The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Mental revolution as panacea

    Mental revolution as panacea

    It is a long way to Hosanna after twenty six years of civilian rule with the nation still hobbled by the foundational crisis of ethnic discord, spiritual polarization, genocidal claims, institutional anomie so pronounced that every facet of human relationship based on trust and mutual understanding appears to have broken down. It did not begin yesterday. As colonized and enslaved people, the institutions handed down by our colonial masters to superintend our transition to political and economic modernity have not proved efficacious. Africa has been stranded in a political and economic limbo.  Perceptive African leaders, such as Kwame Nkrumah,  Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, Obafemi Awolowo, Amilcar Cabral and Samora Michel  who saw through the ruse were rendered hors de combat.

      Yet as we may be discovering very late in the day, there can be no viable democracy or irreversible economic growth without durable institutions. It is impossible to sustain economic growth within the context of institutional chaos and disorder. Economies do not grow if they are subject to conflicting sets of laws and precepts, one set meant for the public and the other for the Caudillo and his minions. The protracted face-off between Jerome Powell, the plucky chairman of the American Federal Reserve and President Donald Trump shows just how durable institutions work.  Following rigid institutional guidelines, Mr Powell has resisted Trump’s repeated attempts to fire him or make him bend the rule according to his whims and caprices. It is a triumph of the institutional order against the caprices of human agency.

    So, just what are institutions? Institutions are products of repeated actions, routines, habits, rules of engagements  burnt into the human consciousness  or what the French call repete geste from where they solidify into a set of subliminal precepts which serve as infallible guides to future actions. They then proceed to regulate the affairs of humanity with impersonal rigour and stern orderliness which brooks no human deviance or authoritarian deviousness.

    African political elites have shown that they lack the mental magnitude, the steely discipline and the nationalistic self-sacrifice to produce the institutional framework for the postcolonial order in Africa. When President George Washington, hero of the American war of liberation and founding president, declined the call on him to continue  as American president on the ground that an America that had seen off the feudal order in Europe cannot afford to have a presidential monarch, he was laying the ground for institutional validity and order  which has remained in force till date.

      You cannot plant cassava and expect to harvest yam. In almost all western countries that have transited successfully from the ashes of feudal Europe to political and economic modernity, the political revolution is always preceded by a mental revolution. The English long revolution was aided by the copious outpouring of John Locke and his theory of the social contract, Hobbes by his notion of an ever looming Leviathan; the French by Rousseau, Voltaire and Descartes; the Germans by Emmanuel Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, Nietzsche and the Americans by the huge tomes of what has come to be known as the Federalist papers which laid the foundation of the modern American presidency. With the possible honorable exception of Ibn Khaldun, the great fifteenth century Egyptian philosopher, historian and social theorist, Africa contributed nothing to this global flux and ferment. It may well be that the intellectual labours of past African heroes have been permanently sealed in the catacombs of cremated memorabilia.

      What you don’t know does not hurt you. But it can haunt you. The inability of Africans to come up with an intellectual organogram has left the continent floundering in a septic lagoon of waste and political refuse. This is why a mental revolution is a precondition for Africa’s cultural, political, spiritual and economic emancipation. Jurassic Age African potentates who routinely flout the prescribed term limits for their inglorious tenure are unaware of the monumental impact of their folly on the institutional order of their stricken nations.  Even where they succeed, they have already triggered off a constitutional impasse which will make for a vicious, violent finale.

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    To appreciate the institutional vacuum in which Africa’s postcolonial epoch operates, we must take one final historical excursion. After the cessation of serial colonial conquest and harassments during which its people suffered untold indignities and humiliation, the Chinese reverted to their native Confucianism which is an all-embracing philosophy of life and just governance. It has proved superior to western liberal theology in its impersonal rigour and merciless rationalism.  There is zero tolerance for corruption and official malfeasance. Thieves are routinely executed. There is no room for political shenanigans. Even Mao’s widow, a decorated heroine of the Chinese Revolution in her own right, found out too late in the day. She was packed to prison never to be heard of again. Men are hanged not because horses are stolen but so that horses cannot be stolen. Today, imperial and imperious China scoffs at the western system with the contempt and condescension it thinks its former tormentors deserve.

    Let us end with the mightiest elephant in the commodious room of Africa’s postcolonial void. How is Africa in general and Nigeria in particular going to handle the nation-state paradigm imposed on the world by the Peace of Westphalia as it goes into terminal decline and reverse gear? For about a decade now,  we have been warning about the fraying at the edges of the nation-state paradigm. We had no foreknowledge of how it will happen or who the instigator will be. America and Donald Trump have supplied the missing grist to the rumination. Nigeria has already fallen to the global sledgehammer which makes nonsense of the founding tenet of the peace of Westphalia: the inviolability of every nation and the non-negotiability of its sovereignty.

       Mr Trump has made a short shrift of this charter. Nations that have refused to correct internal disorder will be subject to international  order in accordance with the Gospel According to Donald Trump. It is no longer a question of like or dislike or a moral or ethical issue. Mr Trump will have his way unless a superior charter suddenly supervenes. As Iran dissolves into apocalyptic chaos, the American strongman has vowed that he is loaded and locked, primed to unleash. This was exactly as it happened centuries ago when superior French artillery put paid to the notion of Italian city-states. Before our very eyes, America is redrawing the world map. Venezuela has been ringed in, and it is only a question of time before the collapse of the government of Nicolas Maduro. As we send this off, rumours swirl about that Caracas has fallen.

    Other global powers are following. Russia is going to end up gobbling a huge chunk of Ukrainian territory in a redress of the geopolitical catastrophe Putin said had befallen his nation. China has announced a commencement of exercises close to Taiwanese waters.   African thinkers and philosophers must now add the nation-state declension to their shopping trolley. Otherwise, it may be the Berlin Conference of 1884/ 1885 once again. Happy new year to all our readers.

  • Feedback

    Feedback

    We have received an unusual volume of traffic in connection with last week’s piece. In Defence of Guerrilla Journalism. Samples:

    Good morning sir. I just read your piece entitled , In Defence of Guerrilla Journalism, a sizzling offering and never-put-it-down-until-the-last-full –stop article in The Nation on Sunday. A great outing as usual: deep, scholarly, reflective and sharp excursion into the Nigeria’s past when paradox practically governed the polity. Well done sir. E e pe fun wa sir. —-Wole Olugboji.

    Just finished reading your usually seminal article, In Defence of Guerrilla Journalism. I goggled “Guerrilla Journalism” and below is what I found. Most heartwarming to confirm what you wrote that it emerged in Nigeria. Thanks very, very much. Context-Specific.

    Famously emerged in Nigeria as an underground response to severe government repression, becoming a vital tool for resistance.  It’s a form of journalism that fights for a story, using unconventional, often defiant methods to report the truth when traditional channels fail or are compromised, though it carries the burden of balancing impact with integrity. INTERNET WED, 31 December, 2025. Venerable Feyisola Famutimi.

    When I saw the picture of Stanley Macebuh headlining your article, I smiled happily to myself thinking that you have not come to bury Caesar but to praise and panegyrise him. Beyond his stellar role in the founding of  The Guardian newspaper, which loves to posture as Nigeria’s flagship newspaper……Whatever you might say of the writer, you must concede that he’s one of the finest users of the English language and his understanding of African Literature is non pareil. It is fitting, then, that in the epic crossfire between you and the retrograde regime, the deep called to the deep, otherwise the warfare would have been asymmetrical. As Soyinka wonders in “Idanre”: do we summon the aid of a boulder to kill an ant? Granted a comprehensive background was necessary for countering a Ray Ekpu revisionism, but the extreme back-pedalling into the prehistory of journalism in colonial Victorian Lagos, nay, Nigeria seems a tad an overkill, if not an overwrought study in selective reportage. The present absence of Zik’s West African Pilot as a hub of anti-colonial  rallying cry and an agora of autochthonous Afrocentrism gives cause for concern, particularly coming from the bristling stylus of one normally reputed to be a voice of moral suasion and historical gravitas. Only enforced amnesia could mollify the miffed, in this instance. Again, considering the whirligig of fate, we are reminded of Sophocles’ quip about the open-endedness of personal identity until death puts paid to one’s life’s peregrination. On this Bayo Onanuga is exemplary: a guerrilla journalist of yesteryear and ponce of power today…….Not many of your readers would share  your optimism about the present climate of democratic expansiveness of leadership. If anything people in Nigeria are still being policed and monitored by overzealous  agents and sundry agent-provocateurs. The times call for the focused and ceaseless grunt work of underground penmanship. Finally, Ray Ekpu: I guess it’s only the autumnal patriarch that might disclose what riles him; reason(s) for his unreasonable put-down of guerrilla journalists of the past and present……Perhaps he needs another occasion to right this wrong just so as to re-center himself in popular imaginary. Welcome back again—Former student now a professor.

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    Your homily today is not only fire for fife, it lays bare the raison d’etre for the concept and practice of guerrilla journalism in Nigeria. Let me correct one impression. My Oga, Stanly Macebuh was a later day convert to orthodox liberal political thought. He could have been influenced by the daily imbibing of fine cognac and cigar in the office of the then managing director…… Stanley changed when he went to the Guardian and became a bourgeoisie when he went to the private papers of Baba Odogwu and later Sentinel of Yar’adua. As you rightly wrote what became of the great writers of The News?—- IBJ, Olonade Street, Lagos.

  • Thank God for Donald Trump

    Thank God for Donald Trump

    After about eight weeks of threatening to bombard ISIS camps in Nigeria, in what the United States President Donald Trump said would be “powerful and deadly” strikes against groups Washington claims are affiliated with ISIL (ISIS) in Northwest Nigeria’s Sokoto State, the bombs finally dropped on Christmas Day, last year. It was a big relief to Nigerians who had anticipated that the terrorists would want to disrupt the end-of-year festivities by carrying out significant, perhaps never-to-be-forgotten deadly strikes on several communities, particularly in the volatile areas of the north. The airstrikes probably averted such disasters.

    America had insisted it would rain the bombs on the heads of the terrorists since October 31, 2025, when it re-designated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC). That it eventually carried out its threat in collaboration with the Federal Government is indeed heartwarming.

    As far as the Americans are concerned, they had to drop the bombs in order to protect Christians who had been victims of several attacks by some Islamic fundamentalists. As Al Jazeera noted in a December 31, 2025, piece titled ‘How many countries has Trump bombed in 2025?’, the strikes were ‘’timed, analysts say, to appease Trump’s Christian supporters as Washington doubles down on a narrative of “saving” Nigerian Christians, although Nigerian authorities insist the strikes are not about any one religion.’’ The Federal Government admitted that there was a problem of insecurity, with victims cutting across faith.

    I pitch my tent with the Nigerian government. This is not necessarily because I want to be patriotically correct but simply because that would seem to me to be the truth. Although Christians who had lost loved ones to these senseless attacks would not agree with this position (and I won’t blame them; as they say, “he who wears the shoe knows where it pinches’’). What I know as a fact is that it was only at the beginning of the insurgency that the attacks were targeted mainly at Christians. At that time, many Muslims felt unconcerned. But it was only a matter of time for the insurgents to turn even against fellow Muslims that they also see as infidels because they do not accept to practice Islam as they (fundamentalists) practice it.

    So, what we have in Nigeria today is not necessarily targeted against Christians; it is not Christian genocide but general insecurity imposed on the country by ragamuffins who had imbibed the wrong side of Islam’s pristine doctrine. They had been fed with the wrong assumption that the more blood they spilled in the name of the religion, the more the number of virgins they would have the opportunity to disvirgin in heaven!

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    Expectedly, some Nigerians have criticised the Federal Government over the American bombings. Interestingly, for such different folks, it was different strokes. There are those who felt the American bombings demeaned Nigeria’s sovereignty. I do not know what that is supposed to mean. The last time I checked, it is only the living that can talk of sovereignty; not the dead. So, we need to be alive first to be sovereign. Notwithstanding my reservation on their reason for the American intervention, those of them who may feel genuinely so concerned about our sovereignty should accept my sympathy.

    Naturally, there are also perpetual critics who have sworn not to see anything good in the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration. These include, but not limited to people who had lived all their lives on fuel and forex subsidies that the Tinubu administration stopped, and would stop at nothing to blame the government even for things that are visibly positive or result-oriented. They are entitled to their opinion, although I owe them neither an apology nor sympathy.

    What we have to realise is that countries, from time immemorial, have always had cause to come to one another’s assistance in times of distress. Even in modern times, no country can be an island unto itself; hence, the different bilateral or multilateral agreements between and among the different countries. There is nothing unusual in America lending a hand in our fight against terrorism. Good enough, the US and Nigeria have a long history of security collaboration through training and intelligence sharing. The only difference is that the Christmas strikes marked the first known kinetic US military action in Nigeria.

    Apart from Nigeria, the Trump administration has struck in six other countries, this year. These include Venezuela, Somalia, Syria, Iran, Yemen and Iraq. In all, monitors say the US had carried out at least 111 strikes this year alone, and that this surpassed the number carried out under the George Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden administrations combined.

    Well, the lexical semantic differences notwithstanding, what matters most to me was that the December 25 air raids were eventually carried out successfully. And Trump has promised to drop more bombs should the need arise. The fact of the matter is that Nigeria has wasted too much time and resources fighting insurgents. If we have not been able to have a handle on the problem, what is wrong in the US or any other friendly country for that matter that has the superior fire power and other requirements coming to help us out?

    One of the things that pain me on this matter is this idea of some people saying we should negotiate with the terrorists, kidnappers who demand ransom, bandits, etc; or assimilate them into the society after deradicalising them. We have tried all of that in the last 16 years since the insurgency started, to no avail. I am pained the more because Nigeria has thrown more than enough good money into the bad rubbish that these nonentities represent. So, I do not see any patriotic Nigerian calling for a slap on the wrist for them given the havoc they have wreaked on the country. These are resources we should have spent to brush up people who value western education.

    Those who think it is ‘haram’ or forbidden to have western education should be free to live their lives like the caveman; but to want to hide under the guise of religion to coerce the rest of us to join them in the blissful ignorance is highly reprehensible. Even Saudi Arabia that is the birthplace of Islam and home to Mecca and Medina, its two holiest cities, making it the spiritual epicenter for Muslims worldwide, has since embraced western education and is indeed comfy in its relationship with the current world power, the United States of America, based on strategic mutual interests. So, where did these undesirable elements get their own brand of Islam?

    As I said earlier, I am not interested in semantics. I am more interested in the overarching needless loss of lives perpetuated by these murderers in human skin. What I am saying is that it is immaterial whether it is Christians or Muslims that are being wantonly killed. Human lives are too precious to be wasted on the altar of some jaded religious beliefs or, in terms of the Boko Haram, to curtail the spread of western knowledge.

    As a matter of fact, I do not think we have been told the full story of what these so-called insurgents want. For one, it is unthinkable that some people could be so daft to think they can turn Nigeria, a country whose population is a nearly even mix of Christians and Muslims, to an Islamic country. But that is what you have when people are just given birth to without adequate planning for how they would get education so they can be useful to themselves and the society at large.

    And for the so-called Boko Haram, too, how can people who are making use of the very products of western education say that western education is useless? What of the bombs that they sometimes use? Even if we talk about the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) that the insurgents sometimes deploy, despite their being “homemade”, are they entirely devoid of western education or civilisation?  What of the motorcycles and vehicles that they transport themselves and their weapons in? 

    For me, Nigerians have the almighty God to thank for the December 25 airstrikes. I am delighted. Anyone who is not should put in his or her all to rein in the terrorists. All the kid’s glove treatment should be over by now for good. They have to impress it on the terrorists that they are on a wild goose chase if they ever thought they could convert Nigeria to a Muslim country. This is necessarily because no single religion has a monopoly of violence.

    Similarly, those of them who have problem with western education are living in fools’ paradise if they ever thought they can bring down the rest of us to their caveman level. But we should no longer continue to tolerate the situation where some misguided elements would make us continue pouring water into a basket, which is what the trillions we have spent fighting terrorism is, instead of using it to uplift our people’s lives. Those who want to continue pouring libation on terrorism are free to do so. But Nigeria as a country should not continue to pick the bill. Those who lost out to fuel and forex subsidies should not be allowed to continue to feast on our common wealth again via ransoms and terrorism; the new faces of subsidy.

    Once again, thank you, President Donald Trump. But don’t go too far away yet because we might still need you. The people we are fighting have been so brainwashed that they have become recalcitrant criminals who, like King Pharaoh, would rather prefer to perish rather than repent.

    As they say, ‘a child who says his mother would not sleep should also not have the opportunity to doze’. The criminals and their sponsors should not be allowed to continue to unleash mayhem on innocent Nigerians, Christian or Muslim. People cannot be giving us sleepless nights and all we do is trying to differentiate between bandits and terrorists. To the extent that they all maim, steal, rape and kill, leaving tears and blood in their trail, they are all birds of the same feather.

    Come to think of it; how can human beings with flesh and blood slaughter fellow human beings like cow and say they are fighting a just cause? I don’t think we should split hairs over whoever is coming to save us from such brutes.

  • Highways are happy way

    Highways are happy way

    I have on several occasions in the last few years decided to write an article or even a series of articles about driving on Nigerian roads. Until now however, my resolve has faltered on each occasion for one reason or the other. This is probably because the only reason why I have always wanted to write about this subject is to encourage safer driving habits on our roads. After careful consideration I have come to realise the futility of doing that and this has become a stumbling block to putting my thoughts on this subject down on paper. And yet the urge to write has never really left me which is why I suppose I am writing these lines at this time.

    The futility of making any attempt to change this situation for the better should be fairly obvious to anyone who has taken a short trip along any road anywhere in this country. The fatalism attending any such journey is palpable. Just think of the number of times that gatherings do not break up until someone gets up to beseech God for what is described as travelling mercies for all those present and who need to travel back to their respective homes. To be frank, I have always wondered how this phrase was coined because its meaning cannot be immediately obvious to anyone who learnt to speak English anywhere outside Nigeria. The sentiment behind it is however immediately understood in any gathering. The point is that your arrival at your chosen destination is dependent on you finding favour with a rather capricious deity who bestowed favours to travellers or could withdraw them as he very well pleased. Go to any so-called garage or motor park and you are bound to find blackmailers in the form of beggars; men and women who prey on the fears of intending travellers who are never sure of their standing with the travel deity and are willing to part with some money to enhance their chances of surviving the journey before them. The reason why money is parted with at this time is so that the deity could be appropriately approached on their behalf by professional supplicants who know how to make their case to the deity effectively.

    The sad truth is that in spite of the large volume of prayers offered up for what is described as a safe journey, a distressingly large number of vehicular accidents happen on our roads on a daily basis. Motorcycle accidents happen so often that they are no longer thought of as being worthy of any report in any medium.I am sure of this because although I am seldom on the road these days, I have witnessed several motorcycle accidents in the last few months alone. This is by no means a deterrent to the millions of Nigerians who daily blithely take their lives in their hands by climbing behind okada riders and undertake journeys long and short, at considerable risk to their continued earthly existence. All people riding on a motorcycle are required to wear a helmet but that law is more respected in the breach than in its observance. And, whatever danger that they were courting by riding on an okada is more than doubled by the refusal to wear a helmet. To complicate matters a little bit more, there are occasions when as many as four riders are squeezed together on one bike. The danger from such an arrangement is monumental to say the least but who cares? a crumpled note slipped into the hand of some policeman at a conveniently situated checkpoint solves any problems caused by this egregious breach of a law of the land. And there is no limit to what can be carried on an okada. To make this point without any ambiguity, I once saw a corpse being transported on a motorcycle. The give away here was when the dead weight of the corpse

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    caused the motorcycle to become overbalanced, leaving both the living and the dead sprawled out on the cold tarmac. I am sure that every reader can provide their own personal example of this phenomenon.

    Motorcycle accidents have become so common that they are self reported anywhere even though orthopaedic wards all over the land as well as makeshift facilities manned by self styled bone setters are virtually overflowing with victims of motorcycle accidents.

    The number of casualties associated with motorcycle accidents are seldom impressive. Not so with a single form of mass transit; cars, SUVs, minibuses, so-called luxurious buses and even open trucks, more suited to transporting livestock. These are frequently stocked full of fee paying passengers and driven many miles at great speed cross country. As soon as you step into any of these vehicles or if you prefer, contraptions, you can consider that you have surrendered your life to blind fate. You will pick up the responsibility for your life at the end of your journey wherever that is. Unfortunately, many of such journeys are terminated abruptly, many of them far from the desired destination and for many of the people involved, they become grim items of statistics. The gory ends of such journeys are reported on the pages of newspapers or as brief reports on radio and television. To fit the tenor of today, videos shot at the scene are sent round the world on social media. The number of casualties of such accidents, which are almost inevitably described as ghastly by reporters, vary from one of two to several dozen. Never mind the number as it is soon forgotten. The injured are invariably reported as having been conveyed to the nearest hospital and the dead are always deposited, according to reports, in the mortuary. End of story.

    There are of course many reasons for the recurrent carnage on our roads. And the reasons keep growing. For example, motorists now have to contend with the insecurity challenges on our roads. The fear of kidnappers, bandits and the occasional plane armed robber must now be regarded by the understandably wary traveller as the beginning of wisdom. This is because fatalities which occur in the course of these operations are frequently reported. Gone, perhaps forever are night travels. Older readers may remember that until recently, night buses had converted our roads to busy traffic arteries in the dead of night. Now, there is a rush to get off the roads at dusk in order not to become an insecurity statistic. An unsung but quite lucrative casualties of the current state are outposts, many of them out in the bush, offering catering services to drivers and their passengers throughout the night. Without the traffic generated by  night travellers, these establishments, many of them that were quite famous, have had to be closed down. Unfortunately, the various agents of insecurity at work all over the country, are showing that they can do away with the cover of darkness and have turned virtually every trip on any road in Nigeria into something of a lottery. This has added another point to the prayer for journeying mercies.

  • Northern Nigeria: between theocracy and modernity

    Northern Nigeria: between theocracy and modernity

    Through mass murders, kidnappings, bombings, and other acts of terrorism, Boko Haram remains an enduring threat, principally to Northern Nigeria, but  also to the whole country. Surprisingly, not the wanton destruction it daily wreaks, nor the fact of Nigeria spending trillions fighting it, as well as trying to beat back banditry which is, unfortunately, spreading fast, have been sufficient enough to mobilise the Northern elite behind the  efforts to rein in these twin evils. Nor has the existential danger murderous herdsmen constitute to large chunks of the country been deemed sufficient to draw any reaction from this educated, and very  knowledge-able, section of the Northern society to, at least, indicate that they are awed by what a negativity the North now constitutes to Nigeria’s well- being.

    And as to the question what can they do? I say, a lot” – being the introductory part of my article of Sunday 23 February,  2020.

    In the same article I also wrote:

    “You cannot be happy with about 87% of poverty in Nigeria being in the north. You can’t be happy with millions of northern children out of school. You can’t be happy with nine states in the north contributing almost 50 per cent of the entire malnutrition burden in the country”. “You can’t be happy with the drug problem. You can’t be happy with the Boko Haram problem. Or with banditry. If the North does not change, it will destroy itself” – Quoting the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, CON.

    During the past few weeks two gentlemen – my friend of over a decade, Tony Sani, former Secretary of the Arewa Consultative Forum, but better known as the Forum’s Publicity Secretary and Moh’d Yusuf, who I just met on these pages reacting to my articles, trenchantly criticising my views not only on the North but also on President Muhammadu Buhari – have spent considerable time interrogating the place of the North in contemporary Nigeria.

    Because I know that most of Yusuf’s criticism are misplaced, I have reminded him that long before many Nigerians fell in love with the late President, I wrote on these pages, when President Buhari was only a Presidential aspirant, that Nigeria needed him much more than he needed Nigeria. I was then relying on his incandescent inorruptibility as he has long displayed in public office.

    As to my love, or otherwise for the North, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria was my first choice University and I spent two weeks in Congo campus before I relocated to another University.  I shall never forget that the fees I paid was returned, pro rata, something not many Nigerian Universities would do, even now.

    I can say, with all boldness, that my views about the North, and Northerners, have always been honest and down to earth. For instance, twice in “Psycho-Analysing Sanusi Lamido Sanusi” (1 & 2), I wrote supporting the appointment of the latter Emir as Central Bank Governor in September,  2009 when it was not the most popular view.

    So when my views seem anti- North to some, it is certainly not out of malice.

    Today, I am taking a critical look at the choice/s before the North as it continues to constitute a major embarrassment to the whole country, so bad a foreign country had come, “gun – a – blazing”.

    Northern Nigeria today stands at a critical juncture, that is, at the choice between theocracy and modernity.

    As the Emir postulated above, the North, to survive as a modern conglomerate, must acknowledge the critical need for change.

    By embracing modernity, Northern Nigeria can unlock its vast potential, contribute to Nigeria’s growth, and become a beacon of hope, not only for that part of the country alone but for the entire country.

    Presently, Northern Nigeria, rich in cultural heritage and history, finds itself at the crossroads. It

     is grappling with the challenges of balancing its traditional values with the demands of modernity. The dichotomy between theocracy and modernity has led to a myriad of problems, including poverty, illiteracy, and insecurity, all of which have become a significant drain on Nigeria’s resources.

    Northern Nigeria has a long history of Islamic influence, with many states adopting Sharia law and although insecurity can be attributed to many reasons, the most fundamental is religion.

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    Insecurity in the North is, in my view and above anything else, mostly driven by the desire of the greatest percentage of Northern Moslems, if not all of them, to have Sharia declared all over Nigeria and the country, itself, proclaimed an Islamic country.

    This is precisely what nurtures insecurity,  be it it’s funding, the not  insignificant communal support it enjoys, as well as the ease with which the various gangs recruit new members from the bazaar of out – of – school children roaming the streets.

    Whoever denies this is only just talking.

    Knowing full well that the preponderance of their numbers in the National Assembly cannot foist sharia on the country, a greater percentage of Northern Moslems, no matter their position in life, would quite easily turn a blind eye to the activities of all these Islamic terrorist gangs terrorising Nigeria, from the sahel to the shores of the Atlantic ocean, if only to achieve the objective of having an Islamic country.

    It is a well known fact that this is the primary purpose of all Islamic terror gangs the world over and it enjoys local support everywhere,  not minding the collateral damage of losing some of their members.

    It is the reason why the United State’s first point of call was Sokoto state, an area the Nigerian security has never once declared as a terror stronghold.

    Never.

    But unlike Nigeria’s successive governments, the U.S has nobody, or anything, to fear.

    This fear of the unknown is also the reason successive Nigerian governments have never been able to name terror financiers and did, absoluely nothing, when foreign countries obliged the Buhari government with some of their names.

    But for America, Nigeria would have remained in limbo never able to touch terror kingpins, only relying on reeling out the names of mere hired guns for public consumption.

    It is time for the North to realise that the forces of globalisation and technological advancement have made modernity an unavoidable reality.

    It must, therefore, adapt to these changes if it is to ever compete with the modern world. The North must realise that Education, innovation, and entrepreneurship are key drivers of modernisation, in all of which the region, unfortunately, lags behind.

    Not unexpectedly, the North’s reluctance to embrace modernity has come at a great cost. For instance, its human development indicators are among the worst in Nigeria and, therefore, in the world, and are coupled with extra-ordinarily high rates of poverty, illiteracy, and infant mortality.

    Lack of economic opportunities has naturally fueled insecurity, with Boko Haram and a host of other killing and kidnapping gangs roaming the region, daily leaving trails of blood and anguish.

    The North must make a choice between continuing to cling to a theocratic model that has failed to deliver development or embrace modernity and its attendant benefits.

    This is not a call to abandon tradition or faith but to recognise that modernity and progress are not mutually exclusive with cultural heritage.

    What then is the way forward?

    There are a few of them.

    First, the North must, willy nilly, invest in education, especially education for girls and women, aimed at empowering individuals and driving economic growth. It must launch programs to improve education access, both quantity and quality – wise. Efforts must be made to drastically reduce the number of out-of-school children.

    Indeed the world would not collapse if Almajirai is officially prohibited and the study of the Holy Book streamlined into the expanded school syllabi. This is not too much if Northern states’ governments are prepared to turn around the fortunes of the region.

    The leaders must also put enough resources into ICT which is the future.

    Economic Diversification will be key too. Reliance on primary products of agriculture must give way to medium scale industrialisation to create a more diversified economy. Incentives could be offered to businesses to invest in the region to facilitate employment, especially in dairy products.

    Mining should have been beneficial to the local  economy  but for the ranka dede culture which makes the poor or not so rich behave like slaves to the rich, and thus cannot revolt against the rich who indulge in illegal mining together with their foreign partners and supported by hundreds of terrorists who, in addition  engage in kidnapping.

    Equally important is good governance which is mostly lacking in Northern states as a result of the uncritical culture of the people.

    Serious effort must also be made to strengthen institutions, promote transparency and hold leaders accountable.

    There must also be a cultural evolution which mass education should facilitate and promote. This should include a culture of tolerance, openness, and innovation.

     Finally, Northern region can significantly benefit from exchange programs with other regions, even other countries, to promote understanding, innovation and faster economic development.

    The North must seize this moment to redefine its place in all ramifications.

     The future beckons – it’s time for the North to make a choice.

  • When reform meets responsibility

    When reform meets responsibility

    After a year that tested both the stamina of the state and the nerve of leadership, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu boarded a flight out of Lagos on Sunday, headed for Europe. Officially, it was part of his end-of-year break, a short pause before proceeding to Abu Dhabi for the 2026 Abu Dhabi Sustainability Summit. Unofficially, and more importantly, it was a moment of recalibration, mental, physical and strategic, before stepping into a year that will be even more demanding, politically and economically, as Nigeria inches towards the 2027 election cycle.

    Predictably, the critics came early and loudly. To them, the timing was “wrong”, the optics “poor”, the security situation “too critical” for the President to be anywhere outside the country. It was the familiar refrain, delivered with performative outrage and little reflection. As if Nigeria’s criminals and terrorists take operational cues from the President’s travel itinerary. As if governance in a modern republic is reduced to a man sitting permanently behind a desk at the State House.

    What such arguments conveniently ignore is that Tinubu did not drift into this trip from a season of leisure. The closing days of 2025 were anything but restful. From high-profile public engagements, including cultural appearances like the Eyo Festival in Lagos, to an endless stream of visitors, briefings and decisions, the President spent the period keeping the machinery of state steady at a time of heightened national anxiety. Beyond the physical exertion was the heavier burden, the psychological weight of security challenges, economic expectations and the relentless pressure of reform in a country impatient for results.

    Rest, in that context, is not abdication. It is preparation.

    More instructive still is the fact that from Europe, the President did not retreat into silence. Throughout the week, he remained visibly engaged with national affairs, taking decisions and addressing issues as they arose. And in that same week, he delivered two interventions that spoke directly to the soul of the Nigerian project, one on leadership responsibility, the other on citizen responsibility.

    The first came on Tuesday, with his firm, unambiguous message on the take-off of the Nigerian Tax Reform Acts. By then, the public space had been flooded with half-truths, deliberate distortions and opportunistic alarmism. Some actors, well aware of how poorly understood tax policy is among the general public, chose to weaponise ignorance. They muddled facts with fiction, hoping to provoke resistance not because the reforms were harmful, but because they were consequential.

    Tinubu’s response was characteristically resolute. The new tax laws, he insisted, would commence as scheduled on January 1, 2026. They were, in his words, a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to build a fair, competitive and robust fiscal foundation for Nigeria. Not a revenue grab. Not a punishment for the poor. But a structural reset, one designed to harmonise taxes, reduce distortions and strengthen the social contract between the state and the citizen.

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    What stood out was not just the firmness of his tone, but the clarity of his intent. While acknowledging public debate and alleged discrepancies, he refused to allow unverified claims to derail a reform central to Nigeria’s economic survival. At the same time, he left the door open for institutional correction, pledging collaboration with the National Assembly to address any genuine issues identified during implementation. Reform would move forward, but due process would not be sacrificed.

    It was leadership without drama, authority without arrogance.

    Two days later, on New Year’s Day, the President addressed the nation again, this time with a wider lens. His goodwill message reviewed the gains of 2025, from macroeconomic stability and declining inflation to improved investor confidence, rising foreign reserves and a resurgent stock market. It outlined plans for 2026 across security, infrastructure, agriculture, social development and inclusive growth. It reaffirmed commitment to decentralised policing, forest guards and sustained action against terror networks.

    But the most profound part of the address was not the statistics or the projections. It was the final section—A Call to Unity and Responsibility.

    In that passage, Tinubu did something many leaders avoid: he turned the mirror towards the citizens. Nation-building, he reminded Nigerians, is a shared responsibility. Patriotism is not a slogan reserved for speeches; it is a daily ethic expressed through honesty, restraint, civic duty and respect for the common good. A model nation, globally respected and internally cohesive, cannot be built by government action alone if citizens continue to undermine the system through corruption, indiscipline and abuse of freedom.

    It was an uncomfortable truth, but a necessary one. For years, Nigeria’s discourse has often assumed that leadership failure alone explains national stagnation. Tinubu’s message challenged that convenient narrative. If citizens insist on taking freedom to the point of lawlessness, if public morality continues to erode, then even the best leadership in the world will struggle to deliver lasting progress.

    That call to patriotism framed everything else, the tax reforms, the security measures, the economic restructuring. Without responsible citizenship, reform becomes fragile. With it, reform becomes transformative.

    Seen through that lens, the President’s week, from Europe to Abu Dhabi, from tax reform insistence to a sober New Year message, reveals a consistent thread: nationalism expressed not in noise, but in difficult choices. Tinubu’s actions reflect an ultruistic intent to stabilise Nigeria today so it can stand stronger tomorrow, even when those choices attract resistance.

    As the country steps into 2026, the question is no longer whether the President is working hard. The record suggests he is. The more urgent question is whether Nigerians are ready to answer his call, to match reform with responsibility, leadership with citizenship, and ambition with discipline. Only then can the promise of growth, unity and national dignity truly take root.

    When Presence Transcends Geography

    If any doubt lingered that President Tinubu stepped outside the country without stepping away from governance, the sequence of his engagements through the week quietly put it to rest. Even from Europe, the President remained firmly at the centre of national life, demonstrating that leadership is not defined by physical proximity but by consistency of attention and purpose.

    The week opened on a sombre note. Following the fatal auto crash on the Lagos–Ibadan Expressway involving Nigerian-British boxing star, Anthony Joshua, Tinubu publicly expressed deep sympathy, describing the incident as a tragedy that cast “a deep shadow on this season”. Beyond the public message, the President placed a personal phone call to Joshua, and another to his mother, offering prayers, comfort and reassurance. It was a gesture that underscored a human side of power, one that recognises grief, reaches out in moments of pain and reminds citizens that the state can still speak with compassion.

    By Tuesday, the tone shifted from consolation to recognition and institutional stewardship. Tinubu congratulated the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, on his appointment to the Royal Victorian Order by King Charles III. The honour, rooted in years of commitment to youth development through the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award, subtly reinforced Nigeria’s growing international credibility, not just through markets and diplomacy, but through service and values.

    That same day, the President approved the appointment of Rotimi Iseoluwa Oyedepo as Director of Public Prosecutions. In a reform-minded administration, such decisions are rarely dramatic, but they are foundational. They signal continuity, seriousness about justice-sector governance and attention to the quiet but essential architecture of the state.

    Tinubu also used the period to reflect on leadership as sacrifice and service. His tribute to Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani at 55 recalled a generation shaped by pro-democracy struggle and personal conviction, drawing a line between past courage and present responsibility. Similar themes echoed in his message to Benue politician Mathias Terwase Byuan, whom he praised for principled party loyalty and grassroots engagement, values often drowned out in Nigeria’s noisy political arena.

    As the week progressed, the President’s engagements broadened to embrace Nigeria’s institutional and generational diversity. From celebrating the 97th birthday and 52-year reign of Eze Isaac Ikonne of Aba, to congratulating Kogi State Governor, Ahmed Usman Ododo, on his birthday, Tinubu acknowledged both traditional authority and youthful leadership as pillars of national stability. His tributes to Professor Abiodun Adeniyi at 60 and Hadiza Bala-Usman at 50 further highlighted his emphasis on intellect, reform and disciplined public service.

    Even the congratulatory notes to figures like Saleh Ahmadu, former FRSC Corps Marshal, Haladu Hananiya, and presidential aide, Abiodun Essiet followed a pattern; celebrating enterprise, integrity, community service and quiet dedication to nation-building.

    Placed beside his firm insistence on the take-off of tax reforms and his New Year call to patriotism, these engagements complete the picture of a President governing on multiple planes at once. From Europe, Tinubu showed that authority does not dissipate with distance, and that leadership, at its most effective, is a continuous act of firmness, empathy and recognition.

  • Venezuela attack: Trump destroys world order

    Venezuela attack: Trump destroys world order

    Yesterday was seismically significant as President Donald Trump ordered United States Special Forces nighttime operation to seize Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife. They have been flown to the US to be tried, according to the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, in US courts. Charges had previously been filed against Mr Maduro in the US in 2020. The bombing of Iran last year, the airstrike on Nigeria last Christmas, the abduction of Mr Maduro, and the torrent of threats Mr Trump issued against US traditional allies and foes alike are all indications of the upending of the rules-based global order in favour of a power-based world order. Long after the Peace of Westphalia in the 17th century had established the concept of sovereignty, among other variables, as the foundation of global peace and stability, the world order was nevertheless repeatedly broken at least four times in the past two centuries. Each time the order was broken, war followed. Mr Trump is about rounding up his first year in office; by the time he is through, it is uncertain what would be left of the global order, or how long it would take for the consequences of his disruptions and dictatorship to manifest.

    Mr Trump may be picking on small and less powerful nations incapable of retaliating against the US, but by balkanising the world into two camps, pro-US and anti-US, and by first alienating his allies before taking on his enemies, the American president may be setting the stage for his country’s isolation and vulnerability. The US may have the most powerful military in the world at the moment, but until it is truly tested by near equals, no one can say whether the US military is as invincible as Mr Trump has repeatedly boasted. Until Russia took on Ukraine in 2022, few expected that even with external help Kiev could last for as much as it has done, one month shy of four years. Russia has so far failed to expand its sphere of influence, and if peace is finally brokered, it will have gained only a little territory at the cost of over 300,000 men. China is not content to maintain its huge and expanding zone of economic influence. If it makes a bid for Taiwan, there are no indications it would not be a very costly misadventure.

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    The Saturday morning attack on the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, lasted barely 30 minutes before the country’s leadership was decapitated. No one is sure whether the US would make no other move, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio promised, or whether the ease with which the abduction took place would tempt Mr Trump into something more far-reaching and catastrophic. However, the attack followed months of sabre rattling as the American president baited President Maduro, and weeks of gunboat diplomacy that effectively shut-in an already distressed Venezuela in a crippling economic blockade. Back in 2020, in the Southern District of New York, Mr Maduro had been indicted in a US federal court on charges that included narco-terrorism and possession of weapons against the US. Additional charges might now be included in a fresh indictment. Like Panama’s Manuel Noriega who was also seized exactly 35 years ago during the presidency of George H. Bush, it is clear that no one can save Mr Maduro: he will face the charges, and he will get a guilty verdict, for the US had expended so much resources in abducting him.

    But the unlawful arrest and trial of Mr Maduro is the smallest of the world’s headaches. Since the advent of President Trump, and for the past one year, the United Nations (UN) has been shunted aside, forced to reenact the dying throes of the League of Nations, its voice reduced to little more than whispers. And when it manages to speak loudly, it sermonises. It will get worse in the months and years ahead. The US under Mr Trump has forsaken soft power in favour of brute force. Unopposed, its enemies and friends alike cowering before it, the sole surviving superpower will flaunt its wealth and throw its power in everyone’s face. It may in the short term limit himself to taking on less powerful and non-nuclear countries, but ultimately it will look for formidable opponents. President Trump has no sense of history, nor even studied history, and has paid little attention to the principles that undergird the rules-based order he is dismantling. So his instincts, short attention span, and what a psychologist called his malignant narcissism, will conjure the deadly spasms the world must experience in the years ahead.

    But overall, Mr Trump is a historical accident. Men like him have ruled empires, destroyed empires, and reshaped the world in ways neither they nor their successors, nor the rest of the region which they dominated, anticipated. For instance, the Assyrian Empire which peaked between 10th to 7th centuries BCE under rulers like Assurmasirpal II, Tiglath-Pilesar III, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal may have collapsed as a direct consequence of a 60-year megadrought experienced in the 6th century BCE, but it took only three months for Babylon to overrun it and sack Nineveh, the capital, because the empire had become weakened by a combination of many factors. Take a roll call of powerful empires and kingdoms, and observe the eerie parallel with Mr Trump’s shallow understanding of power, regional and global dynamics, and the internal factors that conduce to or corrode state power. It will be evident that the empires of the Romans, Mongols, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Persians, and the Greeks tell cautionary tales. But it takes a leader schooled in the art and dynamics of power to safeguard an empire. Mr Trump is not adept or schooled. It is a matter of time before the world and circumstances take on the might of the US.

    Most condemnations of the abduction of Mr Maduro will be tame, for the prevailing unipolar world cannot withstand Mr Trump’s destructive projection of power. Nigeria was fortunate to get away with a face-saving joint attack on terrorists targets in the Tangaza forests of Sokoto State last Christmas. Had the US decided to go it alone, Nigeria would have been powerless to raise a finger. Even the Nigerian promoters of religious hegemony and ethnic exceptionalism as well as sponsors of terrorism had suddenly become deathly quiet. Had Nigeria united behind its leaders and managed its differences well, no outsider could attack. Had Venezuela united behind its controversial and flawed leader, the US would have thought twice before embarking on the crude and insane colonial exploitation it has embarked upon.

    In the end, the ultimate consequence of the demolition of a rules-based global order is the rekindling of global arms race. Small and medium level countries will from now onwards strive to develop weapons capable of projecting power on such a scale that even the big powers would think twice about meddling in their affairs. North Korea did it, and has been left alone. Iran needed brilliant and circumspect leaders to do it, but it made a lot of noise, threatened genocide against Israel, and showed itself to be a regional nuisance. It will need time and perhaps change in leadership and ideology to be able to achieve military self-sufficiency and political latitude. Other ambitious countries will quietly take the lessons of history made possible in real time by the US to rearm. In the end, like every era when the world order was undermined, war will be inevitable.

  • Needless, partisan bickering over tax laws

    Needless, partisan bickering over tax laws

    Two main reasons explain the ongoing bickering over Nigeria’s new tax laws promulgated last year after intensive and bad-tempered legislative and political processes. One, few people like to pay tax. The new tax laws make evasion difficult. Two, and closely leashed to the first, financial dealings previously conducted largely outside prying tax eyes will also become difficult to hide. Indeed, before the four bills were transmitted to President Bola Tinubu mid-June, they had inspired animated discussions and disagreements among the political class, and sometimes across regional lines. Even the National Economic Council (NEC) was not left out of the turbulence, as their consideration of the bills reportedly led to sharp disagreement among officials at the highest echelons of government. But once transmitted, the president wasted no time in appending his signature on June 26.

    However, some six months later, just as the January 1, 2026 implementation date loomed, a carefully orchestrated and fiercely politicised campaign to discredit the tax laws again took centre stage. The reason for the new campaign was the alleged alterations made to the laws by unnamed persons who inserted themselves between the legislature and the presidency. The National Assembly has promised to open to the public the bills they transmitted to the president as well as the gazetted copy to enable a transparent comparison. By forging ahead, the presidency seems convinced that either there were no alterations or that whatever changes were made were nothing but correction of clerical errors, or that whatever changes were noticed merely rendered the laws more readable.

    Significantly, those championing the suspension of the laws, most of them politicians campaigning under the aegis of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), have seized upon the fallacy that the laws would raise taxes, stymie economic recovery, and worsen hardship particularly among the poor. Knowing full well that most Nigerians have not read the laws nor, if they did, understand them, the campaigners recognise that crying wolf where there is none is always an effective tool of political mobilisation or social revolt. On top of this, no one wants to pay tax, regardless of whether the economy is stable or in recession. The adversarial campaigns have, however, achieved limited effectiveness, fortunately because it is coming outside the election year. Had the administration deferred its implementation to the end of the first quarter as some, including the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), advocated, the seemingly innocent act of procrastination would have restricted the government’s elbow room and risked weakening or derailing its political campaigns.

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    The four legs of the Tax Reform Act 2025 are (1) The Nigeria Tax Act (NTA) 2025; (2) The Nigeria Tax Administration Act (NTAA) 2025; (3) The Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Act (NRSA) 2025; and (4) The Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Act (JRBA) 2025. Opponents of the laws rarely bothered about the second, third and fourth laws. They have been particular about the first one, The Nigeria Tax Act 2025. It is understandable. This Act, as the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reform Committee put it, “is the core of the reform, consolidating over a dozen federal tax laws into a single, unified statute.” It argued further that “it replaces previous laws like the Companies Income Tax Act, Personal Income Tax Act, and Value Added Tax Act, among other outdated tax laws.” The NTA not only simplifies what was a complex and misaligned tax laws, it provides relief for low-income earners and small enterprises. Even as far as VAT is concerned, the new sharing formula benefits states (55%) and local governments (35%), much more than the federal government (10%). The resurgent campaigns have been based on nothing significant, as President Bola Tinubu put it, but on the unprovable supposition that the tax laws would raise taxes.

    The president was more assertive in a statement he issued before the laws took effect. According to him: “These reforms are a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a fair, competitive, and robust fiscal foundation for our country. The tax laws are not designed to raise taxes, but rather to support a structural reset, drive harmonisation, and protect dignity while strengthening the social contract…Our administration is aware of the public discourse surrounding alleged changes to some provisions of the recently enacted tax laws. No substantial issue has been established that warrants a disruption of the reform process.” Though President Tinubu rightly approved the implementation of the tax laws to begin on schedule, unwary members of the public were probably spooked by opposition falsehoods to see the tax laws as their worst nightmare. The reality is, however, different. In fact, the poor as well as small enterprises, not to talk of those who have nothing to hide, will be the chief beneficiaries.

    There will of course be implementation hiccups at the beginning, but despite the stifling opposition to the reform, it should improve Nigeria’s fiscal space, ultimately enthrone tax equity, energise small and medium enterprises, and simplify the social contract by making the public more responsible and the government more accountable. What the administration should worry about is that the initial hiccups do not grow into a monster, engender gridlock, or empower detractors of the laws to make more sanctimonious noise.

  • Malami cuts a sorry figure

    Malami cuts a sorry figure

    Former attorney general Abubakar Malami spent weeks in detention with the EFCC and the New Year and many more days in jail pending the determination of his bail application by a court. He was not alone. His wife and one of his sons were later remanded with him. In the previous Muhammadu Buhari administration, Mr Malami was one of the most powerful ministers, indeed a cabal all by himself. He excused tyranny, waffled over court processes, rode roughshod over governmental negotiations, and refused to speak up when the rights of murdered Nigerians were abridged. He will predictably be bitter about his ordeal, and might even believe that his circumstances were inspired by the government of the day.

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    Never in his wildest imagination would he have expected to be incarcerated for weeks on end. He probably thinks his ordeal is politically motivated, and as a governorship aspirant in the opposition his fellow travellers have encouraged his miscomprehension of his legal troubles. A third-rate lawyer himself, he seems to believe the lies. But what did he expect? The courts wait patiently for men like him, powerful people who think they are untouchable, who when they were in office connived at the raids on residences of judges and mistreatment of court officials. He will of course get his bail, but he will now be more enlightened about the transience of power and how the system ruthlessly exacts vengeance.

  • No battle for ADC presidential ticket

    No battle for ADC presidential ticket

    No one is certain who first mooted the fallacy that with the defection of former Anambra governor Peter Obi to the African Democratic Congress (ADC) there would ensue a healthy struggle for the party’s presidential ticket. Mr Obi defected only last week, while those who hungered for the ticket were either present at the party’s formation or funded the party almost entirely. To presume he stands any chance at all of picking the ticket simply because of some fanciful permutations is sheer nonsense. There will be no battle whatsoever. More accurately, Mr Obi himself knows there will not be any battle, nor if there was one, that he stood any chance.

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    Former president Goodluck Jonathan was briefly afflicted by that political hyperbole, leading him to saunter into the party’s informal caucus meeting one sunny day only to receive a devastating rebuff. Deflated, he sauntered out like he came in and has since not been heard from again on the subject, not even to joke about it. Mr Obi may fancy himself a modern-day pied piper, and may sometimes not know when he is fairly and thoroughly beaten in an electoral contest, but he has no illusion who his political masters are. At any rate, he had once encountered the ADC panjadra before; now he knows that they will master him once again.

    After dithering for more than two years, not knowing what to do or where to go, and unsure of everything but his pet foreign statistics, he has finally berthed at the ADC. His stay in the Labour Party (LP) had become untenable, for he lacked the acumen to manage or reform complex entities, and was therefore not adding value to the beleaguered party. In the end, his clearly outsized ambition to rule Nigeria impelled him to seek refuge anywhere. For a man so feckless, returning to his vomit appeared the logical choice, indeed, the logical end. He will, as he was wont, eat humble pie before former vice president Atiku Abubakar.