The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

Simply a citizen journalist

Those who have attempted to write, or even those who are accomplished authors and writers, will testify that it is no mean feat to consistently write, and maintain a column, for close on 20 years.

Why does the writer describe himself as a Citizen Journalist? Are there other types of journalists who may not quite qualify as ‘citizens’, though they may be carrying valid National ID cards?

Google offers that “in the internal creative drive that motivates a writer to create, or the social role of a writer, is the conscience of society.

The internal conscience is the writer’s inner sense of purpose, driving them to write intentionally, and to hold themselves accountable, while the social conscience refers to a writer’s duty to expose societal wrongs, advocate for the vulnerable, and hold the powerful accountable through their work”.

For me, this sums up what I think the writer has spent the last 20 years, or so, doing, that is, serving and probing, while holding himself accountable.

I recall the story of TheNews/Tempo stable of publications. Right from the get-go, the founders rejected the notion of unbiased, neutral journalism. They chose, ab initio, the partisanship on the side of the disadvantaged, marginalised and voiceless Nigerians who were labouring under the yoke of military misadventure in Nigerian Politics.

Thus, they registered the company, not with their own names, but with the maiden names of their wives, and sought funders who did not expect financial reward.

Orebe’s journalism has not been about newsreporting, which should be unbiased and fact – based. Rather, his journalism has been about commentary, Education, intervention and mobilisatþion.

And in these, he never had a chance to be neutral” –

Hon. Idowu Obasa, Industrialist, former Chairman, Onigbongbo LCDA, and Lead Presenter of ‘SIMPLY … during the Author’s 80th birthday celebration.

READ ALSO: Obi Cubana blames solo-ownership culture for African business failures

Book: Simply A Citizen Journalist.

Author: Femi Orebe.

Publishers: Mindscope Africa, Lagos.

Year of Publication: 2025

Amazon Link:https://a.co/d/dXnfY77

Reviewer: Olakunle Abimbola, Editorial Board member/columnist, The Nation Newspaper, Lagos.

I will start this review, of ‘Simply A Citizen Journalist’, with two very popular Yoruba sayings. (1) “Omode gbon, agba gbon, la fi da’le Ife” and (2) “Ogbon ol’ogbon ki je ka p’agba ni were”.

Both, translated roughly into English, mean ideas — or more narrowly, wisdom — is no monopoly of the aged or of the youth. That means a liberal mind soaks in ideas from far and wide: young or old, familiar or strange.

So, the greatest strength of this collection of column essays (from 2006 to 2025), is its eclectic mix. It is a 616-page

book, going by the Publisher’s preface. The work draws from far and wide, foreign and local, sweet and sour, over a range of issues. But lo! That’s its greatest weakness too. The author, liberal and extremely polite, rather gives these ideas full “probative value”, as the lawyers say when jousting in the court, especially when they support his view point. But more on that, presently.

In the Preface, the Publisher, Okanlomo Seye Adetunmbi of Mindscope Africa, detailed the book’s structure.

He spoke of five sections: “Reminiscences”, “Interrogative Political Essays”, “Mixed Cogitative Writings”,”Commendations, Reflections and Tributes” and “Reviewed Books”, as duly listed under the Table of Contents.

In his Preface, the Publisher shared, with readers, the rigour that went into shaping these five sections — and did a rather convincing job of that.

But hey, a caveat emptor! You want to dive into this huge ocean? Then, you had better be a consummate swimmer, but not that cocky one the Yoruba warn against, that drowns with his skills! The author, need I say again, is humble to a fault! He also writes in clear, flowing and sparkling prose that just comes alive!

But don’t be deceived: his logic and rigour take no prisoners! So, to best enjoy him, you must bring, to the table, your own counterpart intellectual humility. Who knows? You’ll probably take home a few new words, extremely readable as he is! He comes to the party with a rich vocabulary — as expected of a rich mind and a lover of words.

In this work, Orebe writes about others: persons, issues and places, though with his native Ekiti — of which he is immensely proud, with absolutely no apologies! — central in his thinking. It’s as the Avatar, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, said: you can’t be a good Nigerian without first being a good Yoruba man.

So, from this tome, he oozes the Awo paradigm of patriotism: proud son of Are Ekiti, refined Ekiti gentleman all his long life, unapologetic Yoruba nationalist, and a very patriotic Nigerian.

He is very proud of his country, yes. But he is also very angry at any thought that Nigeria, tremendously gifted, could be punching below its immense weight!

Except you thoroughly understand these critical fundamentals, you just might not fully appreciate the passion — frothing and exciting — that the author brings to bear on each and every topic on which he sets his sharp mind, and applies his flowing pen.

Which is why former President Olusegun Obasanjo is perhaps, in this book, the Ekiti “Enemy No. 1” — “enemy” here in inverted commas. But if by Ekiti, Obasanjo could hardly do anything right, then Dr. Kayode Fayemi, an Ekiti son in whom the author is well pleased, could hardly do anything wrong!

But on this too, the author seems to follow the pathway of another great Nigerian, the humble-to-a-fault, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, former military Head of State. I don’t know if Orebe sees eye-to-eye with Gen. Gowon. But the polished General always said he would always honour his elders; and sort out his mates. But those younger than him? To those, he’d never be cavalier: for you never know what they’ll become tomorrow!

This Gowon-like humility, towards the far younger folks, seem to drive Orebe’s love for former Governor Fayemi, in power and out of it. That’s clear from many essays in this book. Sure, that Fayemi halo is far from universal. But tell me which public figure’s is? Suffice it to say that the author respects anyone, of any age, that adds value. That intellectual bent is very clear from these beautiful column pieces.

Indeed, that has been my impression of him, since I have had the privilege of knowing him at The Nation. Which is why I wondered: why me, when he asked me to do this review. Why not his battery of brilliant and erudite protégés, young and old? Besides, he could have phoned — and I would have jumped to make his day. But no! He personally come to ask, bearing his tome! Such humility! God bless you sir!

Simply A Citizen Journalist teems with the glut of polished humanity in the author’s cultured universe. This prompts, in your mind, that famous quip — “Show me your friends, and I will tell you who you are!” — as you meet that galaxy. That’s the cultivated world to which the columnist speaks.

The first of the two Foreword pieces was written by Prof. Richard Adeboye Olaniyan, his teacher as a History undergraduate at the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo Univeristy), Ile-Ife. The second, by Dr. Dapo Fafowora, a retired ambassador and respected, former columnist with The Nation Newspaper.

In “A stint in University Administration”, he listed Prof. Hezekiah Oluwasanmi, the iconic vice-chancellor that shaped the golden age of the old UNIFE; Chief S. J. Okudu, the lengendary Registar at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria’s first university, Prof. Ladipo Akinkugbe, ex-UI, famed medic and scholar, and first Principal of the University College, Ilorin (now University of Ilorin), Dr. Christopher Kolade, the famed Mr. Integrity that just passed on, Prof. Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate: the quintessential normative force and voice against moral and allied decay in Nigeria, etc.

Move over to his heroes in “Tributes”, and who do you find? Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama, Bola Ahmed Tinubu (now Nigeria’s president), Dr. Amos Akingba, Chief Deji Fasuan, Justice Olajide Olatawura, Chief Alex Olu Ajayi, Chief JGO Adegbite.

The others are: Prince Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi, Prof. Sam Aluko, Prof. Jide Osuntokun and Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi (in a single tribute piece), the “Moremi” of Ekiti, the late Mrs. Funmi Olayinka, the other half of the Fayemi stolen mandate, recovered after three years, but who died of cancer before their term ended, Prof. Kayode Osuntokun, Sesan Ogunro, and Chief Samuel Bamidele Felegan, among others.

Add to this stellar list the suave, highly respected and unassuming General Ipoola Alani Akinrinade, whose Agbajo Yoruba Agbaye (Yoruba World Congress) the columnist toasted to no end as a must for every Omoluabi Yoruba, across partisan aisles.

Of course, Prof. Oladipupo Akinkugbe also made the list, not shutting out Christ’s School Ado-Ekiti at 80 (in 2013) — the school that produced the author, and many, if not most, of the Ekiti icons that dominate his “Tributes”.

Now, what does this tell you about the Orebe world? It’s a universe of excellence — brilliance that teems with character — a twin-attribute lacking in today’s Nigeria.

Take “Nelson Mandela’s 12 avatars” (29 July 2007). It was the author’s cultured, yet candid way, of telling the fresh ex-president how he had traded true greatness, ala Mandela, for a near-pariah status, despite his global clout — no thanks to his “do-or-die” voter heist of 2007, aside his collapsed Third-Term gambit. Still, he scolded Obasanjo with love, even suggesting how he could repair his battered image.

So, honest but brutal candour runs through the entire collection: his anger that Nigeria was a joke at 50 (12 September 2010); that the insane pay structure of the National Assembly could bankrupt the country (29 May 2011); his prescribed leadership for Nigeria: referencing the Edo/South West ACN gubernatorial class of Adams Oshiomhole (Edo), Babatunde Fashola (Lagos), Rauf Aregbesola (Osun), Ibikunle Amosu (Ogun), Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo); and Labour Party’s Olusegun Mimiko (Ondo). He reckoned the bumbling President Goodluck Jonathan, at Abuja, could pick up one or two things from this sub-national ensemble (5 June 2011).

Other major issues that he treated were restructuring and the national question, in his endless engagement with other minds, on Nigeria’s unitary federalism — what an oxymoron!

Indeed, he always went back to this topic: as the unrepentant Awoist and unflappable post-June 12 progressive that he is.

The ludicrous 16-is-greater-than-19 stance of PDP Plateau Governor, Jonah Jang, who lost the Nigerian Governors Forum election to Rivers Rotimi Amaechi, but went to church for thanksgiving for his “win”! (28 July 2013). The war-without-end among the Afenifere grandees, the Afenifere younger elements’ futile efforts to settle these ancestral feuding and the eventual birth of the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG).

Indeed, what other topic of the age did he not treat? The Ekitipanupo intellectual-fest on Nigeria? The Yoruba Academy and its brilliant DAWN: the Development Agenda of Western Nigeria? The odyssey of Justice Ayo Salami, then President of the Court of Appeal, for doing right by Ekiti voters, by helping to retrieve the Fayemi/Olayinka stolen mandate?

Boko Haram and its variant of banditry and kidnapping for ransom? The Fayose second coming in Ekiti, and the shame of a “photochromically” rigged election by the Jonathan Presidency, even as Governor Fayemi and his Ekiti progressives fought to the death? The EndSARS riots of 2020? Or: What I call the Orebe-Buhari puzzle?

The Orebe-Buhari puzzle! The columnist backed Gen. Muhammadu Buhari to the hilt as the APC candidate. But as President, he also railed at him, with no less ferocity, during that southern hysteria against the “Fulani herdsmen” and “nepotism”!

In fairness though, outside the bogey of an alleged Fulani rogue force, surreptitiously taking over Yoruba forests for evil motives, he still showed the former President grace, understanding and empathy.

Of course, he also wrote on COVID-19, the direst public health pandemic, so far, of this 21st century.

In this tome, posterity would find the true spirit of the age, as captured by a fecund, influential and significant columnist. That’s why it should prove a priceless collection for any tertiary education library worth its name.

Also, though not a career politician, his role — and his darts — in helping to shape Nigeria’s progressive politics, especially in his native South West, made a compelling reading.

He was “Saul” in pushing the Akin Omoboriowo’s gubernatorial cause. But he turned “Paul” by backing Governor Michael Ajasin, after Omoboriowo had crossed over to the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN). Thus, he reinforced his Yoruba progressive credential. That, in the terrible violence of the period, made the difference between life and death!

Still, his family — nuclear and extended — was caught up in that 1983 Ondo State electoral violence, which buried the Second Republic (1979-1983). Though the author and his young family of four: his wife and three young children escaped unscathed, his brother-in-law was felled in it all! This bitter-sweet tale honed his progressives bona fides.

Why, there was even a grim humour to it all: the military take-over also buried his new job as Board Chair, Sungas Ltd, an Odua Investment subsidiary. But all his nuclear family could offer was a mock celebration: “No more chairman! No more chairman!” His wife and treasured young brood won’t touch politics — not even with a long pole! Yet, his mother-in-law, Mama Chief (Mrs) Adeyinka Fagbola, the one they called AG MOTHER in Ile – Ife, was among the first eleven, in Chief Awolowo’s Action Group (AG), at Ile-Ife!

Is the collection perfect? No. Hardly any work is — and that takes us back to how the columnist liberally quotes from others, and gives all of them full probative value, to reinforce his point of view.

In truth, most of those voices do justice and add value, as the Obama and Fayemi takes, which the columnist fulsomely quoted, in his Mandela obituary piece.

But a few of them too end as flabby emotions. A good example is a University P

rofessor, so irked at the huge pay to National Assembly members, he asked that the Senate be abolished. The author promptly agreed.

Well, just imagine. By population, Ekiti and Bayelsa are among the tiniest Nigerian states. What, if you abolish the Senate, six members represent Ekiti in House of Representatives; against 24 representing Kano! Won’t tiny Ekiti shriek marginalization?

That’s the point! Federalism is no mere label. Rather, it’s a rigorous concept, to balance the interest of the tiny against the mighty, in a federal territory. So, with all due respect, suggestions to abolish the Senate, because the cost is prohibitive, is emotive rather than rigorous. Any thinking that suggests that reminds one of that quip: if education is expensive, try ignorance!

On the technical side, the book’s editing is tight. But not so tight, the proof-reading. Many compound words: e.g. “short-lived”, “people-friendly”, etc, which ought to have been hyphenated, roll out as two words. But happily, these glitches hardly define the work. The chapter heading/text contrast and display, for reader-friendliness, could be better. But again, vintage pictures, at various stages of the author’s long and illustrious life, were used to break the monotony of text.

Now, on a lighter note! The Irish, James Joyce, wrote on his alter ego, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916). Baba Femi Orebe, in whose honour we are here gathered, turned 80 on September 24. Happy birthday sir!

But in his tribute of 28 September 2025: “Salute to citizen journalist extraordinaire”, the Snooper in The Nation Sunday, Tatalo Alamu, was in a rare impish mirth, away from his grumpy jeremiad, over the collapsing “post-colonial state”! He recalled how, a editor of Cobra, that militant UNIFE campus magazine, created one “posthumous” Love me Obere — to fend off, he warned, any legal complications! To which the suspect would gamely respond to his mischievous teasers: “Awon omo radarada!” — infernal rascals!

No prize for guessing right: it’s Tatalo’s impish portraiture of our grandee at 80 as a dashing, cerebral and sociable young man! Even at 80, he remains the ever dapper one!

I will end by congratulating the Orebe family, starting with the matriarch, Mama Atinuke Orebe, whose abiding sweetness, the patriarch always spares no superlative to vouch. To their three lovely offspring, and their own spouses and children, you’re indeed blessed to belong to such a lovely family.

But my parting words to him would be this: Baba, it’s those same words you used to honour your late mentor, Prof. Oladipupo Olujimi Akinkugbe, when he turned 80 in 2013: Wa daigbo sir! May you live longer than your hero in health, wealth and an ever acute mind!

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen for your attention.

November 2, 2025
On Anambra 2025…

In the annals of our history as a state, there are moments that stand as watersheds between mediocrity and magnificence, between the twilight of decline and the dawn of renewal. Anambra State now stands at such a precipice, gazing into an abyss of unfulfilled potential on one side and the luminous horizon of transformation on the other. The choice before Ndi Anambra transcends partisan allegiance—it is a sacred covenant with posterity, a referendum on whether the Light of the Nation shall continue to flicker in darkness or blaze forth with renewed brilliance.

The numbers speak with a clarity that lofty rhetoric, and highfalutin words cannot obscure. From 8th position to 34th among Nigeria’s 36 states—a precipitous descent of 26 places that tells the story of a great state humbled by inadequate stewardship. This is not merely statistical adumbration; it is the lived reality of millions whose dreams have been deferred, whose aspirations have collided with the harsh walls of governmental dysfunction.

Consider the cruel irony: Anambra, blessed with industrious sons and daughters whose entrepreneurial spirit has conquered markets from Lagos to London, now ranks 33rd in capital expenditure per capita. The state that produced titans of commerce and scholarship now languishes at 33rd in educational infrastructure, while our children—those bright-eyed inheritors of a once-glorious legacy—sit in classrooms that mock their potential. In public health delivery, we have plummeted to 30th position, as if the wellbeing of our people has become an afterthought in the calculus of governance.

READ ALSO: Femi Kuti reveals secret of longevity in music industry

Most damning of all, in the metric of “State Attractiveness,” Anambra now shares ignominious company with Bayelsa and bandit-ravaged Zamfara as among the least preferred destinations for relocation. Let that sink into the collective consciousness of a people whose ancestors transformed swamps into citadels of civilization. We who once attracted the world now repel even our own.

Into such a landscape of despair strides a figure whose very biography reads as a repudiation of mediocrity. Prince Dr. Nicholas Ukachukwu (MFR) comes not as a political neophyte trafficking in empty promises, but as a seasoned architect of transformation whose antecedents speak volumes before his lips move. Here is a man who understands that governance is not performance art but the process of delivering tangible improvements to people’s lives.

His credentials are not manufactured for electoral consumption—they are forged in the crucible of real-world achievement. From construction and infrastructure development to public service, Ukachukwu has demonstrated the rare amalgamation of technical competence, visionary thinking, and unwavering integrity that defines transformative leadership. Where others have seen obstacles, he has engineered solutions. Where others have preached development, he has built it with his own hands.

Ukachukwu’s vision for Anambra is encapsulated in his Eight Enablers—a comprehensive blueprint that addresses the totality of our state’s challenges with the precision of a surgeon and the scope of a master planner.

Ukachukwu understands with crystalline clarity what current leadership has failed to grasp: without security, every other development initiative becomes an exercise in futility. His security framework goes beyond the rustic employment of thieves and cutthroats who now in turn harass innocent civilians, whilst crimes are repeatedly committed even within precincts close to the seat of government. Through meaningful youth engagement, job creation via industrialization, community policing, and collaboration with traditional institutions, Anambra will be transformed from a theater of fear into a sanctuary of safety.

Consider this: 103 industries have fled our state, markets close in apprehension, and the industrious spirit of Ndi Anambra withers under the shadow of unknown gunmen. Ukachukwu recognizes that idle youth become vulnerable to criminal recruitment, and his integrated approach combines immediate security responses with long-term solutions addressing poverty, unemployment, and marginalization.

With proven expertise in construction and infrastructure development, Ukachukwu brings to governance what it has sorely lacked—technical competence married to project management excellence. Unlike the current administration’s haphazard approach that has left our roads scarred with potholes and collapsed sections despite quintupled federal allocations, Ikukuoma will build infrastructure to international standards.

His strategic approach prioritizes roads with maximum economic impact—connecting agricultural areas to markets, linking industrial zones, and facilitating commerce. Erosion control will be integrated into every project, addressing environmental challenges comprehensively. Through Public-Private Partnerships and modern construction techniques, he will create road networks that last, using his construction background not as theoretical knowledge but as practical wisdom gained from executing complex projects successfully.

In Ikukuoma’s Anambra, electricity ceases to be a luxury and becomes the right of every citizen. His power revolution strategy recognizes that every kilowatt generated catalyzes transformation, every power line erected bridges the gap between subsistence and prosperity. This is not about lighting bulbs—it is about illuminating the boundless possibilities that have remained dormant in darkness.

“Akwukwo bu ife”—education is wealth, our ancestors proclaimed. Yet what wealth can we bequeath when our educational infrastructure crumbles and our teachers labor under poor welfare? Ukachukwu’s education agenda transcends cosmetic improvements to encompass teacher welfare, digital literacy, vocational training, and infrastructure that honors the sanctity of learning. He will restore Anambra’s schools from monuments of neglect to citadels of excellence that once produced professors, engineers, and captains of industry.

Ikukuoma envisions a comprehensive three-level healthcare system: primary care facilities providing essential community services, secondary care offering specialized treatment, and tertiary centers delivering advanced medical expertise. Twenty-one general hospitals will ensure accessible healthcare throughout the state, while three reference hospitals will provide specialized services, potentially positioning Anambra as a regional healthcare hub attracting medical tourism.

Perhaps nothing captures the transformative nature of Ukachukwu’s vision like his revolutionary concept of three industrial clusters—one in each senatorial zone. These are not mere economic zones; they are cathedrals of commerce, destinies being forged in steel and silicon. Each cluster will serve as an engine of prosperity, creating thousands of jobs, attracting investment, and transforming Anambra into the economic powerhouse it was destined to be.

In Ikukuoma’s Anambra, agriculture transcends subsistence to become agribusiness, farmers evolve into entrepreneurs, and rural communities emerge as centers of wealth creation. His uptakers program ensures every harvest translates to prosperity, every farmer rises from survival to success. This is agriculture reimagined and rural communities transformed.

Recognizing that a generation of talented young people currently watches their skills rust from disuse, Ukachukwu will create pathways to prosperity through entrepreneurship programs, skills acquisition, and job creation. No longer will our youth be condemned to unemployment despite their brilliance.

While the current administration engages in propaganda about “One Youth, One Skill” programs that exist more in press releases than reality, while it presides over the collapse of 101 industries and the descent from 8th to 34th position nationally, while it watches our state become synonymous with insecurity alongside Zamfara—Ukachukwu offers something radical: competence, integrity, and a proven track record of delivery.

The opposition may attempt to paint him as a stranger to the party, conveniently forgetting that he comes from legacy parties that formed the APC. They may concoct elaborate falsehoods about his relationship with the presidency, ignoring that he is resident in the Villa and enjoys direct access to President Tinubu. They may criticize his choice of running mate and campaign leadership, revealing their own descent into gutter politics while avoiding discussion of the issues that matter.

But the discerning people of Anambra obviously can see through such chicanery. They recognize desperation when they see it—the flailing of an administration that has squandered the quintupled federal allocations and increased IGR on poor stewardship while delivering deteriorating infrastructure, worsening security, and declining state rankings.

The Igbo philosophy of collective advancement finds its truest expression in Ukachukwu’s vision of inclusive development across all 179 communities. This is not the politics of exclusion or zonal favoritism—it is governance that recognizes every community’s right to participate in Anambra’s renaissance. From Aguata to Ogbaru, from Onitsha to Nnewi, from Awka to Ekwulobia, every corner of our beloved state will feel the transformative touch of purposeful leadership.

“Ife ojoo ga-agafe”—bad times will pass, our elders say. But bad times do not pass through wishful thinking; they pass through decisive action, through the courage to choose differently, through the collective will to demand and deliver excellence.

November 8th is not merely another date on the calendar—it is our generation’s answer to destiny’s call. It is the day we declare “O zugo!”—Enough! Enough of decline disguised as development. Enough of rhetoric substituting for results. Enough of watching our state’s light dim while leadership fiddles.

This is the Anambra we can build—the Anambra we must build—if we summon the courage to choose wisely on November 8th.

“Ihe eji mara nwoke bu uka ya”—a person is known by their footprints. What footprints are we leaving for our children and their children? Can we, in good conscience, pass on this burden of dysfunction and decay? Or will we bequeath to them an Anambra transformed, a state restored to its rightful place among Nigeria’s best?

November 8 is our date with destiny!

November 2, 2025
Ask your governor

With increased revenue from the FAAC, state governments should complement the efforts of the Federal Government by paying more attention to the needs of their people

Ask your governor. That would seem the simple message that the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda, passed across to many Nigerians who, rather than look toward their state administrations, always look to the centre for virtually everything that is wrong with the country. However, unlike many people who merely say the governors are receiving more money under the Tinubu administration than hitherto, Yilwatda gave specific figures of the quantum leap in the allocations to the states from the Federation Account.

“Governors now receive two to four times more than before. They can focus on bigger projects, but they must also improve the daily lives of the people,” he said even as he urged Nigerians to engage local leaders more than they are doing presently.

The APC chair spoke at a book launch, Vicious Red Circle written by Alex Ugochukwu Oriaku, in Abuja, on Monday. According to him, state governors are getting more than enough and should not have any reason to complain. “We have 24 (that is APC governors) and we are still counting. We will have more. We know that two years ago, what they used to share was about N400 billion per month. But today, the last they shared was N2.2 trillion. No governor in Nigeria today collects less than three times, four times of what they used to collect before. None.

“They can do more for their people. They are focusing now on bigger projects. And to me, this is a turnaround that we need in governors. I would say, talk to your governors. Talk to your local government chairmen. Let them do more. Talk to the APC governors to do more’’.

It could not have been more bluntly said.

No governor has controverted the claim that they now have more cash in their kitty. That was one of the reasons we are not hearing any of them complaining that they cannot pay the new minimum wage of N70,000 per month. As a matter of fact, it is as if some state governors are celebrating money festival (Yoruba people will say ‘won n se odun owo’), as some of them are, even on their own, announcing bigger packages than the official minimum wage. Lagos and Rivers are paying N85,000 each, Bayelsa, Enugu, and Oyo N80,000 each, and Ogun at N77,000. Other states like Delta, Ebonyi, and Kebbi also have minimum wages between N75,000 and N77,000 while Kogi is paying N72,500.

READ ALSO: Obi Cubana blames solo-ownership culture for African business failures

This was not the situation before the advent of the Tinubu administration. As a matter of fact, at least 14 state governments were, according to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), either unable or struggled to pay the former N30,000 minimum wage that was enacted in 2019. The states were: Abia, Adamawa, Anambra, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Cross River and Delta. Others were Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Nasarawa, Niger, Sokoto, Taraba and Zamfara states.

Lest we forget, many state governments relied on bailouts from the Federal Government in the Buhari years before they could get out of their financial quagmire.

But all that has changed. Thanks to the Tinubu administration that removed fuel subsidy and also ‘’floated’’ the naira. The two policies have led to availability of more money in the coffers of the Federal Government that the three tiers of government are now sharing. As the APC chair observed, allocations from the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) have often exceeded the N2 trillion per month mark post-May 2023, with record highs over N2.2 trillion. State governments’ collective share has increased substantially, from about N400bn to N700bn+ monthly. Like many other state governments, Abia State government has thus doubled from about N12 billion to N13 billion monthly. Many state governments are said to be paying up their debts as a result of the improved funding.

This is good news.

But, the bad news is that many governors are just not getting their priorities right, as Yilwatda observed. Indeed, some of them are behaving akin to a Yoruba proverb that says the initial money that a child makes he spends to buy bean cake (owo ti omode ba koko ri, akara lo maa fi ra). They simply forgot where they were coming from. May be we can pardon those of them who are first-time governors and have not experienced the rough times. But what of those among them that were returned to office? Should they not have learnt sufficient lesson on how to be prudent with funds?

Under the 1999 constitution, as amended, all tiers of government have their functions. Critical services like primary health and education fall under local governments, while secondary health, education and infrastructure fall under state governments. The Federal Government has responsibilities for national security, tertiary healthcare, the economy, etc.

Unfortunately, while the constitution is clear on these roles, many state governments have hijacked the local governments and indeed pocketed them. President Bola Tinubu tried to extricate the local councils from the apron strings of the state governments, to no avail. Not even a Supreme Court judgment could free them from the clutches of the governors, who in many cases do not want to see autonomous local governments in the first place. And the reason is simple; the governors are not satisfied with their own portion of the national cake. They want more and that more they want to rake in from the local governments.

The result is that the local governments merely exist in name in many states. Their chairmen cannot do anything without the consent of the governors. All the councils get as allocations are mainly to pay salaries. The results are glaring in several parts of the country: bad local roads, inadequate or no drainage, dilapidated primary schools, wastes all over the place, etc.

You may not like the Tinubu government for different reasons, chief of which is that cost of living is high under it. But you cannot deny the fact that it has done some things to alleviate the sufferings of Nigerians. Imagine the number of people that have benefitted from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, (NELFUND) that the administration set up to cater to the needs of indigent students whose parents cannot afford to send their children to higher institutions. The idea is to ensure that no one is denied access to higher education simply on account of parental poverty. I learnt that as of late October, over 624,000 students have benefited from the fund, and over N116.4 billion disbursed since the portal opened in May, 2024.

I always cite the example of one of my seniors in the university who paid glowing tributes to his parents for “gladly embracing poverty to see him through university education”. The loan takes care of the students tuition fees as well as N20,000 monthly stipend would lessen the burden on such parents because it is not easy to gladly embrace poverty. As they say, “iya ki ise omi obe” (suffering is not pepper soup). The NELFUND would definitely make a lot of difference to many parents.

Talk also of the conditional cash transfer in which the Federal Government has launched a conditional cash transfer programme targeting 15 million vulnerable households in Nigeria, to provide N75,000 to each eligible household over a three-month period. Talk also of the loan scheme for income earners to purchase their needs now and pay in installments.

Even before now, the bad faith on the part of some state governments manifested with the palliatives that were distributed during the Buhari era, which some public officials at the state level converted to political pork.

If we can have some of these initiatives complemented by the state governments, “ebi npa mi” (I am hungry) slogan would not be as popular as it is today. Forget the fact that the person who made us adopt it as a slogan is not one of those really hungry! And if he is; his is a different kind of hunger!

Then, talk of grandiose projects that have no bearing to the real needs of the people that some state governments are embarking upon. Take airports, for instance; which, apart from public officials in some states, are of no use to most other people. Yet, we find some governors sinking billions of tax payers’ money into them even when many roads in their states are death traps.

All said, the APC chair could have appropriately diagnosed the problem; to wit; that many state governments are not getting their priorities right, but, I seem to disagree with him on his rhetorical statement asking us (or, who in particular?) to tell him if we want him to tell the governors to do the right thing. Hear him: “If you feel I need to talk to the governors, please tell me. I will call their attention. And if you feel you want to have a nexus within the National Assembly and the government, not just at the national level, even the state governments, you want to have that nexus between them, we have most of the governors.’’

Yilwatda does not need any prompting from any quarters before doing the needful. If he is convinced his assertions are right, then he should just go ahead and tell the governors what they seem not to be doing right. After all, as he noted, his party has a preponderance of the governors; 24 out of 36 and ‘’still counting’’. That is getting close to shellacking!

“We have 24 and we are still counting. We will have more.’’

So, Nigerians, you now have a better idea of what to do when certain things are not working. All eyes do not have to be on Abuja all the time. Your local government chairmen and governors are closer to you. They should be the first set of people to reach in times of trouble. Meet them. Ask them. After all, as they say, all politics is local.

November 2, 2025
The Ese Oruru message

She was 13 years old when she was abducted and abused in 2015. Her abductor, Yunusa Dahiru, alias Yellow, was twice her age, at 26. Until the police reportedly rescued her about six months later in February 2016, after a series of shocking collusion and connivance by state and traditional authorities, not to talk of the initial impotence of the police themselves, Ese Oruru, a Deltan living in Bayelsa State with her parents, seemed lost to the fog of early marriage and misguided religious fervour. No one has adequately explained why a clear case of abduction involving a minor, forced marriage, and abuse could take all of six months to resolve. Happily, and even ecstatically as it would turn out more than 10 years later, Miss Oruru at last graduated last month with a 2:1 in Education Technology from the University of Ilorin, while Mr Dahiru is serving a 26-year jail term. All is well that ends well, isn’t it?

Not exactly. The Miss Oruru story, which her family has tried to shield from public curiosity given the trauma they endured in those heady months in 2015, goes far beyond the valour of the Orurus and the victim’s extraordinary resilience. The story is a scary pointer to what might have been had she not been extricated from servitude in Kano to which Mr Dahiru transported her into the embrace of traditional and political institutions that at first feigned helplessness and waffled over what age constituted consent and accountability. Having now graduated at 23, Miss Oruru has her future ahead of her, especially with a solid educational foundation. How many like her get a second chance? Her dreams and trajectory as a pre-teen might have been skewed a little by her experience, but they were obviously not truncated. She was abducted on August 12, 2015, and her family members were in Kano two days later seeking her freedom. Though they acted fast enough, a retrogressive cultural rampart stood in the way, inexplicably delaying freedom for another six months. It is not unlikely that thousands of similar abductees fail to secure extraction due to weak law enforcement institutions and overbearing traditional and cultural authorities.

READ ALSO: Obi Cubana blames solo-ownership culture for African business failures

What makes Miss Oruru exceptional is that her recovery was marked by phenomenal progress and stellar academic performance. It is, therefore, legitimate to ask how many million geniuses are lost to unhealthy and retrogressive cultural and religious practices in Nigeria. For instance, of the estimated 12 to 20 million out-of-school children in Nigeria, nearly 80 percent of whom are sucked into the Almajiri system wreaking havoc in the Northeast and Northwest, how many geniuses will never be discovered? But even outside the out-of-school bracket, there are millions who because of poverty or early marriage never get the chance to prove their genius or contribute substantially to Nigeria’s development. That tantalising possibility will always haunt the country and render it a global spectacle, especially given the fact that it harbours the largest population of out-of-school children in the world.

Most states in Nigeria may have already domesticated the Child Rights Act enacted in 2003, but the devil is in the detail. For instance, the age of consent varies among states; so, too, some of the rights under the law, whether it pertains to the right to survival, a name, family life, privacy, dignity, recreation, cultural activities, healthcare, or education. Rather than domesticate the Child Rights Act, Kano State, more than 10 years later, enacted a Child Protection Law in 2023. Though applauded by UNICEF, it remains to be seen to what extent the law will qualitatively improve the lives of children in the state and protect them from the ravages of controversial cultural and religious practices. Zamfara is another state out of a few unenthusiastic about the Child Rights Act. In 2022, one year before Kano, it, however, enacted a social protection law, which contains a provision for child welfare that is clearly not enough.

For Kano, Zamfara, and the few states uncertain about just what rights to grant their children, they are clearly halting between the past and the future. They must come out of their long-term dithering if they are to unleash the ‘devastating’ potentials of their youths. As Miss Oruru has proved by her determination and accomplishment at the university despite a hiatus at a crucial stage in her life, brilliance or any kind of profundity is not the exclusive preserve of any ethnic or religious group. There is of course a limit to how far the federal government can compel any state to change its developmental course; so the states themselves, particularly those still trapped in an unenviable past, must find the vision and political will to drag their people into the future if they are not to remain a national liability. Progress and development are obviously not opposed or inversely related to any religion or culture, as many countries even in religiously conservative countries in the Middle East have amply demonstrated.

November 2, 2025
For PDP, it does not just rain…

Even while it was yet to douse the agitations of the Nyesom Wike camp, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has managed to attract another round of controversy and agitation barely two weeks into its elective national convention in Ibadan on November 15. A chairmanship aspirant, former Jigawa State governor and former Foreign Affairs minister, Sule Lamido, has alleged that he was being squeezed out of the race for the top party job. The party, he claimed, had made its chairmanship nomination and expression of interest forms unavailable. He could head for the courts, he warned. At the bottom of the forms crisis is the claim by the opposition party that party elders had adopted a consensus candidate, former Special Duties minister Kabiru Tanimu Turaki.

Nonsense, growled Mr Lamido; no meeting was held anywhere to adopt anyone. He alleged that the imposition would not stand. The party has, however, remained adamant. Mr Turaki never defected to any party in the past, unlike Mr Lamido who they alleged fraternised with the coalition platform, the African Democratic Congress (ADC). It is not certain whether Mr Lamido will stick to his guns, or what reliefs he would be asking for, or whether he can get a court to look at his complaints favourably. However, this latest controversy comes on the heel of the long-running dispute the party has had with former Rivers governor and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister, Mr Wike, who alleges a number of infractions against the PDP, including forgery of official communications with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). His camp is opposed to the conduct of the convention until all disputes are resolved.

READ ALSO: Femi Kuti reveals secret of longevity in music industry

For the PDP, it does not just rain, it pours. They are heading into the convention divided and heavily depleted. They control just eight states and fewer national lawmakers than when they started out in 2023. They have not managed to plug the leaks but have continued to blame others for their woes. Overall, they believe that if the convention is successful and Mr Turaki is affirmed, they could achieve a semblance of order and tranquility with which to showcase their revival and rejuvenation. In short, they hope they can build something on nothing. November 15 is just round the corner. If they pull this rabbit out of their tall hats, they might begin to hope for a miracle in the next polls. If not, the defections and depletions will continue apace, and their hope, not to say their very life, might be doomed.

November 2, 2025
Dangote on my mind (VI)

The news coming out of the Nigerian oil and gas sector in the last few weeks has been uniformly bad and threatening to get worse. The distress in this sector was first seen when the price of cooking gas suddenly went through the roof in the wake of a spiteful strike no less suddenly declared by powerful trade unions within the petroleum industry. Gas supplies to key areas including the Dangote refinery were shut down, in an attempt to cripple the operations of the Dangote refinery. According to the strikers, they were determined to protect the expressed interest of their so-called members who, as they claimed were slaving with little reward to produce the fuel which was to be sold to innocent Nigerians. This was a naked attempt to unionize the work force against the wishes of the company management. When this excuse was seen to be increasingly transparent and untenable, the focus of the strike was shifted to take in some workers who had allegedly been relieved of their jobs for no reason other than that they had chosen to join a union. Whatever the reason for the strike, the result was catastrophic. The operation of the Dangote refinery was crippled, cooking gas prices were doubled, the price of petrol at the pumps went up and queues began to form for the first time in more than a year. Although common sense was made to prevail in the end, a great deal of harm had been done, not the least being the inching up of the cost of petrol. This is especially worrisome because of the knock on effect of this to inflation. Every Naira increase in the price of each litre of petrol sold was sure to tick up the rate of inflation which, must have been terrible news to the managers of the economy.

The cost of petrol is high, punishingly high and the renewed increase in the price of petrol is threatening to wipe out the gains that have been achieved in the fight against inflation, perhaps the greatest threat to the nation’s economy. The other front in our battle for recovery from the malaise plaguing our economy is of course the stability of the value of foreign exchange and this has also been brought into play to the further detriment of the economy. The issue of the value of the Naira vis a vis the American dollar has been a fiercely burning one for all of forty years; since our flighty if not outrightly flaky but dangerously violent government of the day, quite ill advisedly pitched the value of the Naira against that of all convertible currencies. The excuse given for this marked idiocy was that it claimed that it was following what turned out to be the jaundiced advice of the IMF. Following this, we became sheepish clients of the twin economic terrorists otherwise known as the World Bank and the IMF. Quite apart from any other consideration, the coming to life of the Dangote refinery was supposed to ease the pressure on the Naira which had become so distressed that it lacked a discernible heart beat. It had been brought to this sorry pass at least partly because for many years, large sums of foreign exchange had been committed to the importation of vast quantities of petrol in an opaque manner under what is now a discredited fuel subsidy regime. It had become imperative that the Naira be put back together if we were to remain an economic entity. The time for any experimentation with our currency is long past. What has to be done is to closely monitor the use of any available foreign exchange and throwing any of it in the way of fuel importation has to be described as criminally negligent. But this is precisely what a group of Nigerians who proudly described their association as that of fuel importers were defending. Apparently they scout the world for the cheapest available petrol, load the fuel into any available transport enroute Lagos. The fuel is then stored in large depots described as tank farms from where it is distributed all over Nigeria in diesel driven tankers. This has been the tried and tested formula for several decades and has become an addiction. A drug on which the operator had become hopelessly psychologically dependent. Now, they cannot see any way to deal with what ails them and they expect the country to suffer the extreme symptoms of withdrawal with them, a classic aspect of drug addiction behaviour. A drug addict will sell their mother and siblings thrown in for good measure in order to feed their habit. It is left to his significant others to take steps to save themselves.

READ ALSO: Femi Kuti reveals secret of longevity in music industry

To tell the truth, in economic terms, the Nigerian economy can rightly be described as being on life support, a patient that needs the constant care of a carefully assembled team of variously talented and extremely well trained specialists who must quickly respond to all the symptoms which assail their patient. In other words, we are in a state of emergency. This is why it is baffling that the managers of our rescue mission, that is, the government did not respond more robustly to the situation precipitated by the drug users among us. No union should be allowed at this critical point in time to use their immense power to jeopardise the economic well being of Nigeria. More than a year after the Dangote refinery began producing petrol, it is bewildering that the Central Bank is still providing foreign exchange to the tune of more than a billion dollars this year for the importation of fuel. With locally refined petrol available, allowing such vast amounts of what can only be described as scarce foreign exchange to be incinerated on the altar of fuel imports is, to be honest, downright unacceptable. This is more so when for the first time ever in the history of our country, refined petroleum products are being exported from these shores. The time has come for a comprehensive review of what we can afford to spend our foreign exchange on. Dangote can be said to have presented the nation with a facility which can take care of the supply of petrol to run our economy. The best that can be done for the foreign exchange hungry importers of petrol is to phase out the availability of foreign exchange from the Central Bank over a defined period of time, say twelve months. This period should be enough to take care of whatever withdrawal symptoms they may be suffering from. The harsh reality is that the era of fuel importation is now over and those who have grown fat on profit from this arrangement are like dinosaurs whose extinction time has arrived. They have to go. This is in obedience to the iron laws of nature and indeed, economics. It would be counter productive for fuel importers to set themselves up as competitors to Dangote. In the first place, the news from Lekki is that there are plans afoot to double the productive capacity of the Dangote refinery in short order. The other consideration and one which may not be of immediate importance to the fuel importers is that there are at least sixteen different fractions into which Dangote can break his supply of crude oil. They may be frothing at the mouth in respect of petrol but what about the other fifteen fractions? There is no contest.

Nigeria has always been the exporter of her natural resources. This is one of the reasons why our economic development has been slow, abysmally so. We have sold our natural resources for a pittance and have compounded our economic weakness by importing the refined products of those same raw materials at astronomical cost. We now have the opportunity to be a net exporter of refined petroleum products so that we can stop exporting crude oil in favour of the more expensive refined petroleum products. It is ironic that we have been importing refined petroleum products from places which do not produce a drop of crude oil. For example, the Netherlands has an installed capacity for refining 1.2 million barrels a day. A lot of the petrol imported into Nigeria comes from there and surely, the time has come to reverse that trend and we will soon be able to do that. All we need is the will to do so. The export of refined petroleum products from Nigeria must be seen as a trend which we need to extent to the other raw materials for which we are famous; cocoa, cotton, hides and skins as well as various minerals. It is only by doing this that we can begin to build up a solid economy.

November 2, 2025
Who will resolve PDP’s crisis?

The crisis assailing the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) does not appear ready to disappear. Like other opposition platforms, internal disharmony within the main opposition party has continued to worsen. But the injuries are self-inflicted.

Having fallen from power some 10 years ago, the PDP has failed to display the prospects of a united front that can bounce back to power. Its political muscles, which it flexed for 16 years in power, have become feeble, like those of an ageing bully. Even the voices of its leading lights of yore have become faint against those who have turned the party into a battlefield.

The failure to groom duteous politicians to succeed the blusterous first generation of the party gave birth to the current babel within. The “party of generals” that got to power in the wake of the current dispensation obviously forgot that nothing lasts forever. Today, neither its barracks mentality of “obey the last order” or democratic norms prevail.

From the outset, the PDP never appeared like a party that was based on democratic pillars. Many of its chairmen were ousted unceremoniously. Imagine the national chairman of a party being asked to tender his resignation letter directly to the President after a meal of pounded yams and bush meat in his house.

In the past two decades, the PDP has changed it chairman than any other party has. The same happened to its Senate presidents when the party was in power. They were not removed on health grounds but to satisfy the yearnings of some overbearing individuals. The party did not respect democratic principles. It was a matter of time for its internal transgressions to blow open.

Now that the chicken has come home to roost, who, will salvage the once acclaimed largest party in Africa from self-ruin?

The fate of the PDP should be a lesson, even to the ruling party. No political party is infallible. Pride could herald a fatal fall. That electoral disaster has been the lot of the party that once nursed the bogus ambition of ruling the country for 60 years.

Read Also: Peterside calls for credible administrators in NFF

Its tenancy in Aso Villa, Abuja, was terminated few years after the bragging. The prolonged setback jolted the founding fathers from their delusion, making them to embrace, very late, that in the final analysis, power is transient.

As the PDP prepares for its so-called elective National Convention scheduled for Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, this month, it writhes in the pains of division and disharmony. Its warring leaders are unable to put their house in order. A section of the party, led by the few governors stuck in the old circle, is insisting on the convention, despite the unresolved logjam.

Another camp opposed to what it calls improper preparations for the convention is kicking. Led by Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesom Wike, this group has continued to draw attention to some unresolved abnormalities known to the two antagonistic camps. When the convention would hold or not is not as important as what would happen after the event.

That chairmen of four state chapters went to court to challenge the validity of the convention means that something is amiss. The multiple crises have festered for three reasons.

The first is that there is no uniting idea, a philosophy or ideology to which members subscribe beyond the goal of hijacking power. Thus, outside power, the party is like a fish out of water.

The second is the lack of effective crisis resolution mechanism. No one among the warring lot is prepared to make a sacrifice for the platform to survive. Once there is a conflict, it is ‘fight to the finish.’ Reconciliation committees are set up to chase shadows. Once the chord of power that bound them was severed, things fell apart.

The third is a lack of good leadership, one that commands respect. The PDP is deserted by its products; the presidents, vice presidents, senate presidents, and House of Representatives speakers it created in its own image. It is a special case of ‘use and dump’.

It may also be that those former leaders it produced lack what it takes to lead a heterogeneous organisation, a blend of diverse interests and an abused organisation that was knocked down by their undemocratic tendencies.

Latter-day party undertakers lack institutional memory. They forget the labours of their founding fathers, their condescending styles of self-abnegation and willingness to subject personal interest to collective agenda.

But the founding fathers committed a fatal error, which has continued to haunt them. It was a great mistake that after the party had taken shape, its presidential ticket landed on the palm of a wrong person; a dictator and manipulator who later tore his party’s membership card.

The PDP suffered internal instability arising from the crisis of leadership. In 27 years, it has produced 17 national chairmen, many of who left office unceremoniously.

After the bruises, they took refuge in the opposition party that rallied Nigerians to drive PDP out of power.

A crisis is an infection. It is highly contagious. This is the heritage of a party founded by sane leaders without future builders to build on the virile foundation. When the party was in power between 1999 and 2015, its leaders were carried away by government power. They thought that federal power was the only requirement for party nurturing. While the party was in government, it started decaying as the supremacy of its power-loaded president came to be perceived as party supremacy.

Gradually, the founding fathers faded away without an opportunity to cleanse the party. A deep gulf had developed between them and the younger elements, whose gradual rise to stardom coincided with that period of party dictatorship which became the norm.

The current battle stems from the split among the younger elements who gained total control of the party after the residual class of gerontocrats painfully relocated to the African Democratic Congress (ADC).

They could not keep the dilapidated house together. As the crisis escalated, it provided an escape route for their colleagues to dump the distressed platform. Three governors – Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom State, Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta and Peter Mbah of Enugu – hurriedly jumped out of the sinking ship. Now, Douye Diri of Bayela is packing his load. He is said to be comparing notes with Agbu Kefas of Taraba. Reports said Plateau State Governor Caleb Mutfwang is feeling lonely and gazing at APC, whose National Chairman, Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, is from the state and has hinted that more governors would follow.

The danger now is that many stalwarts are willing and ready to work for the ruling party without defecting from the PDP.

Those leaving in droves claim that the crisis is injurious to their ambitions. They fear the legal technicalities that can knock them out of the 2027 polls if the leadership crisis persists. The party’s secretary has insisted that the PDP is a party of signature forgers. Senator Sam Anyanwu is simply saying that he has no hand in the preparations for the convention as the party’s scribe. Lawyer Nyesom Wike, ‘governor of Abuja,’ is firing salvos, warning that an improper convention would not be acceptable.

The preparations have polarised the PDP into two camps – that of governors and that of a few gerontocrats being excluded from the planned elective convention. Former Governors Sule Lamido and Ahmed Makarfi have said they loathe intimidation by “small boys” of yesterday now trying to push them around.

The old method may still align with the new times, if certain conditions are met. Traditionally, national chairmen are foisted by the conclave of governors. But the key omission moe is proper consultation.

If the position of the national chairman has been zoned to the North and micro-zoned to the Northwest, should the old men not be informed about the intention to impose Kabiru Tanimu Turaki by the governors from the Northcentral and the Northeast? If the governors are sure of themselves, why can’t they throw the contest open, allow democracy to take its course and prove that they are really in charge by mobilising party faithful to vote for their candidate at Ibadan on November 15?

Given the unfolding scenarios, the outcome of the PDP national convention may further mar its efforts at having a harmonious platform. But it would be very interesting to see a party stalwart who can wield the magic wand that would save the party from drifting into anarchy.

PDP is still the main opposition party. To be relevant, the warring chieftains should close ranks, do a soul-searching and erect building blocks of unity.

It is possible. But it is a hard option for the party.

November 1, 2025
Amaechi’s presidential dream goes awry

Former governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, recently stirred controversy by declaring himself a hungry man. His claim did not sit well with many Nigerians who are conscious of his antecedents as an eight-year Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, eight-year governor of Rivers State and eight-year super minister in charge of transportation during the Muhammadu Buhari administration.

If a man who has held very prominent positions in government for 24 years is starving just because he is out of office for two years, then something is fundamentally wrong, they argued.

But fresh information about the former Minister of Transportation is that he is not only hungry, he is also angry. His present rage stems from goings on in the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the party of former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, former Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai, former Osun State governor Rauf Aregbesola and other disgruntled politicians whose sole mission is to stop the re-election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2027.

Amaechi, who had lost the presidential ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to Tinubu in the build-up to the 2023 elections and had been unable to hide his anger over the latter’s victory as the party’s candidate and eventually as the President, had pitched his tent with the sworn enemies of the President in ADC in the hope of securing the party’s ticket to contest the presidential election against Tinubu in 2027.

Excited at his membership of the party, he had boasted about the pivotal role he played in the formation of the party together with former Ekiti State governor, Kayode Fayemi. His excitement has, however, turned into frustration as reality finally hit him that the party touted as a coalition and its main actors are nothing more than pawns on Atiku’s string.

Read Also: Peterside calls for credible administrators in NFF

Amaechi was said to have become dispirited lately after realising that the party’s presidential ticket is designed for Atiku, wondering what use it would be to chase out Tinubu only to replace him with the former VP whose status in the party is not even clear. The ex-minister was also said to have been exasperated that only him and Aregbesola heeded the party’s instruction that members should go to their respective states to hold rallies aimed at wooing people into the party, while Atiku the man they are working for has done nothing more than push out occasional press releases through his media aides.

Amaechi is also frustrated that the hope of the party to attract political heavyweights remains unfulfilled; a situation compounded by APC National Chairman, Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda’s, recent declaration that some ADC members were on the verge of defecting to APC.

November 1, 2025
Tinubu and the significance of yesterday (2)
The detail makes the difference! In 1961, the regional government in Western Nigeria made tax cuts to shore up its dwindling electoral prospects, largely caused by a drop in commodity prices. There was, however, an unexpected resistance to the tax cuts in some provinces, particularly in Ekiti, Ijebu and Ondo. Over 300 people were arraigned before magistrates across the region for unruly conduct and bound over. The key point here is that people, after an initial resistance in the middle of the 1950s, had come to accept the benefits of paying taxes. Even by today’s standards worldwide, this is real political sophistication.

Obviously, this new paradigm is the basis for the laudable, very well-thought-out tax reforms of the Tinubu administration. Fifteen years down the road, the political maturation fostered by these reforms will definitely manifest as resistance to proposed tax cuts, which will be interpreted by the populace as an attempt to undermine their economic rights, even their right to life. This cultural shift would be the highlight of the president’s very important thrust to redefine Nigeria’s political economy, and the verdict of history will ultimately be very favourable to him and his endeavours.

Read Also: Peterside calls for credible administrators in NFF

For years, Nigeria has been basking in the euphoria of a revenue economy, but where has that taken us? As we speak, Nigeria holds a complex position in World Bank assessments. In terms of national income per person, the country faces significant challenges, as evidenced by its recent ranking of 146 out of 191 countries on GDP per capita. However, when viewed by overall economic size, the Bank acknowledges Nigeria as the largest economy in Africa by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Despite its status as Africa’s economic giant, the World Bank officially classifies the country as a Lower Middle-Income Economy.

Again, the question is: do we need the World Bank to tell us that all is not well with Nigeria? Of course, stepping onto the streets will reveal the gravity of the mass misery ravaging our land. If we look at the faces of the people, and evaluate the children who daily trek to their schools with practically nothing in their stomachs, and simply because their parents want to save the N200 or N300 cost of Korope, then maybe we can have better words to situate our predicament.

In the 1960s, things were not this bad because there was a real state. The simple truth is that the political leaders of that era were adequately prepared for leadership roles. Those leaders went into politics because they believed in something, and they pursued it diligently. Since they had a clear agenda for development, their focus was fundamentally different from what obtains these days.

But what can we say about our latter-day leaders? A majority of them are in politics purely because of limited economic opportunities. Since they’re driven only by the fear of personal poverty, they’re bereft of any ideological base. They are not developmentalists because they’re not in politics to build or develop anything. They are children of entitlement, simply dancing away their people’s sorrow. If this were not the case, when was the last time a major factory was established in a town like Ijebu-Jesa in Osun State?

The Agent General of Western Nigeria in London during the First Republic was the de-facto Minister of Export, coordinating the sale of exports like cocoa, palm oil, rubber and the like. It was he who would negotiate markets, shipping and insurance. He always had strong targets, so he was always a very busy man. If we may ask, what is Nigeria’s High Commissioner to the UK selling to the outside world and how much is he remitting to Nigeria as proceeds from the sale of our exports? What’s his target and how is he coping with it?

Yes, personal charisma might win an election, but, while the principalities and powers of the past cannot be reversed, it offers a barometer for learning. Consider Obafemi Awolowo’s 1952 speech to the Western Region House of Assembly on the establishment of the Cooperative Bank; it reads as if the late sage were delivering a Nobel Prize in Economics Acceptance Speech. Characteristically, Awo’s speech was a display of deep, powerful and dialectical thinking. Unfortunately, the majority of those in power today have neither that depth nor the intellectual interest. This critical lack of clear direction and intellectual leadership is one of the primary reasons why Nigeria struggles to survive.

Admittedly, what grows a country are not men but the system. However, the system is always put in place by men. More importantly, the matter isn’t about the absence of documents, but about the presence of a functioning, ethical state. Across the ‘parties’, and frankly in most states of the federation, there are dozens of aspirants who are not distinguishable from one another. They are just vying for access to power and resources, rather than the upliftment of the people and upholding the legacy in the Western Region that affirmed the very purpose of governance and indeed of politics itself: ‘To make life more abundant’.

Who knew about the Port of Singapore in the 1960s? So, what exactly went wrong, and where exactly did our leaders lose the plot? More critically, where is the substantive plan to bolster security, the very foundation upon which all other state activities must rest? Tragically, the situation is deteriorating so fast that some institutions of higher learning have had to issue curfew timetables for when their students are allowed to move or are forced to go on empty stomachs for the fear of bandit attacks.

With Tinubu now in the saddle, the optics may be looking good. Who knows?
- Concluded.
November 1, 2025
Forthcoming …

I had the privilege of witnessing the Ekiti APC governorship consensus ratification on October 27, 2025. At this event, 885 delegates endorsed Governor Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji, aka BAO, as the consensus candidate for the June 20, 2026 governorship election.

On Tuesday, October 28, 2025, I also joined the governor’s entourage to the commissioning of the reconstructed Itawure-Okemesi-Ekiti Road, the lighting of Okemesi-Ekiti, and the reopening of the equipped General Hospital in Okemesi-Ekiti.

Reflecting on these events, I’m led to ask: Was the outpouring of support for the governor genuine, or a carefully crafted display? Did the crowds that lined the streets, chanting ‘BAO’, act of their own accord, or were their voices procured? These questions linger, even as they invite us to ponder the complex interplay between power, perception, and reality.

Read Also: Peterside calls for credible administrators in NFF

Unarguably, Oyebanji’s achievements speak for themselves, and the people’s happiness is evident in their enthusiastic response. This contradicts opposition claims and highlights the dynamic relationship between leadership and public perception.

With politics also in a state of flux in the State of Osun, it is now compelling to put the beamlight on the state of play in a highly sophisticated swing state.

Bola Oyebamiji! Akin Ogunbiyi! Dotun Babayemi! Benedict Alabi! Iyiola Omisore! Kunle Adegoke! And other APC governorship aspirants! Osun State, stretching back in time, has always been electorally competitive. It is not a state to be taken for granted, and upsets can never be ruled out. With an off-season governorship election scheduled for August 8, 2026, political activities will intensify, oftentimes with maneuvers that will defy logic.

Surely certainly, all eyes will be on Ekiti and Osun States, as the twists and turns of the political drama will be more than worth watching for pundits, analysts, and anyone who appreciates political theatre.

As the days go by, we will focus on the personalities, the trends, the currents and anticipate tales of the unexpected.

It will be a treat!

May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Nigeria!

November 1, 2025