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Category: Thursday

Oby Ezekwesili’s wars without rhyme

Not a few Nigerians are upset by the name-calling to express contempt between Oby Ezekwesili, a celebrated Nigerian icon and distinguished senator, Onyekachi Nwaebonyi on the hallowed floor of the senate last week. It is just as well the senator has since apologized for what many saw as an assault on the person of a distinguished woman that has done us proud at home and abroad. But not without Ezekwesili’s detractors saying she got what she deserved

Oby Ezekwesili has earned her stripes. Her strings of achievements and honour at home and abroad speak for her. She was a two times minister, first as Minister of Solid Mineral and Minister of Education at different periods. As a public servant, she has been celebrated for her role in crafting the Bureau for Public Procurement legislation, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) legislation and currently, as founder-chairperson of the Board of School of Politics Policy and Governance in Abuja.

She has also been globally celebrated as a former vice president of the World Bank (Africa region} and co-founder and pioneer director of Transparency International-TI, the Berlin-based global anti-corruption organization.

It is however hoped that Ezekwesili still remembers she earned her stripes not through emotional blackmail as the weaker sex or by allowing her vision to be blurred by local politics, but by being able to stand her own among the best in the world. However, since we cannot stop her from doing what she does best – seeking justice for the poor and the disadvantaged, many believe it is time for her to critically examine the character and motives of those whose battle she takes head on.

For instance, as a role model for many young Nigerians, many thought she would have distanced herself from the ongoing Natasha family war, being waged not on the basis of facts available to most Nigerians but because she seems to have an axe to grind with her husband’s friend, the senate president and she is ready to bring to disrepute all other male senators that passed a vote of confidence on the senate president.

What Nigerians witnessed on the floor of the senate was an ill-tempered Natasha who was not prepared for the distinguished office of a senator of Nigeria. But reporting the outburst of visibly angry Senator Natasha the following morning, it was from Rufai Oseni of Arise TV that we heard that there might have been other underlying reasons for Natasha’s ignoble behaviour whereupon he publicly threw her a challenge to come to Arise TV and tell Nigerians her story. A few days later, we saw Natasha sobbing while narrating how the senate president held her hand while showing her and her husband (we have since learnt there were other senators) around his new house and whispered to her about the possibility of coming to spend quality time w ith him in the new house. This revelation was coming about 14 months after working together amicably including accompanying Godswill Akpabio to the 148th IPU General Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland along with other senators and securing some advantages including chairmanship of juicy committee on local content.

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But following her six months suspension for her unruly behaviour with a proviso for forgiveness if she tenders an apology to the senate’s Ethics Committee whose invitation she ignored, she changed the narrative, falsely claiming she was suspended over her sexual harassment petition allegation against the senate president.

This falsehood was echoed by Arise TV, her chief promoter.

Five days later, the suspended Natasha was illegally at the UN Inter-Parliamentary Union where she falsely claimed she was illegally suspended for her sexual harassment petition against the Nigerian senate president which she described as a “punishment for speaking out against impunity, corruption, and gender-based violence in Nigeria”. She then moved to BBC where she told the world how a few powerful men silence voices of women in Nigeria, with her media promoters pretending not to see the damage being done to the reputation of our country.

Of course her message of underrepresentation of women in Nigeria where we have only four senators in a sena te of 109 resonated well with her women supporters. This seems to be the basis for her support among Nigerian women, if the conclusion of some well-educated and highly successful Nigerian women professional who often feature on TVC programme “Life with Morayo” last week is anything to go by. After their healthy debate, one of them stood up and said “Natasha out of the senate is minus one for women, this battle must be fought” right or wrong”!

Sadly, this seem to be the mind-set of even our distinguished Oby Ezekwezili and Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, Senator Natasha’s witness and lawyer respectively during their appearance before the Senate Committee on Ethics last week. They did everything including discrediting the chairman of the committee, the committee members and the senate except pursuit of truth and justice. While calming they were not there to create a stalemate, they did everything to frustrate efforts by the committee to hear Senator Natasha’s petition.

Many also believe Ezekwesili’s decision to join Obasanjo, Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi and Mazi Afam Osigwe (SAN) the Nigerian Bar Association chair who speaks more as a politician to fight the Fubara battle was ill-informed. Ezekwezili, a star minister under anti-democratic and corrupt administration of Obasanjo where N300b budget for road reconstruction between 1999 and 2003 disappeared with no single road constructed, where children of PDP stalwarts stole N1.6trillion forging documents without supplying a litre of fuel, where about 18 of PDP and ANPP governors between 1999 and 2007 were dragged to court by EFCC for financial malfeasance, where Nigeria’s total investment of over $100b was sold for a paltry $1.5b to PDP stalwarts in the name of privatization, and where she, herself complained openly about monumental corruption under Jonathan administration, has seen nothing but doom in Tinubu’s administration.

In fact many believe her criticism of the president’s action in Rivers which prevented a descent into chaos and anarchy amounts to agonizing over the president’s success.

The co-organiser of ‘BringBackOurGirls’, kidnapped by Boko Haram in faraway Borno State who has today joined the new crusaders for democracy, did not do anything as Fubara ruled from her backyard like a despot for close to two years after his coup against the state House of Assembly.

She had the following to say to people of Rivers after president’s proactive action which many believe has prevented a descent into chaos: “To all the Good People of Rivers State, I send this Quote of Wael Ghonim with solidarity and kindness: “The Power of the People is greater than the People in Power”.

Before her last week undignified senate outing, was another ignoble interference in the battle between the openly partisan Arise Television and 2023 Candidate Tinubu’s handlers, Bayo Onanuga and Dele Alake. They insisted their candidate was not going to feature on Arise TV debate anchored by Reuben Abati, who they claimed was a card-carrying member of PDP and a former Ogun State PDP deputy governorship candidate to the late Buruji Kashamu.

They also had cause to report Rufai Oseni to the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON) for unprofessional behaviour. Ask any journalism teacher who teaches attributes of news anchor in our universities, they will tell you Rufai Oseni is the worst example of how not to be a news anchor. But Ezekwezili, who knows next to nothing in journalism, organized a one woman crusade in support of Oseni, whose job she claimed was under threat. Of course many read politics into Ezekwesili’s ill-informed intervention.

She could have saved herself from her last week disastrous outing where attempt was made to demystify her if she, as a national icon, sat back and allow Rufai Oseni and Arise TV to fight Senator Natasha’s battle they so valiantly promoted hiding under the banner of patriotism, ‘the last refuge of the scoundrels”.

Many have since come to the sad conclusion that Oby Ezekwesili miscalculated by taking sides in an unwinnable war between Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan and her husband’s friend and long-time associate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, a two-term governor and senate president, who like most accomplished politicians and professionals including journalists, can afford four wives instead of risking the fury of a scorned friend’s wife.

April 1, 2025
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.

March 27, 2025
The future of higher education in Nigeria

One may even cynically ask whether Nigeria can survive in the current form and situation in which our people do not want to pay taxes or tolls for bridges and road’s maintenance but just to survive on extractive industries and commissions on hydrocarbons exports. It is obvious that we cannot discuss this problem in isolation of other problems in Nigeria.

Education is capital intensive so we will need a lot of money to develop it. UNESCO has suggested the spending by developing countries of at least 25% of annual budget on education. No government in the history of Nigeria has ever approached this. Most of our governments because of the political instability of the country spend substantial amount of their budget on security including the police and the military and other uniformed organizations like customs, immigration, prisons and civil defence organizations. No one can blame them because without security there can be neither education nor development. Unless Nigerian universities can go into ventures that will give them money they will hopelessly depend on government.

Universities would have to charge economic fees graded according to courses where engineering and medical and STEM students will have to bear some of the costs of inputs their courses would need. Universities would have to be innovative and mount short courses which people in government and the private and public sectors would find attractive and relevant for their future development.

I see no impediments to well established universities in Nigeria opening up colleges to teach and award degrees in less developed countries on the continent as the University of London did for almost two decades in Ibadan and Accra and which British and American universities are still doing in the Middle East and Asia.

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Ibadan or Lagos could easily have done this in medicine in Sierra Leone and the Gambia and can still do it in Liberia Togo and Benin. It’s a question of correct branding. In the 1970s, University of Benin in Togo was teaching French to Nigerian students and staff and earning good money from it. I attended one of these courses from the University of Lagos and I wonder why Nigeria universities can also not mount courses in English for students and staff in Francophone countries surrounding us. I see a further challenge to Nigerian universities continued existence when for profit universities such as Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge or Yale and Harvard open branch campuses in Nigeria.

Unless we ban this scenario, banning of which may be prohibited under international law, this may happen in the nearest future.

Nigeria’s universities may also have to rationalize out of existence courses that are deemed not in tune with development. This is already happening in the United Kingdom. The present sharp divisions between the liberal arts and the sciences or social and environmental sciences may yield ground for combinations not currently considered possible.

Faculties of law in the face of Artificial Intelligence (AI) dishing legal opinions may not sell as the hot cake that it’s currently the case. The same is true of medicine where once a few medical parameters can be established through laboratory tests using AI, a diagnosis and drugs prescription will follow. This is already happening in the USA where because of the expensive nature of medical consultations, short cuts are being explored.

The success of private universities like Afe Babalola in Ado Ekiti nearby, may give governments the option of privatization of some existing universities if there are buyers who can run them better than government. This will cut off the pressure of trade unionism in our universities so that they can concentrate on teaching and research. For many of the universities to survive at all, there may be need for wholesale reimagining of what a university should be and what subjects they need to specialize in. The present academic homogeneity in the universities in Nigeria where they are all teaching the same curriculum must yield to different specialization which parents and students will find more attractive and interesting. There is no point in students going to University of Ibadan to study veterinary medicine when they can go to ABU to study the same subject for example or for Marine Engineering being offered in Kano rather than Lagos. The present pedagogy in universities may need to be re-examined and the optimal size of universities and classes interrogated. In this regard the use of digital resources and communication tools will increasingly need to be provided.

One thing that is becoming clearer is that students and their parents will have to take responsibility for themselves. It’s rather a cruel thing to say that more than half a century after independence, the dependency syndrome that my generation benefited from would be difficult to maintain. I have a sense of guilt when I remember the luxury of university education my generation enjoyed in the 1960s in the University of Ibadan. The consequence of that period of indulgence can be seen in the total collapse of housing facilities for students.

I also see a threat or challenge from government’s overweening influence in university administration manifesting in naming and renaming universities at their own convenience of honouring political bigwigs or those who passed on without thinking of the loss of the university brand name so renamed. Governments must stop taking universities for granted and respect university autonomy guaranteed by the laws setting them up. This has implications on universities self-financing.

Most of my concern in this piece has been with universities and not with polytechnics and colleges of education. If the polytechnics were doing what they are supposed to do but not just being poor copies of the universities, one would have much to say, but they have not fulfilled their roles as producers of technicians and technologists needed for technological development of the country. In a place like the UK where polytechnics were highly developed, they were simply converted to universities by the government of Tony Blair without any problems. No one can equate polytechnics with universities in Nigeria, so until they are what they were planned to be, it would amount to waste of time to lump their future with those of universities. They are not in the same category and if there is a need to have technical universities, those in Germany provide enviable paradigm.

Finally there are questions which need to be posed. Is there a correlation between higher education and development? If there is, how come that where there had been an advantage of higher education in Europe and Africa, they are less developed technologically than Northern Europe? Why are countries such as Italy, Spain, Greece, Egypt and Morocco behind their counterparts in Europe? This can of course be due to other factors such as location, politics, and religion and so on.

Taken together however, the quality of life of areas with earlier contact with higher education may be better than those with more technological advancement.

The question to ask is the purpose of education and particularly university education.

The people who have made landmark achievements in this world were not products of universities nor were they professors. Innovation is not the preserve of universities. Bill Gates, a contemporary example, had to leave Harvard University to realise his great strides in scientific advancement just to give a recent example.

Michael Faraday was a self-taught experimental physicist and chemist in the 19th century who made significant contributions to electromagnetism and electrochemistry. He is best known for his discoveries of electromagnetic induction, electrolysis and the laws of electrochemistry despite his lack of formal education. He is regarded for haven changed the world because his work laid the basis of motors and generators. The Wright brothers, inventors of aeroplanes did not attend any universities. These people may be out of the ordinary and cannot be considered as a general rule but the point is that as the Germans have proved to the contemporary world, the great lever of development is the SMEs, not the huge companies nor the mega universities, important as they may be. Every aspect of education from primary, secondary to university is very important and Nigeria had better have an holistic approach to educational reform which has become an existential struggle.

March 27, 2025
Much ado about Section 305

IT IS A section of the Constitution not frequently used, except the need arises. Whenever it is used, it causes a quake in the land. The country has been quaking since President Bola Tinubu declared a state of emergency in Rivers State on March 18 after invoking the almighty Section 305 of the 1999 Constitution as amended. The imposition of emergency rule is not the problem, the din is over his suspension of Governor Siminalayi Fubara, the deputy, Prof Ngozi Odu, and the House of Assembly.

To critics, the President has no powers under the Constitution to suspend a governor or any elected person for that matter. According to them, Section 305 only confers him with power to declare a state of emergency in the federation or any part thereof, if need be; no more, no less. Citing the legal maxim: expressio unius est exclusio alterius, meaning the express inclusion of one thing is the exclusion of another, they have been using this Latin phrase to buttress their argument that the President is precluded from suspending those democratic institutions.

Interestingly in this instance, the principle can be applied both ways. Why? Section 305 says nothing about the retention, suspension or removal of democratic institutions during an emergency. So, the President can do whatever he likes with democratic institutions during an emergency. Call it omnibus power, if you like; for that is what it is. A look at the section shows that these discretionary powers allow the President to do and undo, though critics will not agree. The section reads:

(1) Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the President may by instrument published in the Official Gazette of the Government of the Federation issue a Proclamation of a state of emergency in the Federation or any part thereof

Subsection 3 states the conditions under which the President can declare a state of emergency, viz:

(a) when the Federation is at war;

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(b) when the Federation is in imminent danger of invasion or involvement in a state of war;

(c) when there is actual breakdown of public order and public safety in the Federation or any part thereof to such extent as to require extraordinary measures to restore peace and security

(d) When there is a clear and present danger of an actual breakdown of public order and public safety in the Federation or any part thereof requiring extraordinary measures to avert such danger

Section 305 has six subsections, with (1) and (3) standing out because of their key provisions which touch on what the President has done in Rivers. Subsection three has seven elements (a-g), with c and d stating unequivocally in their texts that the President can take extraordinary measures to ensure peace and order and good governance at all times. The Constitution vests the President with enormous powers as the custodian, so to say, of the Federation, who though not an autocrat, can unilaterally exercise certain powers for the smooth running of the country and public safety.

In one word, a state of emergency is a necessity, though it is perceived as an aberration by some people because it deviates from the norm of doing things. Under a state of emergency, things are not normal. It is because of this abnormality that the President is granted the power to take extraordinary measures to set things right until they become normal again. Those against his suspension of Fubara and others cannot say that things are normal in Rivers. Abnormal times demand abnormal remedy and this is what the President has done in Rivers.

For the avoidance of doubt, Section 305 did not say that the President can suspend democratic institutions in times of emergency; neither did it say that the President cannot suspend those institutions during emergency. To go on a voyage of discovery in search of constitutional provisions on how a governor can be removed from office is what it is: a Mungo Park journey. Those provisions now being bandied by lawyers and laymen to suit their positions can only hold sway when things are normal. The provisions do not address an emergency situation as we have it in Rivers today.

From my own understanding of Section 305, the President can suspend democratic institutions as the provision vide subsection 3 (c) and (d) allows him to take extraordinary measures to restore peace and order as well as avert an actual breakdown of public order and public safety in the Federation or any part thereof. Did he suspend the democratic institutions in Rivers to avert a clear and present danger to peace and security?

The answer is YES. Did he act unconstitutionally by so doing? The answer is NO. I may be wrong, but I am ready to take a bet on my position until the Supreme Court which I pray will, one day, have an opportunity to address this issue frontally, speaks. Until then, all opinions by lawyers and others, including yours sincerely, remain just that: personal viewpoints

Come to think of it, how can a governor keep his seat when he is part of the problem in a state where there is a state of emergency? Framers of the Constitution never envisaged that the chief executive officer of a state who is expected to promote public peace and good will become the chief troublemaker someday. Hence, 305 is not specific on how to deal with such unfathomable case.

This lack of specificity should, however, not be misconstrued as tying the President’s hands to take necessary remedial actions. Otherwise, the section would not have spoken of extraordinary measures which give the President wide powers to do and undo during an emergency.

March 27, 2025
Tinubu’s occupational hazards

Being a politician in itself is a major nightmare. But perhaps one of the major occupational hazards of a politician is taking hard decisions on behalf of the people even when he is misunderstood by the very society he serves. This is why politics is not for the faint-hearted but for risk takers who promise miracles without knowing how the miracle will come about. This is why governance which includes defending fortune-seekers who do not know what is in their best interest can be very challenging.

What is not always apparent to the governed however is that government is not an independent arbiter but a tool in the hands of those who with their control of a disproportionate share of the national resources, are out to preside over an empire of slaves? It is ironic that it is this same people that often mobilise those bent on pulling down government.

I sympathise with President Tinubu who before last week anti-government conspiracy he survived had been going through stress and strain over his government’s harsh economic policies. Last week’s mass mobilisation of critical segment of Nigerians including those whose battle he was fighting against by his many political foes must have been very distressing.

For taking a bold decision to confront those who have for two years held people of Rivers hostage, his government was painted a Leviathan, a huge fearful sea monster that must be brought down. And leading the war with a battle cry of “the democracy we fought for” are fake democrats without democratic ethos. We have PDP sore losers like Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi who, two years after losing an election won round and square by their opponents, are yet to congratulate the victor.

Others include Pat Utomi who has professed that the president’s interference to end the siege on Rivers by those benefiting from their misery sounded the death knell of democracy in Nigeria. There is Rotimi Amaechi, Nasir El-Rufai, former APC insiders who have decided to start urinating inside from outside. We have the Nigerian Bar Association that one had thought would be more introspective but has chosen to declare the president a ‘totalitarian’ based on its jaundiced judgment.

And finally anchoring the activities of the president’s political foes was Fubara’s media meddlers who swear in the name of patriotism which as has been shown can be “the last refuge of the scoundrels”. (Samuel Johnson 1775).

Even with his celebrated versatility and political brinkmanship, President Tinubu must have felt lonely last week with all round denunciation and condemnation of his bold move to stop the drift in Rivers. Not even from Rivers came any form of relief as a segment of the elders, first identified by Saro Wiwa, an Ogoni hero as ‘vultures’ who feed on the blood of their people, Rivers women for Fubara, restive jobless Rivers youths forgotten as successive governors became obsessed with infrastructural development since 1999, threatening Ijaw youths, meddling politicians from outside Rivers, all taking up arms against the government and insisting Rivers has been short-changed by the president’s action. Of course, except for the president who is always one step ahead of his political opponents, no one knew what was going to happen in view of tension that took over the country until relief came from the National Assembly after two days that was like an eternity.

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And how did it start?

For close to two years, Fubara the democratically elected governor of Rivers was at war with his state lawmakers said to be loyal to his godfather Nyesom Wike, the FCT minister. Unable to understand that compromise is the highest badge of honour in a democracy where the ruler rules while others dictate the tune, he reneged on the truce he reached with his other arm of his government in a meeting presided over by the president. He opted to rule with an assembly of three people. And of the other 27 elected lawmakers, he had said:

“They are not existing; these are people eating in my house, I helped to pay their children school fees when I was not even a governor, I accepted the accord to give them a floating, their existence is me allowing them to exist”.

The February 28, Supreme Court judgment indicted the governor for demolishing the state House of Assembly to prevent his impeachment, for disobeying Abuja High Court judgment, Abuja appeal court judgment that declared presentation of budget to three people unconstitutional and mandated him to present the budget to the 27 member House of Assembly recognized by the Supreme Court after being made redundant for close to two years. While the governor embarked on what most people saw as his game of ostrich playing, the House slammed him with notice of impeachment.

The president after lamenting that he “made personal interventions between the contending parties for a peaceful resolution of the crisis, but my efforts have been largely ignored by the parties to the crisis, the president echoing aspects of the Supreme Court’s decisions, accusing the governor of frantically working to collapse the state’s legislature said,

“In the circumstance, having soberly reflected on and evaluated the political situation in Rivers State and the governor and deputy governor of Rivers State having failed to make a request to me as President to issue this proclamation as required by section 305(5) of the 1999 Constitution as amended, it has become inevitably compelling for me to invoke the provision of section 305 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended, to declare a state of emergency in Rivers State with effect from today, 18th March, 2025 and I so do.”

Then the war mongers went to town. PDP that watched the Rivers crisis drift for two years claimed the president action was “an attempt to suspend the 1999 Constitution and overturn a democratic government”. Pat Utomi, a chieftain of Labour Party said “the act signals the end of democracy in Nigeria; Rotimi Amaechi alleged it “points to a brazen attempt at power grab in the state by force”. The respected human rights lawyer Clement Nwankwo blamed the National Assembly.

Joining the hordes of partisans was the chairman of Nigerian Bar Association who should know better but was more reckless. He claimed the situation in Rivers “has not called for state of emergency”. Since he is not the president or member of the National Assembly, he was not in the position to make such assertion.

But without restraint, the NBA chairman declared “At this inauspicious moment in our nation’s trajectory, all people of goodwill and conscience should rise to oppose this audacious violation of our constitution and rape of our democracy.

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

Section 305 of the Constitution which vests the president with the power to declare a state of emergency, also gives him power of discretion. He could adopt any strategy he deems fit to bring sanity to a troubled area. The NBA chairman deliberately ignored that fact.

In any case, if the NBA chairman believes the president has committed an infraction, the best place to go is the court where we have competent and discerning judges who can make a distinction between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law; i.e. the underlying aim purpose and intended ethical considerations behind legal statutes as opposed to its literal wordings”.

Then there are the Fubara media meddlers. They hailed him the morning after masterminding the bombing of Rivers state House of Assembly as he matched with thugs on the street of Port Harcourt.

They lionized him and encouraged him to abandon a truce he reached with the warring members of his state assembly supervised by the president.

When the Abuja High Court and Abuja Appeal court ruled it was an aberration to present the state budget before three people, they asked tongue in cheek, ‘why should his opponents approach the Abuja Court?’

And when on February 28, the Supreme Court ruled there has been no government in Rivers since he removed one leg of a tripod that sustains democratic government, the Supreme Court was disparaged.

When the president finally declared state of emergency, Fubara media meddlers who angrily said anyone who disagrees with their views must be ‘stupid’ said the president committed impeachable offence and must be impeached. They tried to blackmail the National Assembly not to endorse the president’s action while they arrogantly advised the administrator nominee to reject the president’s appointment.

Senator Magnus Abe, a stakeholder in Rivers who appeared on their platform and pleaded they tone down the rhetoric and lower the temperature in the interest of Rivers State people who just want to reconcile their difference and live in peace was bullied.

Fubara’s media meddlers want to continue the war. They claim they are more patriotic than Nigeria’s elected president, the National Assembly and the Supreme Court, all of which they freely bullied in the last two years.

What the Leviathan Nigeria should worry about is not Tinubu’s government but Fubara’s media meddlers.

March 25, 2025
Rivers: Beyond the emergency

Things would not have come to a head, if the gladiators had listened to the voice of reason. Both sides are to blame, though one of them will take a large chunk of it. In the past 15 months, Rivers State have been enmeshed in a crisis of immense magnitude. The President moved in early to resolve the problem, but those benefiting from the crisis did not want it settled.

Now, with Tuesday’s declaration of a state of emergency in the state, these same people, some activists and civil society groups are questioning the rationale for the President’s action. Their argument is that he should not have suspended the democratic institutions in the state after invoking Section 305 of the 1999 Constitution on the state of emergency. If I may ask: what democratic institutions? The same ones that the Supreme Court blasted the now suspended Governor Siminalayi Fubara for “collapsing”.

As the Supreme Court held in its February 28 judgment: the state no longer had a government in place after Fubara demolished the House of Assembly complex on December 14, 2023, and rendered the Martin Amaewhule-led 27 lawmakers ineffective and ineffectual because of his fear of being impeached. Fubara then resorted to dealing with the minority five members then led by Edison Ehie, who resigned to become his chief of staff.

He subsequently became chummy with the rump of three or four lawmakers led by Victor Oko-Jumbo, which the three layers of the High, Appeal and Supreme Courts declared as illegally constituted since it meant only 12.5% of the people had a voice in a house of 32 members. The apex court was unequivocal in condemning the governor who it described as a despot.

President Tinubu alluded to the apex court’s position while imposing emergency rule on the state. He said he could not in good conscience as President watch and allow things to degenerate. Since the apex court’s verdict, various Ijaw groups have been threatening ‘fire and brimstone’ if the assembly, which on Monday, served Fubara and his deputy Ngozi Odu a notice of gross misconduct impeaches him.

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Impeachment is not an offence. It is a constitutional provision which the lawmakers, if they have the number and follow strictly the procedure for removal, can use to whip a governor into line. Barely 24 hours after the notice was issued, some militants blew up oil pipelines in parts of Rivers, despite knowing full well the consequences of their actions. The resort to violence by militants whenever there are issues like this did not start today. It is their way of blackmailing the nation to yield to their demands whether genuine or not.

Our oil production took a nosedive a few years ago because of such activities as well as the large scale theft of crude. Of recent, things have been looking up for Nigeria as oil production took a huge leap crossing over 1.8 million barrels per day. The militants’ irrational and unpatriotic actions may take us back and down the economic slope if they are not stopped forthwith. The declaration of a state of emergency may be a better way of doing that since Fubara seems to be at peace with what is happening.

Why will he not? I recall what he told a gathering at a commissioning ceremony about 17 days ago. “To our youths, be strong. Don’t be perturbed. At the right time you will get instructions”, he said on the occasion. I warned on this page 14 days ago that I hoped he was not planning something sinister. So, why is the President being crucified for imposing emergency rule on Rivers when the governor is only pretending to be interested in peace, but doing something else behind the scenes.

Till his suspension from office on Tuesday, Fubara kept his executive council (EXCO) comprising mainly commissioners confirmed by the illegal Oko-Jumbo-led lawmakers, in defiance of the apex court’s decision which he said he would implement after receiving the certified true copy (CTC). He got the CTC long ago and left his commissioners intact. The opposition will rave and rant – in their usual style. Legal experts will also attempt to pull the wool over the people’s eyes on this matter.

The thing is emergency rule is an aberration. This is why it is so named. When it is in place, democracy is suspended. It is painful but that is the plain truth. It is a weapon of last resort used in a democratic setting when all else has failed. Section 305 states the conditions under which it can be imposed and these were well spelt out in the President’s broadcast on Tuesday night.

But those who want the status quo to remain are bickering. Can democratic institutions and the wielder of emergency legal powers exist side by side? It is trite that two captains cannot man a ship. How then can a governor and a sole administrator be in charge of a state under emergency rule? Let us leave politics aside and face reality. There would have been no need for this emergency if the gladiators had given a thought to the consequences of their actions.

The framers of the Constitution did not expressly state in Section 305 that the governor and members of a House of Assembly should be suspended after the imposition of a state of emergency because there cannot be democracy under emergency rule. They are strange bedfellows. Democracy automatically gives way where there is a state of emergency.

This is why I agree with the 2013 submissions of renowned law teacher Prof Akin Oyebode and the late constitutional lawyer Fred Agbaje in their reactions to former President Jonathan’s imposition of emergency rule in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states then. “You cannot declare emergency rule and leave the status quo”, Oyebode said, adding: “emergency rule warrants extraordinary measures which nullify the maintenance of the status quo”.

To Agbaje, “what the president (Jonathan) has done is to stand the Constitution on its head, by purporting to declare a state of emergency, and at the same time allowing the state legislature to function. His action is constitutionally heretical and anathema”.

Instead of throwing tantrums, those who disagree with what President Tinubu has done in Rivers can explore the legal option. The outcome of their lawsuit will help to enrich our constitutional jurisprudence.

March 20, 2025
Genesis and development of universities in Nigeria

I am writing this piece to educate people who do not know the genesis and development of universities in Nigeria.

During the war years in 1943 the British set up the Elliot commission to report specifically on the organization and facilities of existing centres for higher education in British West Africa. At the same time there was another commission called the Asquith commission that had a broader mandate covering the British Colonial African territories including West Africa. The Asquith commission was particularly asked to look into the relationship between colonial university colleges and the University of London. It was a result of the recommendations of these commissions that university colleges were established in 1948 in Ibadan and Legon in the Gold Coast and a medical school for the whole of West Africa was located in the University of Ibadan. The Fourah Bay College established in Freetown Sierra Leone in (1827) and its special relationship with Durham University was left untouched while the new university colleges were to have special relationship with the University of London from where its students were to continue to earn degrees until 1961.

In 1959, on the eve of independence in Nigeria, the Ashby Commission was set up to investigate into Nigeria’s needs in the field of higher education over the next 20 years. This was largely informed by the manpower that would be needed in an independent Nigeria to replace the British expatriate officials who will be leaving the country. The commission reported in September 1960. The recommendation formed the basis of the establishment of a new federal university of Lagos and subsequent establishment of regional universities in Ile Ife, Nsukka and Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria.

The significance of all these commissions and their reports is that hitherto universities were established in Nigeria after detailed reports were commissioned about funding, location, staffing and needs of the country and nothing was done arbitrarily at the whim of the authorities. In those days there was a manpower board which attempted to find out national and state needs in various aspects of the national and state economy and administration particularly in teaching, the bureaucracy, transportation, police and security, the military, customs and immigration and the general economy as much as could be surmised. In other words, institutions were not just decreed into existence without linking them with the needs and employment. Critics have said this was a-narrow way of looking into the future but the attempt was to avoid graduate unemployment and the incendiary possibilities of that kind of situation. Whatever the case may be, the planned commissions avoided the possibility of the consequences of unplanned development.

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The immediate situation after independence was that there were massive job opportunities in teaching and by the time of the Israeli-Arab war of 1973-1974 and the Arab oil embargo on the USA and the West, and consequent rise in oil revenues for Nigeria, the Nigerian economy opened up phenomenally in construction, commerce, transportation and educational expansion creating needs in many areas which made it much easier for the graduates of Nigerian universities to find employment. The so-called oil boom was ephemeral and by the 1980s, it had petered out and it led to a lot of soul-searching even in the northern parts of Nigeria where for the first time, graduates unemployment began to manifest. People began to ask for the purpose of the nation’s massive investment in higher education and university expansion from the traditional comprehensive universities of Ibadan, Benin, Lagos, Ile -Ife, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and Ahmadu Bello to building of new ones in Akure, Calabar, Port Harcourt, Jos, Bayero (Kano), Maiduguri, Sokoto, Abeokuta, Makurdi, Yola and Bauchi. The last four on this list were supposed to be specialized universities of technology and agriculture but in their development, the local university authorities injected politics into their development and they have mostly ended as comprehensive universities and some like Bauchi now have a college of medicine. I was involved in their planning and execution and they were not supposed to have been so developed.

The NUC sent me and three academics to open offices in London, Cairo, Washington DC and Ottawa for the purpose of assisting the universities in staff recruitment, training, library and equipment acquisition just to show that the establishment of the new universities was well prepared. However when the economy in the 1980 hit some doldrums, the University of Yola was merged as a college with the University of Maiduguri temporarily before it reverted to status quo ante. Questions then began to be asked as to whether we were training the kind of graduates needed for the future. We knew agriculture was very important in the future of Nigeria but what kind of graduates in agriculture were we producing? We were also turning out thousands of graduates in science and engineering yet our roads and water projects were being built by imported engineers and scientists and there were very few indigenous builders. Our university intakes were lopsidedly in favour of liberal arts, education and social sciences.

The whole question of over specialization at the undergraduate level of education was being asked. Our faculties of education turning out graduates in such narrow areas as careers guidance and counselling, educational psychology and planning and administration came up for discussion and suggestions about making such educational areas of study, important as they are, into postgraduate studies were made and graduates in social sciences one without solid grounding in the history and anthropology of the country was challenged. The proliferation of faculties of social sciences turning out people in Sociology, Psychology, Social Work, seemed to have been ahead of our time. These questions were not comfortable so they were ignored and kicked forward for the future generations. Now it seems as if the chickens have come home to roost and the country is now faced with much more difficult problems of unplanned development of the present.

Nigeria went through a period of military rule that with some interregnum went from 1966 to 1999. During this period, the country fought a civil war from 1967 to 1970 and was till 1979 under military rule until through international pressure the military government gave up power to a civilian democratic government which spent most of the time in corruption and economic mismanagement until it was overthrown in 1983. The military remained in power until 1999.

Most of the development in higher education after independence took place under military rule. There was therefore not much democratic discussion about the future and most decisions were taken with bureaucratic and military fiat. Some of the decisions were excellent particularly the expansion of higher education to most parts of the country like the minority areas of the Middle Belt and the South-south but this was done without proper study of the absorptive capacity of the areas thus leading to mass migration of young people from their areas to urban centres of the country like Lagos where 60% of new graduates annually migrate to seek non-existing employment.

Unplanned universities expansion

What we have witnessed is the open sesame to private ownership of universities beginning with Obasanjo and his deputy Abubakar Atiku owning respectively private universities in Bells University in Otta and so-called American University in Yola. Obasanjo’s successor Goodluck Jonathan during a one night after-dinner speech in 2013 announced the opening of 11 federal universities, in one fell swoop, in states that did not have federal universities already and announced the vice chancellors of these universities and handed over to them N1 billion each for their initial take off. There were no plans, no governing councils that were to guide the orderly development of these universities and some of the vice chancellors had never done this kind of jobs before or been in any university senate or council of a university as some were recruited from abroad. Most of the money was spent on renting whatever hotel accommodation that was available in some of the inaccessible towns and villages where these new federal universities were located as “dividends of democracy“.

The Pandora box of universities approval was opened and the National Universities Commission (NUC) whose remit was to advice government about the feasibility of these new universities seemed to have slept from 1999 to the present day and the results of which is the ballooning increase of universities in Nigeria to 270 federal universities, state universities, uniformed institutions (belonging to the, Air Force,

Navy, Police, Army, Defence Academy) 148 of which belong to private institutions and the rest to states and the federal government. The situation is still fluid but I believe water will eventually find its own level with some of the private universities folding up and some of the state universities being merged or folding up and the category of the so-called uniformed universities rationalised in the face of reduced national revenue largely derived from hydrocarbons which are increasingly challenged as sources of energy in a world concerned about global pollution and climatic and environmental degradation.

March 20, 2025
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.

March 20, 2025
Rivers State and her fair-weather friends

There has been no dull moment in Rivers State since 2023 when Siminialayi Fubara upon inauguration chose to fight his own government. But with the Supreme Court’s February 28 declaration that there has been no government in Rivers in the last two years, in spite of all the drama, including bombing of the assembly complex, conducting LGA election in defiance of court order, and presentation of budget to a three-man assembly, we now know all have been noise without substance or ‘a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’ (William Shakespeare).

No thanks to Rivers fair weather friends led by the likes of Ikenga Ugochinyere, an Imo member of the House of Representatives, who today claims to speak on behalf of opposition lawmakers coalition in the House. His undefined mission during most of his N6.5m one-hour “news commercialization’ appearances, seems to be targeted at further destabilization of PDP or prolonging the nightmare of people of Rivers State. Of course, we also have sympathisers of Labour and PDP in borrowed toga of Arise TV journalists whose motive for fighting Fubara’s war like a slave is Wike, his estranged impetuous and abrasive godfather.

Fubara by virtue of the February 28 Supreme Court ruling had an opportunity to dig himself out of the hole. President Tinubu’s call on him to stoop to conquer because ‘compromise is democracy’s highest badge of honour was another chance. Fubara however chose to keep huffing and bluffing because of backing by meddlers like Ugochinyere and Arise TV. Last Thursday, the former gave vent to this by first taking an hour slot of “news commercialisation” in TVC and later the same day in Arise platform to embark on his usual monologue.

And what did he fritter the N6.5m on? The assembly’s alleged intention to seek court order to stop the conduct of the local government and, the assembly’s plan to amend the Rivers Independent Electoral Commission law.

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It is sad Fubara thinks some windbags from outside his state love his state more than the state’s elected lawmakers who by the way, do not need permission of interlopers to make laws.

And as for Arise TV, its last Thursday’s analysis of Wike’s Wednesday chat with some journalists was a disservice to journalism. There were misrepresentation of facts, outright lies, odious comparisons and an attempt to set the Ijaw nation against other nationalities in the Niger Delta region.

First, Arise TV along with Jake Epelle, their invited quest, agreed that Governor Fubara has been thoroughly humiliated, ridiculed and dishonoured because of his humility. They all agreed Fubara needs to become more Machiavellian since his humility has become a burden. They declared with shocking finality, that Tinubu was behind the crisis in Rivers even without proof.

They falsely claimed Rivers House of Assembly locked out the governor. How do you lock out someone who was not being expected? Governor Fubara himself confirmed he was on a road show or out to play to the gallery by branching at the assembly quarters when he was scheduled to commission some projects in Okirika at 10am. He left with the following parting words “maybe they are still working on the letter and will later get in touch with me”.

On impeachment, it was unfair to impute meaning to what Wike said in an answer to Arise TV question. He had said impeachment which is enshrined in our constitution is not criminal and that heaven will not fall if anyone who committed impeachable offence is impeached. In any case, if anyone slammed with impeachment charges is a good politician, he will know what to do, he added.

It was also pure mischief to give the impression that Wike was disrespectful of the Ijaw nation during the chat. In fact what can be taken away from what he said was that those making threat to destroy pipelines are politicians in government; that Ijaw whose sons including Tompolo secured the contract to protect the oil pipelines cannot at the same time be threatening to blow off the pipeline. He said people should stop arrogating power to blow off the pipelines only to Ijaw as other groups within the Niger Delta are also capable of doing the same.

The fact that the Ijaw national body has denounced the Ijaw Youths making such reckless statement seem to have vindicated Wike’s claim that such threats were planted by politicians in government

I am not sure the issues of the population of Ijaw nation, the fourth largest group in Nigeria was the focus of discussion. Wike’s reference to Ijaw during the media chat was to the effect that except in Balyelsa State, the Ijaw nation does not constitute a majority in Akwa Ibom, Delta, and Rivers; that in the spirit of live and let live, he and some illustrious Ijaw elders agreed the gubernatorial ticket should be ceded to Ijaw in 2023. Arise TV only demonstrated its partisanship by exhibiting such disdain for Wike who they said does not know Ijaw constitutes the fourth largest population because of what they attributed to his academic deficit!

Finally, attempt by Arise TV to draw a parallel between the tragic mismanagement of our crisis of nation-building by President Nnamdi Azikiwe and Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa which led to the collapse of the first republic and current crisis in Rivers where an elected governor is at war with an arm of his government is borne out of mischief.

And what are the facts?

S. L. Akintola, the Premier of Western Region was legally removed by his party, a decision upheld by the Privy Council in London, the highest judicial body at the period. Akintola then sought the help of Zik and Balewa, coalition partners at the centre against his principal. The duo had been bitter enemies of the West out of envy for her giant strides and for leading the battle for the creation for the Calabar-Ogoja-Rivers (COR) and Middle Belt states from the east and the north respectively.

Zik and Balewa, who did not see the need to declare state of emergency in the east or in the north where Isaac Boro’s Niger Delta Uprising and Tiv’s popular uprising had to be suppressed by the military, illegally declared state of emergency in the West because a few NCNC member started throwing chairs just as vote of confidence was about to be passed on Adegbenro by the Western House as enshrined in the constitution. (Premiers Ahmadu Bello and Okpara had earlier breached the constitution by their refusal to recognize Adegbenro).

The first victim of the state of emergency was Awo who was detained in mosquito-infested Lekki while Akintola who had been constitutionally removed and Fani-Kayode of NCNC were imposed as Premier and deputy premier of Western region by Balewa and Zik.

In breach of constitutional provision which disallowed the centre from interfering in the affairs of the regions, Zik and Balewa decided to probe the administration of Western Region between 1952 and 1962. At the end Awo was indicted and accused of theft while his deputy who single-handedly controlled the affairs of the region from 1959 was let off the hook because he served as the prosecution witness.

To ensure Awo will be too old to ask how Nigeria was being run by the time he gets out of prison, he was slammed with treasonable charges which provided an excuse for Zik and Balewa, the coalition leaders, to send Awo and his colleagues to 10 years imprisonment.

The Yoruba waited patiently for the 1964 Western Regional election to liberate themselves but Fani-Kayode publicly swore he and Akintola would win the election whether the people voted for them or not. Zik and Balewa, as coalition leaders, went on to massively rig the 1964 election in favour of their stooges – Akintola and Fani-Kayode.

It was at this point the people of the West resolved that ‘those who sowed the wind must reap the whirlwind’. Violence, code-named “Operation wet e” broke out with dead bodies littering major streets of major towns in Yoruba land. The battle was against those Yoruba identified as traitors.

We cannot trivialise the above historical facts by attempting to draw a parallel between it and Fubara’s self-inflicted 2023 crisis when he blindly decided to fight his own government. And except for those engaged in mischief to give a false narrative of our past history, there is no basis to compare Zik and Balewa’s malevolent handling of Western Region crisis with President Tinubu’s handling of Fubara’s disagreement with an arm of his government.

President Tinubu did what a statesman should do by making Fubara sign a truce with the warring members of an arm of his government in the presence of Rivers elders. If he breached his undertaking, it was because he, as an office holder, who does not know that in a democracy, rulers rule but others dictate the tune, allowed himself to be misled by Arise TV and non-politicians in politics who probably do not know better.

March 18, 2025
Living in fear of herders and kidnappers

For years, many of us had lived in dread of kidnappers and herders in our country. The campaign against and fear of these miscreants are not over yet but there is light at the end of a long dark tunnel. This was something we were not used to. The saddest part of the situation was that most of us voters felt President Muhammadu Buhari, being a retired soldier would handle the problem with military might by dealing mercilessly with these miscreants. But we were disappointed that as they say in Yorubaland “for the leaves of coconut tree to soften up, they actually became harder.” I don’t know the reason for his absolute inaction. The result of this was that most of us confined ourselves to the urban centres and abandoned the rural areas where our people lived and where we had our extended families and the graves of our parents and ancestors. This abandonment of the rural and agricultural hinterland of the country was eventually to lead to famine, worsening the insecurity of the country.

For me this was terrible. I had to be sending monies to friends at home and pastors of our home churches to help keep the graves of our parents in order. I sometimes felt very hopeless asking what kind of lives we were living and remembering what Yoruba bards used to sing to us “Enter your father’s house, there can be no fear in one’s father’s house”. For about a decade, I lived in fear of kidnappers even while traveling from Lagos to Ibadan. What I really feared was not the ones that killed people instantly but the ones who carried people to the forest and held them for days, months and years before releasing or finally killing them.

I remember what my friend Honourable Eddy Mbadiwe suggested apparently out of frustration that those who want should be allowed to carry concealed weapons like Americans, so that they have a fighting chance against these kidnappers whenever they struck. He didn’t get much support but it was a positive suggestion for those of us who are able and willing to defend ourselves. People after vetting should be allowed to carry weapons as they do in America so that good people are not killed miserably by those who do not value the lives they carelessly take. We all suffered during the Buhari years and to preserve our lives, we stayed put wherever we were.

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One of my cousins at home made matters worse when he told me that our folks at home were in league with the foreign kidnappers whom they assisted with intelligence about those visiting home. I jokingly said if I was ever kidnapped, I would say I was a retired headmaster of a primary school instead of saying a retired poor professor! I was made to understand that this would not wash because the marauders would say if you are a poor retired headmaster, what about your children?

A funny colleague said he told his children not to offer any ransom or sell his only house to give money to kidnappers but that his children should plead with the kidnappers to feed him until he died. I asked him – what was the point of feeding him when one bullet would put an end to his suffering and misery? In order to avoid any unpleasant experience in my old age, I stayed away from travelling to my hometown and my state.

Recently, I broke the jinx by travelling to Ekiti State and to Ado and Ikere, Igbara-Odo and to Ilawe where I was born. I didn’t get home to Okemesi, the home of my ancestors who incidentally were warriors and would not have understood why I was living in fear. My ancestors were made of finer and tougher stuff. They were like “rams who go to meeting grounds of other rams to ask for fight if there were no rams in their vicinity”. They were as “handsome as tigers but deadly in combat”. My people bore the names of Akin meaning courage and lived courageously. But those were the days! The days of chivalry are gone and there was no point of glorifying foolhardiness. But even up till today, Okemesi people are regarded with awe just like every Yoruba person knows Ekiti people do not take nonsense and they would fight to the death if convinced about the correctness of their action.

There is this interesting story during the Second Republic. There was to be an election at the state level and even though the UPN led by Obafemi Awolowo fielded Chief Adekunle Ajasin as gubernatorial candidate, farmers in Ekiti were accosted on their way to the farms instead of going to the polling booth and when asked for their lack of patriotism, they responded that they thought voting had ended with Awolowo and since he was not on the ballot they were no longer interested in wasting their time!

During the second week of March, I went home to Ekiti and came back hale and hearty because I believe in the protection of God Almighty and told members of my extended family that we must never live in fear and like J.F. Kennedy once said “we must never fear to negotiate but we must never negotiate in fear”. Fear is the worst tendency in man and no man should live in fear.

One thing that I also noticed in my trip is how very clean Ekiti towns and villages are. I am one of those who agree that they are clean because they are small but some other settlements in the North and the East are small and incredibly dirty. Whatever the case, their cleanliness is obvious and the people should be commended.

I don’t know whether the petering out of kidnapping and highway robbery has something to do with the change of government, but one cannot but notice that the Tinubu government and the change of guards of the military, the police and other security organisations must have led to the improvement in national security. But just as the security situation is improving down south, the spate of incendiary movements in the North especially in the Northwest and around Abuja is increasing. Those concerned with security in those areas must move in quickly to decapitate the heads of the snakes so that we can have peace nationally. The security leaders need to demonstrate absolute transparency, sincerity, loyalty and courage. In a situation where people feel some elements in the security organisations are feeding fat on the security problems of the country is not good enough. Where a ragtag army of insurgents hold the country to ransom, something has to be done. People should not be made to live in mortal fear in a country where we have the police and the military. The security organisations must justify the huge allocations given to them year in year out. Unless there is peace, the government will not be able to provide the wherewithal necessary to maintain internal and external order. We should all be involved in fighting insecurity in our country. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Whatever we do, we must realise that the much desired development cannot take place unless the country is secure and there can be no security if there is no development.

March 13, 2025