The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

The Battle of Agindingbi

Okon falls to Mama Igosun

It was the longest day, and the cannons of Kiriji were already booming. Even before commencing on the great march on Mama Igosun’s redoubt, Okon was already dreaming of sweet victory and sweeter revenge. “I go tie up dem Yoruba witch as dem dey do for Akwa Ibom. Dem small children go pepper am and im go confess. Dem go know say na dem yeye Yoruba people dey trouble dis kontri. After dat na dem OPC house I go head make I go finish dat were man who come beat Okon just like dat”.

After Okon was forcibly dislodged from the house in a civil commotion that lasted a whole day, he had taken up residence with Baba Lekki who promised him a medical concoction that would make him invisible to any human-being. But the crazy boy still had his doubts about Baba Lekki and his bogus charm. As he evaded Baba’s lunging walking stick, Okon suddenly rounded on the old crook.

   “Baba as una dey chase me, dat means you dey see me? So when dem medicine go start work, abi na Yoruba wayo?” Okon demanded.

    “Na by remote control I go trigger am. I get dem remote control from dem Agbanrere (Giraffe) neck and dem buffalo horn”, Baba replied.

     “So, how one go know say one don become spirit?” Okon pressed.

     “When you hit dem LASTMA people and dem no reply”, Baba answered.

“Baba wetin if dem charm no work?”, Okon asked the ageing scoundrel.

      “Foolish boy, he come be like the case of dem apprentice pilot who dey ask him oga wetin go happen if parachute no open. Na dat one dem dey call jumping to conclusion”, Baba Lekki retorted with a sinister smile.

     “Baba, walahi, if dis yeye juju no work, as you come draw blood from my head, naim I go draw blood from una mouth”, Okon snarled as Baba Lekki tried to hush him away. By now, Okon knew he was on his own. But he was determined to press his luck. Very soon, Okon arrived at the sight of an uncompleted building that had just collapsed. It was a scene out of the apocalypse. While people were wailing, open looting was also going on. His sense of natural dignity and justice affronted, Okon blocked the path of a neer do well. “No be dem dead people property you dey thief so?” Okon demanded. Before the mammoth urchin could give a reply, Okon dealt him a resounding slap on the face.

   “Allah wa kabr, awon omo ogun orun dide”, the illiterate vagabond screamed and fled.

READ ALSO: Gov Abba Yusuf’s convoluted defection

   By now, Okon had arrived around the neighborhood. He was now convinced that the charm was working and that he was truly invisible and invincible. Earlier, he had accosted a policeman who was openly taking bribe and dealt him a blow to the plexus. The rogue cop fled screaming “Chineke dem ghost from Atan don destroy me”.

    But the first sign that all might not go well on the home front came soon. There was Mama Igosun dressed like a local hunter swigging directly from a bottle of Seaman’s schnapps even as she swung to a 1930 classic by Denge in honour of one Maggie Macaulay.

As Okon made to sweep past her thinking that all this was an elaborate bluff, the Amazon blocked his path and stated cursing his ancestors.

    “Ekolo, abi wetin you call yourself, you no dey greet your mother for dem village?” she hollered as she tried to collar Okon.

     “Move”, Okon thundered as he sidestepped. Mama Igosun was so taken aback by the vehemence and ferocity that she tripped and fell. Okon rushed towards her room.

    “Hen hen, o ti lo gbagbara, abi?” the old woman screamed as she sprang after Okon. Overconfidence overtook the crazy boy. Before he could look back, the irate woman dealt him a blow on the back with a frying pan. The effect of the blow was electric. Okon wound up like a stung millipede and upon recovering his senses, he took to his heels with Mama Igosun in hot pursuit.

An old classic republished by popular demand.

January 25, 2026
How power, politics policy flow in Tinubu’s carefully sequenced presidency

Having returned to Abuja from Abu Dhabi late on the previous Saturday, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu wasted no time returning to his desk at the State House. There was no ceremonial pause, no indulgence in the fatigue that naturally follows a demanding international outing. Instead, the President slipped seamlessly back into the rhythms of governance, setting things straight and pressing ahead with what has increasingly become his defining pursuit: the steady, deliberate construction of a functional Nigerian state.

From Sunday onward, the week unfolded as a study in motion and method. Day after day, sometimes stretching late into the night, the President worked through meetings, briefs, and decisions with a tempo that suggested not urgency, but clarity. What stood out was not merely the volume of activity, but the way events appeared to align; each one flowing naturally into another, connected by an internal logic that made the entire sequence feel intentional rather than accidental.

To the casual observer, this symmetry might have seemed coincidental. To the more attentive watcher of power, it revealed something else entirely: a presidency running on planning, timing, and an instinctive understanding of political sequence. In a system often criticised for improvisation and reactive governance, the Tinubu Presidency appears increasingly choreographed, not in the theatrical sense, but in the disciplined manner of a long-distance runner who knows exactly when to conserve energy and when to surge.

Two meetings during the week captured this rhythm perfectly.

On Monday, the President received the Governor of Kano State, Abba Kabir Yusuf, in a closed-door session at the State House. By Thursday, a similar audience was granted to the Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde. On the surface, these were routine engagements between the President and subnational leaders. In context, however, they carried layered political meaning.

Both visitors are governors from opposition parties. Both arrived in Abuja amid intense political noise. In Yusuf’s case, weeks of speculation had trailed him; whispers of a possible defection from the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), countered by denials from his political mentor and rival narratives from party loyalists. In Makinde’s case, the controversy was more direct: public remarks distancing himself from the President’s 2027 re-election ambition, rooted in his fallout with former ally and current FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike. Yet, when the President received them, none of that noise appeared to matter.

READ ALSO: Gov Abba Yusuf’s convoluted defection

What mattered was that Kano had security and infrastructure concerns to raise. What mattered was that Oyo’s governor wanted to discuss national and subnational governance. In both instances, Tinubu listened. No grandstanding. No visible irritation. No partisan gatekeeping. The optics that emerged; smiles, cordial exchanges, relaxed body language, told their own story.

It was a subtle but powerful message: this President does not confuse politics with governance.

Makinde would later articulate it plainly. “The President is the President of Nigeria, not the President of APC,” he said, stressing that issues such as insecurity, poverty alleviation and citizens’ welfare had no party colouration. Tinubu did not need to rebut or amplify that statement. His actions already had. By opening his doors to opposition governors, one flirting with defection, the other publicly ruling it out, he projected a leadership style anchored in confidence rather than insecurity.

In a political environment often defined by grudges and zero-sum calculations, this posture matters. It portrays Tinubu as a leader comfortable in his mandate, secure enough to engage critics and rivals alike, and mature enough to understand that national cohesion is built not by exclusion, but by conversation.

This magnanimity, however, does not dilute his focus. If anything, it sharpens it.

While the political class dissected the symbolism of those meetings, the President was already moving on another front, one that cuts to the heart of Nigeria’s economic recovery. On Thursday, Tinubu received the global leadership of Shell Plc at the State House. The outcome was not symbolism, but substance.

What emerged from that meeting was a clear signal to global capital: Nigeria is back in the race.

By approving the gazetting of targeted, investment-linked incentives for Shell’s Bonga South West deep-offshore project, the President demonstrated the same strategic thinking that defined his engagements in Abu Dhabi. These were not blanket concessions or fiscal giveaways. As Tinubu himself stressed, they were “ring-fenced and investment-linked,” designed to unlock new capital, drive incremental production, deepen local content, and generate jobs, without eroding government revenues.

The numbers tell their own story. Since the issuance of executive orders to liberalise the oil and gas sector, Shell alone has invested over $7 billion in Nigeria in just over a year. Now, buoyed by renewed policy clarity and regulatory certainty, the company is signalling fresh investments of up to $20 billion in the coming years. Projects like Bonga North, shallow-water gas developments, and the proposed Bonga South West field are not abstract concepts; they translate into fabrication yards coming back to life, thousands of direct and indirect jobs, long-term foreign exchange inflows, and decades of sustained government revenue.

What makes this sequence remarkable is not just the scale of the investment, but the timing.

Only days earlier, Tinubu had been in Abu Dhabi, advancing Nigeria’s economic and diplomatic interests through high-level engagements and agreements. Barely had the jet touched down in Abuja than another economic gain was being engineered at home. Different venues, same objective. Different partners, same philosophy. Whether in foreign capitals or the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the President’s focus remains constant: pushing Nigeria forward.

This is where the threads of the week converge.

The meetings with Yusuf and Makinde underscored a leadership open to dialogue, unthreatened by dissent, and attentive to the complexities of Nigeria’s plural politics. The engagement with Shell revealed a President equally relentless in economic statecraft, translating reforms into real investment flows. Together, they painted a picture of a presidency operating on multiple planes at once; political stability on one hand, economic expansion on the other, each reinforcing the other.

It is easy to underestimate the discipline required to sustain this balance. Easier still to miss the planning beneath the surface. But when events line up with such regularity; opposition governors welcomed with goodwill, investors reassured with policy certainty, reforms yielding tangible dividends, it becomes harder to dismiss the pattern as coincidence.

Tinubu’s Presidency, now firmly into its stride, is beginning to resemble a long-form strategy rather than a collection of episodic reactions. The reforms initiated early in his tenure are no longer abstract policy statements; they are bearing fruit, attracting capital, and reshaping perceptions. The political engagements are no longer defensive maneuvers; they are expressions of confidence.

Beyond the headline-grabbing optics of bipartisan politics and boardroom economics, the President’s week was also stitched together by quieter, steadier acts that revealed the full texture of governance; ritual, empathy, symbolism, and institutional housekeeping.

It began on Sunday with a pause for recognition. President Tinubu marked the 60th birthday of the Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, not as a ceremonial courtesy but as an affirmation of reform. In praising Adeniyi’s professionalism and the recalibration of the Customs Service under his watch, the President signalled once again his preference for results over rhetoric and institutions that work over institutions that merely exist.

Monday bore a heavier emotional weight. Tinubu mourned the passing of Kano business patriarch, Alhaji Bature Abdulaziz, acknowledging the loss of a stabilising voice in Nigeria’s trading ecosystem. In the same breath, he condemned the chilling murder of a woman and her six children in Kano, directing swift investigation and prosecution, drawing a firm moral line between the sanctity of life and the brutality that threatens it. The day also carried a continental note, as he congratulated Solid Minerals Minister, Dele Alake, on his re-election as chairman of the Africa Minerals Strategic Group, reinforcing Nigeria’s renewed assertiveness in shaping Africa’s resource future. Condolences followed for the late Chief Imam of Ilorin, Sheikh Muhammad Bashir Saliu, a bridge-builder in faith and community.

Tuesday sustained the rhythm of empathy and affirmation: mourning Christian patriarch Moses Adegbite, while celebrating Jumoke Okoya-Thomas, both for her birthday and her elevation within Lagos’ traditional hierarchy.

By Thursday, the President returned to institutional focus, charging the new leadership of the Federal Character Commission to act as the nation’s conscience, even as he approved key ambassadorial postings to France, the United States, and the United Kingdom, quiet but consequential moves in diplomacy.

Friday crowned the week with symbolism and validation: a chieftaincy honour for Rep. Kafilat Ogbara, and the Olubadan’s succinct verdict, if you know where Tinubu is coming from, you will understand where he is taking Nigeria.

In the end, the week told a simple but powerful story. Nigeria’s President is not merely reacting to events; he is sequencing them. He is not choosing between politics and economics; he is managing both with a single-minded commitment to restoration. And perhaps most tellingly, he is doing so with a calm assurance that suggests he knows exactly where the country is headed, and how each step, however different it may appear, fits into the larger design.

That sense of order, in a system long accustomed to drift, may yet prove to be one of the most consequential reforms of all.

January 25, 2026
APC and the Yilwatda doctrine

Professor Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda was elected National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on 24 July, 2025. Prior to this appointment, he was a Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, in Benue State, a Resident Electoral Commissioner for the same state, an APC governorship candidate for Plateau State, the Coordinator of the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council for Plateau State, and a Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.

In his acceptance speech as National Chairman, he said to the National Executive Committee of the party: “I pledge, without hesitation, that I will work with everybody in the party, I will unite the party, I will build the party, I will expand the party with you as the focus and the building block and the support that I will require to drive the party as needed by all of us so that we can fulfil the dream of Nigerians who have reposed their hope in the Renewed Hope Agenda.” This may be perceived as the general outline of his political article of faith or what may be called ‘The Yilwatda Doctrine’. In a number of speeches, Professor Yilwatda has defined aspects of this doctrine.

The first aspect deals with leadership within the party in different states. In this regard, he declared on 2 January, 2026: “In all the states, … the state governors … lead the party.” In the specific case of Rivers State, he said that Governor Siminalayi Fubara, who joined APC on 9 December, 2025, is the leader of the APC, but that, in running the party, he would need to carry along other key stakeholders.

Vice President Kasim Shettima had made a related point, at Governor Peter Mbah’s defection rally in Enugu on 14 October, 2025, when he said: “As per the APC convention and constitution, the governor is the leader of the party in the state. Your Excellency, you are now the leader of the APC family in Enugu State. I am the Vice-President, but the leader of the APC in Borno is Professor Babagana Umara Zulum. The President of the Senate is the Number 3 citizen, but the leader of the party in Akwa Ibom State is Governor Umo Eno. The Speaker of the House of Representatives is the Number 4 citizen, but the leader of the party in Kaduna State is Senator Uba Sani, the Governor of Kaduna State. We are one family tied to a common destiny.”

READ ALSO: Gov Abba Yusuf’s convoluted defection

As Simon Sinek put it in a 13 April, 2010 article on the logistics of leadership, “There are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or influence. Those who lead inspire us. We follow those who lead not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead not for them, but for ourselves.” Elucidating this point, Hidayat Rizvi said on 5 September, 2024, on her website: “Leaders typically hold formal positions of authority, recognized by titles and accompanied by the power to make strategic decisions. Those Who Lead, on the other hand, influence without formal authority, often inspiring teams and shaping outcomes through emotional intelligence and adaptability.”

In Rivers State, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, is among ‘Those Who Lead’ both within his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and across parties, and he may be regarded as a special kind of “non-APC-member”. He has ceaselessly declared his commitment to the success of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the president’s second term election in 2027; he helped APC to win 20 out of 23 seats in the 30 August, 2025 Local Government elections in Rivers State; all the members of the Rivers State House of Assembly who defected to APC on 5 December, 2025 are his loyalists; and he rallied both APC and PDP chairmen to attend his “Thank you tour” which held from December 2025 to January 2026. All of these indicate that Minister Wike has the capacity to impact both the APC governorship primary and the general elections in the state in 2027.

The Delta State Governor, Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori, who is himself a member of APC, added his perspective on the question of leadership, on 10 January, 2026, when he said to a group of elders: “I’m a governor, but I still have leaders. There is no local government [in which] I don’t have leaders. I have leaders. You cannot say because you are a governor, … you are all in all. Nooo! You must be loyal to your people, because we are just serving them.” In other words, there are leaders and there are ‘leaders’.

Moreover, when, at the venue of the 2 October, 2018 governorship primary election of the APC in Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was asked why he was not supporting Governor Akinwumi Ambode for a second term, he said: “I brought Ambode to the people. He was a civil servant under me. He performed very well as a civil servant. And when he showed interest in politics after, … we gave him the opportunity. I introduced him to the party. The party accepted him. He became the governor. Now, if the party … says they want either a change or they want to reaffirm his governorship through open exercise [direct primaries], if they elect him today, so be it. You know, you remain relevant as a leader if you submit yourself once in a while to what your people want.”

Asiwaju further noted: “If the party who made me the leader of the structure in Lagos says what they want, it’s only if you have followership that you are a leader in democracy. If I look back [and] I don’t find them again, if I don’t respond to them, if I fail to accede to their request, I would have failed the leadership test. … If this house that accommodates all of us is saying we’re facing one way … we’re supporting a change …, I have to abide by that. I have no choice.” In other words, ‘Those Who Lead’ can horse and unhorse ‘Leaders’.

The second aspect of the Yilwatda Doctrine deals with automatic tickets. On 2 January, 2026, Professor Yilwatda declared: “I’m not the person to choose people in the primary election. Everybody undergoes primary election.” This means there would be no automatic tickets for new members of the party. So, all candidates must take part in the party’s primaries. In the specific case of Governor Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers State, the National Chairman said: “If Siminalayi emerges as the candidate of APC in Rivers State, I’ll stand by him. But if any other person emerges as candidate of APC in Rivers State, I’ll go with [that other person]. I go with candidates, not individuals. … So, when Sim picks a form, he’ll be an aspirant. If he emerges as a candidate, I’ll support him. If he loses, I’ll sympathise with him and go with the person that wins the primary election.”

This seems to be a dampener on the presumption that since Governor Fubara has defected to APC and FCT Minister Wike remains a non-member of the party, the minister’s capacity to stop Governor Fubara from securing a second term ticket has been undermined or eliminated outright, especially given the spat between Minister Wike and the National Secretary of APC, Senator Ajibola Basiru, arising from the senator’s support for Governor Fubara. In fact, just a few days ago, Professor Yilwatda’s declaration that there would be no automatic tickets was reiterated by the APC Director of Publicity, Bala Ibrahim, and an unnamed National Working Committee member, as reported in the 19 January, 2026 issue of The Punch. This means that, within the Yilwatda Doctrine, the people’s will will be supreme in candidate selection, supposedly through direct primaries, especially with the ongoing e-membership registration in the party.

Meanwhile, the presumption of Minister Wike’s declining influence seems to have contributed to Governor Fubara’s rather unrestrained throwing of the darts of creative insults at his erstwhile benefactor. For example, through innuendos, Governor Fubara has recently called Minister Wike a rat and an ignorant barking dog. The governor had also earlier, on 11 July 2024, spoken of people who “come to the media and dance, [but] when they go behind, they cry.” This innuendo is related to Minister Wike’s disclosure in a 2 June, 2025 interview that “sometimes when I go back in my quiet moment, I play the video of speeches of the governor (Fubara), what he said, what he did to me, I weep.”

In contrast to Governor Fubara’s applause-generating insults, Minister Wike has kept his message simple, consistent and resonant. The frequently-repeated message is that, for the 2023 governorship election in Rivers State, a mistake was made by supporting an ingrate who doesn’t keep to agreements; and that because “Agreement is agreement” and should be inviolable, Rivers State voters must not make that kind of mistake again; and so, Fubara must not get a second term as governor.

The third article of the Yilwatda Doctrine is captured in the following declaration which he made on 21 January, 2026: “In 2027, as a party chairman, I will stand strong to defend the position that if you are not prepared to join us, you shouldn’t be given appointment. … If you know you are a technocrat, go and be a consultant, [rather than] taking political appointment and not going back to support the party that brought you to power. If all of us, …if all appointees, decide to become technocrats, the party will never return to power.” This disavowal repudiates the Pidgin English principle, “Monkey dey work, baboon dey chop.”

In other words, the National Chairman believes that it is unethical to be benefiting from APC through political appointments without joining or working for the party to become stronger or win re-election. Indeed, one state legislature had in the past withheld approval for some nominees for appointment on the ground that those nominees had not used their prior political appointments positively for the party.

The Yilwatda Doctrine rests on the following tripod: one, the governor is the leader of APC in each state that has an APC governor, but the governor must reckon with other stakeholders in the state; two, all aspirants would face party primaries, as there would be no automatic candidates for the 2027 elections; and three, in the spirit of giving back to APC, beneficiaries of political appointments cannot hide behind being technocrats to evade the moral responsibility to fully identify with and work for the progress of the party. Being critical principles of Nigerian democracy, it would be interesting to see how these principles would be sustainably applicable.

January 25, 2026
Obasanjo’s Obi – Kwankwaso 2027 chimera

One day, we will analyse Obasanjo and discover that there’s nothing altruistic about him.

I used to think that he really meant well for Nigeria, but I was very wrong.

The man only cares about his ego, pride, and feelings, not necessarily the wellbeing of Nigeria and Nigerians.

He’s the worst architect of problems of Nigeria alive.

Those of you hoping that he will genuinely support your favourite as a redemption act,are on a ‘long thing ‘.

Everything Obasanjo does is about Obasanjo and for Obasanjo.

It’s hard to swallow for me, but that’s what it is – Akin Iyanda (Facebook 24 January, 26)

“I do not see how a split opposition into PDP and ADC can prevail in 2027.What is more,the North believes President Bola Tinubu is the only one from the South who can complete the eight years in 2031 and hand over to the

North in the spirit of zoning which accounted for why Bola Tinubu defeated Atiku in 2023 in the North.

The odds favor president Bola Tinubu for 2027″ – Toni Sani, elderstatesman, and former Secretary, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF).

Try everything I could, I can no longer remember how many articles I have written about former President Olusegun Obasanjo, dating back to the late 70’s when I held a Sunday column in each of the Tribune and the Sketch newspapers during the editorship of my friend, the erudite journalist, Banji Ogundele, and the inimitable, and suave, Uncle Jide Adeleye respectively.

READ ALSO; Poor pastor or powerful pastor?

My Writings on General Obasanjo reached a crescendo much later when he, as the Nigerian President chose, of all people the highly respectful Ekiti people, as his whipping boys, sparing no scurrilous epithet in describing us. He even said we read our books upside down.

I did not let him go scot free as so scathing were my articles on him that one of his armour- bearers could not help responding. It must be said, to his credit, however, that he didn’t say a word, that is, if he read them.

All that, however, is now ancient history as what concerns Nigerians today are his present peccadilloes

because, as is his wont, Baba is back in his weird old ways.

Ahead every Presidential election since the Peoples Democratic party (PDP) ignominiously lost the presidential diadem in 2015, President Obasanjo has, predictably, never made a right, or wise move regarding the presidency.

Since he always wants to destroy whatever it is he cannot control as Iyabo, his daughter, once told the world in a public letter, he woke up one day in 2018, as if from a bad dream, attempting to sell to a Nigerian Public that has long left him behind, what he called a ‘Third Force’, aka Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM).

Keen on hoodwinking Nigerians, he presented it as a political movement aimed at mobilizing Nigerian youths to take over power by challenging the dominance of the two major political parties, cleverly framing it as an alternative platform for national development.

The man who did everything to concoct a Third Term for himself even advised then President Muhammadu Buhari to not contest the 2019 election.

Forever considering himself the wisest ever Nigerian, there was no way he could have known that Nigerians knew that all he really wanted was a President he could control from the shadows.

He had first tried it with President Umar Yar’ Adua, the man he never allowed to conduct his own campaigns, but the

gentleman successfully pushed him back when he told bemused Nigerians that the election that brought him to office was rigged.

Never one to smell the coffee, Baba Obasanjo came out much more frontally during the 2023 election cycle, enthusiastically pushing the candidacy of Peter Obi, one time Anambra State governor.

There was no trick in the book he did not try in wanting to railroad the efette politician to the presidency.

But Nigerians knew better and refused the Obi gambit.

2027 beckons and Baba is at it again, “brokering alliances and stirring the pot”, of Nigerian politics, as somebody recently put it. The latest move sees him pushing for a joint presidential ticket between Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso under the African Democratic Congress (ADC) – a party Alhaji Atiku Abubakar deliberately floated for his own last presidential bid and for which he had since handpicked its key officials, in readiness for his usual try at every presidential election since ’93.

Trust President Obasanjo to always want to foul the waters. He hates Atiku that much.

Since this is, however, still largely in the realm of rumour, even though exploratory committees are already being set up according to Mallam Kwankwaso’s spokesperson, l would rather await further developments before dovoting any quality time to it.

In the meantime, therefore, let us go all the way back to my signature article in exposing President Obasanjo’s antics while pretending he loved Nigerian youths to bits. That was when he wrote the following romantic letter to them, the clever man who can sell a poke for a pig:”My dear young men and women, you must come together and bring about a truly meaningful change in your lives. If you fail, you have no one else to blame”. “Your present and future are in your hands to make or to mar. The future of Nigeria is in the same manner in your hands and literally so. If for any reason you fail to redeem yourself and your country, you will have lost the opportunity for good and you will have no one to blame but yourselves and posterity will not forgive you”.

“Get up, get together, get going and get us to where we should be. And you, the youth, it is your time and your turn. ‘Eyin Lokan’ (Your turn”.

Please don’t ask him what he did for the Nigerian youths when he was President for 8 years.

The article was titled ‘2023: President Obasanjo’s

Decoys and Nigerian Youths’ and was dated, 15 January, 2023. It will now be significantly edited for space constraint.

And please bear in mind that he sees his latest effort towards the next election as strictly a strategic move to oust President Bola Tinubu from office since he has never been able to live down the fact of another Nigerian President of Yoruba extraction, especially, during his lifetime.

Happy reading.

Wole Olujobi, in his withering

‘2023: Obasanjo And The Legend Of Tenea’ article approximated former president Olusegun Obasanjo to “Oedipus orientation in consummate complexity”.

Raised and reared to preserve a kingdom, Oedipus, a grand patron of hubris, fell into a complex interplay of fate and pride to become an albatross to the kingdom he sought to preserve”.

Let us quote him at some length.

“Sophocles in his play ‘Oedipus Rex’ presents a gripping narrative of a man at the mercy of fate, but who pride would not allow to rediscover himself until he suffers irredeemable consequences”.

“The ancient legend of Oedipus, the mythical king of Thebes who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother, in several of his sojourns, lived in Tenea, a mythical lost city in Greece, according to Greek mythology”.

As recently as 1984, one of Greece’s top archaeologists, Eleni Korka, a Greek-American, made the biggest discovery of her 40-year career: the mythical city of Tenea, which was built by Trojan prisoners of war sometime around 1100BC. After a laborious excavation by Korka and her team, the abandoned Tenea City, in ruins, was discovered to harbour golden carvings and other precious, high levels of art that could turn the fortunes of the delerict city of Tenea for good.

As it is with both Oedipus and Tenea, so it is for Nigeria and General Olusegun Obasanjo (rtd)as Nigerians again prepare for the February 2023 election)to elect their President.

After long years of misrule that left Nigeria in ruins, conscious efforts were made to find a leader to turn the nation’s fortunes around for good.

And so like archaeologist Korka, Nigerian military ‘archaeologists’ led by Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Abdusalami Abubakar dug through the length and breadth of the country and landed on one of them, namely, Olusegun, Obasanjo, a retired General, a man who had litetally decayed in General Sani Abacha’s gulag like the ruins of Tenea.

Pronto, he was dusted up, and crowned Mr President with Nigerians believing they had won lottery”.

But what forlon hope it will all turn as what they found was not gold, but a crippling albatross in the class of Oedipus: a fortune turned awry, who opened the floodgate to complex problems that stalk Nigerians till today, even in their sleep”.

By the time he handed over power after a determined but futile effort to transmute to a Life President, 16 Billion dollars, among others, had been wasted on electricity that produced only darkness, 100B dollar National patrimony had been sold off in sweet heart deals for less than 20B dollars by the trio of himself, Atiku and El Rufai, his Vice and the man in charge of Privatisation respectively, just as court proceedings in the Mandilla Power project is currently being told that the former President allegedly instructed the minister in charge that the N6B cost should be sexed up with an additional N11B.

This is why I often wonder whether President Obasanjo usually, momentarily forgets about himself when writing those his scathing letters about the presumed failings of others.

I digress.

In his letter to the Nigerian youth, he painted a rosy picture of Nigeria, something the country wasn’t under him. He also gave the impression he left power of his own volition, forgetting that the National Assembly had to rescue Nigeria from his attempted life presidency project.

It is apposite to state here that President Obasanjo has all the rights, human as well as legal, to endorse any presidential candidate of his choosing, but it is obvious that he cannot give Nigeria what he does not have, that is, good and corruption – free governance.

He should, therefore, be advised to refrain from this 4- yearly attempt to deceive Nigerians into buying his apostasy about the right leader for Nigeria. All he is doing is self – promotion, and Nigerians wish him well. However, if his primary intention is to fight Atiku to the death, and thereby, ensure he does not achieve his

Marabout – inspired, life long ambition, he should please look for other means, rather than, periodically, taking Nigerians for a ride.

In the meantime, I advise undecided youths, and other Nigerians, who may want to truly know President Obasanjo, and his schemes, to make out time to read an:”Open Letter to My Father, by Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, PhD dated December 16, 2013.

If they learn nothing at all, they should, at least, come to the realisation that in the Obasanjo Obi- Kwankwaso conjecture, they should not deceive themselves into another Waterloo, reminiscent of the Obasanjo-Obi 2023 gambit.

January 25, 2026
The Nnewi Cathedral blues

The consecration of the newly built Our Lady of Assumption Cathedral in Nnewi should have been a moment of profound joy and spiritual celebration for the Catholic Diocese of Nnewi. Instead, the event has become mired in controversy, exposing what many see as a troubling departure from basic Christian principles of gratitude and courtesy. At the heart of the “Nnewi Cathedral Blues” lies a simple yet profound question: How could the Catholic Diocese of Nnewi in its moment of triumph, so thoroughly erase the memory of one who contributed so substantially to making that triumph possible?

The late Senator Ifeanyi Ubah, who passed away in July 2024, reportedly funded approximately 90 percent of the construction costs of the magnificent cathedral that now stands as a beacon of faith in Nnewi. Yet, during the cathedral’s commissioning, neither his family received an invitation to the ceremony, nor was his contribution publicly acknowledged by the presiding Bishop Benson Okoye. This glaring omission did spark widespread outrage among the faithful and observers alike, raising uncomfortable questions about the values guiding the leadership of the diocese.

To be clear, the controversy does not center on demands for the Church to build monuments to Senator Ubah or to immortalize his name in stone and brass within the sacred edifice. Such requests would indeed run contrary to the humility and focus on divine glory that ought to characterize Christian worship spaces. The faithful understand that churches are houses of God, not museums to human achievement, thus no reasonable person expected the cathedral walls to be adorned with plaques bearing the senator’s name or statues erected in his honor.

However, there exists a vast chasm between avoiding personality cults and the practice of basic Christian courtesy. The family of Senator Ifeanyi Ubah deserved, at minimum, an invitation to witness the fruit of their late patriarch’s generosity. They deserved acknowledgment, however brief, of his substantial contribution. This is not about vanity or worldly recognition—it is about simple human decency and Christian gratitude, virtues that should be second nature to those who claim to shepherd Christ’s flock.

The circumstances surrounding Senator Ubah’s withdrawal from the project add another layer of complexity to this unfortunate saga. Having shouldered 90 percent of the construction burden, the senator was, for reasons known only to Bishop Okoye, asked to step back from the project. The details of this decision remain shrouded in mystery, but the subsequent treatment of his memory suggests that whatever transpired left a lasting chill in the relationship between the diocese and its most generous benefactor.

READ ALSO: Gov Abba Yusuf’s convoluted defection

What is even more funny is how the Catholic Diocese of Nnewi has gone on an overdrive to respond to the matter, such issued explanations attempting to justify or contextualize the snub. But as the saying goes, this amounts to little more than “medicine after death”—too late to heal the wound, too inadequate to address the fundamental breach of courtesy. Belated explanations cannot undo the hurt inflicted upon a grieving family or restore the dignity that should have been accorded to Senator Ubah’s memory during the cathedral’s finest hour.

Perhaps most revealing is what was captured in video footage of the commissioning event. Bishop Benson Okoye can be seen in full overdrive, lavishing praise upon dignitaries in attendance—most notably Governor Charles Soludo and former Governor Peter Obi. The bishop’s words flowed freely in adulation of these political figures, his enthusiasm unmistakable as he honored their presence, his relationship with these persons and their contributions. The contrast with the treatment of the late Senator Ubah’s memory could not be more stark or more troubling.

While living politicians received effusive acknowledgment for merely attending, a deceased man who had poured his resources into building the very cathedral being commissioned was consigned to an Orwellian memory hole. One must ask: What does this selective recognition reveal about the Church’s priorities? What message does it send when political expediency appears to trump Christian gratitude? The optics alone are damaging enough, but the underlying implications cut far deeper.

The bishop’s behavior in this instance, troubling as it may be, does not exist in isolation. Those familiar with Bishop Okoye’s actions will recall previous instances where his actions have raised eyebrows and prompted questions about what befits a servant in God’s vineyard. During the Anambra Central Senatorial Election of 2011 between Senator Chris Ngige and Professor Dora Akunyili, in the heat of the speculated rerun following the fact that the elections were inconclusive, the bishop stunned his congregation in Amawbia with a sermon that ventured far beyond spiritual guidance into the realm of political mysticism. He announced that Ngige was “bewitching Ndi Anambra with the broom”( The symbol of the Action Congress of Nigeria)—a statement so bizarre, so divorced from both Christian teaching and rational discourse, that one must ask: How low could he get?

One did wonder, how voting for a candidate whose party had the symbol of the broom could have transformed such a person into a witch or wizard, well Ngige went on to win the rerun and it is my guess that all who voted for him became full time witches and wizards!

Such episodes establish a pattern that makes the Nnewi Cathedral snub appear less like an isolated oversight and more like part of a broader approach to church leadership—one where political calculations and personal preferences seem to eclipse the timeless Christian virtues of gratitude, humility, and courtesy.

Perhaps the snub was indeed political. Perhaps in the complex web of Anambra politics, acknowledging Senator Ubah’s contributions was deemed inconvenient or potentially controversial. Perhaps there were personal disagreements or ideological differences that made the bishop reluctant to honor the senator’s memory. If so, this makes the situation not better, but infinitely worse. It suggests that the Church allowed worldly politics to dictate its moral posture, that it permitted temporal considerations to override its duty to practice basic Christian charity.

The Church is called to be a light in the darkness, a moral compass when society loses its way, a voice for timeless values in a world obsessed with fleeting concerns. When it descends into the murky waters of political gamesmanship, when it allows grudges to override gratitude, when it treats the dead with less courtesy than it accords to living politicians, it betrays this sacred calling.

Isn’t it profoundly sad that the Church should stoop to such levels? That an institution entrusted with shepherding souls and modeling Christ’s love should become entangled in the very pettiness and ingratitude it is meant to transcend?

The Nnewi Cathedral stands as a magnificent architectural achievement, but the circumstances of its commissioning have left a stain that no amount of marble or stained glass can obscure. One can only hope that this episode serves as a wake-up call, prompting reflection and reform before the Church’s moral authority erodes further in the eyes of those it claims to serve.

January 25, 2026
Highways are happy ways (II)

It is now more than a century since vehicles powered by the internal combustion engine were introduced to Nigeria. They are now found in every nook and cranny of the land stitching the country together even as they dictate the pace of the economy in every way conceivable. They do these and more in such a way that without them one cannot imagine any form of sustainable social intercourse going on within the country.

In all the time that they have been in operation here however, it is doubtful if Nigerians have really come to terms with the mechanics of this invention, perhaps the most characteristic invention of the twentieth century. The internal combustion engine is totally mechanical. At the heart of this contraption, you have a closed compartment within which a mixture of air and volatile fumes created by a jet of petrol are ignited by a spark leading to a combustible event which in turn leads to the release of a great deal of energy. This is then channelled to the wheels causing them to turn and the vehicle to move. Ordinarily, it is difficult to ascribe any spiritual dimension to this phenomenon but I am afraid that there is incontrovertible evidence that all those who earn their living working on any aspect of motor transportation in Nigeria are convinced that the internal combustion engine derives its demonstrably awesome power from a collection of powerful spiritual forces which will bestow their favour only after appropriate propitiation from those that use it. It is the implicit belief of transport workers of all hews that they are no more than agents of these spirits which as all spirits go are as capricious as the wind; useful but totally uncontrollable by the uninitiated. They strive to give the impression that in ministering to their machines, they are performing some rites which involve some form of communication with the spirits which rule the engine.

Given the inability of mere mortals to direct the affairs of unseen spirits, it is not surprising that the supervising god of this portion of human endeavour, at least in my neck of the woods, has been identified as Ogun, mighty in all his ascribed turbulence. Ogun is recognised as the patron of all those who work with metals, especially iron or steel from which all parts of any vehicle is crafted. It also befits his role as the maker of roads to be responsible for the welfare of those whose livelihood is wrung from their activity on any stretch of road. To venture forth on any road therefore, at least in the imagination of all those who work in and around vehicles, you need the favour of Ogun more than the fitness of your vehicle or the skill of your driver. It is however no longer fashionable to offer prayers directly to Ogun, although hard core transport workers are very active participants in Ogun festivals and regard themselves as devotees of the god. The same thing goes for all those who travel in motor vehicles because even as the lips of travelers are offering prayers to more modern deities, their heart is full of supplication to Ogun. At the base of such prayers is the wish that the traveler does not set out on a journey on any day that the road is hungry for a taste of human blood. The road in this case fits the description of Ogun’s much vaunted preference for blood over water. In this case, obedience to the will of the God is superior to all the efforts made to put the vehicle in which the journey is to be undertaken in serviceable condition. For a safe journey there are not many who would leave home without saying the appropriate prayers for traveling mercies. Given this background, it is not surprising that in the good old days of petrol scarcity, there were testimonies from some powerful pastors who announced to their enchanted congregation that with prayers to their personal God, they were able to drive their vehicle over vast distances without a drop of petrol in their tank thereby disobeying, with divine help it must be said, all the laws of physics and thermodynamics. The internal combustion engine has therefore been domesticated and incorporated into folk lore in a way that is peculiarly ours but hardly helpful to the cause of safety on our roads.

READ ALSO; Poor pastor or powerful pastor?

For all the mystery attached to motor transport, it is easy to forget that the activities associated with it gives a form of livelihood to the largest group of Nigerians but for those involved in working on the farms. Drivers, mechanics, electricians, so called vulcanisers, panel beaters, painters, upholsters and the ubiquitous agbero all make it possible for our chaotic transport system to function after a fashion. Each person that works within the system belongs to a union which is led by officials who rule their chiefdoms with a heavy hand, maintaining their own brand of discipline through the use of gangs of young men with a predilection for violence of the extreme kind. And yet the guiding principle within these unions is democracy. Just like the country, they hold periodic elections with rival groups fighting it out, not in terms of winning votes but of inflicting more physical damage to people in other groups than it is inflicted on the winning group. These contests take place at local, state and federal governt levels with the winners at each level forming an alternative government to those at local government and other levels. Some of the state union chairmen are comrades in arms with their respective governors and go about their business in government issued official cars. This must be so because there are governors who owe their exalted positions to the patronage of the chairman of theit state motor transport union. This cannot be otherwise because all political parties have their shock troops who are recruited from the motor boys who love nothing more than raising hell and are always ready to go to war as long as their price is met. Their loyalty is never on the basis of ideology or some strongly held belief. It goes to whoever pays the highest price.

Right from the beginning, all those who chose to work in the transport system have been young men with attitude. They have always been drawn from the very bottom of the social pool. And yet, we have all this time given them the responsibility of driving all the vehicles which are supposed to take us safely from place to place. Ordinarily, not many of them are able to make enough money over a long period of time, to buy a vehicle of their own. And, for those of them that eventually manage to do so, it is almost invariably an investment to keep body and soul together in the form of a retirement benefit. Our roads have been surrendered to a large group of people whose only reason for being on the road at any time of day or night is to make as much money as possible within the shortest time possible. Given that premise, it is clear that safety considerations rank very low on the priority list of the majority of those who take to our highways each and every day. This being the case, most Nigerians have no choice but to set out on journeys on nothing more substantial than hope and a fervent prayer.

January 25, 2026
BEYOND WORDS

(On seeing Ossip Zadkine’s “Mei 1940 – Verwoeste Stad”*)

Flute. Drumtaps in the distance

This tortured scream

mouth opened to oblivion

Like the crater by a blind bomb

Hands outstretched towards an in-

Different sky

Muted supplications

Beyond words

A body holed

Cleanly through

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By cold fire

Scream without sound

Bosom without heart;

Trees in this wilderness have lost

All mind of the foliage that was

Squat amputations are off-

Springs now

Of once adventurous branches

Beyond words

Once albatross, now phoenix

Winged by a thousand windmills

Memory

Parable

Beyond words

June 1991

A sculpture in Rotterdam, Netherlands, im memory of the savage devastations of the Second World War

January 25, 2026
Trump, Hitler: eerie leadership parallels

It was not just Greenland over which he tried to muscle Europe into acquiescence, or Venezuela where the killing of about 75 security agents meant nothing to him in the process of subjugating that Latin American country, or Iran where he fearfully needed to latch on to Israeli aerial triumphs to enact his own heroics, or Ukraine which he gleefully and fiendishly throws under the bus while denigrating President Volodymyr Zelensky and idolising Russia’s Vladimir Putin, or many world leaders whom he bullied, insulted, and scorned. For United States president Donald Trump, there is so much more about his politics and leadership style, so much more that it eerily reminds the world of World War II German leader, Adolf Hitler, whose narcissistic and megalomaniacal style drove the world into unprecedented bloodletting that caused the death of more than 60 million people.

After his most recent rant over Greenland, an icy expanse in the Arctic which he has now obviously failed to add to his vainglorious collections, it is time the world began drawing a parallel between Mr Trump and the Fuehrer, as nightmarish as that comparison may seem. The two leaders look alike politically, sharing disturbing proclivities in a ghoulishly familiar way. Hitler burnt down the Reichstag and used it as a casus belli for the overthrow of democracy; Mr Trump inspired the storming of Capitol Hill, the home of the US parliament. Hitler dreamt up schemes for personal enrichment, such as embossing his image on stamps in order to attract royalties; Mr Trump has cajoled foreign leaders to gift him airplanes and invest in his crypto company (World Liberty Financial), amassing millions of dollars in the process, with the company now valued at some $3bn. Hitler lacked empathy and enthusiastically embraced warmongering; Mr Trump excels in both departments. Hitler had an insatiable appetite for foreign land acquisitions, which he couched as lebensraum (living space for Germans); Mr Trump exemplifies the same medieval land-grabbing propensity completely out of tune with modern realities.

Mr Trump does not merely fit into Mr Putin’s expansionist worldview, or China’s Xi Jinping’s ogling of Taiwan, or the late Italian leader Benito Mussolini’s fascist leadership style, he is much more. He combines their greed so exquisitely with their weaknesses, and blends and unifies them in his eclectic and anachronistic perception of ‘strong leadership’. He is not making America great again, as he myopically reasons, assuming he is capable of any form of rational thinking; he is in fact corroding the American essence in an irreparable way. Venezuela was too divided to stand up to him; China is too strong for him to trifle with; Russia, despite its humiliation in Ukraine, is too unpredictable for him to dare; Nigeria was and remains too religiously, politically and ethnically divided to resist him. But a clearly exasperated Europe, long used to short cuts and dangerous appeasements that fostered two World Wars, has finally dared him over Greenland and tariffs threats, and won.

Read Also: FG positioning youths as active partners in transforming Nigeria’s learning system – Alausa

Struck with the grim similarity between Mr Trump and Hitler, this writer looked up an AI overview of the leadership style of Hitler and found the following on the internet. “Adolf Hitler’s leadership style was primarily autocratic, centered on absolute power, control, and the Führerprinzip (leader principle), demanding total obedience and eliminating dissent, combined with powerful charismatic manipulation through propaganda, mass rallies, and emotional appeals to build intense loyalty and a cult of personality, ultimately driven by his racist ideology, territorial expansion goals, and a task-oriented, directive approach that ignored empathy and input from others.” If a reader was not told whose character was being portrayed, someone unfamiliar with the history of World War II might confidently conjecture that Mr Trump was the subject matter. As enlightened as Germany was in the early 20th century, they democratically voted Hitler into office, enabled and applauded his madness, and even after the terrible tragedy enacted upon their country, some Germans regretted only the loss of the war, not the racism, the purges, and the genocides.

After World War II propelled the US into global military leadership and in scholarship, it easily became the undisputed number one in virtually everything, its worldview unquestioned and revered, and its culture eagerly adopted as the avatar. The US gifted the world their philosophic founding fathers, made global legends out of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, and hoisted dozens of literary icons who penned what could be regarded as universal classics into worldwide fame; and despite personifying contradictions between ideas it eminently propagated and the practice it embarrassingly submitted to, it also gifted the world men and women who nurtured science, shaped ideas, pricked conscience over racial injustice, and nudged the world to nirvana, the American dream. But that same US, citing fear of racial eclipse and apocalypse, has, through undisputed elections, projected and enabled Mr Trump’s ‘malignant narcissism’, thereby enthroning probably the worst American and Western leader ever. Like Hitler, his policies have engendered surplus for the American economy and reminded the world that militarily the US is incomparable and unstoppable. But in the long run, the incalculable damage now in gestation will reach its apogee in the years and decades ahead as the world scrambles to find alternative financial tools, military alliances, inspire a new arms race, and unleash an assemblage of Barbarians at the Western gates of Rome as well as Ottomans at the Eastern gates of Byzantium.

January 25, 2026
Gov Abba Yusuf’s convoluted defection

The All Progressives Congress (APC) believes that with the defection of Kano’s Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf from the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), the ruling party has made phenomenal gains for 2027. Perhaps. But first, they must find ways to manage the nuances of the defector and his defection. To do this successfully and even profit from it, they need to be reminded of the dynamics of Kano politics, not just to focus on the governor’s intransigent mentor, former governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. Mr Yusuf is leaving the NNPP with eight House of Representatives members, 21 House of Assembly members, 44 local government chairmen, and a host of other officials, nearly all of whom are tired of Dr Kwankwaso’s suzerainty, not to say his dictations. The defection will be formalised in days; it will not only reshape Kano politics, it will trigger significant waves all over the Northwest.

Perhaps caught in the frenzy of Kano’s defection dynamic, not many people remember that Mr Yusuf contested the 2019 governorship election against former governor Abdullahi Ganduje. The latter was fighting for reelection and the former seeking office for the first time. Mr Yusuf lost by a wafer-thin margin of 1,024,713 to the winner’s 1,033,695. His main backer was former governor Kwankwaso whom he had known now for about 37 years, and whom he had served as personal assistant and commissioner in the state cabinet, in addition to being his son-in-law. Unlike the parting of ways between Dr Kwankwaso and Dr Ganduje, which was to a large extent strictly formal, the rupture between Mr Yusuf and the former governor cuts very deep.

In the 2019 election, Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II drew the ire of then Governor Ganduje by backing Mr Yusuf. The ensuing bitterness, among other predisposing factors, eventually culminated in the dethronement of Emir Sanusi II. It turned out that the emir and Mr Yusuf are cousins, and throughout the emir’s battle with Dr Ganduje, up until he became governor, Mr Yusuf had planted himself firmly in the emir’s corner. Now, Mr Yusuf and Dr Ganduje are about to lie in bed together in the APC. The ruling party may have gained a formidable politician and dogged fighter in Abba Gida-Gida, as Mr Yusuf is affectionately known among his supporters, it may have also inherited a convoluted family and political dynamic. They must now go on to find the fulcrum upon which to balance the state’s delicate political culture.

Kano is the closest state in Nigeria to a civic culture. Managing it, as the Kanawa often do with aplomb, may accord with textbook practice, but it also demands huge attention to detail and awareness not commonly known to most Nigerians. If, against the run of play, and fighting an incumbent in the 2019 election, Mr Yusuf nearly caused a major upset against Dr Ganduje, losing by a handful of some 8,982 controversial and litigated votes, imagine what the outcome would be if Dr Kwankwaso’s support could be properly measured and discounted. In the 2023 governorship poll, Mr Yusuf finally got the coveted diadem with a healthy and incontestable vote of 1,019,062 to the APC candidate’s 890,705. Whether Dr kwankwaso likes it or not, the gun now appears loaded in favour of both Mr Yusuf and the APC, if not necessarily against him as leader of the Kwankwasiyya movement, or any of the two factions in the NNPP.

While opponents of the ruling APC suspect and sometimes say that the party is behind the frictions and fissures in opposition parties, the reality is far different. Both the opposition Labour Party (LP) and the NNPP were adopted or hijacked by opportunistic politicians gunning for high offices at state and national levels. Unfortunately, the surrogate fathers could not effectively manage the fractiousness of their adopted parties, leading to irreconcilable differences and intractable internal squabbles. The former Anambra governor and LP presidential candidate in the 2023 poll eventually fled his adopted party. It also made sense for about six governors so far to leap into the void from the listing Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ship, not only in order to avoid electoral pitfalls regarding legitimate candidature, but also to escape ignominious electoral defeat in 2027. There is nothing amoral about the defections; it is just plain political expediency, regardless of inaccurately attributing to the APC the deliberate sponsorship of revolts in the opposition. Kano’s Mr Yusuf simply made the same sensible calculation.

While Dr Kwankwaso embroiled himself in lengthy negotiations with both the APC and the coalition African Democratic Congress (ADC), Mr Yusuf recognised the danger of pussyfooting like his mentor when party primaries are just a few months away. He suspected that once parties firmed up their potential candidates, even before the primaries, just like Osun State APC did thereby making the defection of Governor Ademola Adeleke impossible, he would be stranded, his loyalty to Dr Kwankwaso notwithstanding. The NNPP, Kano’s leading politicians understand, is also embroiled in litigations over which faction should be legally recognised as the authentic one. This was why the founder of NNPP, Boniface Aniebonam, insisted last Friday that Mr Yusuf had merely resigned from the Kwankwasiyya movement rather than from the NNPP. Mr Yusuf had tendered his resignation to a different faction of the party, the illegitimate one, he insinuated.

Even though the Kano chapter of the APC believed it stood a good chance of winning the 2027 governorship election without Mr Yusuf and Dr kwankwaso, the national leadership of the party may have prevailed on leading aspirants of the party to shelve their ambitions for now in favour of certainty. One or two top APC national chieftains may also suggest that defectors would not receive automatic tickets, there are, however, no indications that they would not. Negotiations were thought to have been concluded concerning all the defecting governors and states before the mass migrations took place. Four more years for any elected office holder will not ruin anybody’s ambition or life. Mr Yusuf has probably made the soundest choice, notwithstanding the cynicism of his detractors, or the pained silence of some of his critics, or the threats from his mentors. He has bolted from a fractured party, and politely declined to vacillate like his mentor who will in all likelihood not be contesting for any office in 2027 except he takes former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s bait of joining forces with someone in ADC on an implausible ticket to nowhere.

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Some five months before the primaries, the real shape of the 2027 battle appears to have emerged from its silhouette. Former vice president Atiku Abubakar’s ADC has opted, together with Mr Obi and some other political bantamweights, for the traditional form of political war: pitched battles festooned with medieval arms and tactics, seizure of the moral high ground through deprecating the ruling party’s policies and appointments, amplifying setbacks in operations against insecurity, attacking the character and personalities of the leading members of the APC administration, and adopting bobbing and weaving measures as well as tactical and especially ethnic and religious feints. The ruling party on the other has plodded on by assembling a phalanx of coalitions and alliances, locked down states and political heavyweights by sheer realpolitik, and ran both a tight administration and party. They, therefore, don’t need to engage in bloody pitched battles to take grounds inch by inch; instead they have won over those who held those grounds, state by state, and panjandrum by panjadrum.

Egged on by a stabilised economy whose growth prospects have enticed and surprised the world, and helped in no small way by a well-run party generally devoid of litigations, the APC is in the process, if not concluding the process, of making the 2027 elections a foregone conclusion. Kano’s Mr Yusuf, more than any other defector whether in Delta, Rivers, Enugu, Taraba, Akwa Ibom, or Plateau, has typified and embodied what the new politics should look like. Some have feared that Nigeria might end up a one-party state; but those fears are exaggerated. This is not the first time a party would be coaxing dominance out of the polity, nor will it be the last time. Under former president Obasanjo, the PDP did it, at a time securing about 30 states into their column. And now under President Bola Tinubu, the APC has also coaxed some 29 parties under their tent. Today, the PDP boasts of only four states. Who can tell what the APC would look like on a tentative tomorrow?

Meanwhile, the APC, after months of proselytising rancorous parties, must now labour under the burden of managing its many converts, some of them exuding worldviews and temperaments very alien to the ruling party. Kano’s Mr Yusuf is genial enough to submit to the sometimes nebulous and often elastic progressive ideology of the APC, and will not menace the party or compromise its chances in the coming polls. But it will also be necessary to find ways either to mollify Dr Kwankwaso’s rage or contain his boisterousness for revenge. The Kwankwasiyya leader may now be left with two dismal options: either to defect to the ADC where he will undoubtedly be warmly welcomed but with no guarantees he would not be made ineffective in the long run, or to sensibly rejoin his alienated protégés – Mr Yusuf and Dr Ganduje – in the APC where it is certain he will be absolutely recognised and applauded and his political future guaranteed. It is admittedly not an easy choice, especially for a leading politician like him wounded by controversial and inappropriate choices. Had he made up his mind much earlier, he would have kept his movement, sold himself to his host at a great and commensurate price, and kept his powder dry for future ambitions. One way or the other, he will have to make his move, as Mr Yusuf has done. When that happens, he must hope in the end that he will not buy a pig in a poke.

January 25, 2026
Lagos and 2027 battle (1)

Political parties in Lagos State have kicked off preparations for the 2027 general election by mobilising for membership registration. The chapters are also warming up for congresses. Next year, there will be a vacancy in the Government House.

The seat of power is prestigious, with Lagos being the fifth-largest economy in Africa. The governor of the Centre of Excellence is more than the combination of 10 other governors in Nigeria.

So limitless are the resources and opportunities. So populous is the megacity. So huge are also the responsibilities and burdens of governing the fast-growing state that is a mini-Nigeria; a blend of diversity, potentials, and liabilities.

The battle is always fierce, but the outcome is always predictable.

There is no shortage of competent chieftains to succeed Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in next year’s election.

Opposition parties are trying to make the same claim without concrete proof. Since 1999, they have made serious and feeble efforts to dethrone the ruling bloc, but without success.

Will 2027 be different?

APC is exuding confidence in Lagos, its number one stronghold. Although opposition parties are coming up with their peculiar threats and struggles, eyes are only on the ruling party. The large and formidable structure has withstood the stress and storm for almost three decades.

Yet, the ruling party can hardly let down its guard, given its 2023 experience when the incumbency power and influence collapsed during the presidential poll, with the Labour Party (LP) taking the majority votes over the supposedly poll-confident platform.

Lagos APC members are eager to know the party’s stand on its possible flagbearer in next year’s poll and the senatorial district that will produce him. More often than not, those being groomed for power may not even take note.

Historically, the senatorial districts, constituencies, and even divisions may not really matter. They are mixed and interwoven. There is hardly a clear-cut demarcation. In the past, Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi, who represented the Central District in the Senate, met himself in the West during the following election. The senator is even a Lagosian of Osun origin. Also, erstwhile House of Assembly Speaker Yemi Ikuforiji from Epe Constituency later represented Ikeja Constituency. The party is the ultimate decider of the direction. Currently, an Epe-born politician is representing Ikeja in the Civil Service Commission because he resides in Isolo, which is part of the old Lagos Division.

Once the candidate receives the majority endorsement in the party, a post-primary crisis is nipped in the bud and the party faces the election squarely.

As Sanwo-Olu prepares to bow out, gladiators are returning to the drawing board to perfect their strategies. They are intensifying consultations and underground mobilisation within the party structures. They can hardly wait for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) whistle.

Some of them are setting up media structures. All are saving for the rainy day. A source said some of the aspirants will go to Makkah in Saudi Arabia to seek the favour of Allah.

Unlike in other states, the potential contenders in Lagos are careful not to divert the attention of the governor and heat up the state. They are only making moves silently, scrambling for reliable information and hearing the party’s stalwarts out.

However, the nomination of candidate may follow the usual complex and challenging processes. The trend of consensus is emerging in the ruling party as canvassed by the party’s gerontocrats, including pioneer interim national chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, from the the days of the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD). The option, more or less, was adopted in picking Governor Biodun Oyebanji of Ekiti and Bola Oyebamiji of Osun.

Lagos is the base of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and at least in the ruling party, the buck stops at his desk. He holds the aces in a state he has set on the path of steady progress since 1999. He initiated a 24-year-old development, which has now been expanded.

The contemporary history of Lagos attests to the mystery of its succession politics whereby, since 2007, there is no member of the ruling parties – AD, AC, ACN, and APC – who vied for the ticket and got it without the President’s backing.

Asiwaju Tinubu’s successors – Babatunde Fasola, Akinwunmi Ambode, and Sanwo-Olu – have one thing in common. In reality, they are not politicians with solid personal structures but technocrats – lawyer, chartered accountant, and banker – who became outstanding in public service as Chief of Staff, Accountant-General, and Commissioner. None of them is a big politician, personal friend, confidant, ally, and political associate of the leader.

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However, in Lagos APC, only a loyal chieftain can get the ticket. Many have given different interpretations to this concept. But the politicians know the meaning and the essence. Historians will record that while Fashola is credited with the idea of “may your loyalty never be tested,” Sanwo-Olu now comes across as the actual communicator of the strategies for survival. Known for his simplicity, humility, and dedication to the development plan, his successor is expected to build on his good leadership.

Since 2015, no incumbent governor has been in charge of the nomination process. They can only contribute to the party in the overall discussion on the collective succession agenda.

Religion may not be an important factor. The fact that the majority of those eyeing the ticket are Muslims is coincidental. However, for balancing, religion may later play a role in the choice of the running mate.

Indigeneship appears to be a fading issue in cosmopolitan Lagos. Apart from Asiwaju Tinubu, who is a proper and authentic Lagosian, sources have traced the roots of his successors to Ekiti, Ondo, and Ogun.

As a corollary, zoning is weak unless it is meant to achieve a predetermined agenda. The only sub-zone rooting for zoning or rotation in 2027 is the Badagry Division in the Lagos West Senatorial District. The activities of some politicians from the area in this regard are visible in the media. The implication is that a slim strength is being showcased on the platform of ethnicity.

That many aspirants are from Lagos East does not suggest any verbalisation or adoption of zoning. Certain issues are often effectively managed by party leaders because they fall within the framework of internal affairs.

Also, gender is not an issue, although women’s voices tend to favour the choice of a woman deputy governor, if the circumstances allow it.

To serve as Lagos governor is the handwork of fate and destiny. While the privilege eluded giants like Chief Akanbi Onitiri, Chief Adeniran Ogunsanya, Alhaji Ganiyu Dawodu, and Prince Ladega Adeniji-Adele, luck smiled on Alhaji Lateef Jakande, an Awoist journalist jailed along with Obafemi Awolowo for alleged treason in the sixties.

Also, while Chief Dapo Sarunmi, Prof. Femi Agbalajobi, Chief Yomi Edu, and Prince Abiodun Ogunleye could not make it, Chief Michael Otedola miraculously stole the show in the Third Republic.

Ahead of the Fourth Republic, Mr. Akin Kekere-Ekun, Dr. Wahab Dosunmu, Alhaji Rasheed Shitta-Bey, Towry Coker, and Uthman Sodipe presented themselves for selection. But Lagos-based Afenifere leaders of Ogun origin rooted for Senator Tinubu, a National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) financier who just returned from exile. Their words were final in those days. Tinubu won and made a great impact.

In 2007, no fewer than 14 aspirants printed posters. They included Erikitola, Rahman Owokoniran, Tokunbo Afikuyomi, Femi Pedro, Tola Kasali, Ogunleye, Jimi Agbaje, Tunde Fanimokun, Remi Adikwu-Bakare, and Hakeem Gbajabiamila. Attention later shifted to Fashola, described by the leader as the SAN with a sound mind.

As some aspirants stepped down in 2015, Ambode and Obafemi Hamzat were left in the ring. The result was predictable. Four years later, Sanwo-Olu suddenly dominated the scene. Other capable people, like Supo Sasore and Muiz Banire, were off the radar. It is, therefore, difficult to predict who will become the standard-bearer.

All the aspirants being speculated are good. The party leadership is conscious of their strengths and weaknesses. Some of them have ‘Plan B.’ They are in the race as a strategy to draw attention so that they can be considered for other positions if the governorship ticket predictably slips away.

Others really mean business. If Dr. Hamzat puts his hat in the ring, nobody would be surprised.

The deputy governor, who competed with Ambode at the 2015 primary, was offered the ticket as the running mate in 2019 before stepping down for Sanwo-Olu. He is now the longest-serving member of the Lagos State Executive Council (Exco).

Since he joined the Tinubu administration as a commissioner in 2002/’3, he has always been in the government. Hamzat served for eight years under Fashola as commissioner before becoming his Special Adviser when he was Works Minister. He is a man of immense experience with attention to detail.

Environment Commissioner Tokunbo Wahab is a lawyer. He is dynamic and hardworking. Before his current assignment, he had served as the Special Adviser on Education. He first showed interest in the number one seat over 10 years ago.

The state’s Chief of Staff, Tayo Ayinde, who was preferred as the successor to Ambode by some influential associates of Tinubu in 2015, has garnered more administrative experience in the last seven years. A security expert, he was the campaign manager for Sanwo-Olu in the Independent Campaign Group in 2019 and 2023. He is loyal to the party.

Other experienced politicians coveting the seat and putting up personal structures to actualise their dreams include the President’s Chief of Staff and former House of Representatives Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila, who has sponsored empowerment programmes in Surulere Constituency and beyond; House of Assembly Speaker Mudashiru Obasa, who was reinstated after the impeachment controversy; and former Governor Ambode, whose second-term bid hit the rocks in 2019. They have served the party and the state to the best of their abilities. As wealthy politicians, they are in positions to fund state-wide governorship campaigns.

Other contenders being speculated are young men and women of note and distinction who have excelled and earned a good reputation in politics, public service and personal endeavours. One of them is the highly promising Hakeem Muri-Okunola, a lawyer who had served as Head of Service in Lagos State before becoming the Principal Private Secretary to the President.

Also, mention has been made of the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, who is up and doing in his current assignment. A distinguished medical doctor, he is a former Minister of State for Health. Alausa is revolutionalising education in the country through the implementation of broad, bold, brave, and workable reforms in the critical sector. The student loans scheme is being implemented faithfully and industrial peace has been restored in the ivory towers.

January 24, 2026