The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • North frantic about 2027

    North frantic about 2027

    Not the entire North, of course. Just some powerful elements and groups in the far North. No one can fully explain why these groups are frantic about 2027; but either singly or collectively, or sometimes through the eyes of the Peoples Democratic Party that often postures as a northern political organisation, they have advanced various theses about regional marginalisation to justify their impending rebellion against the All Progressives Congress (APC) and President Bola Tinubu. The plotting has manifested across all strata and political parties, with some observers even fearing that the kind of internal (party) revolt and betrayal that undid former president Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 might be replicated in 2027.

    One of the theses the powerful groups have advanced is the bogey about appointments and projects marginalisation. It is of course a ruse, considering that the lion’s share of projects and key administration appointments have been colonised by the Northwest, and with the entire old North having the quantitative upper hand. The country, not to say the regions, is not tired of accusations and counteraccusations of one region dominating the others, or of incipient Fulanisation, Yorubanisation, and Igbonisation of government and society. As long as the country remains structurally ossified and immersed in the unitarism or centralisation of the polity and government, there will be no end to centrifugal agitations. Some interest groups and political parties in the far North have seized upon these agitations to press, sometimes in inflammatory words, their campaign for change, a campaign that completely ignores or downplays the immense economic change and advancement the APC administration has inspired in two years of heavy lifting.

    Read Also: Every Nigerian child deserves good education—Gbajabiamila 

    Unmindful of repeating the tragic mistake of 1993 when some elements in the military and polity thought it abhorrent to endure four or eight years of the Moshood Abiola presidency, disaffected and mainly northern groups have intensified the campaign to ditch the APC government by facilitating the return of Dr Jonathan, or even doing the unthinkable by baiting former Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi, or at worst organising to split southern votes in favour of a northern candidate, possibly former vice president Atiku Abubakar. They have also advanced the thesis that the APC administration has been lax in tackling insecurity, despite the North being both directly and indirectly responsible for the mayhem. The grounds for the campaigns are weakened with each passing day and administrative milestone, but northern politicians like former Kaduna governor Nasir el-Rufai, gripped by buyer’s remorse, have stuck to their campaigns and their guns. It does not seem as if the far North can in fact bear the thought of not sitting in the saddle of power for any stretch of time, let alone eight years. The federal saddle is their stimulant, but a dangerous and anachronistic addiction with fearful consequences for stability. 

  • How long can Wike walk the tightrope?

    How long can Wike walk the tightrope?

    Former Rivers State governor and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, is not by any stretch of the imagination the friendliest of politicians, but he remains colourful, charismatic and entertaining. His posture on Rivers politics is hard to codify, and even more bizarre is his perspective on opposition politics as defined and executed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of which he is a member. On Monday, he and his co-travellers in the party poured cold water on the new deal reached by the party to conduct its November 15 elective convention, a six-point demand which must be satisfied in order to enable the party legitimise its dealings. Among other demands, the Wike camp of about four former governors insisted that the party must end micro-zoning, retain the chairmanship position in the North Central zone, conduct fresh congresses in Ebonyi and Anambra States, and order a new zonal congress in the Southeast and local government congresses in Ekiti State. Exasperated, their balloons deflated by the fresh scent of discord, some PDP leaders shot back that they would fearlessly confront the Wike camp and not buckle under pressure or allow themselves to be held hostage, while dismissing the complainants as potential ‘blackmailers’ and a ‘camp of fools’.

    For about two years, observers had squirmed over Mr Wike’s politics as a cabinet member of an All Progressives Congress (APC) administration, describing him as an unprincipled politician running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. For the same period, he had managed to maintain a delicate balance between his position as a PDP leader whose choices shook the party to its foundations during the last elections, and as a minister in the Bola Tinubu administration torn between loyalty to his new boss and duty to his party. He has not quite resolved the dilemma, and has consistently and thus far put on a bold face when compelled to take a definitive stand; but as the 2027 elections draw near, his ability to walk a tightrope will be sorely tested. Indeed, it is already being badly tested as the party inches near its elective convention. Party leaders put all their eggs in one basket, believing that the convention would put paid to the shenanigans of ‘fools’ playing ducks and drakes with the affections of party members and leaders. It is not certain whether their hopes are well founded, for the Wike camp is also both strong and sizable, not to say battle-hardened and eager to cross swords with the fiercest and swiftest in the party.

    But Mr Wike is keeping his cards close to his chest. No one is sure what joker his camp holds, but unlike the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the feisty patrons of the traumatised Labour Party (LP) which embraced strong-arm tactics to enforce obedience to their interpretation of court orders, Mr Wike, a lawyer himself, and his camp may opt for the litigious route. Whether that would be enough to stall the PDP convention will depend on how their unpredictable lordships view the case. PDP leaders had taken care to carry the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) along when they held their National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting in Abuja, and have notified the electoral body about the upcoming national convention. They have also made peace with Iliya Damagum, their former protem chairman whom Mr Wike loved; and pacified the sometimes dithering Samuel Anyanwu whose cause Mr Wike previously advanced tenaciously. Little by little, however, Mr Wike’s men in the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) are either being neutralised or won over. If an irrevocable court order cannot be procured to stymie the convention, Mr Wike will be left with his yesterday men, the former governors of Enugu, Ekiti, Abia, and Benue, to prosecute a war he now increasingly seems fated to lose.

    What ails Mr Wike more than anything else is his impetuousness and glibness. Indeed, he is not averse to walking a tightrope, whether it casts him as an unscrupulous politician or not. Needled by angry newspapermen besotted to the opposition, whether that opposition is led by Atiku Abubakar or Peter Obi, Mr Wike had responded to the speculation of planning to contest the next presidential election by suggesting that he would commit himself to President Bola Tinubu lock, stock, and barrel. If that is the case, does he not see a contradiction between supporting the ruling party against his own party, the PDP? He waffled some arguments and wished away the dangerous suppositions and inept attempts to corner him. Engaging in two-timing, and dating two ‘ladies’ with aplomb, unfettered by the howls of outrage and disgust by Nigerians who view with dread the contradiction of lying in bed with the APC administration and smooching the disgruntled PDP reclining on the sofa, can be problematic. The outraged spectators have begun to see the FCT minister as deliberately committed to forestalling a return to normality in the PDP, thereby castrating it and deterring it from reclaiming its winning ways.

    Read Also: BREAKING: Nigeria beat Rwanda to keep World Cup hopes alive

    Despite the general outrage, however, Mr Wike has proven adept at wrong-footing his opponents in the PDP generally and in Rivers State in particular. Two qualities stand him out. Though sometimes regarded as a roughneck, his instinct for political strategy has remained well above average, sometimes even seeming to be canonised by the favourable outcomes his style and strategies engender. He is a hard working public officer, unafraid to confront the hobgoblins of Nigerian politics wherever they are. Though his political vision may lack much refinement and depth, he is nevertheless a rarity among his peers. He continues to stand out, and is an asset to any administration. In addition, Mr Wike’s six grievances are germane to the politics and internal dynamics of the PDP. If he heads to court and the temples of justice are inured to the criticism of those who accuse the judiciary of compromise, they will find merit in his complaints and will grant him reliefs of all kinds. What remains for the PDP, therefore, is to appeal to public sentiments and paint the FCT minister as an agent provocateur and a two-timing and unscrupulous politician working for the APC administration. The characterisation will resonate, but it will crumble under legal scrutiny.

    The PDP has become testier and more desperate than ever. Judging from their intemperate responses to Mr Wike’s nimble footwork, they seem willing to go for broke. The FCT minister knows this, or at least senses that the opposition party is spoiling for a fight, a fight that could entail his expulsion. While he will not back down, he appears aware that he does not hold as many aces as he held and played in 2023 when he took the battle to the grumpy Alhaji Atiku and won. Mr Wike may wish to prolong the current fight to as close to the next presidential election as possible, but the PDP bigwigs, who are experts at trench warfare themselves, also know this and are determined that the turf battles be fought now rather than in the future. Even if tightrope walking becomes too demanding for the FCT minister, and he eventually capitulates along the line, it is uncertain that the PDP, as it is currently run and constituted, can profit from the surrender. They don’t have a viable presidential candidate, and, despite casting their net far and wide, are unlikely to find an extraordinary politician in the next six months to put them in good stead to make a great impression in 2027.

  • Royal rivalry in Yorubaland (2)

    Royal rivalry in Yorubaland (2)

    Ahead of independence and after independence, many Yoruba sub-ethnic groups never perceived themselves as equals. The Egba, the Ijebu, and the Ibadan would refer to Ekiti, Akoko, Igbomina, and Ebolo as “ara ilu oke” (natives of yonder).

    Traders in the days of yore trying to cross Ijebuland to the Ejirin market and Lagos coast suffered in the hands of fellow Yoruba brothers who imposed levies on them. Proximity to the sea was a mark of class and distinction.

    Even, in a civilised era, lawyer and Agent-General Apena Toye Coker sighted Regional Minister Chief Oduola Osuntokun and exclaimed derisively: ‘Ekiti Kete.’ Osuntokun, a very educated and intelligent Ekiti man, rejected the label of group inferiority and protested instantly. Sensing the brewing trouble, Premier Obafemi Awolowo cleverly introduced a new topic to divert their attention and restore peace.

    Many Yoruba traditional rulers were divided by political leanings in those days of hot politics. After the split in the Action Group (AG) in 1962, monarchs who supported Awolowo, Leader of Federal Opposition, became the foes of their brother obas who gravitated towards Chief Ladoke Akintola, Premier of Western Region.

    In ancient towns, there are unresolved age-long suspicion and repressed tension over the inexplicable and unfading dichotomy between townspeople who perceived themselves as aborigines and others who were classified as settlers. According to observers, that rivalry shaped the relationship between Oba Adeyemi 111 and the late Ashipa of Oyo, Chief Amuda Olorunkosebi.

    READ ALSO; BBNaija and the evolution of Nigeria’s entertainment industry

    Up to now, the descendants of founder of Ago Oja are unrelented in their agitation for a crown, even if is a lesser one, as a tribute to the pathfinding and pacific exploits of their forefathers.

    In the eighties and nineties, there was commotion in the Oyo State Council of Obas. The Alaafin rejected the permanent chairmanship position allotted to the Ooni. When Osun State was created, the Owa also raised the same complaint. In Oyo State, the Olubadan said the Alaafin cannot be the permanent chairman of the Council of Obas. The monarchs wanted rotational chairmanship, which the Alaafin rejected in Oyo and the Ooni rejected in Osun.

    Now, long standing politician, former governor and Olubadan-designate, Oba Senator Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja, has jocularly sent a notice that on rotational chairmanship he stands, and that since the matter is within the purview of the Oyo State House of Assembly, people should know that the highly populous Ibadan, with 16 of 32 members, and in a situation where the Speaker would not vote, would always have an edge in any contest.

    But in the pre-colonial and colonial days, Alaafin usually sent his choice ‘Ilari’ to place ‘ewe akoko’ on the head of Ibadan ruler, signalling his installation either as Balogun, Basorun, Aare or Baale. In the 20s, an Alaafin even deposed Baale Shitu (Omo Aare) of Ibadan. A high chief of Ibadan, Adebisi Idikan, had to beg an Alaafin for his life with lots of money and gifts for appearing in a more expensive costume during the unveiling of Mapo Hall in Ibadan where the Alaafin was guest of honour. The rich businessman was accused of stealing the show during the ceremony.

    In Osun, caution was thrown to the wind when the Oluwo of Iwo, Oba AbdulRasheed Akanbi, Telu, allegedly beat up another traditional ruler, the Agbowu of Ogbagba, Oba Dhikrulahi Akinropo, claiming that he had interrupted him during his speech at a meeting by calling him a madman.

    In many communities, many obas also oppressed their chiefs by treating them as  personal assistants. Protest, in many cases, led to suspension or dethronment.

    Eminent Yoruba leaders should not take sides in the Ooni/Alaafin feud. They should appeal to the two influential rulers to bury their hatchet and allow the sleeping dog to lie. The two foremost obas should cooperate. Today, the Ooni is establishing industries all over Yoruba land and creating jobs for youths. The Alaafin should complement this effort. The two royal fathers should be concerned about the plight of the Yoruba in Kwara and Kogi states, who are politically marginalised. They should be concerned about the Yoruba language that is going into extinction. What should bother them is the collapse of moral values among the young population.

    The Yoruba race needs to embrace the reality that it has two towering monarchs with antagonistic claims of supremacy. It is not illogical that both are usually right when they tender their facts, which nobody can contradict. In short, the Yoruba race has two fathers – the Ooni and the Alaafin.

    There should be a proposal along the line of a symbolic collegiate monarchial order in Yoruba land. This should be organised in an atmosphere of mutual respect.

    The historical records show that the Alaafin was acknowledged as the King – political and administrative head – of the Yoruba by the colonial authorities, being the head of the Oyo Empire. The British Government signed the treaty with him. While inviting the British to assist him in ending the 16-year-long Kiriji War, Alaafin Adeyemi 1 said the Yoruba race was a gift to his forefathers from God.

    The Alaafin installs the Aare Ona Kankanfo of Yoruba land, the Iyalode of Yoruba land, and even the Mayegun of Yoruba land, and there is no controversy or dispute. The Alaafin keeps a deep memory of the ancient Oyo Empire of his illustrious forebears. That kingdom no longer exists. But the past cannot be obliterated.

    The Ooni installs the Odole of Ife, or the Odole of the Source; the Yeyeoba of Ife, or the Yeye Oodua. But when the late Alayeluwa Okunade Sijuwade wanted to install Chief Tom Ikimi as the Akinrogun of Yoruba land, the late Alaafin Lamidi Adeyemi III objected and his complaint was upheld by the government. He said the Ooni could only install an Akinrogun of Ife. He delved into history, emerging with the evidence of how the title of Akinrogun can only be conferred on an Egba man.

    Yet, the Ooni also elicits awe, reverence, honour, and admiration of all and sundry as the custodian of Ile Ife, the “Orirun.” He is recognised and respected as the father and head of the ancient town and giver of crowns to Yoruba obas.

     When Owoni Adenekan Olubuse was invited to Lagos by the British to shed light on some knotty problems of crown and land ownership in the Ijebu axis, the Yoruba nation knew that he took up the assignment on behalf of the race. As Owoni Olubuse left his palace, all Yoruba obas, including the Alaafin, left their palaces and resided in their “ehin odi” as a mark of respect, until he returned to Ile-Ife, the cradle. That was in 1901. The venerable Obanikoro of Lagos, High Chief Ajayi Bembe, was the interpreter between the Colonial Governor William MacGregor and the Owoni.

    In fact, the British Government bore the expenses of the unusual journey from Ife to Lagos. Goats were slaughtered as sacrifice whenever Ooni was about to cross any river.

    All the foremost Yoruba rulers, including the Alaafin, trace their backgrounds and crowns to Ife. An account even said that Oranmiyan, the grandson of Oduduwa, founder of Oyo Kingdom and progenitor of the Obas of Benin, was buried at Ife. Up to now, there is “Opa Oranmiyan” at Ife. In fact, Ooni presided over the rotational meetings of Yoruba Obas from 1934.

    It is to the credit of Ooni Sijuwade and Eleko of Lagos Oba Adeyinka Oyekan that some high chiefs and baales were elevated to obaship in sensitivity to the fact that the clamour for autonomy, as it were, and the preservation of identity are the anthems of the millennium.

    It is only in Yorubaland that the royal rivalry is serious, protracted and destabilising. Some scholars have even attributed the division among Yoruba to the curse that oozed out of the mouth of Alaafin Aole during the dispute between him and the legendary Aare Ona Kankanfo Afonja of Ilorin.

    Other ethnic groups tend to manage the clevages better. In the North – the Muslim North – the Sultan of Sokoto, who calls the shots from the Caliphate, is the undisputed Number One. He is the Commander of the Faithful. His deputy is Elkanemi, the Shehu of Borno. Other revered monarchs, nevertheless, have their local sphere of influence in the vast North. The Ohinoyi (or Attah) is the overall ruler of Ebira land, comprising five local governments in Kogi State. The Tor Tiv is the leader of the Tiv nation, the dominant ethnic group in Benue State. Attah is the ruler of Igala nation. The Lamido reigns supreme in Adamawa. Etsu Nupe is the paramount ruler of Nupe Kingdom.

    In the Southsouth, The Olu, whose kingdom has links with Yorubaland, is the ruler of Itsekiti and Warri. The Obong of Calabar is the king in his town and its environs. Opobo is ruled by the Amanyanabo. The Igbo society is presumed kingless; only warrant chiefs subsist in the area. The community elders are in charge. This age-long system works for their society.

    The Yoruba need to agree that they have two fathers who are from the same source, Oduduwa. The two have incontrovertible claims. There is no need for rivalry. The two royal fathers, and indeed, all royal fathers in the country, should also constantly acknowledge the restrictions on their influence by the ‘republican order.’

    The people of Yoruba land should maintain an abiding fidelity to tradition, history, and precedence in an atmosphere of mutual respect and brotherhood. If there are other grey areas that fuel conflicts, eminent Yoruba leaders should reconcile the two topmost monarchs. Miscreants in the social media should pull the break and halt indecent postings and portrayals. Yoruba deserve its peace.

    So, between the Ooni and the Alaafin, who is superior? More questions, elusive answers.

    The questions may not be necessary after all.

  • Semper Fidelis

    Semper Fidelis

    I came across the Latin phrase, Semper Fidelis, some years ago in the writings of the Christian thinker and inspirational writer, Steve Farrar. Translated in English as ‘Always Faithful’, it is the motto of the famed Marine Corps of the United States. The novelist Leon Uris’s novel on the Marines, titled ‘Battle Cry’, offers a fictive but gripping account of the tenacity, sheer doggedness of will, extraordinary capacity for endurance in the face of adversity and inflexibility of the will in the pursuit of a stated mission characteristic of this elite corps of the world’s still undisputed military superpower.

    According to Farrar in his book ‘Point Man’, “More than two hundred years ago, when the United States Marine Corps was being formed, much time was given to considering an appropriate motto. They finally chose the Latin phrase, ‘Semper Fidelis,’  which is engraved on the mind of every United States Marine. What does it mean? ‘ALWAYS FAITHFUL.’ Expatiating on this, he wrote, “Those are two powerful words. But of the two, the first is the most important, for it explains ‘how’ a marine is to be faithful. A marine is not to be faithful only when it is personally convenient, or when the circumstances will guarantee his personal happiness. Semper Fidelis means always faithful – regardless of personal convenience or happiness”.

    The phrase, Semper Fidelis, came to my mind when I received the news that renowned mass communications scholar, journalism teacher, elevated prose stylist, esteemed columnist, biting satirist, public intellectual and unobtrusive fighter for social justice, Emeritus Professor Olatunji Dare, had, last month, donated his expansive country home in Kabba, Kogi State, to the Kogi State University (KOSU) located in the town. For this gesture did not just drop uncharacteristically from the blues. Rather, it mirrored and simply marked the apogee of the scholar and writer’s life-long demonstration of consistent fidelity to those self-sacrificial values he sees as indispensable to the pursuit and attainment of the public good.

    Now, it was not just some base, unremarkable and easily disposable property that the professor had gifted the KOSU, Kabba community and environs and indeed Kogi State as a whole. For, as this newspaper stated in its report, “The elegantly furnished five-bedroom duplex was named the Olatunji Dare Building. Located along Late Pa Peter Seleke Road, Oluwatobi Quarters, Kabba, it is a model of comfort and aesthetic taste. It boasts two spacious living rooms, all en-suite bedrooms, dual kitchens, a dining room, stores, laundry, a borehole, a new soundproof generator, a gatehouse, and boys’ quarters.

    The report continued, “The compound is landscaped with flower gardens, paved with interlocking tiles, fitted with solar lighting, and secured by twin gates”. A perhaps little noticed aspect of the story noted that “The domestic staff are to be retained for one year by the institution”. The donor did not just hand over the property to the institution and move on; he exhibited faithfulness to his domestic staff that would be catered for by the new owners for one year to enable them some breathing space to plan for the future. That is the essential Professor Dare, ever humane and compassionate.

    When the name Olatunji Dare is mentioned, it is not a notion of a life devoted to the accumulation of wealth and its vulgar exhibition that comes to mind. It is not of one who is part of the elite preoccupation and obsession with a ceaseless rat race in which even seasoned academics are eager to show their fellow competitors in material acquisition that ‘my domiciliary bank account is more luscious than yours’, my expansive residence more palatial, and my latest SUV more spectacular.

    Rather, he exemplifies an uncompromising commitment to the life of the mind in the service of the higher causes of the advancement of knowledge and the promotion of communal wellbeing. It is a reflexive example of the virtues of servant-leadership that prioritizes the collective good over personal interest; the invaluable wealth of compassion, kindness and generosity of spirit over grasping accumulation in which the superabundance of possessions justifies the means of their acquisition, no matter how detrimental to the health of the Commonwealth.

    His celebrated immense cerebral endowment could easily have been channelled to the purpose of being counted among the society’s nouveau riche if Professor Dare were so minded. He could have easily leveraged on the sheer influence and subliminal power of his columns over decades to jostle for public office, particularly during the military regimes that would have paid any price to have an intellectual and journalist of his stature in their corner. He would easily have been counted among the financial movers and shakers of society even if he was not necessarily a billionaire.

    Read Also: Gbajabiamila hails military, unveils 1,200-seater auditorium at Lagos Army Barracks

    But the story of the property he has just gifted to the KOSU is one of sweat and sacrifice over the years to develop. In his words, “My mother, Charity Ajoke Dare (nee Lewu), acquired this site in 1974, hoping that I would put up a building on it within a year or two. I regret that I did not fulfill her expectations… Construction on the site began 40 years later, and 17 years after her death. My immediate younger brother, Emmanuel Dare, kept land grabbers away, but unfortunately passed away in the final phase of the construction. My primary school classmate and friend, Samuel Olowosulu, a retired specialist in stores and supplies, supervised the building with scrupulous integrity. He witnessed the completion but passed away some three years ago”.

    Professor Dare’s generous gesture to KOSU certainly was not a decision taken lightly. It came at considerable cost. As a scholar, he belongs to a global community that transcends narrow sectional boundaries. He has demonstrated in his contributions to public discourse over the years his indisputable credentials as a patriot and nationalist. Yet, his has also always been a life of faithful commitment to the community that sprang him.

    Thus, on his motivation to endow KOSU with the property, he states that “Long before the creation of Kogi State, the people of Okunland had been yearning for a University. After all, education is their industry. At the very least, they expected the College of Agriculture, Kabba, established in the 1960s as an affiliate of Ahmadu Bello University, to be upgraded to a full-fledged University. The basic infrastructure was in place…Also guaranteed was a faculty of senior and middle-level academics of Okunland origin, willing and ready to relocate from universities in Nigeria and abroad… Everything was in place, except the political will.”

    With the summoning of the requisite political will to establish the University, Professor Dare has identified with the institution and the community in a gesture that will surely endure and inspire similar acts of selflessness on the part of future generations. Professor Dare’s gesture also illustrated his abiding faithfulness to academics, the pursuit of knowledge and the society’s responsibility to offer the youths every opportunity to fulfill their potentials in this regard. Thus, his admonition that “Kogi State University, Kabba, should not strive to be just another university. It should, instead, explore opportunities provided by the history, culture, ecology and environment of its location to expand the frontiers of knowledge and widen the mental horizons of its students and members of the larger community.”

    Continuing in this vein, he advised that “We shall always have with us those who thirst for knowledge but have had no opportunity to do so. Help them in their quest for self-actualisation through promoting and sustaining literacy and through teaching those skills so vital to functioning in a world that waits for no person. Do not leave them behind .”

    Reflecting on his decision to bequeath the property while watching the inaugural matriculation ceremony of the institution, he said, “I had just turned 75 at the time, and realised that I had fewer years ahead of me than behind me”. But is it not exactly the lack of appreciation by our elite of the all too obvious brevity of life, the ultimate ephemerality of material accumulation, that motivates the desperate quest for the acquisition and maintenance of political power and the mindless pursuit of wealth by all means and at all costs, including massive corruption that impedes development and deepens poverty and inequality?

    One thing that struck me about Professor Dare’s speech on the occasion was his graciousness of spirit and readiness to acknowledge and praise positive qualities in others. He did not take it for granted that, in representing him at the event, his nephew, Colonel Yomi Dare (Rtd), was simply doing his duty. Rather, he thanked him as “an Officer and Gentleman in whom I am well pleased” who “has taken precious time away from his demanding law practice and incurred considerable personal expense to hand over the edifices on my behalf. “

    He commended the Chairman of the Governing Council of the University at the time, Emeritus Professor Olu Obafemi, who “With his accustomed dynamism…quickly devised a ceremony for the formal transfer of the property. Perhaps he was fearful that I might change my mind. There was no chance “. Fulsome in his appreciation of the institution’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Kehinde Eniola, he noted that “Even if I had been minded to change course, Professor Eniola ‘s courtesies alone would have dissuaded me…he displays those attributes, rare these days, that our people consecrated in the term, OMOLUABI”. And even “To the artisans who built the house” he expressed” my grateful thanks for the cordial relationship we enjoyed from start to finish”.

    Yet, the professor’s humility, modesty and unassuming disposition belies the fierceness with which he opposed military dictatorship in Nigeria, worked largely from the background to oppose and seek to ensure the rectification of such unjust acts as the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election or refused to be part of a delegation to apologize to the military dictator, General Sani Abacha, to plead for the reopening of The Guardian newspapers which had been shut down by the regime.

    Recalling the latter incident, Editor, ace columnist and now Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Gbenga Omotosho, writes that the Guardian management had resolved that those who refused to participate in the placatory trip to Abuja should not benefit from the outcome of the trip. In Omotosho’s words, “In fact, I learned that Prof. Dare was specifically named by proponents of that proposal. As the management was contemplating how to break the news to Dare, he tendered his resignation letter. It was shocking. “Since I didn’t participate in the resolution of the crisis”, he was quoted as saying, “I think it will be unfair to those who did if I benefit from the gains of the trip”. If this is not courage, I wonder what it can be called. Such is Dare’s stubborn disposition towards the principles he holds dear.” Semper Fidelis.

  • Give us this day!

    Give us this day!

    Soccer fans are tired of Super Eagles‘ penchant of breaking their hearts with their shambolic outings for Nigeria. Fans have jettisoned the now defaced drawing boards since that object must be tattered, having suffered several cancellations arising from failed expeditions by easily the most pampered but highly unreliable soccer team when the stakes are high.

    The trajectory of how the Eagles causes us pains on match days loom large, with all the emphasis on ensuring that FIFA deducts three points from Bafana Bafana’s 13 points being upmost on the mind of our sports administrators, as if Rwanda, our opponents in today’s game count for nothing. Interesting. Rwanda, dear reader has eight points and are joint second with Benin Republic by virtue of inferior goals advantage on the Group C table.  Nigeria beat Rwanda in the first leg and we would be playing with a banana peel if we underrate them in Uyo, a bad hunting ground for the Eagles in recent times.

    Indeed, if the Eagles fail to beat the Rwandans today, Nigeria would have no business going to South Africa for the September 9 game inside the Toyota Stadium in Bloemfontein, especially if the South Africans win the September 5 clash against Lesotho,

    According to Google: ‘’In reality, since they lack approved stadiums, Lesotho and Zimbabwe are staging their matches in South Africa. As a result, both countries are scheduled to play as “hosts” against Bafana Bafana on South African soil on September 5 and October 6, during the 7th and 9th rounds of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers.”

    One isn’t surprised at the South Africans’ insistence on our players sorting out the entry visas for the game inside the Toyota Stadium in Bloemfontein. This, of course, is to slow down the preparations of the Super Eagles. Worst hit would be the fans who the South Africans know have a way of motivating the Super Eagles to victory. Indeed, about 150 fans had concluded their plans to secure a charter jet to storm the Toyota Stadium in Bloemfontein. Now that this plan has been botched, the players must work their socks wet to get the desired three points on September 9.

    For the South Africans all is fair in warfare, especially with the unmanning manner in which our federation’s chieftains have repeatedly kept the aspect of the three points from Bafana Bafana’s 13 points haul with four more games left. What has happened to the Norte Verbal policy? Don’t sporting contingents enjoy the privilege of stamping their visas at the point of entry anymore? Whose fault was it not to have second-guessed this kind of unsportsmanlike attitude by our hosts towards our players, fans and officials, ahead of the September 9 clash in Bloemfontein? Was this how we treated them before the first leg game in Uyo? It is time our sports administrators began to be proactive, rather than this blame game session in getting entry visas to participate in sports competitions.

    Read Also: Gbajabiamila hails military, unveils 1,200-seater auditorium at Lagos Army Barracks

     The implication is that the number of days which we would have used to prepare for the Rwanda game has been reduced to three, with the third day being 24 hours to the game. Of course, training on Friday would be light, with players watching the group’s first game for the fourth round between ‘hosts’ Lesotho and Bafana Bafana, in one of the South African cities. Dey Play!

    “The World Cup, that’s the biggest stage for a footballer in your career, especially playing for your country,” Dele-Bashiru told Nigerian journalist Victor Ademola.

    “It will be a very massive moment for not just me; I’m sure, all the players here. It will be a massive moment for all the staff and all the fans. So, yeah, that’s what we are working towards. God willing, we will win the next two World Cup qualifying games and then after that, we’ll take it from there.”

    The injury bug has also stung the Bafana Bafana, with the latest players to withdraw being Orlando Pirates star Patrick Maswanganyi and Hannover 96 defender Ime Okon, who has a Nigerian father. Pirates marquee player, Sipho Mbule and Stellenbosch FC’s Thabo Moloisane, have since replaced the duo.

    It will now most likely be a new defence that will come up against Victor Osimhen and Ademola Lookman next Tuesday.

    What our players must do today is to beat the Rwandans with at least three goals, knowing that the South Africans would throw all systems at us on September 9. One only hopes that no ineligible player is fielded in today’s game. Our federation’s chiefs are capable of making silly mistakes. Need I list them? Group C’s sole ticket would be decided on September 9. And our players must be schooled on the principles of selfless play – meaning they must be told that the ball should be given to the person in a better position to drive the ball accurately into the net. You don’t need to destroy the net to score a goal. Place the ball into the net like Chelsea’s gangly striker Cole Palmer.

    If Nigeria fails to qualify for the 2026 World Cup, our players’ approach to reporting to camp should chiefly be one of the causes of the disaster. How would a camp be opened on September 1, a Monday and by Wednesday, the coaches were struggling to get a full house in training. Had the South African game been our first game and not Rwanda, it would have been a fiasco.

    What our players must recognise is that the balance of power among African nations has been bridged in spite of the armada of stars being paraded by countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Cote d’ Ivoire etc. Sadly, the fear factor which enveloped teams drawn against the Eagles has fallen off like nectar on hibiscus – fickle, making the team to wobble and fumble through matches.

    It is instructive to note that the South Africans are no novices to the World Cup qualification series having played 31 of such fixtures, winning 23 of them, drawing four and losing four, one of which was a game against Nigeria. Yes, the two teams on September 9, will fight to the finish. One hopes that Nigeria’s manager Eric Chelle isn’t fooled by what he sees during training sessions.

    Hello, Chelle, if you don’t start Ademola Lookman and Victor Osimhen on September 9, you will be done for. We need fighters who have been through this path before. We need players who can attract markers from the opposition, yet would remain unchecked on Tuesday; not those weaklings who would be hiding behind defenders instead of running forward into space to receive defence splitting passes.

    Dear Chelle, have you spoken to Stanley Nwabali over his injury penultimate Saturday? We shouldn’t put our hands on the head when the South Africans attempt to injure Nwabali. They know the prognosis of Nwabali’s injury while keeping for his South African side and could place the balls in particular areas which could spell doom. Nigeria mustn’t field any injury prone player. Please, the doctor and coaches should interrogate the nature of Nwabali’s injury.

    We placed ourselves in this dangerous position when we drew three of our four home matches. How did Nigeria fail to beat Benin Republic on neutral ground in Ivory Coast during the first leg game which we lost?

    Let us beat Rwanda later today. Let us ensure our players aren’t seriously injured. Let us pray for luck, but after we must have given our best against Rwanda. Eagles, give us this day.

  • Dear Muslim parents,

    Dear Muslim parents,

    Assalam alaykum wa Rahmatu Llah wa Barakatuhu!

    This is not a parents/teachers association meeting in which new school fees or new calendar year is often discussed. It is rather a meeting of positive and constructive minds over the most fundamental issue in the life of man. And it is to be moderated by the guideline divinely put in place in the name of ‘Al-Qur’an’ by the Almighty Allah.

    Your joys as parents are secret, so are your grief and fear. Hardly can you hide the one or openly express the other. Happy are those of you parents whose children are fortunate enough to tread the path of your divinely guided dream. And sorrow is the portion of those of you whose children are unfortunate to deviate from the rightly guided path. All of you will account either for what brings you joy or what pushes you into sorrow.

    Prophet Muhammad (SAW) had admonished on this when he said: “all of you (parents) are shepherds and all of you shall be asked to account for your herds”.

    Children are the most invaluable gift of Allah to man. They can neither be bought nor sold. Even adoption or exchange of children for money (otherwise called child slavery) is only a temporary act which will become a permanent question later. One day, the child will ask of his real parents or get to know that the foster parents who have been caring for him in life are not his biological parents. Then he will ask the permanent question: “whose child am I? This is why adoption of children in the Western sense is prohibited in Islam. You can only help to bring up abandoned or stranded children who are not biologically yours for humanitarian reason but not for the purpose of turning such children into your own.

    Read Also: Mr. Beast offers to acquire Nigerian artist’s piece

    As a parent, you may give your biological or adopted children your love and your ideas but surely not your thoughts. Because they (children) learn more and understand better from what they see than from what they hear. Children of today have their own thoughts which you may never be able to take away from them or even alter. You may clad them in the best attire and house them in the most comfortable residences. You may send them to the best schools and endear them to a world of unlimited affluence. But hardly will you ever be able to influence their thinking faculty in any way.

    While you are busy interacting closely with their physical beings today, you will discover that their thought dwell in the abode of tomorrow which you can neither see in your dream nor perceive in your imagination.

    Children are a bundle of joy. But they can also be a load of grief. At least, they form the source of both in the life of man. No man or woman becomes a parent without first being a child. What is perceived as experience in any human being today sprang from the childhood pranks of some years past. And the cycle continues.

    Manual of Life

    Everything in life has its own manual. For Muslims the general manual of life is the Qur’an; that anchor message of Allah leaves no stone unturned in the life of man. In chapter 31 verse 13 of that divine Book Allah relays to us how Prophet Luqman counselled his son. The verse goes thus: “And (remember) when Luqman admonished his son saying: ‘My son, associate none with Allah, for associating something with Him is a grievous iniquity’…. (Go and know that) Allah will bring all things to light, be they as small as a grain of mustard seed or hidden inside a rock or even in the earth. Allah is all-wise and all-knowing”.

    “My son! Be steadfast in offering Salat; enjoin justice and forbid evil. Endure with fortitude, whatever befalls you. That is a duty incumbent upon you. Do not scorn fellow human beings nor walk arrogantly on land; Allah does not love the arrogant and vainglorious ones. Be modest in your gait and lower your voice when talking because the harshest of voices is that of the braying of an ass….”

    The above verses of the Qur’an are a good example of how Allah wants us to rear good human beings in every society by bringing up our children in exemplary manner. Prophet Luqman and his son were just used symbolically. Nothing concrete can be achieved in this without the fear of Allah which every parent is expected to preach practically to his or her children from the very early age as did Prophet Luqman. And the only concrete substance in life is what forms the visa with which man is admitted into the hereafter. The evidence of that substance in any man or woman is contentment.

    Elite Parents

    It is however unfortunate that most Nigerian parents, especially in the elite class, do not see life as a queue which ought to be followed scrupulously. They rather believe that any queue, at all, is a fool’s route to success where short cut must always be available.

    Those are the parents who create special class for their children right from birth. They show those children how superior they are to other children and tell them the category of children with whom they should be friendly not on moral but on material grounds. They provide for them what those children do not need. They take them to schools in very expensive cars and create in  them the impression that money is not their problem. Thus, when occasionally, their children refuse to ride in old cars brought for them by their drivers, the parents quickly apologise and send new cars to convey them from the same schools attended by some children of paupers.

    These are children who have never worked for one kobo in their lives. All they know is that money is abundantly available and meant for them to spend. They cannot fathom where the money is coming from and how their parents acquire it. And here are parents whose main source of income is stealing directly either by the use of pen in their offices or indirectly by deceit. With such dirty money, they sponsor their children in the most expensive schools abroad or at home. They follow them to school to grease the palms of their teachers to ensure that their children secure the required marks for promotion into the next class or certificates that will be used as meal tickets in life.

    It does not matter much to them whether or not those children understand what they are taught in school. What matters to them is the short cut that will ensure the passage of those children through the University as early as 19 or 20 years of age so that by the age of 23, such children would have become Chief Executives of banks or multinational companies in which they (the parents) had fraudulently acquired major shares. And, with that, the cycle of corruption would continue unabated in the family.

    Now, why wouldn’t such a brazing desperation pave way for mass cheating in school examinations and eventual monumental corruption in the society as now being experienced in Nigeria? Are the children to blame? What else is expected of them when you parents are prepared to buy anything for them including live examination papers? And the children of the less privileged parents would also want to take advantage of the terrible rot to succeed in life. Where such advantage is denied, they become desperate and plan to stand in the way of those who deny them. That is how criminal tendencies escalate in the society.

    Some of you parents often forget that no amount of fraudulent spending can make any child rich except by the grace of Allah. Today, where are the children of yesteryears’ moneybags?

    For such shallow-thinking parents the Qur’an has the following admonition: “Are they the ones who apportion your Lord’s blessings? It is ‘WE’ (Allah) who apportion to them their livelihood in this world; He exalts some in ranks above others so that the ones can take the others into their service. Your Lord’s mercy is better than all their hoarded treasures”. (See Q. 43: 32).

    Today’s World

    The misfortune or calamity afflicting the world today, especially, that of Nigerian society, is caused by the elite parents. Right from infancy, most children of the elite, particularly the white-collar jobbers, have been given the impression that they are born to be masters. And they behave as such at every stage of their lives.

    It all starts with unwarranted lavish spending on children’s birthday which have virtually become the past-time of those parents,especially women. Sometimes millions of naira is spent by parents to celebrate the birthdays of their children in a society where many families can hardly afford one meal per day.

    The implication of this is that such spoilt children are being practically taught how to spend money without being taught how to make money. And by the time they grow up, they would have been fully used to easy money while the parents would have then forgotten how they initiated the innocent children into the world of corruption through stupendous extravagancy.

    Today, what used to be ordinary examination cheating in the primary and secondary schools has grown monstrously to become the national calamity called corruption even at the highest level of a government in power. We now have black market certificates issued in most of our higher institutions both at federal and state levels at the instance of naira. We also have criminal election rigging practically supervised by political vampires who wear the garb of umpires. There are law makers in our country who must take bribe before voting for or against any bill. There are law enforcers whose main source of income is nothing but audacious bribe. There are unrepentant civil servants who live like kings and queens while milking the society shamelessly without any regard for their pedigree. There are half-baked lawyers who are feeding fat on fraudulent opportunities while capitalising on the deliberate lapses created by our so-called constitution.

    In all these, who will curb the ever-rampantly growing monster called corruption in Nigeria? Is it the parents who are so desperate that they would do anything, including illicit sex, to see their children through? Or school principals, proprietors and lecturers who are the real architects of examination fraud and certificate rackets? Or the officials of the various examination bodies who often facilitate and help to perfect the act? Or the secret security agents whose orientation is to call a spade a hoe where money is involved?

    All of these and others not mentioned here are elite parents who can hardly come up with a clean hand on anything legitimate. How can they curb the largess from which they benefit so tremendously?

    Unfortunately, some of you Muslim parents, in defiance to Allah’s instruction, have joined this terrible cartel. You feel satisfied with your children’s fraudulent mundane lives even as you are evidently indifferent to the spiritual lives of those children. This has caused some temporal agony in certain lives and spiritual melancholy in others.

    An Elderly Parent’s Experience

    Yours sincerely was in an Islamic meeting with some other brothers in Lagos sometime in the mid 1990s. While we were about to reach a consensus on a vital matter, a septuagenarian parent of four grown up children suddenly burst into tears. He subbed painfully like a house wife who just lost her first child at the point of delivery. Surprised and embarrassed, we enquired from the old man what the matter was since the issue under discussion in that meeting had no sad angle. In his response after calming down, the man who was a former Nigerian Ambassador said he had lost his entire life. He narrated his pathetic story in a very sober mood and concluded that he had lived his entire life in vain.

    He told us how three of his children (all boys) had their secondary and university education in London. The fourth child who was a girl joined them immediately after she completed her secondary education. And after graduation, they all got juicy jobs and settled permanently in England. But by then, they had all crossed over to the other side of the spiritual bridge haven adapted to a non-Islamic life style.

    This was, however, not the cause of his regret. The real cause of his regret was the attitude of those children to his own religious life which he claimed to have cherished so much. First, the children never thought it right to pay him any visit in Nigeria, despite his old age. Secondly, whenever he visited them, in London, none of them would oblige him the chance to observe his daily Salat as they often told him that such was uncivilised. After all efforts to persuade them failed, he had to abandon them and live like a man without children.

    The old man’s most agonising point was in seeing the children of his friends who practised Islam very well in the same country (England) even as they were all doing fine in their various careers. The difference was that the parents of those other children had cared for their spiritual lives from the very beginning. That is the plight of a man who had the courage to voice it out after admitting his guilt. There are thousands of others like him who would prefer to lick their messy wound secretly till death comes to strike.

    If this can still happen in a Muslim home at this age, despite the Qur’anic lessons abundantly available for those who want to learn, what is the value of life? Why would any sane person want to lose his life and his life hereafter just to gain vanity? See what avarice is doing to some Muslim parents?

    It is only for the reason of avarice that most Muslim parents do not see any necessity in giving their children such qualitative Islamic education as they do in the Western way. But Allah has a wonderful way of doing things. Some of the children who could not be given formal secondary education some years past, because their parents were too poor, are professors in the universities or top professionals today in their own right and yet they remain solid Muslims. What else? Train your children in the way of Allah and leave what will become of those children to Allah alone who provides even for ants. Let your children know that the only antidote against greed and avarice is contentment which gives man absolute rest of mind and enables him to appreciate Allah’s endowment in his life. Anything else is sheer vanity that invariably fetches regret. It is only with contentment that any form of corruption can be eliminated. For you Muslims, there is a lesson in this to learn and disseminate to others.

  • 2027: Will Jonathan push his luck?

    2027: Will Jonathan push his luck?

    He took the gamble in 2015 and scaled the legal hurdle on his way. But then, the 1999 Constitution was not clear on the status of contestants like him. This was in 2015. These are the contestants who had held office as president or governor under extenuating circumstances.

    Such a circumstance arose in 2010 when Jonathan’s principal, President Umoru Yar’Adua died, and he automatically succeeded the deceased in line with constitutional requirement. Thus, Jonathan became an accidental president in May 2010. His presidency was not borne out of his direct election into the nation’s highest office. It came by accident. He had been elected in 2007 on the joint ticket with Yar’Adua. Jonathan became vice president (VP) by virtue of that.

      It is likely that Jonathan would have remained  VP and served for eight years, if Yar’Adua had not died. This is now history. Fifteen years after he became president by accident in 2010, and 10 after he left office in 2015 after being elected in his own right in 2011, Jonathan is now at the centre of some people’s self-serving campaign for him to run again. They want Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan to try his luck for the exalted office. Jonathan has always been a lucky man. Those rooting for his return seem to be counting on this luck, which saw him become accidental governor and president at different times, to get him through in 2027.

    By sheer luck, he always got on a platter what many others hankered after and never attained. He sits down on his own jeje reading newspapers, as his wife, Dame Patience, recounted in the uncertain days of the illhealth of his principal when he was sidelined by the hawks in government, and just like that luck smiles on him – the way manna drops from above. Those who will benefit from Jonathan running in 2027 are fighting tooth and nail to win the argument.

    They have exhumed a 2022 court judgment by the Federal High Court in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, to help their case that there is no constitutional encumbrance on their man’s path. There has always been something about Jonathan and the  Constitution. He became acting president in February 2010 by virtue of a ‘Doctrine of Neccesity’ created by the Senate to sort out a constitutional logjam.

    Indeed, the framers of the Constitution never envisaged the kind of crisis the nation witnessed then – where the president would be infirm and unable to hand over to his deputy during his long absence. Jonathan has since revealed that Yar’Adua did the needful, but the letter never got to the National Assembly. Some of those who hid the letter are now championing his return in 2027. He has to watch his back.

    In 2015, his reelection bid generated another constitutional interest. Those opposed to him running went to court, claiming that he was no longer eligible to contest, citing Section 137 (1) (b). The section says: A person shall not be qualified for election to the office of president if – he has been elected to such office at any two previous elections. To the plaintiffs, Jonathan had run for election twice and as such was no longer eligible. The high court disagreed and the appeal court upheld that decision. Jonathan contested and lost to President Muhammadu Buhari.

    The rumour of his running again in 2023 opened another constitutional challenge. By then the Constitution had been amended, with the insertion of a new Section 137 (3) which  states: A person, who was sworn in to complete the term for which another person was elected as President shall not be elected to such office for more than a single term. Having completed Yar’Adua’s term and subsequently elected into office in 2011, Jonathan is clearly caught by this provision. The snag is the amendment was done in 2017, but signed into law in 2018, three years after he left office in 2015.

    His supporters are arguing that the provision cannot take retroactive effect, citing the 2022 judgment of Justice Isa Dashen of the Bayelsa Federal High Court, which this paper analysed last Thursday. Going by the verdict, Jonathan can run. But it is wrong to describe  the judgment as ‘final’ on the ground that it can no longer be appealed because of the effluxion of time.

    Read Also: TALI partners government on enforcement of disability rights in Nigeria

     For the avoidance of doubt, no verdict of the high court can ever be ‘final’ because litigation does not end there. It ends at the Supreme Court, if the litigants decide to go all the way. Because it has been three years since the judgment, whereas the time for appealing it is 90 days, the ‘we want Jonathan again’ crowd is trying to wear it the toga of finality. It is for them to do whatever they can to have their way, but they must bear in mind that those opposed to their plan are not sleeping too.

    There is no argument over the subsistence of the verdict. However, those using it to make a case for Jonathan’s return are either only trying to be clever by half or do not know how the courts work. That the judgment can no longer be appealed does not mean that a fresh case cannot be instituted on the same matter since it never got to the Supreme Court where all legal disputes end. Another litigant can, therefore, go to court to stop Jonathan from running, if he decides to do so.

    Jonathan has beheld this spectacle before. This is not the first time that fairweather political friends will be gathering in his name to chorus ‘run, Jonathan run’. He knows what they are looking for – a pay check for all their hue and cry.Only Jonathan knows what is good for Jonathan and not the so-called do-gooders whose sole aim is to use him to achieve their selfish political ends. Will Jonathan’s running in 2027 change anything? It won’t. His first-and-a-half comings, that is his own four years from 2011 – 2015, and the completion of Yar’Adua’s term between 2010 and 2011, were nothing to write home about.

    He has no record to run on. His luck has always carried him, though. But he should not push his luck too far. In Jonathan’s life, luck has always lurked around him. From deputy governor in Bayelsa, he became accidental governor in 2005 when his principal, Diepreye Alamiyeisegha, got into trouble and was jailed in Britain. But he should not be carried away by this luck and the sweet talks of deceitful politicians.

    I can hear Chinua Achebe addressing Jonathan in his book: Things fall apart, “those whose kernels were cracked by a benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble”. Jonathan should remain true to himself as his  humility has always been his strength. He should not allow himself to be led by the nose by people who are only interested in building a political empire for themselves by using him to achieve their aim.

  • Post-colonial culture in Nigeria

    Post-colonial culture in Nigeria

    The vast majority of Nigerian after the amalgamation in 1914 continued to live their lives as before without noticeable change traceable to the imposition of colonial rule.  The most noticeable outcome of amalgamation was the gradual extension of the Beit-el mal (native treasuries) first introduced to the North by Sir Fredrick Lugard to the rest of the country beginning in Yorubaland and Benin.  The attempt to extend this to the acephalous Igbo societies by creating ‘Warrant’ chiefs where there were no traditional rulers met with failure. The economic implication of this system was the levying of taxes in the names of native rulers who were now made to enjoy political and economic power out of tune with pre-colonial tradition and culture. 

    Resistance to this imposition did not succeed in the face of superior physical force in the hands of the colonial administration.  Rebellion and revolts were shot down by the use of soldiers and Nigerians were cowed and made to face the responsibilities imposed by modern mode of governance which involved payment of taxes as a passage of citizenships rite.

    The colonial phase of Nigerian history witnessed rapid economic changes, building of railways roads and ports and even aerodromes.  Gradually our people were sucked into the western economic, political and social vortex.  With this came increasing contact between our people and the outside world.  Nigerian soldiers fought in two World Wars first between 1914 and 1918 in theatres in Togo, the Cameroons and East Africa.  Some naval ratings were even sent all the way to Palestine. 

    The Second World War saw more extensive use of our soldiers in the Ethiopian campaigns against the Italians and in Burma against the Japanese.  The involvement of our troops in these global cataclysms had serious political consequences. The weakening of the British in a changed world hastened the process of decolonization.  This process was hastened by the rise of African nationalism and the emergence of political parties each of which in different ways fought for the political emancipation of our country.  The growing political awareness led to cultural nationalism and the cry to “boycott all boycottables” that is to say Africans should go back to their cultural roots by jettisoning imported names and taking on native names.  This was particularly the case among the descendants of Nigerian repatriates from Sierra Leone resident in Lagos. They cast away their European and Hebrew names thus David Brown Vincent took an African names of Mojola Agbebi, Edmund Macaulay became Kitoyi Ajasa, Joseph Pythagoras Haastrup became Ademuyiwa Haastrup, Jacob Henry Samuel became Adegboyega Edun. Their examples were later to resonate with Azikwe and Awolowo when they dropped their biblical names of Benjamin and Jeremiah respectively. 

    The wearing of African clothes became fashionable.  Lugard would in his grave have approved this development unlike what he condemned in 1914 when he described educated natives as the “trousered Negros of the coast dressed in bond street attire, who send their laundry abroad every other week for dry cleaning”.  In this changed cultural preference, the cultural gap between southerners and northerners in Nigeria began to close. Northerners never abandoned their babanriga for western suits and in most cases stuck to their languages especially the Hausa language rather than taking to English.  This was to be their undoing in a   world in which English was the lingua franca.  This cultural recrudescence also led to greater interest in the study of Nigerian languages literature and history.  The vanguard in this regard was provided by the University of Ibadan which by the eve of independence in 1960 began to develop new curricula for students in liberal arts and the social-sciences as well as adapting the physical and biomedical sciences for the African environment.

    Read Also: Tinubu assures Nigerians: Revenue targets met, no borrowing needed

    The so-called Africanisation gathered pace in the civil service, the church and the judiciary and it was only a matter of time before Africans began to occupy the commanding heights of the economy and the politics of Nigeria and this had its cultural dimension in African pride and the assertion of what was called the “African personality”.

    The post-colonial cultural development

    With independence in Nigeria came a rising tide of expectations.  People wanted increased prices for their primary produce like cocoa, groundnuts, palm kernel and palm oil as well as cotton, rubber, hides and skins on which post-independence Nigerian economy depended.  The various governments of Nigeria tried to meet the expectation of the people but they were not always successful.  With the decline in producer price of farm produce, there was increasing migration of the youth to swell the urban conurbation of Lagos, Ibadan, Kano, Kaduna, Jos, Maiduguri, Benin, Aba and Port Harcourt.  The cities therefore became melting pots of cultures. The various governments particularly the one in the western part of the country spent vast sums of money from accumulated funds of the marketing boards on social welfare schemes such as education and health and urban planning and renewal.  The cities became more attractive to the youth who left the dreary existence of the villages for the cities in what has been appropriately described as rural-urban migration phenomenon.  With too many people in the cities, the infrastructure could not cope and there began a gradual and slippery slope to a situation of urban decay and dilapidation. Crime increased and there was a corrosion of values everywhere.  Money became the most desirable object without consideration of how it was acquired.  Bribery graft, fraud and corruption alien to our culture have become the order of the day.  This phenomenon was accentuated and exacerbated by the incursion of the military into governance.  Force was seen as a veritable instrument of success.  There has been growing culture of aggression in Nigeria and a noticeable breakdown of the culture of respect for elders and others.  Some have ascribed this decline to exploding population which has led to increased competition for resources and jobs particularly among the people.

    Nigerian fraudulent practices have even gone international with advance fee fraud and drug and human trafficking being increasingly, associated with Nigerians.  Surprisingly or perhaps because of the prevailing hardship, the religion of Islam and Christianity have witnessed revival.  The orthodox aspect or traditions of these religions are increasingly challenged by sometimes extremist or even millenarian tendencies sometimes leading to a clash of votaries of these religions. Sometimes the battle-line as in the North of Nigeria is between the traditional Islamic religion and groups preaching a Shiite form of Islam in a largely Sunni milieu.  Among the Christian orthodox traditions such as the Catholics and Protestants have seen huge erosion of membership who now troop to the so-called Pentecostal churches.

    Founding of churches have become big business and many of the churches have gone beyond what orthodox Catholic and Protestants missions used to do in terms of establishment of schools and hospitals.  Some now have housing estates where the ordinary lives of the people are rigidly controlled.  Pentecostalism shares much in common with Islam in the sense that it is not just a religion but a way of life.  This has radically affected the culture of Christians, particularly as it affects marriages, child naming and burials.  The absence of government has also been replaced by the role Pentecostal churches play in the lives of Nigerians.  Some now provide educational facilities from kindergarten to universities.  This is also being emulated rather slowly by Muslims in a struggle for the souls of the people.  Religion has become so fundamental in the lives of Nigerians that the role of men of God and Mallamai has become much pronounced. 

    Nigerians from their external appearances and what they say appear to be very religious.  This however is not reflected in the morality and behaviour of the people.  There is therefore a feeling of superficiality in the religious cultures of our people.  The churches and mosques are full every worship day and even political leaders have appropriated God while continuing with their nefarious looting of the state and national exchequers. 

    The culture of insincerity perfidy and religious perversion is everywhere.  Syncretism in our religious belief has led many observers to say our religion is skin deep, yet the culture of religious confrontation occasioning mass slaughter of the innocents has become a recurring decimal in Nigeria.  The culture of religious intolerance is sometimes fed by events outside our shores with many Muslim youth either out of frustration or fad are being found to support the call for Jihad against non-Muslims or those Muslims who are seen to be deviating from Islamic orthodoxy.

    While all this is going on there is also the effect of globalization on Nigerian culture.  Our economy is open to the rest of the world and with this openness come the importation of all kinds of things namely wine, food, films, educational materials and other things promoting particularly western culture.  It is not unheard of nowadays to hear calls for gay rights that would have been met with the worst kind of reaction in the past.  The modes of dressing of the youth even the kind of English spoken are pitifully American.  The dot.com generations have also exploited computers to perpetrate fraud internationally.  Nigerians like other people in the globalised world are not immune to the spread of pornography and even paedophilia and other kinds of sexual perversion unheard of in times past.

  • Fast money

    Fast money

    The lust for “ritual money” presages Nigeria’s ghastly nature. Its portents fulfill the grisly typecast that has become our fate.

    Despite our claims of morality and exaggerated spirituality, the recurrent arrest of teen ritual killers yanks the rug out from under our pretentious ideals.

    The most jarring message to date, rattles in Daniel Bamidele’s hymn of progeny as the new fiend. Consider, for instance, the sad case of Samuel, 18, who wanted to be rich. So, he strangled his mother to death and removed her briefs. Then he mounted her corpse and raped it.

    The victim, Christiana, didn’t see it coming. Perhaps because no mother ever worries about being murdered and raped by her own son. Samuel pounced on her while she slept, at her residence on Market Road, Ologbo, Ikpoba-Okha local council, Delta State.

    The youngest child of the deceased claimed to have acted on the instructions of One Love, a native doctor. He said, “I wanted to use her for money ritual. She was sleeping when I strangled her around 5 am. I was advised by One Love, a native doctor in Oghara, to kill her. After killing her, I slept with her. The native doctor told me to do so and keep her corpse for two days.”

    According to him, One Love persuaded him to use his mother for money rituals, and promised to give him N50,000 if he could cut her ears and fingers, and bring them to him. But just before he disemboweled his mother, he got caught. His grandmother saw him with her daughter’s lifeless body and sounded an alarm, which led to the teenager’s arrest.

    Six years since the gory incident, Nigeria still grapples with the chimera of bloodthirsty teens as young as 15 years, prowling the country’s neighbourhoods for anyone they could kill for “fast money.”

    The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that over 150 ritual killing cases were recorded in the six months leading to January 2025. NAN reports that the police apprehended many of the ritualists including a youth who killed his mother, grandmother, sister and her son on November 27, 2024 in Amaeze, Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State.

    On Friday, April 5, 2025, in Anambra State, Chidozie Nwangwu, Onyebuchi Okocha and Ekene Igboezekwe were arraigned before Justice Jude Obiorah on charges bordering on their claims to possess supernatural powers to perform money rituals and conspiracy to commit felony, to mention a few.

    The three suspects were reportedly arrested by the Agunechemba security outfit as Anambra sought to purge itself of ritual killings, armed robbery, kidnap for ransom, among other crimes.

    Interestingly, 18 suspected pastors out of the 53 mentioned by the suspects fled following the arrest of two of their members by the Agunechemba.

    “We went to the places where these people make the charms they call Okeite, bearing people’s names and pictures. We saw thousands of Okeite. Bad people have entered our land. They are not invisible like the air; they are human beings, and we know them. If you see any of them, just draw our attention to them,” urged the Anambra governor, Prof. Charles Soludo.

    Yet, the most jarring message to date, rattles in the hymn of progeny as the new fiend. Against the backdrop of the killings, Nigerian lawmakers have called for an intervention by the state. First, they must deal with the surfeit of incidents establishing  teenagers’ reckless lust for money.

    Recall that on January 29, 2023, in the misadventure of the quartet: Wariz Oladehinde, 17, Majekodunmi Soliu, 18, Abdul Gafar Lukman 19, and Mustakeem Balogun 20, who were arrested by men of the Ogun State Police Command for allegedly killing a girlfriend of an accomplice for money-making ritual.

    On interrogation, they confessed that what they were burning in the clay pot was the severed head of the girlfriend of their accomplice. They gang-raped her before beheading and cooking her.

    Their actions aren’t accidental; from plotting to execution, a hideous smattering of bestiality manifests as society’s just deserts. Yet the boys are neither freaks nor social accidents, they are simply karma coming home to roost.

    The frantic lunge for sudden wealth by teenagers and young adults establishes the fatal forming of Nigerian maleness, family and society. Toxic families produce toxic wards. Toxic children become toxic citizens. Toxic citizenry become poisonous to nationhood, in the long run.

    The interplay of excessive materialism, misandrist-feminism, and the absence of exemplary father figures has foisted upon us a generation of reprobate males.Economic forces aggravate their sense of disenchantment while corrupted gender roles and the denouement of masculinity afflict them with greater confusion.

    Masculinity flows from nature as an aspect of the birth mother, no doubt, but it is sculpted by society and a father figure into humane and effective manhood. The boy-child learns by instruction, counselling, and imitation.

    In an ideal setting, the father moulds his character by careful nurturing, awarding punishment for vice and reward for virtue. Where the father is absent or feckless, the child suffers exposure to degenerate blooming, like Afeez Olalere, who was encouraged to use his younger brother for money ritual by his mother; to embolden him, she fed poison to her younger son and watched him die.

    Boys are in trouble. They have become Nigeria’s trouble but society shies away from their plight, gagged by dubious gender politics and the notion that males enjoy greater socioeconomic advantages.

    Consequently, several boys are denied constructive counselling at home and necessary push through educational tiers.

    More boys drop out of school to become internet scammers (Yahoo Boys) disguised as bitcoin traders, I.T. and forex gurus. Many of them are casualties of dysfunctional families and the changing dynamics of the new global economy.

    That the economy has become less friendly to males is a global problem, however. Jacqueline King, of the American Council on Education in her group’s study of lower-income adults in college, discovered that men had a harder time committing to school. They reported feeling isolated and were much worse at seeking out fellow students, study groups, or counsellors to help them adjust.

    Read Also: Tinubu: reforms working, Nigeria now accorded respect globally

    The “protector” and “provider” theories of manhood and fatherhood are continually dismissed as credulous and crude, in a modern world where conservative ideals of masculinity are maligned and fiercely rebuffed.

    On the flip side, females enjoy patronage in crusader education and art. This slanted social complex has been adduced to a venomous leftist orientation.

    Responding to my query on the issue, a staff of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) told me recently, that his organisation ignores Nigerian boys and adult males in its intervention programmes because the government has failed to make provisions for them at the policy level.

    “The Nigerian government and local NGOs do not consider boys and men worthy recipients of any form of intervention,” he lamented.

    It is pleasing to see girls and young women succeed. But it is wrong to neglect boys. This is a sure recipe for disaster, the kind that is happening in real time.

    There is a reason the ritual money credo is embraced by increasing number of boys. The exasperating nature of their lusts, dysfunctional families, poverty, misgovernance and societal corruption amplify their rationale for embracing a creed of cruelty and carnage.

    The situation is aggravated by the frantic fostering and cues from media and literature. Popular culture’s celebration of grotesque and increasingly infantilised versions of masculinity aggravates the malady – from Nollywood’s neurotic man-boys to the bestial and slacker dudes of feminist-misandrist literature.

    But this is a discussion we aren’t ready for.

  • Your governor has your money, ask him for it

    Your governor has your money, ask him for it

    When last did the Governor of your state call a press conference to give an account of the situation of the state, beyond occasional appearances, for example, to address the insecurity situation or launch a project? Has your Governor ever disclosed how much money came into the state treasury from Federal allocations and Internally Generated Revenue the previous month, quarter, or year? In short, how accountable has your state Governor been to the people he was elected to serve?

    There are many factors responsible for the Governors’ lack of accountability. First, there is no standardised system of evaluating state governments or otherwise hold them accountable. Governors exploit this lacuna to maximum advantage through deception and other mischievous exploits. In the absence of a system of evaluation, the electorate are supposed to use elections as a system of evaluation. Those who look promising are voted in, while those who performed are reelected. Not in Nigeria, though, because such evaluation is mitigated by other factors, including ethnicity, religion, vote-buying, vote inflation, and other under-the-table deals.

    Second, lack of accountability encourages Governors to have a free rein with the people’s treasury. In many states, contracts are awarded to put money back in the Governors’ pocket, often through surrogates. Take, for example, the case of Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau (2015-2023), who claimed that he bought 400 tractors for N5.6 billion for farmers in his state as part of the state’s agricultural production scheme, even after each participating farmer paid a deposit of N1.5 million to the state for the equipment. However, upon investigation by Premium Times, it was discovered that only about 90 tractors were bought and fewer (just 40) were displayed when President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned the project in 2018. Yet, the unknowing electorate were recruited to sing and dance on the occasion in praise of the Governor (see The true story of ‘400 tractors’ ex-Gov. Lalong claimed his govt bought for Plateau, Premium Times, July 4, 2024).

    Read Also: Fed Govt opens doors to local, foreign partnerships on renewable energy

    Third, illiteracy prevents the public from pressing for accountability. I use the term illiteracy here in two senses: One, in the sense of stark illiteracy, that is, inability to read and write, which applies to about 40 percent of the Nigerian population, much more so in the North than in the South, and the other in the sense of political illiteracy, despite the dual ability to read and write. Many literate Nigerians are politically illiterate in this sense. Some of them may know that Governors should be accountable, but they will not hold the Governors to account, either because they are “eating” or because they hope to “eat” from the Governors’ government or they don’t care at all. Both groups of illiterates take part in singing and dancing in praise of Governors for doing their duty, such as tarring a road or building a public facility, such as a school, hospital, or clinic. This practice has the inverse effect of making the Governors feel they have achieved, and they use the praise singing as a surrogate for accountability.

    Fourth, poverty also prevents voters from holding their Governors to account.  Poverty makes them satisfied with tokens, such as rural roads, boreholes, or a poverty alleviation measure, such as N5,000 or a scoop of rice. Many of them have no idea that whatever they get from their state government is their right and that it is the Governor’s duty to provide them. Unfortunately, the illiterate and poor electorate have been led to believe that whatever problems they have are from Abuja, and that their enemy is the federal government and not their Governor or state government. That’s why protests are directed at the Federal Government instead of state governments.

    It is the dual scourge of illiteracy and poverty that makes vote-buying central to our electoral practice. Save for occasional investigative journalism and a few civil society organisations, which demand accountability, sometimes by going to court to demand some records, little or nothing is heard about the performance of state governments.

    Any wonder then that corruption is rampant in the states, and it takes various forms, including bribery, inflated contracts (to disguise cutbacks), and outright embezzlement of public funds, often through diversion into private or business accounts associated with politicians, political appointees, civil servants, and/or their surrogates. To be sure, corruption is not unique to Nigeria. It is everywhere across the globe. What is peculiar about corruption in Nigeria is threefold: (a) the impunity with which corrupt practices thrive; (b) the degree to which corrupt practices are condoned, especially by the respective local communities of the politicians, political appointees, and civil servants in question; and (c) the pervasiveness of corruption across all strata of society.

    Most state Governors are corrupt. Once elected, they are either looking for campaign funds for reelection or for running for Senate or for supporting a Presidential candidate for expected reward, such as a Vice-Presidential pick or ministerial nomination. Some even accumulate funds to run for President. For incumbents, the state treasury is often the starting point, using various methods, including the so-called security vote, which, in some states, is as high as N1 billion a month, which the Governor is not bound to account for.

    Some of them may also want to retire from active politics once they feel that they have accumulated enough money to sustain them and their family for the rest of their lives. Remember that, besides their savings, they are treated to a fat severance package and monthly pension, which varies from state to state. In addition, they keep several vehicles, drivers, police escort, kitchen staff, and other assistants for which their states or the relevant government agency, such as the police, allegedly continues to pay.

    It is against the above backgrounds that the Governors’ performances since May 29, 2023, should be assessed. It is pertinent to emphasise that since fuel subsidy was removed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the inception of his administration, state allocations have more than doubled. To further aid accountability at the local level, citizens can not go directly to their LGA offices to make enquiries about their performance now that LGA funds are being paid directly to them. Yet, there have been no corresponding improvements in people’s lives, despite the distribution of funds and other resources for palliatives, including cash distribution, agricultural development, transport facility, and infrastructural development.

    How will the Governors and LGA Chairs be made accountable? The answer lies with residents of each state and LGA. It is necessary for the Ministry of Information and National Orientation to alert citizens down to the LGA level of their rights to seek information and to demand accountability of their Governors and LGA Chairs. Unless this is done, the President’s Renewed Hope Ward Development Programme may remain so only on paper. Going to the street or court has its usefulness but direct involvement with government officials often yields faster results. Of course, where credible information of infringements is available, the road to the EFCC or the ICPC is always open.

    •An earlier version of this essay first appeared on September 3, 2024