The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • NBA’s moral burden

    NBA’s moral burden

    A lawyer lives for the direction of his people and the advancement of the cause of his country – Sapara Williams

    To a large extent, the constitution of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) hereinafter referred to as the Bar or NBA, is hinged on this Christopher Sapara Williams’ creed. He was the first indigenous Nigerian lawyer who was called to the English Bar on November 17, 1879. He started practising in Nigeria on January 13, 1888. During his legal practice, he held on to the precepts of being an advocate of the people and society’s watchdog.

    Williams was a pathfinder whose creed has come to define the essence of legal practice and shaped the minds of other lawyers, many of who held him in awe, even though they never met him. One of such lawyers was the irrepressible Gani Fawehinmi who had Williams’ immortal words framed and well placed in his law chambers and Ikeja, Lagos home. Gani took Williams’ creed to heart. That was how he became the Senior Advocate of the Masses (SAM), and the people’s lawyer, an appellation which was the exclusive preserve of Kanmi Ishola-Osobu in the 70s and 80s.

    Sapara Williams was a leading light of the NBA which he chaired between 1900 and 1915, when he died. Under his watch, the Bar was the upholder of the truth. It never strayed from the right path. It took up causes that affected the masses at no cost to them, giving them a sense of belonging and being. NBA earned the people’s trust without lobbying for it. Under him, the Bar was never enmeshed in any scandal that besmeared it.

    The Bar was the Bar – upright and not beholden to any elected or appointed office holder. It earned the public’s respect for its integrity, decorum and decency, the cherished values held dear by lawyers like Gani and another Bar leader, Alao Aka-Bashorun, who both came after Williams. Though Gani was never an NBA leader, he lived his life for a Bar with a banner without stain. He was always quoting Sapara Williams in everything he did. He and his hero and Gani had few heroes who can be counted off the finger tips will be turning in their graves over the way the Bar is being run today.

    Even before the scandal over NBA’s collection of N300 million from the Rivers State Government for the hosting of its 2025 annual general conference in Port Harcourt, which has been shifted to Enugu blew open, the Bar was already treading on slippery grounds. It was always involved in one politically-motivated cause or the other, taking sides in matters in which it should be neutral. It must, however, be emphasised that the collection of ‘unconditional’ monetary gift for the hosting of its conferences did not start today.

    It is an age-long practice which predates the present NBA leadership. The only difference is the controversy that is dogging its decision to shift the conference to Enugu after collecting what the planning committee called the N300 million ‘unconditional gift’. Truly, no conditions are attached to such gifts and other miscellaneous and logistic freebies that the state where the event is billed for is always willing to dole out for reasons best known to it. But it is with the unwritten understanding of ‘you rub my back, I rub your back, tombo’.

    Read Also: Rivers: Only police, EFCC, ICPC can probe Fubara, says Ahamba

    Meaning the Bar, though a pressure group, will see no evil and speak no evil about the state, no matter how bad things may be there, at least during  preparations for the conference; as well as while the event is on and shortly after it. But the NBA breached this unwritten rule when it sou moto moved the conference to Enugu because of what it described as the ‘unconstitutional rule’ in Rivers. ‘Unconstitutional’? How did the Bar arrive at that conclusion? I am unaware of any court declaring the present administration in Rivers unconstitutional.

    What we have in Rivers is a state of emergency as provided for under Section 305 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended). The suspension of the democratic institutions under the emergency rule is galling to many people, among them lawyers. But until the court which has adjudicatory powers speaks on the Rivers emergency no other person no matter the number of SAN titles they may have, can declare it unconstitutional. At best, they like any other professionals, can only bellyache over the matter, no more, no less.

    The prerogative of holding the annual general conference in any part of the country is the NBA’s. So, it can decide to move it out of one state to the other, if it so wishes. But in so doing, it must be mindful of the fallout of its action, which we are all now witnessing. With the exception of its inner circle, many of its members and other Nigerians never knew that the Bar got N300 million from the Rivers government for the conference. So, having moved the conference to Enugu since it no longer finds Port Harcourt conducive, what should the NBA do with the gift cash?

    Retain it? Return it? For its own good and image, it is better it returns the cash. The money is not that of suspended Governor Siminalayi Fubara whose cause it is openly fighting by its insistence that it cannot gather in a state where there is no democracy. The money belongs to Rivers and whether NBA likes it or not, there is a government in place there. It may call the administration by whatever name it likes, but that will not detract from the fact of the government’s existence.

    The owner of the money, the government of Rivers is asking for a refund. Rather than run its mouth over the propriety or otherwise of its action, NBA should just quietly return the money the way it got the cash and stop ridiculing itself in public. Enough of its show of shame. As the self-styled voice of the voiceless and defender of the defenceless, NBA should not be seen engaged in matters belittling of a professional group of its stature. It is disheartening seeing the way it is defending its indefensible action.

    NBA messed up big time. Though the damage has been done, it is still not too late for the Bar to redeem itself by returning the money to its rightful owner. If its problem is Sole Administrator Ibok-Ette Ibas, NBA should not see itself as returning the N300 million to him, but to the government and people of Rivers that are the rightful owners of the money. NBA has not fared well at all in its handling of this case. How can the Bar say that it would not refund the money because it is an ‘unconditional gift’?

    Yet, it has attached condition to the hosting of the conference by moving it from Port Harcourt to Enugu on the grounds of unconstitutional government in Rivers. The Bar cannot have its cake and eat it. It is in its own enlightened self interest to return the money and make do with whatever the Enugu government provides for moving the conference there. The money belongs to Rivers and the rightful place to return the cash to is the state since it has a sitting government.

    NBA should not allow this matter to go to court because the outcome may not favour it. A giver, whether an individual or an institution can take back his or its gift, if the recipient is not appreciative. It is as simple as that.

  • 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.

    Read Also: Alleged defamation: Yahaya Bello petitions IGP, demands investigation, prosecution of Natasha

    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?

  • Middle Belt leaders and the law of self-preservation

    Middle Belt leaders and the law of self-preservation

    Periodic harvest of death through mindless killing of innocent men, women and children by bandits which have unfortunately become regular feature of the Middle Belt region especially the Benue/Plateau axis, according to Governor Caleb Mutfwang occurred  again last week resulting in the massacre of over 50 people in Bokkos.

    But, as common with Middle Belt region leaders who got integrated into the power structure through either marriage, business or politics by the hegemonic power in the north, self-preservation is often the first law. This was why the governor was going to play the ostrich so as not to rock the boat until Channel TV’s Seun Okinbaloye’s probing question left him no room for equivocation. He was forced to declare – “as I speak to you there are not less than 64 communities taken over, renamed and people are living there on land they push people away from”. Writhing his hands in helplessness like his predecessors in office, he attributed the nightmare of his people to “genocide sponsored by terrorist from somewhere” and “proliferation of sophisticated arms”.

    Mutfwang cannot out of desire for self-preservation suppress facts about the killings in the Middle Belt and those behind the killings. It is on record that no less than 1,000 persons were killed in Jos and its environs as a result of ethno-religious conflagrations in n 2001, about 700 killed due to communal clashes in Yelwa, southern Plateau, in 2004; Scores in Jos in January 2010 as a result of sectarian clashes including the killing of nearly 150 Muslims in Kan Karama while December 2010’s Christmas eve explosions in two Christian neighbourhoods in Jos, followed by several days of sectarian violence, left at least 107 persons dead.

    We have also been told that the number of renamed communities in 2020 was about 102 while as at July 2023, we have  an estimated 18,751 internally displaced persons, many of them  condemned to IDP camps where they face hunger diseases and uncertain future .( Gideon and Funmi Para-Mallam Peace Foundation).

    The governor was hesitant when it came to disclosing the identities of those assailants sacking communities, confiscating land and sending victims to IDP camps. He can keep his peace as credible Fulani voices like Sheik Gumi, Nasir El Rufai, Aminu Masari and Abdullahi Ganduje have already identified them as disgruntled immigrant Fulani herders who want recognition and compensation after their heinous crimes. The tragedy of besieged people of Benue and Plateau is that they have continued to be betrayed by their leaders.

    For fear of antagonizing the hegemonic power in the north, the Justice Nikki Tobi Commission report that came out during Obasanjo’s presidency was for instance never implemented; Joshua Dariye’s introduction of vigilante groups- The Rainbow Boys – was not allowed to operate just as Jonah Jang’s anti-land grabbing and anti-kidnapping bills were never passed by the state House of Assembly.

    It was for the same reason successive leaders of the Middle Belt region who for a long time opposed state and community policing could not replicate the Southwest Amotekun security architecture model. It was the same reason they would rather listen to Shehu Garba’s criticism of community policing than the timely advice by Theophilus Danjuma, the crusader for Middle Belt self-actualization to the effect that those facing threat of genocide can defend themselves by procuring guns from where their tormentors got their own if government refused to give them licence to officially buy guns to protect themselves.

    The people of the Middle Belt have not changed. They remain the same people whose land was never conquered, the same brave warriors Uthman Dan Fodio hired as mercenaries to prosecute his wars and the same people who staged an insurrection immediately after independence to press their demand for self-actualisation. What changed are leaders driven more by consideration for self-preservation than patriotic zeal to serve their people.

    The nightmare of the people of Middle Belt region started with the death of Joseph Tarka, and Chief Obafemi Awolowo the greatest advocate for the creation of the Middle Belt Region. Awolowo remained the last man standing during the 1957 London constitutional debate following betrayal by Ahmadu Bello, the NPC leader and Nnamdi Azikiwe the NCNC leader, both of whom were driven by greed to corner land belonging to various Nigerian ethnic nationalities for the exclusive use of their own people.

    A brief journey through history will show how both shared a common philosophy of how to manage Nigerian land spaces.

    Ahmadu Bello and the hegemonic power in the north saw Nigeria as a land ordained by God for the stateless Fulani across West Africa with his great grandfathers capturing of Hausa land over which he imposed 13 of his kinsmen and one Hausa as Emirs. On his part, Zik who believed Igbo race had been ordained  by God to lead the children of Africa, was also convinced that everywhere in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa should be home to his industrious and entrepreneurial Igbo people.

    It is therefore not difficult to see why Zik and his supporters did not see any contradiction in recommending a unitary system for a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural Nigeria or attempting to take over Yoruba nation in 1952 in the name of fake nationalism using his West African Pilot as tool of propaganda.

    And if further reasons are needed, Emeka Ojukwu’s strategy for the civil war which started as a war between the north and the east also said it all. For instance, instead of confronting the northern soldiers that attacked the Eastern Region from Makurdi, the Biafra Army overran Midwest, appointed an Igbo administrator and was on the way to Lagos before they were stopped at Ore, in Ondo State. But that was not before his insolent letter to Victor Banjo stating that he Ojukwu would decide who the administrator of Lagos would be after the pacification of Yoruba land.

    Not much has changed since the beginning of the Fourth Republic. The new campaign is no more unitarism but citizenship as the answer to the national question. In this regard, there is currently a bill in the National Assembly by Hon Benjamin Okezie Kalu which will legitimise immigrants’ takeover of ancestral home of host communities, a superior alternative to the ongoing bandits’ mindless killings in the Middle Belt region.

    The Fulani leaders never pretended about what they wanted out of Nigeria. With Uthman Dan Fodio’s subjugation of Hausa and sharing of their land among his siblings, his grandchildren believe Nigeria is a land ordained for stateless Fulani across West Africa. Ilorin was later to be seized through the help of Afonja, the Oyo Are Ona Kanakafo stationed in Ilorin. Oyo was later sacked by Fulani invaders who were stopped at Osogbo by the Ibadan army.

    What the Fulani leader could not get through war, they got through British colonial power. At the 1950 Ibadan constitutional conference, they insisted and secured 50% of membership of the Nigerian legislative house as condition for remaining part of post independent Nigeria.

    Read Also: Why Nigeria should not return to regionalism, by Middle Belt elder

    For the Fulani, like their Igbo rivals, not much have changed. It is still the same sense of entitlement over land that is fuelling the crisis in The Middle Belt and elsewhere in the country. Abubakar Malami, former Attorney General of the Federation once insisted that armed immigrant Fulani herders have right to occupy Ondo forest reserve. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi publicly encouraged Fulani herders to disobey Benue State’s anti-open grazing laws. Bauchi State governor, Bala Mohammed not too long ago passed a ‘fatwa’ through Channels TV, declaring any Fulani from any part of Africa, a Nigerian. Leaders of the herders wrote a 70-page letter to Muhammadu Buhari as president insisting open grazing is part of Fulani culture and threatened to make the country ungovernable if restricted from grazing in any part of the country.

    And their strategy for managing power has not changed. Tafawa Balewa, a minority from southern Bauchi was picked as prime minister in the first republic. He did everything Ahmadu Bello wanted including ‘doing nothing’ because of self-preservation even as the West burned.

    Gowon was installed Head of State after the 1966 July military vengeance coup over his seniors in breach of military protocol.  It was not a surprise that when the rivalry between the Igbo and Fulani ended in a civil war, Gowon and other notable Middle Belt military officers including Danjuma who has today become a leading voice of resistance, fought like slaves because of self-preservation.

    Chiefs Solomon Lar, Barnabas Gemade, Audu Ogbe, Ahmadu Ali, Kawu Baraje were for 16 years chairmen of the then ruling PDP. But they all pretended not to see the daily harvest of death from their home. David Mark and Bukola Saraki jointly occupied the senate presidency, the third most powerful office for 12 years. But fear of Fulani hegemonic power blinded them to the daily misery of their people.

    For all Middle Belt politicians, it is always the law of self-preservation. 

  • There was a country. How did we get here?

    There was a country. How did we get here?

    I still remember growing up  in  Ekiti, my own part of Nigeria when we did not have crude petroleum but had cocoa, palm oil, rubber and lots of hardwood timber which our regional government exported and the proceeds were spent on running the administration while a big part of it was saved against a rainy day. Some of the savings was used to support producer prices whenever the prices fell in the so-called world market as a result of over production.  Stability of producer price was necessary to encourage the farmers who produced the export produce. The marketing board that managed these savings was insulated as much as possible from political interference. It was the British colonial government that set this marketing board up and by the time we had party and responsible government in 1951, millions of pounds Sterling had accumulated as savings which the Awolowo government in the Western Region had access to from 1951 to 1959. Marketing boards were also set up for the eastern and northern regions of Nigeria but because those regions produced palm oil and palm kernel in the case of the East and groundnuts, cotton and hides and skins in the case of the North, they did not have the kind of money which cocoa brought into the coffers of the western Nigerian treasury.

    The year 1955 begins the period I am talking about when I was in my final year in primary school during the first year of the Action Group’s government’s free and compulsory primary school education scheme. My set moved from standard four to join with those in standard five to transit to primary six and the number of years spent in primary school was shortened from 10 years to eight years. There was fear that standards will be lowered but nothing of such happened and my set took entrance examinations to various secondary schools in the Western Region preparatory to starting in form one in January 1956.

    Most of us only took entrance examinations to schools in the Western Region. Certainly not to Lagos! None of our teachers encouraged us to do so because of what was said to be the corrupting influence of the coastal city. And our parents would not hear of us going to Benin and Warri provinces, part of Western Region for fear of the distance and differences in languages. There were a few intrepid ones who braved going there.

    It was the best of times.  We were all enjoying heavenly paradise here in Ekiti and the Western Region generally and in the country as a whole. One could travel to anywhere without molestation by the police or armed robbers and Fulani herders minded their own business as we did ours. Everything was good. We were not rich neither were we poor.  During our holidays, we joined our parents on the farms and those whose parents were traders hawked their wares on the street.

    Read Also: INEC delineation: Uproar as Itsekiris shutdown 28,000 bpd facility in Delta

    Running family economies was a joint program of parents, children, cousins and all kinds of relations with everybody making a contribution. The family unit was highly valued and our parents made sure they kept a tight hold on everyone and made sure they knew what was going on in everybody’s life. They also drummed into our ears about the importance of having a good name. A good name is better than diamonds and gold, they would say. Honour was more important than wealth. 

    My father didn’t mind if I fought in school as long as I won. You were not permitted to come home crying that a classmate of about the same age as yourself beat you up. We only had new clothes at Christmas and new year. If you were reasonably well-off, you got a pair of shoes as a bargain. This puritanical life style was embraced by everybody that I knew.  Our bigger and older brothers were in high schools and some were even in universities at home and abroad and our parents made us realise if we too worked hard and read our books, we too will go to high schools and reach the top. There was little career counselling; all we were told is read your books. Even when we were in secondary school, there was little or no career counselling apart from going to university to earn degrees in English, History, Geography, Chemistry, Biology, Physics and Mathematics and become teachers. It was grand being teachers in those days especially graduate teachers owning cars. Those who studied Medicine were guided into it by the “Hands of God“. It was not until later that we learnt that one could study Law, Accountancy, Engineering, Insurance and Finance. Going into the military or police was a no go area.

    In spite of the limitations of our rural environment, we did well. Our peasant upbringing endowed us with all that was honest and honourable. We never stole; we never embezzled or envied any one. We were satisfied with whatever it pleased the Almighty God to put in our hands in terms of shelter and ability to send our children to school like our parents did. We did not know anyone who became rich by being a civil servant.

    Politics when it entered our part of Nigeria was a call to serve not to eat. The only rich people we knew were contractors and cocoa merchants. We thought our country, or shall I say our region, will regenerate itself and our children will have the opportunity we had to live in a peaceful environment. But we were wrong.

    Our self-sustaining region was in 1957 made a self-governing part of Nigeria. We still retained control over our lives and contributed financially to the central treasury which relied largely on import and excise duties as well as charges on currency, posts and telegraphs, railways and shipping, and aviation. The regions continued to run their affairs as autonomous entities within the federation of Nigeria and enjoying common services of police and defence. The regions ran their own affairs competitively and cooperatively. Crude petroleum was discovered in Oloibiri (Bayelsa State) in the East but this did not make huge impact on the East which remained the Cinderella of the Nigerian family relations.

    As we progressed towards independence, the fierce competition for control of the centre began. The northern hegemony epitomized by the NPC in the centre was then aided by the Eastern subservience of the NCNC.  Then began the race to fill the posts being vacated by the British and to pack the ministries and parastatals with the ethnic cohorts of largely Easterners. Obafemi Awolowo who in all his political life had favoured strong regions appeared to have abandoned his position when he decided to challenge the NPC / NCNC chokehold on the centre by resigning as premier of the Western Region to go to the centre. With historical hindsight, he should have stayed in the West like his political enemy Ahmadu Bello stayed on in the North and sent his lieutenant, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa to the centre as lame duck prime minister which he would have remained if Awolowo and Ahmadu Bello had maintained their federal principled posture as they did in the Lancaster pre-Independence conference of 1959. This wrong tactical move sealed the fate of the carefully negotiated agreement for the disparate regions to remain together. These were territories big enough to be separate countries. They entered into what has turned out into an unhappy marriage which the military forced unitary system of 1966 has worsened.

    Nevertheless, the free-for-all looting and the  crazy feeding frenzy on national treasury which  began in 1970 after the  civil war ended, has gotten worse; electricity power  distribution has been sold to people who knew nothing about how to generate and distribute electricity.

    How does one explain the fact that the sale of gas and crude oil, the main source of the country’s wealth goes unaudited for years? The various parastatals in the oil industry are run not with the aim to earn income and augment national income, but to consume whatever comes in from sales of crude oil and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). Yet we complain that the country has no roads, no railways, no modern ports and airports. We have no hydro or any sort of efficient electric power.

    We have written and written that the dollar-guzzling petroleum refineries and petrochemical industries should be sold. We said it to Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan and we said it to Buhari and we say it again to Tinubu if he will listen. The money we are queuing up in various capitals of the world to borrow would have been unnecessary if we ran our oil industry profitably.

    Unfortunately, this will continue until the crude oil in our hands becomes unprofitable and unsaleable. Those running our oil industry should just compare ourselves with the following countries in OPEC namely UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and Venezuela. Even with the American sabotage of Iran and Venezuela and war in Iraq, they still have superior infrastructure than Nigeria. The roads we used to travel on have all been washed away because of poor construction arising from corruption and kickbacks from those who constructed them.

    Nemesis has now caught up with us. The poor have left the villages to waylay us on the highways and rob and attack us in the cities. The poor are now demanding their own share of our common patrimony which a few have appropriated. The rich can no longer sleep because the poor are hungry, awake and angry.

    Before it is too late, we must go back to the negotiated constitutional agreement that led us to independence to avoid current and future head butting. I appeal to those who can make things happen for the better to support the current Tinubu government to make positive changes!

  • Odili and his 2007 odd perpetual order

    Odili and his 2007 odd perpetual order

    Odd Things do happen. Whenever they do, their strangeness is not lost on the people. It is an oddity for a man not bitten by a rabid dog to start barking like a dog. Humans do not walk on their heads, but with their legs. So, when you see a person walking on his head or on all fours, that is with his hands and legs, you do not need to be told that, that is strange.

    The strangeness of a thing confounds us. When 18 years ago, a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, granted a perpetual injunction restraining the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from arresting, detaining, investigating and prosecuting former Governor Peter Odili, many Nigerians were shocked to the marrows.

    They kept wondering why the court would stop an agency created by law from doing its job. It was strange. It was not only the order that was strange. It was also strange that such an application was filed. Granted that lawyers can bring any application, no matter how frivolous, but this one was in a class of its own.

    There is a limit to the filing of nonsensical matters. These are cases that can rouse the public to take to the streets to call for the heads of those involved, be they lawyers or litigants. Since many lawyers are ready to take any brief because of filthy lucre, they refrain from advising their clients to file certain matters.

    As long as the money is good, they promise their clients heaven and earth and in some cases, even assure them that they would see (euphemism for inducement) the judge and everything would go well (meaning that they would win). It was out of fear that Odili went to court to stop the EFCC from inviting him to give account of his eight-year tenure as governor of Rivers State (1999-2007).

    Read Also: INEC delineation: Uproar as Itsekiris shutdown 28,000 bpd facility in Delta

    It is standard practice elsewhere for elected office holders to give account of their stewardship at regular intervals. It is not so here. Our elected officers are above the law. It is taboo for them to render account. Who dares ask them to do that? They are easily irritated by such requests. For a reporter to ask governors, especially, certain questions can land him in trouble. The reporter may be abducted from his state of residence and taking to the governor’s state to face prosecution (or is it persecution?) for such temerity.

    Why did Odili act out of fear? Does he have something to hide? What is it? If he had done well, would he entertain any fear? By his action, Odili gambled wth the law and won. For 18 years, he played on our collective intelligence and we all looked on without asking questions. Why should any man whether a former governor or not go to court and seek to stop his arrest and investigation without any lawful reason?

    Odili did not state his right that will be breached if he is arrested and investigated. No man is above the law, no matter the post he once held or he is presently holding. There is equality before the law, but unfortunately, our society has made it to look as if we are not all equal before the law, with the way the rich and mighty are preferentially treated. How many ordinary Nigerians can bring that kind of Odili’s application and have their way in court?

    To start with, do they even have the enormous resources to file, through a senior advocate, such a vexatious application, which does not require a second thought before being thrown out by the court? Odili had his way for 18 years. Now, the EFCC has woken up from its slumber. It is ready to challenge Odili and his odd order.

    It must be put on record that Odili was aided by successive Rivers State administrations which have since 2007 frustrated every attempt to appeal the high court verdict. The last ploy by Rivers to frustrate the case failed at the Supreme Court in February. What were the appellants praying for? They wanted the apex court to quash the Appeal Court’s order granting EFCC leave to appeal the high court’s verdict out of time.

    Without mincing words, presiding Justice John Okoro told the appellants: “this is not the kind of appeal that we hear here”. Following the withdrawal of the motion, he directed the appellants back to the Appeal Court for the hearing of the ‘substantive appeal’. But did EFCC not contest Odili’s case at the high court? What was its position there? Did it support or oppose Odili’s case? If it opposed the case, did the court take the agency’s position into consideration before perpetually restraining it from arresting, detaining, investigating and prosecuting Odili?

    It will be interesting to see how this case pans out at the Appeal Court. Former elected officers should never be allowed to dictate their terms of engagement with the society after leaving office. They should rather be made to render account of their stewardship. By so doing, the society will be better off.

  • 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?

  • Bokkos massacre: The buck stops at the president’s desk

    Bokkos massacre: The buck stops at the president’s desk

    If the essence of government is the security of life and properties of citizens, President Tinubu must take responsibility for last week’s massacre of over 65 innocent Nigerians in Bokkos, Plateau State. This is not just because the buck stops at his desk or even because of what former vice president, Atiku Abubakar described as: “The failure of Bola Tinubu’s security architecture which has now become an endemic nationwide phenomenon …” Nigerians are proud of their military’s heroic battle with insurgents in the last two years compared to preceding eight years of daily harvest of death when Buhari from commander in chief became ‘mourner in chief’. As a mark of their faith in the military, survivors of last week dastardly act who spoke to the press have nothing but praises for the military’s heroic confrontation with the marauders.

    But the buck stops at the president table because of the choices he made. President Tinubu understands the historical antecedent of the quest for self-actualization by different Nigerian groups especially the Ijaw of south-south and the people of the Middle Belt region that at different times after independence embarked on insurrection that had to be suppressed by the Nigerian military. He is aware of the confiscation and sharing of Hausa land among Uthman Dan Fodio’s 12 Fulani kinsmen and one Hausa appointed as emirs following Uthman Dan Fodio Jihad of 1803-1808; the decision to hold on to the land despite the 1903 Frederick Lugard’s “the power once exercised by the defeated caliphate had reverted to the British” after sacking of Sokoto Sunni Muslim and Herbert Macaulay’s 1908 successful campaign against the Hausa Land Ordinance. The president understands the quest for distributive justice without which a nation decays.

    President Tinubu, more than anyone else, understands the issues at stake because he spent 20 years preparing for his job. That was the source of his confidence when on the eve of the 2023 election, he declared without restraint ‘emi l’okan’ (it is my turn). 

    And if there was anything he forgot, Nigerian stakeholders especially the leaders of ethnic nationalities, the real owners of Nigeria, the Afenifere, Ohaneze, MDF etc. were on hand to remind him that  Nigeria needs “a restructured Nigeria with constituent parts having power over law and order, education and public information; a restructured Nigeria where there is freedom and justice for all; a restructured Nigeria that protects the right of indigenes as enshrined in the UN charter;  a restructured Nigeria that puts an end to an orgy of killing of helpless women and children at night in the Middle Belt region by unidentified herdsmen”.

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    The president also had the privilege of hosting the ‘Patriots’, a group of credible Nigerian stakeholders led by Pa Emeka Anyaoku, the former Commonwealth Secretary General.

    The president while not disagreeing with these Nigerian patriots who want the best for our nation said he would like to first pursue his economic agenda to bring prosperity to all Nigerians. But many have warned that it would amount to putting the cart before the horse since our problem is politics and not economics. Prosperity for all, will not resolve the national question neither will it eliminate peoples’ desires to have control over their lives, their culture and education of their children.

    If short-sighted opponents of federal arrangement that have often benefited from our tragedy cannot see how the social system ended centuries of intertribal wars in Europe, it cannot be lost on them how nations like Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Netherlands that currently top the list of the ‘happiest nations in the world’ only yesterday took control of their lives after negotiating peaceful federal arrangement.

    Tragically, today as it was in 1951/52, we are still being haunted by the national question. It was the resistance of Yoruba to attempt by newly emergent Igbo leaders of Lagos urban immigrants to take over the west in the name of democracy, the newly imported god that earned the Yoruba the bastion of tribalism in Nigeria and fraudulently promoted by otherwise enlightened Igbo intellectuals including Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian ‘sun’ (apologies to Saro Wiwa).

    From 1999, leading Igbo politicians and intellectuals including Kalu Uzor Kalu and Obiageli Ezekwesili sold the idea of ‘citizenship’ as answer to the national question even when it was obvious to the Yoruba whose First Eepublic leading NCNC leader, TOS Benson, could not secure a plot of land from Governor Sam Mbakwe to erect a building to bury his Igbo first wife and who today knows it will be an impossible task to get a market stall in Onitsha market.

    In 2023, some Igbo elements in Lagos openly canvassed for Lagos governor of Delta origin on account of their population and business investments in Lagos. In fact, Peter Obi who left Anambra like a war-ravaged state after two terms as governor attempted to impose an untested candidate on Lagos. The natural reaction from Yoruba discriminatory voters, who unlike the Igbo don’t exhibit herd behaviour while voting, was to mobilise for their performing Yoruba son. With propaganda and manipulation of the social media, some Yoruba were labelled anti-democrats with their names presented for sanctions to the US administration and the UN which incidentally has clause in its charter for the protection of indigenous groups.

    Those who truly love our country know that adopting any variant of federal arrangement we operated in the first republic will allow state governors take control of their states, provide security through state and community policing, defend their states against mindless killers described by ex-governors Masari  and El Rufai as ‘disgruntled immigrant Fulani herdsmen’, and of course have death sentence clause in their state statutes to take care of importers of killer fake drugs devastating our urban centres.

    There are other reasons why the president must take responsibility for the Bokkos massacre. The president’s policy since assuming office has been about appeasement of elements responsible for mindless killing of Nigerians as against pursuit of justice for victims. Mindless killings have therefore continued because criminals hardly get sanctioned for their heinous crimes.

    As Garba Shehu, President Buhari’s senior media adviser puts it in his July 21, 2020 statement ‘the problem in Southern Kaduna is an evil combination of politically-motivated banditry, revenge killings and mutual violence by criminal gangs acting on ethnic and religious grounds’. Echoing this point was Sa’ad Abubakar, Sultan of Sokoto, who at a meeting of the Northern Traditional Rulers Council (NTRC) and Northern States Governors’ Forum (NSGF) insisted that violence has continued to thrive in northern Nigeria and Middle Belt because ‘no one is punished for the criminal doings they commit’.

    Wole Soyinka, in one of his messages to Buhari while in office had also said: “Crimes against our humanity have been committed, and restitution must be made. Nothing less will restore confidence in government, and reassure the people of its integrity, its commitment to equity in internal relationships and the rightful custodianship of ancient resources”.

    To many of us the governed who do not know the challenges of government, the least the president could have done upon assumption of power, was to return those forcefully uprooted from their ancestral land back to their homes , if necessary, protected by our soldiers instead of being abandoned in IDP camps.

    Since no one is above the law , the Emir of Kano Sanusi Lamido Sanusi who openly encouraged herdsmen in Benue to disobey Benue State anti-open grazing laws, Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, which encouraged his mostly foreign Fulani herdsmen to reject modern grazing methods while insisting that open grazing is part of Fulani culture, its Secretary- General, Saleh Al- Hassan  who haughtily insists herders can graze in Nigeria since herders ‘do not recognize international boundaries’; Bala Mohammed, Bauchi State governor  and Abubakar Malami, former Attorney General of the Federation who publicly promoted the invasion of reserved forests in the south by armed immigrants Fulani herdsmen should have been questioned in the interest of justice.

    And finally, with the near unanimity of all the 36 states on state and community policing, Nigerians don’t believe the president needed two years to appease the hegemonic power in the north that see state and local policing as threat to their stranglehold on power.

    Political enemies of the president insist if he could mobilise the National Assembly in 24 hours to support his Rivers State Emergency declaration, he must take full responsibility for the Bokkos massacre which they believe could have been averted with state and community policing.

  • 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.

  • Uromi 16, Diri and human rights

    Uromi 16, Diri and human rights

    Before things became bad, Nigerians lived as one. We still do, but not on the same scale as it was in the not too distant past. Then, people harboured strangers in their homes without any fear. They provided for the strangers, treating them as royalty. We were a country of peace and love – peace in our homes and love in our hearts.

    Then things changed. They did not change overnight. The changes were gradual, but we pretended that all was well. Our leaders should have moved then to nip things in the bud. They did not; they watched as the people became divided along ethic, religious, social and political lines. That of political is understandable, but the same cannot be said about religion and ethnicity

    A nation where brothers and sisters, parents and children practiced different religions and still lived under the same roof became a place where they no longer wished to stay together. It became worse accommodating strangers under such circumstances. Every stranger was viewed with suspicion. The stranger was no longer seen as a friend, he was perceived as an enemy, especially in the wake of the herders/farmers clashes stoked by the activities of the religious sect, Boko Haram (Book is a Sin).

    It may not be wrong to say that the rise in Boko Haram insurgency fueled the related activities of herders/farmers skirmishes that have made the country a nightmare for us all today. There were robbery and kidnapping in the land long before insurgency and banditry became the order of the day but those criminalities were few and far between then. They became rampant and flourishing enterprises when insurgency, banditry, terrorism, organ harvesting and human trafficking seized the land.

    Nigerians hardly spoke of their rights to freedoms of association and movement when there was peace in the land. They were accommodating and tolerant of one another – until crimes and criminalities changed the course of things. We then remembered that the Constitution guarantees us certain rights. The right to life as well as to live in any place of our choice, freedom of worship, freedom of movement and freedom of association.

    We became conscious of these rights because of our intolerance of one another; when as brothers we no longer saw eye to eye despite sharing many things in common. For the stranger, it was a bitter experience. His identity was no longer enough to guarantee him peace or refuge in any part of the country. People ran away from the herder and the farmer believing that he has come to kill, maim, loot and rape. Politicians also introduced toxicity into the system, preaching bitterness and divisiveness.

    This is why a community or a people will first descend on a group of herdsmen or farmers before finding out what those strangers are doing on their land. The rule is kill first before asking questions. It is a strange and barbaric rule meant for the stone age. We say we are in the computer age, where at the press of a button, we get things done quickly and effortlessly. Painfully, our actions say otherwise.

    There is no advancement in our human relationship. We have become killers under the guise of securing ourselves and there is no part of the country that is not guilty of this. What happened in Uromi, Edo State, on March 27 is a sad reminder of how as a people we have become our brother’s killer instead of keeper. All because of the fear that the stranger has no good intentions. Our people have become mind readers without the requisite knowledge of the art.

    These mind readers divine only bad intentions. They have never seen anything good in a stranger that will warrant accommodating them. It is only to kill and hide the strangers’ bodies in shallow graves for the security agencies to fish out. Uromi did not just happen to us. It is an everyday thing that the nation must rise as one and do something about before it consumes us. It is Uromi today, nobody knows which town such a bestial act of killing 16 persons or more in one fell swoop will happen next.

    Uromi happened because we did not do anything when such incidents happened in other parts of the country in the past. For instance, when Godwin Ukalaka was beheaded in Kano years ago, nothing happened. Many of such incidents have happened in other towns and cities in the north and the south, with the perpetrators getting away with the crime. There may be no end to these dastardly acts until the perpetrators are brought to justice for all to see.

    Governor Monday Okpebholo has embarked on a peace mission to douse tension over the Uromi killing to avoid reprisals in the Kano home state of the slain 16 hunters. It is disturbing that while he is dousing inter-ethno-religious tension through his shuttle to Kano, another governor, Douye Diri of Bayelsa State, is stoking the fire of political divisiveness. Diri is incensed that a group is planning an event for his state on April 12.

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    Like a dictator, he has read the riot act to the organisers, warning them to stay off Bayelsa. Diri may be the governor and chief security officer of his state, but he does not have the power to ban anybody whether an indigene of Bayelsa or not from gathering there. He claims to have directed the security agencies to stop the planned event because of its security implications. What are these security concerns? He did not say, yet he is wielding the power that he does not have by giving orders to military and paramilitary agencies.

    From his remarks, it is obvious that Diri is worried about the event because it revolves around Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesom Ezenwo Wike. His  associates under the acronym of NEW (the first three letters of his name) claim that they want to thank him and President Bola Tinubu for bringing more Ijaw people into the government. As a governor, Diri should not be hysterical over matters that can be resolved amicably without going public. As an Ijaw, he should even be happy for his kinsmen and join in the celebrations and not be against the event.

    He has drawn undeserved attention to the event through his unsubstantiated claim that it is meant to destabilise his state. Remarks like this belittle a governor no matter his political differences with the object of his attack. What will he gain by raising unnecessary tension in, as he says, “a peaceful” state like Bayelsa?

    He has set up the organisers for attack  and the consequences may be grave if things go awry in the state before, during or after the April 12 event. As a governor, Diri should learn to guard his tongue. Governors do not talk anyhow.

  • Trump, Putin and Zelenskyy in the eyes of the world

    Trump, Putin and Zelenskyy in the eyes of the world

    Foreign policy hardly plays any significant role in elections these days in most democracies unless the issue was really of an existential nature. Elections are won these days on bread and butter issues. This is unlike in the past when wars were fought to “make the world safe for democracy” or such idealistic slogans. The last elections in the USA was won on Trump’s promise to reduce inflation, particularly food inflation, and to bring prosperity to working class Americans through increased manufacturing jobs in the USA by so raising tariffs that any company that wants to sell in the American market would have to go  into production in America to make their goods competitive Labour prices would automatically go up when he removes illegal immigrants depressing the cost of labour and living wages would have to be paid to workers and that this will favour the workers. Of course he had a hidden agenda of making white America great again by removing illegal aliens who are mostly from the Third World.

    In the case of Vladimir Putin, his popularity is not based on his democratic credentials. Although, I have a feeling he could win an election on the basis of his wanting to restore Russian historical glory of the past from the Romanov Empire of Czarist Russia to the Soviet times even though like most empires, they were not based on the loyalty and support of the subject nationalities and the people. This nationalistic feeling would have made up for the oppression and economic deprivation common in the Czarist and Soviet Communist regimes. Empires in Europe and elsewhere from the British, French and German periods of domination in Europe appealed to their people on the claims of the ships and soldiers they could mobilise for war. Putin’s popularity is based on the political stability his regime has provided compared with the chaos that accompanied the collapse of communism in Russia and Eastern Europe.

    Whatever credentials Volodymyr Zelenskyy has are not based on proven democratic support but on the fact that he is a war-time hero. He was elected during an ongoing crisis of existential challenges and war-time exigencies have prevented his country re-electing and validating his democratic support or throwing him out of office. His heroic efforts at holding his country together in the face of overwhelming military challenges from Russia and Russian nationalist insurgents in Eastern parts of the country encouraged by mother Russia’s inspired  separatist sentiments.

    The picture of a small country being bullied by a former imperial country draws the kind of sympathy of a David fighting a Goliath.  The recent bullying of Zelenskyy on national television by the American president and the vice president to toe the American line or be made to face the music of slaughter by a much powerful Russian military has further solidified support for Zelenskyy at home and internationally. If the public has a vote, Zelenskyy would win hands down but in big international competition of the sort faced by Zelenskyy, he has no chance of winning unless the situation changes.

    There are signs the situation may change. Right now, President Putin appears not to want a settlement. What he seems to want is total surrender by Ukraine. He seems to deliberately delay the peace offer by President Trump of some form of an armistice based on ceasefire and maintenance of the military status quo. This is in favour of Russia which currently occupies about 20% of Ukraine’s territory adjacent to Russia in Eastern Ukraine. Trump’s suggestion for stoppage of bombing of energy and transportation systems and civilian infrastructure has only been observed in their breaches by Russia. Opening up of the Black Sea corridor has also been tied up with international removal of sanctions on Russia.  Putin ought to know that Trump who is virtually at war with other leaders in Europe is not in a position to lift the economic sanctions on Russia which are led by Europe. Russia has also linked ceasefire negotiations with peace treaty after the war including the final status of Ukraine including the limitations of what kind of military forces Ukraine should keep.  He also wants Trump to guarantee Ukraine’s ban forever from joining NATO which Trump without discussing with Ukraine and Europe has previously offered. These outrageous demands make nonsense of all the sacrifices of Ukraine since 2014 and her loss of territories and military personnel and the destruction of Ukraine by Russia through aerial bombing, artillery fire and missiles.

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     Since Trump has boxed himself in by campaigning that he would end the war in 24 hours and that Trump would listen to him alone, he is definitely under pressure to deliver. His boasting on his policy of “diplomacy through power” is facing the hardest test. If Putin humiliates him, he may be tempted as he had publicly stated, to cripple Putin through an attack on the Russian economy. He says he would unleash American oil weapon by flooding the oil market by American overproduction thus bringing down the oil fuelled war machine of Russia by apparently supplying Western Europe and possibly India. There is nothing he can do about China buying oil from Russia. The second option he has is that he may increase the supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine including the weapons that the former president, Joe Biden, was unwilling or reluctant to supply and finally suggesting of much more American military and financial support for Ukraine short of putting American military on the European theatre.

    The question is – suppose these don’t work? Certainly a capitalist in the White House would not want to lose everything in a possible thermonuclear war where there would be no winners. Trump would not risk a nuclear war with Russia because of defending a country faraway in Eastern Europe almost remembering Neville Chamberlain and his abandonment of Czechoslovakia in the face of Adolf Hitler’s threat in 1938.

    The war can of course end if Ukraine realises the futility of its situation and reaches a modus vivendi with Russia like the other 14 former states of the old Soviet Russian Empire. Russia can of course go through internal political upheaval in which Putin loses power and a post-Putin regime signs a peace treaty with a Ukraine that is under a friendly regime. All things are possible in a political and military situation.