The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

PRAYERS FOR THE NEW BABY

(Based on an actual video story)

Welcome, our New Baby

Welcome here to our corner of the country

Son of the tiger

Son of the lion

Son of the elephant who shakes

The forest like a mighty storm

Son of the crocodile

Who munches the minnows

Son of the towering iroko

Who dwarfs the lowly trees

Son of the moon which

Beams its smiles on chosen places

Son of thunder which

Drowns the wails of rightless folks

Here, for you, is water

Friend of all, foe to none

Here is honey

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Whose song will sweeten your path

Here is kolanut

For long life and ceaseless celebrations

And here now

I put this pen in your hand

You will grow and become

A President or Governor or Senator

Or owner of big banks

Or baron of oil blocks

With this pen, you too

Will scoop your share of the national booty

Come back home

And build a golden castle

Join those hawks in our ravaging sky

Fly back here with a chick within your claws

March 30, 2025
Obasanjo, Jonathan, Soyinka on Rivers emergency

If newspaper headlines are to be believed, three eminent Nigerians were reportedly among those who made fiery comments on President Bola Tinubu’s state of emergency proclamation in Rivers State. The headlines were, however, strident and difficult to correlate with the tone and nuances of their views on the controversial subject. In fact, in the case of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, the one many Nigerians love to despise for his disdain for consistency and truth, it is difficult to understand from his brief remarks at the Emeka Ihedioha 60th birthday colloquium in Abuja where he spoke pointedly about the state of emergency in Rivers. From the time he took the microphone and defused tension by joking with the compere, to the very end when he spoke soberly and frankly about the fate of liberal democracy, there does not seem to be anywhere he talked about Rivers State directly or even obliquely. He generally limited himself to the colloquium’s theme which addressed Africa’s ‘failing democracy’.

Chief Obasanjo spoke about democracy not just failing, but actually dying, considering how deeply conceptually flawed it had been almost from the beginning. He called for definitional exactitude, insisting that it was disingenuous to expect Africa, going by its long and illustrious history, to practise with any degree of success Western liberal democracy. He may be overly simplistic to suggest that corruption had become the bane of democracy, but at least he embraces this correlation without throwing his customary tantrums. And though he regarded democracy as conceptually weakened by borrowed traditions, he felt no sense of urgency to do anything about it for the eight years he spent in office. It is also not clear why he leaves the job of fashioning African democracy to unidentified experts, while failing to provide at least a skeletal rubric for general understanding. Then he finally lathered his remarks with wisecracks and almost fooled everyone by doting on Mr Ihedioha, yes the same Mr Ihedioha, former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives between 2011 and 2015, and for almost a year Imo State governor between 2019 and 2020.

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On his own, and complete with foreign proverbs and other literary ornaments, former president Goodluck Jonathan also offered his perspective on the emergency matter on the prodding, he said, of the people who wanted him to say something. Two Saturdays ago, as Chairman of the Haske Satumari Foundation Colloquium, a foundation that focuses on promoting social change and empowerment through diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), he remarked: “Of course, what is happening in Nigeria today regarding the situation in Rivers State is like an Indian proverb which says that if somebody is really sleeping, you can easily wake up that person, but if someone is pretending to sleep, it will be difficult to wake the person up. They are pretending to sleep and waking up such a person is extremely difficult. Whatever happens in a country, the decisions taken by the executive arm of government, the parliament and the judiciary affects everybody. Whatever we do affects everybody, and if we must build a nation for our children and grandchildren, no matter how painful it is, we must try to do what is right.”

Characteristically, the media blew his remarks out of proportion, suggesting that he had denounced state of emergency. It is true that he neither praised it nor considered it the right or appropriate response to the Rivers crisis, but the stridency insinuated into his speech was simply impalpable. Instead, he waffled, perhaps torn between placating his Ijaw kindred and unsure whether to denounce the Tinubu administration. In his opinion, after arming his point of view with an Indian proverb, Dr Jonathan blamed everybody, rather than one arm of government (presumably the executive). Unlike Chief Obasanjo, however, Dr Jonathan was more homiletical as he admonished everyone to recognise that all Nigerians bear the consequences of bad governance. The treatment given holders of Nigerian passports, he summed up, is perfect proof of how Nigerians incompetently conduct their affairs.

If newspapers and the social media could not handle the less nuanced remarks of Dr Jonathan, they fared much worse in handling the deeply nuanced remarks of Prof. Wole Soyinka on the same Rivers subject. He was quoted as blasting, condemning or kicking against the state of emergency. But here is what he said. “If it is constitutionally right, then I think it is about time we sat down and amended the constitution to ensure that it operates as a genuine federal entity. The government is over-centralised. The debate will continue on whether this (state of emergency) was, in the first place, a wise decision, but in terms of fundamental principles, I believe this goes against the federal spirit of association. I find that the constitution has placed too much power in the hands of the president. The system we are operating right now is not the best for a pluralistic society like ours. That is a fundamental principle I have always held…The federal spirit of association is a cardinal principle and, for that reason, some of us have called again and again for a national conference to really accord ourselves an authentic people’s constitution. Right now, in principle, this action is against the federal imperative.”

The eminent professor took a more structural rather than legalistic approach to the crisis. It was only Daily Trust newspaper that captured that nuance on its front page. The professor did not pronounce on the rightness or wrongness of state of emergency, for he was unaware of the whole facts of the case. He acknowledged that in a democracy a state of emergency proclamation was both an aberration and overkill, but in the case of Rivers, and without prejudice to what the constitution provides, the crisis, he believed, beckoned for a reconsideration of the country’s founding principles to help procure sound federal principles and arrangements. He also spoke about federalism as an abstract concept and made reference to what he believed was the unfettered power located in the presidency. And speaking directly about the state of emergency proclamation, he summed it up ‘in principle’ as negating the ‘federal imperative’. The professor was wise not to get bogged down with the legal interpretation of the constitutional provisions regarding state of emergency. But the media assumed they knew where he was headed.

March 30, 2025
Rivers Emergency: Fubara misses the point

Suspended Rivers State governor Siminalayi Fubara has continued to act and speak as though he voluntarily stepped down from office for a few days or weeks. He needs to be reminded that he has been duly suspended for six months in the first instance with the backing of the constitution, partly because he was central to the state’s multidimensional political crisis. He had been pressured by former governor Nyesom Wike since 2023, barely three months after he assumed office, but his predecessor had limited himself to talking up a storm. On the contrary, Mr Fubara had been actively engaged in acting the storm. The rhetorician could of course not be suspended, for he was not the one who directly governs the state; that punishment was reserved for the habitué of the storm, the governor himself.

Last week, this column argued that Mr Fubara was actively undermining the Supreme Court judgement which ordered him to take certain actions to align governance in the state with the law and the constitution. He was unwilling to heed the judgement, believing that he had more support than he actually did, and could create events and circumstances potent enough to tie the hands of the federal government while he gets away with murder. His actions and words, not to talk of his feints as well as the provisions of the constitution, led this column to support the proclamation of a state of emergency in Rivers. The column also warned that if he hoped to return to office, he would need the circumspection he had been incapable of showing. Alas, Mr Fubara and his moribund administration may be too far gone to be salvaged. His suspension is for six months in the first instance; it may last for much longer, assuming he does not talk himself into jail as he seems bent on doing.

The suspended governor denies the allegation of sponsoring militants to blow up crude oil pipelines, an action that tantamount to levying war against the country; but he has been unable to deconstruct his statement to youths at a public function in Port Harcourt to wait for instructions over the political impasse in the state, particularly after the House of Assembly renewed their impeachment plans against him and his deputy. The federal government was not fooled. Next, Mr Fubara was at Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, where he and his supporters tried to rally the Ijaw to his side, thereby attempting to paint the Rivers crisis in ethnic colours. Then, as if playing a script, he attended a church in Port Harcourt to demonstrate he was unfazed by the whole tumult. He obviously hopes that he and his supporters can rally the state, neighbouring states, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or a faction of it, and possible the rest of the antagonistic public and country to defeat the presidency and end or shorten the state of emergency.

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By now, even his diehard supporters must be having second thoughts. Like everyone else, they have had enough time to study the constitution and come to some tentative conclusions indicating that the proclamation of a state of emergency in Rivers was in line with the constitution. The constitution may be silent on a number of things, including suspending governors and legislatures, but no matter how the document is read and interpreted, it is hard not to agree with the proclamation. Mr Fubara was the problem; he allowed the pressures on him by external bodies to expose the beast in him, leading him to compromise governance and predispose the state to violence of unimaginable magnitude. So far, there is nothing about him that enables him to reflect on what went wrong, what he didn’t do right, and how best he could have managed the crisis. He believes he has managed to deflect public anger to his sworn enemy, Mr Wike, and successfully covered his own appalling lack of judgement, not to say apocalyptic predilection for violence and mayhem. He still goes about thinking he can produce a violent endgame for the federal administration from the Rivers imbroglio.

In all this, Mr Fubara does not seem to realise he is in exile. That he has not been leaned on by the security services is an acknowledgement by the federal government that all efforts must be geared towards retaining a semblance of democratic governance in Rivers. Ideally, since there cannot be two heads of state or sheriffs in a polity, one must leave town. But the government has indulged him by turning a blind eye to his nomadic escapades and posturing. But their exasperations may start to show soon. He has refused to keep silent and appears ready to defend himself at every turn, even if he must lie in the process. Since he has chosen to be imprudent and sanctimonious, it may be time for the government to open the books of his dealings over the burnt and demolished House of Assembly buildings, and perhaps too his not-so-hidden fraternisation with militants during which he forgot himself and acted like he was not governor of Rivers. He appears impervious to learning, and he does not seem to recognise that he is in the wilderness. A time in the wilderness calls for deep reflections and study, the rebuilding of reputation, and finding the formula to control his moods and mollify his unnatural rage.

Mr Fubara is an accountant, and there are indications he is a competent professional. That makes him a numbers man, and most numbers men, as everyone knows, cannot be trusted to philosophically outthink their opponents. They may toy with mathematical scenarios, and be adept at jigsaw arithmetic puzzles, but they are often incapable of projecting the nuances of leadership that deal with the nexus between politics, economics and society. What the Rivers crisis has revealed is a governor unable to rationally respond to complex pressures from enemies or the blandishments of friends. He hated one with a passion, and succumbed to the other with amateurish glee. With a chaotic mind seething with mischief, it is unclear whether he can appreciate that his time in the wilderness, an affliction as it were, affords him the opportunity for soul cleansing. He needs to calmly analyse his predicament, and find answers to the political puzzles that have projected him as a neophyte. Despite the tons of advice given him by many state elders and columnists on how to respond to the situation that assails him, it appears sadly unlikely that he possesses both the gumption and the willingness to make amends. He will continue to talk nineteen to the dozen, obfuscate as much as possible, twist stories and tell tall ones with proactive and effective propaganda, and continue fighting without knowing how to stop.

From all indications, the state of emergency in Rivers State will last a full six months, with the distinct possibility of an extension. The security services have let Mr Fubara run riot with plots since last year, and he has not relented. While, the House of Assembly has sensibly kept silent, and Mr Wike, whether pleased with the state of emergency or not, has let off only muted groans, the suspended governor has not let bad enough alone, as the Americans say. He has managed to get embroiled in another bitter and needless controversy with the former Rivers State Head of Service, George Nwaeke, in which again he has demonstrated a galling lack of capacity to measure his words and tame his emotions. Convinced that the public seemed to be on his side, and certain in his mind that he has enough time to make the emergency proclamation difficult to manage, he has engaged in public demonstrations of show of confidence and imperturbability. A faction of the PDP and a few leaders of the Labour Party as well as haters of the Tinubu administration have viewed the whole brouhaha from the partisan angle, in the same depressing manner top political leaders are embracing ill-mannered youths disseminating rant campaigns or truth-or-dare contests on social media. The whole environment is being badly and irretrievably polluted.

The federal government and its security agencies should earn their pay by intelligently responding to the many subtle and multifaceted existential threats facing the country. Too many law breakers have been indulged in the name of democracy, including those advocating revolutions to overthrow the same constitution whose protection they feel entitled to. Because of the spontaneous fury that erupts on social media, mostly anchored on ignorance of the socio-economic and political conditions the new administration inherited in 2023, the government has been reluctant to clamp down on lawbreakers. No thanks to the social media, the country is today teetering on the brink. And no thanks to a warped and fearful interpretation of what democracy connotes in these parts, discipline is breaking down, and politicians like Mr Fubara as well as men, women and youths of all classes and persuasions are taking advantage of what they sense is the government’s weakness and timidity. Rivers State sole administrator, Ibok-Ete Ibas, a retired naval admiral, may not have time to probe the suspended governor, but he needs to invite him to shed light on some of the discrepancies clearly evident in his administrations dealings. If Mr Fubara likes to talk, including directly intimidating the wife of the former Head of Service through a phone call, they should give him matters to ponder. After all, for the next six months, he does not have immunity. But he can also contest that in court, as his supporters are futilely contesting the proclamation of a state of emergency.

March 30, 2025
LGS, governors and Supreme Court

Months after the Supreme Court gave judgment against states maintaining leverage over local government finances through the state joint accounts with LGs, the conundrum of LG autonomy is yet to be resolved. The Supreme Court judgment all but gave autonomy to the LGs by completely delinking them from any financial controls erected by governors. But both the judgment and the bid for financial autonomy have appeared to falter.

Firstly, the states outrightly resisted the push for autonomy, until Justice minister Lateef Fagbemi threatened them for deliberately and provocatively undermining the Supreme Court judgment. No governor seemed eager to be hauled a second time before the Supreme Court for contempt of court. Secondly, after sensible avoiding open defiance, the governors sought for more time to resolve some technical issues plaguing the account opening at the CBN. Whether those technical details have been fully and satisfactorily resolved or even partially resolved, no governor has volunteered to any explanation.

But last week, the governors leapfrogged over all the loose talk and considerations regarding those technical details that needed explication and instead jumped into another stratagem to halt the delinking of the LG accounts. The states now want the federal government to enable the LGs to operate their commercial bank accounts instead of compelling them to open new and ‘unconstitutional’ accounts with CBN. They cite legal and constitutional provisions to back their claims. They are partly right to caution against forcing the LGs into opening accounts with the CBN, but it is nevertheless clear that the governors are clutching at any straw to stifle the LG financial autonomy judgment which the court granted.

Thirdly, other than a few states prepared to sustain their defiance of the Supreme Court judgment and to demonstrate their opposition to LG autonomy, most states have been clever at showing their hands. They remain unconvinced that the LGs can run themselves well or avoid bankruptcy if given autonomy. They fear that once LGs enjoy financial autonomy, it is just one or two steps away from open defiance of the governors. In fact, a few states, such as Anambra, have begun to make laws for administration of LGs as provided for in the constitution, but which cleverly subvert the Supreme Court judgment. The talk about letting the LGs maintain their commercial bank accounts is merely a red herring.

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At bottom, all the controversies about LG financial autonomy are a reflection of the contradictions contained in a few provisions of the 1999 constitution. The controversies will continue and the struggle for influence and control will not abate until the country is restructured to enable financial federalism on a scale that matches or even supersedes the federal arrangement between the federal government and the states. If the country does not get it right regarding the federating tiers, the acrimony will persist.

The safe bet is that governors will find extenuations to subjugate the LGs. One way they do this is to ensure that the subversion begins at the level of electing LG officials. Thereafter, with all or nearly all the seats safe in the hands of their political party, they will dare any of the elected LG officials to cross or defy party lines or discipline. Usually, the LG officials are too glad to be elected than care about judicial or even constitutional niceties.

If the effort of the federal government to ensure that development permeates the local government is not to go up in smoke, they will have to go the route of general political restructuring. Piecemeal selection of core constitutional issues and challenges will only deliver temporary reliefs. So far, the governors are winning, despite the federal government’s comprehensive victory at the Supreme Court. If the governors manage to sustain their victory for a little longer or dither about implementation until close to the general election, they may get away with a largely and deliberately compromised Supreme Court judgement. In fact, the federal government is going to discover that it is alone in this matter. Some few LGs may make a lot of noise, but they will not let the noise develop into a huge fight. Since the state legislatures still make laws for the running of the LGs, it will be a tool dreaded by the elected LG officials, particularly the chairmen, whose suspension could easily be procured by a combative and unforgiving governor.

March 30, 2025
FG’s infirm approach to law enforcement

Though law enforcement is a key driver of societal stability, the federal government has not always applied it proactively and imaginatively to stem the tide of indiscipline and chaos in the country. The Rivers state imbroglio could have been prevented if the law enforcement agencies had been diligent in carrying out their responsibilities. If a state of emergency was proclaimed, it was because anarchists took for granted the weakness or dithering of federal law enforcement agencies like the police and secret service.

The Rivers political crisis, which culminated in the proclamation of a state of emergency, began with antagonists talking tough, armed with incendiary statements and threats of unleashing mayhem. The police engaged in handwringing at that stage. Then stories of impeachment began wafting across the state. There was of course little the law enforcement agents could do when it got to that point. But immediately the House of Assembly was torched, it was time for the security agencies to bare their fangs, especially because everyone seemed to know who did it or led the operation. In fact, names were mentioned.

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But the police merely let it be known that they were looking for the culprits. Meanwhile the alleged masterminds were retrieved from public view and protected by the state government. Worse, one of them was rewarded with highly prized public appointment in the full view of law enforcement agents who saturated the Government House. Still no arrests were made. With such encompassing laxity, was it surprising that the Rivers crisis gradually worsened from 2023 to 2025 until a state of emergency was proclaimed? Reference the following proverb of unknown origin: “For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the message was lost. For want of a message the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.” A stitch in time, they say, saves nine. It is time the federal government and its law enforcement agencies applied themselves diligently to their work. As the Rivers crisis and those who call for coup or revolution have shown, the consequences of pussyfooting are hard to quantify.

March 30, 2025
Democracy, dysfunction and sustainability

One of the strange paradoxes of modern democracy is the fact that those who are incapable of mastering its tough habits and finer rituals have taken to teaching its practice. As Oscar Wilde once famously observed, “those who are incapable of learning have taken to teaching”. It is straight out of the theatre of African magic when anti-democratic bullies take to the bully pulpit exhorting and exulting about the sweet wonders of democracy. But then it is said that in the last days of civilization as we know it, several strange occurrences will test the patience of humanity and task their sanity.

These are not the best of times for liberal democracy. In the west, where democracy derived its latest franchise and mandate from after the triumph of capitalism, there has been a determined assault on its fundamental canons and wise assumptions from extreme far right groups and ultranationalist movements bent on torpedoing the whole system. France barely survived a rightwing civilian putsch which only receded when center-right and leftwing elements coalesced in a precarious coalition which has not been seen since the inauguration of the Gaullist Republic in 1958. In Germany which has not found the Socialist East Germany rump it swallowed in 1989 very digestible, a rightwing party has just swept into power. In Britain after a series of inept and corrupt rightwing rulers, the people sent the Conservative government packing and elected Keith Stammer and the Labour Party. The Poland of Viktor Orban does not need any prompting and Italy is about to catch up with them all.

But it is America, the home of modern democracy, that is leading the charge against liberal democracy since the return of Donald Trump to the White House and the resurgence of a rabidly xenophobic rightwing nationalism that threatens to upend the whole notion of American Exceptionalism based on the romantic idealism of its founding fathers. To be sure, Trump gave enough notice and declaration of intent. But nobody thought this was possible in the land of the Mayfair fathers who forsook and foreswore everything in Europe to found a new nation based on the alienable rights of all humanity to political and economic freedom. Neither did many, as it is turning out, foresee a fundamental shift in the mood of core America particularly among offspring of later immigrants from Europe who had been nursing a smouldering resentment against the East coast establishment with their liberal namby-pamby and global do-goodism which has cost America dearly in their estimation. It is the return match of ancient European feudalism and American neo-feudalism.

   Perhaps it is our brains that need a fundamental reset. We always put the cart before the horse in Africa . Democracy is a product of rising prosperity and declining poverty, not increasing global scarcity. No democracy can survive mass immiseration and biblical want for long. People do not continue to vote on the promise of food but on the presence of victuals. It is an ideological overreach. Scarcity brings out the worst in any people. But if gold can rust, what will iron do? African neo-colonial nations with their seething multi-ethnic and multi-cultural polarities were not founded as organic nations but as outlets for metropolitan goods and as garrison emporia. Like all occupied territories, force is the organizing principle central to the maintenance of the structures of domination whether in its colonial format or postcolonial incarnation. This is why rigging of elections which is the perpetuation of electoral violence in its pure or adulterated form is often the leitmotif of all postcolonial nations. Unless the unpromising and unpropitious circumstances conspire to throw up an authentic and organic nationalist elite that will drive development and the deepening of the democratic process, everything will be left to chancing and opportunistic gaming. This is why most post-independence African nations, with the exception of a few, are prone to military coups, ethnically and religiously motivated army uprising, despotic annulment of properly conducted elections, the rise of the selectorate over the electorate, civilian power grab and state closures euphemistically referred to as state capture with a delinquent and polarized political elite cheering and egging them on or urging Armageddon to visit the nation as the case may be.

Let us now take a random audit of this African graveyard of liberal democracy. Apart from one-party autocracies fronting as pseudo-democracies such as Algeria, Tunisia, Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda, Congo Brazzaville, Cameroon, Angola, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Togo, there are at least seven full-blown military regimes on the continent: Egypt, Sudan, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Gabon. In Cote D’Ivoire after partitioning and a civil war fought over national identity, succession and his own ethnic origins, Alisane Quattara is enjoying an unconstitutional third term and yet all is quiet and placid on the Cocody front. This is because the warring elite factions have all been pacified. Nobody now remembers that the former president, Laurent Gbagbo, has quietly returned to the country after serving out his term for crimes against humanity at The Hague and is enjoying the remunerations of a former president.

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In Zimbabwe, only a palace coup engineered with panache and precision by the old military wing of ZANU could forcibly retire the wizard of Harare, Robert Mugabe, having ruled his nation continuously since independence in 1979. Without this timely military intervention, Zimbabwe was on the verge of anarchy and chaos as Robert Mugabe was bent on installing his wife as his successor. Forty years after “liberating “his nation, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is still calling the shots in Kampala. So is Paul Kagame, the king of Kigali, who is still ruling the waves thirty two years after genocide and civil war. The Eyadema clan has ruled Togo continuously since 1967 and between them Mobutu and the Kabilas ruled the Democratic Republic of Congo for almost sixty years. In Equatorial Guinea, the Nguema brood has been in power since independence. Forty six years after executing his uncle, Colonel Teodoro Nguema Mbasogo rules the nation with a tight fist. Paul Biya has been at it in Cameroon since 1982.

It is only in countries such as Botswana, Namibia, Senegal, Ghana, Zambia and Tanzania that far-sighted nationalist elite formations have been able to buck the trend by continuous practice of the habits and rituals of democracy. In almost all these countries, one can see the handiwork and foundation laid by visionary founding fathers. Leopold Sedar Senghor and Julius Nyerere were Christian minorities in predominantly Muslim countries, yet they were able to lay the foundation of good governance and development in their countries. The same thing happened with Sam Nujoma’s Namibia and Seretse Khama’s Botswana. In Ghana following the footpath of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, succeeding generations of politicians have managed to paper over the cracks of ethnicity and religion by reverting to the old Nkrumah versus J.B Danquah fault lines of leftwing and rightwing politics. Between the two tendencies and since the advent of JJ Rawlings, power has managed to oscillate about four times without threatening the foundation of the nation.

Nigeria represents the best prospects of democracy on the continent as well as the possibility of its most fatal declension. Nigeria has enjoyed twenty six years of unbroken civilian rule and democratic experimentation. Given the turbulent antecedents of the nation, there is a lot to cheer about this development. We must avoid the pitfalls of self-constricting pessimism as well as the promiscuous optimism of democracy as a permanent work in progress. Sometimes the ripening of the banana fruit also coincides with the onset of irreversible rot. The longevity of civilian rule can also coincide with manifest institutional retardation and dysfunction. With its size, humongous population, stupendous human and national resources, its countervailing ethnicities and religions, Nigeria ought to be a showpiece and poster-boy of a dynamic democracy. This contradictory locus of power also makes it impossible for any hegemonic group to maintain their hold on power for long. The obverse of the coin means that once a government is installed, it is subject to continuous assault and withering criticism by hostile interlocutors thus stalling its momentum and impairing its concentrative capacity. Like a bear at bay savaged and bloodied by uncountable hounds the government spends all its time in self-defence and in warding off frantic attacks aimed at overwhelming it, leaving little room for creative governance and deep innovative thinking. This over-politicization of the polity does not conduce to thorough going economic reform or a determined overhaul of the ailing political system.

   Where circumstances conspire to throw up somebody who has not been endorsed by the old selectorate, all hell is let loose from the day of swearing in. New conspiracies, formation of new alliances, memoranda for new mega-parties and other satanic plots too dark for daylight spring up on a daily basis. Such is the atmosphere of fear and climate of insecurity that the government often succumbs to paranoid fantasies. When you are subjected to relentless psychological terrorism by masters of the game something is bound to give eventually. Leading the charge of new “activists” are former presidents, vice-presidents and top government officials who ought to know better than to perpetually destabilize a sitting government with full levers of power and led by a veteran who is not afraid of confrontation. Some of them whose record of anti-democratic exertions while in office ought to put them permanently out of circulation do not appear to be fazed by their criminal infractions against the democratic aspirations of a nation that they owe so much.

These antidemocratic elements consider all this as part of an elaborate game of bluff and counterbluff in which all is fair. Here is the real danger to the nation. Even in a game of bluff, there is always a tipping point where and when the gladiators reach a point of no return. This is when and where polarized but nationalist elites build bridges of conciliation, compromise and consensus-seeking over “pillarized” differences. It is only then that we can broach the issue of economic reform and the political reconfiguration of the nation on the epic scale required. The recent summary dismissal of the claims of Humphrey Nwosu to national honour shows just how impossible it is to reach national consensus and political justice in circumstances of “pillarized” prejudices. So far, President Tinubu has survived on brilliant stealth and nimble foot-works. But he will need much more than this as the gloves come off in coming months.

March 30, 2025
Okon services a non-performing loan

You can trust Okon Anthony Okon to be in the thick of the social and political fray in times like this. A week after escaping Natasha’s dragnet, he was his old chirpy self again, bragging that the whole drama was part of an elaborate scam. As soon as another banking scandal broke and another society lady declared wanted for money laundering, the mad boy has been running commentary and offering gratuitous advice to prospective detainees and their presumptive detainers. At times, he would boast that he was an EFCC consultant on debt recovery with services ranging from sleep deprivation to raising a colony of wild and remorseless mosquitoes to facilitate disorientation and eventual disintegration in prison cell. Among his achievements, he claimed to have serenaded one ancient detainee out of hiding by singing Cecilia, an old Simon and Garfukel classic, to her.

   One morning, Okon barged into my bedroom, panting and heaving like a demented horse. “Oga we don obtain dem list of dem AMCON debtors, na dem Yoruba people boku dem place, from A to Ziii. Yoruba people na obonge thieves”, the mad boy screamed.

“How do you know?” snooper asked rather indignantly.

“I don look dem Gbajue list Elisabetically and dem,,,”

“Okon, what is that?” snooper asked in alarm.

“You know when dem count from dem “a” till dem tire?”

“ Oh you mean alphabetically”, snooper moaned in exaggerated displeasure.

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“ Oga, if you like make you you call am Albertically. But na Yoruba people go finish dis obodo. May be na the lagoon water dem dey drink”.

You would have thought that a man huffing and puffing like this was himself above board. One morning, Okon ran into my room claiming that he was being pursued by EFCC debt collectors. Okon had taken a non-performing loan from a local bank.

“Oga, he be like if say fire don catch fireman ooo”, the crazy one moaned.

    “What did you use the money for?” snooper asked in alarm.

    “I use am to service Saro woman for Amukoko, but….”, the boy said with a sheepish grin.

    “Then you must discharge your obligation immediately”, snooper screamed.

“Oga discharge ke? I never even begin to gallop sef before dem mad Saro woman go blow him whistle say time don go and money don burn. So na non-performing woman who come take non-performing loan. Finish. Make them EFCC go look for dat Yorubaman for First Bank who come vamoose and leave Okon alone ooo”, the mad boy crowed.

   At this point, the dustbin woman started screaming. “Oga gudumorin ooo. He be like if say Saro woman and dem EFCC dey look for Calabar boy oo. Dem say him take Leone. Saro woman come dey speak dem old Oluku language”.

     Upon hearing this, Okon jumped out through the window and fell into the sewage tank.

March 30, 2025
Still on emergency

With both parties likely to return within six months, I can’t think of a less painful alternative

It is now over two weeks since President Bola Tinubu declared state of emergency in Rivers State. Expectedly, virtually everybody with something to say must have spoken, and those of us now commenting on it have more than enough materials for research, including comments from armchair critics, motor park analysts and pepper-soup joints commentators.

President Tinubu declared the emergency on March 18 and it was ratified by the National Assembly the next day.

Coming at a time that everybody was looking in the direction of Governor Siminalayi Fubara’s impeachment, the emergency was a master stroke. We all knew how heated the polity was in the state even after last month’s Supreme Court judgment affirming the Martins Amaewhule-led house of assembly as the authentic legislators in the state. The governor had been working with only four legislators, claiming that since the Amaewhule-led faction had decamped from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), they had, ipso facto, lost their seats in the assembly. The apex court ruled otherwise and that threw spanners in virtually every action the governor had taken with the concurrence of the four legislators. It also stopped disbursement of funds to the state until it was ready to deal with the legislators recognised by the apex court.

I had warned in my first piece on the crisis on March 9, titled ‘Fubara’s humble pie’, that those who start wars can only know the beginning; nobody can tell its end; so the political gladiators had to be careful.

I doubt if any of them envisaged where they have all landed now. The governor had abused his powers severally while the dispute lasted and the legislators felt now that they had been vindicated by the Supreme Court judgment, they too should demand their pound of flesh, probably more, from their oppressor-in-chief.

The legislators were looking in the direction of using their powers to impeach the governor and everything seemed primed for that when suddenly, the president pulled the rug off the feet of both parties. Now, they have to go and rest for six months in the first instance, in line with the provision of the emergency.

I hate scheming but I doff my hat for whoever came up with the emergency as panacea to cool down the polity in the state. The alternative would have been bloody.

Of course, it was expected that there would be divergent opinions on this, but, in all honesty, I don’t know if there is a better alternative in the circumstance.

To be fair, there are those who genuinely feel concerned that we should be wary of giving the president too much powers in addition to the one he has because he is a human being. This concern is apt. If anything, we always have to be guided by the wise saying that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

However, I have come to see that many of those criticising the emergency are doing so either for the sake of being seen to be politically correct, or for ulterior motives. We should not lose sight of the fact that there were some people waiting in the wings for the impeachment processes to gather steam or get concluded (if it would ever be, realising that that, in the first place, was one of the causes of rancour between the governor and the legislators).

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Some people profit from the kind of anarchy that would have attended the impeachment or even its mere kick-off.

So far, none of the critics of the emergency has advanced any convincing alternative beyond the emotive argument of an elected president ‘removing’ an equally elected governor. Yet, the presidency has made it clear that both the executive and the legislature are only on suspension. Second, with the approval of the state of emergency by the National Assembly, it is no longer a situation of an elected president asking an elected governor to ‘go away’.

No doubt, what was playing out in Rivers was potentially dangerous, not only for the state but the country at large, and no government worth its salt would wait and watch until the crisis snowballed out of control. Let’s remember that security of lives and property is the first duty of any government.

Many of those now crying foul over the emergency would have ended up blaming the Federal Government if it had allowed the crisis to degenerate beyond the level it was before the proclamation of emergency. This is evident, especially in a country where we politicise virtually everything. The opposition is forever waiting in the wings for the government to make mistake so they can have job to do. As far as the opposition is concerned, whatever the government did right must have been a mistake (to paraphrase a colleague).

Apparently the government was guided by this aspect of our national life, hence its decision to do what seemed to it to be the needful on the Rivers State crisis, knowing that head or tail, it would be criticised.

One way of knowing that many of those criticising the government now are doing so for purely personal or political reasons is to ask what they did when Governor Fubara was serially trampling upon the law. Was mum not the word from them when the governor destroyed the state house of assembly building for the sole purpose of averting impeachment, which is the legitimate prerogative of the state assembly? How many of them cautioned him that under no circumstance could he have been doing lawful business with only four out of 31 members of the state assembly? How could someone in all rational sense of it say a state budget running into billions of naira could be approved by that number of legislators? Even if people were deceiving Fubara and the dance-on-we are solidly-behind-you orchestra was singing his praise while committing those illegalities, he ought to have known that those actions were as good as building on shifting ground. You cannot build something on nothing. Fubara built something on nothing; hence, first, the Supreme Court judgment that put an end to those shenanigans, and then the state of emergency that came to ensure that the apex court judgment did not become a nullity; that it be given meaning so that governors generally can know the limits of their ’emperorship’.

True, there is an urgent need to put an end to gubernatorial rascality in the country. Fubara exhibited the tendencies of many governors, past or present. The tell-tale signs are all over the place. He was travelling down the lane of impunity at more than the speed of light. He needed to be stopped before other governors saw him as a model. With only five governors travelling along that trajectory, it is only a matter of time for Nigeria to become a huge Banana Republic.

A governor who believed and indeed said that the legislature exists at his pleasure in a democratic setting really should not be there. He should first go for tutorials on the concept of separation of powers.

A governor who pulled down the building of his state house of assembly ostensibly to stave of impeachment is like someone who conjured rain to fall only to start complaining about the accompanying thunderstorm. He may not have bargained for the thunderstorm but that is part of the package that could accompany rain.

With Fubara’s experience, governors would start thinking twice before destroying state assembly buildings for the simple reason that they want to deny the legislators the right of impeaching them. Maybe Fubara would not have travelled that route if those who did it before him had been made to face the consequences. Such actions are condemnable. It is just that ours is a country where citizens are too casual about issues of governance, especially at the local and state government levels, whereas these are the closest tiers of government with direct bearing to their daily lives, and whose activities should therefore be of utmost concern to them.

But everybody is concentrating on the centre. That is one of the reasons why many governors have become emperors and can wake up from the wrong side of the bed and commit blue murder and go scot-tree.

So, is there no word for Nyesom Wike, Fubara’s predecessor and former godfather, now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), in all of these?

I have never been a politician, so I may not know how it feels for a successor that someone installed to want to be a man only after he had stooped to conquer, or to get power. But then, I know Wike and Fubara’s case is not the first and it would not be the last.

People will tell you it is the failure or refusal of Fubara to do Wike’s bidding that caused their fight. At least, this is the summary of what is in the public domain, even if it might be pregnant with other meanings and insinuations.

So, that has been why a whole state had to be on auto pilot, with the people’s fate hanging in the air?

It may be true that Fubara practically snubbed presidential intervention on the matter but then the FCT minister too did not help matters with his caustic and inflammatory utterances.

And, as if to confirm this, even as the minister is still chewing the Rivers crisis in his mouth, one of his aides was only a few days ago reported to have said that Wike would yet again abort Abubakar Atiku’s presidential ambition come 2027! Haba! Honourable minister, are you ‘Olodumare’ (God)? If you are not, why talking like Him?

Back to Fubara because this is essentially about him. How could he have withheld the state legislators’ pay for over a year and expect that mere writing to inform them of his intention to present the budget or transact business with them would do? We are talking of human beings with flesh and blood here, not inanimate objects. And, to think that this was not an act of grace or penitence, but something done under compulsion!

The governor missed the point big time, and, for me, it merely tells that he was yet to learn the appropriate lessons that he could not ride roughshod over the state legislature.

All said, it is hoped that the six months suspension on both the executive and legislative arms of government in Rivers would be sufficient to let both sides decide whether they still want to remain relevant in the state’s political affairs or they want to fight to the finish.

But the onus rests more on Fubara to come down from his high horse because he must have known the difference between being a sitting governor and a governor serving a six-month suspension term, even if in the comfort of his home.

In Nigeria, ‘governor na enjoyment’. Something several shades sweeter than the ‘mudun mudun’ that the late Governor Abiola Ajimobi talked about.

March 30, 2025
The rise, rise and rise of capitalism XIII

One of the truly unforgettable heroes of the British empire to whom I was introduced in the dying British colony of Nigeria was Cecil John Rhodes. There were several others but Rhodes stood out from the pack if only because at that time, no less than two African countries; Southern and Northern Rhodesia were named after him. No other person had the distinction of giving their name to one, not to talk of two countries. The other thing which further elevated Rhodes and caused him to be placed on the highest pedestal was the institution of the Rhodes scholarship which conferred the highest academic distinction on anyone who won it. To be a Rhodes scholar was to be highly favoured by all the gods of academia. And all the glory of that exalted scholarship was reflected in Cecil Rhodes who had bequeathed the scholarship to all capable young men associated with all the countries of the British empire, now Commonwealth, the United States and Germany. Any discussion of capitalism and government in South Africa must start with this man who remains an arch villain to many and a hero of sorts to others.

The son of an Anglican clergyman, Rhodes suffered from poor health all his life. Indeed, he had been sent to South Africa at the age of seventeen in the hope that his exposure to a heathier climate than what was available in England would improve his health status. It was soon clear that although his health was fragile, he had arrived in his new home at the most auspicious time for both his recovery and the promotion of his career as politician and businessman. His first foray into the business world was in the field of agriculture. He joined his brother in a disastrous and brief venture to grow cotton but soon switched crops and began to plant fruits trees. This led him to form the Pioneer Fruit Company which set him off on the path of prosperity. Modest prosperity. His next venture made him an enormous fortune which opened all the doors that needed to be open for him to become the imperialist he was born to be.

A couple of years before Rhodes arrived in South Africa, alluvial diamond was picked up in Kimberly, capital of the Northern Cape Province. It is not clear how Rhodes became associated with the diamond trade. What is known is that Rhodes, with the help of loans provided by the House of Rothschild, the same institution which provided the loans which made it possible for the British government to pay reparations to slave owners when slavery was abolished, began to buy up all other miners in the region to establish a monopoly of the diamond trade. He fortified his position by allying himself with a company in London to ensure that all diamond trade in the world went through De Beers, the company he founded in 1881 and which even today retains its grip on global diamond trade even if it is now no longer the monopolist that it once was. Like Clive in India, Rhodes had the power of a conglomerate of companies behind him and like Clive he worked assiduously to enhance the spread of the British empire in the theatre of his operations. At the height of his ambition he wanted to create a British railroad which stretched from Cairo in the North to the Cape in South Africa. His wish became fact when after the First World War, the former German territory of Tanganyika was handed over to the British and today, it is possible to travel down the spine of Africa on a railroad in what were parts of the British empire cobbled together by people like Rhodes.

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Rhodes was a ruthless businessman who used his companies to acquire land enough to cover three countries. Having cleaned up on the diamond fields of South Africa, he extended his enormous tentacles northwards making shady deals with all manner of chieftains all along the way. This way he laid hands on large expanse of lands in what became North and South Rhodesia, bringing them under the suzerainty of the insatiable British empire at the expense of the indigenous peoples of those lands. They were dragged willy-nilly into the strange new world of capitalism and were turned into poorly paid landless serfs in the land of their fathers. Many of them did not even attain this status as they were simply got rid of to make way for the accommodation of white migrants. This is exactly what had happened to the indigenous peoples of North and South America as well as the aborigines of Australia. The only difference in the case of Africa was that try as they did, the Europeans didn’t quite succeed in eliminating them completely. But, it was not for the want of trying. As far as Rhodes and his ilk were concerned, they were intent on emptying the lands of Africa for the benefit of emigrants from Britain. Not satisfied with that, Rhodes thought of the possibility of bringing back the USA under the British flag so that the superior Anglo-Saxon race could control the world for their own benefit alone. All other groups on the globe were to exist at the pleasure of the master race. They were to minister to their racial masters in any way they were needed. And when their usefulness was over, they were to be sacrificed to the gods of necessity.

Up till now we have dealt with Rhodes as a businessman. Time to change tack. By the time he was in his thirties, Rhodes had entered the politics of the Cape. With his humongous personal fortune, he rose quickly and was soon the Prime Minister of the Cape Province and held this office for six years. Using the power of that office, Rhodes built the foundation for apartheid in the future South Africa. In time, he excluded black people from the electoral rolls and made it impossible for them to own land as he caused legislation which made it impossible to own land to be promulgated .This is why even today, blacks own less than 10% of all land in South Africa. Between Rhodes and the implacable Boers, virtually all available land has been snapped up by Europeans and that, on the continent of Africa. The irony has become too rich when the current South African government has been labelled as racist by Trump and Musk for daring to make the first tentative attempt at some form of restitution.

Up until 1886, all South Africa was agrarian. Then, everything changed when gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand deep in Boer territory. This discovery lured gold prospectors from the Cape. This upset the Boers so much that they were forced to try to deprive the new comers of any political power within the territory they had seized from the indigenous black people of the region in the first place. They were determined to keep Britain out of their affairs. Cecil Rhodes, the unrepentant British imperialist was of course on the side of the miners and the stage was set for a confrontation between the two groups. Rhodes and his friends using troops which were raised in Rhodesia, Rhodes’ personal fiefdom attacked the Boers in what has come to be known to history as the Jameson raid. This coup attempt to undermine the Boers failed miserably and one of the fallouts of this debacle was the fall of Rhodes from political power. The other was a descent to war between the Boer republics and the mighty British empire. The Boers attacked and seized British towns to precipitate the first Boer war. They then laid siege to Mafeking, Ladysmith, and Kimberly, an action which was aimed at the heart of British interests in the region. In coming to the relief of these towns the British empire was forced to mobilise a huge army to assert its authority. This is an episode that has turned out to be of interest not just to the British empire but to the continued growth of global capitalism.

March 30, 2025
Rivers Emergency: Those criticising Tinubu must think the constitution is dumb or an ass

Isn’t the concept that law is made for man, and not man for the law a central theme in some interpretations of the Bible, especially in the context of the teachings of Jesus and the relationship between the Law and humanity? Didnt Jesus emphasise that the Sabbath, and by extension, the Law, exists to serve humanity’s well-being, and should neither be a burden”, nor a legalistic control over them?

Flowing from the above, shouldn’t the declaration of a state of emergency, no matter where, be consequential, that is, be towards the good of the state and, indeed, isn’t the raison detre of the emergency declaration in Rivers State to bring peace to a state already declared by the Supreme Court as having no government, even as governor Sir Amaopusenibo Siminalayi Fubara sat pretty in government House?

Why then, in the face of the above, the hullabaloo by all manner of TV lawyers and some loud TV anchors?

With due respect to the high and mighty – for some are truly distinguished – who had and, in fact, continue, to flagellate the President for suspending Rivers state governor Fubara and the state’s House of Assembly – one has actually called for his impeachment – I can consider my job done on the above topic after I would have quoted the opening portion of Sam Omatseye’s last week column which he captioned:”It’s All Noise”.

He wrote:”So, they say the president could declare a state of emergency but leave the house members and the governor intact. What does that mean? It means rolling tanks and stamping jackboots on the streets of Port Harcourt. But the house members could go ahead and impeach Governor Sim Fubara?

But wait! These are the same people that say the house members should not impeach him, and that it would be an act of bad faith and a call to turmoil. What turmoil? Blowing up pipelines and blowing up houses, putting lives of political enemies and innocent civilians in peril. So, the president should send Nuhu Ribadu and his team to look out for those who want to turn the state over to the devil? Meanwhile, those in office still retain the resources and capacity for turbulence?

It is quite unfortunate that it is reason that is upside down. The state of emergency is to stave off violence, but what if the violence will remain a clear and present omen so long as those who would foment (it) are in their ferment because they have the power and pocket?

Those who say this and call for constitutionalism were the same persons who prodded Fubara against the law. Against the same constitution, he set up a four-man legislature. They were the same television lawyers and commentators who kept mum when he blew up a legislative monument by way of the House of Assembly building. He also, against the constitution, passed a budget with four men. Also, against the constitution, he defied court order and organized a local government election.

The same persons, against the constitution, are saying the Supreme Court erred by maintaining that Fubara defied the constitution. If the top court ruled otherwise, then he would have acted like Obasanjo when he asked a dawn cabal of about six men to impeach a governor. It was the same PDP that did it and hailed it at that time. Obi said nothing then. Atiku was in PDP then. They did not stand up to their guy”.

Hasn’t Omatseye said it all or can Fubara burn a common police station today and go scotfree?

Yet constitution, constitution they bellowed, hardly letting us hear word.

And they have their TV station where they congregate every morning – lawyers, aspiring lawyers, not so brilliant public analysts etc, spewing inananities, whilst the anchors pretend to permanently lecture the rest of us, eagerly showing off their erudition.

So we ask: what is the essence of a constitution if not to cohere the country and ensure peace and stability?

Are all those who shout the primacy of the constitution, while correct, saying that President Tinubu should have slept off on duty, wait till the obdurate Fubara was impeached, as the House of Assembly was unerringly going to do, and see the entire Rivers state, complete with oil wells, and infrastructure, upon which the nation relies for sustenance, go up in flame?

Is that really what they wanted the President to do?

So the Obi’s and the Atiku’s of this world could gloat?

Then they probably dont know Bola Ahmd Tinubu at all.

It would have been funny, if not pathetic, that some otherwise respected individuals could be drawing a correlation between the emergency President Goodluck Jonathan declared in 1913 after a series of deadly attacks by Islamist militant groups, asking that the military should take “all necessary action to put an end to the impunity of insurgents and terrorists” in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe and what the President just did.

While the case in those three Northern states rested squarely on the menace of Boko Haram which was fast uprooting elected governments and the concerned state governors who needed nothing but help, in Rivers state the malady has gone past its politicians and was beginning to consume its elders most of who enthusiastically misdirected the governor.

BTW, I have said to myself that this is pay back time for Rivers state as the crisis has broken the umbilical cord which tied together those who, a few years back, turned Port Harcourt to the capital of judicial merchandising in Nigeria. Many of the victims of that era are still suffering the consequences of their unexpected losses in the courts, whilst those expected to lose went back home celebrating.

When critics hold that the emergency is okay but not the suspensions what exactly are they saying?

That the Emergency declaration should be a mere formality – a damp squib?

That Fubara and the House speaker should have continued to hold court, in their respective corner, when oil pipe lines are erupting in flames and human blood welling up in the creeks and everywhere on the streets of Rivers state?

And they expect Tinubu to sit pretty in Aso Villa?

No wonder some say the law is an ass, but not for this President.

If the constitution will have to be stretched to its elastic limit, so be it as long as the end in view is to save lives and property.

What exactly would governor Fubara have been doing, on a daily basis, when other peoples’ husbands, wives , fathers and mothers, that is, our already overstretched soldiers – are out there, facing fire?

Can we think for once?

Of course had there been chaos, tv anchors would have remained there in their elegant suits,   telling us what Tinubu should have done; the exact same thing he did to save both lives, and the Nigerian economy, but for which those who speak English better than the owners of the language, are now recommending his impeachment.

So who today are the “insurgents and terrorists” in Rivers state other than the suspended institutions against whom Tinubu would declare action?

Can he sleep easy if those institutions are still able to continue their obduracy and further ensure that the state was without an effective government?

It’s time some people come to appreciate what gargantuan destruction President Tinubu saved the country from – the sheer bloodletting in a region known to be prone to unrestrained blood letting.

Add to that the amount of oil   infrastructure which could have been blown off by some retired “local terrorists’ who were already braying for action. And didn’t governor Fubara, in one of his giddy moments, surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands, of Rivers youths, literally declared himself their commander of operations when he told them to go and await orders? What could he not have done if the President had waited for him to be impeached?

In my view, if any Federal organ of government deserves any blame, it is none other than our successive body of lazy legislators for whom it has been impossible to see that the relevant portion of the constitution is inchoate, needing an amendment.

Finally, who and who had been the lead protagonists in the unremitting attack on the President?

As usual Atiku, Obi and their joint godfather have, as usual, thought their attacks on Tinubu could bring back the presidential jewel they ignominiously lost in ’23, and so have never relented from their odious, childish practice of taking every opportunity to lampoon him to their hearts’ content.

I won’t blame most lawyers, especially those not showing off on television stations, seeing them more as strict constructionists of the constitution.

It is, however, surprising, that many couldn’t bring their knowledge of Logic to bare on the matter.

If the declaration itself constituted the premise, where then is the conclusion without which it will all amount to nothing and the President would have merely being wasting his time.

But if most lawyers   acted ‘uberima fidei’, certainly not so Afam Osigwe, SAN, the NBA President, who emerged the “comrade Joe Ajaero” of the entire event the way he coyly sought to call people, not just his fellow lawyers, but Nigerians, out on a mass rising.

Hear the ‘Labour leader’:”At this inauspicious moment in our nation’s trajectory, all people of goodwill and conscience should rise to oppose this audacious violation of our constitution and rape of our democracy”.

“Mr. President must be made to know and understand in unmistakable terms that this illegality cannot stand”. He then concluded by “asking politicians across Nigeria to speak up and rise against the country’s descent into totalitarianism.”

When you read that and note that the lead critics are the Obi’s, and the Pat Utomi’s, then you know that the thunderous shellacking of 2023 still rankles in some quarters.

But sorry, we can’t help them.

My advice, therefore, would be that rather than this their sterile and unproductive preoccupation, they should simply join veteran Alhaji Atiku Abubakar as he, again, begins to put together his ‘Association of the Aggrieved’, ahead of 2027.

March 30, 2025