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Category: Columnists

Rethinking local government autonomy

This week, the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), at the end of its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting, called on President Bola Tinubu to enforce the judgement of the Supreme Court granting local government councils what amounted to financial and administrative autonomy, consistently advocated by many as critical to the effective functioning of that level of government. In its judgement delivered on July 11, 2024, the apex court granted a request by the Tinubu administration that the local government councils be paid their statutory allocations from the Federation Account directly, such that such funds would no longer be subject to alleged widespread deductions and diversions by state governments to the detriment of meaningful grassroots development.

The NULGE was piqued that, over a year after what was widely celebrated in many quarters as a landmark judgement that would considerably enhance the capacity of local governments to discharge their constitutional responsibilities, the decision of the country’s highest court is nowhere near being implemented. State governments continue to be the recipients and distributors of local government statutory allocations from the Federation Account through the State Joint Local Government Account. The desired financial autonomy at that level, which presumably motivated the federal Government’s legal action, thus remains largely in abeyance, rendering the apex court verdict essentially theoretical so far.

It is thus understandable that NULGE views the continuing non-enforcement of the judgement as an “undue delay” that “undermines the principles of democracy and denies the people at the grassroots the numerous benefits associated with the autonomy of local government administration” while stressing that “It is expected that a democratic and people-oriented government should abide by the tenets of democracy and respect the rule of law”. The union reiterates the conventional wisdom that an autonomous local government system would facilitate better service delivery, accountability and participatory governance, thus ensuring more effective realisation of governance dividends at the community level.

But can it be that there are concrete and complex intricacies and impediments that make the attainment of the desired degree of autonomy at the local government level less straightforward and feasible than it appears, thus placing formidable obstacles on the path of the smooth implementation of the Supreme Court judgement? This column has always taken exception to the view expressed in certain quarters that the idea of the local government as a constitutionally recognised tier of government and thus part of the federal compact violates the federal principle and is thus undesirable and unworkable.

Although Brazil is one of the very few federal systems that, like Nigeria, confer constitutional recognition on local governments, objections to the desired autonomy of a third layer of community governance that spurred this initiative cannot, in my view, be predicated on reflexive, doctrinaire and ideological considerations. With its relentless foray into areas hitherto considered exclusive preserves of sub-national jurisdiction in the United States, for instance, the Trump administration is demonstrating with the continued backing of the country’s Supreme Court so far that assumed ideal models of federal practice are essentially mythical.

However, in his contribution to public discourse on the matter in a recent interview on national television, former Lagos State governor, federal Minister and senior lawyer, Mr Babatunde Fashola, opened fresh dimensions of thinking on the issue of local government autonomy not on the basis of ideology but concrete legal, political and administrative considerations. Arguing that the Constitution did not envisage autonomous local government councils, he pointed out that this is demonstrated by the fact that state Houses of Assembly are empowered to make laws guiding local government economic activities in contradiction to the assumed principle of autonomy.

As he put it, “If you look at the legal and ordinary meaning of the word autonomy, it suggests that you are acting independently without any outside influence. So, when a State Assembly makes laws for how a local government functions, that is clearly external influence”. Again, with reference to the responsibilities of local governments as provided for in the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution including primary education, healthcare, road construction, cemeteries and the operation of slaughter houses, Fashola contended that these functions are largely dependent on land, which is controlled by state governments.

In his words, “Those responsibilities are all dependent on one item – land. To the extent that state governments control land, I don’t think that autonomy was intended. What I think was intended was some form of collaboration, supervision, or oversight by states over local governments”. It was the need for such supervision over local government finances, informed by the experience of most local governments defaulting on meeting their financial obligations to their workers including primary school teachers and primary healthcare workers when they received direct allocations from Federation Account before 1999, he noted, that necessitated Section 162 of the constitution, “which provides for the State Joint Local Government Account as a deliberate mechanism of financial oversight”.

Strongly opposing Fashola’s position, Chief Niyi Aborisade, lawyer, human rights activist and governorship aspirant in Oyo State in 2027 on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), contended that “I cannot subscribe to what the former governor said. Local government autonomy is realistic. It is the governors of states that arrogate power to themselves. The law is clear on the autonomy of local government. We have done it before. What we have now is due to the excessive power of the governors to control money; now, many governors are just giving out peanuts to the local government Chairmen and using them as effective tools to control the people. That is why there is no longer development in the local government.”

But it would appear to me that, beyond emotions, Fashola has raised concrete issues on local government subordination to states – constitutional regulatory functions of states over local councils and control of land by states – which have implications for state-local government relations and cannot be easily glossed over. There is also Section 7(3) of the 1999 Constitution, which, as explicated by Wikipedia, “mandates that a local government council must participate in economic planning and development within its area, and that the State House of Assembly must enact a law to establish an economic planning board to facilitate this. This section ensures that local councils have a role in their area’s economic activities, requiring state governments to provide the legal framework for such boards”.

It is difficult to credibly fault the position that local governments are too territorially intertwined with states to allow for the kind of autonomy that is difficult to distinguish from independence that a union like NULGE understandably desires. And the Constitution demonstrably makes no provision for such. But is the current situation, where most state governments incapacitate local governments financially and thus obstruct meaningful development at the grassroots with negative implications for national progress and transformation, desirable or sustainable in the long run? Most certainly, no. What then is to be done?

Fashola has demonstrated that the Constitution envisages collaboration between states and local governments, and even some degree of supervision of the latter by the former. But is this incompatible with a reasonable amplitude of autonomy on the part of community-level governments? Again, I don’t think so. However, the most critical emphasis must be on the democratic autonomy of the local government councils, which in my view is even more critical and fundamental than financial or administrative autonomy, which were the main areas of focus of the former governor.

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Indeed, the Supreme Court judgement in question directly addressed this problem when it made it illegal for state governors to dissolve elected local government councils or appoint caretaker committees for the councils. Indeed, this decision has been complied with across the country, with all state governments now conducting local government elections at which officials to run the councils are chosen by the electorate. The critical question now is that of the integrity and credibility of local government elections in which parties in control of the state governments win virtually all Chairmanship and councillorship positions. Such elections are farcical and constitute a gross waste of time and financial resources. Such flawed and perverse electoral systems at the grassroots will necessarily render nugatory any assumed benefits to be derived from granting greater financial or administrative autonomy to local governments.

It is unfortunate that the anchor of the television programme on which Mr Fashola featured did not seek to tap his insights on how democratic governance can be deepened and made more meaningful and realistic at the grassroots. Some have advocated that the responsibility for conducting local government elections be transferred from state electoral commissions to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). It is just the same way that fears are expressed on the likelihood of State governors abusing the control of state police if sub-national police outfits are constitutionally sanctioned. We cannot perpetually run away from instituting the requisite checks and balances that will enable sub-national jurisdictions to discharge with credibility and integrity, responsibilities that they must bear in a federal system.

If the votes of the people counted at the grassroots and local government elections reflect the will of the people as expressed in free and fair elections, it will not matter if councils receive their statutory allocations directly or through Joint State Local Government Accounts. Rather, non-performing councils will be aware that they will face the verdict of the people in polls that are difficult to manipulate by state governments. But is the direct payment of statutory allocations to local government a sufficient condition to guarantee accountable, efficient and maximally productive governance at the grassroots? Mr Fashola has raised issues of the capacity, both of skilled personnel and resilient administrative and organisational structures at that level, which are critical for financial autonomy to achieve the desired objectives.

September 13, 2025
Another fish to fry

The blame game begins. Where did we get it wrong? Not for the first time. Our soccer buffs have repeatedly shown their lack of leadership when picking coaches for our national teams. They rely on frivolous criteria, including name dropping of elite European managers recommending our morbid choices. We are always told that such choices served as countless assistants to big and successful coaches just to browbeat us over their individual tactical savvy. Nobody dares to interrogate those picked since Nigerians only get to know the next coach at odd hours of the day through press releases.

Lilliputian coaches are recruited without throwing the offer open to knowledgeable tacticians with credible credentials to attend interviews where they are drilled, so that the best are picked. Instead, we employ journeymen who sign mercenary contracts where they would be living in Europe to watch our boys most times on television, rather than attending those matches to establish good rapport with our players’ European managers.

With this tardy arrangement, the coaches only remember Nigeria when they are challenged by their employers to either submit the lists of players to be invited for games, which could be done by mails or to find out when they would be in Nigeria for important competitions such as the World Cup, Africa Cup of Nations, the Olympic Games, WAFU e.t.c. Nobody sees anything wrong with the setting, since our federation chieftains don’t have to bother about the manager’s welfare and other logistics to keep him in Nigeria without an official car, house and other domestic staff to make his stay worth his time spent.

With handicapped coaches, we would find ourselves in a position where they can’t control our big boys. Our federation buffs forget that our better exposed players know good coaches when they see them. Such coaches’ philosophies prepare the players’ minds of what to expect from them. The result is the discotheque manner in which they report to camp for critical matches. Whereas other countries’ players who play regularly than our boys in the different European clubs get to their home countries 24 hours after their club matches, ours are spotted in parts of the country attending to family matters. The result is the chaotic manner in which our teams are prepared for competitions.

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Equally disgusting is the impudence with which our players are kitted with gadgets tied around their necks and mouths while preparing for the days’ training sessions. This underscores the low quality of the coaches we employ to train the team. The other day when the players were taking a walk around their hotel, almost all of them had their ear drums covered with different gadgets dangling around their shoulders. Of course, wires are seen around their waists. Pray, our players can’t try this hogwash in their respective clubs. Let me save you dear reader, the thought of how disjointed they walked around the hotel’s premises, with the big boys strolling behind the other players leading the exercise from the front.

One wonders why we are always late to take decisions on the future of the game here even when the broken roofs have killed many people and maimed others for life. The ugliness of football is such that we drew four of our home game, yet we expect to be ta the 2026 World Cup. It won’t happen. Our fire brigade approach to sporting events is primarily the reason for the dearth of sports in Nigeria, where influence peddlers get jobs that they’re ill-equipped for.

If we know what is good for the game here, the government should make the task of rebuilding the Super Eagles such that the ultimate target would be to qualify the country for the 2030 World Cup with four matches to the end of the qualifiers. It is achievable with the right coaches and a group of not more than five knowledgeable Nigerians to reinvent the Super Eagles of our collective dream.

If we ask the right people the coaches we need and how to interface with them through their agents, meetings can be organised to get the best man for the job before the end of October, especially if we start the search for a new coach now. The argument that the time to search for a new coach is too close is unacceptable. Super Eagles, the way it is structured and the coach that we have, including the federation chiefs and their NSC supervisors are bereft of ideas to stem the rot and would only lead us into another ditch.

If we compute how much it has cost Nigeria to prosecute these World Cup qualifiers, we would recognise our folly that if only we had stepped back from the tearful past to recruit a Grade A European coach. England for her claim of being the originators of the beautiful game are going to the 2026 World Cup with a German coach Thomas Tuchel, who needs no introduction in world football. Tuchel and England have an 18 months contract which I dare say would be extended after the Mundial. England’s Three Lions have won all her five matches without conceding a goal, and only on Tuesday beat Serbia at home in Belgrade 5-0.

According to a Reuters’ report on the Tuesday match: ”England have a maximum 15 points from five games and could even seal automatic qualification as group winners next month. Criticised for a laboured 2-0 home defeat of Andorra on Saturday, England produced their best performance under head coach Thomas Tuchel to punish a timid Serbia display.” I digress.

My problem with those insisting on having a Nigerian coaching bench is that they are quick to multiply the going rate of the naira to the dollar when the figure of what foreign coaches earn comes to the fore. They forget the huge returns on this kind of investment if the team does well in such a major soccer competition as the senior World Cup. Nigeria is in very big trouble. The country must wake up to the fact our national flag won’t be hoisted among the comity of nations at the 2026 World Cup to be co-hosted by the USA, Canada and Mexico. I’m not an alarmist.

Nigeria doesn’t need journeymen European coaches who have traversed the continent losing games with aplomb. Indeed, we need young and enterprising coaches hungry for glory.

The Super Eagles next game is an away match to Lesotho at the Toyota Stadium in Bloemfontein, South Africa, on Oct. 10, before wrapping up their campaign on Oct. 16 against Benin Republic in Uyo. South Africa will play against Zimbabwe inside the Orlando Pirates Stadium in South Africa. Of course, Bafana Bafana’s last game is with Rwanda in South Africa, yet we are deluding ourselves that they won’t win Group C’s sole qualification ticket. These are fishes for the South Africans to fry on match days. They won’t bottle it.

As it stands, South Africa remain in a strong position to top the group with 17 points from eight matches, while second placed Benin Republic are on 14 points.

Fourth-placed Rwanda are tied on 11 points with Nigeria, while Lesotho (6 points) and Zimbabwe (4 points) complete the six-team table.

September 13, 2025
Towards a peaceful Ekiti APC primary (1)

Nigeria’s Fountain of Knowledge, Ekiti State, is on the cusp of making a peculiar political statement. Whichever way the governorship primary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) ends, Ekiti is set to tell the world something worth paying attention to.

If the incumbent wins the contest, he would have broken a jinx that erected a barrier on the path of his predecessors from securing two straight terms. But if he loses the primary, it would be a foregone conclusion that the state is haunted by a second-term spook.

So far, there is nothing to show that victory would elude the incumbent.

As preparations for the primary intensify, there is no doubt that the wheat will be separated from the chaff, ultimately. The main contender and the pretenders will be known on October 27.

After the exercise, the losers, with bruised and deflated ego, would reconcile with the predictable winner. The lessons of the contest would be very instructive, although they may be lost on the gullible and those who draw the wool over their eyes.

The primary is the first critical step in the ruling party’s push for continuity. The bigger game is next year’s poll, which will herald a similar contest in the neighbouring Osun State involving the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and APC.

These elections would lay the foundation for the 2027 general election, which is nearer than imagined. Thus, the governorship polls may have a predictive value.

Morning shows the day. While other contestants appear to be spoiling for war in a no-war zone, engaging in character assassination and indulging in curious revisionism in the Ekiti APC, the expected winner has remained focused. He is consolidating his hold on the party as he looks forward to the contest with confident hope and optimism.

There are, understandably, few deserters from the vehicle to the primary. But that partisan behaviour is not really a foul play. The transient shift in loyalty may be a normal element of intra-party contest that does not totally pale into anti-party activity.

What is striking in Ekiti APC is that a few alarmists are creating the impression of a looming stiff contest. Although the chapter is not threatened by external forces – the PDP, the relic of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and the split PDP masquerading as the African Democratic Congress (ADC) – it may be battling with some negligible internal contradictions.

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After the statewide endorsement for Governor Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji (BAO), the coast was clear that a vacancy does not exist for now at the Government House in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital. But a tiny fraction of those who initially were part of the endorsement are exercising their constitutional right to look for temporary trading opportunities with other contenders ahead of the primary.

Politics is in the air in the rustic, far-flung hilly state. Eyes are on a sub-regional unit where principled actors are wrongly labelled by outsiders as stubborn folks. Everybody’s attention is on the imminent battle. There are permutations, series of cajoling, rumour mongering and propaganda by hired consultants and spin doctors.

Gladiators have returned to the drawing board to perfect strategies for intrigues. Social media warriors are locked in reputational damage. There are accusations and counter-accusations by antagonistic supporters and followers.

Lightweights are showing nude bravado, building castles in the air. It is one of the wonders of the game that the weak is trying to bully the strong while simultaneously resorting to direct blackmail, with their ‘disarticulated’ followers crying foul where there is none.

Facts are also deliberately distorted. Some storytellers are trying to rewrite the history of Ekiti State’s creation. It smacks of jealousy. As they try to dismiss the governor’s involvement in the historic agitation as scanty or negligible, observers find fault with their claim. The questions are: where were these opponents during the popular clamour for state creation? What was the contribution of these adversaries? Are they entitled to any footnote when the history of state creation is fully written?

To those who keep records, these scenarios are not new. Politics is about competition and antagonism. In some quarters, the elements of ‘do-or-die’ cannot be totally ruled out by bitter actors. The point of departure is that that unruly partisan behaviour connotes political immaturity.

But should the sordid past be re-enacted?

The Ondo-Ekiti axis was usually enveloped in tension during governorship primaries in the progressive bloc. The only exception was the 1979 primary of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) involving Chief Adekunle Ajasin, Senator Ayo Fasanmi, and Rev. Iluyomade, a former Principal of International School at the University of Ibadan (UI).

The primary of 1982 contested by Ajasin, Chief Akin Omoboriowo, and Senator Banji Akintoye divided the progressive camp. But those who defected from the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) to the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) never recovered from the public opprobrium that followed their action.

In the Third Republic, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) primary was fiercely contested among aspirants of Ekiti origin – Evangelist Bamidele Olumilua, Dr. Kunle Olajide, Prof. David Oke (Pick a Gem), Akinyemi, and Prof. Opeyemi Ola – after the ticket was zoned to Ekiti. Ajasin gave instructions from his Owo bedroom that delegates should vote for Olumilua, who won.

In 1999, the Alliance for Democracy (AD) primary between Otunba Niyi Adebayo and Chief S. K. Kolawole was moderated by Lagos-based Afenifere leaders of Ogun State origin. It generated bitterness. Babalola, an Awoist, surprisingly left for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He never returned to his natural political habitat.

In 2007, Ekiti AD/Action Congress (AC) was in turmoil after Dr. Kayode Fayemi won the ticket. Other aspirants – Prince Dayo Adeyeye, Ayo Arise, and Joseph Odetola – hurriedly defected to the PDP. The governorship poll that followed was chaotic. The result was disputed. For the next three years, peace took a flight from the state.

Also, anxiety enveloped Ekiti APC during the 2017 primary. No fewer than 30 chieftains showed interest. On the eve of the primary, there was commotion. The national chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, who was taken aback by the rancorous atmosphere, wondered why the National Leader could not rein in his ‘boys’ in Ekiti. It took the wisdom of party elders to restore order in a state of pandemonium.

However, three years ago, there was a semblance of orderliness. The handwriting on the wall was clear to featherweights who initially threw their hats in the ring. The party was in one accord when BAO got the ticket and won the poll.

In all these shadow polls, a key element of success was the structure of the aspirant. This factor, among others, will shape the anticipated exercise, which may be through a direct or indirect method, since the consensus option has been ruled out.

Other associated issues, which also have a linkage with the structure of the contenders, are personal and political networks, relationship with the party, service to the political family, experience, record of performance in public service, and financial war chest.

Others are: the incumbency factor, support of the four predecessors, public perception, and the guided position of the delegates.

All these factors, without mincing words, comparatively favour Oyebanji more than his rivals. If other aspirants challenge the governor to a debate, he would be rated above them in terms of public service experience, knowledge of the state, and a good understanding of its multiple problems.

While the governor is in a vantage position to tender his scorecard, his rivals would have nothing comparable to show.

Contestants Kayode Ojo and Abimbola Olajumoke have attained good heights in their chosen professions. As Nigerians, and indeed, indigenes of Ekiti, they have the inalienable right to seek the ticket. But the political gap between the governor and the two contenders is wide. Many party stalwarts perceive them as starters who would be making promises to Ekiti on what they intend to do, unlike the governor, who has applied for mandate renewal based on what he has accomplished, and what more he is still doing as an incumbent.

The Ekiti APC is the dominant structure that is critical to the primary. It would not be strange if over 80 per cent of the membership queues behind BAO if the exercise is based on the delegate system.

Oyebanji has been an important and faithful member of the family from the inception of the Fourth Republic and throughout his political career as a Personal Assistant, Chief of Staff, Commissioner, Director-General, Secretary to the State Government, governor and state party leader.

Undiluted loyalty is key to the structure. In times of storm, stress and tension, members of the structure have often elevated group interest over personal agenda. BAO is a product of the time-tested tradition.

Loyal stalwarts have always embraced intra-party crisis-resolution mechanisms in the chapter. These committed and dedicated chieftains are poles apart from political neonates who opted to take the party to court to ventilate grievances before and after elections.

The party knows BAO, who also knows the party leaders across the wards, local governments, constituencies, and districts, unlike his challengers, who have to be newly introduced to critical stakeholders in many local councils and at the state level.

However, to avoid a post-primary crisis, the national leadership should endeavour to conduct a free and fair primary, leaving no room for any loophole that can be capitalised upon by the symbols of internal contradiction in the chapter.

September 13, 2025
From allies to foes: How Amaechi, Fayemi’s friendship collapsed

Theirs is a classic instance of the thin line between friendship and enmity, and how quickly one can turn into another.

Since their days as governors of Ekiti and Rivers states until recently, Sir Kayode Fayemi and Hon. Rotimi Amaechi carried on as the best of friends. Such was the bond between them that they became the brains behind the adoption of African Democratic Congress (ADC) as the rallying point for Atiku, El-Rufai and other political enemies of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to pursue their mission of stopping his return for a second term in 2027.

But in an instance of the instability of human relationships, the mission that united them became their veritable source of animosity, so much so that Amaechi was said to have complained loudly that Fayemi no longer picks his calls.

But how did things go wrong between them?

Recall that both Amaechi and Fayemi were candidates in the presidential primaries that produced Tinubu as the APC candidate in the build-up to the 2023 elections. Fayemi, however, toed the path of other aspirants like Senator Godswill Akpabio, former Ogun State governor Ibikunle Amosun and former Speaker of the House of Representatives Dimeji Bankole, who stepped down forTinubu moments before the the votes were cast at the Eagle Square venue of the primary election and set the stage for Tinubu to roundly defeat Amaechi, former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and other party stalwarts who contested the election.

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Smarting from his defeat at the presidential primaries, Amaechi resolved to work against Tinubu’s interest, eventually drafting Fayemi, whose hope of getting a slot in Tinubu’s cabinet did not materialise. In their pursuit of this unholy scheme, they hit on the idea of joining forces with other anti-Tinubu forces on a mission to frustrate his administration and make his return in 2027 impossible.

However, while Amaechi chose to be open about his opposition to Tinubu’s presidency, Fayemi, fearing a backlash, chose to be clandestine. But as it has turned out, their differing approach became the sore point as Amaechi drew Fayemi’s anger with his public declaration that he and the former Ekiti State governor masterminded anti-Tinubu elements’ choice of ADC as the vehicle for the anti-Tinubu mission.

Apparently embarrassed by Amaechi’s revelation, Fayemi tried to dismiss it with a wave of the hand. “In an era where fabricated or distorted statements are often attributed to public figures for malicious purposes, we are cautious about engaging with potentially manufactured controversies designed to provoke or profit,” he said.

He added that “it is possible that Hon. Amaechi did not make the statement or was misquoted” and also claimed that there was no video of Amaechi making the claims attributed to him.

Determined, however, to prove that he is the one to be believed in this game of claims and counter-claims, Amaechi released an audio providing incontrovertible details and naming names to vindicate himself and permanently silence his political ally.

Amaechi said: “ADC has overgrown those that started it. The coalition started between Fayemi and I in the house of Nasiru Danu, with Salihu Mohammed and others.

“When we met, Salihu commenced the meeting. He wanted us to reconcile. After reconciliation, we agreed to broaden it so that it would involve more than just the two of us talking about starting a new party.

“Then we got a consultant to help us look at the political structure and that of INEC to determine which party will be most suitable.

“Then we expanded by getting (Senator Aminu) Tambuwal and others. By the time we did that, we had grown to about 20 to 30.

“We thereafter set up a committee to look for any of the available parties to join.

“The committee, after negotiating with several parties like AA (Action Alliance), Accord Party, ended up with ADC.

“One of the requirements we set was that the party must give up its leadership so that everyone can join.”

Amaechi’s detailed explanation has sseen driven Fayemi into absolute silence while Amaechi is going about promoting his presidential ambition. Any surprise that Fayemi is no longer picking his calls?

September 13, 2025
Food for thought for Northern Nigeria

“Woe betide a society whereby their dead leaders are better than their leaders that are alive” … Dr. Yusuf Maitama Sule CFR, the Late Dan Masanin Kano, and Former Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations

For the record, I am from Northern Nigeria, a Muslim, and a patriot of Nigeria. I am currently not a member of any political party. However, I am worried that our narratives and posturing as northerners will not change our collective situation for good unless we tell ourselves the truth and take the necessary actions.

By the way, while I am talking about northern Nigeria, the people from other regions in Nigeria should also take my message as a mirror for their regions, so that they can also make progress. Because we all have similar tendencies.

The Crux of the Issues.

It is proper and very important for interest groups of northern Nigeria, like other regional, ethnic, and religious groups in Nigeria, to continue advocating for good governance and pushing for more equitable leadership and representation at the federal level, while keeping the fee of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to fire.

However, in my view, the issues bedeviling northern Nigeria and the actual solutions will depend on how we, the northern elites and establishment, view the issues, our sincerity of purpose, and the actions that we take to address them. The root causes of most of the challenges facing Northern Nigeria are more regional and local than federal. Therefore, we must refocus, expand our vision, and change our mindsets if there is to be any hope of redemption, growth, and development.

Living in denial and blaming trade will only complicate and exacerbate our situations. The combined ticking time bombs of tribalism, ethnic jingoism, religious extremism, religious bigotry, hypocrisy, poverty, jealousy and envy, greed, hatred, erosion of our core values, corruption, etc., are part of the multi-dimensional issues that we must address as our realities. Indeed, we must also accept that the issues are mostly self-inflicted, either deliberately or inadvertently.

Consequently, political grandstanding and gaslighting will not help us but only make our matters worse. The population growth rate of northern Nigeria, the preponderance of out-of-school children, rising unemployment, youth restiveness, rising social vices, insecurity, etc., in northern Nigeria reflect our dire situation, which calls for sincere and sober reflections. Without decisive actions to contain the ugly trends rather than blaming trade, we will be doomed.

Some questions for all of us who are Nigerians from the northern region are as follows:

Having produced the highest number of Presidents and Heads of State in Nigeria, and having been key stakeholders in the political evolution of this country, how many banks are owned by northern Nigerians? How many media houses are owned by northern Nigerians? How many manufacturing plants, or factories, are owned by northern Nigerians, apart from Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Alhaji Abdulsamad Isyaku Rabiu, and a few others? How many industries or factories in Nigeria are operated or managed by northern Nigerians? How many of the former State Governors of northern Nigeria have even a “pure water” factory where they have employed 10 people? How many of all former State governors of northern Nigeria, former and serving Senators, and Members of the House of Representatives are actually employing people or that actually have scholarship programs/systems whereby they are supporting children from their constituencies, with their own money, or the money they have taken from us? How many of us own or are managing (at top level) the insurance companies, and other private financial institutions, corporate organizations, apart from the Non-Executive Directorships that we are occasionally given, to give a semblance of national outlook for Companies that are owned majorly by southern Nigerians in which we have no real stake, etc.? These are the critical indicators that will tell us whether we are moving in the right direction or not. Today, most of the masses in northern Nigeria are “on their own”, with no help from the elites.

Most times, we, the elites, only speak out loudly when it comes to issues that directly affect us or our children, but not really for the common good. How did we allow our region to slide into the abyss of over 80 million out of over 133 million multi-dimensionally poor Nigerians? Are these issues entirely the fault of a President, i.e., President Olusegun Obasanjo, President Umar Musa Yar’Adua, President Goodluck Jonathan, President Muhammadu Buhari, or the incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu? Why do we have to shout all the time about issues that we are also responsible for? For example, we have a situation whereby a former northern State governor, who was a governor maybe 15 years ago, has become a glorified personal assistant to a current state governor. This speaks volumes to how we are making progress as northern Nigerians, or as Nigeria in general, because, by the way, this is not just a northern Nigeria issue.

Certainly, if we are able to speak truths to ourselves, we may start moving in the right direction. Most of our leaders block their ears, close their eyes when they are in power, whether as Presidents, Vice Presidents, State Governors, Deputy Governors, Federal and State legislators, Judges, Chief Executives, Civil Servants, etc., but they shamelessly become “latter-day activists” when they leave office, having failed to deliver good governance during their tenures. It is time that we, the people of Northern Nigeria, start calling out such leaders.

For the past 65 years in Nigeria, from independence to date, in every administration, northern Nigerians have been given the opportunity to lead or to serve. Whether the number is enough or not is not the issue. Recently, the late President Muhammadu Buhari was the President for eight years. How did our northern leaders, who were given the opportunities, perform? How did they change the fortunes of northern Nigeria within those eight years? Not long ago, during the tenure of President Goodluck Jonathan, most of the top government officials who were found blameful or responsible for the diversion of the funds that were appropriated and disbursed for the procurement of weapons to fight terrorism were from Northern Nigeria. They were found to be in cahoots with misappropriating money that was meant to save/ protect their people, other Nigerians, and residents from being looted, kidnapped, raped, maimed, and killed daily in thousands. What This is the height of wickedness! Shame! What did the northern elders, elites, or citizens do, or what are they doing to stop these menaces and evil tendencies of self-service?

Currently, the two Ministers of Defense, two Ministers of Agriculture, the Coordinating Minister of Health, Minister of Information, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Transport, the National Security Adviser, etc., are from northern Nigeria. It does not matter what political party is in power at the federal level; we always have a significant share of power and the highest number of representatives in the power dynamics of Nigeria. Therefore, what should matter is how we perform and how we utilize the opportunities.

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Self-Service OR Sincere Agitation?

For instance, months into the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, there was agitation by the Northern elites that there was a plan by the administration to sack northerners from CBN, etc., when 70% of the children in the CBN are our children, i.e., children of the elites. What about the children of Shoe shiners or peasant farmers, etc? Are we addressing the issues of almost 70% of our public primary and secondary schools that are dilapidated, with our children that sit on bare floors, in open areas? How about the teeming Almajiris that we maltreat? Is that the responsibility of the federal government? We all know that the State governments are primarily responsible for primary and secondary schools’ education, and yet we have over 10 million children and youngsters out of school. How are we, the elites, also speaking truth to our state governors to ensure that they do the needful? So, these are the posers for us to address as Northern Nigerians.

Moreover, 70% of the leaders from North and indeed from Southern Nigeria came from humble backgrounds. But most of them forget where they come from, only when they need their votes. The fact is that about 60 or 50 years ago, they were given opportunities by leaders like Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, etc., and yet most of them have abandoned their people. Most of them were like the Almajiris of today, and yet they were given those opportunities to excel and become leaders in their Country. Now, all they think of is themselves and their children. Yet here we are blaming all our woes on any President who is in power.

Therefore, I urge our political, religious, traditional leaders, top leaders, intellectuals, and the entire elites to have a moment of introspection.

In the subsequent episode, I will continue expounding on the issues bedeviling northern Nigeria and how I think we should best address them.

September 12, 2025
Osun LG crisis: Jankaraism at play

Ankara Was A popular slang among lawyers those days when legal practice was at its best. Those were the days when lawyers stuck to the rules of their trade. They only argued their cases in court and not on television, radio and in newspapers.

Unfortunately, the reverse is the case today. What is troubling is that lawyers who should know and set examples for young wigs as their own seniors did for them when they started out are most guilty of this unprofessional act.

They go on air masquerading as legal pundits when in fact they are discussing matters in which they are lawyers to a party. What they are doing is forbidden in law practice. It is elementary that cases are not discussed outside the hallowed precincts of the courtroom. Even law students and lay men know this. It is called sub judice in latin.

But these days, very senior lawyers have made punditry their hobby. They hop from one television and radio studio to the other, commenting on the very case they are handling in court, in breach of their practice rule. They and their interviewers try to be clever by half – pretending as if the interviewees know nothing about such cases before coming on air.

Whereas the interviewee knows a lot about the case and only came to defend his position. But they mask their intentions by skirting around other issues to deceive the gullible viewer before returning to where they are going which is the lawyer’s case in court. Thinking that he is wise, the interviewer after leading the interviewee on, will say something like this:

“That is not where I am going. I didn’t know that you are seized of this matter. Now, since we have touched on it, let’s take it up from there. What are the issues involved in the case…” Responding in kind, the lawyer will cut in: “I am seized of the case. You see… (calling the interviewer’s name), there are two judgments of the Federal High Court and a judgment of the Court of Appeal on the matter…”

And the lawyer goes on and on, without stating that he is a lawyer in the case. This is the depth to which legal practice has sunk. Regrettably, the undertakers are the many senior lawyers who are expected to shine the light for their juniors to follow, and their professional body, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).

This is the kind of Jankara practice that eminent lawyers deplored in the olden days, even though some of then engaged in it too when it suited them. Jankara is the use of stealth to win a case by all means. It is a deplorable act which decent lawyers condemned then and still condemn now, but it has remained an untamed monster in legal practice because of the incorrigibility of many lawyers.

Jankara is a strong phrase which no lawyer wants his colleague to use for him inside or outside the court. It was fun those days watching eminent lawyers in court, doing battle over the slang. They threatened fire and brimstone, even going to the extent of saying they would withdraw their appearance, if the Judge did not ask the user of the phrase to withdraw it.

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Going the Jankara way as witnessed in the Osun local government debacle and in other cases, particularly during the last presidential election petition matters, did not start today. The only difference is that it was limited to the courtroom then. Now, it has been brought to the marketplace. Incidentally, Jankara is the name of a popular market in Lagos, where buyers and sellers, must be at alert in order not to be duped. Otherwise, either party may end up being shortchanged.

In other words, some lawyers through their Jankara way attempt to con their colleagues and the Judge, as well, so as to obtain justice at all costs. Those who call lawyers liars may be right after all. What is happening in the Osun case has shown some lawyers for who and what they are. And these are the same lawyers who go all over the place, preaching on how to make society better.

How can a lawyer or his association that is not true to himself or itself be true to the society? Honesty is an innate quality. It is either you have it or you do not have it. What do you say of a lawyer who cannot disclose that he is involved in a case, but goes on air to analyse the same case for the viewing audience? What do you say of the NBA that comments on a case that is in court and takes sides with one of the parties? Is that a bar association? A union of motor drivers will do better than that!

NBA has since turned itself into a “busybody” in many matters. It has become a tool for blackmail and it is manipulated by many lawyers and politicians to fight their battles. At the bottom of it all is filthy lucre. There is nothing some lawyers and NBA cannot do for money.

Their deployment of Jankaraism in the Osun council case is a big shame. Yet, they call themselves ministers in the temple of justice! Ministers? Do they truly understand the halo around the name that they cherish but desecrate with so much impunity? With ministers like these, can a nation ever be saved?

These lawyers and NBA should allow the court to do its work without let or hindrance.

September 11, 2025
The global breakdown of pacific relations

About two weeks ago, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, suddenly came out with an executive order changing the name of the Defence Department to War Department to indicate, according to him that he wants the potential adversaries of the US to note that the gun is loaded to be used against any country or alliance that may challenge the United States.

Since the president is in possession of intelligence that may not be available to other people, it was conceded to him that he must have a reason for the aggressive change. However, the global political environment in recent times has not been conducive to peace. The Russian war on Ukraine despite the Alaska meeting of Putin and Trump has not relented. On top of this is the unfinished war against Iran and the cruel crushing war against undefended people in Gaza that is raising the temperature of every sane person in the world. On top of this is Donald Trump’s tariff war against every trading nation with the United States without discrimination between allies and enemies.

As if in reaction, though probably a long planned and scheduled programme, the People’s Republic of China mounted a celebration of power by staging a great display of military muscle in Beijing, celebrating the surrender of Japan in 1945 as if China was responsible for forcing Japan to surrender rather than the decisive United States dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

China invited most of the authoritarian regimes in the world like Russia, Turkey, North Korea and, surprisingly India that Trump’s policy has put in the wilderness by imposing 50% trade tariff to punish it for buying cheap crude oil and gas from Russia which is helping Russia to fund its campaign against Ukraine.

India, the most populous country in the world seems to be shifting its implicit alliance from the democratic world to the changing leadership of China in a new world order led by China. To indicate that the peace of the world is under some kind of threat, the recent changes in the democratic western alliance leads one to the belief that we are witnessing mobilisation for war unless care is taken.

Recently the British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said we were living in dangerous times. This was echoed by the new American Secretary of State for War Pete Hegseth. One would have said this was the usual exaggeration for which the Donald Trump crowd is known for. But coming from the British prime minister, one cannot simply dismiss it because this was a preambular statement to the launching of a new British Defence and Strategic Review document which is going to increase Britain’s defence spending to 3% of the country’s GDP. This will be well above the current 2%, still way below the 5% President Donald Trump is demanding from all NATO member countries even though the current amount the USA is spending is $895 billion just about 3.4%of its GDP which is way above the current expenditure on defence by the next three countries of China, $ 266.85 billion, Russia $126 billion and India, which comes fourth with an expenditure of $75 billion. From these figures, it can be seen that the USA alone spends more than the next three countries combined. The British prime minister’s statement was further explained by the Secretary of State for Defence, Right Honourable John Healey, who claimed that his country aims to build about 11 attack submarines, expand the carrying capacity of the British Navy and reinvigorate the air force by buying additional American-built F35 and increase the number of British-built typhoon aircraft and start recruiting people into the fighting force of the army while keeping the current men and women happy by improving their accommodation and stipends.

All these coming from a socialist government which traditionally preferred to spend money on social services indicate that its analysis on threat to the realm is serious. This of course should be taken in the context of the NATO members feeling about the unreliability of the USA as a partner because of the statements of Trump who has perhaps rightly been saying that American Defence partners must share the burden of defence and not expect America to carry their burden as it used to do hitherto. This sharing of burden on defence extends not only to NATO members alone but to Japan and South Korea and to the rich Arab oil kingdoms and to Israel where the Israeli tail wags the American dog!

As at the moment, Trump is prepared to fight future Israeli war against Iran and to possibly level the Persian theocracy down unless it kowtows to Israeli diktat and abandons its nuclear program. The current doctrine of expanding defence spending has also been embraced by the new German chancellor, Friedrich Merz who has publicly committed his country to go beyond 3% of GDP from its current low of below 2%. Merz has signed agreements with Ukraine to help it defend itself by building its own defence industry. The German posture on defence is influenced by President Putin’s aggression in Ukraine because ordinarily Germany is forbidden to rearm because of its militaristic past but in the current global context, the Western Alliance sees nothing wrong with Germany’s rearmament. For reasons of the big powers guarantee of Germany’s permanent disarmament, the Germans would probably have built their own nuclear arsenal for which they are capable of doing and the know-how of which they have. The current aggression of Russia in Ukraine has led to President Macron’s signing defence agreements with Poland in addition to the European Union’s opposition to the Russian threat.

All these coming after Trump’s bluff that has not impressed President Putin, it seems the Europeans are determined to defend themselves with or without American support. A coordination of British, French and German preparedness to defend their interests on the continent of Europe and their threat to seize accumulated Russian financial assets and investments in Europe may eventually force Putin to count the cost of his policy of rebuilding the lost Russian empire and the reconstruction of the collapsed USSR.

Recently the security conference in Singapore to which the Chinese virtually ignored by sending a low ranking delegation to witness, the campaign of rearmament carried to their door step with President Macron delivering the key note address and offering France’s support for their defence of democracy, and development for countries in South East Asia and warning those countries of the need to be prepared to defend their country’s autonomy. He also called on China to prevail on North Korea to stop its continued intervention on the Russian side in the current war between Russia and Ukraine on European continent.

The American Secretary of State for War Pete Hegseth was less diplomatic as characteristic of American “open diplomacy” established since the time of President Woodrow Wilson at the end of the First World War by openly accusing China of threatening Taiwan and the Philippines and calling on countries in Asia to be ready to resist Chinese communist threats by increasing their arms spending. He gave the impression that America is prepared to defend Taiwan which is against Trump’s campaign statement that he would not commit American troops to the defence of Taiwan. The Japanese and the South Koreans were not openly attacking China. But Japan in recent times seems to have abandoned its pacific policy to a policy of armed neutrality in Asia but is ready to protect the Japanese homeland. In the first Trump administration, the Japanese were publicly goaded to develop their nuclear umbrella. The Japanese did not publicly state their position apart from saying the American-Japanese treaty of defence was sufficient.

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My guess is that the Chinese does not have expansionist ambitions on the Philippines except to contest fishing rights on disputed islands in the South China Sea and Vietnam is capable of resisting Chinese ambitions. As for Taiwan, the eventual unification with the mainland is a foregone conclusion with or without America’s acquiescence.

To make the new Arms race palatable to the suffering electorate in Europe particularly in Great Britain, politicians are now talking of a new concept of “DEFENCE DIVIDENDS” meaning that with expansion of defence industries in their neighbourhood, jobs will be created for working class people who can either enlist in the armed forces or work in arms industries. The idea of defence dividends are not strange because when a country’s economy is put on war footing, there seems to be the appearance of full employment which is a false prosperity against which the post 2nd World war American president and previous Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during the Second World War, General David Dwight Eisenhower warned against when he advised his country against being taken over by the “military industrial complex“.

There is however no doubt that there is a growing hysteria about the possibility of an outbreak of war in Europe and the rest of us cannot just ignore it because of our distance from the current theatre of the conflict in Eastern Europe. However we can hope that like all other regional wars of the past since 1945, the Russian war in Ukraine will be contained because its spread and development into a nuclear confrontation is just too ghastly to be imagined. Even President Trump knows this and he is probably capable of palliating the military desire of his MAGA group by going to war against Venezuela and other weak countries in the Caribbean or South America accusing them of poisoning America people with their allegedly nefarious involvement in drug smuggling into the US which is less risky against a nuclear armed opponent.

September 11, 2025
Genocide, not wordplay (2)

After the colonists are done with Palestine, their next stop would be Africa perhaps. Occupying Africa will be easy. They simply need to flaunt a scripture to validate the siege and seizure of Africa’s most fertile tracts.

Having successfully established and integrated religion as the most crucial element of colonial expansion, the psyops (psychological operations) that render Africans acquiescent to the eventual seizure of our land and resources will be easy.

In Gaza, it’s Israeli Zionists murdering innocent civilians; in Africa, it would be the Christian Zionist pitted against the Muslim fundamentalist, and everybody else in a free-for-all.

Consider the curious case of Nigeria, for instance; the magnitude of explicit and suppressed rage is enough to trigger the citizenry towards implosion. Here, the colonists need not actively get boots on the ground or soil their hands with the blood of innocents; Nigerians will happily slay each other in worship of imperial ‘gods.’

Faith, as espoused by the Abrahamic faiths, teaches us to conquer our animal instincts, but caught in a fit of righteousness, we circumvent credo, that we may glorify our espoused and unarticulated sinful lusts.

While it’s moral to rage against the bloodlust and carnage perpetrated by Boko Haram, ISWAP and other terror cells afflicting the peace and stability of Nigeria alongside her West African neighbours, shall we dare reproach the infamy and bloodlust flagrantly glamourised by the Christian Zionist across Africa and Nigeria?

If we agree that only a mindless savage would applaud the mayhem fomented on the continent by Islamist terror cells, shall we also condemn, without equivocation, every African celebrating the occupation and daily murder of Palestinians?

It’s horrid enough to witness – online and offline – the maniacal heckling of the Palestinians and their sympathisers by a people coming from a long history of slavery and colonist siege; it is even more alarming to see supposed ‘truth-tellers’ and leaders of thought dubiously pirouette, spinning words into apologetic shrouds for slaughter.

We must be wary of validating the carnage we dread as just deserts for others, simply because they are of a different creed and civilisation. Brings to mind the curious case of my childhood friend, a Christian and proud son of Bokkos, who once defended Israel’s siege on Gaza. “It’s security,” he said, “self-defence.” Until his village was set ablaze and his cousin’s children were murdered and burned to ashes. “This is too much. There is no justice,” he cried. And I had no heart to say what I thought; that “Nobody savours the taste of the bitter herbs we season for others.”

Lest we forget the reactions to the tragic fate of Apesuur Ukechia and Ward Khalil. On a Sunday morning, just after church, Ukechia watched as her husband and three children were gunned down by herdsmen in Aondona, Gwer West, Benue State. Months before, the same assailants killed her parents and all of her siblings. Ukechia’s loss is unacceptable, yet no more pitiable than Ward Khalil’s. The harrowing video of the five-year-old Palestinian girl trying to escape a burning Fahmi Al-Jarjawi School shelter in Gaza City after being incinerated by an overnight Israeli airstrike is heartrending. Although Khalil ambled through the flames to safety, her five siblings, aged two to 18, died in the flames along with their mother. “I was scared of the fire,” a teary Khalil told journalists, even as she had no words to relate her family’s massacre.

Reacting to Ukechia’s loss, some Nigerians blamed the government for allowing the culprits roam free. They made a radical call to arms, urging every community hosting northerners to “evict them before they kill us all and take over our lands.”

But these same anarchists, reacting to Khalil’s loss, described her as “collateral damage.” The tenor of reactions ranged from “Her people started it on October 7, now they must live with the consequences” to “Serves them right! Next time, they won’t attack God’s chosen.”

This thought process is shamelessly propagated by many a bigoted Nigerian across the civic sphere and it catches like wildfire as you read, in Nigeria’s citadels of learning and religious faith. In an academic forum, some academics dismissed a video of Zionist-Jews attacking Christian pilgrims in Israel, while claiming that it’s their divinely-ordained duty to kill every Christian because they are “idol worshipers.” They refused to condemn Israeli attacks on Christian brethren even as they justified the occupiers’ genocidal campaign in Palestine. “It’s a hard decision that must be taken,” said an esteemed Professor. These random reactions mirror our descent into moral atrophy.

As of September 3, 2025, over 66,700 people (64,739 Palestinians and 1,983 Israelis) have been reported killed in the genocide according to the Gaza Health Ministry (GHM), Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, media and humanitarian workers. Scholars estimated that 80% of Palestinians killed are civilians, of which 70% were women and children (OHCHR).

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Yet, many Nigerians, armed with half-baked theology and deeply embedded bigotry, cheer the perpetrators with messianic zeal. More worrisome is the incursion of this murderous mentality into the Nigerian newsroom. Every editorial and commentary validating the genocide resounds as a mindless brushstroke in the mural of apology, painted for Israel as it ethnically cleanses Palestine. This is more the journalism of complicity than compassion. For it does not document the truth. Rather, it thwarts it.

Never in modern memory has a genocide claimed so many journalists – at least 250 – as it has claimed in Gaza. But the bigoted newsroom would rather whip out alibis for the perpetrators, soullessly validating their siege, as a consequence of Hamas’s October 7 attack. Such pitilessness absolves the Israeli occupiers of ethnic cleansing and genocide perpetrated against their captive Palestinian hosts since 1948.

How did we arrive here? Some say it is faith. But faith has been mutilated into idolatry. Zionism, as advanced by the African pulpit, has replaced God with a political state. Murderous Zionists command Christian Africa just as ISIS masterminds excite ISWAP allegiance. Proof-texts are dragged from Genesis and wielded like bayonets, as if the promise to Abraham to bless all nations could be warped into a license for ethnic cleansing and genocide.

To watch journalists excuse the bombing of hospitals in Gaza is to see the rehearsal for the rationalisation of similar massacres in Borno, Kaduna or Lagos. To watch them amplify, even after being debunked, Israeli lies about “beheaded babies” is to understand how they will amplify the propaganda of local tyrants tomorrow. The “Hannibal directive,” which sanctioned the killing of its own citizens to prevent their capture, on October 7 and beyond, was once dismissed as fantasy until its grisly reality was exposed, but the newsroom is primed to conveniently ignore such disconcerting truths.

The newsroom that celebrates Zionist tyrants will bend to domestic despots. What is denied abroad will be denied at home; what is excused abroad will be excused at home.

There is a rhythm to atrocity, a choreography almost banal in its repetition. Palestine may seem a distant theatre. But it is a global mirror. Do we not see ourselves in those faces pressed against rubble? Do we not hear our own children in those cries? Or have we convinced ourselves that genocide is only real when it arrives at our gates?

Imagine the first inhabitants of Lagos, Plateau or Benin rising to reclaim ancestral lands, citing scriptures or ancestral decrees. Would today’s cheerleaders of conquest by Holy Writ validate their siege? Would they call resistance, “terrorism” and couch dispossession in divine justification?

September 11, 2025
Leadership conference vs. leadership conscience

As a politician, actual or potential, or a Nigerian, please interrogate your personal journey since birth and the role of HONESTY or DISHONESTY in your actions. Get a leadership conscience! Political honesty/dishonesty brought us to dollar-less collapse under the Buhari/CBN Emefiele regime. Buhari’s proclaimed honesty, his job appeal, was overcompensated by his greedy cohorts, and one man’s apparent CBN dishonesty with non-payment of dollar debts and 1506 housing-unit estate. Please add the petroleum and dollar round-tripping which have been stopped by the Tinubu regime angering many politicians and so-called businesspersons and perhaps precipitating the Politicians Come Back Gallery for 2027. Will they be honest in future?

It is never too late to start to be honest. Dishonesty has cost Nigeria trillions of dollars, truncated the achievements of every Nigerian, and has killed millions by not preventing and curing diseases and through the dishonest manipulation of policies like road maintenance, okada motorcycle and life jacket clueless policies. Need we add the dishonest environment with chronic non-payment of salaries and pensions -a catalyst for dishonesty?

You do not have to go to school to be honest. Every citizen from infancy to the grave every minute faces family and personal and social honesty questions. From stealing meat, money and sweets from siblings, to borrowing car keys. Pranks or dishonesty? Yes, we are all taught ‘honesty is the best policy’ and are tested when in administrative control of wardrobe, bedroom, kitchen, home, classroom, company or a country struggling to become a nation.

We celebrate yet another National Leadership Conference as we mourn the parade of political so-called heavyweight leaders embroiled in political financial and administrative corruption – manifest by failed and uncompleted projects [their own and inherited] and mountain of unattained election promises, and flood of failed unending corruption cases in court, which do not mean innocence as they can be dropped for technicalities and ‘political party crossing’ in exchange for dropping or not pursuing criminal charges.

All these have resulted in a 40-50 year period of Nigeria’s citizens suffering from a ‘failure to thrive’ with failed dreams and unattained aspirations. Of course, there will be first-in-class and prize winners in every circumstance and school, no matter how poor the political impact in communities because achievement is recognised and celebrated even among the neglected, the poor, in poverty and in deprived and oppressed communities and deliberately imposed adverse circumstances. But the losers, the less achieved, lose more at the poor level because there is no safety net of political, social or family pecuniary wealth to support and remedy failure of a less-successful achievement.

For example, who supports those who have failed MOCK exam but have no access to funding private teachers to coach them before the final exam a month later? In Educare Trust, we took about 160 of such indigent failed MOCK students and paid N500k for private coaching for a month and achieved a 60+% pass. It is doubtful whether any of the ‘MisLeaders’ since forever who deliberately campaigned or went into government of their own volition, are unaware of the simple criteria of ‘Right VS Wrong’ repeated ad nauseum at leadership conferences over 50 years.

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Leaders, when spending public money must stop the greed encouraged by deliberate opaque political secrecy, poor auditing/accountability, poor punishment and the civil service contract policy of ‘This is how we normally divide it’ and ‘What’s in it for me and my family?’. They and we all, must join the tens of millions of honest Fellow Nigerians who have been honest forever, every hour of every day and every year and substitute ‘What’s in it for me and my family?’ with ‘What’s in it for my fellow citizens young and old?’ be it any of the SDGs or endorsing and executing citizen-friendly policies. Let us have an example.

For 50 years the citizens have been manipulated and suffered humiliation and embarrassment and other untold hardship while attempting and often failing to get Nigerian passports. Now, under this Tinubu administration a team of Fellow Nigerians led by Minister Tunji-Ojo took this passport issuance delay as a huge sign of long-standing citizen negligence and systemic corruption and they have succeeded in reducing the timeline for getting a passport to just a week, even abroad.

It is when the pothole is fixed that we realise the time lost from neglect. But nobody pays for the loss and injury and deaths caused by the pothole during the period of neglect. And meanwhile, the person responsible has been given a N160m+ jeep ‘because of bad roads’. POLITICIANS MUST GIVE, NOT TAKE. POLITICIANS MUST REDUCE THEIR EMOLUMENTS TO CIVIL SERVICE GRADE 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22 for President.

All Good Governance, Good Administration and Good Leadership Lessons that our leaders, present and especially past, failed leaders need from their family and religious group prayers and conferences to succeed is to take the decision to ‘Say NO’ to 40+ year cross-party record of corrupt enrichment, personal corruption, greed and impunity in deed, policy and pecuniary in the interest of our 160million   citizens.

Political parties must re-educate party faithful to GET A DAY JOB. Reps or Senate race could cost each candidate and party a billion naira for campaign and party faithful. This money cannot continue to be stolen from the Nigerian budget. What is the cost to Nigerians of political parties during and after elections?

DON’T DO WHAT YOU CANNOT ANNOUNCE ON TV.

September 10, 2025
2027 coalitions and collisions

The undeclared kick-off of the 2027 general election campaign is something of a false start. It’s a start nonetheless – one laden with boasts, bluster and outright threats. To be fair, the stuff isn’t just coming from one direction: the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and those who would love to oust it, are giving as good as they get.

Last weekend, the party’s high command descended on Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, to formally receive Governor Umo Eno, who had finally executed his oft-threatened exit from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Everyone from Vice President Kashim Shettima to the party’s entire slate of governors was present.

The state is home turf for Senate President Godswill Akpabio who was once its governor. Naturally, he was in his element celebrating the bloodless coup that further enfeebled the main opposition party. Akwa Ibom, like most states in the South-South zone, was until recently died-in-the-wool PDP territory. So, it was no mean feat that the entire structure of the governing party would dissolve overnight into enemy camp without resistance.

While applauding Eno for making the right political choice, Akpabio suggested governors of Bayelsa and Rivers would soon follow. It wasn’t the appeal of a suitor; it was a statement delivered with the certainty of a prophet. Were his prophecy to be fulfilled, not too many would be surprised given that stranger things have been happening lately.

The punch-drunk PDP didn’t have much of a response to the loss of another heavyweight from within its ranks. It was probably too preoccupied trying to identify which of many claimants was its rightful National Secretary to worry about the rising number of rats fleeing its listing ship.

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With its 10 governors, 36 senators and 118 members of the House of Representatives, it remains, on paper, the preeminent opposition party. But it’s a measure of how low its stock has sunk that some of its leading lights like former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and ex-Senate President David Mark are among sponsors of the yet-to-be-registered All Democratic Alliance (ADA).

By their actions and utterances, the two men have written off PDP as a viable vehicle for prosecuting the 2027 election. Atiku has been arguing for months that the only way President Bola Tinubu and APC can be defeated at the next polls is for all opposition platforms to come together. Mark has been less voluble but no less committed to the cause.

Unfortunately for Atiku, his passion for defeating his one-time ally by all means necessary is not shared by PDP governors who have declared they won’t touch his coalition with a ten-foot pole. This is a significant disagreement which suggests that those who now control the party are unlikely to make the former VP flag bearer given he’s lost faith in the platform. It’s also a pointer that he could yet exit to actualise his ambitions elsewhere.

Although it remains very much work in progress, what the coalition, or a likely new party, lacks in terms of membership or office holders, it makes up for with bluster and threats. In the face of every setback dealt the opposition by way of high profile defections to the ruling party, its boosters head for television talk shows to offload incendiary interviews.

Former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, was at it again this week, regurgitating the same talking points. Apparently, he and his confederates had been conducting opinion polls which claim Tinubu had less than 10% approval in every corner of the country.

For a man of his intellect and sophistication, this faith in his “scientific” polls is touching. Beyond offering comfort to he and his co-conspirators, El-Rufai should treat polls and pollsters with a healthy dose of caution. For one thing, their reputation isn’t what it used to be after they misfired badly in the 2016 Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump presidential contest.

For months last year they predicted a tight race between Kamala Harris and Trump – only for Election Day to reveal a chasm in support between the two candidates. What’s more, today’s polls may be meaningless in two years when actual voting would be taking place.

Truth is wise men don’t rush to conclusions on the strength of dodgy opinion polls – especially in a country as unpredictable as Nigeria. If tough economic conditions were the only determinant of electoral success or failure in these parts, then Tinubu wouldn’t be president given the state of the nation between January and February 2023.

Another noisy figure in the nascent opposition platform is one-time Foreign Minister and former Jigawa State Governor, Sule Lamido. What can be gleaned from his regular utterances is his readiness to join any grouping that can remove the incumbent from office.

While the focus of these individuals is clear, how to transit from dreaming to reality has become a giant obstacle. For all their hot air, the would-be coalition hasn’t done much to inspire confidence about their project within the political class and in the wider polity. They can’t even agree on how to proceed.

At the onset, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) was touted as their platform of choice. El-Rufai announced his defection there with much fanfare. But their ardour for the arrangement cooled rapidly. The party’s National Secretary, Dr. Olu Agunloye, now describes his would-be collaborators as “confused people” who are only interested in taking over.

Former presidential adviser turned critic, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, has been equally unsparing, describing the coalition’s promoters as only concerned with being the face of project. Just as many had predicted, a collision of egos and ambitions is already playing out.

Baba-Ahmed laments that even before getting out of the starting block, Nigeria’s latest set of would-be saviours have blown the opportunity of offering a credible challenge to the administration.

“The most important thing they’re doing wrong is putting themselves forward,” he said on Arise TV. “It’s a coalition of a few politicians who hope that they can arrive at some understanding and then open the door and say, ‘ok, fellow Nigerians, we’ve agreed. This one will be this, and this one will be that, and you can now come in.’

“It’s the wrong way about it. None of these people should lead or be seen in a position where they’re determining who should be in that coalition. They can work behind the scenes. What they need is a generational shift and a political shift away from who they are, what they’ve done, what they want to do, to a different set of Nigerians who can give Nigerians hope.

“These are not the people who are saying, give us trust. Trust us again to solve the problems that the APC is creating. This is the wrong thing. And it’s very difficult to convince politicians that Nigerians can see through you. They don’t have faith that you actually represent a future, a different future from this government. You just want to replace President Tinubu.”

Put differently, those offering change are as stale as they come, laden with all sorts of unattractive baggage. Virtually all have been active participants in making Nigeria what it is today. That’s why their project is having difficulty scaling the credibility hurdle.

It’s often said you don’t get a second chance to make the first impression. What those who claim to be speaking for the coalition have succeeded in doing so far is projecting vengeance and retribution, as well as the promotion of the interests of a section of the country, as their agenda.

Bitterness and outpouring of venom against the incumbent president is no alternative to providing voters an alternative governance vision. All we hear is “we must remove Tinubu.” If that’s all Atiku, El-Rufai and company have to offer, they are set for a rude collision with reality in the not-too distant future.

September 10, 2025