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Category: Sunday

Revered (Sir) Remi Omotoso speaks on Ekiti Agro-Allied International Airport

“To God be the glory, great things He hath done, so loved He the world that He gave us His Son, who yielded His life an atonement for sin, and opened the life-gate that all may go in” – Fanny Crosby(1875)

It was a joyful moment for Ekitikete as the Ekiti Agro- Allied International Cargo Airport commenced commercial flights in grand style (ABUJA – ADO – EKITI) with all the four former governors of the State- Otunba Niyi Adebayo, Dr Ayodele Fayose, Engr Segun Oni and Dr Kayode Fayemi – on board.

It was indeed a moment of pride for all Ekiti sons and daughters as the United Nigeria Airline touched down at the airport and took off with passengers heading to another destination. It was a beautiful experience, historic and quite exciting .

With the airport in place Ekiti has taken a major leap in the quest for economic development.

Thanks to God and BAO’s transformative leadership” – a euphoric Funmi Bold on the Ekiti New Dawn WhatsApp platform.

The Eagle has landed.

And finally the much storied Ekiti Agro- Allied International Airport, Ado – Ekiti, received its maiden commercial flight to a euphoric welcome on Tuesday, 10 December, 2025.

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Nobody can legitimately begrudge any Ekiti man or woman today if he/she heartily bursts into the above song of gratitude in appreciation to God or if we Ekitis choose to sing the most sonorous of our songs to the various leaders who made this a reality.

This is a project that has many shades and colours, and passed through various stages of acrimony before finally birthing in ultimate glory. God be praised.

Commenced during the administration of Governor Kayode Fayemi as a dual purpose infrastructure, it has a 3.2 km runway facility and obtained the NCAA approval in October, 2025.

One of the many phases the project passed through, though behind the scenes, was the mostly combative, absolutely politically motivated discussions that predominated our Ekitipanupo@yahoogroups.com web portal, comprising over 2000 Ekitis home, and Diasporan. Our

debates were so acrimonious they remind me, uncannily, of promotion exercises at the Pre – Clinical departments of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ibadan in the 70’s, when two distinguished Nigerian professors of international repute – who will remain nameless here – headed the departments of Anatomy and Physiology, respectively, and

no matter the brilliance of candidates from the other department you knew, apriori, what type of recommendation to expect from the opposing Head of Department.

In our discussions, therefore, your views merely reflected where you belonged in the state’s politics.

However, one contributor differed, completely, from the ensemble as, even in all the ongoing cacophony, he took the professional path which is why his contributions are very vital, and relevant today, for both the Ekiti state government and, in particular, for those who will be responsible for the day to day management of the facility.

That exactly is why Sir Remi Omotoso will be speaking to us today about the Airport. Yes speak, via his intervention to my article captioned: Still on The Ekiti Airport Project. His contribution was dated 7 November, 2019.

Sir Remi Omotoso MFR, (1945 – 2020) was a true servant leader who poured out himself in service to God and humanity through institutions such as the Methodist Church of Nigeria, Unilever Plc, Odu’a Group of Companies, Standard Chartered Bank, Greenwich Trust Group, DN Meyer Plc, University of Ibadan, the Institute of Directors, Nigerian Institute of Marketing, Chartered Institute of Personnel Management, the Ekiti State and his home community of Ayedun-Ekiti.

He served without expecting anything in return, his satisfaction coming from seeing people and processes improve, and knowing that the Almighty God would be glorified.

He joined the Saints Triumphant on 5 June, 2020. Eternal rest grant him O Lord.

Happy reading.

My dear compatriots,

In o kun o.

I have followed with keen interest the various views expressed by many of our people. Some are for and some are against the establishment of an airport in Ekiti, everyone advancing reasons for position taken.

In a democracy, this is what it should be: you talk and I talk and Democracy no go vex. However, a responsible Government under a worthy leader would take a decision on any matter, hopefully, in the best interest of the people.

Let me state upfront that I was a member of the Committee set up by Dr Kayode Fayemi during his first coming to consider the pros and cons of having an airport in Ekiti. There was hardly any view expressed today that didn’t come up during our Committee meetings. Tope Porta’s views on this forum on the airport almost covered the views of those on the Committee who were opposed to the establishment of the airport. The views of Femi Orebe and Femi Ebenezer more than covered the views of the proponents of the establishment of the Airport. From outside of the Committee were also strong views. Late Prof. Mike Filani, a highly respected Transport Geographer didn’t see the need for the Airport, at least for now. He didn’t see its viability from the passenger size and also didn’t seem to see the prospect of agribusiness so soon to keep the Airport alive and running. His views in my personal discussion with him was that the airport would only serve elitist interest and would be grossly underutilized. So, the Committee had a wide array of views to base its decision on.

I must disabuse the minds of some of us who felt that Chief Afe Babalola who was Chairman of our Committee wanted the Airport ” tipa ti kuku”( by all means) for the relative comfort of the parents of the young students of the Afe Babalola University Ado-Ekiti ( ABUAD). Yes, this could be part of his interest in the airport but beyond that, Chief Afe Babalola has the largest private commercial agribusiness in the Southwest of Nigeria today. His mango farms which runs into hundreds of hectares will benefit from the Ado-Ekiti airport by way of export.

As a member of the Committee, I was the most vociferous canvasser for the airport to be established to be run largely as a specialised agric. produce cargo airport. I submitted that apart from Ekiti State, the west of Kogi, the south-east of Osun, and a good part of Akoko north-west will serve as good catchment areas for the airport, almost entirely for agro Cargo export.

There has been the pessimistic question asked by those not in support of the airport: what and where are the cargoes? Here are the agro products:

      1) YAMS.

Today, Ghana is reported to be among the largest exporters of yams, largely to the US. In 2016, Ghana exported $N27.5m and was reported to be the 6th largest exporter and holds 10..3% of world yam export. Ghana total annual production is put at about 6.6m/tonnes compared with Nigeria production of 32.3m/ tonnes but with no notice in the world market for export.

Yagbas in Kogi west and the Igbiras are great yam producers along with us in Ekiti North, Akoko Northwest and Northeast. A good proportion of the 32.3m/tonnes must be between Benue and Ekiti and those locations mentioned in Kogi.

Now, please, reacall that Gov. Sgun Oni established a Yam Conditioning Plant at ILASA EKITI which was not completed and commissioned before he left office. If the current Fayemi-led government gets this plant completed and put it to use through sale or lease to a private company, Ekiti would be ready to take over Ghana’s position in the world in the export of YAMS. The yams are airfreighted.

      2)FRESH PINEAPPLE FRUITS

The market for fresh pineapple fruit export from West Africa is dominated by Ghana and Cote D’ivoire. I visited Ghana some years back to find out more about the success of the country just to see how Ekiti can enter this lucrative business. All around Greater Accra, young families own, courtesy Govt empowerment program, each hundreds of hectares of pineapple farms cultivated under strict pytosanitary certification for specific offtakers. The offtakers also in collaboration with Govt ensure extension services are provided which assures consumers confidence in direct consumption without any further quality control. As at the time of my visit about 2011, at least a Boeing 737 cargo plane load of pineapple was exported daily from Kotoka airport.

The demand for organic fruits is exploding in the world and Ekiti stands to benefit from this development. Ekiti share same geographical and ecological conditions with the Pineapple producing region in Ghana. Add pineapple export to that of Yam and you will begin to see the viability of Ijan-Ado Ekiti Airport. There are more promising fruits from Ekiti you can add to these because of their commercial potential.

       3) BANANA/PLANTAIN.

The Ikere-Ilawe- Igbara Odo Axis has best clime and ecology for Banana and also plantain similar to what prevails in Ghana where export to Europe is thriving. If Govt helps to establish strains and off-taķers the business potential is huge. Obviously, bananas are plantains are usually airfreighted.

     4) MANGOES and AVOCADOS.

Oga Aare Afe Babalola has a large mango farm as part of ABUAD. I understand the mangoes ere of Israeli strain. When they are in full blossom, the Ijan-Ado road airport will be a huge advantage.

      5) CHILLI PEPPER.

This is also in huge demand in the world market. This is a crop women deal in a lot. Some cooperative movement of a sort can engage in growing and processing for export.

All these crops and more are more than enough to justify the establishment of a medium size cargo airport in Ado-Ekiti designed to be scalable with adequate cargo-handling systems and facilities.

Ekiti is an agrarian, landlocked State. This should not disadvantage us if we embrace agribusiness seriously on an industrial scale. It should not be long before we start to add value.I saw an astonishingly beautiful factory in the outskirts of Accra where fruit COCKTAILS were being prepared and shipped out of Kotoka airport to various locations in Europe from where they are distributed to various food chains in those locations.

Some have argued that AKURE AIRPORT can still serve the purpose of handling the business. I have my reservations on this. Akurr isn’t designed for Cargo handling. Secondly, it has its drawback on cost of getting these products to Akure. In the cost configuration for them, freight is a key factor and can negatively affect competitiveness. The nearer point of production is to point of airfreight the better. It’s no brainer that yams will leave Ilasa Yam conditioning Plant and get delivered to Ado airport than to Akure airport located on Akure-Owo road. If I were involved in the business, I would prefer Ado. Apart from the cheaper transportation costs, Ado airport will have holding facilities for my export haven been designed to handle agro cargoes.

MY APPEAL TO EKITI STATE GOVERNMENT.

Please, as the airport is being constructed, let adequate preparation be commenced to prepare the farmers that will produce the agro cargoes. The gestation periods of these crops must have worked into them land preparation, the selection and preparation of the farmers, their training and psychosocial conditioning. It should be possible for rhis new crop of farmers to operate like any other businessmen and women without being isolated in farm settlements. Contiguous farms will promote experiential learning and information sharing among the farmers. Selection of Extension Service providers should start at the right time, that is at.the time of seeking offtakers and strains of crops to focus on. Govenment should be responsible for procuring phyto sanitary certification from the offtakers.

Let me dare to recommend that the selected farmers.should be exposed to practices in Ghana, Cote D’ivoire or Kenya and a few of them to the offtakers as well as the food chain stores and direct consumers. The success of Unilever in its various markets is the attention paid to training of the employees, knowledge of the market and consumer behavior and preferences. Nothing happens unless people make them happen.

So, as work goes on in the construction of the Airport, work goes on regarding growing of the crops and their packaging. When the airport is ready, there should be cargo to push through it.

I am passionate about the Ado-Ekiti Airport, just as I am of the emerging opportunities in the exponential growth in agribusiness in Ekiti. I look forward to the day I will shop for organic fruits and yams in Eirope and America and find the label;.PRODUCE OF EKITI, NIGERIA or PROUDLY EKITI NIGERIA.

Nothing would befit the memory of our late compatriot more than for governor Oyebanji to carefully distil Sir Omotoso’s seminal article, and allow the suggestions therein, guide him, first and foremost, in the formulation of the policy guidelines which will propel its operations as well as in his choice of the individuals who would be in charge of the Airport’s management.

December 14, 2025
Language activism (III)

The greatest threat to language diversity in the world is the English language as it spreads across the globe in the manner of a plague. Close to a quarter of the world already speaks the language and many more are learning it. Even then, there are probably more Chinese speakers than English speakers but Chinese speakers are restricted to one country and their language does not carry the threat of global domination which is associated with the English language.

The situation with the English language has created a debate within communities, especially in Africa in which the language was established through colonialisation. The acquisition of the language in those countries was at the expense of local languages which were reduced to the status of vernaculars labouring under a massive inferiority complex. English was after all, the language of conquerors who had demonstrated what at the turn of the twentieth century were regarded as signs of superiority to the colonised peoples. If the British had been able to seize all the power within their colonies, it stood to reason that their language was superior to the local languages. This conclusion appeared to be reasonable at the time and as the Yoruba have taken to saying, the world has become the property of the oyinbo people to do with it whatever was their wish. As it happened, the British did not need to belabour this point as the colonised people themselves saw this as a matter of course and regarded the acquisition of English as a desirable exercise. After all, they had been pushed into a position of weakness if not abject subservience. It is interesting to note that unlike the French, the British, at the beginning of their colonisation exercise, did not attempt to force their language on the colonised. This was radically different with the French. You will find that more than fifty years after the end of colonisation, French is still spoken in former French colonies as the language is spoken in France. This is because language transfer was part of the assimilation process which the French imposed on their colonial subjects. The nonchalant attitude of the British has given rise to a situation in which there are Nigerian Englishes, that is, English spoken with various local flavours. It appears that we have been able to domesticate the English language and clothed it in locally fabricated robes. The history of the English language lends itself to this treatment. The propagation of French in the French colonies was both methodical and rigidly controlled so that there was very little danger of the development of African varieties of French. The difference between the two colonial powers was historical.

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The original inhabitants of Britain spoke various Gaelic and Celtic languages, at least until Anglo-Saxon tribes arrived from parts of present-day Germany. They brought with them their Germanic language, a version of the language which, because of its simplicity, was regarded as low Dutch. It was controlled with only rudiments of a grammatical structure and looking back now, it is clear that this grew in time to be the major strength of the language as it aided its spread within the British isles. This being the case, it pushed the earlier indigenous languages into the fringes of what is now Wales, parts of Scotland and across the Irish sea into Ireland.

The new Brits or English had hardly settled down in their new island home when they started receiving unwelcome visits from their Scandinavian cousins from across the North sea. Better known in history as Vikings, they were sea faring brigands who swept in from time to time to pillage seaside towns from which they were also not averse to kidnapping the odd young maiden after killing the men of course. So great was their menace that the locals also thought it wise to pay some indemnity to their tormentors so as to be left in peace or, at least some semblance of peace. Known as danegeld, this payment bought peace for certain parts of England until the Danish king decided to incorporate the ransom paying parts into his kingdom. This shows the wisdom of not negotiating with terrorists! In the meantime, many words of Scandinavian origin were incorporated into the expanding English lexicon.

At the time that the Danish king was casting his awful shadow on parts of England, other Vikings were menacing Ireland and parts of France. Thoroughly intimidated and beaten down, the Vikings who were called Normans in France were given a large portion of land adjacent to the English Channel. They therefore became the owners of Normandy and settled down as rulers of the place and began to cast covetous eyes across the English Channel. After all, the place was part of the Danish empire at one time, they saw conquering and incorporating it into Normandy could only be considered logical. It fell to William the conqueror, also known as William the bastard to fulfil this enterprise. On October 12th 1066, William crossed the English Channel accompanied by an army under the command of 21 noblemen and by evening of that day had destroyed the English army under King Harold and became the ruler of all England. He distributed the kingdom to his generals whose descendants still own the lands gifted to their forebears in 1066.

The Normans settled in Normandy and rather than continue to speak their own Scandinavian language, they switched over to French, the language of their reluctant hosts. The Normans brought the French language with them and for more than three centuries made it the language of the English court. It was not until those three hundred years had passed that English was promoted to be used in official documents. By the sixteenth century however, English had become the only official language of the realm.

As with all the other conquerors who had darkened the shores of Britain before them, the Normans came over with their own version of their adopted French language. And, as with all the languages that came before, the English refused to adopt the language of the conquerors. What they did was to incorporate the French language into English. They did it so well that up to 40% of English as it is spoken today is either French or French derived. This has enriched English to such an extent that if those French words did not exist within it, it would not be English. For example, a live cow is cow in English, meat from the dead animal is called beef in modern English and it is French derived. In the case of deer, the borrowed word is venison. There are thousands of other examples which give a roundness to the English language, a roundness which you are not likely to find in other languages from other parts of the world. There are also almost as many Latin words in English as are French. So, what you have is a Germanic language that is almost as Romance in character as it is Germanic. There is no language that is half as promiscuous as the English language. It went to North America and came away with a multitude of words including tomato, chilli, tobacco, lacrosse, tomahawk and very many more. From the other side of the world in India, the English picked up a slew of words such as verandah, bungalow, thug, loot, calico and many more.

When I suggested that we should be able to teach science subjects in Yoruba to a friend he just could not wrap it around his head. How would you say Chemistry or Biology in Yoruba? What he did not know is that Chemistry is an Arabic word, so is Algebra. We talk of algorithms these days but how many of us know that it is of Arabic extraction. Many of the words we encounter in science are also derived from Greek and Latin. Consult a modern English dictionary and you will find that japa, okada and other Nigerian origin words have been admitted into the English language. Strip English of all those stolen and borrowed words and just what do you have left?

December 14, 2025
Kanu: Igbo groups question UK

Pursuant to the Nnamdi Kanu affair, an amalgamation of Igbo diaspora groups has condemned the indifference of the United Kingdom (UK) to the trial and jailing of the controversial IPOB leader. Mr Kanu, they reminded the UK government, holds a British passport in addition to being a Nigerian. As the groups put it: “A British passport holder was abducted from Kenya without legal extradition, subjected to a sham trial under a repealed law, and sentenced to life imprisonment; yet London remains silent…This silence is deeply troubling and undermines the credibility of the UK as a global human rights champion… But when a British citizen faces unlawful detention and a life sentence, the government’s indifference is deafening. Silence here reads as complicity.”

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All this is just emotional bilge water. Mr Kanu does not hold a British passport only to merit the intervention of the UK. In this case, and given the nature of the charges, he is also Nigerian. Which one, in the estimation of the British, should supersede the other? Terrorism, everyone now understands, is a grave subject that neither the British nor any other serious country would fool around with. The groups idolise Mr Kanu. Good for them. But they should have restrained him during his wild days of inciting his supporters to mayhem. Blaming the British or accusing them of passivity in the groups’ misreading of the situation and ignorance of the law will not change anything or give freedom to the jailed ‘freedom fighter’.

December 14, 2025
Igbo Leaders’ numbing fulminations

Two presumably respected professors signed the communiqué of the last meeting of the Igbo Leaders of Thought (ILT) held in Enugu last week. One is well known: Prof. Elochukwu Amucheazi, president of the group and pioneer Director-General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA). The second professor is not quite as popular in the media, now or in the past: Jerry Chukwuokolo, secretary and a former head of the Department of Philosophy and Religion, Ebonyi State University. He is reported to have done a lot of work on socio-political and developmental philosophy, particularly within Igbo culture. Prof. Amucheazi is a political scientist who once taught at the University of Nigeria, Nnsuka, but is now retired. They may have signed the communiqué, but there is nothing to show that they authored it, or whether they didn’t have any reservations about sections of the draft.

But the views expressed in the communiqué amounted to sweeping generalisations. Three items stand out in media reports of the communiqué. One, citing what they describe as escalation in killings across Nigeria, especially of Christians, and needing to prevent Nigeria from full-scale collapse, they posit: “The U.S. must not hesitate to intervene physically, including invading Nigeria to disperse the numerous bandits now harassing the nation. We cannot watch history repeat itself. We owe it to future generations to halt this slide into genocide and war.” Two, they condemn what they believe is “genocidal profiling and economic strangulation” of Igbo businesses, linking it to anti-Igbo policies, perhaps in Lagos, and Fulani expansionism. They then conclude that if injustices against the Igbo prevail, the ideology of Biafra will remain attractive. Three, they reject the life sentence imposed on IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu as “unjust, illegal, and politically motivated,” insisting that the conviction is “sad, indefensible and speculative,” and capable of turning him into a “Mandela-like symbol of resistance.” They ask for his release, rehabilitation and compensation.

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The eminent professors obviously spared nothing. To them Nigeria is heading for collapse, the bedraggled United States is the knight in shining armour, Kanu is right and justified, and the Igbo are once again, perhaps as always, the victims of budding, if not full-blown, genocide. No communiqué can be more tendentious, and no analysis can be so offensively opaque. It is unlikely the professors wrote the communiqué, or read it with the attentiveness it deserves. And if they wrote or read what they finally disseminated to the public, they perhaps submitted unwillingly to the herd mentality of excoriating outsiders than engaging in the self-contemplation and careful examination which the occasion and Nigeria demand.

Start from their call for US invasion of Nigeria as a means of correcting the country’s many paradoxes and conflicts. Is the US president Donald Trump, in their view, a paragon of democratic leadership? And is the US itself an exemplar of good behaviour at the international level, especially with its gunboat diplomacy against Venezuela, the auctioning of Ukraine to Russia, and the insults and threats to friends and allies alike? Just how sagely does Mr Trump appear to be to the two Nigerian professors in light of his ongoing castration of the United Nations and the almost total demolition of the rules-based order? Mr Trump is abusive, uncouth, disorganised, contemptuous of Blacks and developing economies, and lacking in depth. Is this the same man Professors Amucheazi and Chukwuokolo are inviting to restore sanity and order to Nigeria?

It is not certain who the other attendees were at the ILT meeting last week, whether they were jaded and ageing academicians or mid-level rabble-rousers from the streets co-opted into making up the numbers at the meeting and giving teeth to the communiqué. Whoever they were, it is shocking and disappointing that they joined many unthinking others to advocate the release of the self-absorbed Mr Kanu whose organisation, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), unleashed mayhem against mostly the people of the Southeast. And comparing him with Nelson Mandela? Well, what kind of hyperbole is that? Not only is the trial still ongoing, and the outcomes at the appellate courts predictable, it is astonishing that the professors could describe his conviction as illegal, unjustifiable and politically motivated. Did the ILT follow his trial, and if they did perhaps absentmindedly, did they read the judgement? Even if the ILT does not care about the lives destroyed in the Southeast and the families shattered, nor the gargantuan economic losses and the humiliating IPOB-midwifed Monday sit-at-home order that locked down the region and paralysed business and social activities every week in the name of securing freedom for Mr Kanu and freeing Biafra, surely they should care about what the law says and how the trial judge interpreted it.

Finally, the professors and their communiqué speak to what they describe as genocidal profiling and Fulani expansionism to justify the retention of the ill-fated idea of Biafra in Southeast minds. These two superficial tools of incitement are quite popular in the region and among the Igbo worldwide. Instead of the Igbo intelligentsia carefully deconstructing these tools and helping the region to heal and move on even in the face of non-closure of the Biafra War, they have decided to join the rabble by boosting its presumptions. But is it the Igbo alone that are facing Fulani expansionism? And in the face of refusal to return the country to ‘true’ federalism, a departure first articulated and advocated by some Igbo politicians in the First Republic, has every major ethnic group in Nigeria not felt the pangs of ‘genocidal profiling’?

While Mr Kanu may be the hero of many south-easterners, the other regions see in him a tragic cult hero. The Southeat may view Mr Trump and the US as knights in shining armour, the rest of Nigeria and the world see him as a flawed and superficial leader masking his inadequacies under aggressive pro-Americanism. They cannot and will not save anyone. The professors should seek solace elsewhere rather than chase a chimera.

December 14, 2025
What next for diminished PDP?

Sometime in 2010, on BBC HARDtalk programme, former president Olusegun Obasanjo argued that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) could not control 28 states out of 36 states and still lose the presidential election of 2007. Asked whether such dominance was ethical, he shot back: “Should the PDP go and tell the electorate not to vote for the ruling party? Asked again whether it was not tantamount to turning Nigeria into a one-party state, the former president deadpanned: “What is wrong with that?” So far, Chief Obasanjo has restrained himself from condemning the dominance of the current ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), and has not said a word, at least publicly, on whether the 27 states controlled by the APC after some defections risked turning Nigeria into a one-party state. He is unlikely to say anything in that regard, lest they prosecutorially play the tape of his interview to him. He may be sanctimonious; but it is uncertain he is also hypocritical.

By the last count, the ruling All Progressives Congress boasts of ruling 27 states, with a distinct possibility of bagging a few more, perhaps two or three in the weeks ahead. And so the once dominant PDP of yesteryears has become the Lilliputian of today: diminished, battered, disoriented and, for the first time since 1999 when it first won high office, in danger of asphyxiation. It had weathered many storms, most of them self-inflicted, and fought many battles with the stoutheartedness befitting a Leviathan. But victory after victory had dulled its senses of anticipation and awareness of danger. Proud, irascible and inured to reality, its muscles beginning to atrophy, it has now lost both the skill and will to fight. And when its complacency made it vulnerable to dangers of all kinds and predators of all hues, the adaptability needed to save it from destruction was sadly lacking. It is now left with only six states, but is likely to lose two to the APC in the coming weeks.

The PDP never acquired the skill to respond imaginatively to adversity. It was always dilatory. In 2007 when it sensed its hold on the polity weakening, it made recourse to a rigged election unequalled in the annals of Nigerian elections. Nevertheless it tenaciously held on to power for another eight uneventful and crippling years. At the end, assailed on every side by the opposition and buffeted by economic downturn, and with no one in their leadership able to marshal the troops and imbue them with the right tactics, it collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions in 2015. If in 16 years since 1999 it could not produce a generation of brilliant and imaginative leaders to slow its attenuation, it has fared much worse since it lost office in producing tactical fighters who could imagine the future and respond to it adequately. Their loss in 2015 led them to desperate and tactless measures instead of the measured and patient response that should lead them to sacrifice one next election in order to gain many elections thereafter, not to talk of inspiring them to rebuild and reform their party instead of the mindless preoccupation with the present that led them to ruin.

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Gluttons for punishment, and unwilling to learn from history, they again approached the 2019 electoral debacle with hired gunfighters, chief among whom was the redoubtable former vice president Atiku Abubakar, a man so obsessed with today that he heartily cursed tomorrow. There would be no reforms and no rebuilding, and there was to be no real introspection to discover what part of their electoral culture made them susceptible to constant failures. They, therefore, staggered into the 2023 presidential poll hiring the same inflexible champion; only this time, he was even more desperate, less discerning, and more prone to simple but costly mistakes. The war of attrition had taken its toll on the former behemoth, and it had become shorn of tacticians, philosophers, and the kind of roughnecks like former Rivers governor Nyesom Wike guilefully adapted to Nigeria’s bare-knuckle electoral fights. Now effectively split into two main factions, and degraded by the APC, political circumstances and self-induced crises, it has completely lost its composure and has been reduced into making plaintive appeals to the United States and the European Union to save Nigerian democracy.

For the PDP, the 2027 election is lost. It should reconcile itself with that sombre reality. It will be lucky, if not foolish, to try to present a presidential candidate when it cannot even legally present a governorship candidate. For there is clearly no consensus between the two factions of the party regarding which camp has the legitimate right in the eyes of the law to sign a candidate’s election forms. It is unlikely that in the next few weeks it can reach that consensus or unite its warring factions. After it officially lost Rivers State to the APC last week, one of its factional chairmen, Abdurahman Tukur, sarcastically and despondently wished Governor Siminalayi Fubara good luck. It has reached such depths of despair today that it has lost the will to fight. As they lose more states and lawmakers to the ruling party, their economic fortunes will continue to dwindle until they are drained of every pint of blood in their veins. Oyo State’s governor Seyi Makinde had tried a last-ditch attempt to rally the troops in the November 15 Ibadan convention. As predicted, that rally miscarried, and with it the party’s last hope. With no messiah left to rally anyone, and with nearly all its troops deserting to the enemy, the PDP may be shouting its last hurrah.

After the 2019 election debacle, the party still had the services of Mr Wike to carry the party’s burden and soldier on. Today, there is no one to carry the burden or even think for the party. Mr Wike is too triumphant and vindicated to care what happens to the party, despite his rhetorical feints and dribbles about principles and practices of partisan politics. Ensconced in the ruling APC where he is treated with Byzantine splendour, he cannot be of any help to the sinking PDP. After Mr Makinde organised the Ibadan PDP convention by sheer will and humongous resources, he has become so deflated and exhausted that no air is left in his lungs, let alone be able to exhale about the future or romanticise the past. Former party chairman Umar Damagum is relieved that he had passed the poisoned chalice to the luckless Kabiru Turaki before the party imploded. He will make sermons and offer prayers for the party on the sidelines, and will resist every attempt to drag him back into a fight he neither chose nor had the skills to fight. Bauchi’s previously talkative governor and chair of the PDP Governors’ Forum, Bala Mohammed, now speak in dulcet tones. The frenetic pace of events in the party was too much for him to cope with, and has lost interest in taming the fractious factions and leaders of the party.

The PDP’s only hope is to come to terms with the task it had avoided for so long when signs of distress began manifesting in the party in 2013-2014. News of its impending demise may be exaggerated, but it will likely go extinct if it persists in its fooleries, or if, like former Osun State governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola, it continues to blame President Tinubu and the APC for its troubles. While it really needs to demonstrate a willingness to fight for its survival, it should beware of reposing hope in messianic intervention to vivify their party. Unfortunately, nature rarely gifts the indolent the reward which PDP leaders expect. After all, the APC is unlikely to implode now, regardless of how much the PDP wishes it. So, if the PDP can get a trusted and gifted organiser in their ranks, they may yet find a straw to clutch. That unusual leader must focus on nothing else for the next few years but reform, and rebuilding and remaking the party. At his command, they will not only refine their platform and reinvigorate the party with the right and inspiring philosophy, they will perhaps give themselves time to heal.

December 14, 2025
Dominant APC waits with bated breath

Once set in motion, the defections begun months ago to the All Progressives Congress (APC) have become almost unstoppable, an avalanche even. It is not inevitable that a ruling party can withstand divisions simply because it is in office, but after the APC won the third presidential election in a row, and sent opposition parties reeling, the party seemed impregnable to storms. That impregnability has attracted defectors of all kinds, causing the party to grow in weight and gravitas in inverse proportion to the despair afflicting the opposition. The one-way defections will continue apace, though the party is now almost filled to saturation. What should worry the party, however, is not whether it has room for more defections or whether it is nearing the end of its carrying capacity. Indeed, the party may already be unnerved by the almost sepulchral silence in the opposition save occasional eruptions of fiery denunciations over one policy flaw or another misstep by the administration.

Convinced that it has become infeasible to defeat the APC by the pure art or even science of balloting, the opposition has retreated into its shell to store energy and assume a strike position. There is euphoria in the APC, though now tethered by a strange and uncomfortable feeling of anxiety. And conversely, there is despondency in the opposition mitigated by the fact that they have nothing to lose. So, the now clearly dominant and unassailable ruling party must wait with bated breath to see what other weapons the opposition parties have in their armamentarium. The ruling party knows by experience that the opposition are in possession of lethal weapons, for before it won the 2015 elections and assumed office, the APC also wielded deadly weapons and was unabashed in deploying them with fury.

It is not yet known whether the opposition will be an agglomeration of the country’s main opposition parties, but it will not be just the PDP alone. Regardless of how many they are, the APC will worry whether the enemy will fight as one hobgoblin or on many fronts. Should the opposition choose to fight as one man, they might do a lot of damage, having demonstrated how nasty and skewering they can be. If they choose to fight individually and separately, the APC will worry about fighting on many fronts, wondering just how well they can fence off their enemies. The first accusation the opposition is broadcasting everywhere is that the APC is at fundamentally antidemocratic and determined to reverse democratic gains and render Nigeria a one-party state. The campaign will resonate with many people if the ruling party can’t find a bigger and more convincing argument to deflect the hooey.

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Fortunately for the APC, and despite former Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai’s mendacities, the opposition will be unable to deploy the religious argument as they did during the 2023 polls. Mallam el-Rufai, now a cipher in the ADC, has tried to both associate with and amplify the argument that the Bola Tinubu administration had caved in to the Christian lobby and filled the higher echelons of government with Christians to the detriment of Muslims. That religious campaign is unlikely to gain traction, not even if it is decked in regional colours. The APC is of course not a pushover in trench warfare, especially if that warfare becomes messy and bloody. Indeed, the ruling party may already have an inkling into what the opposition parties are planning, and just how deep they will plumb to find the filth they need to bespatter the enemy. If the APC is worried, it has done its best so far to conceal that anxiety. But how long it can keep its composure will be known when the campaigns hot up and turn nasty.

From all indications, the opposition will not train their guns on the APC as a party, for the party, as a result of recent defections, is much stronger than it has ever been. Instead, they will face the president squarely. They will bring out their heavy guns, believing that once they destabilise and rob him of his confidence, the job of unseating him and the ruling party would be easier. One stone, they seem to think, would kill two birds. They will go through his INEC filings with a fine-tooth comb once again, and they will go through his records. The slightest inconsistency will be sufficient for them to deploy to maximum advantage. They will not even mind half-truths. The APC may have run rings round the opposition, and has done it with great aplomb, but what they will need to pay particular attention to are the weapons the opposition will deploy against the president, not against the party. The winner would be the one who had anticipated the other more adroitly, and had prepared, like a chess player, answers to puzzles yet to be raised. And if all else fails, why, they will try the often gory terrorism/kidnapping ploy regardless of the censorious gaze of the Americans.

December 14, 2025
Benin Republic demons

Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger Republic have remained hostile to Nigeria because of its opposition to the overthrow of democracy in the three French-speaking West African countries. Had last Sunday’s coup attempt in Benin Republic led by Lt. Col. Pascal Tigri succeeded, Nigeria would have been ringed by military juntas at a time when political polarisation and harsh economic conditions in recent months have led to campaigns for the overthrow of democracy. It was, therefore, a terrible misreading of the coup plot in Benin to suggest that Nigeria was doing French bidding by helping President Patrice Talon quell the Tigri-led rebellion moments after the coup unfolded in Cotonou. The intervention was also self-preservation for Nigeria.

The fascination with coups in the region is depressing. Analysts have suggested that the antidote to coup is good governance and political freedoms. This is simplistic. There are many countries in the world battling with economic headwinds and incompetent governments which have not been bitten by the coup malady. The Niger Republic coup preempted the now deposed President Mohamed Bazoum in 2023 from sacking the coup leader and head of the presidential guards, Abdourahamane Tchiani. Justifying the putsch on the grounds of insecurity and poor governance was inadmissible. Both Mali and Burkina Faso also anchored their coup on the need to economically and politically delink from France, in addition to insecurity. But both countries remain coup-prone and unstable, and the counterinsurgency operations in both countries have not fared better than before the coups.

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Benin Republic’s economy had been growing at a healthy 7.5 percent before the coup. So the coupists cited insecurity in the northern part of the country and political repression highlighted by the attempt to impose the president’s favourite, Finance Minister Romuald Wadagni, as successor. Yet, Mr Talon was due to vacate office in April 2026 after the expiration of his tenure. What is incontestable is that everywhere a coup has taken place in West Africa, those countries had made little or no headway because soldiers are not trained to govern. There is nowhere, not even in Nigeria, where they have left sterling records. It is indeed tragic that citizens and social media influencers have been instigating some of the coups in West Africa, as they nearly succeeded in doing in Nigeria.

Gunboat diplomacy is already mothballed, but it is clumsily being revived by US President Donald Trump. Nigeria did the right thing by waiting to be invited officially to intervene by the sitting government of Benin Republic. Nigeria could not intervene in Guinea-Bissau because both the sitting president and the army plotted the arranged coup. Should a coup take place in Nigeria, it is not only unlikely to succeed, it may spell doom for the country. To, therefore, suggest that because Nigeria had not solved its insecurity problem it had no business intervening elsewhere, is a disservice to the country and the region. Meanwhile, regarding the Benin coup, a few social media influencers who allegedly incited the rebellion have been declared wanted. They will be held accountable.

December 14, 2025
Defence minister must first find his feet

General Christopher Musa had a very successful military career, and was well regarded as the former Chief of Defence Staff. Reappointed and elevated as Minister of Defence barely a month later, Nigerians, not to say those who appointed him, consequently have high hopes his infectious can-do spirit would galvanise the country into relieving the siege laid to Nigeria by bandits, terrorists, and insurgents grabbing land and seeking the fulfillment of caliphal dreams. Expectations, though high, may, however, need to be moderated. The retired general, now in civil office and obviously yet to find suitable civil dress, still needs to find his feet.

It is possible he is a natural, and will fill the role with aplomb, uniting policy and implementation, and serving as an unbreakable bridge between the executive branch and the often imperial military class which guards their command structure and war plans sometimes very rigidly. In short, Gen Musa will henceforth have to be partly civilian and partly military. Walking that tight rope, a feat that eluded his predecessor, former Jigawa State governor Mohammed Badaru, will test both his resolve and his acumen in a way that may mystify him, try his soul, and temper his confident élan.

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Given the fact that insurgency and banditry had festered for so long, there will be no quick fixes. Indeed, bandits especially will be ecstatic to play the spoilsports. In addition, and more crucially, despite being a retired member of the top military brass, he will have to find ingenious ways of gaining the confidence of his former colleagues accustomed, in the Nigerian way, to jealously guarding their administrative turfs. Decades of military rule had corroded the hierarchical structure that should make the civil and military positions work seamlessly. It will, therefore, take a little longer to reset the structure to fit into a democracy. But Gen. Musa can pull it off if has the patience and the brilliance. Guided by the country’s high expectations, motivated by his confidence to put down the revolt breaking out in many parts of the country, and assured that there is no alternative but to succeed, the influential general may achieve the breakthrough everyone craves.

December 7, 2025
Kanu, Ekpa, Natasha and prolonged litigations

The trial and conviction of Biafran agitator, Simon Ekpa, in Finland present a contrast to the Nigerian justice system and expose the unsustainable and seemingly lackadaisical approach to criminal litigation. From all indications, the lawsuits involving Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan may also take eternity to resolve, or perhaps until everybody is tired or amenable to out-of-court settlement. The debilitating prolongation of court cases, however, poses grave risks to individual liberty and national security, as the IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu case is showing. There is, therefore, a crying need for reform, reform capable of refining and streamlining legal and judicial procedures, and staving off the global ridicule directed at Nigeria’s justice system.

Mr Kanu’s case took all of 10 years to resolve one way or the other, after years of drama that evoked escapades of The Scarlet Pimpernel, strong-arm military tactics, and indefensible legal twists and turns. Arrested in 2015, granted bail in 2017 and jumped bail shortly thereafter, rearrested in 2021 through extraordinary rendition and rearraigned, detoured to the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court for about a year, and in 2025, shorn of any other legal trickery, he was finally taken through eight months of trial that culminated in his conviction last November. He had done and said enough, including botching his own case by his histrionics and self-representation, to merit conviction more than twice over. But it took 10 years of unflattering legal drama to reach that facile conclusion.

Mr Ekpa is Finnish, and a soldier to boot. He is reportedly familiar with Finland’s legal field, having worked as an intern in his ex-wife’s law firm. It would be surprising if he thought Finland’s justice system was as laborious and inefficient as Nigeria’s. Perhaps his 2023 arrest and acquittal over alleged illegal fundraising lured him into the excesses that saw him rearrested and detained in November 2024. Whatever his motivations, once his trial on terrorism-related charges commenced in May 2024, it was slam-bang downhill until he was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison last September. Four crazy months, and it was all over, a solid two months before Mr Kanu, whose trial began about 10 years ago, was hauled into jail in Nigeria. It was a mortifying study in contrasts.

But Nigeria is incurably optimistic about everything, never one to be taken aback by minor issues like prolonging a trial for more than a decade when a few months would be more than enough. So, the country does not learn from experience and history. Senator Natasha, as she is better known rather than the formal Sen. Akpoti-Uduaghan, appears also embroiled in a potentially elongated trial over criminal defamation and contempt charges. The suits, other than one from herself, were brought against her by the federal government, senate president Godswill Akpabio, and Mrs Akpabio. Begun in February 2025 with a suit against Sen. Akpabio for N100bn, the litigation has grown into a countersuit by Senator Akpabio for N200bn, by Mrs Akpabio for N350bn, and a follow-up criminal defamation suit by the federal government that promises to be exhilarating. Already, one of the cases has been adjourned till February 2026. It is just the beginning of lawsuits destined to be dragged into a long dark maze of legal sleights of hand.

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What baffles nearly everyone except defendants in these convoluted cases is how Nigeria’s judicial authorities have seemed helpless over the delay tactics often employed by litigants and their counsels. Land cases are even more notorious for elongation. In land disputes, a claimant gets all of 12 years to file his case, but as a result of gridlock in the court system, or procedural issues, or cross-appeals at multiple levels, or the difficulties encountered in evidence gathering, the suit can snake its way through the courts for decades. Nigerians seem to have reconciled themselves to that atrocious judicial slow motion. But to subject a crime case to 10 years of trial, not to talk of perhaps many more years of appeal, is truly bewildering. Reform is desperately needed, and Mr Ekpa’s case in Finland should shame Nigeria into looking for a way out.

Reform is urgent, as Mr Kanu’s case makes very obvious. By prolonging a criminal trial, a charismatic defendant can sometimes turn the table against the state and complicate or even neutralise the charges. By lasting 10 years, Mr Kanu ended up becoming even more charismatic to his heedless supporters, and in the process entrancing, if not bewitching, a whole region. The enlightened probably saw through his legal chicaneries, and were horrified by Mr Kanu’s idiosyncrasies; but like most societies, the enlightened are often in the minority. The IPOB leader has signified his readiness to appeal; and if he loses at the Court of Appeal, it is certain he will take his case to the Supreme Court. The Southeast wants a political solution, but that is unlikely to happen until the litigation comes to an end.

Mr Kanu’s case exposes nearly all the loopholes in Nigeria’s legal system. Judicial administrators cannot insist they don’t know what to do. The evidence is before them, and they have enough bright minds to determine what to do and how to plug the loopholes. They must not allow the Sen. Natasha case suffer the same excesses and manipulations as the Kanu case. If the Sen. Ike Ekweremadu organ harvesting case lasted a measly 10 and a half months from arrest to conviction in the United Kingdom, Nigeria’s judicial authorities should be deeply mortified that Mr Kanu took 10 years off them, and they still seem casually prepared to make the Sen. Natasha case last for years. By the next adjourned date, the senator’s case will be hugging one year. All for what? Nigeria must not forget that the Flt. Lt. John J. Rawlings court-martial did not last one month before he was sprung from detention because of his charismatic displays and other factors. Lengthy cases are a disservice to any nation, and can be very divisive, as the 1894-1906 Captain Alfred Dreyfus case also illustrated in France. Whatever they do, and notwithstanding the desire to be thorough, Nigeria’s judicial authorities must not be apathetical to the crucial matter of fighting the cancer of delayed justice or prolonged trial.

December 7, 2025
Insecurity: Northern govs solutions not far-reaching

To demonstrate their earnestness in resolving the troubling matter of insecurity bedeviling the North, 19 northern governors and traditional rulers council met in Kaduna last week to determine what to do. The meeting, also attended by some security chiefs, was not short on the whys of insecurity. But, despite not been far-reaching enough, the communiqué was cryptic and perhaps epochal on solutions. Compared to previous meetings convened to deliberate on issues affecting the region, last week’s communiqué was neither long nor tedious as past communiqués. It may not be deep or wide-ranging enough, but the solution the governors and rulers suggest is anchored on three major pillars: Immediate suspension of all mining activities for six months; Establishment of a Northern Regional Security Trust Fund; and Full backing for state police.

The governors argue that illegal mining has been a major driver for insecurity, which a temporary halt to operations in that sector and a carefully managed revalidation process could help realign with national security needs. They also believe that a monthly one billion naira contribution by the states deducted at source into a security trust fund might help ameliorate the frenzied drive towards apocalypse. They admit they have not worked out the details or the framework. One billion naira per month from each of the 19 states in the region should release N114bn for six months or N228bn for one year to the fund. That is substantial; assuming the framework for its spending can be trusted to be adequate. The third leg of the communiqué involves the region intensifying constitutional amendment efforts to create state police. If all the states buy this suggestion, it should give fillip to the national drive to decentralise policing and make governors more accountable on security.

But the crisis in the North is much direr than the communiqué appears to suggest. The region is confronted by a plethora of other significant but deeply troubling and cataclysmic challenges which nothing they have suggested appears capable of dealing with fundamentally and substantially. What the governors and the traditional rulers have done is to scratch the problem on the surface and also probably demonstrate their unwillingness to grapple with the ugly face of the problem confronting them. They rightly see the problem as an existential challenge capable of causing the North to unravel, but they need far more courage, depth and readiness in dealing with it than they have shown so far. They are familiar with the rampant poverty in their region, the lack of access or low budgetary allocations to education and health sectors, and why they should urgently design policies to remake their society. They are also familiar with the debilitating consequences of climate change and creeping desertification, and are keenly aware that they could not afford to surrender to nature. Yes, they are right, but much more needs to be done.

Indeed, there are other major factors predisposing the North to conflict and insecurity. If these factors are not tackled bravely they could make other measures such as the ones contained in the communiqué ineffective or redundant. The governors and traditional rulers must first come to grip with these other factors before they can proceed. The first factor is their inattentiveness to the issue of terror financiers, powerful but extremely wealthy individuals who have the North, if not the entire country, by the jugular. If the North cannot collectively press the federal government to deal with these well-known individuals and financiers who now clearly control militias and small armies, little will be achieved by the newfangled measures the governors have propounded in their communiqué. The terror financiers whose identities had been made public in 2017 after the United Arab Emirate (UAE) arrested six Northern Nigerians among dozens of other foreign terror suspects, and tried and convicted them in 2019, and upheld their convictions in 2020, still constitute an open wound. Linked to the six northerners were some other 40 individuals and entities in Nigeria implicated in the crime but who have not been prosecuted. What is evident is that both the North and the federal government are undecided what to do, even as terrorism has intensified and morphed into a multi-billion naira criminal kidnapping enterprise.

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The North also needs to deal with the second but closely related factor of redefining and refining their criminal justice system. The system is so messed up in the region that injustice in many instances has become normalised and unfortunately dichotomised between the faiths. Once the signal filters out that justice depends on a person’s class, faith and ethnicity, as is currently the norm in some areas of the region, impunity and exceptionalism will reign and spawn lawless groups, entities and individuals. This may at bottom explain why terror financiers have been left unpunished, why bandits and insurgents have become cult heroes, why insurgents are rehabilitated and reintegrated ahead of their victims, and why incredibly members of the regional elite have sought to draw a comparison between bandits/insurgents in the North and Niger Delta resource control activists. There is a deliberate and orchestrated plan to succour and appease northern insurgents and bandits.

The third factor, sometimes regarded as an intangible for obvious reasons, relates to the indecision of the region to make a choice between modernism or moving into the embrace of religious conservatism. The region can’t have its cake and eat it. The fast developing countries of the Middle East, much more than North Africa, have seemed to make their choice between conservatism and progressivism. UAE, Saudi Arabia under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, surprisingly Syria which is just emerging from al-Qaeda-led revolt against the more secularist Bashar al-Assad, and, until a few decades ago, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq, all demonstrate that balancing faith and development is neither anathema nor impossible. On the contrary, northern Nigeria has gone in the opposite direction, seemingly insisting that development appears to be anathema when it comes to issues of faith. This is not just conservatism; it is reactionary. Not only has the North lived in denial for years regarding the true identity and objectives of insurgents and bandits, they have extenuated the mindless savagery of the criminals.

Pooling N114bn or N228bn to tackle the crisis in the North, support state police and reestablish firm control over legal mining or curbing illegal mining altogether are excellent ideas. But until the North defines who they are and properly frame their existential goals, particularly relating to the future of the region and what that future holds for generations to come, they will be tilting at windmills. The region is wracked by too many contradictions that do not lend themselves to the kind of solutions they have stated in their communiqué. Consequently, they must accept responsibility for the breakdown of law and order in their region and find courage to deal with the problems their inexpert approach to complex issues and probably cowardly refusal to grapple with the shifting dynamics of their region have inflicted upon the country. They have militarily and financially encumbered the rest of Nigeria with homegrown terrorism, and until last Monday have sometimes given the impression that the crisis in the region is a collective problem. There is nothing collective about the crisis. The northern elite need to repair the damage by themselves. They should make up their mind what they want: a progressive and secular society where justice and self-actualisation are not predicted on ethnicity or faith, or a theocracy as they seem unrepentantly enamoured of that dooms them into the embrace of international terrorists who see Nigeria as fertile ground for foolish hallucinations and endless bloodletting.

December 7, 2025