The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • AKOD on the march in Ikeja LGA

    AKOD on the march in Ikeja LGA

    Ever since the last local government council elections in Lagos State, there has been an obvious intensification of competition among the Chairmen and Councillors of Local Government Councils and Local Council Development Areas in the state to outperform each other and deliver concrete democratic gains to their people.

    In Ikeja Local Government, the Chairman is popularly known at the grassroots by the acronym, AKOD. This stands for his full name, comrade Akeem, Olalekan Dauda. I used to know him as an executive assistant to the then Commissioner of Youth and Sports Development and later Commissioner of Information and Strategy, Honourable (now Senator) Opeyemi Bamidele, at the Lagos State Secretariat, Alausa. He was quietly efficient, industrious, focused, humble and accessible – a great asset to his boss.

    After his assumption of office as Chairman of the very important local government, the feedback across his constituency is that he remains approachable, modest, as well as methodical and meticulous in the implementation of his I.K.E.J.A. Agenda, which encompasses Infrastructure, Knowledge, Empowerment, Justice, Enterprise and Advancement. Some of the highlights of his first 100 days in office include the ongoing construction of Shanu Street to improve infrastructure and accessibility, reconstruction of Aiyemojuba Street to enhance intra-community mobility, rehabilitation of Morenike Street to improve its drainage and enhance smoother mobility and the construction of a motorable bridge linking Onipetesi and Onilekere communities.

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    In addition to the renovation of Agidingbi Primary School to provide a conducive learning environment for pupils and teachers, the local government has also procured a landed property at Isale Awori for the construction of a new Primary Health Care Centre to improve health care at the grassroots. In the Back-to-School Programme organised by the local government council, primary school pupils and junior secondary school students in public schools benefited from learning materials, uniforms and essential school items. The local government participated actively in the Government-Private Sector Dialogue Series organised by the Federal Ministry of Finance to facilitate access of small and medium-scale businesses to finance and professional expertise.

    AKOD has also launched initiatives to boost revenue generation, promote sports among youths, partner with security agencies and encourage participatory governance through regular interactions with traditional rulers, community leaders, religious leaders, among other stakeholders. His hitting the ground running is no surprise, as AKOD knows Ikeja Local Government like the palm of his hand. From 2006 to 2014, he was a Ward Chairman of the ACN/APC in Ikeja LG; he served as a Returning Officer in multiple elections in the local government and rose to become Secretary to Ikeja Local Government in 2017. For Comrade Akeem Olalekan Dauda and Ikeja LG, the morning is an indication of the bright days ahead.

  • Issues in the Trump threat (1)

    Issues in the Trump threat (1)

    Two incidents demonstrate the mischief, opportunism, outright falsehood and simplistic self-sabotage often characteristic of the narratives on violence and insecurity in Nigeria, which led the mercurial President Donald Trump to threaten direct military action against Islamic terrorists in the country perpetrating what he described as genocide against Christians. First, is the letter by the leader of the proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, to Trump, portraying himself as a ‘prisoner of conscience’ currently under illegal detention in Nigeria and a victim of the alleged persecution against Christians that the American President is furious about.

    Forcibly brought back into the country after he had jumped bail and fled abroad from where he incessantly launched incendiary radio broadcasts and social media posts inciting violence in Nigeria and advocating the balkanization of the country and the creation of the sovereign state of Biafra in the Southeast, acts which constitute crimes against the Nigerian State, Kanu has been on trial since 2020 for treason, incitement to murder and arson among other charges. Last week, the unrelenting publisher and veteran of social protests, Omoyele Sowore, organised a one-day protest against what he described as Kanu’s unduly prolonged trial, calling for the truncation of the Judicial process and the immediate release of the IPOB leader. The free Kanu protests, predictably, did not gain traction.

    It did not matter to Sowore that Kanu had explored every trick in the book to stall the trial. Kanu obviously does not want a trial. There are social media posts of him ordering his followers to kill, destroy property, attack security agencies and commit assorted atrocities. For years, the sit-at-home protests in the Southeast, which he instigated on Mondays, laid the economy of the region prostrate, disrupted the education of school children and led to the deaths of large numbers of people who were murdered for going about their legitimate business on Mondays. His direct incitements and directives from his base abroad played a key role in the violence perpetrated in Lagos during the #EndSARS protests in Lagos in 2020, leading to scores of deaths and the destruction of private and public property estimated at over N2 trillion in the country’s economic capital and commercial nerve centre.

    Yet, according to Nigerian law, Kanu remains innocent until proven guilty through Judicial due process. But he refuses to enter his defence, preferring to constitute himself into a court of law and pronouncing ex cathedra that he has no case to answer and should be released immediately. In his letter to Trump, Kanu claims he is being persecuted for his Christian faith. He calls on the American leader to probe the killings in the Southeast, which he insinuates is an example of genocide against Christians in Nigeria, even when it is militant Igbo separatists who have unleashed violence against fellow Igbos, whom they perceive as not aligning with their cause. Simon Ekpa, the self-styled Prime Minister of the Sovereign Republic of Biafra, is currently serving a six-year jail term in Finland, where he was tried and convicted for inciting destructive violence against Nigeria from that country.

    But Kanu’s letter to Trump is instructive. It illustrates the kind of deliberately misleading propaganda against the Nigerian State that prompted Trump to threaten unilateral military action in Nigeria against what he described as the inaction of the Nigerian government to check genocide against Christians in the country. An investigation by the Global Disinformation Unit of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) revealed “how the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) and allied Igbo ethnic advocacy groups propagated inflated figures and unverified narratives that have reverberated across international political and religious circles”. Staff of the BBC Global Disinformation Unit, including Olaronke Alo, Chiamaka Enendu and a journalist based in Nigeria, Ijeoma Ndukwe, investigated the origins and credibility of claims that over 125,000 Christians have been killed and 19,000 churches destroyed in Nigeria since 2009.

    According to the report, “When contacted by the BBC, Intersociety failed to provide itemised data or verifiable sources to substantiate its casualty claims.  Instead, the organisation accused the BBC of being politically compromised. The BBC’s findings suggest that Intersociety’s methodology lacks transparency and raises serious concerns about the intent behind its reporting. Despite the absence of credible evidence, these claims gained traction in U.S. political discourse, culminating in President Donald Trump labelling Nigeria “a country of particular concern” and threatening military action over what he described as a “Christian genocide”.

    Of course, Intersociety and any other interest groups have the right to project their worldview, shape narratives from their perspectives and lobby International public opinion to achieve their objectives. One positive of the Trump threat is that it should prompt the Nigerian authorities to also actively put the other side of the story across so that outsiders can have the necessary facts to undertake a more objective appraisal of the complexities of Nigeria’s social-cultural and religious plurality and the nuanced realities of the country’s security challenges.

    Again, effective information management and dissemination outside Nigeria is as critical as within the country in a globalised world. Thus, Trump’s threat is predicated on the assumption that the Tinubu government is either complicit in encouraging ‘Christian genocide’ or not doing anything concrete to rein in violence and insecurity. But as the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris, has pointed out, security agencies under the Tinubu administration have so far killed 13,500 terrorists, arrested about 17,000 suspected terrorists and freed 9,800 victims since 2023. Even the United States and the United Kingdom commended Nigeria’s security agencies for the arrest and ongoing prosecution of two notorious terrorism suspects, Mahmud Muhammad Usman and Abubakar Abba of the ANSARU terror group.

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    Scores of notorious bandits’ leaders and hundreds of their foot soldiers across Northern Nigeria have been neutralised in intensified onslaughts against terrorists over the last two years. It would be another positive of the Trump threat if it prompts us to tell the story of these anti-terror successes more effectively, particularly to international audiences from now on. It is also important to continuously make the international community aware of the complex dynamics of violence and insecurity in Nigeria. President Trump has been misled into believing that what is happening in Nigeria is a targeted killing of Christians by Islamic terrorists on a genocidal scale. Yes, Christians have been most affected by the violence in highly populated Christian communities in Benue, Plateau, Taraba and Southern Kaduna.

    But in the same vein, Muslims have suffered higher casualties from religious terrorism in such dominant Muslim States as Borno, Katsina, Zamfara, Yobe and Niger States. The conflicts in parts of the North stem from antagonism between Fulani herdsmen and native Hausa communities. In the Southeast, what has been experienced is essentially Igbo-on-Igbo violence as “unknown gunmen” have engaged in the ruthless elimination of their kinsmen who either violate sit-at-home directives or are employed in Nigerian security agencies. But in the final analysis, the Nigerian State must urgently enhance and upgrade its capacity to protect the lives and property of Nigerians irrespective of their faith or ethnicity, as well as maintain the country’s territorial integrity.

    For instance, during the confirmation screening of Service Chiefs by the Senate, the Chief of Defence Staff, General Olufemi Oluyede, called for a comprehensive reform of the police to enable it to take care of internal security so as to free the military to focus on external defence. The much-delayed issue of State police must now assume greater urgency. This is not the sole responsibility of President Tinubu. It requires coordinated collaborative effort among state governors, State and national legislators and the presidency. The current over-centralised security architecture must be redesigned to reflect the country’s federal, plural character for greater efficiency and efficacy.

    Again, President Tinubu, a few months ago, announced plans to establish and inaugurate the Forest Rangers outfit to safeguard and secure the country’s vast forests. It has become imperative to quickly actualise this initiative, which could be a game-changer, as much of the atrocities committed by terrorists, bandits, and religious extremists revolve around the forests. President Tinubu’s response to Trump’s threat was mature, restrained and statesmanlike despite being firm in refuting allegations of Christian genocide. The appointment of envoys, especially in key countries, is clearly not an economic drain. It would foster the requisite diplomatic interaction at the highest levels that would prevent potentially catastrophic deterioration in relationships largely caused by avoidable gaps in communication.

  • Trump’s threat and misguided notion of Christian genocide

    Trump’s threat and misguided notion of Christian genocide

    “Ponder and deliberate before you make a move.” … Sun Tzu – A Chinese Military General, Strategist, Philosopher, and Writer

    Trump’s Narratives or Threats Should Not Define Nigeria:

    The notion about Christian genocide in Nigeria is completely untrue and misguided. It is a calculated attempt to further sow seeds of discord and further degenerate the fragile inter-religious, ethnic, and tribal relationship and sentiments between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria. 

    I’m saying so for the practical reasons that there is no way that there could be Christian genocide in Nigeria, especially under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is a Muslim, and he has a wife, Senator Remi Tinubu, the first lady who is a Christian, not just a Christian, but a very senior pastor in the Redeemed Church of Christ of Nigeria, a Church that has one of the largest following in Africa.

     The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria also ensures that the power-sharing structure and formula is such that Christians CANNOT be excluded from the leadership of Nigeria at all strata. In this administration, the 3rd most powerful position, the President of the Senate, is Senator Godswill Akpabio, a Christian from southern Nigeria. The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Head of Service, Chief of Defense Staff, Chief of Air Staff, the Director General of the Department of State Security Services, the Chief of Defense Intelligence, Comptroller General of Immigration are all Christians. In terms of the economy, the key managers of Nigeria’s economy, i.e., the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Group CEO of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, and the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, are all Christians. 

    Furthermore, while the Inspector General of Police is a Muslim, his wife is a Christian. Therefore, it is impossible for all the aforementioned leaders and other leaders that are holding critical political, economic, defense, and security positions will allow Christian genocide to be perpetrated on their people. 

    Indeed, there is no way that there will be Christian genocide in Nigeria, and a President whose wife is a Senior pastor will emerge as the Executive President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. More importantly, there is no way for Christian genocide to happen in Nigeria when the majority of the votes the President Tinubu got in came from the northwest, northeast, and north-central, where there is a very high number of Muslims who cast their vote for a president who has a Christian wife. Indeed, if there is Christian genocide, it means that every Christian’s life in Nigeria is in danger from any other religion. It means that every Christian is being sought out, attacked, and killed by Muslims. Pushing this narrative is very dangerous.

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    A classic example of genocide is what is happening in Gaza under the watch and guidance of President Donald Trump. Interestingly, the Palestinians are a mix of Christians and Muslims, while it is true that the majority of Israelis are not actually Christians. There is no where we have seen the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) separating Christian Palestinians from Muslim Palestinians before annihilating them.

     It is worthy of note that the United Nations, the Red Cross, Amnesty International and other respected global humanitarian institutions have never stated that Christian genocide is happening in Nigeria.

    Any USA attack on Nigerian soil without the approval and collaboration of the Nigerian government and Nigerians is, first of all, an unprovoked act of war, and secondly, it will be a failure and a disaster. A lot of innocent Muslims and Christians will die, either due to the attack or due potential fallouts of the attack on non-Christians.

      By the way, anywhere the USA has gone to provide “intervention” or “save” a people or a country, the USA leaves the people and the country devastated and far worse than they met it, with no date of recovery in any foreseeable future. Examples are Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Ukraine, etc.

     A Message to some Nigerians who are promoting Trump’s Threat:

    The message to bitter Nigerians that are cheerleading Trump’s threat, I say to you; Just like the bandits and terrorists, when and if the USA attacks Nigeria With jet fighters, bombers or the drones (because it is highly unlikely that Trump will put soldiers on the ground), I wonder if the American fighter jets or drones are configured to identify Muslims or Christians, if they will recognize “ALLAHU AKBAR!”, or “JESUS IS LORD!”, so that the Christians will be spared! I wonder if, in the aftermath of an attack on Nigeria by the USA, the USA will send troops to provide Medicare and other humanitarian support only to the Christians. Trump does not care about you. He has is objectives, and certainly, our liberty, peace and prosperity are not part of his objectives. Think about it!  

    Nigeria is facing multi-dimensional Insecurity and not Christian Genocide

    While ethnic and religious sentiments are key root causes of crises across Nigeria, it is also important to note that another critical cause of insecurity, as it is globally, is economic objective, which I term “economic terrorism”.  Therefore, the trend of always giving religious connotations the insecurity, in my own humble view, is a huge mistake. I think we should expand our views and mindsets beyond ethnic and religious connotations. 

    For instance, while Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda, ISIS/ISIL, Lakurawa, etc. claim not to be Islamic fundamentalists, they are actually economic terrorists who hide under the guise of Islamic extremism to perpetrate their evils and pursue their economic expedition and imperialism with the backing of some Western nations. And we have seen evidence over the years of how the Western world, not just America, has been supporting the disintegration of African nations and other emerging economies for economic benefits. Countries that are blessed with natural resources suddenly find themselves in the midst of religious, tribal, and ethnocentric strife that strangles efforts to find solutions. 

    During the record of a Christian President in Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan he sought the intervention of the United States of America under the leadership of President Barrack Obama to provide support with Super Tucano Jets, and other weapons to fight terrorists and restore security in Nigeria, but President Obama refused to approve the procurement while the terrorists continued killing, maiming, raping, and pillaging Nigerians whether they were Christians, Muslims, or Pagans.

    Moreover, facts and statistics, and reality have shown that the ratio of muslims that are being killed is higher than the ratio of Christians that are being killed by the so-called Jihadists. They attack mosques, churches, schools, hospitals, marketplaces, etc., with no isolation. They do not select, identify, or isolate Muslims or Muslim communities when they perpetrate their evil of raping, killing, maiming, and resource pillaging under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

    In addition, facts have shown the deep involvement of the “deep state” in the destabilization of emerging economies for political and economic benefits. It is instructive to note that northern Nigeria, just like every part of Nigeria, is blessed with abundant natural resources, and yearly, more discoveries are made of large volumes of high-quality deposits of these highly sought-after minerals. The discoveries and abundance of rare earth metals that are in high demand by the world superpowers, in the northern northwest, northeast, and north central states of Nigeria, is the key attraction of non-state actors, their “deep state” collaborators that are supported by Western nations. I am therefore not surprised that President Trump had to look for an excuse to invade Nigeria under the guise of intervention. We have seen what happened some months ago, how President Donald Trump has leveraged a deal with the Democratic Republic of Congo to practically hand off a lot of their rare-earth metals for US “intervention” to stop the crises in DRC, which was induced by the Western powers 

    Trump’s Threat Should be a Wake-up call to the leaders of Nigeria:

    Trump’s Threat should be a reality check for our leaders, that unless they deal with this issue of insecurity and good governance in Nigeria, there will be continuous characterization, politicization, and gaslighting of Nigeria’s security and socio-economic situations by Nigerians and the international community.

     I dare say that if the issue of insecurity is not addressed forthwith, it will further polarize the country and put Nigeria at the precipice of a meltdown that we may not be able to contain

     Therefore, President Trump’s decision and threat should wake up the political class for them to step up and take responsibility and do the needful, and get Nigeria out of this very embarrassing and brutal insecurity, and other debilitating socio-economic situations in the Country. 

    Propaganda, denials, counter-denials, deflections, and perception management will not solve our problems. We need decisive, efficient, effective, impactful, and sustainable actions and solutions. Anything else would only make things worse for Nigerians and Nigeria.

  • Ndi Anambra vote

    Ndi Anambra vote

    Forty-Eight Hours from now, the people of Anambra State will go to the polls to elect their governor. Will they return Governor Chukwuma Soludo, or will they elect a brand new governor? The election will be a test case for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Prof Joash Amupitan, who assumed office last month. He is barely three weeks old on the job.

    It is good that he is starting with an off-cycle election and in one state for that matter. With the security challenges in Anambra and the Southeast, in general, he must roll up his sleeves to ensure that this problem does not mar the election. Security is not his job though, but it is vital to a successful election. The security agencies must lend him a helping hand in this regard.

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    Amupitan has his job cut out for him. It is free and fair election or nothing. He has a huge task ahead and as he makes his debut as INEC Chair, with the Anambra poll on Saturday, the country’s chief electoral officer must have his eyes on how posterity will judge his tenure. His name, Amupitan, which means “a catalyst of history”, speaks to that. The nation cannot wait to see him not only make history, but also be a catalyst of change.

  • PDP’s jinxed convention

    PDP’s jinxed convention

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is sinking deeeper and deeper into the mud by the day. As it were, it is without a clear-cut strategy for freeing itself. Instead of devising one, some of its leaders are trying to use the playbook that paved the way for the June 12, 1993 quagmire, which almost consumed the country. They went to a court in Ibadan, Oyo State, to obtain an order to hold the party’s November 15 convention in the ancient city, four days after a court of concurrent jurisdiction in Abuja stopped the exercise.

    The  Abuja court also barred the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from upholding the convention’s outcome, if it held. It was delivering judgment in a case brought by three chieftains of the party who claimed that due process was not followed in fixing the convention date.

    Rather than appeal, another party member, apparently being teleguided, ran to Ibadan – where else? – to obtain orders which are in variance with those of the Abuja court. The issues in  contention are not different. The plaintiffs in the Abuja court are praying that the convention should not hold until the party does the right things. Some of these things, they contend, are the holding of congresses at the ward, local government and state levels to precede the convention, in line with the party’s constitution and INEC guidelines.

    Were the congresses held? If they did not hold, what prevented them from holding, and what are the remedies available to the party? Were these remedies pursued? In the Ibadan case, which has a sole plaintiff, who claims that he is contesting for deputy national organising sectetary at the forthcoming convention, the picture being painted is that everything is good to go. This may well be true, at least to the plaintiff and his sponsors, who sought and got an interim injunction to hold the convention.

    They are to return to court on Monday to argue the motion for interlocutory injunction in the presence of the defendants who were not there when the exparte motion for interim injunction was heard. The court may be packed full that day as many interested and necessary parties will show up. For sure, the plaintiffs in the Abuja case and their backers will be there as they would not want their heads shaved behind their backs. Nobody needs a soothsayer to know that PDP is haemorhaging. The party has been suffering losses left, right and centre.

    It has lost four governors in quick succession and a host of national and state lawmakers to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Even the run up to its convention was and is still being dogged by infighting within the national working committee (NWC). This crisis prompted the Abuja suit in which Justice James Omotosho delivered judgment on October 31 after listening to all the parties. Based on legal authorities, the court acknowledged the conditions for conducting the convention, and emphasised the need for the party to follow its own rules and INEC guidelines before going ahead with the exercise.

    The court held that until the party did what is expected of it, the convention cannot hold. Now, the Ibadan court has given a conflicting ruling, without hearing the other side, on the strength of an exparte motion, setting the stage for another round of battle for PDP’s soul. Exparte motions can be heard in open court or in chambers, with only the applicant(s) in attendance. The applicant(s) is/are expected to give an undertaking to indemnify the other side in case it turned out that the interim order should not have been granted.

    The Ibadan court cleared the convention to hold and ordered INEC to monitor it. With this ruling, INEC now has two court orders to contend with. Which should the commission obey? Mercifully, Prof Joash Amupitan, the INEC Chairman is not only a lawyer, but also a Professor of Law of Evidence and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).

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    Perhaps, Justice Laditan Akintola of the Ibadan High Court was unaware of his learned brother, Justice Omotosho’s judgment, which came before his interim injunction. Politicians are sly and cunny. They have their own ways of doing things as long as the end justifies the means. If you ask me, I would say there was no longer the need for the Ibadan suit, following the Abuja court verdict. Both cases are the same in terms of the reliefs sought. The only thing is that one wants the convention suspended and the other is saying no, it should go on.

    With a party obtaining judgment in Abuja stopping the convention as well as INEC from upholding its outcome, if it held, should another party have gone to Ibadan to obtain what amounts to conflicting orders, as the plaintiff before Justice Akintola did? The orders by Justice Akintola reversed all the orders of his brother judge, Justice Omotosho. I am sure that Justice Akintola would not have made those contradictory orders if his attention had been drawn to Justice Omotosho’s judgment. It is in the nature of politicians to hide such facts, especially when they are in desperate situations.

    But it is for the judges to be a step ahead of these politicians always by asking the right questions to ferret answers that will stop the litigants in their tracks and ensure that the courts are not misled. The filing of the Ibadan suit was deliberate and it was instigated  by those dissatisfied with the Abuja verdict, who want the PDP cinvention to hold at all costs, and without regards for due process. This resort to multiplicity of suits which the Supreme Court has condemned on many occasions will not help the cause of the PDP governors who are behind the Ibadan case.

    In cases of this type, the first in time prevails. I have no doubt that INEC will comply with the Abuja verdict barring it from upholding the outcome of the convention, if it holds. Those who ran to another judge for an order to hold a convention already stopped by a fellow judge should not take the nation down this road again. The wound of the June 12 debacle is still fresh in the people’s memory, 32 years after the bitter enterprise,

    May I remind them that the Federal High Court where Justice Omotosho sits and the State High Court where Justice Akintola sits are of coordinate jurisdiction – that is one is not higher than the other. As such, one cannot reverse the orders made by the other. Only the appeal court can do that.

  • Hurricane Melissa and the call for assistance

    Hurricane Melissa and the call for assistance

    Hurricane devastation seems to be a permanent feature of life in Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica and the other islands in the Caribbean. About 37 years ago, Hurricane Gilbert hit Jamaica, causing extensive damage to human lives and huge material damage and this was the first time that Nigeria hearkened to the cry of fellow human beings in the Caribbean. The reason for our response then was because of the engagement of the then military president, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida with foreign policy and the push of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under its dynamic and influential General Ike N Nwachukwu for our investing in this humanitarian venture. The Guardian newspaper, under the influence of Yemi Ogunbiyi, had visited Jamaica and had written well-informed articles about the politics of the island in the  1990s when Michaels Manley was its prime minister from 1989 to1992, being his second term in office having served earlier in the same post from 1972 to 1980.

    Professor Ade Adefuye was Nigeria’s high Commissioner in the island from 1987 to 1991 and he was very influential in ensuring the success of Chief Emeka Anyaoku in securing the several votes of the Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean in the election of a new commonwealth secretary general in Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth heads of states or governments  Summit in 1989.

    I am mentioning all these factors to indicate how a paltry donation of $3 million dollars to a sister country in distress may have altered the course of history  in which an African of great distinction, Anyaoku  with great personal credentials on his own became the head of a major international organisation like the Commonwealth.

    This long preamble is to say that the time has come again for Nigeria to demonstrate leadership to rescue the black peoples of Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba that have just been hit by the force of nature. 

    Of course, Nigeria and most states in Africa are economically distressed; there is never going to be a time when it is right to do right without pain, I suggest that Nigeria should take a memo to the African Union (AU) suggesting the African Union should collectively send donations to Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti on moral grounds of solidarity with the poor humanity of those countries, and secondly, because the Caribbean constitutes part of the AU in correct progressive thinking. Secondly, Cuba in particular deserves to be recognized for its historical role in the liberation of Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, Namibia and Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde. This is a case of service deserving its rewards.

    Nobody knows when the mother African continent may again call on its children in the new world to redress the power weakness of the old continent.

    Global politics is in a phase which regrettably is entering the struggle for global relevance and struggle for our very existence. This is becoming important in Trumpian and post Trumpian politics. We must not be caught napping!

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    If the plea by Nigeria falls on deaf ears, then Nigeria should go solo. The fewer we are will be the greater the share of honour said Shakespeare because at end, we will be judged by posterity. The question is not what Nigeria is going to get from a policy of giving when our children at home have no food to eat and no fees for our school children. When we supported the liberation of Southern Africa from the time of our independence in 1960 till 1994 when Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela, the question in the public was qui bono? The answer was always that black humanity should take its rightful place in the comity of nations. No one can really judge the rightfulness of the money spent in the advancement of a country’s foreign interest on the basis what the British call pounds and pence. But a country should always be found on the side of what is right.

    When I was in our foreign office’s minister’s office, we tried to research into how much money Nigeria had spent since Independence till 1991, we came up with an estimate of close to one hundred billion dollars in money, manpower and material and educational support for the Southern African states including South Africa itself. At the end of our efforts, I think Nigerians were justified to ask for some kind of dividends.

    To blunt the question we suggested for example that Ibru Fishing Company should go and be fishing in the fish-rich coast of Angola. But after a few trials, it lost interest showing that Nigerian companies have no staying power outside Nigeria. They were most satisfied being agents and collectors of commissions from their foreign partners. 

    Sometimes, Nigerian traders flooded the streets of Southern African countries calling for fights with their host countries and boasting about their country liberating ungrateful people. This tended to lead to hostilities and bad blood. We should not see ourselves as conquering gladiators fighting to free others from colonial bondage and settler racism because these people fought for their freedom and we only aided them with no strings attached believing that our freedom and dignity as human beings is undermined when another black man is denied freedom and dignity on the basis of his colour of being black. In other words helping the other colonised Africans was fighting for ourselves. When we give assistance, we should do this because it is right and not because we want to profit from another dominated man. If that was our belief then we are not better than the capitalist exploiters who we justifiably criticize and condemn. In conclusion, we should assist the distressed people of the Caribbean without counting the cost.

  • Before you cut your nose to spite your face (1)

    Before you cut your nose to spite your face (1)

    The thing about a knife: it is easy to feed a town to the sharpened kiss of its blade. Whether adult or minor, male or female, Muslim or Christian, the blade hardly discriminates.

    Hence, there was no pity on the edge of the machete that butchered the Hurti clan. And there was no mercy in the stab that decapitated the peasant farmers of Zabarmari. On April 2, Fulani militia struck Hurti, a Christian community in Bokkos, Plateau State, killing 46. On November 28, 2020, Boko Haram terrorists struck Muslim farmers in a rice field in Jere LGA, Borno. They tied them up and brutally slit their throats. The United Nations put the death toll at a minimum of 110, describing it as the “most violent direct attack against innocent civilians” in 2020.

    Lest we forget the bloody Yuletide of 2011, on December 25, Boko Haram bombed St. Theresa Catholic Church, Madalla, killing 37 worshippers. Three years later, on November 28, 2014, the terrorist group struck the Great Mosque of Kano during Juma’at prayers, killing 100 Muslim worshippers.

    Permit me to intone, Simon Kolawole, at this point: Did the phrase “genocide” creep into your mind at the dawn of the first two tragedies, or the latter? When the terrorists bombed the Nyanya motor park, the UN building, the THISDAY offices, and the police headquarters in Abuja, did you deem it a joint genocide against Muslims and Christians alike? Or did you, like many Nigerians, assign victimhood and martyrdom to your faith alone?

    Did you cherry-pick which corpses to count and which to forget? This selective moral vision is why, decades after terror first came bursting through our borders, we are unable to tame its scourge. It explains, too, why we are once again tap-dancing to the gimcrack trumpet of United States President Donald Trump’s evangelical crusade.

    Last week, Trump conveniently found his Caps Lock and, with it, a new crusade. Twice, he posted about Nigeria, first to allege that “thousands of Christians” were being slaughtered by “Radical Islamists,” and then to warn that the United States might stop aid, or worse, ‘invade guns-a-blazing.’

    This same Trump, who turned a blind eye to the real-time genocide in Gaza, where U.S.-funded Israeli jets have carpet-bombed hospitals, kindergarten schools, churches, mosques, and refugee camps, killing hundreds of thousands, now presumes to avenge Nigerian Christians.

    Trump’s genocide fever is stoked by curious characters like Bill Maher and Senator Ted Cruz, who, from the comfort of American studios, cite inflated casualty figures. Maher, an atheist, recently claimed that “over 100,000 Christians have been killed since 2009, and 18,000 churches burned.” Cruz quoted smaller – about 50,000 murdered Christians – but equally dubious figures. They do not acknowledge that Muslims have died in equal or greater numbers as victims of the same nihilist terror they mislabel as religious war.

    These merchants of outrage, who see “genocide” in Nigeria but “self-defence” in Gaza, peddle suffering as spectacle, feeding the American evangelical machine that thrives on tales of persecuted Christians abroad.

    The same zealots who cheered as the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) buried both Muslim and Christian Palestinians have suddenly grown teary-eyed over “Nigerian victims” half a world away. Not even US Congressman Scott Perry’s claim, in February, that the USAID had been funding Boko haram and other international terrorist groups, matters in their consideration.

    There’s a word for this kind of drama: shall we call it dissembling or outright pretence?

    If Trump, Cruz, Maher and fellow evangelicals in the US and Nigeria were genuinely moved by faith or fairness, their voices would rise for the Christian families bombed in Gaza’s Holy Family Church, where bodies of priests and children still lie beneath the debris. They would mourn the Muslim and Christian medics who perished when Israel flattened the Al-Ahli hospital. But their compassion nourishes a different calculus.

    Nigeria, to them, is both a morality market and a slave plantation, and it is ripe for the taking. Recall that Cruz, in a July address, emphasised that America must fiercely fight off China from Africa’s mineral trove, and so doing, protect the US’ capacity to stash its mineral reserves. It is the old colonial catechism: civilise the savage, save the heathen, exploit the land, now rebranded for the algorithmic age. This is the inconvenient truth in the gospel written by imperial hands.

    But perhaps more tragic than Trump’s threat is the chorus of Nigerians cheering the menace. In newsrooms, cafés, churches, and on social platforms, Nigerians applaud their own humiliation, demanding that the US invades their country to “save the Christians.”

    Even presumed intelligentsia are furnishing the hysteria, as if our land-tract were a chessboard and our people pawns for American domination. It is heartrending to see a nation incite its own doom with applause. Among these cheerleaders are frustrated separatists and partisan clergy, people who see in Trump’s threat a shortcut to unseat a government they despise. To them, Tinubu’s Muslim-Muslim ticket remains an unforgivable sin, and his presidency an affront to prophecy. So they embrace Trump’s threat as divine justice, even if it means burning the house to kill the rat.

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    But do they imagine that when America comes ‘guns-a-blazing,’ it will pause to separate saints from sinners? Or that the invader’s bullet will discriminate between masjid and altar?

    To call the Nigerian conflict a “Christian genocide” is to consecrate a lie. The United Nations Convention on Genocide (1948) defines the crime as acts committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” No credible evidence supports such intent in Nigeria’s case.

    What we face instead is a tangled web of poverty, criminality, politics, and faith: banditry in Zamfara, terrorism in Borno, herder-farmer clashes in Plateau. It is a war against the nation itself, not against one religion. As Reverend Joseph Hayab of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) stated, “These terrorists started by killing Christians, then moved to killing virtually everybody.” The Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) agrees. So does MURIC. Even the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, reminds us that “many Muslims in Nigeria are themselves victims of the same intolerance.”

    Senior Adviser to President Trump on Arab and African Affairs, Massad Boulos, has dismissed allegations of a “Christian genocide” in Nigeria, acknowledging that, “People of all religions and all tribes are dying as a result of terrorist acts. We even know that Boko Haram and ISIS are killing more Muslims than Christians. People are suffering from all sorts of backgrounds. However, any loss of life is one too many, and we should work together in partnership to put an end to this.”

    Yet Trump’s evangelical forces ignore this complexity, preferring the simplicity of the “Christian victim” narrative, because it suits their script of intervention. History teaches us that when America claims to protect, it often destroys. They protected Iraq from tyranny and left it in ruins. They liberated Libya into chaos. They defended Afghanistan until its mountains bled. Now, they brandish “Christian genocide” to justify a new conquest: Nigeria, the heart of Africa’s black pride, rich in oil, gas, and rare minerals.

    Trump’s threat is no charity to Nigerian Christendom; it is imperial strategy, another bloodthirsty ploy to balkanise a resource-rich land. If we allow it, they will set us against each other, arm our warring divides, and pretend to keep the peace. And while we kill each other, they will harvest our resources.

  • Trump’s threats and Nigerian hysteria

    Trump’s threats and Nigerian hysteria

    Donald Trump never misses a chance to play saviour in someone else’s tragedy. Of all the troubled spots on earth, he’s now lighted on Nigeria intent on playing super hero. I dare say that for all their challenges, Christians in this country can’t say they have the worst deal on the planet.

    That’s why many suspect that his threat of U.S. military action over alleged “Christian genocide” isn’t about saving lives. It’s more to do with politics, power – and a wilful ignorance about our complex realities.

    Over the weekend Trump redesignated Nigeria a ‘Country of Particular Concern (CPC).’ Less than twenty fours later he declared he was considering taking military action.

    To demonstrate his seriousness the Department of War was asked to draw up an intervention plan.

    Paradoxically, this same president, as election candidate, made out he was against American military adventurism around the globe.

    It’s not the first time Nigeria would be stuck with the CPC tag. Back in 2020, the same Trump placed the country in this column – with sanctions that were supposed to attend that categorisation.

    The fact that his action didn’t generate much of a ripple meant it didn’t have any serious effect on the Muhammadu Buhari administration, or on the generality of the people.

    What is different now is the threat of military action against a country which historically, on the African continent, has been one of America’s most steadfast allies and partners. The threat landed with all the elegance of a Russian Scud missile. Little wonder the hysterical reactions in many quarters.

    Much of the anxiety flows from the erratic nature of the American president. But that same unpredictability should have made people read Trump’s statement more closely to see whether this was just another episode of bluster and bluff.

    Earlier this year, he accused South Africa of carrying out ‘genocide’ against white farmers. To save them from that ‘terrible fate’ he doled out visas to many and relocated them to the United States. As many would point out, while that country might have a high murder rate, most of the victims are Blacks.

    Trump would have none of it. When South African President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the White House to thrash things out, he was ambushed with an awkward film show and made to watch discredited videos purporting to show genocide against whites. The visiting leader calmly dismissed all the accusations. The ‘white genocide’ story quickly expired.

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    Between January and May this year, Trump repeatedly threatened to use military force to annex Greenland. This semi-autonomous territory of Denmark is the world’s largest island. Despite its massive 2.16 million square kilometres landmass, it has a minuscule 56,836 population. Trump had been lusting after the land which he said was good for military security. When the plucky islanders told him in no uncertain terms they were not for sale, he backed off.

    This was the same Trump who earlier this year was threatening to make Canada America’s 51st state. His high pressure courtship was firmly rebuffed by Prime Minister Mark Carney who told him his country wasn’t for sale.

    Against this backdrop it’s hard to understand the air of crisis ever since Trump spoke. Some interpreted his words to mean a land invasion was imminent. Others imagined air strikes from Abuja to the Sambisa Forest. Much of this is just fanciful nonsense given that the American’s president talked about taking out terrorists.

    Asked by reporters if he envisioned troops on the ground or air strikes in Nigeria, Trump said: “Could be. I mean, other things. I envisage a lot of things. They’re killing record numbers of Christians in Nigeria … They’re killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers. We’re not going to allow that to happen.” In typical Trump-speak this is a lot of maybes and maybe nots.

    For Nigerians, this outburst is insulting. It’s one thing to express concern about insecurity in Africa’s most populous country. It’s quite another to issue threats based on a dangerously distorted narrative.

    Religious tension has existed in Nigeria for decades. Boko Haram came into the mix in the early 2,000s attacking churches and mosques, killing Christians and Muslims. The killings in the North-Central have more to do with land-grabbing, a vicious cycle of reprisals, and criminality of all sorts. Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo, has pointed out that in the Southeast people with Christian names are killing others who profess the same faith. Do these Christian lives matter to the American defender of Christianity? Will his bombing campaign target these killers too?

    Trump’s comments are not only unwelcome meddling in the affairs of a sovereign nation that has long been an American ally, they are also reckless, uninformed, and reek of election-year opportunism. The craven play to his evangelical and right wing base is all too evident.

    It should also be pointed out that no major country in Europe, Asia or the America’s has levelled this grave accusation against Nigeria? It can’t be that they don’t have their own intelligence about goings on in this country.

    The presumption is galling. How, in the face of all international conventions and laws, does a country – no matter how powerful – take it upon itself to march into another country, uninvited, supposedly to right wrongs there! Over the decades it’s been said that America was the world’s policeman. But no one ever told us who appointed the U. S. to that role.

    If Trump has a solution to killings, how come he’s not been able to end gun violence which claims an average of 46,000 Americans each year and 125 people daily?

    Invasions and airstrikes, on their own, never solved any problem. Israel, with all its military capabilities and American support, bombed tiny Gaza for two years and didn’t succeed in locating the hostages. Only a formal ceasefire brought them home.

    Yes, Christians in Nigeria have suffered terribly from violence – so have Muslims, traditional worshippers, and anyone unfortunate enough to live where the state has lost control. Boko Haram, ISWAP, and bandits have killed thousands, sparing no one because of religious stripe.

    But to call it genocide against Christians is a misapplication of words.  Genocide is a grave legal term implying state-sponsored intent to wipe out a people. No credible evidence suggests that the government is engaged in, or tolerates, such a campaign.

    If Trump’s concern were truly humanitarian, he would have threatened Myanmar over its persecution of the Rohingya or demanded action against Israel’s excesses in Gaza. But Nigeria – emerging economy, Black, and far away – makes for an easier stage on which to flex moral muscle without consequence.

    The Nigerian government did the right thing by rejecting Trump’s narrative outright while restating its openness to legitimate counter-terrorism cooperation.

    Tinubu’s response was calm but firm: there is no war on Christians in Nigeria, and no foreign power has the right to dictate or intervene militarily.

    Still, the incident should be a wake-up call for government. The administration isn’t without achievement in the war against terror. In August, the U. S. and U. K. commended the government and its security agencies for the arrest of two senior leaders of Jama’atu Ansarul Muslimina fi-Biladis Sudan, also known as Ansaru. It needs more wins like this.

    Trump’s threat, however empty, highlights a hard truth: when a state cannot convincingly protect its own people, others will presume the right to speak – or act – on their behalf.

    In that sense, Nigeria’s sovereignty is not just a legal principle; it is something to be earned daily through concrete action and credibility. That there are influential people in Washington D. C. ready to believe that Nigeria is committing genocide is worrying. Every uninvestigated killing in Plateau, every mass abduction in Zamfara, every displaced family in Benue, tells a story of a country struggling to protect its citizens.

    In the absence of clear data, transparency, and justice, the loudest voices however ill-informed – fill the void. If we don’t define our own story, others will do it for us, often to our detriment.

    If Nigeria wants to avoid being the next ‘intervention project,’ it must learn this simple lesson: fix your house, or someone else will claim the right to rearrange the furniture.

  • Nigeria: Two coups in two weeks

    Nigeria: Two coups in two weeks

    Within the past two weeks, Nigeria has experienced two serious cases of coup d’é•tat. One was domestic, and the other foreign. The domestic one was a military coup. The foreign one was a political or, more accurately, a disguised economic coup. It was alleged that the domestic coup was meant to target the President directly, but that coup was foiled. The foreign coup promises to target Islamic terrorists, and it is still brewing. Just the other day, as we were settling down to breakfast in a Phoenix suburb, someone asked me if I heard the roar of fighter jet engines in the air. “No,” I answered. “But what about fighter jets?” “They are heading to Nigeria to solve Nigeria’s problems,” the fellow answered.

    The other person in the conversation was joking about President Donald Trump’s threat to send the army to defend Christians in Nigeria, following its designation as a Country of Particular Concern in response to orchestrated allegations of “Christian genocide.” Trump’s pronouncements have generated so much debate as to have drowned the debate about the domestic coup, which came before the foreign one.

    It is a shame that there are Nigerians celebrating both coups. They may have missed these lines from someone, who put them out on social media in response to coup celebrants: “Because of the hatred of the cockroach, the mosquitoes voted for the insecticide. But when it came, it killed both the cockroach and the mosquitoes, including the flies that never voted.”

    It is even more shameful that there are Nigerians boasting of responsibility for planting the seed of alleged Christian genocide in Trump’s mind as one fellow did in a virile video in which he named some Nigerian church leaders as accomplices. But that’s not even the issue now. The critical issue of the moment is how to respond to Trump’s pronouncements. It is unwise to blame or insult Trump on this issue as some commentators have chosen to do. Trump has a clear agenda, and he has not been hiding it from anyone who cares to listen to him or watch his actions.

    Here are a few things to bear in mind. One, it is important to appreciate that Nigeria is the only one threatened with military invasion among the countries on the United States’ CPC list due to alleged violations of religious freedom. The others are: North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and China.

    Two, it will be naive to assume that Trump, or at least the American State Department, does not know the complexities of the insecurity situation in Nigeria. It is advisable to fully understand why the alleged Christian genocide resonates with Trump. Christian conservatives and Christian evangelicals, including Nigerian-American ones, are critical to Trump’s support base. They are a major lobby group to which Trump responds. That is why the transactional use of religion is critical to his political strategy. That is why he included in his threat to Nigeria, “We stand ready, willing and able to save our Great Christian population around the world.” Besides, Trump’s MAGA agenda often trumps facts on the ground, and he has not been shy about using hard power to achieve his goal.

    Three, Trump always speaks aloud about what he wants to do. Just see what he has been doing to fellow Americans since he assumed office. He promised retribution. He is doing it, by weaponizing the justice department in the process. He promised to flush out illegal aliens (particularly Hispanics). He is doing it, even trapping in some American citizens in the process. He promised to shrink the federal government. He is doing it. He led the Republican Congress in shutting down the federal government, while he engages in his Asian tour and returns home to play gulf. What about his global outreach? He promised tariff on imports. He did it across the globe, not minding its domestic repercussions. He promised to aid Netanyahu of Israel in flushing out Hamas from Gaza. He did it. Gaza is now lying fallow. The world can only watch. He may not have succeeded all the way, such as failing to annex Canada and Grenada to the US or stopping the war in Ukraine on his first day in office. But you cannot blame him for pushing hard on his agenda.

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    Four, it must be recalled that, in recent years, American intervention in conflicts beyond its borders has left the target countries in shambles: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, and Sudan.

    Five, Nigeria has more to lose than any other country in which the United States has intervened. Apart from its position as the largest country and economy in Africa and the highest concentration of Black people on earth, Nigeria is rich in solid minerals, including petroleum, bitumen, gold, crystal quartz, tin, granite, copper, iron ore, and lithium-bearing ores. This list is the envy of the world, not least Trump’s United States. On top of this enviable list of resources, Nigeria how houses the largest in the world, Dangote Refinery, owned by a Nigerian!

    Six, everything in the preceding paragraph plus innocent people will be collateral damage, with some becoming the spoils of war, should Trump send troops to Nigeria. The world watched Gaza razed to the ground as Trump-aided Netanyahu looked to exterminate Hamas terrorists. It is, therefore, better for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (a Muslim married to a Christian evangelical pastor) to negotiate the Nigerian situation President to President. And Trump even left room for that by inviting the Nigerian government to move fast. Tinubu started well with a measured response: “The characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality, nor does it take into consideration the consistent and sincere efforts of the government to safeguard freedom of religion and beliefs for all Nigerians.”

    This is not the time for idle talk or press statements. Nor is it time for armchair columnists to pontificate. It is also not time for opposition leaders in Nigeria to start pointing fingers. Rather, it is time for unity of purpose. It is time for statesmanship. It is time for the display of soft power through diplomatic and other back channels.

  • Politicians, resident doctors, equity

    Politicians, resident doctors, equity

    Politicians are now the unit of measure. Everything is measured against the politics of the day. The strike by the National Association of Residents Doctors, NARD, must be taken in the context of the long-standing political extravagance. It did not start today but it should end with this regime committed to good governance. A labourer is worthy of wages but wages are low. A Nigerian professional is as worthy of wages for hire as a politician, but politicians have taken everything. Certainly, the politician: professional salary difference is morally and nationally destructive.

    The plight of medical professionals today was preventable with implementation of existing agreements and negotiation. Up until 1980, there was no payment for call-duty. I was a past president of Association of Resident Doctors, University College Hospital, UCH, Ibadan and  past chairman of Nigerian Medical Association, NMA Oyo State and a resident doctor from 1975-1980. I became a consultant before call duty started. Sadly, 45 years later, the necessity for a strike before government politicians and authorised civil servants will pay legitimate paygrade wages and call duty to colleagues.  

    It is strange that arrears are owed to serving doctors at this time of serious weakness in health delivery and poor take-home salary and limited earning power and escalating cost of living. Some government workers fail their responsibility. Doctors are tired but not the only ones being short-changed and cheated. This has gone on for 50 years.

    This government has an opportunity to settle. The impression is that some in government and the civil service are incompetent or jealous of doctors. If so, they are welcome to train with them, learn the 1000 page books, endure the sleepless months, and take calls for 24-48-72 hours at a stretch before they can criticise or insult doctors seeking their rights. Politicians get excess of their rights for their ‘work’ (add generators, vehicles, police security) without a strike or fight even though we citizens vociferously object to their political financial profligacy.

    Sadly, Nigeria’s doctors must precipitate an emergency in the health sector by withdrawing their services today just to get the emotional and economic rights required to live to attend to tomorrow’s emergency patients. Tell me which senator or representative will work a day if owed what NARD doctors are owed?

    In addition, why has no administrative reformer not obverted and corrected the fact that doctors, like other federal workers forced, on employment, to work for three months before first salaries are paid? Can nobody solve this ‘traditional’ administrative aberration?  Politicians get paid sharp-sharp, immediately.  Why not pay all new federal government workers at first month’s end. Is it federal government civil servant irresponsibility, incompetence or just an ‘I-don’t care’ attitude?

    NARD doctors watch the news and see the politicians on stage. The mechanism for election is often compromised by party-driven electoral fraud shrouded from INEC, so the needed level playing field and objectivity of a hungry voter population are easily diluted by election day food and as the only ‘Dividends of Democracy’ delivered to the voter.

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    The voting public are tired of National Assembly, NASS antics and are all sceptical and disappointed when the NASS leadership immediately suspends for six months any member who steps out of their line or talks too much. NASS sometimes acts like a secret society as it even appears to dislike members even talking about their salaries and perks.  It seems the majority also object to being outshone by those members who put more into opaque objectionable constituency projects. The entire political class needs to know it should stop being the very expensive and heavy burden, elephant on the backs of Nigerians.

    As we slowly recover from the hugely financially costly previous regime, Nigeria needs one House, preferably the House of Representatives. Nigeria needs rational politicians on a salary scale Grade 8-25 added on top of the current General Orders Salary Scale without the huge extra cost to Nigeria. In summary, Nigerian politicians need to take off their agbadas and babarigas and sink back down to the reality of life and living in Nigeria. Nigerian politicians need to cut their hyper-budgetary consumption. Nigerian politicians need to demonstrate exemplary cost-cutting in the forthcoming election cycle.

    For example, keeping the nomination forms at N25-100m for different grades up to president is what actually led to kidnappers demanding N100m as ransom. Nomination forms are the only tangible item that we citizens know in politics that must be paid for even by ‘Friends of the Nominee’. Unfortunately, that N25-100m multiplied by the hundreds of forms sold across all political parties, is a huge first line election financial burden. Where does this money come from? Does it come from the citizens budgeted coffers through ‘padding of first contract after taking office’ or ‘juicy posting to ‘lucrative ministries’ where funds can be extracted?

    Because of this, the citizen suffers ‘loss of governance funding’ with failure to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and other yardsticks of good governance like 24-hour electric  power, potable water, pothole free roads, well-equipped hospitals and especially Child and Teacher Friendly Schools etc.   To make it as a country seeking to become a nation and to be taken as a serious democratic political entity, Nigerian politicians must undertake to be seen to cut their coat, clean up their political excesses mess, cut costs of elections and cut politicians financial burden on governance for a cheaper cost: of dividends of democracy. Then ask or pressure government to pay NARD.