The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

  • PDP and the price for impunity

    PDP and the price for impunity

    Impunity is PDP’s other name. With the party’s latest act of impunity ending in a fiasco in Ibadan High Court last Friday, the question on the lips of Nigerians concerned about the health of our democracy and party system are asking is what next?

    Following a suit filed by some aggrieved members of the party’s factional leaders late last year, Justice James Omotosho had ordered their Ibadan convention to be halted until the party complies with the statutory requirements of its own constitution, the Nigerian Constitution, and the Electoral Act. He therefore directed the PDP “to go back and put its house in order, and to give the statutory 21-day notice to INEC before it can proceed with the proposed convention.”

    Similarly, Sule Lamido, an elder of the party claiming he was denied the opportunity to purchase a nomination form to contest for the party’s chairmanship, in violation of the PDP constitution and guidelines, also secured a Federal High Court injunction suspending  the convention.

    But without first vacating any of the judgments, PDP sought and secured the help of an Ibadan High Court which, on November 4, 2025, cleared the party to proceed with the national convention.

    When Kabiru Tanimu Turaki’s attempt to enforce his faction’s Ibadan phyric victory was resisted by the other faction that had taken control of their Abuja Wadata national secretariat, he sought recognition of the Ibadan convention and validation of the NWC that emerged at the convention from another Ibadan Federal High Court presided over by Uche Agomoh. However, instead of the relief sought, the court last Friday nullified the November 15 -16, 2025 convention on the ground it was conducted in flagrant disobedience to two subsisting judgments of the same court. Turaki and other officials purportedly elected at the convention were barred by the court from parading themselves as national officers of the party forthwith.

    Predictably, Turaki’s faction was defiant declaring “We are aware of the judgment of the Federal High Court” but, “Notwithstanding this judgment, the Turaki–led Peoples Democratic Party, which emerged from the Ibadan convention, remains legally intact and unshaken, as we await the authoritative pronouncement of the appellate courts”.

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    It is often said those destined for ruin, are often out of sheer pride driven to act irrationally. With timetable for the 2027 election already released by INEC and with otherwise loyal PDP party members in search for alternative platform to escape a PDP sinking ship in droves, one would have thought these times call for sober reflection with reason prevailing among PDP warring factional leaders.

    It is not as if PDP deserves tears of Nigerians if its fate is now sealed. Nigerians, except those playing the ostrich, still remember their ongoing nightmare was a direct result of 16 years of PDP deliberate and calculated assault on our economy and the general health of our nation. It was their confiscation and conversion of our national resources to personal use of their members that brought our nation to ruins  With air of invulnerability, they went on to share the nation’s national patrimony kept in their temporary care for our grandchildren  and great grandchildren. If death is the wages of sin, that PDP deserves s to die is not debatable.

    But Nigerians, a much forgiving people did not want PDP to die. They want it to live even if not totally out of altruism. It is on record that for the first 16 years of the fourth republic, PDP became a threat to our budding democracy achieved through intense struggle, sweat and blood. It was an era of thriving anti-democratic elements such as Olusegun Obasanjo, David Mark  Atiku Abubakar, A Ali,  men who purely for sadistic humour irreverently danced on the tombs of those who made the supreme sacrifice that democracy may thrive in our land.

    Of course there are other reasons Nigerians should have no restraint singing the traditional night prayer- Nunc Dimittis for the passage of PDP if that is its ordained fate.  For instance this is a party of warring factional leaders for whom honour counts for little when they are engaged in war of attrition over illegal sharing of our national resources. It was PDP leaders that told Nigerians which of them stole what.

    It was Obasanjo’s PDP children including Atiku Abubakar and Dino Melaiye who first attempted to disrobe their father on the street by accusing him of alleged corruption. The former alleged his principal directed him to deploy state resources to buy a car for his concubine and the later asking the following rhetorical question following their principal’s labelling of the National Assembly as an assemblage of ‘pen robbers’: “Has Baba forgotten it was not the 8th assembly that collected ‘Ghana must go bags’ from him for his failed third term debacle?

    It was Bukola Saraki who became the whistle-blower in the fuel subsidy scam through which PDP stalwarts and their siblings defrauded the nation of billons of naira. It was also Saraki who personally confessed that he literarily ‘stole’ the presidency of the 8th assembly. It was David Mark who betrayed his greed by going to court to pre-empt EFCC that had raised question of impropriety in his process of buying the senate mansion, a national patrimony which did not fall under items for sale under government monetization policy.

    PDP alive is probably as dangerous as the one that will ultimately end up in hell. But for our own selfish interest, we need it alive to give legitimacy to our budding democracy which thrives better under a multi-party system. This is why in spite of PDP capital sins, Nigerians have quietly prayed and hoped it stops digging itself into the hole.

    Unfortunately neither Nigerians’ past fervent prayers nor its envisioning of better future for PDP has stopped it from self-destruct.

    It is for instance on record that in 2013, Atiku Abubakar, ever in search of presidential platform at every election season , along with Usman Bugaje, his adviser, pulled out of PDP to join forces with Bukola Saraki and some PDP governors to form nPDP. They eventually joined forces with newly formed APC. That betrayal of their party was all untested APC needed to collect power from weakened PDP.

    In 2019, with  characteristic display of air of invulnerability of the Obasanjo and Tony Anenih’s  era of ‘do or die elections’, Atiku, Saraki and their group  headed back to PDP. But with APC now consolidated in power, PDP was roundly defeated by President Buhari in spite of his-first term’s lack-lustre performance

    A leopard does not change its spots.  In 2023, PDP leaders including Atiku Abubakar, Iyorchia Ayu, David mark and Tambuwal jettisoned their party’s time-tested power rotational policy. They treated party members that disagreed with them with disdain.

    Tambuwal was Wike’s trusted ally. He, however at the last minute, came out to play the ethnic and religious card by supporting Atiku Abubakar. They did not stop hitting Wike when he was down. Despite winning 14 of the 17 votes cast by PDP leading lights for the VP slot, Atiku by-passed him and settled for Ifeanyi Okowa, the governor of oil-rich Delta State notorious for generous donations towards successive PDP presidential campaign war-chest.  Wike’s answer to Atiku’s impunity was to disallow him from campaigning in which he went on to secure for candidate Bola Tinubu.

    It was also curious that PDP did not weigh the consequences of ignoring the legitimate demand of the southeast that was the most important harvester of votes for PDP outside the north. It equally ignored the nuisance value of an opportunistic Peter Obi who, emerging from being a two-term APGA governor, quickly rose to become PDP VP candidate in 2019.

    Realising he stood no chance against Atiku in the 2023, PDP presidential primary, he migrated back home to exploit the ethnic and religious sentiments of his equally aggrieved Igbo people. Obi later moved to Lagos and other Nigerian cities with huge Igbo urban immigrants to harvest group Igbo and Christian votes that placed his Labour platform third in the election. His gain was PDP’s loss.

    It is apparent the only people that have continued to benefit from impunity since the birth of the fourth republic are its perpetrators. Everyone else including members of party oligarchy, political office holder and seekers, at the end has been a loser. Group interest and personal ambitions of party members, best achieved through compromise are frittered away through zero-sum intra-party struggle. The result is threat to the survival of party system, abuse of the judicial process and a culture of fear and heightened tension. And the cheapest solution according to Justice Omotosho of Abuja High Court is PDP putting its house in order.

  • Malami & Mohammed: Haunted by their past

    Malami & Mohammed: Haunted by their past

    The late president, Muhammadu Buhari rode to power in 2015 with goodwill of Nigerians, defeating a sitting president for the first time in our nation’s history. Nigerians saw in him the answer to the overarching problems of the country viz indiscipline, corruption and the threat of Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeast and banditry and immigrant Fulani terrorism in the north-central and northeast.

    Despite his anti-democratic credentials as former military head of state and perceived religious fanaticism, Nigerians saw in Buhari, a leader who loved and had faith in a country whose unity and indivisibility he fought for as a foot soldier marching from Makurdi to Port Harcourt; and on whose behalf he suffered the indignity of being removed from power and dumped in detention for standing with Nigerians that roundly rejected IMF and its ‘conditionalities’ including turning Nigeria into a dumping ground for foreign goods. 

    Unfortunately, by 2023, with the near-collapse of the economy due to massive corruption and incompetence, social dislocations and division as a result of terrorist onslaught that set ethnic nationalities against each other, Buhari had frittered away the goodwill of Nigerians that heralded him to power in 2015.

    The failure of Buhari Presidency stemmed from his incompetence. Those he romantically described as his ‘loyal gatekeepers’ who did not share his pan-Nigeria world view but decided to hide within his government to serve self or other tendencies soon hijacked his government despite repeated warning by his wife.

    In this regard, we can start by identifying Buhari’s ‘friends’ that turned out to be his nemesis beginning with Abubakar Malami, his Attorney General and Minister of Justice who, to many, defined Buhari’s presidency; Bala Mohammed, a non-Fulani who decided to fight the Fulani war like a slave, Hadi Abubakar Sirika, former aviation minister dragged before Justice S.C Orji’s FCT High Court in October 2025 over alleged N2.7billion theft; Godwin  Emefiele who on December 2, 2025 forfeited total assets of about N12.18 billion, including 753 Abuja duplexes, plus another $4, 7 million and N830 million.

    Now let us take a journey through memory to examine some of the excesses of Malami who in power forgot that power is transient and became indifferent to the verdict of history.

    The first evidence of Malami’s acquisitive tendencies came to light with petitions over MTN fine of N780 billion by NCC. When Malami and Adebayo, the Minister of Communication were interrogated by the Senate Committee on Communication, it was discovered that the NCC which was duly authorized to collect all revenues was circumvented as the N50 billion part payment was “curiously paid into CBN Recovery Account specifically designated for the recovered looted funds”.

    This was followed by Malami’s 2017 secret trip to Dubai for a meeting with a fugitive offender, Abdulrasheed Maina, chairman of Presidential Pension Review Committee, indicted by Senate probe panel for N2billion fraud. And upon his return, but for the protest of the then Head of Civil Service, Malami would have succeeded in integrating Maina back into the bureaucracy through the back door.

    It is also on record that the central issue between Malami and Ibrahim Magu, the EFCC chairman he falsely accused of corruption, and replaced with an unqualified candidate from his (Malami) state, was over how seized assets were distributed. He had accused Magu of selling the assets to his cronies while Magu accused him of ignorance as the statute setting up the EFCC did not give the body such powers. Magu was later found innocent and rehabilitated following Buhari’s Justice Salami Investigative panel that exposed Malami’s vindictiveness.

    In 2021, it was said that UAE passed to Nigeria, a list of 38 individuals and 15 entities including six Nigerians viz Abdurrahaman Ado Musa, Salihu Yusuf Adamu, Bashir Ali Yusuf, Muhammed Ibrahim Isa, Ibrahim Ali Alhassan and Surajo Abubakar Muhammad, allegedly involved in terrorist financing. As a follow up, it was also said that Nigeria Sanctions Committee met on March 18, 2024, and recommended the sanctioning of some individuals including Gumi’s ally, Tukur Manu, accused of participating “in the financing of terrorism by receiving and delivering ransom payments over the sum of $200,000 in support of ISWAP terrorists for the release of hostages of the Abuja-Kaduna train attack.”

    But Malami, the Minister of Justice appeared to have been swayed by Gumi’s argument that “No Nigerian will put his money into terrorism”; insisting terrorists “are financing themselves by taking our children for ransom”. Malami chose to do nothing despite the ravaging of the north by terrorists forcing northern leaders to call for Buhari’s resignation over his failure to protect lives and properties of the people of the north.

    With his December 2025 detention by EFCC over alleged theft of about N8.7bn, and last week DSS grilling allegedly over his handling of the list of Nigerian terror financiers released by the United Arab Emirates, many believe it is the past coming to haunt Malami.

    Many also believe Bauchi’s Bala Mohammed, whose commissioners are currently facing EFCC charges of terrorism financing share the same fate with Malami. He who sows the wind must necessarily reap the whirlwind.

    Bala Mohammed started nursing a presidential ambition as soon as he was elected governor in 2019. And since one only gets integrated into the northern ruling class through marriage, business or political endorsement, he first declared he was Fulani maternally, before choosing to fight the Fulani battle like a slave. For instance, long after full blooded Fulani like’s Nasir El Rufai, Kastina’s Aminu Masari and Kano’s Abdullahi Umar Ganduje had disowned and called for the total elimination criminal Fulani herdsmen engaged in killing of innocent Nigerians with banned AK 47 riffles, Mohammed embarked on his ill-advised campaign to justify continued bearing of AK 47 rifles that have become weapon of terror against Nigerians by immigrant Fulani herdsmen.

    He did not just stop at that  but went on to insist immigrant herdsmen should be conferred with Nigerian citizenship and integrated into the then government planned National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) being championed by the federal government.

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    Then he picked up battle with Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State who but for the fact he was fleet-footed would have been eliminated by armed criminal Fulani herdsmen who chased him out of his farm. His only offence was his decision to faithfully implement anti-grazing law passed by his state of assembly. Malami then took the battle to Ondo State where he confronted the late Governor Rotimi Akeredolu over his resolve to rid his reserve forest of illegal criminal herdsmen.

    With all the victories Malami secured in his self-appointed crusade against opponents of criminal Ak-47 wielding immigrant Fulani herdsmen, Malami should feel fulfilled with the title of ‘a sympathiser’ of this anti-Nigeria group; that he is belatedly getting his flowers from no less a body as the DSS should be cause for double celebration.

    Mohammed who alleged his refusal to defect to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) had attracted intimidation and harassment, fingered Nyesom Wike as the man behind his current travail. “Somebody said he is going to put fire in my state. That person is the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike”, he stated after threatening “to escalate the matter to the international community”.

    But if Mohammed is not trying to be economical with the truth, he should admit that he and Wike were once intimate friends. Former House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara, not too long ago publicly scolded Bala for his act ingratitude to Wike who generously deployed Rivers State resources to wage his 2019 gubernatorial battle in Bauchi.  Bala more than anyone else knows that Wike, his estranged friend fights with his eyes closed when seeking vengeance. He can therefore not feign ignorance by attempting to divert attention from EFCC that is currently holding some of his Ministry of Finance officials.

    The good news is that Abubakar Malami is deemed innocent until the court returns a guilty verdict while Bala Mohammed is protected by the constitution. The shortest route to freedom for the former who, one Bala Usman,  claimed was until 2015 ‘a charge and bail’ lawyer is to defend the sources of his stupendous wealth including 53 mansions currently under temporary forfeiture to government. As for the latter who is not EFCC’s target, his obligation is to secure freedom for his finance commissioner, Adamu, arraigned by the EFCC, alongside Balarabe Abdullahi Ilelah, Aminu Mohammed Bose and Kabiru Yahaya Mohammed on December 31, 2025 on a 10-count charge bordering on alleged terrorism financing to the tune of $9.7million

    And this can be easily achieved by providing evidence to invalidate DSS claim that the total sum of $17 million and N75.2 mil¬lion shared on February 7, 2024, was for terrorism financing.

  • General Musa’s war against subversives

    General Musa’s war against subversives

    Nigeria’s Defence Minister, General Christopher Musa (rtd), last Thursday read the riot act to Sheik Gumi for describing those who have ravaged the Middle Belt, engaged in mindless killings of thousands of subsistence farmers and condemned thousands of their displaced families to IDP camps in their own country as “our brothers”. He frowned at his efforts and those of his group at providing “covert support to criminal elements seeking to destabilize our country”. And with foreboding finality, he threw a challenge at Gumi and his tribe of subversives: “The choice is clear. Stand with the law and the nation, or be counted among those enabling criminality” because for him, “a friend of a thief is a thief”.

    One can understand General Musa’s righteous indignation. He has seen how rhetoric and actions of those who behave as if they are above the law not only endangered the lives of his soldiers but also increased the nightmare of Nigerians. He has witnessed how Gumi’s call for rehabilitation and payment of compensation to those who under the pretext of government marginalization killed thousands of innocent Nigerians has only increased the frustration of Nigerians. He equally understands that Nigerians are scandalized  by betrayal of our country by respected Nigerian leaders like Sanusi Lamido Sanusi who directed Fulani settlers in in Benue to disobey anti-grazing laws of their host state; Abubakar Malami’s attempt to extend free movement constitutional right of Nigerians  to cows, and Bauchi’s Bala Mohammed’s attempt to confer Nigerian citizenship on immigrant Fulani herdsmen terrorizing Nigerians with AK 47 which he said they needed to protect their cows from rustlers.

    But I sympathize with General Musa because beyond Gumi and his tribe, most Nigerian elite have subversive tendencies and have engaged in serial betrayal of Nigeria since independence. Indeed, this is why many believe that the Nigerian educated elite are the scourge of Nigeria. Chief Obafemi Awolowo who in the run up to independence, believed Nigeria’s educated elite were driven by greed was also of the opinion that given a choice between them, our traditional rulers and the departing colonial masters, Nigeria would choose in reverse order.

    Let us start with Book Haram insurgency that has dragged on for over 13 years, spreading violence at its pick from Borno State to Abuja. For instance, General Andrew Owoye Azazi, one time National Security Adviser to President Jonathan is on record as saying Boko Haram was a creation of PDP subversives. Today, leading lights of PDP currently taking refuge in ADC blame others for their folly as if it is possible to have today without yesterday.

    Many believe terrorism in the northeast was a creation of dissident northern governors. For instance, Sharia law since it was institutionalized by the colonial masters was just a method of local adjudication in the north.  But that was to change when anti-Obasanjo northern governors led by Ahmed Sani Yerima on October 27 1999, launched Sharia as a state religion in defiance of section 10 of the 1999 constitution, which states very clearly that “the government of the federation or of state shall not adopt any religion or state religion”. Thirteen other northern states soon joined Yerima to inaugurate sharia law in their states. Many of the ‘Sharia’ governors later sponsored some of our youths for indoctrination under Osama Bin Laden who was then taking refuge in Sudan. It was widely believed that some of the youths that went through that indoctrination formed the nucleus of insurgents groups that have brought nothing but misery to poor northerners. While the 13 Sharia states today remain the most underdeveloped part of the country, their other baleful legacies are millions of out-of-school children and street urchins known as ‘almajiris’.

    Niger Delta’s violent militant groups were also the creation of Niger Delta dissident governors. At the onset of the 4th republic, agitation for resource control by self-serving Niger Delta elected governors forced the federal government to seek the Supreme Court’s interpretation of section 162(2) of the 1999 constitution. The court ruled that the plaintiff was obliged to comply with the provisions of the constitution on the 13% derivation from May 29 1999.

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    That was all Niger Delta traitorous governors needed to invite disloyal VP Atiku Abubakar who was planning to oust his principal from power as their arrow head. Falsely swearing in the name of the people, they went on to arm frustrated jobless Niger Delta youths, victims of land degradation and water pollution.

    Mujahid Asari Dokubo’s Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF) later accused of “siphoning oil and gas from pipelines, destroying energy infrastructure and declaring war on Nigerian state, was one of such creations. Others include Odili ‘s  rival group, the  Atake Tom’s “Niger Delta Vigilantes”(charged for treason and jailed in 2005) and  the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) led by  Ben Victor Ebikabowei, alias General Government ‘Boy Loaf’, responsible for the death of over 1000 people  with over 300 others taken as hostages. This forced late president, Umaru Yar’Adua to negotiate and agree to pay each militant N65,000 monthly or N65b per annum.  Non-faithful implementation of the programme after Buhari’s emergence in 2015 led to the emergence of the Niger Delta Avengers, whose attack on oil installations led to reduction in Nigeria’s oil production by half.  This was what forced Nigerian government into the negotiation table.

    General Government  Boyloaf,  who  the late Pa Edwin Clark said could not secure government job  because of lack of education, chased around by security officers on account of his criminal activities,  has since obtained a  first class degree in international relations from Abuja Base University and transited into  a multi-billionaire business man with a big mansion in Abuja while Dokubo, his former principal has settled down as first class traditional Ijaw ruler routinely consulted by Niger Delta politicians.  While the militant leaders have been integrated into the system, the lot of the poor in Niger Delta remains the same.

    And if you believe they were driven by altruism to unleash terror on Nigeria, take another look at the profile of these self-serving leaders. First, they have all been accused of financial malfeasance against their states: – Peter Odili was saved by the court, Alamieseigha was chased by EFCC and foreign security agencies from Germany, through France, Britain where he had deployed his state resources to buy mansions to Nigeria; James Ibori was jailed in London. Ifeanyi Okowa is accused of deploying his state resources on Atiku’s 2023 presidential campaign. And as for Wike and Fubara, facts have emerged to show they generously deployed resources of Rivers to buy influence among PDP oligarchy and respectable Nigerian institutions like the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).

    But perhaps the greatest threat to our survival as nation is the economic and political subversives.

    In the seventies and eighties when the naira was stronger than the dollar, we produced our own food, manufactured our own refrigerators, television, car accessories such as batteries, tyres, windscreen and our own drugs. Ibrahim Babangida’s liberalization and commercialization policies were to turn us to importers of labour of other societies. The economic subversives who argued most vociferously in favour of globalization to justify change of policy from manufacturing to importation are today behind massive importation of foreign goods including substandard and fake ones. They have over the years also sabotaged government’s efforts at backward integration just as they are the most critical of current government’s policy aimed at changing the narrative.

    And of course, the political subversives have continued to betray aspirations of Nigerians by preventing a return to where the rain started to beat us.

    Unfortunately, most Nigerian youths and others below 70 may never appreciate how beautiful our country used to be at a period we operated a federal arrangement that guaranteed “unity in diversity”. Our three regions each with her own High Commissioner in the United Kingdom operated without interference even from the centre. That was the period Nigerians had no apprehension putting their 12-years old inside the train unaccompanied from Ibadan or Lagos to Kano, when Sam Ikoku, an illustrious son of an illustrious father, Alvan Ikoku contested under AG, a Yoruba party and defeated his father contesting under United National Independent Party (UNIP) in Aba.

    This is why I sympathize with Defence Minister Musa. Subversive war whether in the north or in the south are only symptoms of our unresolved national question.  We today spend millions on subliminal advertising campaign to decree unity as if possible to climb the palm tree from the top even after 55 years of repeated failure of military social engineering strategies to promote unity.

    I wonder if it has ever occurred to our leaders why it was only the period Nigerians were not ashamed of belonging to their Igbo, Hausa /Fulani, Yoruba, Edo, Ibibio, Mumuye, Kataf, Gwong,  Biron etc. ethnic nationalities that our identity as Nigerians was never in question.

  • Between Wike and Fubara

    Between Wike and Fubara

    Whatever name: errant godfather bootlicker, or  a loquacious mischief maker, etc.; that his media bashers may call him, Wike, a versatile, shrewd  master of his game, has since the run up to 2023 elections, defined the character and the colour of Nigerian politics just as he remains the main issue of 2027 election. While President Tinubu, overwhelmed by a deluge of defecting politicians, trying to escape from a sinking ship, is laughing at his political foes and unthinking ‘Obidients’ who only yesterday swore to pull his government down, Wike remains unapologetic as he embarks with an unusual fervour in his self-assigned crusade of ensuring President Tinubu’s victory in Rivers in 2027. Towards this, he has passed ‘fatwa’ declaring Rivers State close to other contestants in 2007.

    Wike, a very versatile and resourceful politician is a man whose adversaries often underestimate until almost too late. The testimony is in the number of wars he waged and won since joining politics at the grass root level as a local council chairman in his state. It is on record that Wike has never lost any political battle.

    His first victim was Rotimi Amaechi, his dependable and faithful ally during his war against dictatorship of Obasanjo who substituted Amaechi’s name after winning a PDP primary with that of the president’s favourite. Wike fought the judicial battle while Amaechi took refuge in Ghana, returning only after judicial victory was secured.  When they however fell apart over sharing of spoils of war, Amaechi came out with bruised nose.

    That encounter which occurred on in Port Harcourt on November 11, 2015 where, gun-toting security men attached to Wike’s convoy confronted Amaechi’s over 50 SARS personnel, soldiers and mobile policemen ended in a draw. The second encounter was when Amaechi suspended the chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area which had become Wike’s recruiting base for thugs in readiness for the 2015 election. But President Jonathan came to Wike’s aid by directing Joseph Mbu of Rivers State Police command to illegally take over the LGA.

    Wike won the third round when he defeated Amaechi as a sitting governor along with his candidate in the governorship election. When Itse Sagay, alleged “Wike climbed to the governorship seat over dead bodies”, Wike celebrated his victory by declaring through his information commissioner that all he did was to “urge his people to defend their right to freely choose their leaders with their blood”. With Wike’s formation of a rainbow coalition of PDP and APC in Rivers State, Amaechi without a political base has been forced to escape to ADC, a ready-made vehicle for disgruntled and frustrated politicians.

    It was the turn of IGP Ibrahim Idris and Major General Kasimu Abdulkarim of Port Harcourt sixth division to be tamed following the beheading of some security officers during Rivers State legislative rerun election, in Ujju community near Omoku on December 10 2016. When the service personnel attached to Wike were fingered following the recovery of the uniform of the beheaded officers in the bush, Wike’s question which remained unanswered was “were there polling units in the forest?

    Moving to the national level after consolidating his state, Wike literarily retired Iyorchia Ayu, PDP former chairman he had challenged to account for the sum of N1b allegedly raked in from sales of forms to aspiring political office holders.

    Wike, more than any other PDP politician, probably caused Atiku Abubakar the loss of the 2023 presidential election. After he and Tambuwal breached PDP zoning policy, Wike who has driven all those involved in that fraud from Atiku to Tambuwal and David Mark to ADC, was further incensed by Atiku who settled for Ifeanyi Okowa to spite Wike despite securing 14 of the 19 votes of PDP leading lights that carried out the screening exercise.

    In the battle for the soul of PDP against Bode George, his estranged godfather, and Makinde who disagreed with him over the controversial Ibadan convention which ended in fisticuff with use of thugs at their Abuja Wadata plaza headquarters, it was his opponents that came out calling on Trump to come and solve their intraparty crisis.

    Unfortunately, after series of external victories, Whirlwind Wike who always ensures those who sow the wind reap the whirlwind, has been drawn back home to face the battle he thought he had won.

    Fubara, against the run of Rivers politics, often dominated by Ikwere Igbos was installed as the first governor of Ijaw extraction for reasons not totally altruistic.  But you never know a man until he is in power or has acquired wealth.  Just a few months into his four years tenure, Fubara tried to assert his own independence.  Fubara, ‘a mistake’, to borrow Rivers Speaker’s phrase was doing this in breach of the constitution. He employed the services of media meddlers and the like of Ugochinchere, an interloper from Imo state.

    Fubara, who was saved from impeachment at the last minute by the president’s declaration of state of emergency, was again served notice of impeachment for an alleged bombing of the assembly complex, conducting LGA election in defiance of court order and presentation of budget to a three-man assembly while he side-lined 27 elected members of the state assembly. After being saved by the president’s declaration of emergency rule, Fubara learnt no lesson from his six months ordeal. He is yet to understand the intrigue that goes into balancing the interest of pressure groups and public interest in a democracy, the deviousness and ruthlessness of office.

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    Back from emergency rule, one would have thought Fubara would have realised that “politics is the art of the possible’’ where compromise is a badge of honour. Now served with another impeachment notice last week, Fubara who has learnt nothing from his six months ordeal during which other people helped him to fight his battle is probably hoping to be saved by appeal to his Ijaw nation, just as he did few months back.

    A Yoruba axiom crudely translated says someone who is aware of enemies plan to have him roasted should not rub his body with inflammable oil.  The question Fubara sympathisers, including the APC to which he recently decamped is not asking him, is why he is deliberately breaching the constitution. But for the appointment of a sole administrator during the emergency who raised a moral question about NBA holding on to unappropriated N300m Fubara donated on the understanding that Rivers would host NBA annual conference, no one would have discovered that NBA refused to refund the money even after the venue had been unilaterally changed by some ignoble men in NBA protesting president’s declaration of state of emergency in Rivers. Supporting NBA’s right to hold on to the money, the chairman of the NBA 2025 Conference Planning Committee, Emeka Obegolu (SAN) said that the money was “an unconditional gift to support the event”.

    That incident is enough reason for the Rivers State House of Assembly to insist Fubara does the right thing. And who do you blame if such impunity and deliberate breach of the constitution provided additional incentive for Wike, who holds no hostages, set in his ways and would do whatever he says he would do no matter how mean?

    Wike had during his recent visit to some traditional rulers in Rivers criticized Fubara saying he would not secure re-election after accusing him of failing to honour their political agreement. But the Ijaw Youth Council Worldwide, under the leadership of Dr Alaye Tari Theophilus, has reaffirmed its total, unwavering, and unequivocal support for Governor Siminalayi Fubara. And while “The Ijaw Youth Council Worldwide categorically states that it does not recognise, accept, or align with any political arrangements or agreements being promoted by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike”, Fubara was not cautioned about his breach of the constitution.

  • PDP’s immoral war against tax reforms

    PDP’s immoral war against tax reforms

    The new tax law from onset was controversial. Early opposition came from northern political leaders and governors who had thought the north would be short-changed by the new tax laws. Of course, that was not unexpected in a multi-ethnic nation where ethnic nationalities are always in competition.  At a point, the National Economic Council advised the president who is never afraid of taking risks, to withdraw the Bills from the lawmakers to allow for wider consultation. He refused, urging those who had misgivings to wait for lawmakers’ public hearing. He was not prepared to give his political enemies an opportunity to sabotage his tax reforms initiative.

    While an observation by Abdulsamad Dasuki of the House of Representatives that the versions of the tax laws gazetted and made public contained provisions never debated or approved by lawmakers has only energized the president many enemies, he was not going to allow them to throw away the baby with the birth water.

    He clearly understands if his political foes including Atiku Abubkar and Peter Obi, who out of greed splintered their party into three during the 2023 election,  Kabiru Turaki PDP factional leader who unable to resolve his party’s intra party crisis, sought help from Donald Trump, the nemesis of democracy in America, the Nigerian Bar Association where some of its ignoble members have continued to play opposition politics in the name of the association, and the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) that would rather blame Tinubu’s two years administration for insecurity arising from the eight million out of school children and the ‘almajiris’, they bred over the years, don’t agree on anything, they are united by their opposition to his presidency.

    The opposition to the tax law was therefore just another attempt at sabotaging his policies. That was why the strategy for opportunistic Peter Obi, who now says “Nigeria must rethink taxation if it is serious about economic growth, national unity and are prosperity”. And he was probably not expecting anything different from Peter Obi who is now counselling Nigerians saying “You cannot tax your way out of poverty, you must produce your way out of it” after being an importer of the labour of other societies since he left school, the reason Tinubu describes him as ‘container economist.

    President Tinubu, had while signing his four tax reforms bills which include the Nigeria Tax Act, the Nigeria Tax Administration Act, the Nigeria Revenue Service Act, and the Joint Revenue Board Act, into law on June 26, 2025 told Nigerians that   they were meant to “overhaul the Nigerian tax landscape to drive economic growth, increase revenue generation, improve the business environment, and enhance effective tax administration across the different levels of government”. Some of the laws took effect from the day it was signed while the remaining was programmed to become operational on January 1. This date, the president insisted, remained sacrosanct because according to him: “Absolute trust is built over time through making the right decisions, not through premature, reactive measures”.

    But despite support by professionals and institutions including the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) and declaration by the chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, that it was too late in the day to stop the law because two of the four tax laws were already operational, opposition leader continued to mobilise against the take-off date.

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    But for President Tinubu who describes the new tax laws as “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a fair, competitive and robust fiscal foundation for Nigeria”, relief came for the president with the dismissal of a suit filed by ‘the Incorporated Trustee of African Initiative for abuse of Public Trust’ calling for interim injunction to stop the laws’ take-off, by Justice Bello Kawu for lack of merit. The court had ruled that “once a law has been duly enacted and gazetted, disagreement or objections cannot, on their own, justify stopping its implementation; any alleged errors must be addressed through legislative amendment or a substantive court”.

    It is not as if the forces against the take-off date were unaware of the above provision; it is about the culture of ‘if we cannot have it, no one else must have it. The tragedy of our nation is that those who pillaged and plundered our land ‘materially and morally’, shared our common patrimony through fraudulent privatization and monetization policies, and those who introduced ‘political sharia ’after sending our kids to Osama Bin Laden in Sudan for indoctrination, unleashed Niger Delta militants and Boko Haram on Nigerians are today posing as our new messiahs. Unfortunately, our youths below 30, their targets are not aware of their baleful legacies.

    For instance, there can be no democracy without credible election. It is through it people participate in decision making in society. However, PDP that presided over the conduct of the most scandalous election in 2003 and 2007 became the greatest threat to democracy. Today, PDP and Labour Party sore losers, who have refused to congratulate a winner of an election after two years even as they run from one platform to the other at every election season in search of platform, cannot be said to be assets to democracy. With the exit of Obasanjo, the apostle or promoter of do or die election, Tony Anenih, PDP “Mr. Fixer” and Maurice Iwu, most Nigerians will admit an improvement in the quality of our elections since 2015. Unfortunately, those who only yesterday mounted an assault on the democratization process now want Nigerians to believe that President Tinubu, who remained faithful to his ideological orientation since 1999, built up a coalition that ended PDP 60 year’s dream of uninterrupted reign, has suddenly become a threat to democracy.

    Our youths who are below 30 years of age must be reminded that it was not only democracy that came under serious threat under PDP 16 years reign; the economy came under serious assault. A House of Representatives’ probe report of PDP subsidy regime in 2011 showed that N1.7t trillion was stolen through mindless importation by PDP leading lights while their siblings without importing a pint of fuel also stole several billions. VP Atiku Abubakar presided over the privatization fraud that led to Nigeria selling assets worth $100b for a paltry $1.5b. Obasanjo and his PDP children spent between $8-13billion on the energy sector which only produced darkness while Jonathan spent some more billions before selling the unbundled PHCN to prominent PDP leaders.

    About 40,000 barrels of crude oil was, according to Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, stolen daily. It is on record that she along with Chukwuma Soludo, Obasanjo’s CBN governor, predicted that anyone that inherited power from Jonathan will inherit an economy in ruins. Buhari might have contributed to Nigeria’s economic nightmare, the architect of poverty are today trying to exploit current hardship of Nigerians arising from government hard economic choices designed to change the narrative.

    The judiciary has also come under serious assault of PDP and its media since the 2023 election which they lost ‘round and square’. But if one may ask, how did the judiciary fare under PDP 16 years reign?  Joseph Jibueze in his “Legacies of the Judiciary between 1999 and 2014- How sabotage, blackmail, undue delays are killing the judiciary” provided some details on the legacies of the judiciary during the reign of PDP.

    The resourceful judicial reporter cited the case of Ayo Fayose’s allegation of financial misappropriation that dragged on for eight years before winning a controversial election in 2014 even while facing eligibility case in court. Fayose was to later invade the court trying his case with thugs. According to Justice Daramola,  Chief Judge of Ekiti State: “The thugs invaded my court, tore the record books, beat the court officials, descended on Hon. Justice J. Adeyeye, the presiding judge in court 3, beat and dragged him the ground”. After inauguration, Fayose chased out 19 elected members of opposition and ruled with seven PDP members. There was the Halliburton case where “American company officials involved in bribing Nigerian officials were jailed after conviction while their collaborators who received bribe in Nigeria walked away free.

    He also cited the case of James Ibori, accused of stealing US$250m from public purse. He was on April 17, 2012 jailed by Southwick Crown Court in London and sentenced to 13 years imprisonment. That was after 171-count charge of money laundering fraud and corruption filed against him in Federal High Court, Kaduna was discontinued in his favour and the appeal court was eventually discharged and acquitted when arraigned before Justice Marcel Awokulehin in Asaba.

    For PDP warring family members, whether in ADC or staying back to fight it out, ‘all is fair in love as in war’. For them, rules and laws are for others. The president understands he cannot put his faith in the hands of those who, in the process of sharing spoils of war, are prepared to pull down the edifice over their own heads.

  • Makinde and PDP warriors of democracy

    Makinde and PDP warriors of democracy

    A latent war of attrition among PDP factional leader started with the pulling out of the late Bola Ige/Olu Falae group on the eve of the party’s registration in 1988. It did not become covert until the party’s takeover by retired Generals and their contractor fronts. Victory in the 1999 election and greed over sharing of spoils of victory only brought in more acrimony. Resentment among factional leaders at this point was tagged “family quarrel” because there was more than enough to go round. But by 2015, PDP had fought itself out of power. For a group driven by greed, that there might be nothing to share until probably after 2031 is the source of today’s bitterness and factional leaders’ resolve to fight to the bitter end.

    Much as PDP anti-democratic fortune-seekers might wish to change the narrative, I am not sure Nigerians are deceived by the claim that the current renewed war of attrition is a patriotic attempt to protect democracy, or prevent President Tinubu from turning the country to a one-party state.

    Is it not an irony that those who in 1993 buried democracy, promoted an unconstitutional Interim National Government, became beneficiary of sacrifices of NADECO, Civil Society Groups, journalists and other unsung Nigerians killed by Abacha soldiers, and then danced on the grave of MKO Abiola for 16 years without acknowledging his supreme sacrifice, now say they are soldiers of democracy? 

    It cannot get any more sardonic than the claim that President Tinubu, the arrow head of opposition to  dictatorship and the only man left standing during Obasanjo  2003 “mainstreaming” crusade that led to PDP’s ‘land slide and sea slide victory in opposition strongholds’ (apology to Walter Ofonagoro) is today considered a threat to democracy?

    There is no doubt Nigerians are worried about survival of democracy. How about the ongoing deliberate attempt by anti-democratic elements like Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rotimi Amaechi and others now in ADC, (Obasnajo’s special vehicle for disgruntled politicians) with history of moving from party to party at every election season in search of platform to mislead our youths below 30 years of age? This concern is perhaps what informed Nigerians who know that democracy thrives better under a multi-party system, to counsel PDP factional leaders on the virtue of negotiation which is an invaluable democratic ethos, instead of acquiring new war arsenals.

    Concerned Nigerians had also expected the warring factions to have been sobered by INEC’s declaration of the controversial Ibadan Convention null and void, and the forced dislodgement of warring factional leaders and their thugs by the police from their Abuja Wadata Plaza headquarters which for a period became a battle field. However, with last Wednesday’s Wike-backed NWC announced dissolution of the party’s state executives in some states and the inauguration  of a 19-member state caretaker committee, it is not difficult to conclude that neither survival of PDP nor democracy matter to Wike’s group or his opponents who are also digging in.

    For instance, instead of Seyi Makinde, the newly appointed war leader seeking way to put his house in order after the Ibadan fiasco, he is trying to find a scape goat in President Tinubu. And without the courage to confront PDP demon, Kabiru Turaki, the Ibadan elected faction leader is seeking outside help to truncate two and half years old Tinubu’s administration. Nigerians can still hear the roaring ring of his desperate plea “I want to call on President Trump, what is at stake is not just genocide against Nigerian Christians, he should come and save democracy in Nigeria”. Turaki can be excused because a drowning man will hold to any straw.

    But he has probably not heard about a Yoruba axiom that admonishes us to first study the apparel a man that promises us a new dress adorns. In his desperation, Turaki forgets that Trump was the first American President in 200 years to be impeached twice for sponsoring an attack on the Congress, the symbol of American democracy in a failed attempt to overturn an election he lost and a leader that has assaulted all democratic institutions since his re-election.

    But much as we all want PDP to survive because democracy thrives better under multi-party system, the challenge is whether a party that has always been haunted by crisis of internal democracy can offer what it has not got. It is on record that Obasanjo was imposed by retired generals and northern ruling class as Yoruba candidate and eventually president in 1999. And as a leader who was roundly rejected by his Yoruba people even in his own polling booth, by becoming a president without a base, it can be said he literarily climbed the palm tree from the top.

    And in power, Obasanjo who has always been a victim of messianic complex, publicly declared he was not obliged to listen  to appointed advisers insisting he would rather listen “to the voice of God’. But deeply religious Nigerians agreed that it was the voice of someone else other than God that drove Obasanjo and Maurice Iwu to conduct the most scandalous elections in Nigeria in 2003 and 2007. In the 2003, the judiciary had to retrieve stolen mandates of governors of Edo, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun from Obasanjo. In  2007, Umaru Yar’Adua the declared winner, was so scandalised by the extent of rigging that he set up the Justice Uwai’s commission to prevent a repeat of what happened under Obasanjo.

    Besides Obasanjo, all PDP political actors are tarred with the same brush of anti-democrats. There were the 16 PDP governors who resorted to self-help after losing the Governors’ Forum election to Rotimi Amaechi; there was PDP gang of seven including Atiku Abubakar, Alhaji Baraje, Bukola Saraki and some governors that traded PDP for APC in 2015. In 2023,  Atiku Abubarkar, Kwankwaso,and  Peter Obi, out of greed, splintered PDP into three on the eve of an election, while Wike like his fellow sore losers, led his ‘integrity group ‘of five governors to Tinubu’s camp to spite Atiku.

    But beyond actors, PDP itself is never a political party. The distinguishing characteristic of any political party is a consensus of members on identified values and principles.  PDP and its factional leaders hardly agree on anything. PDP’s illegal sharing of our nation’s resources is often accompanied with acrimony. It was through their endless war of attrition that we knew about the mismanagement of the privatization programme under Atiku and El Rufai. Bukola Saraki was the whistle-blower in the fuel subsidy scam. Yar Adua and other PDP members told us Obasanjo spent between $10 and $13b on the energy sector that only brought darkness. It was from Chukwuma Soludo and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala the nation got to know the level of debauchery by PDP leaders under Jonathan presidency. The above facts confirmed the claim by many including former US envoy to Nigeria, that PDP is not a political party but an elite group that came together for the sharing of power and proceeds of oil.

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    But if Nigerians want to know the true colour of PDP and its ignoble leaders, all they need to do is sieve what Seyi Makinde, the new war commander of “PDP warriors of democracy” claimed to have discussed with the president from other aspects he did not disclose.

    But first two quick anecdotes: Wike once told us long before the mass defection of PDP members to APC started that some governors who criticise President Tinubu openly often pay nocturnal visits to seek private favours. Makinde said he went to see the president in respect of expansion of Ibadan Airport. As a member of Council of State, he did not need Wike to see the president if expansion of Ibadan airport was the only agenda.

     Makinde, like his fellow politicians is probably a man of many words because we can draw more conclusions from what he did not say than what he said. For instance, he started his narrative not from airport expansion but from where he told the president that Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, the man the president picked in place of his recommended ministerial nominee, did not have the capacity to mobilise APC party in Ibadan with the president challenging him by saying “ I want you to do the mobilization for me”.

    For Makinde who supported the president in 2023 but currently not facing the challenges of re-election like his fellow PDP defectors, the president’s response was proof he coerced his colleagues to join APC and his rejection of the president’s request establishes his democratic credential and consolidates his position as commander of PDP warriors of democracy’!

    I have been wondering if Makinde is confessing he and his defected colleagues can be so cheaply bought; how he expects Tinubu whose resourcefulness, political, brinkmanship and capacity for skilful exploitation of human infirmities has been acknowledged even by political foes,  not to take advantage of politicians who behave like prostitutes  with five husbands (apology to TOS Benson).

  • In defence of Ahmed Farouk and Malami

    In defence of Ahmed Farouk and Malami

    Nigerians are angry. For close to two weeks, they have agonized over Ahmed Farouk, ex MD of NNPCL and Abubakar Malami, the immediate past Attorney General and Minister of Justice’s alleged betrayal of sacred trust entrusted on them as public servants by the nation. The former was challenged over indiscriminate issuance of licences for PMS importation – an act, they said, could derail the government current drive towards energy self-sufficiency. He was also alleged to have spent about $5m school fees on his four primary school children in Switzerland. Such money, many have argued must be a product of corruption.

    The latter was accused of hiding under Buhari’s presidency to serve other tendencies. As a ‘charge and bail’ lawyer before joining Buhari’s crew of ‘loyal gatekeepers’, many are asking for the sources of his alleged stupendous wealth.

    For their ‘treachery’, the battle cry at home, on the street, in the social media and even in the hallow chambers of our National Assembly is “hang them”.

    But the problem is that we know that “hang them” is a language of those shut out of the system or those driven by greed. And since everyone seems to be angry with the Nigerian state, it can be said that there is a bit of Farouk and Malami in all of us.

     We rail at PENGASAN, IPMAN and DAPPMAN only because we don’t have the opportunity of becoming part of them. From ethnic nationalities, the owners of our society, whose arrogant spokespersons insist no one gets what they cannot get, to our political leaders who see Abuja as place for securing their own fair share of the national cake, and the governed, who swear at the politicians for not stealing enough monies from Abuja which they claim belong to no one, we have all betrayed the nation.

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    If you are in doubt, let us again take a short journey through memory. At the 1957 London Independence Constitutional Conference, two of the dominant ethnic groups, the Igbo and the Fulani, betrayed the minorities over creation of states. In 1962, they again removed one of the legs of a tripod holding Nigeria together. Between the census crisis of 1962/63 and massively rigged 1964 election, the remaining two wobbling legs of the tripod finally collapsed. With each group insisting no one gets what the other could not get, our politically naïve military was dragged into politicians’ battle for supremacy. The result was a civil war driven by greed but fraudulent fought in our name.

    In 1993, a jolly good fellow and a generous giver, MKO Abiola, a man without any ideological orientation made billions through Nigerian state and ITT. (We all remember Fela Anikulapo’s famous lyric “ITT: International thief thief”). But as a generous giver, he shared the fortune so cheaply acquired among Nigerians, building mosques, churches, hospitals, schools, sport centres across towns and villages in Nigeria.  Many analysts believe it was the secret of his landslide victory in 1993, defeating Bashir Tofa round and square even in his Kano stronghold.

    But the ruling Fulani hegemonic class in the north according to Babangida’s rain doctors did not want a Yoruba presidency. Arthur Nzeribe placed a paid newspaper advertisement declaring “Igbo will not accept a Yoruba presidency”, Evans Enwerem, who later became a senate president during OBJ presidency, issued a press statement declaring “Igbo will go to war if Abiola’s election is de-annulled”. Odumegwu Ojukwu’s opposition to Yoruba presidency was reported by the PM News of October 17, 1994 with a howling headline “Hang MKO Abiola, Ojukwu tells Abacha”.  Ojukwu later became Abacha’s ambassador to Europe to de-market MKO Abiola.

    If the federating ethnic nationalities have no faith in their country, it should not surprise anyone why their political representatives only think of what they can get out of Nigeria and not what they could do for Nigeria.

    For instance, all through the military era and up to 1999, there was a general consensus among Nigerians that NNPC had become a cesspool of corruption. Sanitising NNPC required our leaders political will, a virtue in deficit among our successive leaders.

    When the former CBN governor, Lamido Sanusi Lamido reported a possible disappearance of $20b not paid by NNPC into the federation account, during the leadership of Diezani Alison-Madueke as Minister of Petroleum Resources, who has since been indicted by both Britain and the US for money laundering, it was Sanusi that got fired by President Jonathan and replaced by an unqualified and incompetent Godwin Emefiele, a choice many argued was informed by ethnic consideration.

    As for the new breed politicians and new inheritors of power in Abuja, they made it clear it was time to recoup their expenses on the 1999 electoral battle. The PPPRA, with a staff strength of 249, supervised by an unwieldy board of 49, earning a whopping salaries and allowances of N57 billion per annum became an instrument through which N1.7 trillion was stolen according to a House of Representatives probe report.

    As for the governed, the policy was ‘if we cannot beat them, we join them”. As fortune seekers in a world of the survival of the fittest, we try to bribe our way into getting our children employed by NNPC which pays salaries that will make our doctors and university lecturers green with envy. And once we get our children into NNPC or the CBN, we keep quiet in order not to get choked.

    When it comes to treachery against Nigeria, we are all tarred with the same brush. That a part of a whole cannot be holier than the whole was clearly demonstrated during President Tinubu’s inaugural speech. The address brought out the Farouk in all of us in bold relief. He had hardly finished saying “subsidy is gone” when PMS disappeared from filling stations across the nation. And where they were available, PMS procured at less than N200 per litre was going for N700. Retail prices for pepper, tomatoes, beans, corn went up as much as 500% within two days. In agrarian Ekiti State where farmers had abandoned farming and waited for pepper and tomato to come from the north, chiefs had to go to the open market to chide market women for their greed.

    The difference between Farouk’s case and Abubakar Malami is that having seduced Buhari by adding his divorced daughter, a mother of four to his harem, Malami was beyond reproach. And this was despite his efforts to confer constitutional rights meant for Nigerians on cows and mischievous attempt to equate criminal Fulani herdsmen who forcefully took over reserve forests in the south with documented legitimate Igbo traders and urban immigrants in the north.

    Malami’s current travail stemmed from the Cable’s December 22, 2017 publication of his attempt to appoint two Nigerian lawyers, Oladipo Okpeseyi, a senior advocate, and Temitope Isaac Adebayo, lawyers to the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) at a cost of $16m to work on a job already completed by another lawyer. It was for this reason, it was claimed, Kemi Adeosun, in April 2018 as minister of finance, refused to approve the payment of $16.9 million in fees to the two lawyers for the “recovery”.

    Besides recovery of assets, the current investigation is said to also cover probe of several bank accounts allegedly linked to the former minister, as well as his multi-billion-naira investments in Kebbi State.

    I think this is important because Junaid Mohammed once described Malami as “Kano charge and bail lawyer” who opted to handle Buhari’s judicial cases, pro bono, at a time Buhari had no money to pay lawyers.

    But today  there is a trending video of Rayhaan Group of companies described as the biggest private conglomerate in Nigeria, consisting of a string of luxury hotels, largest rice milling factory in Africa, Rayhaan Academy and newly approved Rayhaan University  and Security Companies, all managed by 29 years old Malami’s son.

    While we all agree Nigeria has become an orphan repeatedly pillaged by leaders of ethnic nationalities, politicians, pastors, Imams etc., I think the ongoing search for sponsors of terrorism should not spare the likes of Abubakar Malami. He might have one or two things to say about sympathisers and sponsors of terrorism in view of his defence of their activities not just in the north but also in the ‘reserved forest’ of the south. In retrospect, when one looks back at Malami’s endless war with Rotimi Akeredolu, the late governor of Ondo State over the illegal take-over of his state’s reserved forest by criminal herdsmen. It will appear Malami was determined to export northern tragedy to the south.

  • Travails of Stella Oduah

    Travails of Stella Oduah

    Greed is thy other name PDP. The arraignment of former Minister of Aviation, Senator Stella Oduah by the federal government over an alleged  N5bn fraud committed in 2014 is a sad reminder of PDP years of the locust when vicious  battle over ‘sharing’ of our resources often subtly termed  ‘family quarrel’ threatened the very survival of the nation. 

    Of course, greed over control of resources of a nation is not limited to the ruling class in Nigeria. It is the reason for climate change denial by owners of society in the US despite overwhelming scientific evidence just as it is the source of social dislocations and chaos in Europe.

    Indeed, greed is what sets aside the less than 4% that control the resources of the world from the 96% of humanity who, because of their daily struggle for survival, have questioned claim of some social crusaders who insist ‘we are not the savage, irredeemably greedy, violent and rapacious species we can be led into thinking ourselves to be”. (Stephen Fry on Rutger Bregman’s Humankind: A Hopeful History.

    For many troubled by prospect of our country’s possible  descent into a one party  state because of the current mass movement to the ruling All Progressive Party (APC), the question is what such return portends for the country without expression of remorse even as their renewed greed-driven battle took them straight from their Ibadan controversial convention centre to their Abuja Wadata headquarters, where the two factions and their thugs had to be driven out by police with Kabiru Taimu Turaki-led faction emerging from Obasanjo’s library  rendezvous in Abeokuta last  Saturday.

    But before PDP’s unpredictable fathers and troubled children often described as ‘new-breed politicians’ that breed nothing but corruption, let us first examine the travails of Princess Stella Oduah and the alleged N5b fraud, which will be not a fraction of what she must have spent on her well-advertised philanthropic activities.

    Oduah was before her ministerial appointment, we were told, was a pacesetter who had spent about 25 years in the oil and gas industry, before  resigning in1992 from the services of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to found her ‘Sea Petroleum and Gas Company’ she had nurtured to a multi-billion naira company.

    She was a multi-award winner, starting with the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON), from President Obasanjo, Distinguished Catholic Professional, Dame International among others. She was an avowed philanthropist who through her JOE life Foundation “launched the Farmers Loan Scheme for peasant and subsistent farmers in Ogbaru LGA of Anambra,  constructed a 19-bed medical centre in Orhionwon LGA in Edo State, weekly feeding of the poor, potable water project at Ogbaru Local Government Area, annual scholarship scheme for 36 indigenes of Ogbaru from primary to university level;  annual award for the Best Female Petroleum Engineering graduating student and  building of an ultra-modern secondary school at Akili, Ogbaru local Govt. Area, Anambra State.

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      Oduah believes that “wealth acquisition is a God-given grace and not necessarily an act of human ingenuity, and that wealth acquisition makes sense only if it is spread to affect the lives of the less privileged around you”.

    When you imagine the princess did all the above before joining Abuja seat of power where politicians struggle  for their constituents’ share of the national cake is to understand why her people immediately rewarded her with a senatorial ticket the moment the scandal first broke out  during Jonathan presidency.

    Now let us examine the baleful legacies of PDP and its pathfinders:

    First, PDP was never a political party, John Campbell, a former US envoy to Nigeria had during a proceeding at the hearing on the topic: Nigeria in Turmoil in the British House of Commons in March 2010 defined PDP as “an elite cartel at the centre of power in Nigeria …essentially a club of elite for sharing of oil rents and political spoils”.

    It’s prevailing ideology was therefore “sharing”, which Doyin Okupe, Obasanjo’s spokesman,  while speaking on the marginalization of Yoruba under the Jonathan administration,  explained as “If things that are not enough, when people sit down to share and take decision, if there is no one to speak for you, there is a problem”.

    In this regard, Ahmadu Ali as chairman of PDP and Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), was responsible for increasing fuel importers from about four to over 140 independent petroleum marketers some of who were later tried and indicted for the theft of about N2trillion. And distancing himself from the mess, the late Audu Ogbeh, a former chairman of PDP, had said ‘when I was chairman of PDP, my son never got involved in oil but two PDP national chairmen after me, their sons pocketed over N400billion without supplying a tea cup, of oil”.

    As for President Obasanjo who once publicly tore his PDP card claiming he was no more playing partisan politics, it is on record he set up ADC as a vehicle for any disgruntled group with the party already taken over by a faction of PDP, the second faction going to his house to seek last Saturday while a third faction headed by Nyesom Wike was counting on the court to end the shenanigans of those who put their faith in the hands of those without electoral value.

     Everyone in PDP is tarred with the same brush. As for Obasanjo, PDP leading members swore he spent close to N10b on his failed third term bid, a charge he denied. What he could not deny however was that he corralled serving governors and government contractors to donate about N7.5billion towards his presidential library while the national library he stated has been abandoned for close to 18 years.

    Senator Bukola Saraki, the whistle-blower in the fuel subsidy scam for fuel neither imported nor delivered to Nigeria, was accused by PDP of indirectly benefitting from the scam. Farouk Lawal, whose committee uncovered the scam, was jailed for extorting bribe from Femi Otedola.

    When Bode George who was later pardoned on technical ground after serving a jail term for helping PDP party members as chairman of Nigerian Ports Authority was appointed PDP BOT chairman, Dino Melaye who had just fallen out of favour with PDP said Bode George’s choice was because “everybody in PDP was an ex-convict”.

    Unfortunately, when Oduah found herself among these hawks, she did not learn how to walk the tight rope before launching a crusade against foreign airlines including British Airways, Virgin Atlantic KLM and Lufthansa over excessive ticket charges on international routes. She was to discover later that it was a question of supply and demand as our elected and political appointees insisted on business and first class seats from the airlines.

    Of course with her N500b loan part of which she said would be used to buy new aircrafts for airlines, she was also stepping on the toes of some PDP stalwarts who also doubled as airline operators.  Many of them were only interested in interest- free bailout loans which were often diverted to run other businesses in other West African countries.

    The Economic and Financial Commission (EFCC) first indicted Stella Odua and the Nigerian subsidiary of Chinese construction giant, CCECC, of fraudulent cash transaction of N5billion in 2014. She was sacked by Jonathan on February 12, 2014 as a result of scandal that accompanied over N255m armoured cars which she authorized NCAA to procure for her use.

    On Dec 17, 2022 EFCC filed a total of 25 counts against Oduah and CCECC.

    Princess Oduah has since denied all allegations of corruption levelled against her claiming she had “made a mark in oil and gas and agricultural businesses before joining politics”.

    Not much has been heard about the case which started some 11 years ago.  Now that EFCC has brought the case up again, it must ensure it is brought to a closure if people are not to believe it is a case of witch-hunting against high-achieving professional and a pacesetter by politicians on whose toes she had stepped. Justice delayed as they say, is justice denied.

  • Insecurity: The fault, dear Trump, is not in our stars

    Insecurity: The fault, dear Trump, is not in our stars

    Nigeria’s political elite have since the run up to independence freely deployed religion and ethnicity as weapons for political bargaining. In this regard, the 1953 Kano riot was Ahmadu Bello and his fellow NPC’s response to Anthony Enahoro’s motion for independence in 1956, the January 3, 1966 military coup was Zik’s response to his 1964 constitutional defeat by Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa, the July 29, 1966 counter coup tagged ‘vengeance coup’ was northern rejection of Decree 34 unification decree and Zik’s January 1966 pyric victory. The annulment of 1993 MKO Abiola’s pan Nigeria mandate signifies the coming together of two  of Nigeria dominant ethnic groups with a common world view of how Nigeria should be run against the other dominant group  with a divergent view. The illegal introduction of sharia as a state religion by Ahmed Sani of Zamfara in 1999 had nothing to do with religion but everything to do with balance of power.  Therefore, much as President Trump may love Nigeria, he needs a fair understanding of the nature of our crisis of nation building if he is not to end up just as a bully. I am not sure he can love Nigeria more than the man Nigeria elected as their president.

    President Tinubu no doubt must have gone through great stress and strain in the last two years over his inability to secure justice for victims of herdsmen violent killings condemned to IDP camps in Benue and Plateau states. It has even been said that one of the reason Donald Trump thinks President Tinubu is not doing enough about terrorists’ violent killings in Nigeria was because of his inability to resettle  those marooned in IDP camps back to their homes after two years.

    Benue State hosts about 500,000 of these victims who are daily confronted with overcrowded shelters, lack of water, sanitation, and health care and food shortages. On its part, Plateau, to the credit of the killer herdsmen, has about 500 seized and renamed ravaged villages.

    Much as President Tinubu wishes the chalice would pass by him, kidnapping of school girls, killings and periodic harvest of deaths continued with new intensity forcing Nobel-prize for peace-chasing Donald Trump to declare Nigeria a “country of particular concern” in November 2025, threatening to come to Nigeria gun a blazing to seek justice for their beloved Christians” if President Tinubu failed to stop Christian genocide in Nigeria.

    However, while Trump maintains his strangle-hold on the necks of our president and Senate President Godswill Akpabio, his last week announcement, through Marco Rubio, his secretary of state, of a new policy targeting sponsors of mass killings by radical Islamic terrorists, Fulani militias, and other violent groups in Nigeria is a welcome development. This followed a briefing, chaired by House Appropriations vice chair and National Security Subcommittee Chairman, Mario Díaz-Balart, attended by other house members including Representatives Robert Aderholt, Riley Moore, Brian Mast, Chris Smith, and some others. The new policy is about visa restrictions for individuals who have “directed, authorized, significantly supported, participated in, or carried out violations of religious freedom,” and their families.

    It does not matter at this stage that President Tinubu has pushed back arguing that “the US characterization of Nigeria did not reflect the country’s reality or values’ or that Moore’s data which shows that non-state actors have attacked both churches and mosques in Nigeria did not support his generalized claim that “Nigerian Christians are being killed at the rate of about 35 a day.”  Trump listens to no one but self.

    But I think Trump deserves some credit for this new initiative about visa denial to sponsors of terrorism in Nigeria and Rubio’s decision to publish their names.  I believe it will be a ‘win-win’ for everyone starting with the president. He has been accused of not doing enough to stem the spate of violence without finding out his challenges. As many have argued, Trump’s intervention was a wake-up call for President Tinubu who is now under the watch of the international community.

    The naming and shaming will also lay to rest the argument about who has the custody of an earlier list allegedly given to late President Buhari some years back. Rubio’s publication of the names will help whoever has the old list do some of his dirty job. Rubio’s publication will also bring some relief to many Nigerians who feel embarrassed by the spate of killing of innocent Nigerians, diminished by actions of animals who routinely kidnap our daughters from their hostels, and cowards who attacked subsistence farmers and their family members at night.

    Of course it is also a win-win for President Trump and Rubio. They will now have a fresh opportunity to take advantage of knowledgeable members of American House of Representatives to have a proper understanding of the nature of Nigerian crisis of nation building. Many have pointed out that some of the dangers of single story can lead to default assumptions, misconceptions and stereotypes.

    For instance, Nigeria political elite have often deployed religion and ethnicity in their battle for political power. Anyone not familiar with Nigerian politics trying to interpret the 1953 Kano riot that led to the death and castration of over 40 people with over hundred injured would focus on northern political elite’ claim of preventing desecration of Islamic religion by unbelievers from the south or trying to prevent the spread of Awo’s crusade of free education to the north. Those were what could be drawn out from Malam Inua Wada, Local Member House of Representatives, and Kano Native Authority information and adult education that NPC mandated to mobilize  Kano ‘Hausa ‘mahaukata’  mad men that unleashed terror using machete on Igbo considered as ‘tools of the crusaders’  and Yoruba armed with Dane guns.

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    It was not until during the debate that followed four days later where Yahaya Gusau speech rejected commitment to 1956 or any other fixed date for self-government’ and the Sardauna’s insistence that self-government can only come after northernisation and efficient local government had been attained that it became clear the battle was over self-government motion Enahoro had earlier moved for 1956 in Lagos

    The January 3, 1966 coup which eliminated non-Igbo political and military leaders while sparing theirs was celebrated as a pan Nigeria coup. An insider will however understand that it was Zik’s response to his 1964 constitutional defeat by Tafawa Balewa. He had in the midst of the crisis approached the military for support as commander in chief. His request was politely turned down because the military constitutionally was responsible to the Prime Minister.

    While claiming he was going on sick leave, he was seen in a cruise ship to South America.  The younger and more radical elements in the army struck and the Igbo senate president, Nwafor Orizu who was acting for Zik manipulated Ironsi to power. Ironsi’s first action was promulgation of Decree 34 that turned a multi-ethnic federal Nigeria into a unitary state. This was a world view, Zik and supporters had propagated from 1940 to 1957 London constitutional conference.

     The July 1966 coup was tagged ‘vengeance’ coup when in fact it was designed to end Zik’s January 1966 pyric victory. MKO Abiola’s pan Nigeria victory was annulled by Ibrahim Babangida. We have since learnt both the north and the east did not want a Yoruba president with Nzeribe placing a full page advert in the paper declaring Igbo do not want a Yoruba president while Evans Enwerem who later became senate president under Obasanjo presidency threatened that Igbo would go to war if the annulment of Abiola election was reversed.

    At the birth of the fourth republic in 1999, for anti-Obasanjo forces in the north, Sharia which had since the 1914 amalgamation been part of Nigerian penal code restricted to Muslims as a customary law on matters of marriage, gift, will, succession etc. binding only on adherents of Islamic religion, became a veritable weapon for political bargaining, when Ahmed Sani, governor of Zamfara, in breach of Nigerian constitution, launched Sharia as a state religion on October 27 1999. 

    Finally, let us remind those who want to help us wage our wars. Of the three dominant ethnic groups in Nigeria, the Yoruba want a federal system which guarantees unity in diversity with each group developing at its own pace without interference from others. The Igbo want a unitary system which will allow them trade anywhere without hindrance. The Fulani ruling northern elite want a Nigeria that will be home to all stateless Fulani across West Africa. We already have ECOWAS protocols as a guide.

  • Mazi Kanu: Still on the heart of the matter

    Mazi Kanu: Still on the heart of the matter

    Igbo people of Nigeria whether at home or as urban immigrants have always been led by leaders who see them only as instruments of political bargaining. From the great Zik of Africa who came with his own brand of American journalism to ‘elezikify’’ Nigerian press , the smooth-talking Oxford-trained Odumegwu Ojukwu and now the rude, crude and probably disturbed Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, they have in one way or the other betrayed those who look up to them for direction. And associated with them are such tales of clash of interest in African Continental Bank (ACB), Ijora land deal the proceeds of which went into building of ‘the palace of the people’ amidst his people’s squalor to those with of high taste of fast cars and multi-million golden braziers acquired after a season in NNPC often described as a cesspool of corruption.

    Igbo urban immigrants in Lagos who had for a long time looked for a spokesman earnestly welcomed Zik of Africa’s return to Nigeria from Ghana. They trusted and loved him. Zik’s every word was law to his admirers including Lagos intelligentsia of the period except cynical jounalists like Ernest Ikoli, a pioneering journalist and first editor of the Daily Times.

    Not long after Zik returned with his fellow NCNC members from London where they had gone to campaign for constitutional change, Funmilayo Ransome Kuti and few other members of the group had accused Zik of mismanaging funds contributed by their party members for the trip. Zik said he was being so shabbily treated because he was an Igbo man. That was all his supporters and Yoruba in Lagos needed to buy off all the cutlasses in Lagos market in preparation for war.

    Awolowo in 1949 and a few Yoruba Lagos intelligentsias founded the Egbe Omo Odudowa to unite the Yoruba that had just come out of 16 years civil war. Of course by this time, Igbo National State Union with Zik as president had existed for about three years. It was under that platform Zik had given his most controversial speech as Igbo State Union president where he declared god of Africa had ordained the Igbo nation as leader of Africa. But the same Zik now passed a ‘fatwa’ on Egbe Omo Oduduwa as anti-Nigeria. To destroy the Egbe, he deployed his West African Pilot, while the Zikists carried out physical attack on members of the Egbe in Lagos and their properties.

    Zik and NCNC did not win the 1957 Western Region election. Those elected as independent candidate led by Adisa Akinloye had appealed to Zik to nominate a Yoruba member of NCNC, (a Yoruba party with only one Igbo man at inauguration) as premier-designate as a condition for joining forces with NCNC. Zik, supported by Mbadiwe, insisted he must become premier of West even with an easterner heading the Eastern Region government and a northerner heading the Northern Region government. Akinloye and his  group joined Awo’s AG.  For deciding to hold their destiny in their own hands, Zik named Yoruba as tribalists. That was the narative told Igbo youths since 1957. Chinua Achebe even  wrote his “There Was a Country” where he falsely claimed he saw NCNC members crossing over to AG side in the Western Region House.

    Ojukwu was another Igbo leader worshipped by his Igbo people. Although he admitted starting his war with Nigeria with 16 rifles after all the shout about “No power in Africa can defat Biafra”. He was to blame Awo who had said Yoruba would pull out of the federation if East was pushed out by acts of commission r omission”. He was silent on the fact that Awo visited Enugu to plead against secession following Gowon’s creation of 12 states structure with a landlocked Biafra surrounded by hostile minority neighbours that Igbo had oppressed for years. But he failed to listen to Awo.

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    Kanu also emerged as Igbo leader, riding on the crest of freedom fighter in 2012.  He has never told his supporters of how the Igbo, occupying a space in the north bigger than Igbo’s five states in the east, according to Nasir El Rufai former Kaduna State governor will fit into his new Biafra. He has also not told his Igbo compatriots who have taken over trading centres in Yoruba urban centres and villages, including Lagos where they now want to be governor following their success in the 2023 presidential election, how they will relocate their business and mansions to his new Biara.

    Except Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, the senator representing Abia North, who was courageous enough to admit that activities of Nnamdi Kanu, led to the death of over 30,000 people.

    “But people are just talking about soldiers killed and not the rest of them” he lamented. He also spoke of the destruction of businesses across the Southeast including that of his mother’s friend whose shop was ransacked and went bankrupt unable to pay the N4.2million she owed his mother. He also spoke of efforts he made to get him released on bail in April 2017 to face trial for ordering people to kill others.

    But ill-informed youths with only one side of the civil war story  and some political officeholders are ready to swear by the name of Kanu, the  self-appointed Igbo leader who in the words of Justice Omotosho  “remained arrogant, cocky, and full of himself without realising the magnitude of his crime and the effect of what he has done against his people in the southeast”.

    It will appear IPOB and its violence against Igbo people is acceptable to Igbo elite. For instance, on the eve of the judgment, some 44 members of the House of Representatives, acting under the aegis of Concerned Federal Lawmakers, asked the federal government to discontinue the case in favour of a political solution.

    Justice Omotosho had hardly finished pronouncing his verdict when

    Senator Adolphus Wabara, a former senate president was lamenting that “jailing Kanu was like jailing the whole Igbo race”.

     From Obi Cubana, came a warning to President Tinubu: “as long as MNK remains in jail, you cannot and will never get up to 10,000 votes in southeast come 2027”. As for Peter Obi who dared not disobey Kanu’s sit-at-home order during his 2023 campaign season,

    “Kanu ought not to have been arrested in the first place”. This was after Chukwuma Soludo who now governs Anambra which Obi once presided over has told the world that 99.9% of those arrested and prosecuted for violence “were Igbos killing Igbos”.

     The Southeast caucus of the House of Representatives is also of the view that the continued detention of Mazi Kanu has contributed significantly to tension and agitation in the Southeast. The caucus therefore believes that the release of Mazi Kanu, through pardon, would open space for broader engagement between the federal government, elected leaders, and community stakeholders to chart a sustainable and peaceful path forward”.

    But Igbo political leaders and unitarists that have consistently frustrated efforts to return to federal arrangement, a social system known to guarantee unity in diversity.by forming an alliance with those with whom they share a common worldview of how to run Nigeria, should know it is time to return to the road never taken.

    Unfortunately, current Igbo leaders are making the same mistake Zik made in 1957 during the London Constitutional Conference. Lagos was the target of current Igbo leaders promoting citizenship as answer to the national question.  But no one has forgotten the lamentation of TOS Benson, a First Republic information minister about how he begged a southeast governor for a plot of land to erect a house where he intended to bury his wife who was of Igbo extraction but his request as turned down.

    Flooding  the streets of Nigerian urban centres with hawkers of substandard goods is also not an option as it only serves the interest of political elite that used them for political bargaining during election (If in doubt, check all those areas where Obi secured huge support during the 2023 election) or cannon fodder during political or religious violence.

    If some Middle East nations can turn their desert countries to paradise, Igbo can turn their land to Taiwan of Nigeria.