The Nation Newspaper

Category: Olatunji Ololade

  • Genocide, not wordplay

    Genocide, not wordplay

    In Hitch 22: A Memoir, Christopher Hitchens recalls his conversation with a genocide survivor in Rwanda. She lamented to him that there was now nobody left on the face of the earth, either friend or relative, who knew who she was. No one who remembered her girlhood, early mischief and family lore; no sibling or companion who could tease her about that first romance; no lover or pal with whom to reminisce. All her birthdays, friendships, kinships, gone. She went on living, but with a tabula rasa as her diary and calendar.

    I remember this every time I read or hear of the sobbing earth in Benue and Plateau States; how entire communities are being erased in blood and memory; every time I hear how lives are being razed and buried under dust stirred by stampeding feet of fleeing mothers clutching their babies under a pitiless hail of bullets.

    In recent weeks alone, about 150 lives have been claimed in Plateau and Benue States in a series of coordinated massacres. The attacks bear the bloody signature of a familiar horror: armed bandits, herders, and foreign mercenaries.

    Amnesty says that between December 2023 and February 2024, 1,336 people were killed in Plateau State, and Benue continues to bleed as villages in Ukum, Logo, and Katsina-Ala mourn their dead, amid smouldering ashes of their homesteads.

    Yet, some dare to call this “conflict.” No. This is not a conflict. This is a genocide. And no veil of ambiguity can soften its cruelty. The Plateau and Benue massacres are well-orchestrated campaigns of human erasure, driven by greed, emboldened by impunity, and justified by a macabre theology of land, ethnicity, and dominion.

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    There is no justification for taking human lives under any pretext. No faith, farm, or grievance warrants the annihilation of children in their sleep, or the decapitation of fathers shielding their families with their chests.

    Even more horrifying is the revelation that some of these atrocities are perpetrated by Nigerians acting in concert with foreign mercenaries. Intelligence reports and eyewitness testimonies reveal that captured terrorists often confess to collaborations that span borders and ideologies. But let us not allow the temptation of foreign scapegoating blind us to the truth: Nigerians are killing Nigerians.

    To ascribe these killings solely to foreign influence is to miss the deeper malaise at the root of the crisis. What drives this beastly bloodlust is a feral hunger for land, resources, and power. The fields of Benue and the hills of Plateau are not just beautiful, they are bountiful. Beneath their topsoil lie fertile treasures: water bodies, arable land, and minerals. Thus, the vultures who mastermind carnage in the states do so to conquer and dispossess.

    And here, we must tread carefully. It is dangerously reductionist to script this as a Fulani versus Christian battle. Such a narrative, while seductive to the angry and grieving, is fatally flawed. When Boko Haram terrorists massacred Zabarmari’s Muslim farmers in Borno, the same influencers chanting “religious genocide” in Plateau were mute. When bandits razed entire Muslim communities in Sokoto and Zamfara, there was no outrage or candlelight vigil, there were no threads linking it to an agenda to Islamize the north.

    What is unfolding in Benue and Plateau is not a religious war but a siege of interest, waged by profiteers who see land as conquest and human lives as collateral. Yes, viral posts abound with conspiracy theories and recycled fear. They say the Fulanis plan to march over the south and “dip the Quran in the Lagos Lagoon.” They warn of stealthy invasions and grand replacement agendas. And it hits differently, doesn’t it? When the genocide we rationalised abroad seethes at our doorstep?

    A childhood friend, a Christian and proud son of Bokkos, once defended Israel’s siege on Gaza. “It’s security,” he said, “self-defence.” Until his village was set ablaze and his cousin’s children were murdered and burned to ashes. “This is too much. Will no one arrest the culprits? There is no justice,” he cried. And I had no heart to say what I thought; that “Nobody savours the taste of the bitter herbs we season for others.”

    To applaud genocide anywhere is to plant its seed at home. This is not to draw false equivalence. It is to appeal to our common humanity. Whether the victim be Jew or Muslim, Tiv or Hausa, Igbo or Kanuri, blood is blood, and the earth does not discriminate. Genocide is not just about mass killing; it is mass forgetting, mass silence, mass complicity. It is the deliberate wiping of memory, the snuffing out of lineage, the razing of every song and story that binds a people to the world.

    Today, Benue and Plateau are bleeding into dust. In the same way, Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, Sokoto, Kaduna and Gaza bled and still bleed.

    The onslaught has decimated once-thriving agroeconomies, turning farming communities into famine zones and IDP camps. Granaries lie empty, irrigation channels clogged with ash and bones. Markets are ghost towns. The youth flee to cities, and the old pray to die easily. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu must approach this as a national emergency. As he grapples with inflation and economic dislocation, he must crush this hydra of terrorism and banditry. The institution of a nationwide ranching policy must move from paper to pasture. The Land Use Act must be refined to protect communal lands from predatory acquisition masked as modernisation.

    The National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, must root out terror, whether it comes masked as herdsmen, insurgents, or communal warlords. Nigeria needs intelligence fusion centres, community policing frameworks, and rapid deployment squads trained in both combat and cultural nuance. And above all, we need justice: swift, spirited and blind.

    Yes, this administration made commendable moves, deploying special forces, reviving the Civilian Joint Task Force, and improving aerial surveillance in flashpoint areas. And for a time, there was hope. Attacks waned. Farmers returned to the fields. Children to schools. But that dawn has dimmed to a blood-soaked tide of terror.

    The federal, state, and local governments must stop operating as silos, and approach security as a choir, not a dissonance. Intelligence should be shared, responses must be swift. Issues of poverty, land disputes, and marginalisation must be addressed with greater sincerity and less artifice.

    And let us, the people, look inwards. We must resist the siren call of profiling. To label all Fulani as murderers is as absurd as calling all Tiv men violent. No ethnic group owns virtue or vice. There are killers and victims in every tongue. We must quit homogenising guilt and start amplifying the voices that root for peace.

    Religious groups must preach restraint. And the Nigerian press must quit magnifying hate. Let us tell the whole story, not just the parts that flatter our biases and wordplay. A genocide is not an abstraction. It is not history. It is not just Rwanda, Bosnia, or Gaza. It is here in Logo, Ukum, Bokkos, Katsina Ala. And if we do not rise to stop it, it will consume us all, first in flames, then in forgetting.

    Benue and Plateau are reminders that the arc of the moral universe does not, on its own, bend, but by the trembling hands of those who choose courage over comfort, truth over tribalism, and life over land tracts.

  • Nigeria in age of economic reset

    Nigeria in age of economic reset

    The bounty winds have changed course. Across oceans and continents, the pillars of the old world buckle under the weight of new contradictions. Power is roaringly shifting, as nations once constrained by historic fetters jostle for inadequate pickings. Does Nigeria stand a chance in the unfolding world order?

    What are the chances of transforming hardship into strength, turning away from borrowed dreams and building something enduring from within?

    America is retreating. The model it exported to the world, consumer-driven, debt-fueled, and centred on speculative finance, is beginning to buckle. Trade wars, like those launched by Donald Trump, have severed the threads of global integration. The US-China trade split, and the anti-Russia sanctions fallout from the Ukraine war have also accelerated decoupling from Western financial systems and birthed new alliances like BRICS, which increasingly conduct trade outside the US dollar while consolidating independent technological and payment infrastructures.

    As supply chains rupture and flighty capital looks elsewhere, the Global South is becoming the new arena of relevance. This disruption is no accident, as Shahid Bolsen rightly observes, but the deliberate reordering of economic power, and it opens a door for countries bold enough to walk through. Will Nigeria walk through? Or would she maintain the knee, slurping unearned aid and benefits doled to her, piecemeal, by Western looters plundering her fertile fields?

    Yet entry into the new era will not be granted by default. It must be earned through clear thinking, determined leadership, and a cultural renaissance that prioritises indigeneity over imitation.

    The dominance of the Western economy is being challenged from every side. The pandemic, war, and shifting geopolitical alliances have revealed how fragile and unequal the global system has become. With the West turning inward, capital is moving outward. Nations that once waited in the wings are being called to the main stage.

    The rise of BRICS+, the slow decline of the dollar, and growing investments in African tech and infrastructure are signs of this shift. Nigeria has the population, the natural resources, and the strategic location to become a central player in this emerging world order. But opportunity does not guarantee success. It only favours those who are prepared.

    Thus, Nigeria must filter opportunity through bristling hardship. There is no gainsaying that the country’s struggles are real. Inflation is biting, the naira is volatile, and public infrastructure remains inadequate. But these challenges are also signals, telling us what we must fix, where we must innovate, and how we must grow.

    The countries that will lead in the next phase of global development are not those without problems. They are those who respond to their problems with clarity and courage. The persistent fear of fuel scarcity should push us to invest in alternative energy. Panic over food insecurity should drive us to reform agriculture through technology. And the recurrent talent drain should compel us to build institutions that reward merit and retain excellence.

    Every difficulty is a pointer. If we are willing to respond with discipline and focus, Nigeria can become a place where local solutions meet global demand. To rise upward, we must look inward. The time is ripe for cultural rebirth. No country can build a lasting future while borrowing its sense of self from others. For too long, Nigeria has copied the cultural, political, and economic ideas of other nations, even as they persistently fail to fit our peculiar context and serve our interests. The result is a mismatch between who we are and how we live.

    We need a reset, not just of our economy but of our mindset. We must embrace our nativity, nourishing its roots from the abstract to the concrete: our languages, philosophies, and prisms of seeing and engaging with the world must be deployed more consciously to serve our short- and long-term interests.

    This is an opportunity for us to step forward with something different. Something grounded in community, dignity, and shared responsibility. Nigerian culture is rich, layered, and capable of speaking to the modern age. We do not need to abandon our traditions to be relevant. We should rather adapt and use them to shape our institutions.

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    But the efforts to shape our public institutions must be built on a sturdy foundation of personal sovereignty. This is the only path to national glory. Real transformation does not begin in government offices. It begins in the private decisions of millions of citizens. The way we conduct business, teach our children, treat our neighbours. A country is only as strong as the character of its citizens. This is not a call to individualism. It is a call to citizenship; to see our personal choices as part of a wider story. To understand that nation-building is not a spectator sport.

    To create a functional Nigerian State, we must first sanitise our dreams and rid them of a hankering for ill-bliss. We must also reimagine how our institutions work. Our political and economic systems are not inevitable. They can be re-engineered and rebuilt. We need policies that prioritise productive enterprise, not rent-seeking. We need infrastructure that supports mobility, agriculture, trade, and communication. We need schools that exceed the routine of visionless exams and systems managers, to produce solutions and furnish our growth needs.

    Our foreign policy must become strategic. We should deepen our partnerships with countries in Asia, Latin America, and the rest of Africa, not from a position of desperation but from one of mutual respect. Nigeria must assert its stature as a country with value to offer.

    Our military and intelligence institutions should also be part of our economic future. Investment in defence can spur innovation in technology, logistics, and manufacturing. Let us learn from others, but not depend on them. Let us train our minds to solve our problems. We must modernise governance through digital systems, accountability mechanisms, and public service reform. The goal is not to chase some foreign ideal of development. The goal is to build a system that works for us.

    This is not just Nigeria’s moment. It is Africa’s. And Nigeria, by its size and potential, must lead. But leadership will not come from rhetoric. It will come from results. We must invest in regional infrastructure, trade agreements, and shared development goals. Nigeria’s cities must become hubs of innovation that connect easily with other African capitals. Our people must see themselves as part of a larger African identity that is confident and future-facing.

    More importantly, President Bola Tinubu’s youth empowerment drive must not be restricted to beneficiaries within the All Progressives Congress (APC), nor should it be deployed as a bargaining chip or currency to woo fiery critics and antagonists of his administration. Policies and appointments must never be used to buy opposition silence and allegiance.

    If we can achieve all these, we can be a foundational country. One that sets the pace and raises the bar. This is not a time to complain. It is a time to build. The economic reset now unfolding is not a threat. It is a signal. A chance to imagine something better and take the steps needed to get there.

    We must stop looking outside for answers and start building from within. We do not need permission to begin. We need focus, courage and perseverance.

    Shall this be the moment we remember as our turning point?

  • Her right-handed serve to glory: On Aishat Raji’s becoming

    Her right-handed serve to glory: On Aishat Raji’s becoming

    Aishat Raji enchants the tennis court. Not from electric chants or thunderous applause, but from the sheer astonishment of her being. Just 14, she saunters into the Games arena shorn of symmetry but with the sovereign gift of a single right hand that swings like a poet’s plume.

    Raji is a product of grit. Her left hand—once part of her whole body—got severed by the cold blade of tragedy in 2014. At the tender age of three, she was hurled from a storey building by her peers, in an act of childhood mischief that turned catastrophic. Consequently, her left arm was amputated.

    Through her ordeal, Raji was undeterred, scorning disability and dreaming of sports glory. Today, she is a multiple medalist from several tournaments – the latest being her silver medal from the South West Games 2025. Raji shone brilliantly as one of the brightest, most symbolic discoveries of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Southwest Alliance Games—BATSWAG—a sub-tournament of the Games mooted by Dr. Lanre Alfred.

    For the umpteenth time, Raji cast her soul into the game. With the lone fire of her right hand, she danced behind the bat, striking the ball through the stiff walls of limitation. In a tournament meant to scout for budding stars to enrich a regional talent pool, Raji showed up excellently, in the full spirit of the timeless saw that even broken wings may fly in the right wind and with the right heft. Raji dazzled the court as she defied the odds, clashing with more able-bodied rivals. She was, and remains, Nigerianness incarnate—tough, spirited, fragrant with promise.

    How do you write of such a girl and not be moved? How do you narrate her story without your pen trembling in awe? When she began training in 2021 at the Banana Table Tennis Club in Sango Ota under Coach Funmilayo Oyetayo—herself a torchbearer in Ogun’s tennis circle—it seemed an odd scene. A fragile girl, missing an arm, holding a racket as if it were a wand. But from those first uncertain strokes bloomed a masterpiece. Aishat trained with spunk and vigor. She committed her heart, body and spirit to be transformed. So doing, she hollered her name into the lobes of every tennis court, and the sport bent and paid a listening ear in affection. From the ValueJet Para-Tennis Open to the National Youth Festival in Delta, from Edo to Abuja, her path has been a trail of quiet, consistent brilliance. Silver, bronze, and now again silver at the South West Games 2025—all with one hand, and a heart filled with fire.

    What is sport, if not metaphor? And who better than Aishat to embody it? In her, Nigeria must see its own reflection—battered but not broken, denied but not defeated. She is the spirit that hawks wares at traffic lights with hope, the soul that laughs in spite of fuel queues and power outages, the stubborn sapling that sprouts even from cement cracks.

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    Yet, beyond the poetic reverence, subsists a profound call. The likes of Aishat must not be abandoned to the vagaries of grit and personal sacrifice. Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State, her home soil’s steward, must rise to meet this hour. As Ogun State prepares to host the National Sports Festival in a few weeks, what better ambassador for that grand convergence than Aishat Raji? Why not lift her as a flame to light the path for other talents buried in Nigeria’s margins? To lift her is not charity—it is national investment.

    To celebrate her is to shift the spotlight from the salacious glare of reality shows like Big Brother Naija—a programme that rewards vulgar exhibitionism with cash prizes and brand endorsements—to an. embodiment of true substance. Nigeria must graduate from glamorizing mediocrity to venerating merit. If we must celebrate our youth, let us celebrate those who break limits, not those who flaunt decadence.

    The South West Games 2025 has done what many ministries and agencies have failed to do—it scouted, staged, and spotlighted the future. It did not just offer medals; it offered meaning. In a country where youths are increasingly seduced by narcotics, conscripted into cults, or disillusioned into silence, such tournaments are sanctuaries. They take young people off the streets and place them on podiums. They redirect rage into rhythm, despair into discipline. It is sports, yes—but it is also soulcraft.

    Aishat Raji reminds us of another aching truth—the shameful neglect of para-athletes and persons with disabilities in our sporting ecosystem. At the 2024 Olympics, Nigeria’s paralympic contingent was once again the victim of governmental amnesia. They faced poor preparation, inadequate funding, logistical nightmares, and the psychological bruises of being treated as afterthoughts. And yet, they returned with dignity. How long shall this travesty endure? When will our leaders realize that a nation is only as noble as the way it treats its vulnerable? Aishat’s rise should provoke policy. She is not just a story to be told—she is a strategy to be followed.

    Talent is universal, but opportunity is not. And it is here that institutions like the National Sports Commission, the Southwest Development Commission, and private stakeholders must lean in. Tournaments like BATSWAG and its parent, the South West Games, should not be fleeting glories—they must become annual rites, sustained by public-private partnerships, protected from the corrosion of politics, and rooted in communities.

    But even this is not enough. For sports, as this writer has long maintained, is but a momentary euphoria. Its value is fleeting, like carnival glitter or New Year fireworks. Today’s gold medalist is tomorrow’s forgotten name, nursing injuries in silence or trading glory for survival. The state must therefore pair sports development with long-term empowerment. Aishat Raji, for all her promise on the court, must also be mentored off the pitch. Her brilliance must be backed with quality education, entrepreneurial training, digital skills, emotional intelligence, and exposure to global citizenship. She must be prepared for the day when her body can no longer obey the racket. She must have more than medals—she must have mastery.

    Because the tragedy of sports is not in losing a match. It is in raising a star only to abandon them in the twilight of their talent. Nigeria has done this too many times. We must not do it again.

    One day, Aishat Raji will stand before the world, perhaps at Wimbledon or the Paralympics, not as a token of pity, but as a titan of purpose. She will swing that bat with the grace of a gazelle and the grit of a soldier. The world will gasp. Commentators will scramble to pronounce her name correctly. And behind that moment will be this beginning—this humble path from Crescent International High School in Sango Ota, this sacred ground where Coach Funmilayo Oyetayo taught a one-handed girl to wield dreams like a sword.

    And when that moment comes, may Nigeria not be found absent.

    May we remember that in 2025, we were gifted a sign. That greatness does not always walk on two feet or hold with two hands. Sometimes, greatness limps, stumbles, learns, and swings with a single, stubborn arm. That arm belongs to Aishat Raji. That arm is Nigeria. Shall we hold it up?

  • Nightmare in nirvana

    Nightmare in nirvana

    Winter in Chicago had always been unforgiving. The temperatures plummet and the wind-chill becomes a silent, deadly adversary. For Marcus Faleti, the cold proved fatal. On January 1, 2017, at exactly 12:09 a.m., the 58-year-old succumbed to hypothermia and alcoholism, the temperature biting through the meagre layers of his existence.

    The wind-chill that night registered at 18 degrees. It was a lethal cold that Faleti could no longer fight. Homeless and impoverished, he was found lifeless at the Presence St. Mary and Elizabeth Medical Centre, a tragic end to a life marked by relentless suffering.

    Born in Nigeria, Faleti left for the United States 25 years ago, with dreams of prosperity and a better life in Chicago. The bustling metropolis, with its towering skyscrapers and promises of opportunity, seemed worlds away from his homeland. But as the years passed, the glittering facade of the American dream began to fade off, revealing a stark and unforgiving reality. Faleti watched helplessly as his dreams morphed into a nightmare of destitution and despair.

    For over fifteen years, he lived from hand to mouth, sleeping rough on the streets of Chicago. His days were marked by a relentless struggle for survival, scavenging for food and seeking refuge from the elements. His clothing, tattered and inadequate, offered little protection against the city’s harsh winters. Each gust of wind pierced through his bedraggled attire, chilling him to the bones.

    Faleti was a familiar figure in Wicker Park, often seen pushing his shopping cart overflowing with scavenged items or sitting on a bench reading the Sun-Times or Wall Street Journal. Despite his dire circumstances, he remained a voracious reader, a testament to the intellectual spark that never left him. “He was a good influence on everyone. Everyone liked him. He was a big newspaper reader and a very smart man,” recalled Nick Nixon, a friend who had known him since 1992, from their days as day labourers.

    Faleti had a profound impact on those around him, with his intelligence and kindness leaving a lasting impression. Yet for 15 years, the streets of Chicago became his home, a stark contrast to the sheltered life he once knew in Nigeria. Despite the brutally cold winters, Faleti often refused to go to a homeless shelter, fearing for the safety of his cherished shopping cart filled with his few possessions.

    He had an adult daughter in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but their connection had long been lost to the miles and years that separated them.

    Clare Rodriguez, a Chicago Park District supervisor, reflected, “Marcus was a part of the fabric of this park. He was a kind man and an icon of Wicker’s grounds.”

    While the 58-year-old’s death is a sombre reminder of the fragile lives led by the homeless, his story isn’t just about a man who Japa (Japa stitches together the Yoruba expression já pa, meaning “to run” or “flee” as ascribed to migration) and died in the cold; it is about a dream that got frozen and shattered.

    Faleti’s struggle with addiction and homelessness further highlights the harsh realities faced by migrants who seek a better life but find themselves trapped in a cycle of poverty and despair.

    Seven years after Faleti’s death, another tragedy unfurled, this time in the United Kingdom. Chidimma Susan Ezenyili, affectionately known as Suzy, was a Nigerian lawyer who relocated to the UK to work as a caregiver. The 37-year-old nursed hopes of a better future. But on February 22, 2024, while attending to an elderly client, Ian Hale, on Scott Road, Ezenyili slumped while on duty in the street of Bishop’s Stortford. She died two days later. The cause of her death was a severe brain hemorrhage, a tragic end to a promising life.

    Ezenyili’s journey was one of dedication and sacrifice. Despite feeling unwell, she continued to care for her client, driven by a sense of duty. Catherine Segal, the daughter of the elderly man Chidimma was caring for, recounted, “She was driven there by her husband with their three-year-old daughter as she wasn’t feeling well but didn’t want to let my dad down.” Her commitment was a testament to her character, but it also highlighted the immense pressures faced by immigrants in their quest to survive and support their families.

    Ezenyili relocated to the UK as a caregiver, but her aspirations went beyond that. She was a qualified lawyer in Nigeria and planned to attain her qualifications to practice law in the UK.

    Her dream was for her daughter, Mandy, to attend school in the UK and to make a new life here where she would have the opportunities that Suzy and Friday never had growing up in Nigeria. However, her dreams were cut short by her untimely death.

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    Faleti and Ezenyili’s fates are part of a broader narrative of struggle experienced by Nigerian migrants. Many leave their homeland with hopes of a brighter future, only to find themselves grappling with unanticipated hardships in a foreign land. The plight of Nigerian migrants has become a front-burner issue in global circuit, with many facing exploitation, discrimination, and a lack of support in their host countries. The journey to greener pastures, many eventually find, is fraught with obstacles, and for some, it ends in tragedy. Accordingly, better-heeled Nigerian communities in diaspora have begun to advocate for better conditions and support systems for their fellow compatriots, but the road to change is long and arduous.

    Nigerian families, once comfortable, often find themselves living in slums in the UK, US, and Canada. This drastic change leads to mental health issues and marital strife. Financial strain and cultural dislocation cause marriages to crumble, with some husbands turning violent.

    There exists no greater illusion than the belief that distant shores offer a promised land where milk and honey flow without end. Yet, reality has unfurled its cold decree: there is no sanctuary more absolute than home. The recent waves of deportations across the Western Hemisphere depict a truth no one can ignore. According to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), over 72,000 foreign nationals were deported from the United States in 2023 alone. As of March 31, 2025, America has deported over 100,000 migrants and made approximately 113,000 arrests since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

    Among them were thousands who had built lives, paid taxes, raised children—yet found themselves flung across borders the moment their presence was deemed discordant with national interests.

    The administration has also emphasized policies encouraging “self-deportation,” urging undocumented immigrants to leave the U.S. voluntarily to avoid forced removal. Tricia McLaughlin of the Department of Homeland Security reported a notable rise in “reverse migration” as a result. In addition to domestic enforcement, the U.S. is negotiating with multiple countries in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe to accept migrants deported from the U.S., aiming to overcome resistance from nations hesitant to take back their citizens.

    As Nigeria prepares to accept some of its affected citizens from the United States -5,144 Nigerians face arrest and deportation- the country must develop a more pragmatic and multi-faceted approach to resolving the issues driving emigration. Promoting local opportunities, encouraging entrepreneurship, and implementing government initiatives to improve living conditions in Nigeria are crucial, experts have argued.

    Nigeria must create a system where people do not feel the need to leave, while investing in education, infrastructure, and job creation. If Nigeria becomes more habitable, many youths will stay back and develop their homeland.

  • Do not die in their proxy wars

    Do not die in their proxy wars

    For the love of country is still their sexiest lie. The curvaceous plague of coalition politics. Every desperado cops a feel – the scorned ministerial hopeful, the tamed party rebel, losers at the 2023 polls. All partake in the prurient rite.

    They all identify as patriots, too. Thus, “We are doing this for country” becomes their arrant lie, the falsity that spurred failed presidential candidates from the People’s Democratic Party, Labour Party and the All Progressives Congress to mull a frantic coalition under the banner of the Social Democratic Party.

    Politics, however, fades to melodrama where the dubious patriot misinterprets his role. In his struggle to usurp privileges and power, he inflicts misery on ordinary citizens, those whose predicament supposedly triggered his “patriotic zeal.”

    This lie is native to the country; thus, this minute, the random youth pulses to their duplicitous love. Belligerent, cocksure and digitally-woke, social media is his brothel, the virtual bordello of his dreams, where pimps of strife and courtesans of the witless caress his furtive and manifest lusts.

    A nation perishes when its youth become playthings in the hands of frantic demagogues—when the youth, like the proverbial sapling, bend away from the light of reason, they wither in the gloom of manipulation.

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    Today, the rabble of coalition groups wear the garb of patriotism and chant democracy’s demise. Their passion isn’t borne of love for the country but a loathing for the man at the helm. They do not seek a nobler republic; all they want is a piece of the pie.

    Their outrage is nothing but a scorned man’s vendetta – think of them as sore losers who, having failed to capture the throne by ballots, now thirst for its overthrow by any means necessary. Nigeria’s youth must learn to shun their deception. They must resist the temptation to be led, blindfolded, into proxy wars where they serve as mere cannon fodder in a battle not their own.

    The agents of discord are seasoned in this game—offering nothing but illusionary glory to the naïve. We saw it in Rivers State, where young men, seduced by promises of relevance, blew up the Trans-Niger pipeline in the heat of the tussle between Governor Sim Fubara and 27 lawmakers. Had the federal government and security agencies not moved swiftly to quell the uprising, both Rivers and Nigeria would have borne the brunt.

    The political elites, however, sit ensconced in their fortresses, their sons and daughters untouched by the fire they lit. The script is old. The powerful always shield their own from the carnage they orchestrate. But elsewhere, the children of the poor—young men from forgotten alleys, girls from the margins of destitution—are recruited to be foot soldiers in a war that will never offer them recompense.

    The tokens for this conscription vary. Some are handed cutlasses and clubs, anointed as political thugs to unleash mayhem. Others, educated yet unmoored, are armed with keyboards, reduced to intellectual mercenaries peddling half-truths and slander. They are promised a seat at the table, yet they never dine; they are led to believe they are warriors, yet they are mere pawns expendable in the schemes orchestrated by the grand puppeteers.

    These agitators now decry Tinubu’s governance as the tombstone of democracy. They wail in choreographed despair, denouncing the emergency rule in Rivers as an apocalyptic omen. Yet, where was their voice when democracy was repeatedly desecrated as Fubara pulled down the state assembly and locked 27 lawmakers out?  Why did their tongues fail them when injustice flourished under their preferred overlords in previous dispensations? It is not democracy they defend; it is their bruised ego, their shattered ambitions, and impotence in the absence of power.

    Some have grown so drunk on their hatred that they subtly call for the military’s return—an invitation triggered by their personal vendetta against the incumbent government. They mask their desperation in righteous indignation, gaslighting the nation into believing that anarchy is a purgative for Nigeria’s ills. Yet history stands as an unrelenting witness—anarchy does not heal; it devours.

    The Nigerian Civil War bequeathed generations of broken men and women, ghosts of a nation scarred by its own folly. The wreckage remains a testament to the truth that war is never fought by the powerful but by the expendable, those who, like lambs, are herded into the slaughterhouse while their masters sip from goblets in safety.

    This pattern is neither new nor unique. Throughout history, the poor have been conditioned to serve as pawns in conflicts choreographed by the elite. The promise of glory, of escape from economic despair, of relevance in an indifferent society, is dangled before them like bait. Read Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front or Jones’s From Here to Eternity—the stories of young men lured into wars that had nothing to do with them, only to return disillusioned, discarded like broken marionettes once their usefulness expired. The same fate awaits every Nigerian youth who answers the call of these demagogues.

    Nigeria is no stranger to the deceit of its political class. The landscape is littered with the wreckage of those who mistook empty promises for bridges to a better life. The press, academia, civil society—all have at one time or another served as willing accomplices, weaving grand narratives to prop up the ambitions of the powerful. Yet, as Arundhati Roy once asked, “Are you walking the dog or is the dog walking you?” Who, indeed, controls the narrative?

    A nation held captive by illusions cannot prosper. The bitter truth is that Nigeria’s elite do not war for the people; they war for themselves. When the poor riot, they die alone. Those who engage in misguided battles are discarded as soon as their usefulness expires. Their broken bodies and spirits litter the nation like the remnants of a storm that never should have been.

    War, as Chris Hedges rightly notes, is always sold as a patriotic duty, wrapped in slogans of sacrifice, honor, and destiny. Yet up close, it is nothing but savagery—a cruel masquerade where the elite dictate, and the poor perish. It strips men of their dignity, reduces them to instruments of violence, and discards them as casualties when the dust settles. The horror of war is not in the battle cries of those who summon it; it is in the wails of mothers burying their sons, in the shattered dreams of those who once believed they fought for a noble cause, only to realize they were mere tools in a game they never understood.

    If history has taught anything, it is that nations do not crumble from external forces alone, they are undone from within, by the willingness of their youth to be used, by their ignorance of the patterns that have ensnared generations before them. Nigeria stands at a precipice, and the youth must decide whether to leap into the abyss or step back from the brink.

    Let those who clamor for war be the first to send their own sons and daughters to the battlefield. Let them, for once, sacrifice their own blood instead of the children of the impoverished. Let the Nigerian youth, weary of being pawns, demand better. Not through anarchy or destruction, but through a reclamation of their agency. It is time to scorn the charlatans, to rise not as foot soldiers in another man’s battle but as architects of a future where they are no longer expendable.

  • Freeloaders’ creed

    Freeloaders’ creed

    It is a curious thing, isn’t it? The ease with which a society can hold out its palms, demanding honey from the hive it has not tended. Once again, I find myself at the front seat of this perennial circus—a boisterous affair where the ringmasters are the very citizens who brazenly dodge taxes, yet demand effective public services. It is the Nigerian penchant for freeloading, a national pastime disguised as survival.

    The story is as old as the first misstep of our fledgling republic. But the truth bears repeating because the wound festers still, growing deeper with each cut. While reporting recently on this very topic, I got drawn yet again to the performance and unholy alliance between the common man and the bureaucrat—each playing his part in a silent sabotage.

    A recent tour of Lagos brought me face to face with the latest act in this ongoing drama. Electricity marketers and technicians spin their webs, bypassing meters as deftly as any thief might pick a pocket. The people nod approvingly, grateful for the temporary relief. The electricity they siphon is never deemed a crime, but a necessity, a balm for their daily hardships.

    “We had no choice,” resonates the freeloaders’ plaint. But beneath this veneer of desperation lies a stark reality—every stolen kilowatt-hour is a dagger thrust into the heart of the nation’s cashcow.

    Francisca Pajok, a hairdresser in her mid-thirties, is a character in this unfolding tragedy. In the dim light of her salon, her idle hands tell the story of a business that has learned to steal its survival. Her generator hums softly outside, its power fed from the covert artery of her tampered metre. Pajok feels no guilt, no shame, just revulsion over being found out and disconnected. She is a product of a society where it is not theft if it is survival.

    It is this sentiment, this collective shrugging of responsibility, that has become the hallmark of our national psyche. Nigerians feel aggrieved, wronged by a system that promises much but delivers little. And perhaps, they are not entirely wrong. After all, the labyrinthine corridors of public governance in this country are filled with bureaucrats fattening themselves on the spoils of corruption. To dwell too long on their deviousness, however, would be to digress; today’s focus is not the thieving public servant but the citizens who have mastered the art of dodging their dues while loudly demanding services of the finest quality.

    Yet, we cannot ignore the symbiotic relationship between the corrupt official and the citizen who thrive in the shadow of malfeasance. For every Pajok bypassing her metre, there is a public utility official turning a blind eye, a hand outstretched for a cut of the spoils. This quiet complicity erodes the very foundations of our state. The roads crumble, the hospitals run dry, and the schools rot from within. But still, we demand more.

    And what of the taxes, those lifeblood contributions citizens owe their nation? Ah, taxes, the ultimate taboo in a country where everyone – individuals and corporate entities – seeks unearned benefits. This sentiment is shared by many, who feel the government is a monolith of ineptitude and corruption, undeserving of their hard-earned naira.

    They argue, with some merit, however, that taxes are squandered by public officials who live in obscene luxury while the rest of the country suffers. But in this tangled dance of evasion and entitlement, we forget the simple truth: a government starved of revenue cannot function. Every dodged tax is a school unfunded, a hospital without medicine, a bridge left unbuilt.

    The freeloading infects every corner of society, from the slums to the boardrooms and illicit black markets. Mohammed, for instance, lived off the widening gap between official and parallel exchange rates, amassing a fortune as he arbitraged Nigeria’s currency crisis. But President Bola Tinubu’s floatation of the naira has shrunk those margins. “It’s impossible to make any profit now,” Mohammed laments, blind to the larger truth: that his wealth was never built on real value but on the quicksand of speculation.

    Mohammed’s loss, like Pajok’s silent theft, is symptomatic of a larger sickness—a nation addicted to shortcuts. Instead of building real industries, creating sustainable businesses, or investing in infrastructure, Nigerians have long preferred the game of quick gains. The naira has become a mere token in this game, a fragile thing bet upon like dice in the hands of unrepentant gamblers.

    This, then, is the heart of the issue: a society caught in the cycle of evasion, from taxes to currency, from responsibilities to realities. Economic analyst, Tope Fasua, once painted a bleak picture of a society betting against itself, citizens hoarding dollars and rooting for the collapse of their national currency. “When citizens lose faith in their own currency, all is lost,” he warned. The wealthy few who stockpile dollars cheer at the naira’s devaluation, blind to the ruin they are hastening. Their gains are short-lived; their profits, like smoke, vanish as inflation eats away at the nation’s lifeblood. Meanwhile, the masses—those without access to foreign currency—suffer the most, as the price of food, fuel, and basic necessities skyrockets.

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    Fasua’s words ring with eerie prophecy: “In time, the man with millions of dollars stashed away won’t be able to step out of his house, for there will be zombies waiting to devour him.”

    It is a vivid metaphor for a society that has turned on itself, where the rich barricade themselves behind high walls, while the poor—zombified by poverty—lurk just beyond, hungry and desperate.

    We have built for ourselves a fragile illusion, a fantasy where the government is an inexhaustible well of resources, and we are mere bystanders in the unfolding drama of national governance. But this illusion is crumbling.

    Change must begin at the top. President Tinubu, in his sweeping reforms, has begun to address these issues. The removal of the fuel subsidy and the floatation of the naira were painful but necessary steps toward a more sustainable economy. But for these reforms to truly take root, the government itself must lead by example.

    It is unconscionable to ask Nigerians to tighten their belts, while lawmakers and civil servants grow fat off the public purse. The salaries of public officials must be slashed, their perks curtailed. Only then can the government stand on moral ground when it asks its people to do their part. For as long as the ruling class lives in barricaded bubbles, untouched by the stringent economic policies, the cycle of evasion will continue. Pajok will continue to steal electricity. Mohammed will find new ways to game the system.

    The road to redemption will not be easy. It requires sacrifice, not just from the government, but from every Nigerian. Taxes must be paid. Services must be earned, not stolen. The freeloading must end. The light that Pajok steals is not just electricity; it is the future. The currency Mohammed traded in shadows is not just money; it is the potential for real growth that was squandered. The taxes they evade are not just funds—they are the schools, the roads, the hospitals that could lift this nation from its knees.

    Nigeria’s future lies not in entitlement but in the hard work of every citizen, paying their dues, owning their responsibilities. Only then can we rise from the ashes of our own making.

  • Orphans of the republic

    Orphans of the republic

    History will never be kind to the staff of the Federal Scholarships Board (FSB), who dared starving and homeless scholars abroad, to come back home and flog the education minister.

    Beyond his contempt for the state-sponsored scholars cum recipients of the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA), subsists an inordinate lack of tact and sensibility, perhaps. Another tragic manifestation of systemic and human failings.

    The BEA, an ambitious pact between Nigeria and fifteen other countries, was meant to serve as a bridge to intellectual prosperity and national progress. Instead, it manifests as a dark channel, where the light of scholarship dims to neglect.

    For years, the Nigerian government has defaulted on its obligations, leaving its scholars marooned on foreign shores, forsaken by the very nation that pledged to sustain them. It was in 2023, however, that this dereliction assumed horrific proportions. Reports from The Nation, FIJ, and The Cable, among others, have revealed the traumatic fate of these students, time and over again.

    These scholars, scattered across participating countries, were to receive $7,450 annually for postgraduate studies and $6,450 for undergraduates. This stipend was meant to take cater for their health insurance, medical allowances, and daily sustenance. The host nations honored their end of the bargain, covering tuition and accommodation, but Nigeria has serially defaulted – failing to pay the promised stipends. By the beginning of 2025, the stipends had vanished into a void of bureaucratic indifference.

    For the supposed beneficiaries, the impact has been devastating. How does a nation explain the sight of its brightest minds scrounging through garbage bins? How do we explain the tragic reality of our BEA scholars, some of whom have resorted to shoplifting – stealing bread to quiet the growl of their bellies. abroad? A recent report by the FIJ revealed how some BEA scholars in Europe were caught shoplifting.

    Desperation is an acid that corrodes dignity. With each skipped stipend, each Nigerian student abroad inches closer to insanity. In Hungary, the law forbids them from working. In Morocco, the host universities provide no accommodation. Some have been evicted, tossed onto streets that offer nothing but the cold draft of abandonment. Some battle depression, their minds cracking under the weight of uncertainty. Some contemplate asylum, seeking refuge from hardship foisted on them by a homeland that treats them as disposable chaff. A postgraduate scholar in one of the country’s European partners revealed that their stipend had been slashed from $500 to $220. Rent alone costs €250. Once gainfully employed in Nigeria, this student had resigned in pursuit of knowledge, believing in the certitude of government support. Now, he is adrift, an intellectual pauper betrayed by the very system that courted him.

    It’s even more alarming to mull the Federal Government’s response to the students’ plight. When they dared to raise their voices, what did they get? Silence, at first, then contempt. During a virtual meeting with a senior official of the Federal Scholarship Board (FSB), the students suffered unimaginable derision from the character who reportedly mocked them, saying that if they were so angry, they should come back home and beat the Minister of Education. 

    And what of the $1,000 deducted from each student’s stipend in 2023, a sum promised for reimbursement when funds became available? Nothing. The promise to refund the money stays buried, till date, in a fog of bureaucratic opacity. Equally worrisome is the fate of graduates of the BEA programme, some of whom are still expectant of their arrears, forced to bear the weight of debts their own government refuses to settle.

    If the state cannot uphold its obligations, then why persist in the deception? If these scholarships are to be nothing more than instruments of torment, let them be abolished. There is no dignity in a scholarship that starves its recipient, no honor in a contract whose terms are ghosted in ink and empty promises.

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    It’s about time we understood that the affected students are not mere beneficiaries of a scholarship scheme but Nigeria’s ambassadors, sent to burnish the country’s intellectual prowess. And yet, they are now symbols of shame, reduced to mendicants and shoplifters. Their plight manifests as both an academic crisis and diplomatic disgrace.

    There is a tragic irony in the government’s contempt for these scholars. It is as though the government approves of the contempt meted to the students by the FSB officials responsible for their upkeep overseas – the latter lamented that some of the state officers see them as nothing more than the children of peasants—unworthy of the full dignity of a promise kept.

    If the Nigerian government still possesses a shred of integrity, it must act swiftly and decisively. First, the arrears must be cleared, and every kobo accounted for. The students must be paid what they are owed, and those who have graduated must not be left in limbo. Second, the administration of the BEA scheme must be overhauled. It must no longer be weaponized with bureaucratic contempt and as a cudgel against vulnerable scholarship beneficiaries. Third, and most crucially, Nigeria must rethink its educational priorities. Instead of sustaining a scholarship programme riddled with administrative failure, fluctuating currency value,  and corruption, why not invest those resources into the nation’s universities?

    President Bola Tinubu has done well with the students’ loan scheme but a lot still has to be done. In the 2024 fiscal year, a meagre N1.59 trillion—only 5.52% of the national budget—was allocated to the Ministry of Education. This falls woefully short of UNESCO’s recommended 15-20%. A recourse to educational foundations, in the light of Arnold’s 1869 treatise, could be in Nigeria’s best interest. President Tinubu could lay the foundation for such a monument by increasing Nigeria’s education budget to 18 per cent.

    Countries like Finland and Japan have shown that a robust, well-funded educational system can transform a nation. Nigeria could take a cue from either. The transformation of the Finnish education system, for instance, began some 40 years ago as the key propellent of the country’s economic recovery plan. Educators had little idea it was so successful until 2000, when the first results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a standardised test given to 15-year-olds in more than 40 global venues, revealed Finnish youth to be the best young readers in the world. Three years later, they led in math.

    Finnish schools are publicly funded. School managers at all levels are educators, not businessmen or politicians. Every school has the same national goals and draws from the same pool of university-trained educators. The result is that a Finnish child has a good shot at getting the same quality education irrespective of his or her descent. The differences between the weakest and strongest students in Finland are the smallest in the world, according to the most recent survey by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

    The foundations of Nigerian scholarship must be reconstructed to guarantee more progressive responses to internal problems of social advancement: problems of work and wages, of families and homes, of morals and the true value of life.

    True knowledge is never simply to teach bread-winning, furnish teachers for the public schools or vocation for the unemployed. It should above all, be an appendage of that fine adjustment between what Du Bois calls reality and the flourishing knowledge of life. An improvement of civilisation and solution to its seemingly intractable problems.

  •  The good Nigerian

     The good Nigerian

    The Hausa tricycle driver did not set out to be a hero. He owns no newspaper column, has no audience hanging onto his every word, and wields no influence beyond the handlebars of his humble Keke NAPEP (tricycle). Yet, in the holy month of Ramadan, while inflation alternates its grip on random food prices and every naira bears the weight of a thousand worries, he made a simple choice: to give. He scrawled a declaration on his tricycle: Ramadan Discount: From N200 to N100 per Drop.

    He did not do it for fame or political points. But as a measure of unpretentious goodwill and for the unadorned virtue of kindness. The beneficiaries of his generosity are not predetermined by ethnicity or religious affiliation. They are Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Christian, Muslim, and those who worship in silence. In his small act of selflessness, he weaves a stronger fabric of unity and compassion than the questionable intellectuals who, from their lofty perches and soapboxes, sow discord in the name of activism.

    The critic, channeling fiery cynicism, parades himself as a self-anointed custodian of truth, but he is a prophet of doom in disguise. At the first whiff of roses, he starts looking for a coffin. He is the silent epidemic that gnaws at the soul of the country,  more insidious than the crisis of governance and the spectre of economic hardship. He is the proverbial future, now walking with a slouched spirit.

    Cynicism, now pervasive, is cultivated by an unrelenting stream of discontent. Every day, the public sphere becomes a battlefield, rife with the narratives of doomsayers: politicians, activists, and frustrated elites who have been denied the fruits of power. Once silenced by ambition, these voices now rage with venom, spewing defeatism and prophesying Nigeria’s inevitable collapse. Yet, behind their calls for change is a lurking self-interest, the bitter taste of being left out of the corridors of influence. They are neither patriots nor prophets; they are casualties of their own desires. The youth, in their vulnerability, have become their prey.

    Young Nigerians must exercise caution in choosing their role models. It is easy to be swayed by voices that loudly condemn the state of the nation, but not all who decry Nigeria’s failures seek her restoration. Many are simply opportunists in waiting, men and women who will seize power not to heal but to gorge themselves on the spoils of a broken system.

    Any youth that emulates them will simply burden himself with disillusionment and perpetual cynicism until he can ill afford the luxury of dreaming. Therein lies the death of his conscience and fervour to see Nigeria succeed. His heart will become a graveyard of lost hopes, pulsating only to despair. Even when he fancies himself a thinker, his words drip with venomous cynicism. He stalks the corridors of national discourse, like a vulture circling a dying beast, waiting for the collapse of the Nigerian enterprise so he can proclaim, with gleeful sanctimoniousness: “I told you so!”

    Nigeria can earn $2.5billion annually from trades with Morocco – Abbas

    For many of his ilk, Nigeria has been on a death watch since Bola Ahmed Tinubu emerged as the country’s president. They do not simply anticipate calamity; they yearn for it, that their chosen narratives might be justified. At each flicker of crisis—each naira that plummets, each scandal that erupts—they rejoice and dance with macabre delight. And even when tragedy strikes in the form of system failures, disasters, or celebrity deaths, they belabour the premise of cause and effect, eagerly laying blame at the feet of the president, the government, the nation itself. Their cynical gospel spreads like wildfire among disillusioned youths, who, in their thirst for change, mistake nihilism for wisdom.

    Yet, the Good Nigerian does not preach; he acts. His love for country is not found in vitriolic essays or televised debates but in tangible, everyday kindness. His simple discount may seem inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, yet to the weary commuter clutching his last naira, it offers relief. The nation may bleed from a thousand cuts, but when its nationals manifest such heartfelt gestures of kindness, even in its smallest dose, it will begin to heal.

    The response to the tricycle driver’s gesture is as telling as the act itself. Across social media, voices from every corner of the country rose in admiration. A Christian woman prayed for Allah to bless him. A security guard, accustomed to receiving food from fasting Muslims, marveled at the consistency of their generosity. An Igbo man, weary of holiday season price hikes in his homeland, acknowledged the contrast with a wry smile. The lesson is unmistakable—here, in the small frame of a commercial transporter, is a true patriot, a man who understands that love of country is not merely an anthem sung but a kindness given. This is the Good Nigerian.

    The critics, in contrast, know little of giving. They pontificate on patriotism, yet their patriotism is conditional. They wield their critiques like scythes, severing hope wherever it dares to sprout. They celebrate nothing but decay and languish in the luxury of discontent. Their weapon is not action but rhetoric—fiery words that scorch the land but plant no seed. If the nation crumbles, they will be there to gloat rather than rebuild. Their cynicism is no longer just an affliction; it is an agenda.

    But the tricycle driver? He does not speak of love; he lives it. And his love, though seemingly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, resonates louder than the critic’s flamethrower words. The Good Nigerian does not look for scapegoats. He does not sneer from the sidelines, unwilling to engage unless conditions are perfect. He understands that patriotism is not in the cynical condemnation of the land but in the conscious, deliberate acts of service that make the land better. He knows that a nation is not only its rulers; it is its people, its daily interactions, its gestures of solidarity in the face of shared struggle.

    This is the lesson that must be learned. Nigeria’s problem is not only the failure of governance; it is the erosion of goodwill among its citizens. The political elite did not fall from outer space or descend from the heavens; they are products of our homes, our schools, and our society. If we demand better leadership, we must first demand better citizens. The Good Nigerian understands this. The critic does not.

    Let the so-called intellectual take heed. His towering ego and exaggerated sense of worth serve neither him nor the country. If wisdom is the measure of greatness, then this tricycle driver, with his modest means and boundless heart, has taught more in a single act than the critic has in all his essays and televised debates. The country does not need another cynic cloaked in the guise of patriotism. It needs more men and women who, in their small corners, choose to give rather than take, to mend rather than tear apart, to believe rather than curse the darkness.

    And so, shall we, like the tricycle driver, embrace the quiet heroism of practical patriotism? Or shall we continue to wallow in the quicksand of bitter cynicism? The answer will determine not just the fate of Nigeria but the soul of her people.

  • Gaslighters

    Gaslighters

    Gaslighters live on fancied time. A curious affliction bedecks their psyche—I’d call it antipathy for bitter truth. In Nigeria, this anomaly transcends personal and social relationships and spills into the political space.

    Whether online or offline, gaslighting manifests in layered self-deception; it presents as a shared national pastime where illusion is venerated and reality is exiled.

    In the gaslighter’s nirvana, to be Nigerian is to be perpetually blameless, untarnished amid a nation drowning in corruption, bigotry, and decay. Every man and woman wears a halo of infallibility, casting themselves as messiahs while damning all who dare question their fabricated integrity and version of events.

    Gaslighting, a term borrowed from 1940s theatre, portends a sinister dance where the lead manipulator persuades the partner to doubt their own senses, to question the very ground beneath their feet. As all things ruinous, Nigerians take to this waltz with masterful flair. Narratives are implanted with surgical precision, cloaked in secrecy and pseudo-realism thus making the implausible plausible and the absurd bankable.

    The truth is swiftly deconstructed, labelled as ‘conspiracy theory,’ and cast to the outer margins of public discourse. Meanwhile, fabricated reality is adorned in the finery of ‘gospel truth’ and paraded on the esplanades of media consumption with pomp and flourish. This inversion of reality creates a social space where citizens wander, perpetually lost, their moral compass desensitized to relentless manipulation.

    For instance, the ongoing banter in social space,  about Rtd. General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB)’s recently launched autobiography, is incantatory of Nigerian mind and nature. Whether online or offline, the tenor of the debate is overtly ritualistic and sorely politicised. Suddenly, IBB adorns the garb of a truth-sayer, and everyone else, a self-styled gadfly cum bleeding-heart patriot, who must condemn the brazen artifice and pageantry of a book launch that scored N17.5 billion worth of donations to IBB’s presidential library project.

    Far from the racket and patois of accidental bleeding hearts, most enjoyable and educative is erudite essayist cum leader writer, Sam Omatseye’s unsparing deconstruction of the author and the book; likewise Lasisi Olagunju’s incisive take on IBB and his controversial literature.

    Yet this is less IBB’s frantic search for closure and redemption and more about ‘guiltless’ Nigerians’ predilection to mount the soapbox just to spout off and be seen in fabricated reality’s public sphere.

    The retired general’s fanciful memoir parallels post-Muhammadu Buhari era. Triggered by the 2023 election results, aggrieved politicians and electorate reconstruct Nigeria into a narrow commune, beholden to their selfish interpretations of citizenship, power, politics, and democratic dividends.

    Each stakeholder manifests a peculiar morass of patriotic experience. Amid the drama, Nigeria thrives as a political theatre – an expansive stage where people of vast partisan stripes are entertained, misinformed, and gaslighted.

    The process, in recent times, assumes the course of indoctrination by courtiers. The latter manifests as our most malignant affliction. Comprising journalists, politicians, NGOs, and rights activists, their machinations are oft inimical to nationhood, stability, and growth – perhaps because too many among them are deployed as weapons of adverse programming.

    This may no doubt resonate as far-fetched to individuals and groups profiting from the status quo, especially the press and civil societies. That is understandable. It is often the nature of bacterium responsible for a pandemic to deem itself the next best thing to happen to earthlings.

    For a people programmed for conquest, Nigerians carry on with unabashed ignorance and arrogance. Arrogance is pitiable. But ignorance is expensive and quite scary. Yet Nigerians soldier on unperturbed by the ramifications of it all.

    This is what happens when a nation becomes unmoored from reality. It retreats into a fictive nirvana. In this predetermined cosmology, reality is redefined to suit dubious whims, and facts are manufactured to soothe relative bias. Consequently, national discourse is dominated by fabricated events. From performative grief over insecurity, misgovernance, national history and disasters to celebrity gossip, this country is sold to desperate narratives at home and abroad.

    Whether it is the soaring price of Premium Methylated Spirit (PMS), the insurgent creed of violence resonant with brainwashed minors and young adults, or the virulent manifestations of partisan politics, the compelling nature of the grievances articulated and the pervasiveness of despair are wielded to justify the rationale for Nigeria’s creed of carnage and enduring portrayal as a banana republic by foreign governments and consulates.

    A history of corruption and neglect at the federal, state, and local levels of government, among others, has equally morphed into a major source of widespread dissatisfaction towards politicians, the legal system, and law enforcement by the masses.

    These sentiments thrive in greater depths across geographic and virtual spaces; as Nigeria rejuvenates from the intrigues of disputed polls, a wave of validation and reproof of the incumbent political class and the opposition seeking to dislodge it has produced a charged atmosphere of warring critics and apologists, cynics, and anarchists – all wired to gaslight whatever reality conflicts with their preferred versions of events.

    Of the latter, the majority parade flawed presence because they have no real persona and moral substance. Yet Nigeria suffers their storm of spunk and slogans through minor and major upheavals.

    The participation of large segments of the press, academia, and civil society in this political gaslighting has been largely driven by funded partisanship but like Arundhati Roy would say, “I’m not against people being funded—because we’re running out of options, but we have to understand, ‘Are you walking the dog or is the dog walking you? Who’s the dog and who are you?”

    The situation triggers existential questions about the quality of political participation in Nigeria. How do we determine real and funded patriotism? Are Nigerians inured to the precepts of partisanship astride the politics of reality and illusions?

    The jostling over reality and illusion becomes most intense in a toxic public sphere where both distort to preserve the status quo of exploitation or repudiate it. A failure to achieve a balance between oppressive reality and the placebo of illusion eventually leads to anarchy and societal collapse.

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    In his book, Collapse, economist Jared Diamond lists five precursors to social decay, including a failure to understand and prevent causes of environmental damage; climate change; pillage by hostile neighbours; the inability of friendly neighbours to continue trade; and finally, how the society itself deals with the problems raised by the first four factors.

    A common failing of the last item is the dislocation between the short-term interests of elites and the longer-term interests of the societies they dominate and exploit. Diamond’s last point is critical. The ruling elite’s penchant for corruption, maladministration, and circumventing the law, almost always triggers widespread cynicism, disillusionment, apathy, and finally, rage. Those who suffer the consequences of misgovernance characteristically scorn loyalty to the nation and increasingly nurse fantasies of violent insurrection as revenge.

    The concept of the common good, mocked by the predation of the privileged minority, vanishes and is replaced by the self-seeking “Me-Credo” of the underprivileged majority. Society burns as individuals gaslight their own shortcomings and in repudiation of systemic failings, submit to primal lust.

    But all hope is not lost. Gaslighting, for all its potency, has a fatal flaw—it crumbles in the face of truth. It’s about time we cultivated a more critical culture of appraisal, of self, reality, and the narratives handed to us. We must equally demand greater transparency from our elected representatives. But if only we hold our thoughts and ourselves to the same unimpeachable standards.

  • There is no perfect nation to be born

    There is no perfect nation to be born

    There is no perfect nation to be born yet Nigeria is deemed an ultimate hell to every newborn. Thus the rat race by most Nigerians to Japa. In 2013, an Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report ranked the country 80th out of 80 countries assessed in its Where-to-be-born-index. Twelve years on, Nigerians throng American and European consulates in a frantic bid to Japa.

    No thanks to the Economist’s sister publication, most Nigerian kids may mature thinking they had been born where the neurotic tick-tock of midnight silences the whispers of dawn.

    From birth through adulthood, each poor child glides down maturity like a greased pole to hell. The scriptural hell, we are told, shall be consequent at a future date: the judgement day. But here in Nigeria, we make our matches from mayhem and distil sulphur from sadness, ultimately to make our hell.

    Predictably, the EIU report inspired doomsday forecasts about the country; foremost columnists and newspapers penned damning editorials affirming the report – as they do every International Child’s Day or Children’s Day in Nigeria. Amid the bleeding heart patois, child advocacy groups serially squeeze local and international donors of grants that hardly get to the touted recipients.

    Through the preachment and plots, a crucial voice dies without recourse; the voice of the Nigerian child. If there has been any change since the EIU’s damning report, it is barely discernible.

    To speak for the newborn and generations unborn, we must learn to speak ‘humane.’ We must reinvent Nigeria as a nation fit for every human segment, children, in particular. Nigeria must improve her education and health sectors.

    President Bola Tinubu’s 2025 budget allocations to education and health signal an attempt to confront two of the most pressing challenges facing Nigerian children: access to quality learning and adequate healthcare. On paper, the numbers appear impressive—N3.52 trillion for education, with a significant portion directed at infrastructure and student support, and N2.48 trillion for health, including funds for strengthening primary healthcare systems. Yet, beyond the figures lies a deeper question: will these allocations translate into real, tangible improvements in the lives of Nigerian children?

    In education, the expansion of higher institutions and the N34 billion earmarked for student loans suggest a policy shift toward accessibility, but the reality remains that the majority of Nigerian children struggle to receive even the most basic primary education. Many classrooms remain overcrowded, understaffed, and lacking essential teaching materials. While infrastructure investments may create new structures, without a corresponding investment in teacher training, curriculum improvement, and systemic reforms, Nigerian children may find themselves sitting in new classrooms that offer little by way of quality education.

    On the healthcare front, the allocation of N282.65 billion to the Basic Health Care Fund offers a glimmer of hope, particularly in addressing primary healthcare needs. However, with Nigeria’s health sector plagued by a shortage of medical professionals, dilapidated facilities, and an overburdened system, the question remains whether these funds will effectively trickle down to rural clinics and urban slums where children face malnutrition, preventable diseases, and high infant mortality rates. The additional $200 million set aside to fill gaps left by the suspension of U.S. health aid is a necessary intervention, but it highlights the country’s continued dependence on external funding rather than a sustainable, internally-driven approach to child welfare.

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    In 2023, President Bola Tinubu pledged that, on his watch, every Nigerian child, regardless of his or her background, would have access to quality education. Speaking while receiving representatives of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) at the State House, in Abuja, he said, “If we all believe that education is the greatest weapon against poverty, then we have to invest in it. If you eliminate poverty in one family, you can carry the rest of the weight. Poverty should not prevent anyone.”

    In 2024, only 7.9% of the N27.5 trillion budget was dedicated to education, and in 2025, the figure dropped slightly to 7.3% of the N47.9 trillion budget. While the 2025 allocation of N3.52 trillion represents a nominal increase in funding, its proportion of the total budget remains disappointingly low. Given Nigeria’s struggling education sector—marked by dilapidated infrastructure, poor teacher remuneration, and inadequate learning resources—this level of funding is unlikely to drive the change needed. However, Mr President’s promise to allocate 25 per cent of the national budget to education, in time, is encouraging.

    A 2022 UNICEF report states that Nigeria accounts for approximately 20.2 million out-of-school children, the second highest number of unschooled children globally after India. On Tinubu’s watch, the education system must be re-envisioned to address the disparities that make education incompatible with job market realities.

    More importantly, a remedial education summit must be convened by the Federal Government where issues of impracticality and redundancy can be addressed; there, the curriculum must be reviewed and recalibrated as a Nigerian-centred syllabus driven to reflect global learning and cater to the immediate and envisioned realities of the country’s labour market and socioeconomic milieu.

    The Tinubu administration must also cater to the health needs of children, revamp healthcare services and institutionalise incentives for health workers, to arrest brain-drain within the health sector. In 2023, the Special Adviser to the President on Health, Salma Anas, stated at a health summit in, Abuja, that President Tinubu has pledged to increase the annual health allocation to 10 per cent of the country’s total budget. Subsequently, the President of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), Dr. Dele Abdullahi, urged Tinubu to allocate at least 15 per cent of the 2024 annual budget to the health sector. Abdullahi’s plea is worth consideration given the state of the sector; just 24,000 licensed physicians currently cater to the over 200 million population in the country. This negates the WHO minimum threshold that a country needs a mix of 23 doctors, nurses, and midwives per 10,000 population.

    Foreign Trade Statistics by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) also reveals that the country is heavily dependent on foreign drug manufacturers thus subjecting the citizenry to the machinations of the mercantile and much dreaded big pharma. Between the third and fourth quarter of 2021 alone, Nigeria imported anti-malarial drugs worth over N110 billion. This requires urgent reinvigoration of Nigeria’s local drug manufacturing capacity.

    Tinubu’s administration must also work with State governments to prioritise child protection by ensuring a comprehensive and enforceable legal framework and policies that safeguard children from all forms of exploitation.

    To guarantee the success of these measures, Mr. President must evolve and sustain an effective monitoring and evaluative mechanism to effectively neuter the human and structural elements of sabotage. President Tinubu must never shy from wielding the big stick and instituting punitive measures against persons, groups or institutions that may work against the realisation of the highlighted policy goals.

    President Tinubu must appreciate his position for the wonderful opportunities it offers; beyond his hard-fought victory, the status quo provides a priceless opportunity to reconnect with broad segments of the electorate in realistic terms and convert them to ambassadors of the Nigerian enterprise.  

    Nigerians expect him to lay the foundation for the fortune he promised. They expect him to midwife national prosperity built “on a fast-growing industrial base capable of producing the most basic needs of the people and an export track to other countries of the world,” as he promised. They expect him to deploy humane governance to resolve insecurity and socioeconomic crises.

    They expect him to rebuild Nigeria as the best nation to be born.