality will be followed by the reduction of both poverty and injustice and the world would become a better place for most of her inhabitants. Every year, in the leadup to the WEF meeting in Davos, Oxfam publishes the state of global inequality using one vital statistic, the number of the richest people in the world whose wealth is balanced by the number of the poorest people in the world. About a decade ago, Oxfam reported that eighty-seven of the world’s richest people held as much wealth as half of the number of the poorest people in the world. That number is put into some perspective if we imagine that those eighty-seven persons will fit comfortably into a London double decker bus without anyone having to stand. It is most instructive that that number has shrunk perceptively over the last ten years even as the number of the poorest half of the world has increased. The number released by Oxfam this year is twelve, only twelve, just enough to fit into a minibus or perhaps more instructively, into a Lagos danfo with space left over for the driver and conductor. The global population today is 8.3 billion people, up from 8.2 billion in 2025. This means that the twelve richest people in the world today, have resources in excess of the poorest 4.15 billion poorest people in the world. This figure simply boggles the mind! Forbes has identified around 3000 billionaires in the world today, certainly an impressive figure which dwarfs by a considered distance, the figure of 140 billionaires reported in 1987 when to all intents and purposes, the world was a saner place. Latest figures show that in the United States alone, there are 924 billionaires with a total worth of $6.9 trillion or 31.7% of global total. But there are other figures coming out of the US which must arrest our interest. 800 of the richest Americans are in control of no less than 3.8% of the nation’s wealth with the poorest 50% of the population having to make do with only 2.5%. Bearing in mind that the USA is by far the largest economy in the world, this figure verges on the scary. And with recent policies put in place by the Trump government, this disparity is set to grow as soon as tax cuts for the rich kick in as they are bound to do soon enough. The USA runs by far the largest economy in the world but a very significant number of her citizens are very poor, even when judged by third world standards. The Davos initiative has been alive since 1971 but in spite of it or is it because of it, global wealth inequalities have increased relentlessly year upon year. And it is clear that this trend will be accelerated in the coming years as the CEOs continue to hoover up more wealth at the expense of the rest of us.

The elephant in the room at Davos this year was a small man in a large suit and wearing a red tie. As the President of the United States, he was expected to make what should have been the keynote speech at the Forum. He made a speech alright but it was so full of air and blather that its emptiness will still embarrass his great grandchildren far into the next century. That speech has been said to mark the end of an old global order, that order that was supposed to bring order to the chaos of the global market place.

If the old order is said to be gone, then, it stands to reason that its place must be taken by a new one and indeed, it is safe to assume that there is a new world order as proclaimed by Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada. He identified the main problem of the old order as being blatantly predatory. Those people or countries, the super powers that had somehow acquired a place at the table of global dominance feasted on those, the wretched of the earth, who were rigorously excluded from the table. They were not even given the dubious privilege of feeding on scraps as they were on the menu. Given that Canada is one of the wealthiest nations on earth, one would have thought that her place on that table was secure but the implication of Carney’s speech was that Canada did not have a place on that famous table and consequently was a victim of the old order. What he proposes is a new order to be governed by a concert of what he called middle powers which would include some countries in the European Union including France and Germany. Those of us on the outside looking in must be looking on with considerable bemusement because as far as we can see, some of those so-called middle powers had guaranteed places around the old table. Canada for one has been feeding on African flesh for centuries. Her first discernable industry was cod fishing off her North Atlantic coast. The best of their catch was sold in Europe for a very good price. The worst was salted and sold to the owners of sugar cane plantations in the West Indies. This formed the staple food of the slaves working on those plantations. Those slaves were of course excluded from the table and it is easy to see that they were the main course on the menu. Canada, France, Germany and other so-called middle powers of Carney’s imagination have been feasting on the rest of us for hundreds of years. And so, what is new about this much vaunted new order? Come next year, the number of those sitting in our pilot vehicle will fit comfortably in any self respecting SUV.

We return to the highway next week.

February 1, 2026
Atiku or Obi: who emerges ADC presidential candidate?

Beginning 21 September, 2014 I commenced, on these pages, a trilogy of articles titled ‘Periscoping The Ideal APC Presidential candidate(1)’.

I compared and contrasted the serious contestants – all Northerners – as I did not really bother with then Imo state governor Rochas Okorocha, for the obvious reason of rotational presidency.

Those considered were General Muhammadu Buhari(rtd), a former Head of state, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President, Dr Musa Kwankwaso, a former Kano state governor, and Sam Nda – Isaiah, the Publisher, Leadership Newspaper.

The exercise almost turned out a no- brainer as General Buhari, now late, very easily met every quality Nigeria needed to fight the two ferocious demons tearing at its innards – corruption and insecurity.

He, therefore, emerged my preferred candidate and went on to defeat the other candidates, hands down, at the primary election proper.

I have, unfortunately, since had cause to regret my

support and advocacy for General Buhari who, although remained incandescently incorruptible till the end, was so weak a leader that besides the very corrupt Villa Mafia which completely ringed him all round, far too many of his ministers, advisers etc, especially the Northerners among them, so rapaciously ruined the country that it is only now anti- corruption agencies are beginning to make them answer for their sins against all of us.

This short background is necessary as I begin an examination of who, between Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, should be the ADC Presidential candidate at the 2027 Presidential election.

Today is the turn of Peter Obi, the former Anambra State governor.

My job is made easy by the well known answer to the question: What is History?

Google puts it succinctly thus:”History is the systematic study and interpretation of the human past, encompassing events, people, societies, and changes over time, using evidence from sources like artifacts, documents, and stories to create narratives that explain how the past shapes the present and future. It’s a discipline that seeks to understand “what happened,” “when,” and “how,” in analysing political, social, economic, and cultural developments”.

Let us, therefore, now see the former Labour Party Presidential candidate – he has since, as usual, fled that party – in the eye of history, no matter what “stories” he will be concocting afresh on their new, borrowed political party – the ADC, regarding what he believes qualify him to be our next President.

If one of these is his totally unexpected huge vote tally of 6,101,533 which placed him third in the 2023 election, let me quickly inform Nigerans, ADC members in particular, that Obi has no such hopes in the 2027 election cycle if he is a candidate.

Lest we forget, that high vote was the result of his extreme exploitation of ethnic and religious differences at the election, especially the mistaken view, among a large proportion of Christians, that APC’s Moslem – Moslem ticket was particularly noxious.

While President Tinubu has since proved that completely false, I cannot see the likes of highly regarded Bishop Oyedepo and several other men of God, once again, put their pulpit at the service of Peter Obi, as happened in 2023.

Besides the above, the following will also work against his candidacy:

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His limited national presence as his influence is largely limited to his ethnic Southeast which, with the tectonic changes that have taken place in the region since the last election, he can no longer win 90+ per cent of the votes. He will, at best, take a decent 60 per cent of the Southeast vote, edged on by the Obidients;

His being seen as a divisive figure will certainly negatively impact his ability to build broad coalitions just as

Lack of Experience, compared with both Tinubu and Atiku, will show Obi’s national-level experience as very limited.

Finally, the yet uncertain alliance dynamics being spearheaded by Baba Obasanjo, pairing Obi with Kwankwaso, will certainly face challenges in balancing regional and party interests.

His greatest advantage, which will come to nothing, is the massive, geo- spatial presence of Igbos in every part of the country but with only aggregate figures that will be very negligible.

Peter Obi, whose biggest claims are that he brings a new face and energy to Nigerian politics, as well as an appeal to young voters and those seeking change, is himself an old guard politician, having served two terms as Anambra State governor from March 2006 to November 2006, and then from February 2007 until March 2014 – a clear 20 years.

Just imagine a 20 year old adult!

For my job, therefore, I’ll do no more than press into service, a subtantial portion of my article of Sunday, 12 November, 2023 titled ‘Peter Obi: The Consumate Obscurantist’s Grand Delusions’ which reads, in part, as follows:

“Rather than just his claim of victory at the Presidential election, this will be an examination of the entirety of what Obi brought to an election he and Atiku so malignantlly poisoned.

That will mean psycho- analysing the man I describe here as an insuferable obscurantist.

Obscurantism, by the way, is the practice of deliberately

preventing the facts, or full details of something from becoming known.

And how does this apply to him?

Although both the PEPC and the Supreme court gave no moment to the fact that he was an 11th hour joiner of the Labour party,

meaning that contrary to INEC Guidelines, the courts gave no probative value to his name not being on the party’s membership register forwarded to the commission 30 days before its primaries, and thus implying that he flagrantly flouted one INEC stipulation, his entry, being so ethnic and stealthy, resulted in an instant internal crisis within the party which is still smouldering as you read this.

What is more important, however, are the lies which underpinned his emergence as the presidential candidate, when Gbajue- style – thanks to the Nobel Laureate – somebody stepped down for him, in the process, deprecatingly pronouncing himself inferior to Obi as far as leadership is concerned; he a normally show- boating individual, who never ceases to preach to Nigerians from the rooftops thus degrading himself, just so his Igbo brother could emerge the presidential candidate TWO DAYS after becoming a member of the party.

That too pales into insignificance when compared to the lies Obi told Nigerians as his reasons for eloping from the PDP.

Such were they that lies soon became the party’s modus operandi, whether it was Obi’s claim that he went to Egypt to “understudy that country’s education, power and finance sectors”, or several of his pastors, and bishops, regaling their hypnotised, congregants with details of dreams they never had as to how Obi had already won an election yet to be conducted – all to rapturous shouts of Halleluyah.

What of his sophistry, explaining how, and why, he claimed to have joined the Labour party and schemed his way to its presidential candidacy.

Hear him:

“I have chosen a route that I consider to be in line with our aspirations and my mantra of taking the country from consumption to production” – apparently, he momentarily forgot everything about NEXT, his importation giant.

“I invite all Nigerians to join me in taking back our country. Be assured that I’ll never let you down.”

Having gratuitously let the Ikemba down by dumping APGA for PDP, our man just has to promise not to let Igbos down again.

But pray! Was it in two days, after leaving PDP, he did all he is claiming here?

He continues: “Since I resigned from the PDP because of issues that are at variance with my persona and principles (such as serial decamping and investing state funds in family business?) I have consulted widely with various parties and personalities to ensure we do not complicate the route to our desired destination. For me, the process of achieving our goal is as fundamental as what one will do thereafter.”

Just listen to this practised obscurantist, trying to suck in, not just his Igbo brethren, but every Nigerian.

His placing third in the election proved, conclusively, that Nigerians were not deceived.

“Since I resigned”, Obi also said, making two days look like a millennium, “I have consulted widely with parties and personalities” – parties and personalities who were, understandably, nameless.

Here is a guy who had, only a few days earlier, submitted himself for screening by the PDP whose Vice Presidential candidate he was four years earlier.

“I thank all Nigerians, he continued, especially our youths who have joined me in the mission of taking back and reuniting Nigeria. This project is yours and for the future of your children.

I am just a facilitator” – certainly a precursor to President Obasanjo’s letter to Nigerian youths while soliciting support for Obi later. Now Baba is allegedly putting every effort into an Obi- Kwankwaso Presidential combo. Nigerians remember, all too well, the futility of all such Obasanjo’s past efforts.

I digress.

All that sweet nonsense was after Obi had run the most

” hateful, vile, divisive and polarising campaign that pitted Christians against Muslims and one ethnic group against the other in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society like Nigeria”, as Presidential Spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga would later perspicaciously put it.

All these should tell Nigerians who Peter Obi truly is.

Let us now see how the cookie crumbled, how Obi was outed in a situation akin to which Yoruba would describe as ‘bi iro ba lo logun odun, ooto ma ba lojo kan’, that is, even though a lie may subsist for 20 years, (but) truth will catch up with it one day.

Obi had probably forgotten all these lies when, several months later, the Executive Committee of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide visited former governor, Nyesom Wike, remonstrating with him over his non support for Igbo interests, especially, the Southeast quest for the Presidency, emphasising, in particular, his failure to support Peter Obi.

Trust Wike to have told the elders what would most probably have put ashes on their faces.

Wike let it be known to the eminent Igbo statesmen that Obi was actually bullied into leaving the PDP.

He had journeyed, excruciatingly, to Jigawa state, Wike said, intent on soliciting the support of Sule Lamido who took him to a village that took him more than four hours drive from Dukse to reach.

That was vintage Lamido who sees Fulani as the Aryan race and was eager to teach the Igbo upstart politician a lesson he would never forget.

That visit should remind us all of Obi’s promised one term all in the hope of playing servitude to the North, even if Igbos had wanted the presidency for ages.

Task master, per excellence himself, Lamido respects no single Southern politician besides former President Olusegun Obasanjo who appointed him External Affairs minister; a position for which he had nil qualification.

Obi, therefore, had to drive hours through the desert dust to hear Lamido

tell him that in his books, a Northerner must, willy nilly, succeed Buhari who was about completing his two terms.

That was when their boy fled PDP, not the sweet song his worshipful professors were scripting as reasons, putting Goebbels to shame.

It is all these, and the fact that his Igbo brethren believe Obi, hook, line and sinker even now, in fact, canonise him alive, that rankle.

It is why others watch in utter amazement as the otherwise brilliant and enterprising Igbo look like bewitched followers of Obi even when a redoubtable race like theirs does not have a paucity of brilliant, experienced and well connected men and women than can be thrown up for the ultimate Nigerian diadem.

It is, therefore, time Igbos tell Obi that he ill represents them, going round, and round, romancing ethnicity and religion as his route to the presidency: a choice sure to take Igbos nowhere.

It is the ADC I pity the more, as Atiku Abubakar, who we examine next Sunday, is not much better.

Net winner: Nigeria

February 1, 2026