The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

Federalism, federation and the unfederalised consciousness

(Some fundamental issues of restructuring)

April, the month of Easter and of earthly regeneration following the recession of the harmattan in Tropical Africa and the Arctic entombment of living humanity elsewhere else, is turning out to be a very cruel month indeed. Something very nasty is happening out there. Not since the events preceding the Second World War has the world seen such massive discombobulating. To be sure, a lot of this seismic unease is coming from an America that is threatening to unravel at the seams. At the moment, America resembles a giant reel that is unspooling in a dramatic and chaotic manner, spreading global fear and discomfiture.

Whenever the world’s leading nation is ill at ease, the rest of the globe must feel the pangs and the pains. The cosmic carnage in Gaza, the apocalyptic meltdown of Sudan with the RUF savages sacking and brutalizing even UN-ordained camps leading to a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic magnitude and the slow-motion disintegration of South Sudan, are all major indications of an America so wracked and consumed by its internal demons that it is incapable of lifting a finger for a world order inaugurated by its own visionary forebears. This is not to talk about the Trumpian tariff war which has sent the world into an economic tailspin.

   In some quarters, it feels as if the world is coming to an end. But in reality, it is the world at the end of a particular historic epoch. No one is sure of what will replace the current global order. Global hegemonies, like a national hegemonic order, are not replaced or reconstituted overnight. While we are still at it and without a superintending master-nation, it is imperative for every nation, if it is not to disappear without trace in the tsunami, to reexamine its constitutive principles and fundamental raison d’etre with a view to visionary self-assertion in the coming collision of national altars. A livid China that many had thought was afraid of confrontation and direct collision with America has just told off the Yankee hegemons that five thousand years of continuous existence and civilization cannot be wished away just like that. The wily and inscrutable masters of oriental gobbledygook know just how many aces they hold up their sleeves and because of their cultural nous which they refused to surrender to Western imperialism, they are not about to give the game away.

As they say, when you do not have the handle of the sword, you cannot be asking about how your father came to grief. Economically and culturally, if not yet militarily, China appears to have the handle of the sword, and it is going to use it to hurt America where it matters most. For the first time in its history, its soaring and ever expanding middle class is about to surpass the American middle class which is far from being organic and cohesive. The Chinese middle class will be lining up solidly and massively behind a national institution and the idiosyncratic ideology that has delivered them from the clutches of poverty and biblical immiseration whereas the Trumpian ascendancy in America is a reflection of just how fractured and divided down the line the country has become.

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As a wounded America, economically and politically split to its foundation, trapped in the threnody of the Trumpian obsession of making America great again, turns on other nations to offload its angst and frustration, it is the politically brittle and economically fragile nations of sub-Saharan that will bear most of the brunt. Nigeria has already announced that the tariff war and collapsing oil prices are likely to affect its budget plans and projection. This is like carrying a box of matches to a person soaked in gasoline. Unresolved political tensions have already cost volatile and combustible African nations such as Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso considerable economic traction.

The American fiasco is a killer punch administered on an already disoriented opponent. First seek yee the political kingdom and every other thing will follow. We have warned on several occasions in this column that unless the seething multi-ethnic colonial conundrums of Tropical Africa get their political structure and internal configuration right, all economic reforms will come to naught. These things require unusual political will and the courage to dare and it cannot be done by piecemeal cherry picking but by holistic reconfiguration.

Surely and as the Arabian proverb has it, to flee your fate is to rush to find it. Nigeria represents a classic case of economic aspirations without political inspiration which is akin to dreaming in a vacuum or void. Despite the advent of federally inspired bureaucratic reforms, despite the outstanding performance of states such as Lagos, Ekiti, Enugu, Abia, Bornu and Oyo, the politically repressed will always return to haunt us and to impede our path to economic progress and self-sufficiency. This is why in recent weeks significant sections of the nation across the north-south divide have witnessed a resurgence of ethnic violence with several communities foaming in blood after what appeared like a brief remission. The killing plateau of Jos is back in the news with pogrom in Bokkos, Zikke, Kwali District of Bassa and other communities. So are the usual flashpoints of Benue, Adamawa, Zamfara, Bornu, the Abuja perimeter, southern Edo , Oyo, Sokoto, Niger State, Niger Delta and the murderous eastern corridor stretching from Ihube in old Okigwe Division through Isuochi and on to the remote and redoubtable Igbo heartland.

   The sensitive issue should now be broached. Perceptive observers should have noticed a nexus between the dramatic resurgence of ethnic violence particularly in the north and middle belt and the escalation of political hostilities against the current administration given the fact that it is not bending hard and fast enough to the hegemonic will of the master-puppeteers of Nigeria politics. Some have vowed that the helmsman is going to be a one-term president (OTP) as a result of his perceived infractions. And we are not even at the proverbial mid-term benchmark. As a result of the dynamics of its ascendancy, the Tinubu administration has faced considerable bitterness and hostility in some quarters. This has made it to expend considerable creative energies responding to wounding and damaging criticism rather than advancing boldly in the theatre of economic and political reform. In some instances the administration has also played into the hands of its enemies by the wide latitude it has given its interpretation of corruption and some of its controversial preferment.

But in a supposedly civilized and modern democratic nation, must we resort to mindless slaughter of ourselves to advance a political cause or just to prove the point that we can destabilize the nation at will? With this murderous veto and voting as an ethnic census looming in the background, those who believe that wholesale restructuring with immediate effect is the answer and panacea to our political difficulties may be missing the point. You cannot restructure a nation without elite consensus. The American Federalist papers went through tomes of ruminations at the summit of human intellect just to get it right. To restructure a nation requires a restructuring mindset. Like democracy itself, resetting and reconfiguring a nation requires considerable national discipline and a pan-national buy-in. Let us confront ourselves with the stark truth. Unless it is by colonial or military veto, you cannot proceed to peaceful restructuring in a fractious multi-ethnic nation brimming with people with a countervailing mindset powered by hegemonic hubris. This should not be restricted to any particular region or people. Just as there is political and religious hubris in Nigeria, there is also economic and cultural hubris.

   The history of restructuring in post-independence Nigeria tells a grim story full of apocalyptic portents. So far only once have civilians been able to tinker with the structure of the country. That was in the First Republic and the exercise was shot through with vendetta and political malice. In 1967, Gowon only managed to impose a twelve-state structure on a weary country disoriented by bloodletting and with civil war fast approaching. In an early February 1976 broadcast to announce a further restructuring of the nation into a nineteen-state arrangement, General Mohammed warned darkly that no jubilation or protest on account of new state creation would be tolerated. It was his last broadcast. Barely a week after he was assassinated in broad day light. The attempts during the Second Republic to restructure the country were so unwieldy and impracticable that they never left the bulky pockets of their progenitors before the military struck.

Two other significant attempts to scrutinize the structure of the nation by civilian regimes ended in ruinous consequences for the nation and political self-ruination for the main actors. In the case of General Olusegun Obasanjo (1999/2007), it was obvious that he was more interested in self-perpetuation in office rather than a reconfiguring of the country to enable it operate at maximum strength and efficiency. As soon as the innocuous clause of tenure extension which was cleverly hidden away in a mountain of proliferating sub-clauses was summarily expunged by an alert senate, the remaining over two hundred productive suggestions about improving the lot of the country were frantically pushed aside. The Owu-born warlord became so distressed and inconsolable that he was to spend the remaining part of his tenure perpetrating monumental heists against democracy and the nation in maniacal vengeance. As for Goodluck Jonathan, seized by opportunistic miscalculations, he dithered and dilly-dallied about the recommendations of his own inaugurated conference until he was overwhelmed by superior forces.

The Tinubu administration is in even more precarious circumstances. It is unfortunate that it is at this point when the nation requires a government backed by strong national endorsement that cracks and fissures are appearing everywhere. The ruling party has not been able to improve on its original ratings. Lacking in ideological solidity or political consanguinity, it is held together by a network of patronage and clientelism with its components parts acting with such independence that would have been unthinkable in a cohering and organic party. Betrayed internally, buffeted on all sides by unrelenting hostilities and preyed upon by economic woes, it is hard to see the Tinubu administration commit to a programme of wholesale restructuring of the nation except as a terminal joker. Yet as the nation bleeds profusely from its massive injuries and as international woes undermine Tinubu’s economic gamesmanship, there are many who have come to the conclusion that Nigeria’s legendary run of luck is about to face a most severe test.

April 20, 2025
The Chairman was here, and it was our finest moment

The generous and bounteous spirit of Easter is upon us. Just at a point when we are looking for a magic wand to hold the fractious entities together to enable this gifted nation fulfill its ordained destiny as the haven of the Black race, something comes along to remind us of some glorious possibilities from the past. As usual with the delectable ironies of Easter, it was death, a majestic departure heralding the possibilities of national redemption and renewed hopes in what Scott Fitzgerald, the great American writer, calls the “orgiastic future”.

It was Segun Odegbami, the cultured and cosmopolitan iconic footballer, who drew attention to the developing story. “The chairman is gone!” Segun, aka Big Sheg, Mathematical, Number 7, Omo Ode among other sobriquets, announced in his widely syndicated, fetchingly written column. Just when you were wondering who the chairman could be and if it was another gem from Segun’s endlessly inventive repertoire which has seen him reinvent even himself, it turned out that chairman was none other than the man they called chairman, Christian Chukwu Okoro, the captain of the Green Eagles team that won the 1980 edition of the African Cup of Nations held in Lagos by trouncing Algeria three goals to nil. Chukwu, who was born in January 1951, passed on April 12.

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Snooper joins other Nigerians in mourning this remarkable footballing hero. There was always something of a natural leader about Christian Chukwu. His unruffled mien and astonishing self-possession portended great authority. He was magisterial rather than authoritarian. With his cult of heroic personal example, he drove men under his command to feats of self-surpassing excellence far beyond the remit of their natural talents. This was the secret of the early post-war Rangers team magically transmuted to the Green Eagles and that groundbreaking team of 1980. Yet he remained a humble and immensely clubbable fellow. In 1979, he led the entire team to Segun Odegbami’s wedding memorably captured in Ebenezer Obey’s classic tribute with the late Mutiu Kekere, the master drummer from Oke Ogun, panning away in the background with bucolic relish. May Chukwu’s soul rest in peace.

April 20, 2025
PDP governors throw Atiku under the bus

We, the undersigned leaders and committed members of the former Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) who were part of those instrumental in the historic merger that gave birth to the All Progressives Congress (APC), hereby issue this statement to clarify our unalloyed loyalty to our great party and express firm solidarity with the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR.

Recent misleading narratives suggesting a defection or disaffection among CPC stakeholders are false, mischievous, and should be ignored.

We remain integral to the APC and are fully aligned with its leadership and vision.

We stand firmly with the APC and wish to state, categorically, that we have neither left the APC, nor do we intend to leave.

The CPC bloc remains one of the legacy foundations of the APC and we are resolute in our commitment to the party and its progressive ideals. The APC is our collective project”.

These are the same leaders El Rufai must have convinced VP Atiku had been commandeered, by former President Muhammadu Buhari, to dump the APC because in the words of President Olusegun Obasanjo El Rufai:”has a penchant for lying, for unfair embellishment of stories …”.

By the time former Vice President Atiku Abubakar read the above statement by some core members of the former CPC, reaffirming not only their loyalty to the party, but also expressing their unalloyed support for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, two things must have become obvious to him: that Nasir El Rufai has gamed him like some before him did and also, that the only way he had envisioned to see his marabouts’ prediction of becoming the President of Nigeria has, again, gone up in smoke.

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In order to coral many an unthinking politician to whatever was to become his next obsession, having lost it all in Kaduna State where he had been a luckless governor for 8 years, with a commissioner whose principal responsibility was to, every week, announce the number of persons and houses incinerated by murderous Fulani herders – particularly in Southern Kaduna where original land owners were being deliberately uprooted, and their lands forcefully taken over by the Fulani invaders as they are currently doing in Plateau and Benue states – he had rushed to former President Buhari, solely as a camouflage to be able to claim that the former President has endorsed whatever he might be cooking up in the political space.

Ordinarily, the former Vice President ought to have seen through El Rufai but he is, unfortunately, too far gone in his desperate infatuation with the presidency. If he contests in 2027, it will be his seventh successive attempt.

That he couldn’t properly decipher who El Rufai truly is stands out as a major difference between him and former President Olusegun Obasanjo to whom he introduced the petit gentleman earlier in life.

Unlike him the highly introspective Obasanjo was not, in any way, deceived by El Rufai’s brilliance, something that might have rattled Atiku. Rather, he saw through him and wrote, inter alia, as follows about him in “My Watch” Vol 2; pages 110-112:

“A leader must know the character and ability of his subordinates. Character wise, Nasir has not much going for him. But he is a talented young man who can always deliver under close supervision. So, when Osita Chijoka approached, among others, propping Nasir as my possible successor, believing that whoever I supported would make it, which was a false belief; I did not hesitate to point to Nasir’s naivety and immaturity, talk less of his inability to give honour to whom honour is due.” “My vivid recollection of him is a penchant for lying, for unfair embellishment of stories and his inability to sustain loyalty for long”.

That is the man a respected Atiku now follows everywhere, genuflecting to persons with whom he is not known to be on particularly good terms, politically.

If the Press Statement by those CPC leaders was tangential to Atiku’s 2027 plans, not so the PDP governor’s complete ruination of the alliance talks which had taken him to Peter Obi, Kwankwaso and to the now absolutely politically marginal individuals like one time Nigerian Transport minister, Rotimi Amaechi, in addition to spending stupendous quality time partnering with El Rufai on drawing up plans about how to hijack the SDP from Adewole Adebayo, its wily, and sure-footed, 2023 Presidential candidate.

All this is, however, in character.

Atiku is a master of impunity and always believes he owns whatever group he belongs to.

He did it in the ACN where he was merely done a favour and made the Presidential candidate, but went behind Bola Tinubu and Chief Bisi Akande’s back to, single handedly select a Vice- Presidential candidate.

His obduracy

in having Iyorchia Ayu, a Northerner, retained as PDP Chairman during the 2023 Presidential election at which he, another Northerner was the candidate, arose from the same mindset. Nor can one forget how he ditched governor Nyesom Wike who was recommended by the screening committee as his running mate, as another streak of his annoying arrogance.

Believing that the Northern elders who threatened Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal out of the 2023 election for him would repeat the same thing and flush out Bauchi state governor, Bala Mohammed from contesting the 2027 election, he has gone ahead, allegedly, promising Peter Obi the Vice Presidency of whatever new party he believed he would take the unsettled PDP.

But not so fast, hollered the PDP governors at their meeting in Ibadan this past weekend.

Ordinarily, one would have expected that an elder of Atiku’s standing would be keener in having the party itself restored to some level of normalcy.

But that won’t be Vice President Atiku, whose entire focus is once again solely on the office; if not on the PDP, then on the SDP platform.

Shedding more light on the rejection of any alliance by the governors, host of the Ibadan meeting, and governor of Oyo state, Seyi Makinde, said in a television interview later:”the merger or coalition talks are unknown to the Peoples Democratic party. Nobody can just wake up and draw the party into any arrangement when the party organs do not have a clue as to what is being done”. “We have no clue, whatever, of what is in this coalition. We also do not know whether it is personal, or is being done in the best interest of the party and the people of Nigeria. These are very critical questions.”

But as the Yoruba would say:’aja to ba ma sonu ki gbo fere olode’, meaning that the dog that would get lost, would not hear the hunter’s whistle.

Rather than take things easy, explain matters to members, and seek their concurrence, the former Vice President, who has oscillatted between the following parties in his political odyssey- Peoples Democratic Party (1998–2006; 2007–2014; 2017–present)

Peoples Front of Nigeria (1989)

Social Democratic Party (1989–1993)

United Nigeria Congress Party (1997–1998)

Action Congress (2006–2007)

All Progressives Congress (2014–2017) and contested the presidency six times, would rather contest and fail as usual out of arrogance.

His answer to the governor’s decision was, therefore, to flaunt an alliance that can hardly be so properly described in their face, telling them:”Indeed, the Coalition Train has left the station and would have multiple stops to bring on board Nigerians of all shades”.

Also as an indication that he wont mind parting ways with the PDP in the build-up to the 2027 elections, he went further:”Whatever vehicle that will give us good governance in the future of our children and grandchildren; that is the vehicle we are going to ride on”.

Nigerians have heard words to that effect from VP Atiku since he started contesting for the presidency in 1993. They can now barely wait to hear his usual result, come his historic 7th attempt in 2027.

April 20, 2025
The grand coalition runs into storm

In the past few weeks, particularly since former Kaduna governor Nasir el-Rufai was left politically marooned in the midst of nowhere, some notable politicians from the core North have consistently framed their struggles and ambitions in terms of North versus South. For a while, and despite misgivings, they seemed to be making sense. President Bola Tinubu, they argued vociferously, was running a classic Yorubacentric administration. They summed up that as a result the North was disadvantaged in terms of appointments, and would not back him in 2027. According to the politicians, their backing in 2023 made his victory possible. To wrest power from him, therefore, a grand coalition would be necessary to deny him the votes he got from the North and other hostile or swing states in the South. At the centre of that hypothetical coalition are former vice president Atiku Abubakar, and former governors Aminu Tambuwal and Mallam el-Rufai.

The elephant in the room, however, was the attempt by the political notables to anchor this latter-day Napoleonic Grande Armée on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Indeed, the Alhaji Atiku crowd took it for granted that the PDP was already in the coalition, and all other stray parties they could seduce would easily go along. But last Monday, the PDP Governors’ meeting in Ibadan, Oyo State, scorned that pretentious politicking and insisted with deadpan flourish that while other parties could come under their distressed umbrella, the PDP, as the leading opposition party in Nigeria, was unwilling to dissolve into any kind of extraneous arrangement. Alhaji Atiku had always feared that conclusion, and had equivocated over it repeatedly, unsure where he should go and with whom he should associate in the difficult and hazardous but fading journey to win the presidency. His other notable associates also exercise that fear, recognising that the main PDP, which is still inspired by a few ambitious presidential aspirants like Bauchi’s Governor Bala Mohammed and Oyo’s Governor Seyi Makinde, were reluctant to lend their youthful energies to a faltering presidential aspirant probably now in his dotage.

Shortly after the PDP met in Ibadan and announced their resolve to proudly stand their isolated ground, the wavering former vice president began hemming and hawing about defecting from the PDP. He has not spoken about any destination, but it is instructive that he has also not said anything about ideology or manifesto in his anticipated move to another political party. Alhaji Atiku is known to be ideologically vacuous, but having mastered the art of political nomadism, his ambition to be president will always weigh uppermost in his considerations for political deals. As this column has consistently maintained, Alhaji Atiku probably ran his last race in 2023. However, if he wants to run again, it will not be on the platform of the PDP. He has former Rivers governor and now Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister, Nyesom Wike, to contend with. More, he also has two or three other ambitious aspirants to reckon with, most of whom are tired of his lack of principles, repeated electoral debacles, and his sense of entitlement and superficial affections.

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Mallam el-Rufai and Mr Tambuwal will welcome the PDP Governors’ Forum’s resolve to disavow any coalition. They had impressed it on the former vice president to take a stand regarding which party to associate with and equip for the next poll, but he had consistently pussyfooted. Exasperated by his dissembling, and unnerved by how quickly the next poll appeared to be looming, they hoped that something would happen to force the former vice president’s hand. The PDP governors did just that by finally rubbing his nose in the dirt. Mallam el-Rufai had been engaged in clumsy dalliances with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) for weeks, and he was beginning to feel lonely in that mediocre party. He had sold the party to his fellow disaffected political notables, some of them from the Southwest who could help make headline news, but they were waiting for the coast to clear. Now, he may finally get his wish. Once the cautious Alhaji Atiku throws his lot with the SDP, it is likely that dithering politicians from the North and Southwest would also publicly cast their lots with the same party. The coalition hopes to lure the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) legacy party from the APC into their camp, and probably into the SDP. They have, however, had mixed results, with many leading CPC notables publicly disavowing any defection plot. These are obviously not the best of times for the coalition army.

However, typical of him and his politics, Mallam el-Rufai has personified and projected regional arrogance and ethnic exceptionalism in his political manoeuvres. He will not stop being himself, especially now that he is left stranded and facing the biggest political battle of his life. Alhaji Atiku has hinted of his exit from the PDP, for he understands that the doors and windows are being shut against his ambition. He will probably defect, perhaps in the weeks ahead. Having played a key role in the canonisation of the former vice president as PDP presidential candidate in the 2023 poll, Mr Tambuwal will continue to stand by his idol, though he is loth to stand by principles. For them and all the politicians and leaders threatening to defect from the APC, 2027 is all about winning the presidency and chasing out the APC. It is not a question of what they would do differently or do better; it is a question of gaining the presidency, calling the shots, and distributing patronage. That is why, so far, their politics has brought them little gain and gained little traction. But they will heedlessly follow this beaten path.

Instead of their obsession with gaining the presidency, Alhaji Atiku and his grand coalition ought to keep faith with the PDP, engineer and implement reforms in the former ruling party, refine its ideological and administrative platforms, build a great consensus out of its warring members, hire some of the best PR firms in the world to sell the party to the electorate, and give it the right kind of inspiring leadership everyone would lionise. But the former vice president and some of his associates have hopped from one party to another, alienated subordinates who declined to worship at their shrine, and reduced the art of opposition to name-calling, sloganeering and unrealistic and sometimes ignorant perceptions of Nigeria’s existential dilemmas. They have made token offers to the Labour Party (LP) and its former presidential candidate, Peter Obi, but the gestures have been half-hearted and designed more to assemble known names rather than knit together ideological kindred spirits. The grand coalition, if it ever gets off the drawing board, will cohere only to the extent that no one else but Alhaji Atiku nurses presidential ambition. Mr Obi has tasted the pudding when he ran for office in 2023; it is not clear to what extent his frenzied followers will let him run as a subordinate to anyone, let alone to Alhaji Atiku, nor be willing to indemnify him against another loss at the ballot in 2027.

April 20, 2025
Countrywide killings: Put Nigeria on war footing

In about two tumultuous weeks of insane bloodbath traversing Plateau and Benue States as well as bandit-infested Northwest and Boko Haram-ravaged Northeast, hundreds of people have been killed and dozens of communities sacked and occupied. It is pointless pretending that the conflicts in various parts of the country have been contained or that the situation is still manageable. What is truer is that the conflicts are getting out of hand, even if the death toll has not assumed the humongous proportions they reached under the past administration. In addition, despite rampant analytical equivocation by the political elite from all regions of the country, it is also now abundantly clear that both Nigeria’s security paradigm and military doctrine have become inelastic and incapable of responding adequately to the existential threat facing the nation.

It is time to think outside the box in understanding the foundations of the crises and conflicts and in proffering solutions. The first place to start is finding common ground between the affected states’ and the federal government’s interpretations of the existential threat. While it is conceded that the conflicts differ in origin from state to state, particularly when it involves banditry and ISWAP/Boko Haram insurgency in the Northwest and Northeast respectively, in the fertile lands of the Middle Belt, there is a huge similarity. The states and federal government must call a spade a spade. Responding to the killings in Plateau State for instance, which has gripped the country in the past two weeks for their relentlessness and brutality, the federal government appears undecided what the conflicts’ nature looks like, whether it is ethnic cleansing and genocidal madness or communal, herders-farmers or revenge clashes. Once the conceptual origins of the conflicts are misconstrued, responsibility for containing it may become skewed.

This may be why the federal government’s statement issued after the second round of killings in Plateau State raised some angry concerns in the beleaguered region. In a statement last week, the federal government had said: “We cannot allow this devastation and the tit-for-tat attacks to continue. Enough is enough…The ongoing violence between communities in Plateau State, rooted in misunderstandings between different ethnic and religious groups, must cease. Beyond dealing with the criminal elements of these incessant killings, the political leadership in Plateau State, led by Governor Caleb Mutfwang, must address the root cause of this age-long problem. These problems have been with us for more than two decades. We can no longer ignore the underlying issues.” While it is true that the problem has festered for more than two decades, the reason is due more to the federal government’s incompetent appreciation of the crises as well as bias. For decades the problem persisted; now it has metastasised. Over 60 communities have been sacked in Plateau, renamed, and most of them occupied. It is a replacement strategy, not communal clashes, and certainly not herders-farmers war.

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When the sacking of communities began decades ago, the federal government failed to respond appropriately or reclaim sacked communities for their rightful owners. It was clear that a sinister objective was at play, an objective that has seemed to expand over the years due mainly to the acquiescence or/and ineptitude of the security and law enforcement agencies. After many such attacks, certain associations had come forward to virtually claim responsibility and issue warnings and preconditions for peace. Yet, except on one or two occasions, no one was arrested, no real investigations were ordered, and no one was held to account. Sensing complicity, the attackers had grown bolder, more insensitive, more barbaric, and more audacious. Having metastasised, the problem has dangerously morphed symptomatically into ethno-religious colouration. It is, however, only superficially ethno-religious. It is more fundamentally about land, arable land, and about a weak and dishonest appreciation and application of law and order.

Harassed and bedraggled, Governor Caleb Mutfwang, like many of his predecessors, has spoken from both sides of his mouth. He knows and has argued that the conflict in his state is about land, but unable to wield and project the kind of force needed to deal with the menace and reclaim sacked communities for their rightful owners, he has reluctantly embraced superficial panaceas to stanch the flow of blood. He has talked about outlawing night grazing and limiting the use of motorcycles – just to be seen as doing something forceful to rein in the madness on the Plateau. And unlike the federal government, he has acknowledged that foreign militias, egged on by local sponsors, were mostly behind the mindless attacks. Knocking the foreign militias and their nefarious ideologies into a cocked hat is obviously not the job of states, no matter how dutiful and well-meaning. It is the job of the federal government and its security agencies. It is a job for the heavy lifters, and for the heavy guns. Overthrowing a sinister ideology propagated by foreign elements and their local sponsors is not a job for the small lifters. While the state, as Mr Mutfwang has demonstrated, must be involved and be willing to deploy scarce resources, controlling the influx of dangerous foreign elements and controlling the proliferation of small arms are federal jobs.

Plateau State may be the exemplification of the existential crises inundating Nigeria from the North and Middle Belt, it is by no means the only one. In different forms, the crises are viciously and unremittingly replicated in the Northeast and Northwest theatres. The military have waged long-running and costly wars in both theatres to control the diseases, but they have been bogged down in waste, desultory executions, and infiltrations. At the current rate of progress, the conflicts could last for another decade. That will, however, be indefensible. The federal government might also in frustration begin to shuffle its cards and replace commanders and service chiefs; but it is a measure they have deployed to no effect in the past two decades. If the government is to see the end of these conflicts, it must step on toes, mobilise huge financial resources, give itself a deadline, embark on general mobilisation of enlisted men and women, and put the country on a war footing. The alternative is too bleak to imagine, for the country appears to be nearing an end game with potentially catastrophic consequences.

April 20, 2025
NBA’s conscience for sale?

The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) executives are not chess players. Had they possessed the competence to anticipate an opponent’s moves, they would have been careful not to mess around with Rivers State, a state so lately pugnacious that everyone appears eager to enter into combat. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, it is said. But it was precisely that combustive state that NBA rushed in to receive a N300m gift it claimed had no strings attached. Such benevolence. But who gives such amount to anyone without strings attached? Governor Siminalayi Fubara, it seemed. Yes, the same governor embroiled in internecine warfare with his party leaders and mentors.

Read Also: Defence minister visits attacked communities in Plateau, promises end to killings

NBA is arguably the preeminent bar association in Africa. But, like many other professional associations in Nigeria, it is not averse to receiving poisoned chalices and drinking hemlock. The Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) does it; the Guild of Editors does it; and a number of others. Mendicant, beggarly, unprofessional, entitled, and unmoored, they easily betray their code of ethics and collect all kinds of Greek gifts, selling their consciences and mortgaging their souls. Since nearly every association collects gifts, the NBA, which is supposed to be the leading and guiding conscience of the nation, has also had a history of collecting things. Then they wax lyrical in favour of their benefactors, dissembling over grave national issues such as state of emergency, and behaving like hired guns.

In short, the NBA has no business receiving gifts from anyone. If they realise how important their role in nation-building is, if they recognise how weighty their voice should be, and if they consider the examples and principles they must set for future generations, they would not equivocate over bribes and hosting rights. They should simply return the ‘gift’ to Rivers State and save themselves from a long-drawn controversy and litigation they cannot hope to win. Their hands have been caught in the cookie jar; it is time to show remorse, apologise to the country for imbibing a lousy culture, and quickly pay penance. The controversy is unworthy of them. Now, who knows what they have done in Enugu where they have taken their annual general meeting? Whoring again?

April 20, 2025
LP, NLC: made for crises

After the Supreme Court virtually washed its hands off intraparty crises, particularly leadership and nomination struggles, the Labour Party (LP) and its parent body, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), have renewed their bitter and acrimonious contest for the soul and body of a party which has served as a special multipurpose vehicle for many political candidates and office seekers. The summary of the judgement is that the courts have no jurisdiction to determine who leads a political party. It is an extreme judgement not backed by logic or the spirit of the law; but as at today, it has become the regnant wisdom in political organisations. Before the judgement, the LP was embroiled in a two-way contest for its soul. After the judgement, the contest has become a hydra-headed and bitter and ferocious three-way battle between the factional LP leadership led by Lamidi Apapa, which was earlier elbowed out by NLC toughs, the intransigent current leadership led by Julius Abure, and the usurper leadership led by caretaker Nenadi Usman, a former Finance minister conjured out of nowhere by NLC leaders to head the party.

Pursuant to the Supreme Court judgement of two weeks ago that set aside the recognition of the Abure-led leadership of the LP by the Court of Appeal on the basis of lack of jurisdiction, there have been two interpretations of the judgement since it failed to clarify which leadership is recognised. The NLC claims the judgement automatically recognises the Mrs Usman-led caretaker leadership of the party. This was pure inference. The court made no such declarations. The second interpretation suggests that since the court offers no categorical recognition, the status quo remains until another convention is held sometime in 2026, implying that Mr Abure remains party chairman. But there is yet another tangential interpretation by the Mr Apapa-led, but almost inexistent, LP faction. He claims that since the court implied that the status quo should remain, and since the only known status quo he knows is his own leadership, then it is okay to lay claim to the party leadership. He is being theoretical.

Clearly the three factions will have to fight it out one way or the other. In March 2024, the NLC bullied its way into the party headquarters, ransacking the secretariat and defying the law and resorting to self-help. But in the end, the labour union neither secured the backing of the law nor got the recognition of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Stuck in the middle of nowhere, the NLC gradually crawled back into its lair and waited for court arbitration. That search for arbitration led the combatants to the Supreme Court which paradoxically returned the contenders to square one. Determining what square one is in the LP has become the most confounding puzzle. Mr Apapa’s claim is of course opportunistic. He insists that as the most senior Deputy National Chairman of the party, he was assuming leadership consequent upon the court judgement, and would summon the National Working Committee meeting of the party for Monday, preparatory to planning a convention.

Read Also: LP battle shifts to Anambra

Mr Abure, on the other hand, continues to hold on to the party’s leadership position while threatening to impose stiff sanctions on anyone attempting to undermine the party. He specifically lambasted former LP presidential candidate Peter Obi and Abia State governor Alex Otti for flouting party rules and regulations, thus undermining the peace, unity and integrity of the party. Mr Abure and some members of the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) affirmed their control of the party organs also based on their interpretation of the Supreme Court judgement. But confident that it had the upper hand by virtue of the same court judgement, the Mrs Usman-led caretaker committee summoned the party’s factional NEC to a meeting at the Transcorp Hilton, thereby avoiding the ugly scenario of having to physically battle for the keys of the party’s headquarters. Nothing of substance was discussed at the meeting regarding the leadership and unity of the party.

With the case now out of the courts, it is going to be a test of wills between the three factions of the party. The propaganda war has already begun. Combatants are testing the waters by holding meetings, making declarations, and watching how the pendulum swings. The situation is not helped by the bullying tactics of the NLC which conflates unionism with political partisanship. NLC chairman Joe Ajaero worsens the problem by his impetuousness and cantankerousness. More damningly, there is no one of diplomatic stature in the party, not Mr Obi, not Dr Otti, not Olumide Akpata, not anyone as a matter of fact with the leverage and negotiating skills to bring all contending parties to the table to hammer out a deal. Everyone is busy threatening everyone. While Alhaji Apapa is scavenging for political carrion on the sidelines, and Mr Abure faces existential battle and is spitting fire and venom against usurpers, Mrs Usman is attempting to build something on nothing in alliance with the tactless Mr Obi and the guileless Dr Otti. The LP will for the foreseeable future be locked in a stalemate until someone in the party wakes up to wisdom. But finding that one wise man in that ill-fated party is akin to searching for a needle in a haystack.

April 13, 2025
The perfunctory protests

Last week, the country woke up to hear that some agitators will be holding a ‘Take back the country’ protests in many cities. Led by Omoyele Sowore, a politician and media proprietor, the action, which hinted at some display of violence sometime in the future, perhaps August, was to get the government to end the Rivers state of emergency, annul the Cybercrime Act, and stop the demolition of properties at Oworonsoki in Lagos. Disappointed that the protests were uneventful, the organisers promised that when they reconvene in August, they would ‘shake Nigeria and the world’.

They needn’t bother. The world is uninterested in Nigeria, concerned as they are with bigger fishes in US president Donald Trump and his tariff wars as well as the Gaza nightmare. If the world is to pay attention to Nigeria, it would be if the country became another Somalia or Sudan, which is probably what the protesters long for. What took place last Monday was protest for protest sake, an action probably fuelled by donors. Why should the country be bothered about Oworonsoki demolitions, and what is it about the Cybercrime Act that appears repugnant to law and order? And for Rivers State, where the executive and legislature were locked in a mortal battle for survival in the midst of spiraling pipeline vandlalisation, what alternatives did the protesters proffer?

Read Also: INEC ward delineation: Protests escalate as Itsekiri shut down oil facility in Delta

Youth angst in Nigeria is real. But so it is in the rest of the world. As events in Asia, America, and Europe are showing, if Nigerian youths and the political opposition continue to see national events and crises from the cracked prism of rigid political dualism, rather than agitate for inclusion and political conciliation, the country, already threatened by massive insecurity, will explode. If that happens, it is the youths that will be consumed, and the world will not give a damn. Instead of threatening to shake the world, protesters should shake their common sense to see how national crises can be safely combated or mediated.

April 13, 2025
If Tinubu had caved in (2)

From his birthday remarks, President Bola Tinubu disclosed he was close to quitting the 2023 presidential race. But he didn’t quit, and for reasons he has not fully explained. One day he will. The first part of this piece examined the spiritual dimension of the president talking and speaking his way to victory in a race that was loaded against him in every area and ramification. In retrospect, and despite the divisive and hypothetical postulations of his leading opponents in the race, Nigeria is fortunate that the president stayed in the race, won, and assumed office. Scores of former leaders and leading politicians desperately worked to get the victory annulled or the swearing-in abandoned, but former president Muhammadu Buhari and eventually the country stayed the course.

Two major factors indicate how fortunate the country is that President Tinubu held out and eventually won. It does not matter whether he was hated before the poll or is still hated after, nor whether some analysts rate his economic and political measures and interventions high or low and disastrous. What matters is whether his two main opponents in that race would have added value to Nigeria on the scale and existential issues President Tinubu’s election has done. Secondly, it also matters that he is idiosyncratically suited to taking the huge and seismic measures needed to reposition the economy, which measures his predecessors had scorned. Consider, for instance, what the election of former vice president Atiku Abubakar or former Anambra governor Peter Obi would have meant for Nigeria had President Tinubu abandoned the race. No matter how the 2023 race is analysed, Alhaji Atiku would have won if President Tinubu did not run. He had better network than Mr Obi, had selected a Christian running mate, thus rendering the same-faith factor nugatory, and was far more experienced than his theorising opponent. Mr Obi would have stood no chance.

But much more than that, what would have made President Tinubu’s exit from the race impactful for Nigeria is what an Atiku presidency would mean for the country. He tried to galvanise northern support by appealing to ethnic sentiment, a factor he has not quite abandoned in his persistent desire to re-enter the race in 2027. Had he run and won, he would have succeeded another Fulani man who presided over Nigeria for eight years with devastating consequences for the Middle Belt and the South. His presidency, whether Nigerians like it or not, would have reinforced not only the myth of Fulani leadership over Nigeria, but also the myth of the indispensability of the endorsement of a few oligarchs. President Tinubu shattered those myths, in addition to consigning the religious balance requirement to the dustbin. Worse, an Atiku presidency, which would probably have run for another eight years, would have destroyed the confidence and psyche of other aspiring political leaders from the South and made them and other minority groups obsequious and defeated.

As it stands, any aspirant who understudies how the late MKO Abiola and President Tinubu crunched the political numbers and ran their races, and that aspirant perhaps does even better than the two eminent politicians, would stand a good chance of winning. Had Atiku run and won, it would have taken an epiphany sometime in the far future to appreciate that as a matter of fact, no northern or southern politician could win office without receiving substantial support from other regions. President Buhari tried it three times and failed because his campaign was insular and based on the unfounded myth of overwhelming northern electoral numbers. President Buhari had that regional dominance but still failed, until he reached out and expanded his horizon. Had President Tinubu exited the race and Alhaji Atiku won, that salient and all-important geopolitical dynamics would have been lost in the tumult of the race. Now, it is abundantly clear that President Tinubu, like him or hate him, understood how to win the presidential race, a lesson particularly useful for future southern aspirants, and humbling for future northern aspirants who can’t draw the right examples.

In 2027, Alhaji Atiku will still not stand a chance, assuming he becomes a standard-bearer, and not even if he promised the Mandela option of a single term. His politics are too jaded, and his worldview unfortunately too parochial. Likewise, Mr Obi stood no chance in 2023 and will stand no chance in 2027, despite his risible politics of trying to be all things to every region and every person. His politics was fatally damaged in the last presidential race when he framed the election as a religious war. The electorate will confront him with his fervour if he joins forces with Alhaji Atiku.

Read Also: Okpebholo, Edo PDP clash over Tinubu’s re-election campaign kick-off

There is yet a second calamity Nigeria was spared by the participation and victory of President Tinubu in the last poll. The pains that accompany his economic measures may prevent many Nigerians from valuing his boldness, while his appointments may incidentally stoke ethnic apprehensions and anger proponents of ethnic exceptionalism, but there is no denying the fact that his controversial measures have completely rejigged the fundamentals of the Nigerian economy and positioned it for extraordinary growth in the years ahead. The measures have started to yield dividends, particularly in terms of opening up the economy and reclaiming lost grounds, but the accompanying early pains had made some Nigerians to be dismissive about his person and policies. Yet, neither Alhaji Atiku nor Mr Obi, who both unreflectingly confessed that they would not have embraced such measures, would dare reverse the policies should they win in 2027. Of course they won’t run, let alone win, but it bears restating that the tectonic shifts the Nigerian economy is witnessing today, and enduring stoically, would never have occurred had President Tinubu abandoned the race as he hinted.

Today, and going forward, Nigerians may be acculturating to the fact that anyone one with enough savvy and grit can run for the presidency. President Tinubu, much more than Chief Abiola, shattered so many myths and made that realisation possible. His staying in the race and winning it also shattered the myth that a president must be a captive or stooge of shadowy principalities both to run for office and revert to them for support over difficult and controversial policies, especially economic policies. President Tinubu is turning the economy inside out in a way neither Alhaji Atiku nor Mr Obi could have dared. Thank God for that. This does not of course mean that all his policies are infallible or that the president himself has become a mythical figure. It is, however, important to note that his presidency has greatly affected Nigerian politics in ways no one else could have done. How he reinforces the great highlights of his presidency to leave the country and the people changed forever will depend on what he does in the years ahead. For now, he must have the satisfaction of knowing that his staying in the race in 2023 has done for the country what his exit could never have done. It is a milestone worthy of reminiscing at 73. He needs many more such milestones, including remaking the country’s structural foundations, to cement his place in history, whether his policies are understood and appreciated now or not.

•Concluded

April 13, 2025
The bloodletting resumes

Even before the anger and the remorse died down over the Uromi killings in Edo State, Plateau State erupted in an unrelated orgy of violence that claimed dozens of lives. Then came the unpalatable confirmation from Borno State officials that the Boko Haram wars had recrudesced, with three local government areas unreachable by the state government. On the other side of Nigeria, to the Northwest, bandits have continued to lay spectacular siege to scores of communities in the region, taxing, levying, abducting and maiming hapless indigenes. In all this, as far as the victims are concerned, the government has been caught flatfooted.

Read Also: Tinubu charges heads of education agencies to protect integrity of sector

Two hypotheses have been bandied around for the recrudescence. One, that the government has continued to deploy weak and ineffective security paradigm which prioritises defence and occasional attacks, instead of massive and unrelenting offensives until the enemies are vanquished. Two, that as the 2027 election cycle draws near, some enemies and political opponents are sworn to make the government look weak, incapable and unelectable. The truth may contain elements of the two hypotheses. However, the government was not elected to find excuses, no matter how genuine, but to deploy all state resources to extirpate the cancer. The current security paradigm is clearly not working. It should be replaced. Battle plans need to be drawn and executed relentlessly, without pause or hesitation until the objectives are realised.

Insecurity has spread to all corners of the country, and the people are frustrated and angry. If the centres of provocation are not dealt with in all the regions, the people may brush the government aside and resort to self-help. The fact staring everybody in the face is that the country is on edge. A little push would set it on a point of no return. It is time the government got fed up, set timelines, and mobilise the country for a final push. The country is not contending with skirmishes or minor provocations; it is at war. Let the government, therefore, put the country on a war footing and mobilise thousands of young men willing to fight to end the bleeding. It is time to end the pussyfooting.

April 13, 2025