The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

Silently and savagely flows the Guadalupe River

Humanity has scaled the highest mountain in the universe. We have reached the bottom of the deepest ocean. We have performed incredible feats of endurance which would have made our ancestors wince in fright and admiration. We have reached the moon and have built unimaginable cities. We have developed sophisticated means of transportation which have made a short shrift of distance and sojourning. Yet the more we try to humanize nature, the more nature returns to dehumanize us. Despite all the advances of science and technology, nature and its unfathomable mysteries remain a source of misery and perplexity.

Last week, the Guadalupe River in Texas struck with the ferocity of a dumb beast. Gathering strength and speed from flash floods, it rose phenomenally in a matter of minutes and began sweeping everything before it, tearing up the entire landscape. It was not a pretty sight. Destruction wrought on such an apocalyptic scale has never been known to be pretty. Such was the force and demonic momentum of the floods that whole counties were submerged, homes destroyed and farms flooded. Worst hit was the Kerr County with its infrastructure devastated. Many were those nestling in the comfort of their home or taking a leisurely walk with their partners who were swept away never to be seen again. Even more poignant and harrowing was the plight of a group of young girls camping out at a rural resort nearby named Mystic near Kerrville.

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Designed to inculcate the virtues of heroism, discipline, fortitude and superhuman endurance in young Americans, the camp took a direct hit and became a casualty of its own exalted aspirations. In a gripping irony of misbegotten modernity, many of the kids were said to have been encouraged to leave their phones behind at home to forestall any reliance on the high-tech accomplices of civilized lassitude. The rampaging floods smashed up the whole camp and carried off most of the campers including the director. According to President Donald Trump, in a rare emotional speech monitored life in Kerrville on Friday evening, the flash floods were like “huge, huge waves in the Pacific Ocean”. Needless to add that such huge waves are like massive anacondas which first break the spine of their victims before gobbling them up. At the last count, one hundred and twenty one people have perished with at least 170 people still missing. There are heartrending images of traumatised parents of the missing clinging to the last straw of hope that their lost one would return to their warm embrace.

As a former denizen of Texas State with its verdant and rolling plains as you drive up to College Station on your way to the Houston megapolis, and as a lapsed habitué of the quaint and beautiful city of San Antonio, with its scenic and picturesque downtown promenades, yours sincerely feel a deep emotional identification with the great people of Texas at this moment of pains and acute misery. The governor of Texas has said that it was an opportunity to rebuild and rebuild on a grander and vaster scale. There are some lives that will never be rebuilt. But life must go on. Like the nearby Mississippi River, life rolls on forever till the end of time.

July 13, 2025
The obsession with unhorsing Tinubu

In the months to come, the recently berthed political coalition assembled to unseat President Tinubu will continue to make newspaper headlines. Their strategies are simple and two-pronged. One, they will seize upon the hunger and hardship among a section of the populace to define and dismiss the administration’s economic policies as ineffective and probably counterproductive. Two, they will focus on the president and his idiosyncrasies in order to cast him as unreliable, incompetent, controversial and untrustworthy. Given the abysmal level of education in the country, especially the general inability to understand economic policies, the coalition’s campaign will garner traction in the short run. The previous administration borrowed heavily to sustain a national system and lifestyle that had become untenable; the present administration has resisted the temptation to focus on the short run, preferring instead to focus on the painful medium to long run. Consequently, the political narrative regarding 2027 will be shaped more successfully in the short term by the coalition, regardless of their individual and collective lack of credibility.

The coalition may lack credibility, cohesion and direction, but like typical predators, their eyes are fixed, not on the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) per se, but on President Tinubu. They are obsessed with him, they fear him and his mystical capacity, they know they can’t match his tactical knowhow in politics, but they know that once they successfully discredit him, their job is done. For them, it is not about ideology or reform, or even about economic development in the real and general sense of the word. It is all about office, the office of the president. It is, therefore, the goal of capturing the presidency that is binding the coalition leaders together; and they know that one person, rather than a political structure, stands in their way. So far, the administration has countered the coalition’s nascent campaign by hoisting their economic achievements for all to see. But in the absence of a before-and-after analysis for the public to appreciate how close to disaster they were pre-2023, whatever those economic achievements are will seem tame in the face of hunger and inflation. To match the coalition’s agenda and discredit it, the administration will also have to turn the floodlights on the persons of the coalition leaders. Luckily for the administration, the coalition drivers are vulnerable.

It is not hard to understand why coalition leaders like Atiku Abubakar, Nasir el-Rufai, Peter Obi, Rotimi Amaechi, David Mark, Rauf Aregbesola are bitter against the president. Nor is it hard to see why the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) leg of the APC feels alienated. Nor, in line with the constant iteration of the northern narrative of power and office, is it hard to understand why the core North is incensed. Across all political parties, these individuals and groups and regions are united in their common detestation of President Tinubu. They give the impression that once the president can be dethroned, the country would breathe easier. However, observers must have noticed already that the coalition leaders and their chorus men seldom take issue with the Tinubu administration’s economic and social and even political policies. They know they won’t and indeed can’t change a thing beyond making cosmetic changes should they win the presidency. The policies are irreversible. They won’t reinstate fuel subsidy, they won’t enthrone lower electricity tariffs, they won’t abandon naira flotation policy, and they won’t roll back the plethora of oil industry, education, health, and agriculture policies. In their campaigns, they will mince words in discussing those policies and promising modifications. Nothing more. They will privately feel fortunate that the Tinubu administration has done the heavy lifting.

But despite all this, dangerous undercurrents exist, and a powerful political undertow is pulling the country in a direction likely to be too combustible to manage. Take the example of the coalition leaders, men and women who deprecate the style and policies of the president but can still reconcile their principles with straddling other parties. Up till yesterday, former vice president Abubakar was yet to resign from the PDP. Peter Obi was even more audacious about boastfully retaining his membership of the Labour Party (LP) while asserting his dalliance with the coalition now berthed in the African Democratic Congress (ADC). Most of the other coalition leaders imperturbably engage in running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. It tells everyone that the country is dealing with a pack of irrepressible and unscrupulous political leaders unconstrained by ethics or political rules. On the one hand, they ask the country to distrust the current administration, but on the other they dispense with and despise all legal, ethical and constitutional guardrails.

There is nothing wrong with cobbling a coalition to unseat any administration, for the APC also forged a merger to unseat the last administration. But none of the chest-thumping and self-asserting coalition leaders had a great political or democratic pedigree or was ever associated with inspiring managerial and administrative acumen. As ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo’s vice president, Alhaji Atiku’s record was abysmal, leading his boss to dismiss him in a withering testimonial. Mr Obi’s governorship was a perfect example of tedium, what with his adoption of stone-age economics to undergird his public finance policy. He recently told the media how he left a carefully choreographed amount of N12bn and $50m each in three banks for his successor in Anambra. He said nothing about the debts he left, or the needs to which those funds should have been productively and timeously committed. Mr Aregbesola, former Osun State governor, had no clue how a modern society or economy should run. He left his state psychologically battered and dispirited. By all means, let a political coalition emerge to give the sitting administration a run for its money. But had Alhaji Atiku stood the chance of securing the PDP presidential nomination, and Mallam el-Rufai secured a place in the administration, and Mr Aregbesola been forgiven and accommodated in the Tinubu government, etc, there would be no coalition.

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Last week, Zainab Buba Galadima, an APC member and daughter of one of Nigeria’s well-known political gadflies, Buba Galadima, gave an interview in which she predicted a storm coming from the North as a result of the prevailing economic hardship. And just in case anyone thought the storm could be contained in the North, she warned that no part of the country would be spared. At various times in the interview, she sounded practical, and at other times, she sounded idealistic. She was neither progressive nor ideological, and she didn’t need to be. But she did not give the impression she understood economics enough to rationally contextualise the country’s economic challenges. She displayed nothing more than streetwise appreciation of the country’s existential problems, with President Tinubu as the bogeyman. There is, therefore, clearly a gross miscomprehension of the economic damage bequeathed by the last administration, and an even poorer miscomprehension of the drastic and painful economic policies needed to extricate the country from the jaws of disaster. It is these misconceptions, not to say significant alienation, that the administration must find ingenious ways to address.

President Tinubu is not infallible, and his aides and ministers must not suggest that rebuilding the infrastructure of the country would answer and pacify the bitterness and resentment some Nigerians and politicians feel towards him. Given the untenable political structure of the country, it is only natural that the unhealthy obsession with him should continue. Sadly, however, most of those who analyse the country’s crisis fail to see that one of the major reasons Nigeria is listing like a stricken ship is its misshapen political structure, a structure most regional and exclusionary leaders still hope to sustain and palliate. Worse, too, given the fierce rhetoric of Nigerian politicians and leaders, it is clear that no lessons have been learnt from other countries that have imploded, whether Sudan, Somalia, DRC, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, etc. Those who think Nigeria is too big to fail miss the point badly. The Soviet Union failed, Yugoslavia failed, and the world is dotted with empires and great kingdoms that failed thereby unleashing seismic shifts in regional and continental politics, some of it costing millions of lives.

But it is not only political leaders that behave irresponsibly, as Kenya’s youth protests are showing. Even the generally unmoored younger generation may be carelessly and foolishly triggering forces whose dynamics they may not be able to control or shape in the months and years ahead. On matters as deceptively simple as votes being made to count, many politicians and youths have threatened Armageddon. It is great for votes to count, but Vladimir Putin was validly elected for the first time in 2000 and he is still in office; and so too was Adolf Hitler in 1932. National issues are far more complex than they seem. Instead of the unhealthy obsession with a sitting president, or repudiation of the informal principle of power rotation when a person, people or region is disfavoured, it is time to rethink Nigeria away from the violent and exclusionary rhetoric of jaded politicians and stranded political leaders.

July 13, 2025
Edo verdict: Ighodalo damns courts with faint praise

Last week’s Supreme Court judgement on the Edo State governorship election petition has predictably drawn the ire of Asue Ighodalo, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in last year’s election. The tone of his concession statement on his loss indicates that he actually expected the unfavourable judicial outcome. It was a prepared statement replete with sentiments that often suffuse American politics when political parties or candidates deal with electoral losses or bad outcomes. Once he lost at the Election Petition Tribunal, his confidence was shaken. When the Court of Appeal dealt him a follow-up blow, his confidence was all but gone. By the time he took his case to the Supreme Court, mainly to salve his troubled conscience and probably to expiate his loss before his supporters, he had already moved on beyond the poll conducted last September.

Mr Ighodalo, a lawyer, was never really a dyed-in-the-wool politician. He knows, and he insinuated it in his anguished statement on the court case, that the Supreme Court judgement probably marks the end of his political career. The party that gave him a platform to contest the governorship is also troubled, and it faces an uncertain future. The relationship between former governor Godwin Obaseki, who foisted him on the party and attempted to railroad him into the State House, and the Oba of Benin, Ewuare II, is irreparable. Mr Ighodalo was simply collateral damage, too far damaged to stand any chance of future accommodation in any and perhaps most quarters. He is in fact so idiosyncratically detached and lacking in charisma that neither he nor a significant part of his support base will contemplate a political future for him. His supporters will not see why they should man the barricades for him or risk their limbs while he plots his way back to his commercial law practice in order to cut his losses.

To put it succinctly, for Mr Ighodalo, it is the end of an era. Unfortunately, he managed to also deny himself a glorious and fitting end to a fairly humdrum political life. Sometimes defeat or death does canonise a man. Had he been less fascinated with elegant and alien compositions, he would have seized the moment and the gumption to recommend himself to the public he claimed to serve. He knew that the Supreme Court judgement was final, as he confessed, and could, therefore, not be altered or even mitigated in any form or by any means. He should have, therefore, proceeded from that point of finality to say a few lofty things about democracy, the Edo electorate, the justice system he and other election losers love to denigrate, the Benin monarchy his camp still appears to be at odds with, and long-suffering Nigerians as a whole that have had to endure insufferable politicians lacking sportsmanship. Rather than deliver these sentiments in the stirring and foreign phrases he lathered his concession statement with, he chose to damn the courts with faint praise, berate Nigeria’s democratic experiment, and paint a gloomy picture of the future.

Take a close look at Mr Ighodalo’s statement. “Though I accept the finality of its (court) judgment,” he began cautiously, “I do not and cannot pretend that what was delivered amounts to justice.” If the judgement amounted to injustice, surely he would have one or two incontrovertible proofs of their lordships’ jurisprudential truancy. Alas, what he had were nothing more than elegant phrases. “What happened in the September 2024 Governorship Election was not a contest,” he continued magisterially. “It was a robbery. Coordinated. Deliberate. And now, tragically validated by the highest court in the land. While I will not and cannot obstruct any judicial pronouncement, no matter how flawed, I must never fear to speak truth to power.” For a political leader who tried not to ‘obstruct justice’ but saw robbery and coordinated and deliberate and tragic validation of rigging by the Supreme Court, how else would he define obstruction? He was in essence saying that their lordships approved those crimes. Yet, the ‘crimes’ were not proved beyond a shadow of doubt. Edo and the rest of Nigeria were supposed to simply take his word for it, for, in his mind, he is a man of ‘courage’.

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Then the incitement followed. After establishing a highly dubious premise, and sensing the superficiality of a huge section of the electorate, not to talk of the deadly polarisation corroding the country and predisposing it to anomie, he lashed out at everyone, particularly the courts and those he alleged rigged the process. “Like you,” he baited the Edo public, “I feel a deep sense of betrayal. Not just by those who rigged the process, but by the very institutions we trusted to protect our democracy. You came out in hope. You voted for competence, for progress, for prosperity. And now, we are told that your voice does not matter. That your freely given mandate can be trampled without consequence. I feel your pain. I share your anger. And I will never forget your courage.” Not only was there nothing noble in his words, his thoughts were even more disquieting, arrogant and deplorable. Who told him he was more competent than his main opponent, or that during his desultory campaign marked by ecclesiastical rascality and personal abuse, he was able to project any admirable virtue?

The next two paragraphs were dedicated to unadulterated Americanisms, perfused with all the hooey directed at his adoring supporters to join him in continuing the struggle to ‘reclaim the soul of Edo’, a soul his principal, Mr Obaseki, traduced, betrayed, and imperiously trampled under feet for eight convoluted and antidemocratic years. Mr Ighodalo thinks his state is already enveloped in darkness; but it is unclear, for a man who revels in phantasmagoria, whether his baleful wish is not father to his gloomy thought. “Yes, dark days may lie ahead,” he concluded airily without taking pains to lead any argument to substantiate his belief. “The weight of this illegitimacy will, unfortunately, echo beyond the halls of the Supreme Court. I fear Edo will feel it in the absence of leadership, in the poverty of policy, and in the daily suffering of her people. But we are neither a fearful nor a broken people. We may be wounded. But all wounds heal.” Where on earth and by what science did he get the impression that all wounds heal?

These, in short, are the sentimental drivel of a disillusioned politician who has lost touch with Edo Staste realities and with the country’s justice system. Mr Ighodalo took casuistic delight in pummeling the courts for his own inadequacies, and he displayed neither shame nor remorse in his party’s gross inability to prove their case in court. Instead, he declaimed upon medical and metaphorical wounds his magic wand told him would ineluctably respond to his lexical medications. And for a man and his principal so inured to profiting from their own counsels, he even deigned to advise the victorious governor, whom he described as ‘undeserving of holding power’, to ‘lead with conscience and govern with humility’. He ended his pained concession statement by invoking history to deliver judgement which Nigerian courts, perhaps in his view suffering from astigmatism, could not. For a man who lacks both the humility and nobility to accept or acknowledge losses and setbacks, he will be shocked what that verdict would be.

July 13, 2025
Ireti Kingibe misinformed on leadership

Like most members of Nigeria’s ruling elite, Ireti Kingibe (Federal Capital Territory senator) is poorly informed on the subject of leadership. Apart from contemporary examples in other parts of the world, there are ancient and modern texts and journals on leadership that explicate the subject and make its fundamentals so crystal clear that it is hard to see why anyone, let alone a senator, would continue to misrepresent the matter. Referring to her ex-husband, the 80-year-old Babagana Kingibe who was Moshood Abiola’s vice president-elect in the 1993 presidential poll and later holder of three ministerial portfolios under the late Gen. Sani Abacha from 1993-1998, the senator suggested that Nigeria’s complex problems demanded someone with fresh perspectives and vigour.

Her argument was straightforward: “Even if you are starting off with a president who is not 40 years, he should at least be reasonably young. I have always felt that my former husband Baba Kingibe would have made an excellent president, but if he were to wake up today and say, ‘I am running for president’, I wouldn’t support him. Why? Everything has its time and when your time passes you give it to your successors, younger people.” No one is sure what age has done to her intellect or perspectives, whether she has become more mature or impressionable; but she seemed to indicate that she is less rigorous than she used to be. Her present condition, or perhaps Abuja’s political ecosystem, has indicatively led her to rule out another shot at the senate in 2027.

What of her 80 years old former husband, whom she regarded as no longer fit for purpose, despite having confidence in his ‘excellent’ ability? Two things come out of her dismissive characterisation of Ambassador Kingibe. One, he is too old for the job. But is that really so? Is he too infirm and lacking in the vigour she said a leader must have? Perhaps. She knew him well, having married him and was and perhaps is still able to gauge his physical and mental strength. Here, however, lies the problem. The senator has obviously read few books, knows little or nothing about leadership, and has hardly improved herself on the arcane subject of leadership. Indeed, having heard her declaim upon her husband’s leadership capability, in addition to her many and lengthy extrapolations, it is charitable to suggest that she knows little when in fact she appears to know nothing about leadership. She and the thousands of Labour Party (LP) obidients that continue to pollute the social media with their war whoops and acidic rhetoric in favour of their champion, Peter Obi, seem to equate leadership with physical strength or superficial intellect.

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Students of leadership, not to talk of statesmen who have gifted the world with their rich experience in leadership, are united regarding what qualifications a great leader must have. In all their accounts and expositions, there was never any emphasis on age or physical strength because they recognise how radically different the world has evolved beyond the use of javelins, swords and spears in warfare. All emphasis, according to former French leader, Charles de Gaulle, is now placed on attributes such as intelligence and instinct, moral courage, authority and prestige, self-discipline and sacrifice, devotion to the nation, feeling for reality, vision and determination. He should know, because he cultivated them. These qualities are neither propelled nor limited by age. In fact, if anything, they get better with age. Senator Kingibe, like most of her fellow lawmakers, has read very little about anything, for the National Assembly, to many legislators, has become a cul de sac, a vacuum where the drudgery of legislation is the preoccupation.

Her poor judgement is revealed in her summation that without the limitation of age, her husband would have made an excellent president. She unfortunately did not elaborate whether her view of her husband’s presidential qualities was conditioned by her perception of most of Nigeria’s past and failed leaders. It had to be; it could not be otherwise. For, to consider her former husband as a potential president without any demonstration of leadership character is indeed a manifestation of a distressing lack of perceptiveness. The clearest proof that Ambassador Kingibe lacked the capacity to be president is the summary way he betrayed the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by the ticket comprising Chief Abiola and himself. He not only worked with the usurpers who seized that mandate and neutralised it, he infamously became at a point the face of the repudiation of that mandate. Worse, he has neither apologised for the betrayal nor disqualified himself from benefiting from the recent canonisation of the mandate. Ambassador Kingibe was in his late 40s when he helped or joined others to trade the mandate.

Sen Kingibe will not be the only one or last public officer to talk about the prequalifying role age plays in leadership selection and succession. Her ilk will not be dissuaded by reason or history. For even right under their noses, as indicated by the First Republic, nothing suggested that the quality of leaders of that era was far higher than those of the succeeding eras. Indeed, virtually all First Republic leaders at the regional and national levels before and after independence were in their 30s and 40s when they assumed office. And they were not particularly more talented than those who took office in the Second and Third Republics or in the Fourth Republic. As recent as the last presidential poll, former president Olusegun Obasanjo and military head of state Ibrahim Babangida were still lionising age as the greatest qualification for leadership. Why their egregious lack of perspective does not embarrass them is hard to explain.

July 13, 2025
Babachir Lawal opens his mouth and puts….

Since the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) adopted a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket for the 2023 poll, the chivalrous former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir David Lawal, has turned himself into a knight in shining armour. That transformation was by act of sheer will. By act of sheer coincidence, however, he has also become well known for constantly opening his mouth and putting his feet in it. Before the 2023 poll he raved and ranted everywhere, threatening doom and destruction if the APC did not rjig its ticket. The party stood pat. Embarrassed that the heavens did not fall as he predicted, Mr Lawal has continued his fiery opposition, often speaking in hyperbole and raining curses.

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Days ago, he again launched into a diatribe on television when he suggested that “Some APC members, including governors, are already working with us (the Atiku Abubakar-led coalition). They just haven’t spoken out publicly yet.” Insisting that the coalition of which he is a proud member had just one goal – that of dethroning the APC from government – he spoke glowing of the collegiate leadership he had inexplicably insinuated into the assembly of fading and faded giants controlling the group. He further argued that unlike the APC, the coalition, now a habitué of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), would respect internal democracy. Nonsense.

In the final analysis, the coalition, which has many realists at its helm, will be about Alhaji Atiku’s ambition. Even though Mr Lawal threw his lot with the Labour Party which postured as a Christian party in the last poll, he knows enough to understand which side his bread is buttered. It is not clear if Mr Obi will pay him his worth this time, but if Alhaji Atiku values him more, he will hedge his bets and pitch his tent with the dour Adamawa politician.

July 13, 2025
Aregbesola of ADC

In the realm of politics and socialisation, former Internal Affairs Minister Chief Rauf Adesoji Adesoji Aregbesola exudes some peculiar idiosyncrasies. From the outset of his political journey, he maintained his course on the progressive lane.

He was a jolly good fellow among this class of politicians who are mostly entrenched in the Southwest. It was this political class that held sway until the PDP era of locusts held the region by the jugular in the early days of this dispensation. Aregbesola never mingled with them. His eight years of governorship in Osun State came after a legal battle against the PDP forces.

Wherever Aregbesola went with his progressive family, he lit up the occasion. He is well grounded in the Yoruba style of entertainment: his smile, songs, dance, and choreography spurred the crowd to cheery moments.

But things have changed for him. Politics has redirected his steps to align with anti-progressives.

Now, he appears to be the odd man out in the entire coalition melodrama, gimmick, and miscalculation that now pale into a fictitious crowning of an otherwise illustrious political career.

Aregbesola’s involvement in the gang-up against his leader, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is confounding and worrisome. Perhaps, it is also the greatest challenge confronting the former governor and, until three years ago, the undisputed alter ego of the Asiwaju of Lagos.

For 25 years, Aregbesola was more or less the deputy leader of the Asiwaju political family. Since his days as Works and Infrastructure Commissioner in Lagos State under former Governor Tinubu, he was the opening and exit door to Bourdillon, the ‘seat’ of power and centre of influence. He was perceived as a trusted and dependable ally in times of peace and war. The leader was said to have reposed so much trust in him as a favourite associate that he once said that even if Areagbesola carried a cutlass and gun into his bedroom, he would believe that Rauf held them to protect him against his enemies and not to harm him.

The bond was so thick that the leader often personally took delight in reserving meals for Aregbesola on his dining table, with an instruction that it should not be touched by anybody else, however important the other person might be.

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After seven years as a member of the Lagos State Executive Council, Aregbesola relocated to Osun State for a rescue mission, like Dr. Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State. The initiative came from Asiwaju, who wanted to liberate the Southwest from the jaws of conservative marauders on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which recently split into the party’s mainstream of Damagum/Wike/Saraki/Makinde/Bala Mohammed and African Democratic Congress (ADC) of Atiku/Mark/Ikimi.

At the height of his glorious reign in Osogbo, the state capital, Aregbesola, fondly called Oranmiyan or Symbol, declared during his ‘Aregbe Till Day Break Programme’ that he was as large in Osun as in Lagos. It was an understatement. As the moving spirit of the Mandate Group, the caucus that gave the Justice Forum sleepless nights, his advice was hardly set aside by his former boss. Countless men and women have been assisted to become commissioners, advisers, lawmakers, aides, civil servants, ruling party officers, and contractors through his recommendations. A very charismatic personality, he was a skilled negotiator endowed with persuasive talents.

As governor, he was a powerful organiser, mobiliser, and planner. He is a shrewd politician who learnt at the feet of a strategist. Although there were criticisms against certain policies and programmes of his administration, he did his best. His government was better than that of Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, his predecessor who surrendered the stolen mandate in court after protracted litigations.

The strange thing now is that Aregbesola has been drafted to take up the title of interim secretary in the estranged PDP, which masquerades as ADC. It may be a moment of emotional wrenching for him and followers who now find themselves attempting to pull down the APC, on which they previously rode to political relevance. It would be a sad day in the Southwest when Aregbesola embarks on the tour of the six states to de-market his great leader.

The inability of political leaders to resolve their conflicts is the bane of the Yoruba nation. The Awo/SLA, Ajasin/Omoboriowo, Ige/Afolabi, and Ajasin/Olateru-Olagbegi rifts defied solutions. They went to their graves with animosities. Up to now, a section of Afenifere, the pan-Yoruba socio-political group, led by the late Acting Leader Ayo Adebanjo, is still waging war on President Tinubu. The crisis resolution mechanism is always weak in the region’s progressive camp.

The crippled relationship between Aregbesola and his leader was surprising to the late Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, who wanted to mediate, shortly before he passed on.

Since the infamous speech at Ilesa, the gulf had widened between Aregbesola and his progressive allies. Observers believe that the Osun chapter of the party took adverse measures, including suspension and expulsion, which Aregbesola’s supporters used as an excuse to deepen the polarisation. But, according to the chapter, obvious anti-party activities cannot be condoned.

Either in APC or ADC, Aregbesola is in the eye of the storm. A dark cloud or temporary setback in a long journey can tax the adaptive resources of an individual to the brim. But it is not the end of life. The transient vicissitudes can be handled with care based on experience. It is always the province of the wise to exercise caution in the face of threats to ambitions and relevance. Since conflicts may later yield to compromise and tactical settlement, reaction to a problem, either self-imposed or externally inflicted, should be moderated because it is always more weighty than the action that provoked it.

Amid conflicts, some little chances should be left open for amity, if some thoughts could be spared for tomorrow. Words are fragile. Like the egg, they cannot be recouped once dropped. They are documented in the hearts of friends and foes and the social media. That is why the Yoruba often caution their kith and kin to imbibe the traditional ethics of moderation in times of annoyance.

Memory is powerful, and the manifestation of the mental faculty includes recall. Intelligent people always bear these in mind. Intelligence is not limited to the acquisition of knowledge and skills; it encompasses the entire gamut of reasoning, comprehension or understanding and judgment. The expected outcome is problem-solving.

So also is the role of perception in politics. The way an important actor is regarded, understood, or interpreted is subject to his political behaviour, particularly any choice made in the constantly slippery field. What is treasured most in the life of an uncompromising adherent is continuity, consistency, and loyalty, which could be tested by occasional or transient hardship.

Glowing tributes are paid to them when they endure and survive the adversity of politics. In the minds of people and books of history, they are celebrated for courage, resilience, and faithfulness.

The indomitable Awo admonished his followers to always elevate the interest of the party over the personal agenda. He believed that if personal interest is jettisoned, accommodation could be found for the individual within the larger, collective interest of the group.

But steps could be retraced after severe deviation from a known path. In doing this, ego is not bruised; it is only suppressed for reason to triumph. It is not cowardice but the conscious amendment of political life on a moral lane. Although it is often said that politics and morality exist in an antithetical relationship, the Yoruba cultural ethos advocates a set of guiding principles and values that shape the behavior and worldview of the Oduduwa children, and central to this ethos is the concept of Ọmọlúwàbí, which embodies virtues, including integrity, respect, and excellence.

The uncritical fraternity with strange bedfellows, even in the opinion of apolitical fans of the Ijesa ideologue, is a mockery of a certain identity and antecedent, which made him popular as a political actor and elicited respect from the residual class of radical elements.

Although it is often said that core principles could be sacrificed on the altar of political interest, it may not be the absolute reality in all situations. A difference could be made by men of fidelity who value honour and integrity, the rare virtues that also predispose them to be calm, patient, reticent, and avoid embarrassing mistakes when a political career momentarily runs into turbulence.

There may be justification for embracing this path of resistance to internal pressure and external influence. But it takes a lot of soul-searching and painstaking self-assessment.

What matters is not the beginning but the end of things, and indeed, the judgment of history.

While the freedom of association is fully guaranteed in the 1999 Constitution, Yoruba elders, long before the constitution came into existence, had always warned their children to maintain moderation and avoid bad company.

Even the Ifa oracle alludes to the careful choice of human relationships as a guide against negative influences. It highlights the concept of “eewo” (taboos), which are prohibited actions that could be detrimental, including associating with people or environments that lead to negative outcomes.

This lends credence to the Yoruba adage: “Aguntan to ba’ja rin a je’gbe.” (The sheep that associates with the dog would eat faeces). It is an admonition for the wary to “shine their eyes” about whose company they keep: “Show me your friends and I will show you your character.”

Also, in a Hadith, the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: “A person is on the religion of his close friend. So, let each of you look at who you befriend.” It is a warning that bad company could corrupt good morals.

In the Bible, it is stated: “Do not be misled; bad company corrupts good character.”

Aregbesola’s natural habitat is the progressive camp where Tinubu is the leader. He may not understand the grammar of politics spoken by his emergency friends in PDP-ADC. It is not a bad idea to halt the sudden fraternity and return home. He is, for now, mingling with strangers in a dark alley.

Reconciliation with his progressive family is not late.

July 12, 2025
2027 and the damaging sense entitlement

The 2027 elections in Nigeria promises to be very exciting. As always, the political activities are gaining momentum. Permutations are almost on steroids and the people are having a blast discussing the possible outcomes. The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is seemingly the beautiful bride as some members of other political parties like the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP) and some other parties keep defecting to the APC. There are defections from the APC but into the APC seems more in comparative terms.

On the other hand, the PDP and LP, two of the most vibrant opposition parties seem to have some internal party issues that have in some ways coloured the type of opposition they have provided in the last two years. Even though the APC as a political party has its own internal issues too, the power of incumbency is a strong force in Nigerian politics. The new party of the said political coalition, African Democratic Congress (ADC) is just trying to organize what the politicians call the ‘coalition’ to unseat the APC at the center.

Whether the word, ‘coalition’ as implied by the ADC meets the political semantic value or not, fingers are crossed to see the outcome of the political journey of those involved. The Roundtable Conversation is watching events closely and the conversations would continue. Given the history and nature of politics in Nigeria, it would be interesting to see how this coalition works. Already, many Nigerians believe that the coalition is a collection of strange bedfellows who might not have enough political muscle and patriotism to push out the APC from power both at the federal and state levels.

As the politicking hots up, many Nigerians seem to be complaining about the fact that the Nigerian political parties are made up of the same old politicians who have been in the business since 1999 that civilian democracy returned to the country. What this means is that the same politicians who have stirred the ship of governance for more than a quarter of a century are still the ones in all the parties in Nigeria. The country has had some achievements in the period but the poverty index seems to be higher incrementally. For Nigeria to have more than 133million people in multi-dimensional poverty presently says a lot.

Read Also: Shettima to represent Tinubu at São Tomé and Príncipe’s 50th independence anniversary

However, majority of those complaining about the roles older people are paying in politics are from the younger generation who feel excluded alongside women. They complain of marginalization but the fact is that as President Tinubu is often quoted as saying, “power is not served a la carte”. You have to fight for power. No one gives you power just because you desire it. How proactive have the Nigerian young people being in politics? Have they really stood up to be counted? What of the Nigerian women? Why is it that despite the fact that women constitute more than 50% of active voters, they are always largely insignificant on the electoral maps?

The Roundtable Conversation had a chat with multiple award winning matriarch in the Nigerian arts and entertainment industry, veteran actor, journalist and cosmetologist, the irrepressible Taiwo Ajai-Lycett. We wanted to find out her views about the brand of politics in Nigeria where some intellectuals of both genders, women, the Gen-Zs and millennials often feel excluded from politics even when they are often the most impacted by bad leadership at all levels.

She feels that the younger generation must deliberately try to convert their internet and social media activism to functional radical political value with better critical thinking. Granted that times have changed, the younger generation must realize that their lives and future are at stake. Without serious and consistent engagement with the older politicians on the field, nothing will change. Lamentations neither influences nor makes policies. Only deep and persistent engagement in the political field can alter the situations for the better. Mere social media analysis and trolling older politicians cannot change the narrative.

Ajai-Lycett believes that now more than in the past, education and exposure have impacted young people globally and it is then left for the youths to valuably utilize their education and modern innovations. Those the young people berate as old and uneducated have persevered in the political field and the prize is their occupation of the political field and power influence. The young people seem to be more interested in mundane things like fashion, easy fame, personality worship and how to be rich without investing time and hard work. She believes that the young people often focus only on discussing personalities than issues that would impact their lives. Whether we like it or not, politicians decide what happens to everyone especially in democracies so the young people must not look in through the window, they must be at the table participating.

When it comes to the issue about gender equity in politics, she believes that it is a global problem but it appears that women in other climes struggle more to overcome the misogynistic attitude by throwing their towels into the ring. She gave examples of a Kemi Badenock, a Nigerian-British who has risen to become the leader of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. She didn’t get there by being ‘a Woman Leader’ in the Tory party. She has paid her dues and might just be on her way to becoming the next British Prime minister following in the footsteps of late Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May and Liz Truss.

While there are socio-religious issues affecting women’s political participation globally, women in Nigerian politics have for long accepted to be treated as second class citizens by the male political class. She insists that the position of ‘Women Leader’ by Nigerian political parties and the acceptance of same by the women is not only an insulting tokenism but an acceptance by the women that they are mere appendages. Why don’t the men have ‘Men Leader’ positions? It is because they believe that women must be considered incapable of leading.

Fallacious as that thinking is, the women have not seen anything wrong in that. They have not seen the devaluation embedded in having the position of ‘women leader’ which on a good day is just a subtle relegation of the leadership qualities of women to fellow women. The women further enable the insult by organizing other women to vote for men no matter how incompetent they are. The moment women in politics realize that they have to own their value as competent, thoughtful, compassionate and multi-tasking humans as opposed to men, things would begin to change. They will then stop feeling triumphant when some tokenism is thrown at them.

She believes that the older women in politics must educate and mentor younger women so that they would be confident enough and use their intelligence to work for themselves. Beyond this, they must not be mere, ‘city women’ who just go home during elections. The grassroots mobilization can be very rewarding. Being intellectually savvy does not win elections, mobilization at the grassroots level must be done by serious women including those in the corporate and business world who have what it takes to lead.

Many women tend to isolate not just themselves but even their children from integrating at the community levels. Men seem to be more grounded and use this effectively during the elections. Women must engage more and desist from being errand ladies recruiting fellow women to vote for men by helping the men give out tokens before elections. Women must galvanize and re-orientate women and the young ones because it is in the nature of women to nurture and educate. This is very valuable in politics. Politics is about numbers. If the women can expediently use their numbers, Nigerian politics would change for the better.

In all, the matriarch believes Nigerian politics would change with more people willing to make sacrifices for the people now and in the future. Presently there is over reliance on Europe and America and some in the Asian blocs. Today, the global political dynamics is changing and it is a wakeup call for Africans, nay, Nigerians to put their best foot forward. Women and the young people must work their way up the political ladder. They must learn to network like the men. It is funny that even women often look down on each other based on the wrong-headed narrative from socio-religious societal grooming about leadership. The world knows better now that critical thinking, a profound pillar for leadership is not an exclusive of any gender or age. Networking is a very vital rule for political success so both women and the young people. Power is never willingly yielded so every demographic must fight to clench power for the good of the country.

Women and the young people must dismantle the narrative of genderizing power or ruling by age. Why do we have words like, female member or a youth representative? These are semantic manipulations that seek to keep the status quo, an ill-wind that blows no one any good. Men seem to have successfully made politics and leadership very hierarchical. This makes it appear like patriotism is measurable in gender terms. No one can measure patriotism based on unbalanced opportunities.

Ajai-Lycett believes that to make progress, we must as citizens treat the causes of our socio-economic problems rather than the effects, a system that has always failed to work for deevelopment. The variables must shift. Women and young people ought to not just read the memo but memorize and act accordingly. 2027 election is less than two years away but in politics, 24 hours is a long time. Like the saying goes, politics is too serious to be left in the hands of politicians. Women and the young people must move from passive participation to getting truly involved and re-strategizing for better functional results for development. Inclusion is not out of entitlement mentality, its done through grit and hard work.

•The dialogue continues…

July 12, 2025
Template for Nigeria sports

Sports is business for those who know the inner workings of the evolving industry. Sports is the biggest Public Relations (PR) tool used by those who know its dynamics to change the perception of people towards their trades. Sports has interestingly left the realm of recreation to wealth creation – certainly not for jokers to comprehend.

Little wonder the curriculum vitae of those who run sports in other climes speaks what they churn to give sports the fillip of growth anchored on solid marketing plans to generate revenue to run the industry without depending wholly on government for cash to oil their works. These civilised countries have, by the master-plans, ensured that government’s input on sports is purely around the provision of good facilities, grounds and a healthy environment for sporting activities.

Sports belongs to the youth, making it only proper that its growth is situated in the neighbourhood with the provision of facilities with one objective in mind – catch the talents when they’re truly young. Indeed, this neighbourhood arrangement ensures that there are data bases to capture their details, such that the very talented ones are groomed, exposed to bigger competitions and the trajectory of their growth monitored from being rookies to professionals in their respective sporting endeavours.

These civilised sporting nations don’t just throw their talents and/or discoveries recklessly into the fray. They get them coaches, games masters and mistresses to train on the rudiments of the games and how to compete favourably in international sporting activities such the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games, the World Cups etc, having secured sponsors to bankroll their sporting activities from cradle to greatness or should I say stardom.

They also encourage athletes who want to pursue their education alongside playing their different sports. This is not forgetting the insurance policies available to them to always give their best when fighting for honours in big tournaments. These countries don’t just use and dump their athletes; they have structures which handle different aspects of the games at old age. These oldies later serve as role models for the younger generation who eventually replace them. These are time-tested deliberate policies which ensure growth and development of the sporting industry.

Read Also: Nigeria’s youth mental health crisis in numbers

With these layouts for growth and development in civilised polities, it is easy for the private sector to key into the programmes of their choice to fund them as part of their CRS contributions to the society. In fact, sports isn’t run by guesswork in other climes, but through a sports calendar, which makes it easier for the deep pockets and blue-chip companies to align their goods and services to the country’s sports ecosystem. They do so, knowing that these sporting bodies are scandal free, just as they also ought to be accountable.

The government should ensure that the accounts of receiving federations are audited and those found to have light fingers made to face the wrath of the law – including serving jail terms to serve as deterrent to others. It is quite shameful for Nigeria’s sports authorities to be locked in near-fistic cuffs with the government over funds for sports which are always scheduled for four years, two years, or one year at the least by international sporting associations.

The countries that excel in sporting events have systems that guarantee enough funds for the sportsmen and sportswomen to compete with the best, such as tax rebates on sport-friendly firms, lotteries, and businesses owned by wealthy nationals who know what is in such a sponsorship that benefits them by the sitting government. Such financial taxes are spelled out to companies and wealthy citizens after agreements have been reached. These cast-in-stone policies are binding to all the parties to such an extent that breaches are adequately addressed to allow either of the parties to seek redress in court.

July 12, 2025
Comic coalition of confusion (2)

Addressing supporters who had come to receive him at the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos on his return from Abuja where he had ‘triumphantly’ emerged Interim National Secretary of the successfully hijacked African Democratic Congress (ADC) Airlines, (Sorry, political party), Ogbeni Rauff Aregbesola admonished party members not to engage in exchange of insults with the ruling in All Progressives Congress (APC) or any other party. Rather, the former two-term governor of Osun State and Minister of Interior advised his audience that “When they abuse you or call you names, don’t retaliate. Ask them to tell you if the lives of Nigerians are better for it now than before. Ask questions based on food inflation, the economy, rising cost of living and poverty, among others. Let your debates be issues-based.” Eminently commendable advice from Ogbeni to his party members, but for the fact that there are several viral videos, featuring the sonorous singer and enthusiastic dancer, the Oranmiyan himself, personally leading excited supporters in rendering satiric, abusive and provocative lyrics against his former friends turned adversaries.

Of course, the politically wily Ogbeni calculates that if attention is focused on the economic hardships his coalition partners accuse the Tinubu administration of causing by its reform policies, large numbers of people will subordinate rational clarity for blurry emotionalism and enthusiastically sway to their anti-Tinubu partisan rhythms. But he forgets that there are also many APC leaders well acquainted with the issues and with the capacity to ask their supporters to ask pertinent questions and further interrogate Aregbesola ‘s interrogators. For instance, did Nigeria’s deep-seated economic crisis start just two years ago with the assumption of office of President Bola Tinubu? Were Nigerians living in paradisiacal El Dorado in the preceding administrations of both the PDP and APC? Despite the fact that the price of crude oil rose to as much as $100 per barrel for a good part of the PDP’s 16 years in power, for instance, till about mid-2024 when it fell drastically, why was it that it was President Muhammadu Buhari administration with considerably reduced revenues that commenced serious work on infrastructure modernization and expansion; an effort now intensified on an unprecedented scale by the present administration?

Aregbesola’s questioners would further be asked if the country’s current severe electricity supply challenges would not have been more than two-thirds solved to the economy’s immense benefit had the $16 billion purportedly invested in the sector during the PDP’s 16 years in power not gone down the drain with not the slightest dent on the problem? Was the Tinubu administration responsible for the fraudulent privatisation of the assets of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), gifting the country Generation and Distribution companies that so obviously have neither the finance nor the expertise to discharge the responsibilities for which they procured the companies?

If preceding administrations since 1999 had taken decisive steps to restructure and decentralize the country’s overcentralized security architecture, would the Tinubu administration have inherited the kind of hydra-headed security imbroglio it confronts today? In any case, what creative strategies did Aregbesola himself come up with to improve internal security in Nigeria during his tenure as Minister of Interior? Can he tell us how many jail breaks occurred in several correctional centres across the country under his watch while he wrung his hands in pathetic helplessness? Not only was there a huge backlog of hundreds of uncollected passports, which he inherited as Minister of Interior and which he was unable to find a solution to, but it continued to take interminable periods for citizens to collect their passports under his watch.

Instructively, it took his successor, the current Minister of Interior, Mr Bolaji Ojo, less than two months to come up with a surgical solution, clear the backlog of accumulated passports and institute a system that enables Nigerians to collect and process their passports today within a two-week time frame. Pray, exactly what bragging rights does the otherwise likeable Ogbeni genuinely have? Why has it taken the Tinubu administration to audaciously commence work on such monumental infrastructure projects as the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway or the Badagry-Sokoto Expressway, among several others, although they had reportedly been on the drawing board for almost 40 years? Had such expansive road facilities spreading across several kilometers been emplaced years before now, at a time when it would have been much cheaper to actualize, would the economy not have been elevated to a pedestal for much higher productivity, capacity for employment generation as well as prosperity?

Of course, infinite examples can be given of how successive governments, and key members of the emergent anti-Tinubu coalition have been part of one government or the other at the centre or in the States since 1999, cannot be excused from complicity in the bog of inexcusable underdevelopment in which the country is trapped today. Since as interim National Secretary of the ADC, Ogbeni Aregbesola is understandably emerging as the coalition’s Arrowhead, the spotlight will naturally, most of the time be on him. Thus, his trajectory as a public administrator shows that he performed superlatively as Commissioner of Works and Infrastructure in Lagos State between 1999 and 2007 under a governor as team captain, Asiwaju Tinubu, whose competence and capacity he has waxed lyrical about severally in the public space and which are indelibly on record. Also contributory to his success in Lagos, was a strong finance team, particularly the Commissioner for Finance, Mr Wale Edun and the Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Mr Olayemi Cardoso, who ensured strong financial and budgetary discipline in the Cabinet.

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When he emerged as governor and team captain in Osun, however, the story became a different kettle of fish altogether for Ogbeni. His admirers tout him as the most ideologically -driven politician of this generation and this may well be so. This writer is himself strongly inclined towards ideology and cannot but be supportive of a leader with emphatic ideological proclivities. But in an emergent post-ideological world with increasing tendency towards technocratic and professional meritocracy, ideology is simply not enough and this was all too evident in Aregbesola’s Osun. Thus, he introduced several laudable and well-meaning welfare programmes such as the school feeding initiative and token cash transfers to the aged. However, his administration in Osun lacked the financial discipline and managerial expertise to run these expansive welfare programmes sustainably while at the same time being able to meet its other governmental obligations to the citizenry.

It is public knowledge that before long, the relationship between Ogbeni ‘s administration and the state’s public sector workers had soured. Industrial relations was in crisis as the government could barely meet its wage obligations. A large cross-section of the workers were placed on half-salary for the duration of his tenure while the state’s debt burden escalated. While the government built impressive primary and secondary school structures, it seemed that these were not planned with meticulous attention to the school population size or the requisite sustainable maintenance costs of the schools. The truth of the matter is that none of the leading lights in the emergent coalition – Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rotimi Amaechi, Nasir El ‘Rufai – can boast a better track record of performance in the various public offices in which they have served than President Tinubu no matter how much they vilify him mostly out of dislike or outright hatred.

In a widely circulated online post, another Nigerian stated that he was only waiting for the campaigns to start in order to ask members of the anti-Tinubu coalition which of his policies they would discard should they succeed in dislodging him from power as they have continuously boasted. For instance, would they reintroduce the fuel subsidy? Would they scrap the National Students Loan Fund? Would they abolish the National Credit Corporation to provide affordable credit to lower to middle level citizens? Would they halt work on the Lagos – Calabar Highway or the Sokoto-Badagry Expressway? Would they re-introduce multiple foreign exchange markets so that citizens with connections at the Central Bank could continue to reap humongous profit through the exploitation of arbitrage? Would they backtrack on financial autonomy for local government Councils? Would they reintroduce reckless printing of currency by the apex bank to fund federal government spending through ways and means?

July 12, 2025
The vulnerable divide

On May 28, Saratu and sons retired to bed amid the pitter-patter of rain that fell through the night. On Thursday, May 29, she woke up mangled by the floodwaters, reduced to destitution.

First, the flood took her sons: three heartbeats that once pulsed into the seams of her world. The night before, they had prattled around a varnished lantern, planning imminent expenses and household chores. By dawn, Saratu was rid of her sons – aged 12, 15, 18 respectively. Three promising males, gone in one fell swoop.

The torrential downpour of the previous night had triggered a flood. As the flood swept through Tiffin Maza and other parts of Mokwa Local Government Area (LGA) of Niger State, Saratu’s children drowned, one after another, as if the river intended to drink her womb dry.

“All my valuables, my sons, gone…Where do I start from?” lamented Saratu, as she relived the deluge that turned her and about 416,600 residents of Mokwa into helpless refugees. Officials later confirmed at least 207 people dead and over 1,000 missing. The flood submerged farmlands, destroyed about 500 homes, and injured more than 500 people. The recent disaster is simply one among many in a country fast becoming familiar with floodwaters; in 2024 alone, flooding killed over 1,200 people across Nigeria.

The impact of the recent flood hit hardest on Mokwa’s vulnerable divides: women, children and the elderly. This is not to underplay the impact on the male divide, but as I noted in last week’s edition, the consequences of such environmental disasters are usually more devastating on the vulnerable divide.

Indeed, water may be the defining crisis of the country if great care is not taken. While we contend with ruination by drought and degrading water quality, Nigeria now has to do battle with and defeat the hydra-headed monster of incessant flooding.

But as we grapple with conflicts triggered over scarcity of water and the now ubiquitous deluge, the government and other humanitarian actors must dig beneath the layers of Nigeria’s water crises and extend much-needed interventions to the most vulnerable divides.

Read Also: Tinubu’s reforms boosting Nigeria’s economic recovery – FG

There is no gainsaying that women and children compose the heart of the afflicted, bearing a unique burden of hardship. They are not only displaced from their physical homes but also pushed from the fragile balance of survival. Arjun Jain, UNHCR’s representative in Nigeria, observed that the floods are a fresh wound upon open scars inflicted by years of displacement and conflict on affected communities. “Communities which, after years of conflict and violence, had started rebuilding their lives were struck by the floods and once again displaced,” he said.

According to the UNFPA’s 2022 estimate, about 6.7 million people – 80 per cent – of the 8.4 million people requiring humanitarian assistance in Nigeria are women and children and are in the three most affected northeastern states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe. While more casualties are added, in real time, from other flood-prone regions in Mokwa, Niger State, Benue State among others.

Within these population groups, some of the most vulnerable people with special needs are housewives and girls who, in some cases, face a triple burden of finding ways to survive, caring for their families and protecting themselves from sexual violence

According to the Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) for 2022, an estimated 1.4 million individuals (46% IDPs, 23% returnees, 31% host communities) will require Gender Based Violence (GBV) prevention and response services in the affected states.

After the May deluge, an unwieldy social crisis manifests in Mokwa, accentuating rising gender inequalities. The risk for women and girls caught in such a situation often multiplies in real time, said social worker Omolara Odila, stressing that women are more vulnerable during emergencies and are left to navigate hardships that men rarely face in the same way. Many of them are poor, and the flood has rendered them even more vulnerable than most can truly comprehend.

There is no gainsaying that several females face the brutality of survival on multiple fronts, battling natural calamities and the malevolence of males emboldened by a void of law and order. Health services are scarce; when available, they are stretched too thin to provide the care so urgently required. The risk of maternal mortality grows perilously high for expectant mothers, unable to access safe labour conditions amidst ruin.

No doubt, the impact of floods often surpasses the loss of lives and damage to critical infrastructure. Not often highlighted is its impact on female health, as noted by experts. Damaged infrastructure may impede access to health resources, and pregnant women could be at a higher risk, thus leading to a rise in maternal deaths.

Flooding, conflict and other humanitarian crises have only worsened the pre-existing severe reproductive health and GBV situations. Data from the 2018 NDHS show that a disaster-prone zone like the northeast, for instance, has a very high Maternal Mortality Rate of 1,546 per 100,000 live births as compared to the national value of 546 per 100,000 births.

Teenage pregnancy is also high at 32%, a major health concern because of its association with higher morbidity and mortality for both the mother and the child. Only 22% of deliveries are assisted by a skilled birth attendant, exposing women and newborns to increased risk of death and complications.

While the statistics are currently indeterminable for flood-ravaged parts of Mokwa, humanitarian needs remain critical and inaccessible to women and children, among other vulnerable segments of the displaced residents, despite interventions.

In addition to population displacement, there are pressing public health concerns, as many women struggle to live in overcrowded and unsanitary IDP camps, without access to clean water, toilets, bathrooms, and emergency healthcare. Many women hitherto reliant on their missing or now incapacitated husbands and children suffer social exclusion and discrimination that limits them from education, employment and other social benefits.

And when tragedy strikes, sometimes, its silhouettes prowl in government uniforms. The distribution of the relief materials has let loose a tide of distrust, prejudice, and unseen borders. In Wurin Gangare and Gudun Ruwa, for instance, resentment festers among bereaved families and displaced survivors of the flood as they trade accusations over relief workers and government officials’ perceived partiality in distributing relief materials.

The Mokwa tragedy necessitates urgent reform. Emergency response must shift from reaction to prevention. Relief efforts must extend beyond provision of food to include menstrual hygiene kits, psychosocial services, and safe spaces for women and girls.

The National Adaptation Plan and its outcrop, the proposed National Flood Insurance Programme, should include gender-specific coverage. These initiatives must be seen to truly provide a financial safety net for individuals, businesses, and communities. This will reduce the financial burden on the government.

It’s about time we shifted focus from reactive emergency responses to proactive and sustainable flood risk management. Traditional flood management wisdom must be sourced from natives who have read rivers all their lives, and integrated into formal strategy.

Gender-based violence prevention must be embedded in every resettlement effort. Water bodies must be desilted before the rains, not after the dead are counted, and drainage regulations must be enforced, not postponed.

More importantly, the Mokwa flood disaster should not be a death sentence for the poor, nor must it be seen to impoverish otherwise solvent survivors. Women should never be treated as human junk, to be patronised for clout and exploited for political capital, only to be swept away with the silt afterwards. Rather, they must be co-opted as active partners in the recovery process.

July 10, 2025