The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Key messages in 2027 elections

    Key messages in 2027 elections

    Whether the ordinary folks like it or not, the main issue that will be in the front burner of the national discourse henceforth shall be the politics of 2027 general elections. Politicians understand that the few months of campaign period, approved by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in its guidelines, in accordance with the Electoral Act, are not enough. INEC’s guideline usually provides for a period of 90 days, as the campaign period before elections. For this column, as the campaign ramps up, the core issue should be which of the presidential candidate has the best competence to grow the national economy, which will reduce the poverty level in the country, which will in turn substantially abate the ravaging insecurity across the country.

    So, the core issues should be who has the best competence to improve the national economy and the capacity to deal with the mutating insecurity across the country. Obviously the frontrunner is the incumbent, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT). Amongst the contenders, the two with some chance of giving the president a run for his money, remains, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, now both of the African Democratic Congress (ADC). Their former parties, the PDP and the Labour Party are in disarray and instead of waiting to see whether the political carcasses would fall on them, have joined other aggrieved politicians to seek refuge in ADC.     

    Before Tinubu took over from President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023, this column had argued on occasions that amongst the then three leading candidates (same as now), Tinubu had the best credentials to deal with the staggering national economy. The fact is that he has not disappointed on that score. The twin challenges haemorrhaging the national economy before the 2023 general elections, were the fuel subsidy scam and the multiple foreign exchange platforms. To the shock of many Nigerians, PBAT confronted them head on, and after the initial headwinds, no one can doubt that the national economy is stronger since then.

    The other two candidates, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, agreed with the need to tackle those twin challenges, albeit with a caveat that they would have done it differently. Obi argued that the government should have put forward some palliative before slaying the dragons. I am not sure what Atiku said he would have done differently, apart from the claim that the timing was wrong. Since the deed had been done, the duo should come up with what they can do better to quicken the healing process of the very necessary economic operation the nation went through in 2023. The Tinubu administration would on its part push for stability, through a re-election, to achieve full recuperation for the patient.    

    But to keep themselves in the mind of the electorates, politicians design all manner of subterfuge to engage in campaign well ahead of the period provided by the laws. Of interest, despite the provision of section 977(1) of the Electoral Act, 2022, the campaigns oscillate around religion and tribe. That section provides: “A candidate, person or association who engages in campaigning or broadcasting based on religion, tribal, or section reason for the purpose of promoting or opposing a particular political party or the election of a particular candidate, commits an offence under this Act and is liable on conviction – (a) to a maximum fine of N1,000,000 or imprisonment for a term of 12 months or both; and (b) in the case of political party to a minimum of N10,000,000.”  

    Despite the clear provision of section 97(1) of the Electoral Act, most of the campaign materials and argument, especially on the presidential election, have been based “on religious, tribal, or sectional reason”. For many Nigerians, it will be very absurd, if a presidential candidate from the southern part of the country is not allowed to complete eight years as president, when the immediate past president, from the northern part of the country, late President Buhari, spent full eight years, in power. The issue of religion is also on the front burner, the candidates and their supporters have always pushed that issue, especially if they have a presidential and vice presidential candidates from the two main religions in the country. 

    Even the constitution of some political parties, are reputed to provide for rotating the presidency between the north and south, and governorship election between the senatorial zones. Section 7(2)(c) of the constitution of the PDP, provides “The Party shall pursue these aims and objectives – adhering to the policy of the rotation and zoning of Party and Public elective offices in pursuance of the principle of equity, justice and fairness.” On its part, Article 20(iv)(e) of the constitution of the APC, provides: “Procedure for Nomination of Candidates – Without prejudice to Article 20(u) and (iii) of this Constitution, the National Working Committee shall subject to the approval of the National Executive Committee make Rules and Regulations for the nomination of candidates through primary elections. All such Rules, Regulations and Guidelines shall take into consideration and uphold the principle of federal character, gender balance, geo-political spread and rotation of offices, so as to as much as possible ensure balance within the constituency covered.”

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    Can it be argued that section 97(1) of the Electoral Act, which prohibits campaigning, based on ethnic or sectional reason offends the principle of federal character, as enshrined in the 1999 constitution? Section 14(3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, (as amended), provides: “The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few state or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or in any of its agencies.”

    Perhaps, it is the superiority of the constitution over the Electoral Act that makes the candidates and their supporters to significantly ignore the warning as provided in section 97(1) of the Electoral Act. While section 14(3) is silent on religion, it was explicit on banning persons from a few states, few ethnic or other sectional groups from dominating the government or any of its agencies.

    This column believes that apart from the twin challenges of economy and security, upon which most other things revolve, the question whether it would be fair for northern part of the country to produce another president, when the southern part of the country has not completed eight years, after the eight years of Buhari, would be a fair campaign issue. So, inevitably, the issue of religion, ethnicity and what section of the country, a presidential candidate comes from, would all play a part in shaping the 2027 elections.

  • Still on the tax laws matter

    Still on the tax laws matter

    From all indications, the last has not been heard on the alleged alteration of the tax laws. By this I do not mean its status in the books given that the law is already fully operative. Rather, I refer to the latest wave of offensive to shred it of any iota of legitimacy by a self-proclaimed Ad-hoc Committee on Tax Laws put up by a minority caucus in the National Assembly, led by Afam Ogene, the individual who represents Ogbaru Federal Constituency of Anambra State in the National Assembly.

    Even for those who choose to see politics as the art of the possible, the latest intervention, far from being the typical legislative petulance speaks to something graver –more like a dangerous play in deliberate, institutional subversion.

    Two weeks ago on this page, I had raised the poser – what next – in the background of the still strident opposition to the tax laws. Talk of legislations, which in their draft form, had survived a well-laid ambush by the National Economic Council (NEC) – a body of 36 governors chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima. They also survived the ferocious tackles by regional hegemons and their allies of various hues, and then the legion of opponents for whom every initiative by the Bola Tinubu administration, no matter how well meaning, must be shot down. And then the laws – four of them in all – waded through the legislative mill to emerge – again against the run of play so to speak – as the most consequential pieces of legislations under the current dispensation. And that is discounting the sustained campaign of misinformation launched against it by vested interests, all in the bid to render it toxic.

    Just like the saying of the old Volkswagen Beetle advert, there appears to be no killing this particular Bettle!  

    Still, those expecting the losers in the earlier plot to truncate its implementation to keep their peace and thus allow the law to run seamlessly have proven to be grossly mistaken.  Forget the well-timed intervention by the leaderships of the National Assembly; this has failed to douse the fires of their artfully crafted mischief.  And so they move on.

    Remember the initial dusts thrown up by a member of the House of Representatives, Abdulsamad Dasuki alleging discrepancies between the versions of the tax laws passed by the National Assembly and those circulated to the public. Most Nigerians would have ordinarily considered the allegations unsettling were it not for the needless drama that attended to it and the palpable bad faith by the sponsors. More than a month after the setting up of a seven-man committee composed of Muktar Aliyu Betara, former Deputy Speaker, Ahmed Idris Wase, Sada Soli, James Abiodun Faleke, Fred Agbedi, Babajimi Benson and Iduma Igariwey by Speaker Tajudeen Abbas to examine the issues; there are no indications of the muddying ending anytime soon.

    And just when one imagines that the findings of the committee are being prepped for plenary, a so-called Ad-hoc Committee on Tax Laws, perhaps unknown to the National Assembly as a body, said to have been set up by the minority caucus led by Afam Ogene, would emerge from the shadows to take things up from where their colleague – Dasuki stopped, throwing muck around. Needless to state that his committee all but confirmed the group’s hare-brained hypothesis that discrepancies indeed existed between the versions of the tax reform Acts passed. More specifically, the committee alleged that reporting thresholds were lowered, that mandatory deposits were introduced as conditions for tax appeals, and that enforcement powers were expanded to include arrest and the disposal of seized assets without court orders. It also alleged changes to the National Revenue Service (Establishment) Act, including the removal of provisions that guarantee the National Assembly’s oversight powers.

    By the way, it didn’t help that Speaker, Abbas Tajudeen and Senate President Godswill Akpabio took the wind from their sail with the public release of the certified true copies of the laws. That changed nothing or could it? In any case, it seems unlikely that anything – short of keeping the law in perpetual abeyance – could mollify or appease those for whom the texts of the laws, being so patently embossed in satanic calligraphy, could have been anything but good!

    Now that the project to make the laws inoperable if not to put the integrity of the entire architecture of governance into peril by any means fair or foul, has since moved into an entirely new chapter, not only are citizens forced to relearn the distinction between good and bad faith, but questions about their next move have become inevitable.

    By the way, it helps that the so-called minority caucus recognises that the work of the Muktar Betara-led bipartisan committee is still on-going. This of course begs the question of why the minority committee couldn’t wait to see the process through before jumping the gun. Was it a case of not trusting his colleagues to do a thorough job?

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    Surely, if the world took interest in the establishment of the Betara committee given the uproar that the allegations generated at the time, the same could not be said of the secret committee of the minority caucus, which from all appearances, seem designed to undermine the work of the former. Little wonder they could not afford the luxury of taking their colleagues into confidence before inundating the media space with what could only have been a hatchet job. Now that that they have made their presentations in television studios in what is at best an exercise in showmanship, Nigerians wait to see how what impact it would make on the proceedings in the house.

    Fortunately, the house through its spokesman, Akin Rotimi has responded with a tutorial: “The House recognises the legitimate role of the minority caucus within parliamentary democracy and affirms its right to express dissenting opinions, engage in policy advocacy, and raise public concerns.

    “However, it is necessary to distinguish clearly between political activities and the formal parliamentary processes of the House.

    “The Standing Orders of the House (Eleventh Edition) vest the power to constitute ad hoc committees solely in the House acting in plenary or in the Speaker exercising powers conferred under the Standing Orders”.

    Well spoken – I dare say!

    But then that is merely the preliminary. Considering that the parliamentary privileges of the members appear to have been breached, the next step should be a call for full accounting for the delinquency.

    I rise!!!

  • January 15: tragic cabal, lronsi mess

    January 15: tragic cabal, lronsi mess

    By Azubike Nass

    I am a seeker after facts in historical matters. I have read, and continue to read books and commentaries on the events of January 1966; and the developments that followed, leading to the 30 months civil war of 1967-1970.

    I have also sought and had personal discussions with three of the active planners and participants in that coup, asking frank and uncomfortable questions. I have tried to keep aside emotions and sentiments, to confront the naked facts.

    The fact is that about 90% of the original planners of that coup were officers of Igbo extraction. Among the prominent victims of the coup included: Sir Ahmadu Bello (Premier of Northern Region), Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola (Premier of Western Region), Sir Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa (Prime Minister),  Brigadier Samuel Adesujo Ademulegun (Commander, 1 Brigade Kaduna); Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari (Commander, 2 Brigade Lagos); Col. Raphael Shodeinde (Commandant NDA, Kaduna).

    The others were Lt-Cols James Pam, Kur Mohammed, Abogo Legema and Arthur Unegbe.  Unegbe was the Quartermaster-General: an Igbo who was shot when the coup was already on.  Some of the plotters got to him and demanded more arms and ammo from the arms store.  He got shot when he attempted to notify Ironsi on the phone, of what was happening). 

    Though there were other lesser known victims, the officers that led the teams that executed the killings were virtually all of Igbo extraction.

    Who were Nigeria’s Five Majors — the title of a book, by Ben Gbulie — that originally hatched the 15 January 1966 coup? Majors Chukwuma Nzeogwu,  Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Donald Okafor, Chris Anuforo and Humphrey Chukwuka.  They were all of Igbo extraction. 

    There were other officers, though, mostly captains and lieutenants.  They included Capts Ben Gbulie and Emmanuel Nwobosi — both again, Igbo.

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    But there were also Capt. Adewale Ademoyega: a Yoruba and signal officer based in Lagos, who was mostly communicating the timing with the groups in Lagos, Ibadan and Kaduna, and some others.

    There were yet some other coup participants who were not really part of the planning, such as Lt Harris Eghagha: an Urhobo native, who had turned out for a programmed training exercise in the Nigerian Army Training School, Jaji, Kaduna, only to discover that Major Nzeogwu and other Igbo officers had turned it into a coup plot; and had secured live ammo.

    He was briefed on the spot and asked to declare his position. He paused for a moment and declared to go along. It was obvious he would be eliminated if he did otherwise.

    After any failed coup, there would be multiple arrests, which would include identified plotters and any officer whose movement at that time could attract suspicion, whether you travelled on official pass, or you attended a night party somewhere. The Special Investigating Panel (SIP) would sift through the arrested people and decide who to free and who to indict to face trial for what offence. That’s the normal thing.

    From this perspective, the number of officers arrested and detained for the coup may not be a good indication of those actually involved in the coup. And in the January 1966 coup, the benefitting Head of State, Major-Gen Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi, flatly ignored persistent calls to investigate and try the coup plotters, in accordance with standard military law.

    Was it an Igbo coup? Semantics of language may come in here, but certain facts remain sacred.

    The Igbos as an ethnic group never sat down in a meeting or had any consensus to plan a coup. The coup, which was very bloody, was a military boys’ affair.  But the killings were skewed against other regions and ethnic groups. Every military officer planning a coup knows the consequences of failure.

    The coup had failed and was causing much anger and bitterness among those who bore the brunt of the killings. And Ironsi, who became a beneficiary of the coup, flatly ignored all calls to try the coup plotters, as if he didn’t even want them to lose their ranks and commission. 

    He acted as if they were welcome revolutionaries who had committed no serious crime. He had hawkish Igbo advisers, in control of national authority, preening in their Igbo exceptionalism.

    Besides, Ironsi was enjoying the glamour of unexpectedly acquiring national authority.  Clannish advice from his close Igbo aides drummed into his head that it was his golden turn.

    In the heat of the explosive anger, created by the actions and inactions of the Ironsi military government, more related actions were adding salt to the injuries of those adversely affected.

    Just one sample: in the annual Army promotion exercise of April 1966, out of 21 officers promoted from Major to Lt-Colonel, 18 were Igbo-speaking.  Only three were non-Igbo. That was the height of insensitivity to the sensibilities of other members of the Nigerian space. The fuse of the time bomb was burning fast.  Soon, it exploded in catastrophe — a catastrophe that consumed Ironsi’s military government with no remedy.

    I remain blunt and fearless in condemnation of such stupid and insensitive actions of the past. I remain convinced that if one refuses to learn from past stupid actions, he/she would remain incapable of making correction and will be condemned to cycles of disaster, always pointing accusing fingers elsewhere, and blaming the gods for misfortunes, when the gods are really not to blame.

    It’s from this perspective that I repeatedly condemn the shenanigans of some of our Igbo leaders on the matter of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu.

    He and his group have committed every imaginable form of bestial criminality and hate violence, in the name of fighting to re-establish the dead and decayed Biafra Republic, which was a misery better forgotten.

    It has been an explosive cocktail: wild claims of marginalisation without any rigour of verifiable evidence to prove the case. Endless propaganda and hate against other members of the Nigerian space. No apology, no remorse, no repentance. Clearly curting disaster in many ways!

    I have told some of my Igbo close friends that if President Tinubu ever made the mistake of releasing Nnamdi Kanu — just like that — he would have faced a negative whiplash from the military and other law-enforcement institutions; just as there would be a furious reaction from the North, who were the primary victims of Kanu’s hate propaganda and gun attacks.

    I remain unapologetically stubborn to my conviction on this matter. I fear no evil. “Death is a necessary end which will come when it will”.

    •Azubike Nass, Enugu, 19 January 2026.

  • Malami & Mohammed: Haunted by their past

    Malami & Mohammed: Haunted by their past

    The late president, Muhammadu Buhari rode to power in 2015 with goodwill of Nigerians, defeating a sitting president for the first time in our nation’s history. Nigerians saw in him the answer to the overarching problems of the country viz indiscipline, corruption and the threat of Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeast and banditry and immigrant Fulani terrorism in the north-central and northeast.

    Despite his anti-democratic credentials as former military head of state and perceived religious fanaticism, Nigerians saw in Buhari, a leader who loved and had faith in a country whose unity and indivisibility he fought for as a foot soldier marching from Makurdi to Port Harcourt; and on whose behalf he suffered the indignity of being removed from power and dumped in detention for standing with Nigerians that roundly rejected IMF and its ‘conditionalities’ including turning Nigeria into a dumping ground for foreign goods. 

    Unfortunately, by 2023, with the near-collapse of the economy due to massive corruption and incompetence, social dislocations and division as a result of terrorist onslaught that set ethnic nationalities against each other, Buhari had frittered away the goodwill of Nigerians that heralded him to power in 2015.

    The failure of Buhari Presidency stemmed from his incompetence. Those he romantically described as his ‘loyal gatekeepers’ who did not share his pan-Nigeria world view but decided to hide within his government to serve self or other tendencies soon hijacked his government despite repeated warning by his wife.

    In this regard, we can start by identifying Buhari’s ‘friends’ that turned out to be his nemesis beginning with Abubakar Malami, his Attorney General and Minister of Justice who, to many, defined Buhari’s presidency; Bala Mohammed, a non-Fulani who decided to fight the Fulani war like a slave, Hadi Abubakar Sirika, former aviation minister dragged before Justice S.C Orji’s FCT High Court in October 2025 over alleged N2.7billion theft; Godwin  Emefiele who on December 2, 2025 forfeited total assets of about N12.18 billion, including 753 Abuja duplexes, plus another $4, 7 million and N830 million.

    Now let us take a journey through memory to examine some of the excesses of Malami who in power forgot that power is transient and became indifferent to the verdict of history.

    The first evidence of Malami’s acquisitive tendencies came to light with petitions over MTN fine of N780 billion by NCC. When Malami and Adebayo, the Minister of Communication were interrogated by the Senate Committee on Communication, it was discovered that the NCC which was duly authorized to collect all revenues was circumvented as the N50 billion part payment was “curiously paid into CBN Recovery Account specifically designated for the recovered looted funds”.

    This was followed by Malami’s 2017 secret trip to Dubai for a meeting with a fugitive offender, Abdulrasheed Maina, chairman of Presidential Pension Review Committee, indicted by Senate probe panel for N2billion fraud. And upon his return, but for the protest of the then Head of Civil Service, Malami would have succeeded in integrating Maina back into the bureaucracy through the back door.

    It is also on record that the central issue between Malami and Ibrahim Magu, the EFCC chairman he falsely accused of corruption, and replaced with an unqualified candidate from his (Malami) state, was over how seized assets were distributed. He had accused Magu of selling the assets to his cronies while Magu accused him of ignorance as the statute setting up the EFCC did not give the body such powers. Magu was later found innocent and rehabilitated following Buhari’s Justice Salami Investigative panel that exposed Malami’s vindictiveness.

    In 2021, it was said that UAE passed to Nigeria, a list of 38 individuals and 15 entities including six Nigerians viz Abdurrahaman Ado Musa, Salihu Yusuf Adamu, Bashir Ali Yusuf, Muhammed Ibrahim Isa, Ibrahim Ali Alhassan and Surajo Abubakar Muhammad, allegedly involved in terrorist financing. As a follow up, it was also said that Nigeria Sanctions Committee met on March 18, 2024, and recommended the sanctioning of some individuals including Gumi’s ally, Tukur Manu, accused of participating “in the financing of terrorism by receiving and delivering ransom payments over the sum of $200,000 in support of ISWAP terrorists for the release of hostages of the Abuja-Kaduna train attack.”

    But Malami, the Minister of Justice appeared to have been swayed by Gumi’s argument that “No Nigerian will put his money into terrorism”; insisting terrorists “are financing themselves by taking our children for ransom”. Malami chose to do nothing despite the ravaging of the north by terrorists forcing northern leaders to call for Buhari’s resignation over his failure to protect lives and properties of the people of the north.

    With his December 2025 detention by EFCC over alleged theft of about N8.7bn, and last week DSS grilling allegedly over his handling of the list of Nigerian terror financiers released by the United Arab Emirates, many believe it is the past coming to haunt Malami.

    Many also believe Bauchi’s Bala Mohammed, whose commissioners are currently facing EFCC charges of terrorism financing share the same fate with Malami. He who sows the wind must necessarily reap the whirlwind.

    Bala Mohammed started nursing a presidential ambition as soon as he was elected governor in 2019. And since one only gets integrated into the northern ruling class through marriage, business or political endorsement, he first declared he was Fulani maternally, before choosing to fight the Fulani battle like a slave. For instance, long after full blooded Fulani like’s Nasir El Rufai, Kastina’s Aminu Masari and Kano’s Abdullahi Umar Ganduje had disowned and called for the total elimination criminal Fulani herdsmen engaged in killing of innocent Nigerians with banned AK 47 riffles, Mohammed embarked on his ill-advised campaign to justify continued bearing of AK 47 rifles that have become weapon of terror against Nigerians by immigrant Fulani herdsmen.

    He did not just stop at that  but went on to insist immigrant herdsmen should be conferred with Nigerian citizenship and integrated into the then government planned National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) being championed by the federal government.

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    Then he picked up battle with Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State who but for the fact he was fleet-footed would have been eliminated by armed criminal Fulani herdsmen who chased him out of his farm. His only offence was his decision to faithfully implement anti-grazing law passed by his state of assembly. Malami then took the battle to Ondo State where he confronted the late Governor Rotimi Akeredolu over his resolve to rid his reserve forest of illegal criminal herdsmen.

    With all the victories Malami secured in his self-appointed crusade against opponents of criminal Ak-47 wielding immigrant Fulani herdsmen, Malami should feel fulfilled with the title of ‘a sympathiser’ of this anti-Nigeria group; that he is belatedly getting his flowers from no less a body as the DSS should be cause for double celebration.

    Mohammed who alleged his refusal to defect to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) had attracted intimidation and harassment, fingered Nyesom Wike as the man behind his current travail. “Somebody said he is going to put fire in my state. That person is the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike”, he stated after threatening “to escalate the matter to the international community”.

    But if Mohammed is not trying to be economical with the truth, he should admit that he and Wike were once intimate friends. Former House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara, not too long ago publicly scolded Bala for his act ingratitude to Wike who generously deployed Rivers State resources to wage his 2019 gubernatorial battle in Bauchi.  Bala more than anyone else knows that Wike, his estranged friend fights with his eyes closed when seeking vengeance. He can therefore not feign ignorance by attempting to divert attention from EFCC that is currently holding some of his Ministry of Finance officials.

    The good news is that Abubakar Malami is deemed innocent until the court returns a guilty verdict while Bala Mohammed is protected by the constitution. The shortest route to freedom for the former who, one Bala Usman,  claimed was until 2015 ‘a charge and bail’ lawyer is to defend the sources of his stupendous wealth including 53 mansions currently under temporary forfeiture to government. As for the latter who is not EFCC’s target, his obligation is to secure freedom for his finance commissioner, Adamu, arraigned by the EFCC, alongside Balarabe Abdullahi Ilelah, Aminu Mohammed Bose and Kabiru Yahaya Mohammed on December 31, 2025 on a 10-count charge bordering on alleged terrorism financing to the tune of $9.7million

    And this can be easily achieved by providing evidence to invalidate DSS claim that the total sum of $17 million and N75.2 mil¬lion shared on February 7, 2024, was for terrorism financing.

  • Katsina’s peculiar banditry

    Katsina’s peculiar banditry

    Katsina State has been in the news, albeit for unsavoury reasons. Still grappling with the backlash of its decision to free 70 bandits facing trials in various courts, the state government scored another low with reports that one of its local governments has set aside N300 million in the 2026 budget for the payment of ransom to bandits.

    Former Secretary to the State Government, Mustapha Inuwa who stated this also disclosed that several councils grappling with insecurity usually make monthly payments running into millions of naira to bandits operating in their areas.  He fears the community-initiated peace with bandits in 18 local government areas of the state will retard overall development and progress.

    Under the deal, hundreds of villagers abducted by the rampaging bandits were said to have been freed. The proposed freeing of the 70 bandits facing trials is the second arm of the deal. So, it would seem a fait accompli.

    Inuwa’s disclosure on the budget for bandits has upped the ante in the controversy that recently rocked Katsina State due to its decision to free 70 bandits facing trials in the courts. Sequel to mounting criticisms over the controversial decision, the state government had sought to rationalise its decision to free the bandits on the grounds of consolidating a peace deal entered into between communities affected by insecurity and repentant bandits.

    Hear the state Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Nasir Muazu, “World over, everyone knows that after a war is fought, there are usually prisoner exchanges. If you take Nigeria for example, during the civil war, many prisoners were set free and exchanged between the Nigerian side and the Biafran side”.

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    He also drew parallels with the release of Boko Haram prisoners after an agreement was reached even as he linked the freedom of Chibok school girls to the release of some Boko Haram prisoners. “So, it is not an issue of whether an offence has been committed or not, so long as there is peace. The issue is that prisoner exchange is not a new thing in the history of war and peace”, the commissioner asserted.

    The two incidents stand out the Katsina State government very distinctly in the curious manner it responds to the challenges of banditry. But they also signpost the reasons banditry seems to be taking a very dangerous dimension in that state. This is not the first time that state government is treading this dangerous path.

    During the previous regime of Aminu Masari, the government had entered into controversial peace pacts with the bandits for the cessation of attacks on rural communities. Various incentives were offered them including money for peace to reign. In one instance, the governor posed in a photograph with bandits’ leaders clutching sophisticated weapons as a sign of a purported peace accord and eventual reining in of the marauders.

    It did not take long before the bandits went back to their former criminal ways rendering the purported peace accord a nullity. The situation has even got worse with Masari’s exit from power. The complications posed by that noxious policy must have led the current state governor to the plan to free 70 bandits standing trials under a dubious peace accord they entered into with the communities. But the disconcerting thing here is the inability of the present regime to learn from the mistakes of previous endeavours. Even then, the propositions, as well as the arguments canvassed by the state government as justification, are largely flawed.

    There is the challenge of the propriety in discontinuing the court trials for offences the bandits allegedly committed. What of accountability for the crimes they were alleged to have committed? And is Katsina State government not indirectly rewarding criminality given the tendency of such reprieve emboldening criminals to hold the state to ransom as the current situation suggests?

    Even then, the comparisons of prisoner exchange which Muazu cited are largely flawed. It gives the miserable impression that Katsina State is a sovereign state within the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Or are we contending with the verity of a bandits’ republic which this column has in many articles severally simulated?

    The argument that many villagers abducted by the bandits across 18 local government areas have already been freed under the agreement makes the matter more frightening. The war against banditry is largely a federal endeavour even as the support of other levels of government cannot be discountenanced.

    It is inherently wrong for the Katsina State government to seek parallels between the prisoner exchange of the Nigerian civil war and the criminality of the bandits standing trials at the courts.

    Yes, there may have been prisoner exchange before the Chibok girls were released. But the fact is that such gestures never went down well with the public. Neither have they been able to stem the tide of Boko Haram insurgency till date. The uncanny irony is that some of those released under such deals were known to have gone back to their former evil ways with greater vengeance and lethality. The same fears are being evoked by the proposed freeing of 70 bandits on the guise of seeking elusive peace.

    It will not only compromise security but result in counterproductive outcomes. That such deals do not lead to fruitful outcomes except regularly oiling the purses of the bandits is evidenced by the setting aside a whooping N300 million by a local government to settle bandits. It has become a recurrent expenditure with no benefit to the common people of the state.

    But the step taken by that local government should not come as a surprise. Not with the recent advocacy by fiery Islamic scholar, Sheik Ahmad Gumi. He had at the peak of the US threats to attack Nigeria warned against such attacks with a call on governments to include the bandits in the budget. So, the said local government may just be hearkening to Gumi’s call especially in the absence of official condemnation of that dangerous proposition.

    That is perhaps, all that is needed to grow banditry as an industry. It is a vicious cycle that will not only swell the industry in Katsina and beyond but also stall all efforts to convey public goods and services to the traumatised rural communities. Things cannot continue this way without serious repercussions to law and order; the authority and sovereignty of the Nigerian state.

    Duplicity in responses of various levels of government and their agencies to banditry, kidnapping and associated criminalities accounts for why mass abductions are getting out control. That was the troubling scenario in penultimate Sunday’s initial denial by the police and the state government of the serial kidnap of 177 worshippers from three churches in Kurmin Wali, Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State. The indecent haste of the denial threw complications into the incident, stalled quick response and rescue and allowed the bandits to ferry the captives to hidden dungeons.

    Neither the purported remoteness of the area nor the imperative for caution should stand as excuse for that embarrassing bungle. It really spoke volumes on the nation’s responses to metastasizing security infractions.

  • The Kaduna breach

    The Kaduna breach

    We are living in an era of the coward.

    As we saw recently in Kaduna.

    Guns are no evidence of strength when targets bear no arms.

     A proverb says, a coward is always in the mood to fight when he sees someone he can beat. That is also the definition of a bully.

    The bandit may howl, may tout a gun, may swagger and harumph.

    But he is a tyrant without a heart. So, when they invaded three churches, one a Catholic and the other two Cherubim and Seraphim, they only glorified a faintness of heart.

    Why did they choose to strike in Kaduna? It is tempting to say that it is a violence tinged with or even inspired by ill-will.

    For the past two and half years, the state under its Governor, Uba Sani has steadily steered away the pivotal northwest state from a stereotype of blood and fear.

    So bad was the state under its previous administration that when the then candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu visited one of the hotbeds of terror, it was not a mere campaign stop. It was like an army division rumbling into Giwa, one of the underbellies of bandits.

    Today, the place, including other areas of the state, including Kajuru where the depraved souls struck, have become neon of quiet after eons of violence. Today, Giwa is pivotal to Kaduna’s good times, with loads of lorries shipping cattle down south every day.

    When the story of the strike happened, it must have jolted even those who maintain peace in the state because it might have ruffled an atmosphere of confidence, of immunity. That can happen when you take peace for granted.

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    Perhaps, without excusing the police authorities, that may have led to the tentative acceptance and affirmation of the Kajuru abductions.

    I recall the same happened in the quiescent era of then governor of example, Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN of Lagos State. Robbers rumbled into town and laid waste a portion of the city. It was a shock even to the elites of security of the state.

    Residents were taken aback, and reminds one of the lines of the Caribbean writer George Lamming, who wrote: “something startled where I thought I was safest.” As they say in security parlance, you only need to be wrong once for disaster to happen. That sort never happened again under Fashola or since.

    Why I suggest that Kaduna kidnapping might have resulted from envy is simple. Kaduna State has served as an island of peace in a turbulent region.

    There are those in the politics of the state and with partisan umbrage over the repeated stories of tranquility in the state.

    They had over the past year been posting narratives to undermine the new trend of security.

    Some of them were reporting the recent abduction not because it was true but as an opportunity to gloat.

    They were not thinking of the children and babies snatched from the belly of their God.

    They were not lamenting the women who had left home with pious songs on their lips and peace for their Sundays. They were not contemplating how that breach had turned an outback village off its balance.

    They did not wonder how fear had paralysed their fellow citizens.

    The coordinated attack on a Sunday makes one wonder if it was not just a mere bandit assault but a sponsored political act of brigandage.

    That might have accounted for why Governor Sani said he was not interested in politics or numbers but the effort to rescue the citizens.

    The target of churches may also raise the spectre as to whether the sponsors wanted to ratchet up an American doubt about government efforts to beat back the bandits and reinforce fantasies about Christian genocide.

    If that is true, then the sponsors, if there were, must be very naïve. It is easy to understand that someone, somewhere does not have peace in their desperate hearts over the rebirth of peace in that land.

    Being an island of peace comes with a price.

    In a recent address at the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Governor Sani had stated that some flashes of violence his government has observed came from other states.

    Could that have been the case with the church abductions? It was observed that the churches were located on the border of forests that abut on highways.

    As a writer stated recently, what happened in Kaduna State is a breach, not a norm.

    The media, in a hurry to report the event, has not put in context the calm of the state in the past couple of years, which must have raised questions as to whether it was a breach taking advantage of police and intelligence complacency, or the work of cohorts with political mischief. Or both.

    It indeed is a matter for investigation. In Shakespeare’s great play of plots and intrigues, Julius Caesar, a character says, “There is but one mind in all these men, and it is bent against Caesar.

    If thou beest not immortal, look about you: security gives way to conspiracy.” We cannot ignore the words of the bard. To investigate is to emphasise vigilance. As Joseph Conrad noted in his novel: The Secret Agent, “protection is the first necessity of opulence and luxury.” The first line of protection is to watch from the tower.

    Governor Sani, as a man with a human and civil rights pedigree, understands that security is not the only solution to insecurity. Hence, as the move to release the abductees continue, he scored two major infrastructure goals. One, with unveiling of the Durum – Kuruntumawa road, leading to eclat and jubilation in Makarfi Local  Government Area, a feat the locals say they had not seen in close to a generation.

    Another is the Audi-Kako asphaltic road in Zaria Local Government Area.

    He has also attacked the issue of unemployment with over 2.5 million citizens empowered with cash for investment. He has also established the largest hub for artisans and training in the subcontinent.

    Efforts like these ensure that to improve security means not thinking about it as security alone.

    It is the work of a governor to ensure the communities work together. That sets the foundation. Security forces take over from that.

    The synergy ensures success.

    Hence Sani over the past two years has stressed this cooperation with Abuja. It should continue. Gov Sani has always stressed the idea of inclusion, and one of his latch keys has been religious harmony.

    He is beloved of southern Kaduna today because he has brought them back into the Kaduna commonwealth. One of such symbolisms is the Christmas Carol services. It does not take away his Muslim fidelity. It shows he is at peace with his faith. He is also showing he is governor of all.

    But what is important for now is to bring home the innocents from the clutches of the cowards. That will be in spite of the Shakespeare line that “security is the chief enemy of mortals,” especially partisan mortals.

  • Awujale uproar and other stories

    Awujale uproar and other stories

    The uproar of the Awujale throne reflects a truth we deny in our souls. That we are republicans first. We may love democracy, go to polls, elect our governors and presidents, embrace constitutions and heckle our lawmakers.

    But everything shows that we love our monarchies just as much. The British created the House of Chiefs to defang the kings. They subjected them to civil authorities. The British were pretending to give us democracy without its cardinal tenet: freedom. It reminds one of the quote from Poet Lord Byron on Metternich of Austria: “he had no objection to true liberty except that  it will set them free.”

    Our kings have been without power. That is hard power, apologies to Harvard Professor Joseph Nye. But they have not lost soft power. And at the core of that soft power is honour, which philosopher Montesquieu says is the highest asset of monarchies. That honour is at the core of our spiritual sense of being.

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    That honour is the reason we have seen battles for the thrones not only in Ijebuland but across the country. We are still watching from the ringside the battle for supremacy between the Alafin of Oyo and the Ooni of Ife. Not long ago, the Ibadan traditional throne roiled after former Governor Abiola Ajimobi tweaked the status of lower cadre of rulers. In Benin, the former governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, was in an atavistic battle with the Oba of Benin by trying to upset his supremacy with upstart chiefs.

    The Kano throne continues to excite the nation with the spectre of two emirs and the governor playing a delicate balancing role. The courts are also coy at resolving it.

    All politicians technically are above the kings. They dare not tell their subjects so, or even flex a superior eye. Even presidents will rile them at their own peril. Let us stop pretending that we are republicans. Modernity may be seductive. But our roots are too deep to yield.

  • Atiku, Obi call for truce

    Atiku, Obi call for truce

    Shortly after former Anambra State governor and Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, migrated to the African Democratic Congress (ADC) on December 31, 2025, supporters of former vice president Atiku Abubakar began assailing him for eyeing the presidential ticket of a party whose takeover was inspired and financed by someone else. For weeks, both camps in the ADC, a previously existing but fringe party chosen by a coalition of opposition forces to wage the 2027 electoral battle, have engaged in heated exchange of words, insulting and bruising each other in anticipation of the primary to determine the party’s standard-bearer. The reason is that the two gladiators, Alhaji Atiku and Mr Obi, know that the 2027 poll will be their last, but feared that they won’t get the traction they received in 2023.

    While Mr Obi, whose supporters resent supporting any other person for the presidency save their champion, had been fairly reticent about the scurrilous Obidients, Alhaji Atiku appeared to have had enough of the heated exchange to post on social media last week of the need for supporters of the ADC presidential aspirants to stop the brickbat. According to the former vice president, “Anyone who insults Obi or Atiku does not mean well for the leaders, the Coalition ADC and for Nigeria and Nigerians. The only people who benefit from such a civil war are the APC urban bandits who want to maintain the satanic status quo. We are better together!” This admonition came on the heels of some Obi supporters damning the impatience of Atiku supporters who denounce the intolerance and irreverence of the vulgar Obidients.

    Around the same time Alhaji Atiku posted his admonition, the convener of the League of Northern Democrats, Umar Ardo, also a fellow Adamawan, told Channels Tv, that Mr Obi was nothing but a pretender to the throne. According to him: “Well, the ADC, as currently constituted, if it goes for primaries a hundred times, Atiku will win a hundred times. There is absolutely no doubt about that. How Peter Obi and his supporters react is what will determine the election. I am not saying that Peter Obi cannot be the candidate of the party; however, he can only be the candidate of the party if Atiku steps down.” Mr Ardo’s confidence infuriated the Obidients, and they doubled down on their precondition for joining forces with the ADC, which is that they expect their champion to get the ticket for the 2027 poll, or nothing else. Mr Obi, they exclaimed, was the only one fit and modern and electable for the presidency.

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    Alhaji Atiku is, however, a more consummate politician. He knows many things the naïve and exuberant Obi supporters don’t. When the former LP candidate was still trying to make up his mind which political platform to use, Alhaji Atiku quietly and efficiently organised the takeover of the ADC and imbued it with life. With his men positioned in key organs of the party, he forbade them from talking about any predetermined presidential ticket. Their singsong was that the ADC needed to be built first before talking of candidacies. Of course he knew there were talks of matching Mr Obi with former Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai for the presidential ticket, or failing that, matching Mr Obi with the proud and domineering former Kano governor and NNPP leader Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso for the ticket. And he knew much more that in the Southeast or anywhere for that matter, if push came to shove, ADC members always knew on which side their bread was buttered.

    So Alhaji Atiku sits grimly and contemplatively in near anonymity, poised for the big day when the party would make its choice for the ticket. To him, the priority was to get Mr Obi into the party, and then after that, the bridge. Last December, frustrated that the LP was engrossed in litigations, and fearing he could be left stranded, for he was a joiner not a founder or builder, Mr Obi finally defected and directed his men to join the grand coalition. But he did not burn his bridges. He left room for retreat if it became inescapable, for he knew that there was not a cat in hell’s chance he would be given the ticket either on a platter or even if he schemed for it with all he has. Above all, the former Anambra governor knew that any opposition to Alhaji Atiku would be half-hearted, ultimately doomed by regional permutations and financial necessities. After all, despite his misgivings, Mr Obi knows he has really nothing to campaign with: no divisive religious themes, and no convincing proof he has a clue how the economy works beyond mouthing comparative statistics of global development.

    The former vice president has now called a truce, and Mr Obi has little appetite for any abusive exchanges. But at bottom, their edgy supporters, particularly the implacable Obidients holding Mr Obi hostage to their utopian ideals, have made up their minds which way to go. They will keep a tentative truce; but with their hands on the trigger and their guns cocked, they will fire at will when any provocation arises. However, with both men in the same creaky boat, and sailing midstream in a river with billowing waves, it would be insanity to attempt to bail out. As Mr Ardo mused, the ADC fortune will be determined by how the supporters of both Alhaji Atiku and Mr Obi react when the chips are down and the presidential ticket secured. The alternative is too grim to contemplate.

  • The Kaduna (Kajuru) abductions

    The Kaduna (Kajuru) abductions

    Last Sunday’s abduction of some 177 worshippers from three churches in Kurmin Wali community in Kajuru local government area of Kaduna State illustrates once again the loopholes in Nigeria’s security paradigm. The abductions took place on Sunday, but it was not until Tuesday before the authorities acknowledged that a crime took place. Did no one lodge a report to the nearest police station? And if they did, why were senior police divisions, local government officials and state authorities not immediately notified? By initially denying the crime, state and local government authorities seemed mortifyingly unaware of any attacks and abductions in Kajuru.

    Unfortunately, much time was lost bickering over whether a crime occurred or not, rather than immediately activating measures to intercept the kidnappers. As late as Thursday, however, according to some indigenes of the area, the kidnappers were observed travelling on foot in the same general area. Though some 11 people reportedly escaped from their abductors, some 166 are thought to remain in the custody of the criminals who are clearly having a hard time moving so many people at once, and on foot. Why can’t they be monitored and isolated?

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    Not only must states redesign their security architecture and crime reporting methods, they must also brace up for embarrassment now and again as the next election cycle draws near. The Defence minister Christopher Musa hails from the state and is a member of the ethnic stock of the victims. Only recently he publicly condemned the act of negotiating with terrorists. The terrorists and anguished public will watch to see what happens, especially when the kidnappers were quoted as mocking the affected communities for reposing too much hope in security agents. What is clear is that if the response time to these crimes is not shortened, the nation and the security forces will be repeatedly embarrassed.

  • At bay in Kurmin Wali

    At bay in Kurmin Wali

    Ungoverned and ungovernable spaces proliferate in some dark axis of lawlessness in the nation. This is in spite of the bravest efforts of the security forces and the proactive onslaught of the new Minister of Defence, General Christopher Musa, who has declared war on terrorism and its sponsors. Once again, the authorities have been embarrassed by a brazen act of state-baiting. It took the law enforcement agencies almost two days to acknowledge that the latest incident of mass abduction actually took place. This was after a spate of denials during which time they gave a firm rebuff to enquiries suggesting that something nasty and unpleasant had taken place in the arid, dusty bowels of Kurmin Wali in the Kajuru Local Government Council of Kaduna State. Tired and miffed by it all, the police and the local authorities had apparently decided to take up residence in a Cuckoo land of fiction and eerie denial. They finally caved in to overwhelming reality when denying the obvious was no longer profitable or honorable.

        One can understand and appreciate the fear and apprehension of the local authorities and the security agencies. But this could not have been the way to go, particularly given the scale and magnitude of the mass abduction and the fact that in a globalized world, news, particularly bad news, tends to travel with supersonic speed and far and wide, too. By Tuesday, international media agencies were already beaming images of the terrible mass eviction. The few solitary livestock remaining, particularly the heedless hens and stranded dogs, trembled in fright as they wandered aimlessly about as if humanity had become the greatest enemy of domestic animals.

        The terrorists struck while church service was in progress. Nothing could have been more helpful to the narrative of religious persecution.  They had broken through the massive iron bar put in place by terrified worshippers as they barricaded themselves in. They then proceeded to herd the worshippers out of the premises to join others from adjoining churches. From there, they were marched out, irrespective of age, sex and health, through a dusty track that led out to the fearsome forest. For a country which had become the cynosure of the whole world because of deepening cultural schisms and orchestrated religious altercations, a country that has come under the crosshairs of Donald Trump’s evangelical expedition, this must be as concerning as it can get. It appears that if care is not taken, some people are bent on making the entire nation not just ungovernable but practically unlivable.

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      By Wednesday afternoon, Al-Jazeera, through its intrepid correspondent, was already beaming horrific images from the site and scene of carnage and economic castration. It was a classic abode of the wretched of the earth; a haunting snapshot of the last vestiges of a misbegotten feudal civilization. Cowering and shivering with fright and premonition, the few remaining habitants had gathered their miserable belongings together, ready to flee but with nowhere to go. They let it be known that the last school in the area closed shop several years earlier. No police outpost, no health facilities, no government presence. The dazed and distraught villagers claimed that they had earlier sighted the terrorists openly marching up and down the entire village before they struck. There were no authorities to report to, or to alert.

      This is where the idea of “ungoverned” space began to assume a dark, ironic hue. It is the state that has evaporated. There are ungoverned spaces because there are ungovernable governments. In a classic instance of what is known as chutzpah, the bandits are demanding from the villagers nineteen motor cycles they claimed to have lost or misplaced in previous raids and a tidy sum as reparation. Where are these miserable people going to get the money? Obviously they have been paying ransom through their nose. Chutzpah is when a man murders his own parents only to inform the court that he ought to be set free on the grounds that he was an orphan.

    We must pity our friend, Uba Sani, the governor of Kaduna State, who has shown more compassion and considerable emotional intelligence in administering the affairs of this amorphous conurbation bristling with geopolitical tensions, ethnic polarizations and religious disharmonies. Just as the story of the mass-abduction was unfolding, Sani’s political adversaries opened another political front for him by circulating a fake memo purportedly broadening and widening the succession base of the Zazzau emirate by prising it away from Fulani domination. It doesn’t get more explosively regicidal than that, and it shows the extent of the ethnic, religious and cultural fracture in the state.

      The Kurmin Wali abduction has returned the issue of terror-containment and the implications for the nation to the front burner. Curiously but hardly assuring is Governor Uba Sani’s assertion that the abducted would regain their freedom in due course thus inadvertently letting slip a pattern of abduction and ransom payment almost inevitably followed by more abduction. This is a pattern that cannot be sustained given the growing international encirclement of the nation’s ethnic and religious categories and the ultimate threat to food security in a situation where farmers can no longer go to their farm. With the oil market about to be saturated by Venezuelan oil as instigated by Donald Trump, government revenues will dip further putting grave pressure on the ability of government to finance its budget.

      Despite General Musa’s vehement denunciations and his brave attempts to walk his talk about not giving any quarters to terrorists, there is still a dichotomy, a wild oscillation between outright kinetic approach and the non-kinetic approach which favours negotiations and quiet ransom. We have not heard the last from the agents of appeasement. What appears to be a decisive victory for the adherents of kinetic approach which culminated in General Musa’s recall after being dropped as Chief of Defence Staff to serve as Minister of Defence after his predecessor was shunted aside may not be what it seems. It is a mere reshuffling of the sitting arrangement to placate certain power sectors who might have been unsettled by the mode and manner of the removal of the former military brass hat. A power struggle subsists. Musa may huff and puff, but the real locus of power and troops deployment lies somewhere else.

       The buck stops at the table of the president, and it is a very tough call indeed. Tinubu has to combine statecraft with political sagacity and the wily management of electoral fortunes, particularly in an electoral season where nothing is guaranteed and where the path to a second term is strewn with so many political landmines despite the hegemonic domination of the ruling party and its octopoidal reach and range. By popular consensus, Tinubu is an unrivalled political strategist, past master in the art of wheeling and dealing and a clinical finisher when it comes to the defenestration of opponents.

       But nowhere has it been said that the former Lagos State Governor is a military genius and an enabler of stunning defeats on the field of battle. Only few men in human history have been able to combine the two outstanding gifts of military genius and political prodigy. The greatest military commanders have been known to trip over elementary political calculations while the greatest political geniuses often wilt at the prospects of massive bloodletting.  From all appearances,  Tinubu  is a man who abhors sectarian violence in all its manifestations and  recoils at the prospects of mindless bigotry. Going forward, this politicized sensitivity and reluctance to engage in violent confrontation may well turn out a major handicap as he squares up to those whose agenda is to torment and brutalize the nation into submission to their antediluvian vision of human society.

    The brutal irony of postcolonial Africa, particularly its traumatised and embattled multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-economic conflations where the personalization of power is the norm, is that we often ask and expect our rulers to be everything at once. Sometimes, it is the rulers themselves who insist on being everything. This is what has made the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia and Libya to topple over into actual military confrontation.

       In post-military Nigeria, despite the fact that General Obasanjo did very well in the remit of demilitarization handed over to him by his subordinates  it was when going forward to deepening and expanding the democratic space that the Owu-born warrior came a sad cropper. Till date the baleful overcast of Obasanjo’s anti-democratic debacle still hangs over the nation. If only the poor man had limited himself to one eventful, nation-shaking term which forbidding symbolic aura would still have been with us as veritable lodestar. Trying to cover his track, he committed more grievous infractions. His loss of prestige and sacral respectability is also the nation’s loss.

      President Tinubu will do very well to take some historical lessons to heart.  This is a different order of battle from the immediate post-military epoch. The master-drummers below the reef and the puppeteers orchestrating the spate of terrorism and abductions in the north of the nation will soon appear in the horizon to name their price. If the president succumbs to their blackmail, they would have succeeded in making the country ungovernable and probably unlivable. But it will be foolish to imagine that they will stop until something gives, having succeeded in blackmailing the nation by their malevolent antics. This is because there is an inflationary dynamic to the logic of terrorism and hostage-taking. The more you give in, the more it demands until there is nothing to give again.

       A gifted nation like this, which is supposed to be the Mecca and magnetic hub for the Black race, cannot just continue to exist on paper. It must be made to mean something. The powers that be must brace up for confrontation with the demons confronting the nation. This insurgency in the north has gone on for too long and has already consumed some of the best flowers of the nation. A situation in which non-state actors and anti-state urchins hold the country to ransom for decades can no longer be treated as a normal occurrence or as a passing fancy. 

      The president must put in place an emergency advisory council comprising of retired war veterans, masters of asymmetrical warfare and experts in jungle neutralization in order to halt the drift into anarchy and anomie. We can seek international assistance. On the political front, this may well be the time to set in motion the convocation of a conference seeking a confederal consensus for the nation which will allow the various components to work out their internal contradictions to their satisfaction. This is the only way sanity can be re-imposed on the current dysfunctional bricolage.