The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

January wild, child apocalypse (2)

Samuel Akpobome, 18, wanted to be rich. So, he strangled his mother to death and removed her briefs. Then he mounted her corpse and raped it.

The victim, Christiana Ighoyivwi, didn’t see it coming. Perhaps because no mother ever worries about being murdered and raped by her own son.

Akpobome pounced on his mother, around 5 a.m. while she slept at her residence on Market Road, Ologbo, Ikpoba-Okha local council, Delta State.

The youngest child of the deceased claimed to have acted on the instructions of One Love, a native doctor in Oghara, who urged him to use his mother for money ritual.

“I was advised by One Love, a native doctor in Oghara, to kill her. After killing her, I slept with her. The native doctor told me to do so and keep her corpse for two days,” said Akpobome.

According to him, One Love promised to give him N50,000 if he could cut her ears and fingers, and bring them to him.

But just before he cut his mother’s corpse, he got caught. Akpobome’s grandmother saw him with his mother’s lifeless body and sounded an alarm, which led to his arrest.

Following his arrest, the 18-year-old led the police to One Love’s apartment but the native doctor had absconded.

Six years years since the gory incident, Nigeria still grapples with the chimera of fetishized ritual wealth as teenagers, as young as 15 years, prowl the country’s neighbourhoods for anyone they could kill for money ritual.

Spiritual and magical powers, despite their denial in public circuits, have become a ubiquitous part of Nigerian life, particularly among the youth.

In the wake of teenage boys’ dalliances with the killer culture of human sacrifices via “Yahoo Plus,” there have been increasing calls for government and security agencies to focus on the spiritual aspects and consequences of digital crimes.

The use of spiritual powers to defraud victims in cyberspace is an offshoot of the Advance Fee Fraud (AFF) which criminals themselves refer to as a ‘game.’ Hence the modern derivation of the “Game Boy” sobriquet among internet fraudsters.

Most “Game Boys’ engage in online versions of advance fee fraud (AFF) locally known as ‘Yahoo Yahoo.’ In several ways, their actions resonate cultural precedents peculiar to their immediate environment and social milieu.

Their actions are hardly alien to Nigeria’s historical and cultural experience. In the 1940s, some colonial headteachers observed that a group of schoolboys aka Wayo Boys (money doublers) were into diabolic manipulation, skullduggery, and scams. They collaborated with “native doctors” to defraud victims across international boundaries using scam letters and magical amulets.

Cut to August 4, 2004, some 50 officers of the Nigerian police, including elements of the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), raided a complex consisting of a number of shrines in Umuhu Okija village, in the Ihiala Local Government Area of Anambra State. In the wooded groves where the principal shrines were located, the police found human skulls and the remains of dozens of corpses, some of them dismembered, some in coffins, others lying by the bush path.

The police subsequently arrested a number of people suspected to be minders of the Okija shrine. Eventually, 31 suspects arrested in connection with the discovery of 83 corpses – including 63 headless bodies – and 20 skulls were paraded before the press in Abuja.

The case attracted massive interest as it was confirmed by a member of the national House of Representatives from Nigeria’s southeast, that leading politicians had visited the shrine and sworn oaths there.

One of the most notorious such cases – which had a slight connection to the Okija shrine occurred on September 19, 1996, when an 11-year-old groundnut hawker, Anthony Ikechukwu Okoronkwo, was invited into a hotel in Owerri, Imo State, by 32-year-old Innocent Ekeanyanwu, a gardener. Ekeanyawu reportedly treated the boy to a spiked bottle of Coca-Cola. In a matter of minutes, the boy dozed off, and he severed the boy’s head, disemboweled his torso, removed his liver, genitals, and other parts that he needed. After butchering the boy, he sorted out the organs, packed the head in a polythene bag, and buried his remains. Ekeanyanwu was apprehended while taking the boy’s remains to the house of the man who needed his fresh head.

The crime was later reported by a commercial motorcyclist who realised that his passenger (Ekeanyanwu) was carrying a fresh human head, still dripping with blood. The bike man alerted the police, who intercepted Ekeanyanwu still with the head.

At the culprit’s apprehension and parade on live TV, the people of Owerri went on a rampage, destroying property of individuals perceived to be ritualists and advance-fee fraudsters. Chief Vincent Duru, proprietor of the popular Otokoto Hotel, in Amakohia, a suburb of Owerri, who was named as the mastermind of the ritual killing of Master Okonkwo had his hotel torched alongside 25 other buildings, including a church, by an irate mob. Duru, one of the men convicted in the celebrated case was reportedly hung on Sunday, November 13, 2016, about 20 years after the Otokoto saga and 13 years after his 2003 conviction.

Read Also: Reps probe delay in release of National ID cards from 2012

On March 24, 2014, Nigeria stirred, once again, to eerie confusion as a kidnappers’ den was discovered in Soka community, Ibadan, Oyo State. The police found human skulls, dried human parts alongside malnourished victims who were being reserved for ritual purposes at the grove. Some victims’ personal effects including shoes, bags, and identity cards were also seen at the site.

Since the 2014 shocking discovery at Soka, there have been multiple revelations of suspected ritual killings, especially by teenagers as young as 15 years of age as reflected by the Bayelsa trio and Ogun State quartet of teen ritualists.

But why would 15-year-old boys engage in diabolical money-making rituals? What would they do with stupendous wealth if they had it? Usually, they would acquire expensive cars, pay for expensive sex with often older females, and lodge in the presidential suites of five-star hotels until they exhaust their ill-acquired fortune. Some build their family home set their mothers up in a business. When they go broke, they simply recommit to the hustle, with the unwavering support of their mothers, in particular.

The former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, lamented in 2019 that mothers of cyber fraudsters, popularly known as Yahoo boys, were organising themselves into an association to protect the interests of their wards.

Several mothers, in truth, claim to give their sons moral and “spiritual” aid with intent to protect them from getting caught by the EFCC and the police. Where the father disapproves, he gets sidelined.

In this prevalent clime, more teenage boys are learning to perpetuate that sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes as “street smarts” in social parlance. They have no patience for the vagaries of honest industry.

This is their Nigerian dream: a lush, breathtaking future that de-emphasises honest toil and accords their vanities a caressing glance. They wish to drive the best cars, live in palatial mansions, and keep fat bank accounts.

If prosperity gospel, reality television, and motivational literature won’t make them instant celebrities, then crime and “money ritual” will.

Their actions aren’t accidental; from plotting to execution, a hideous smattering of bestiality manifests as their victims’ misfortune and society’s just deserts. Yet the boys are neither freaks nor social accidents, they are simply karma coming home to roost.

February 8, 2024
How to tackle insecurity in Nigeria

The media thrives on bad news but, hardly can one find the media celebrating good news anywhere in the world. A dog biting a person hardly finds a place in newspapers but when a man bites a dog, it will be screaming headlines in newspapers. Outbreak of war or violence are welcome occurrences to journalists but hardly can one find a newspaper screaming headline saying “peace has broken out” somewhere in the world. This makes one sometimes doubt the authenticity of some news especially in these days of “fake news”. We must take with a pinch of salt all exaggerated piece on violence reported in our newspapers and electronic media. Of course it is a well-known fact that Nigeria is ravaged by insecurity, manifesting as armed brigandage, kidnapping, armed robbery, forceful entry, car snatching and many other unexpected gangsterism. Everyone knows that there must be reasons for these sordid occurrences.

If I am to put one cause to all this, I will say it is the bad economy besetting the country. We have not had before this terrible economic situation that we have had in the last decade. We have a situation of total misery and mismanagement of the economy in which corruption ruined the country while the people in charge appeared not to care a hoot about the consequences of the effect of a pilotless country. The tragic situation piled up one upon the other until the situation became almost irredeemable.

There was so much money in the economy that the CBN decided to adopt unusual policies of peremptorily changing the currency without adequate preparation by printing a fraction of the currency in circulation and then arbitrarily asking people to ration whatever currency notes they could get and then fixing a date after which the old notes would be of no legal tender. The result was that irrespective of what one had in the bank, everybody suddenly became poor because they couldn’t get their money from the bank. It became so bad that it became a matter of brawling and strength to collect whatever little money banks were disposed to give their customers.

While this was going on, the government announced dates for new elections and a new census. Many of us thought everyone in government had gone mad. In spite of court judgement, the government refused to change until it became clear that there was going to be a revolt unless government moderated its stance. There was complete disconnect between the government and the governed. Even after some moderation, the scarcity of currency has still not abated. If government cannot handle mere currency change or renewal, the question of running a modern economy must be like performing neuro-surgery! With this economic impasse, it is no wonder that the economic mess in our economy is showing off in galloping inflation, shortage of foreign exchange and all round shortages in an import dependent economy. On top of this, the violence in the rural areas of the country which has led to farmers running away from their farms because of the problems of transhumance and primitive animal husbandry. It is common to find cattle eating crops of farmers some who are armed and ready to resist. This has led to rural pre-peasant revolution!

I bought some gari over the weekend and when I asked the lady selling the gari why it was very expensive, she answered that there was no more cassava on the farm! Rice which in recent years has become a staple in Nigerian homes has also become unaffordable, yet we are always told about huge harvests of this same crop! Who is fooling who? Yams are also not within the reach of ordinary people because of poor salaries not just of poor artisans but even that of the déclassé middle classes. The way things are in Nigeria, we may have to depend on charity to feed our teeming population which is becoming a time bomb unless there is a policy to control its explosive growth. This huge population has become a cause of the insecurity in the country.

In the 1980s one could drive safely from Lagos to Maiduguri or Sokoto with no molest on the road but now only an intrepid driver will do that without being waylaid and killed on the road. The size of our country and its huge population, have become a disincentive to its citizens or to investors because capital would go to where there is peace not just to huge markets.

Within the context of this essay are its solutions. The route to peace is embedded in finding a solution to the economic problems facing the economy. Without development, there can be no peace. Depending on a mono economy in which export of crude petroleum and gas take preeminent position and yet subject to the vagaries of gyrating fall and rise of prices will get us nowhere. We must have a mixed industrial economy in which we can build up our forex and have a stable currency guaranteeing our future. Those of us who are elderly have discovered that we have been robbed because inflation and the collapse of the value of the Naira have made the plea to save money a useless advice. This is not the way to encourage savings and foreign direct investment. If we have good economy, the current insecurity will be dissipated. Whatever insecurity we have in a situation like that will be manageable. If we have a good economy we will have resources to have great security and armed forces that cannot be easily overwhelmed. A good economy will lead to peace and concord in which the destructive forces of ethnicity and tribalism will gradually disappear. Example of this is evidenced in China and it is also happening in India despite its multitudinous languages, population and religions. Building a developing economy will not be easy; it will require a strong government that will lay more emphasis on development than on democracy!

Read Also: Dollarisation: EFCC raises 14 task forces, arrests racketeers

I know as a matter of fact that all present democracies started as oligarchies, before over time, they became one form of democracies or the other. The oldest democracies like Great Britain and the United states went through monarchies, aristocracies, oligarchies, liberal democracies before finally becoming representative democracies. France went from monarchy to revolutionary democracy and back to liberal democracy. America was a slave-owning democracy. It was only in the 20th century that women there were granted the suffrage. Germany and Japan were monarchical dictatorships before becoming military dictatorships and now democracies. Development in most of the OECD countries took precedence over democracy ab initio. After development took place in China and the Russian Federation and most of the countries in Eastern Europe, those countries now practice some kind of democracy in which members of the propertied class have some kind of democratic rights. This is so at least in case of Russia and the countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain.

Even America practises what one can call armed democracy in which ownership of guns for protection of it is a democratic right. This is why some members of the middle class in Nigeria have been seriously advocating possession of firearms to protect themselves, their families and their properties. We can have the democracy we can manage in which nobody would be a prey to others without a chance of self-defence. I don’t think we have reached that stage yet! But we need to be careful because armed populist governments like those in our neighbouring countries pose danger of simple answers to serious economic and security problems like those we have in our country.

February 8, 2024
Abduction: When kings become easy targets

What makes a king? His word, which is unquestionable? His mystical powers to disappear and reappear in the face of danger? His inherent right to marry as many wives as possible as well as take over (gbese le) other people’s wives. These and many more define a king, especially in Nigeria, nay Africa.

Our kings see themselves as god and seek to be worshipped as such by their subjects. In Yorubaland, where they are referred to as Kabiyesi (the unquestionable being), they reign under the divine right of having God’s mandate. Indeed, it is said, “God chooses kings”. Whether our kings behave godly on getting to the throne is a different thing entirely.

Our kings boast of many things, especially their supernatural power to divine the future and prepare well ahead for it. So, a king does not go out without consulting the auguries. He leaves the confines of his palace only after being assured that he will go and return. As ordinary mortals, we lap up all these stories about the ‘super’ being that our king is. Nothing will ever happen to him no matter when he goes out! So, we thought until kidnappers exploded this myth.

Right in his palace somewhere in the riverine area of Lagos, an oba was kidnapped a few years ago and taken away in a boat. What is more, the get-away boat was anchored right behind his palace until it was used to whisk him away. After his release, he was quoted as saying that he was abducted cheaply because he was in boxers! Whether in boxers or even unclad, an oba of African origin, especially of the Yoruba stock, should be battle-ready. He should not be taken by surprise under any circumstances.

This is not a mockery of our tradition, custom and culture. It is an exposition on what has become of our revered institutions, which ordinarily should act as buffers, in the face of the prevailing insecurity and economic hardship. As traditional rulers, kings hold sway in their domains. Security, economic, cultural and domestic disputes are brought to them for resolution. Even when a person goes missing in the community, the matter is brought before the king to consult the gods to determine that person’s whereabouts.

But who do the people consult when their king goes missing? Are kings even supposed to go missing in the first place? They are not because it is a development that should have been foreseen and nipped in the bud. This was the parallel a seasoned Ifa priest, Chief Yemi Elebuibon, was trying to draw while reacting to the killing of two monarchs in Ekiti State, Oba Olatunde Olusola, the Onimojo of Imojo, and Oba Babatunde Ogunsakin, the Elesun of Esun Ekiti, by kidnappers. Their counterpart, Oba Adebayo Fatoba, the Alara of Ara Ekiti, escaped.

The monarchs were returning from Kogi State when they ran into an ambush by the kidnappers. Kings running into an ambush? Ewo (abomination)! But it happened. Were they not alerted of the danger ahead by their occultic senses (Sara o so fun won ni), as the Yoruba will say. They walked blindly, so to say, into a trap, something that should never happen to a king. Elebuibon put it succinctly in his analysis of the situation:

“We do have traditional means of protection in Yorubaland. It is just that the foreign religions that were embraced by Yoruba traditional rulers have rendered them powerless. Most of the monarchs did not go through the necessary rites and rituals, and therefore, they lack the necessary charms that can make someone disappear and reappear, charms that can free someone from clutches when held.

Read Also: JUST IN: Tinubu congratulates Eagles for picking AFCON final ticket

“A monarch should not be kidnapped anyhow like that if he is immune and he embraces traditional things. Before a king sets out on a journey, there are things he must do. He must be able to see ahead, if it is a journey he should embark on…” Kidnappers have weighed our kings and found them light, too, too light on the scale. This is why they have become become bold and audacious in attacking and kidnapping monarchs. Their thinking is If they can do it to one, they can do it to others.

But they know where to draw the line. As mad as they are, they know that they cannot cross the path of some kings. Come to think of it, should kidnappers even ever think of crossing the path of any monarch? No, they should not. We got to this sorry pass because many of our kings are not kingly. They may even be friends with these kidnappers who are terrorising the country.

It is unfortunate that while these unsrupulous kings are stewing in their own juices, the innocent among them are not being spared. E get as e be for kidnappers to go after kings. There is more to it than meets the eye. If the obas have any gods to invoke to stop this shame, they should do so now and stop issuing mere threats.

February 8, 2024
Uneasy lies the head…

The President has said on several occasions that he should not be pitied because he asked for the job to lead the country. Leading a country like ours is not a tea party. President Bola Tinubu might not have known the enormity of the country’s problems before he came to power. By now, he knows what he is up to. Insecurity, economic hardship, unemployment, a comatose real sector, irregular power supply, rising food prices and hunger.

The last two, if not well handled, could cause cataclysm. Three days ago, there were protests in Niger and Kano states over the rising food prices. Many families are finding it difficult to feed because of lack of purchasing power. A bag of price now sells for between N65,000 and N75,000, whereas the minimum wage is N30,000. How the prices of rice and other goods and services can be brought down immediately should be the government’s priority.

Read Also: Dollarisation: EFCC raises 14 task forces, arrests racketeers

Once the poor can get food at affordable prices and feed well, half of their problems is solved. An hungry man is an angry man. This might have been what we saw play out on the streets during the protests, but that is not to say that they were not contrived. Truth is, there is suffering in the land. The earlier steps are taking to cushion the suffering, the better. The President must act fast so that the protests, whether politically motivated or not, do not spread.

February 8, 2024
President Tinubu and the National Question

The mismanagement of crisis of nation building in most post-colonial African states created without rhyme or objective criteria by self-serving imperialist powers has always been the source of disintegration of many of these states. The owners of these new states created to satisfy the greed of their colonial owners had no illusion. In deed many of their local public officials including Oliver Stanley, predicted their departure will result in a descent into turmoil of warring groups, outright civil wars and underdevelopment.

Attempts to delegitimize Tinubu’s hard-earned victory in the last February election by aggrieved southeast political elite and a segment of northern political elite who openly canvassed for military takeover or institutionalization of an Interim National Government because they lost out in what is often a zero-sum struggle for power, was one of the fallouts of our own unresolved national question.

Unfortunately, those who have the historic opportunity to change the narrative including Yakubu Gowon, Olusegun Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari did everything except revisiting the unresolved national question. But because of President Tinubu’s many years of preparation for his current job, Nigerians had expected him to take the first step towards a national rebirth by ensuring distributive justice through resettlement of those condemned to IDP camps by terrorist that have been identified as immigrant Fulani herdsmen back to their ancestral homes.

Unfortunately, as if it were possible to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result, Tinubu like his predecessors, chose to focus exclusively on the ‘economies of the national question’. The result is that even with the new Sheriff in town, mindless killings, banditry and kidnapping for ransom continued in Plateau and other parts of besieged northeast and northwest. With last week’s killings of three Obas and kidnapping school children from his otherwise safe Yoruba nation that had hitherto provided succour for those fleeing violence from other troubled areas of the north, the battle has finally been brought home to him.

With what now appears to be an open challenge to his legitimacy, it is hoped the president understands it is time to stop playing the ostrich especially as regards immigrant Fulani terrorists and behave like an elected sovereign with a license to breach the constitution, if necessary, to protect the nation from those holding her hostage.

On the unresolved national question, the president has so far aligned himself with those who believe attainment of economic justice i.e. “Ensuring equitable allocation of resources and effective and sustainable production and distribution of appropriate goods and services is the ultimate solution to the national question”. The promoters of this approach led by Professor Dupe Olatubosun, formerly of NISER and a United Nations Consultant for many years and his fellow school of thought had argued that “promoting efficiency within existing structure will usher in all round prosperity and life abundant for all the people of Nigeria which will in turn lead to peaceful and equitable cohabitation of the various communities in Nigeria”. (The economies of the national question in Dupe Olatunbosun: An Autobiography (2005) pg. 175.

Unfortunately, today 24 years into the fourth republic, we are more divided than we were in 1999. Instead of ‘life abundant for everyone’, Nigeria has become world poverty capital. The problem with proponents of this approach is the assumption that every nationality wants life abundant for its people. Although, while they admitted we are a multicultural and a heterogeneous society, they however ignored the fact that it is the level of cultural development that determines if the ruling political elites create an egalitarian society or seek power to preside over an empire of slaves.

There is a competitive spirit in every Igbo man which makes him believe he could, with hard work, become a Coscharis (Cosmas Maduka, Kalu Uzor Kalu or Rocha Okorocha, Igbo multibillionaires who started by hawking on the streets. For the average Igbo man therefore, it is self, first.

The north remains the poorest part of Nigeria despite monopoly of power for the greater part of our history. The north harbours more than two-third of Nigeria estimated 15million of out school children while their political elites send their children to the best schools in the world. Rather than a crusade for ‘life more abundant’ for the impoverished people of the north, the goal of the northern ruling elite is presiding over an empire of slaves.

The South-south political elites especially the Ijaw, the fourth largest ethnic group in the country, share the same world view with the north they had aligned with since independence. Their leading light include the likes of Alfred Diete Spiff, governor of Rivers in his twenties and remembered more for shaving with a broken bottle, the head of a reporter who ran a story about the governor’s inability to pay salaries of teachers on the occasion of the governor’ birthday. It turned out that was at a time he was cruising around the Atlantic Ocean in his private ship according to Murtala Muhammed regime that demoted and retrieved a number of properties from him. We remember Peter Odili who secured a perpetual injunction against probe for financial malfeasance against his state by EFCC. There was the late Diepreye Alamieyeseigha who escaped arrest and prosecution in Britain for defrauding his state by disguising as woman while on a flight to Nigeria. We can add James Ibori who served a jail term in Britain for defrauding his Delta people as a governor.

And if Tinubu needed additional reasons to know the answer to our crisis of nation-building is politics, the ongoing conspiracy of dubious bank owners to derail his government through foreign exchange manipulation provides just that. The time to placate them is over.

Read Also: JUST IN: Tinubu congratulates Eagles for picking AFCON final ticket

Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, our former foreign affairs minister once said that most Nigerian billionaires made their money through government. From the revelations from the ongoing probe of Emefiele’s leadership of the CBN, isn’t it time we beam light at the source of wealth of those who without inheriting industrial empire from their parents’ bought banks and today leave like film stars?

Yemi Cardoso, the current CBN governor last Monday told the nation that the Tinubu government met $7 billion in unpaid obligations and that the results of Deloitte forensic audit of what is valid or not, revealed that: $2.4 billion had issues including not having valid import documents; that entities that did not exist got allocation; entities who asked for forex got more than they asked; and that entities that did not ask got allocations. All these went through the banks that are currently engaged in foreign exchange speculation that has moved the exchange rate from about N750 to N1,400.

Do we need further explanation as to why some of these banks are declaring such huge profits that will make bankers in Europe and America green with envy?

It is on record that two-third of staff of the banks declaring profit in trillions pay slave wages of about N75,000 to their workers. President Tinubu, as an elected sovereign can borrow a leave from Niccolo Machiavelli, the apostle of politics of ‘the end justifies the means to charge the forex speculators trying to sabotage his economic policies for defrauding their workers.

The president’s other political battle over the national question is restructuring or devolution of power. There is no known multi-ethnic nation in the world that has survived by operating a federal constitution where close to 70% of the items are on the exclusive list. With about 23 states already managing one form of security outfit or the other, the time for state police is now. Local people are best at providing security for themselves even if elder statesman Theophilus Danjuma did not accuse the military and federal police of betrayal.

February 8, 2024
Exit from ECOWAS by Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali

An extraordinary statement was issued in Niamey by the military spokesman for the so-called Sahelian Alliance countries of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. The statement claimed that the three countries mentioned above cease to be members of ECOWAS immediately due to the fact that the Economic Community Of West Of African States (ECOWAS) has in their claim, departed from its original aim of economic development of the member-countries following what the statement claimed to be pressure from foreign powers. The statement further claimed this followed the “patriotic” move of the armed forces of those member countries to effect changes in their countries for reasons of defending the interests and territorial integrity of their countries following challenges posed against the very existence of their countries from internal and external aggression while their incumbent governments were ineffective in protecting their countries’ interests.

This move should not have surprised the authorities of the heads of state of ECOWAS. The three countries are in any case currently under suspension until they transit from military dictatorship to democracy. There is also nothing new in a country leaving the ECOWAS because in 2000, Mauritania left and in 2017 signed a protocol of association with the ECOWAS. We can expect that these three countries united in their poverty and landlocked by their geography will come back home in the nearest future because of the instability and uncertainty of military regimes in West Africa and the developing or underdeveloped world.

In the first place, the three governments of the new alliance countries were faced with impossible and intolerable situation but in different degrees and circumstances. Niger was confronting the problem of Boko Haram and ISWAP – an offshoot of the (ISIS) and the TUAREG insurgents from the Sahara which had benefited from the surfeit of weapons left over from the collapse of the Muammar Gaddafi regime in Libya. The country was also perpetually plagued with internal political instability arising from various sectarian Islamic movements and sharp ethnic divisions and rampant poverty. Apart from the regimes of Hamani Diori (president from 1960 to 1974) and Seyni Kountche (1974-1987), it had proved difficult for any other government to remain stable except by military force.

Read Also; EFCC nabs religious sect laundering money for terrorists

In the case of Mali, the situation is much more serious and complex. After more than 12 years of fighting the Tuaregs and others in the Operation BARKHANE against so-called self-styled WAZA republic, France felt compelled to withdraw its forces in Mali and their supporting staff in Niamey and N’Djamena Chad. This followed series of coups d’état and constant changes in government and direction of policy and frustrations and disaffection with French forces who seemed to rely mostly on its air force than ground troops. The Mali military junta then resorted to enlisting of mercenaries from Russia – (the WAGNER GROUP-) to beef up their fighting forces against the rebels from the North. The French withdrew its forces in 2020-2022 followed by its European supporters who apparently were not really committed to the perennial struggle against the Islamic militants in the Sahel and the Sahara.

The problem was really the vastness of the space to be pacified by a relatively few French forces of less than 7000 troops scattered in several bases. The preponderance of weapons in the hands of the rebels apparently made pacification impossible. The poverty of the masses who expected French support would tilt the pendulum in favour of the Malian indigenous forces could not be assuaged and this led to general disaffection and anti-French revolt. This has now been exploited by the military to rally the ordinary people of Mali for support.

In the case of Burkina Faso, the explanation is not too different from that of Mali with which it shares common border. Burkina Faso has been fighting the forces of the Islamic state in the Greater Sahara when it crossed in 2016 into the country from Mali and the forces of JNIM – (JAMA’AT NUSRAT AL ISLAM WAL MUSLIMIN) a militant group headed by a Tuareg named Iyad Ag Ghali which operates across West Africa but fighting mostly in Mali and Burkina Faso. All these groups are united by grievance, and opposition against France’s post-colonial policies after flag independence and has now found expression in militant Islam and anger that France and America has not been able to save them from the destabilisation caused by militants both from within and from outside.

This is the background of the anger of the military against France in Francophone Africa including Benin, Guinea, Senegal, the Cameroon and Tchad and distant Gabon. At independence these countries were tied by a protocol subordinating them to France economically forever. France and French companies had the right of first refusal of all contracts or rights to mineral exploration and exploitation in those countries before any other country or company could be considered. Their foreign exchange was kept in France’s central bank and France had ownership of 20% of the foreign exchange of these countries as payment for French “civilising missions” in their countries for the years they were under French control and exploitation and shall I say peonage! Countries in Anglophone West Africa, even though victims of neo-colonialism were not nakedly exploited as their counterparts in the Francophone zone. The apparent weakness of the international order in recent times, has given these countries room to ventilate their feelings and they cannot just understand their Anglophone neighbours shouting about restoring democracy in their countries if necessary by force.

Unfortunately, the current ECOWAS is chaired by the president of Nigeria and this is where we as a country are directly involved. Nigeria provides a third of the budget of ECOWAS and is the seat of ECOWAS which it generously housed. Nigeria wants to be regarded as a thriving democracy and promotion of democracy is part of its foreign policy. So it was natural for it to be at the vanguard of the pressure to reinstate democracy in the neighbouring countries in West Africa. In the case of Nigeria, it shares about a thousand kilometre border with Niger to the North and the Hausa, Fulani and Kanuri people share common consanguinity with their brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers in Niger. In fact, the ordinary people at the border do not seem to recognise the international border. The exit of Niger will therefore have existential problems with people in the border in both Niger and Nigeria. At official level, things can be worked out in terms of common borders with Niger and what each country is owing and will be owing to one another as we go on. This will include payment for electricity by Niger and customs duties for trans-shipment and immigration charges as is normally charged the Chad republic which is not a member of ECOWAS. The fear that their exit from ECOWAS will create a cleavage and a chasm between neighbouring sister countries will not arise but will be a bit more expensive. Other protocols would have to be negotiated with Burkina Faso and Mali to guide our formal relations as is the case with other African countries. The exit of the three countries is not the end of our relations. We cannot change our relations and these countries will continue to remain our neighbours and our relationship will be guided by the belief that this is a temporary rupture in relations and we should be indulgent towards Niger in particular because we cannot change our reality that they are bound to us by history and geography.

February 1, 2024
Cry, the ailing country!

What is happening in the country today beggars belief. Nigeria is under siege. It is besieged left, right and centre. Banditry, terrorism, kidnapping, robbery, looting, raping and other forms of criminality have become the order of the day.

Kidnapping, especially, has become an industry – it is booming and thriving – and those involved have become so daring that they no longer wait on the road to strike, but go to people’s homes to seize them, take them into captivity and wait for the payment of ransom before releasing them.

We are battered, beaten and bruised as a nation. Life no longer has meaning. People move around in fear, living on a daily basis with their hearts in their mouths because they do not know who the next victim is. We are all potential victims.

Nobody is sure of the other person. Even family members do not trust one another again. You trust your brother or sister at your own peril. People now prefer to keep to themselves because that brother or sister might have negotiated away your life with kidnappers and only waiting for the right time to tell them to strike.

The bedrock of our society is the family. This unit is fast giving way because of the insecurity which has allowed kidnapping to become a huge business. No country is totally free of crimes. But the difference between what happens elsewhere and here is that there are deterrents which make criminals think twice before striking.

Read Also; Alia: I need prayers to survive landmines by anti-people forces

A criminal who knows that his chances of being caught are high would never go into the world of crime. Painfully, we are in a season in which crime pays. Where violence and other related acts bring in so much money, with the perpetrators living big to the chagrin of their compatriots.

In the circumstance, the citizenry face the brunt. They are left to their own devices. In most cases, those who unfortunately fall kidnap victims are left to devise ways of freeing themselves. What this means is that they have to cough out a huge sum as ransom. They buy their freedom or that of their loved ones at a huge price to avoid being killed. Yet, the government is telling them not to pay ransom!

What then is the way out for the victims if they do not pay ransom? Wait until they are killed before their traumatised families will know that the kidnappers mean business. We all know about the Al-Kadriyar family story. They lost a daughter when they did not quickly respond to the kidnappers’ demand for ransom. Yes, it is wrong to pay ransom, but what can a family whose loved one (s) is (are ) in captivity do? We can sermonise when we are not embattled, but he who wears the shoe knows where it pinches.

What is the government doing to secure the people or to make kidnapping bad business? It is good to talk about the illegality of ransom payment, but it is better to tackle first the illegality of kidnapping itself before blaming ransom payers. Kidnapping is a crime, but it does not seem so now, with the way the unlawful act is being carried out brazenly.

Kidnappers have turned the land into hell. Why the rise in this unlawful act? I have been pondering over this poser in recent times. But I have not been able to lay a finger on why kidnapping has become this lucrative. Kidnapping! I shudder at the thought and how it has become a huge enterprise under our democratic dispensation.

Surely, this gbomogbomo business did not start today. It began long ago when

kids were the targets. Those days, we were warned against picking what we found on the ground, especially coins, which it was believed were used as bait. Kidnapping has now gone nuclear, so to say. The targets are no longer kids, but the rich. Once in a while too, kids are still kidnapped.

Kidnapping has gotten out of hand. The kidnapping and killing of two Ekiti monarchs and the abduction of some school children from the state have more than brought home the menace staring us in the face. Things cannot continue like this. If kidnappers can kill monarchs, then there is nothing they won’t do to have their way.

No matter what it takes, those pupils who were snatched from their school bus which windows were shattered by bullets must be freed from the kidnappers’ grips to show them how serious we are about stopping kidnapping.

End-time devotees

Many will be shocked by the revelation of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman, Ola Olukoyede, that two religious organisations have been linked with crimes. One, he said, was linked to N7 billion in the course of investigating a N13 billion fraud. The other, he said, laundered money for terrorists. He spoke at a one-day dialogue on “Youth, religion, and the fight against corruption” in Abuja yesterday.

Apparently to avoid the shame of its involvement in an illicit activity, one of the suspected organisations has obtained an interim order stopping the EFCC from inviting its leaders. Igba wo ni maku, oni ku. It is just a matter of time, the organisation will be known. It has made exposing it easier by going to court.

By the time the facts are out, the injunction will be lifted and the wind will blow and the world shall see the anus of the chicken.

At a time like this when terrorists are wreaking havoc everywhere, especially in worship places, should any religious body be seen associating with them? Perhaps, the end-time has come. If not, religious bodies will not be caught in the company of fraudsters and terrorists. What a shame.

February 1, 2024
Internet crime, conspiracy of banks and state betrayal

One of Nigeria’s internet crimes’ celebrated investigation break-through was the December 1, 2019 murder of billionaire Chief Ignatius Odunukwe. The video of Ahmed Iliyasu’s (AIG zone 2 Lagos) press conference where he detailed how a killer squad made up of Daniel Bob Ibeaji, Solomon Cletus, Arinze Uzor Igwe lured the chief through his Facebook page account with irresistible business proposal to a hotel in Ajah area of Lagos where he was gruesomely murdered resurfaced in the social media again last week. He had said in the video that busting that particular cybercrime that shocked most Nigerians was made possible through a petition at the office of the Assistant-Inspector-General of Police in-charge of Zone 2 command, Onikan and the Tactical Commander of the Ikorodu Office of the Zonal Intervention of the Operation Puff Adder, that directed SP Uba Adams to go after the abductors. I think what has been of interest to those who are recycling the story was the speed and professional way the case was handled by the police authorities.

But it was obvious that what worked in Chief Odunukwe’s favour was the fact that as a billionaire, he was regarded as a citizen who is entitled to all the rights and privileges Nigerian citizenship conferred and these include the right to life, right to dignity, right to personal liberty and the ‘right to be protected by the state. But sadly, for every one-off celebrated Odunukwe case, there are scores of other victims of cybercrimes who as subjects as opposed to citizens, don’t have access to Assistant-Inspector-General of Police’s office Zone 2 command and by inference lose the associated rights of citizenship.

The reality today is that most hardworking Nigerians without access to those in power are never treated as citizens but as subjects. They are denied of freedom of worship, of right to dignity, right to life or right to state protection. Evidence abounds in the numbers of subjects periodically attacked, maimed, killed or uprooted from their ancestral home to IDP camps while government embarked on operations with meaningless names.

Read Also; Alia: I need prayers to survive landmines by anti-people forces

Of course, you cannot miss those the state considers as citizens and deserving of state protection. When you see those being sandwiched on the high ways by a number of police vehicles with AK-47 wielding police men, residential houses with permanent presence of policemen or a lonely woman being followed to the market by a policeman, you will be right to conclude they are musicians, motor dealers, indicted politicians or governor’s mother in-law or niece.

But if you are confused about making a distinction between citizen and subjects in the approach to fighting cybercrime by our security bodies and the banking institution where most of cybercrimes take place, let me share with you dear readers the experience of another reader of this column, as reproduced below, when he took a cybercrime petition to the banks, police, EFCC and Alagbon Crime Unit late last year.

“We have this hardworking young lady from one of the north central states, the reader wrote, that lived with us for close to five years during which time she learnt some trades including fashion designing. Since she didn’t need to buy anything apart from sending money to her parents occasionally, the bulk of her money was saved for her. Following her plan to open shop and bring two of her five out-of-school junior brothers to Lagos to start school, we paid her total savings of N1m (one million naira) to her GTB account in October last year. Unfortunately, a day after the amount was paid into her account, she was swindled by one David Eze, a boyfriend she claimed to have met on Facebook and one Okoh Vera, David Eze had introduced to her as his mother, the reader concluded.

On October 25, 2023, she sent a petition titled “Fraud by David Eze” to divisional police station near the scene of the crime with copies to her bank, GTB and Access and Zenith, the banks through which David Eze channelled this particular cybercrime proceeds.

She stated in the petition that David Eze, her Facebook boyfriend directed her to send the sum of N1,045,000 (one million and forty five thousand naira) to Okoh Vera, her mother he claimed was shot by armed robbers.

She gave details of the account numbers and telephone numbers of the swindlers as follows:

1. Of the amount, she paid the sum of N635,000 (six hundred and thirty five thousand naira to Ifeanyi Okeagu, with Zenith bank account number 4206031565 and the sum of N410,000 (four hundred and ten thousand naira) to Okoh Vera, with Access bank account Number 1654011277, as directed by Eze, her Facebook boyfriend.

Telephone Numbers

(a) David Eze +17579827671 and 08148098598

(b) Vera Okoh 09137971902

The petition was however turned down by both the Alagbon Crime Unit and EFCC office in Ikoyi where according to him officials of both bodies who claimed they don’t handle fraud cases below N10 million barred their entry.

For a state that protects the interest of its people as citizens, this petitioner had thought there were no ambiguities in the case in view of stated government public policies.

First, since it was impossible to open an account without meeting the conditions set by these three banks which included submission of ‘a valid government issued identification, (National Identity Card, Driver’s licence or international passport), passport photograph and valid proof of residence including utility bill issued within the last three months, identification of a fraudsters by banks would not be difficult.

And for the police, tracking the fraudsters should also not be difficult since all telephone subscribers are expected to have their numbers linked to their NIN number especially with the Nigerian Communication Commission’s last December directive to all telecommunication operators to bar phone lines of unlinked subscribers.

But they were wrong. The periodic visits to the police station and the three banks since last October by the petitioner and her boss who by our conceptualization, are at best regarded as subjects, have always been “we are working on it”. It was even claimed one official of one of the banks spoke of the need to protect the identity of their client since there was no evidence the lady was forced to transfer the money to his account at gun-point. He might be right on that score.

But that is exactly because we are not treated as citizens by our government. And when a state fails to perform its responsibilities of protecting its people’s right to life, right to dignity and right to personal liberty, the state loses the right to expect its citizens to faithfully implement their duties to the state. It should therefore not come as a surprise that many frustrated Nigerians are not only not ready to die for their country, they in fact routinely sabotage the state by breaking laws through tax evasion, voters’ apathy, refusing to protect public properties, have empathy and compassion for others and take responsibility for their actions.

February 1, 2024
January wild, child apocalypse

Again, January presages our ghastly nature. Its auguries fulfil the grisly typecast that has become our fate in recent years.

Amid the ruckus of cutthroat politicking, terrorism and economic depression, January 2024, like its seasonal peers, yanks the rug out from under our pretentious ideals.

Being the first month of the year, a lot of folks consider it a perfect time to start all over again, swapping energies and discarding old gloom. Some pledge fresh beginnings and new attitudes.

The most jarring message of January 2024, however, rattles in Daniel Bamidele’s hymn of progeny as the new fiend. The 20-year-old “internet fraudster” reportedly stabbed his parents over his mother’s refusal to reveal her real name, a prerequisite for activating a black ritual soap that was supposed to bring him riches.

Enraged by his mother’s actions, Bamidele assaulted both his parents with a machete at their Apabielesin home in Ibadan, Oyo State. His mother, Titilayo, escaped and raised an alarm, attracting passersby who subdued Bamidele and disarmed him.

According to Daniel, his parents were aware of his involvement in cybercrime, from which he claimed to have built a three-bedroom bungalow.

He accused his mother and elder brother of cheating him out of N2.5 million, frustration over his mother providing a false name, which rendered the ritual soap, which he said was given to him by a white garment church priest, ineffective. The soap, he added, was intended to bring good fortune but required his mother’s real name for activation.

Read Also; Alia: I need prayers to survive landmines by anti-people forces

“I purposely lured my mother from a church programme she was attending, and as soon as we arrived home, I attacked her with a knife and was already inflicting cuts on her body when my father tried to save her from me. I attacked my father too because if I had not stabbed both of them, they would have succeeded in killing me,” he told The Nation.

The 20-year-old’s recklessness resounds the suburban legend of Nigeria’s teen ritualists. A surfeit of similar incidents imbued previous Januaries with unavoidable greyness and colour.

January 2022 and January 2023, for instance, dawned with crimes committed by Nigerian teenagers and young adults looking to become filthy rich, in the blink of an eye.

The viral video, in January 2022, of three teenagers looking to learn internet fraud aka ‘Yahoo Yahoo’ in Edo State, prefigured the horrors that haunted the Nigerian landscape throughout the year.

In the two-minute video, the boys, between ages 14 and 15, appeared stranded as they told an interrogator in pidgin: “We wan come hustle.” Their preferred hustle, they revealed, is the “Yahoo hustle.”

In January 2023, Police Superintendent, Asinim Butswat, spokesperson of the Bayelsa State Command confirmed the arrest of three teenagers for attempted ritual killing. Butswat identified the suspects as Emomotimi,15 years, Perebi, 15 years, and Eke, 15 years. All boys and natives of Sagbama in Bayelsa.

The trio allegedly accosted one Comfort, 13, “hypnotised” and led her to Emomotimi’s apartment, where they reportedly cut her finger and sprinkled her blood on a mirror for ritual purposes. The ritual was supposed to make them rich. But for vigilant village youths, Comfort would have been history, perhaps.

A more jarring note knelled on January 29, 2023, in the misadventure of the quartet: Wariz Oladehinde, 17, Majekodunmi Soliu, 18, Abdul Gafar Lukman 19, and Mustakeem Balogun 20, who were arrested by men of the Ogun State Police Command for allegedly killing a girlfriend of an accomplice for money-making ritual.

On interrogation, they confessed that what they were burning in the clay pot was the severed head of the girlfriend of their accomplice. They gang-raped her before beheading and cooking her.

The frantic lunge for sudden wealth by teenagers and young adults establishes the fatal forming of Nigerian maleness, family and society.

Toxic families produce toxic wards. Toxic children become toxic citizens. Toxic citizenry becomes poisonous to nationhood in the long run. The interplay of excessive materialism, misandrist-feminism, and the absence of exemplary father figures has foisted upon us a generation of reprobate males.

Economic forces aggravate their sense of disenchantment while corrupted gender roles and the denouement of masculinity afflict them with greater confusion.

Masculinity flows from nature as an aspect of the birth mother, no doubt, but it is sculpted by society and a father figure into humane and effective manhood. The boy-child learns by instruction, counselling, and imitation.

In an ideal setting, the father moulds his character by careful nurturing, awarding punishment for vice and reward for virtue. Where the father is absent or feckless, the child suffers exposure to degenerate blooming, like Afeez Olalere, who was encouraged to use his younger brother for money ritual by his mother – to embolden Afeez, she fed poison to her younger son and watched him die.

Boys are in trouble. They have become Nigeria’s trouble. But the academia shies from the issue gagged by dubious gender politics and the notion that males enjoy greater advantage and access to school enrolment, financial stability, business and political opportunities. Consequently, several boys are denied constructive counselling at home and necessary push through educational tiers.

More boys drop out of school to become internet scammers (Yahoo Boys) disguised as bitcoin traders, I.T. and forex gurus. Many of them are casualties of dysfunctional families and the changing dynamics of the new global economy.

The economy has become less friendly to males. This is a global problem, however. Jacqueline King, of the American Council on Education in her group’s study of lower-income adults in college, discovered that men had a harder time committing to school. They reported feeling isolated and were much worse at seeking out fellow students, study groups, or counsellors to help them adjust.

Mothers going back to school, however, describe themselves as good role models for their children. Fathers worry that they are abrogating their responsibilities as breadwinners, explained Hanna Rosin.

Against the backdrop of these realities, the “protector” and “provider” theories of manhood and fatherhood are continually dismissed as credulous and crude, in a modern world where conservative ideals of masculinity are maligned and fiercely rebuffed.

On the flip side, females enjoy patronage in crusader education and art. This slanted social complex has been adduced to a venomous leftist orientation.

Responding to my query on the issue, a staff of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) told me recently, that his organisation ignores Nigerian boys and adult males in its intervention programmes because the government has failed to make provisions for them at the policy level.

“The Nigerian government and local NGOs do not consider boys and men worthy recipients of any form of intervention,” he lamented.

It is pleasing to see girls and young women succeed. But it is wrong to neglect boys. This is a sure recipe for disaster, the kind that is happening in real time.

There is a reason the ritual money credo is embraced by increasing number of boys. The exasperating nature of their lusts, dysfunctional families, poverty, misgovernance and societal corruption amplify their rationale for embracing a creed of cruelty and carnage.

The situation is aggravated by the frantic fostering and cues from media and literature. Popular culture’s celebration of grotesque and increasingly infantilised versions of masculinity aggravates the malady – from Nollywood’s neurotic man-boys to the bestial and slacker dudes of feminist-misandrist literature.

But this is a discussion we aren’t ready for.

February 1, 2024
Betta Edu: Beyond artifice

It is impossible to observe the shenanigans of the Betta Edu herd and not laugh. Yet you may be driven to relive their theatrics with a stunned combination of amazement and disgust.

Call it a daemonic aria, a flight of effete imagination. If contemporary politics thrives as musical artifice, the recent falsetto of Betta Edu’s herd could be her cipher, the fault in her organ valve rendering her artful melody a frantic fustian dross.

The recent videos of a ragtag group of women singing Edu’s praises and calling for her reinstatement and the frantic tweets by some “social influencers” equally supporting the suspended Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation and calling for her recall, affirm that Nigerians nurse a hankering for extremes.

The brazen resort to tribal sentimentality and gender asserting sophistry by Edu’s apologists seem simultaneously connected to a moral apocalypse and a proclivity to live above the law.

Their wacky verses mock the solemn solitaries Edu initially uttered in rebuttal of allegations of wrongdoing in the scandalous fraud bedeviling the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.

That ‘Edunian’ pathos lends itself so easily to parody suggests there is some real excess in it. In all, common sense and morality suffer the mean grope of indecency. The palsied pat of her supporters, their shrill chants and plea to President Bola Tinubu to “Give Betta a second chance” become grotesque restraints, confining and corrupting emotion instead of ennobling and deepening it.

So far, no one has jeopardised Edu’s interests more than the ragtag squad seeking to assert her innocence through sponsored protests and cheap emotional blackmail. Just recently, a Facebook page titled, Dr Betta Edu’s Supporters Group – with 1,800 members – took up the campaign to save the embattled former minister from blame and prosecution.

Yet, the weight of the allegations against Edu rests on the sturdy beams of the following facts: that she was fingered in an alleged diversion of more than N585 million naira ($640,000; £500,000) of public money into a personal bank account; that she was suspended by President Tinubu soon after local media buzzed about a leaked document that allegedly showed the minister instructing a senior treasury official to transfer the money to the personal account of Bridget Oniyelu, the accountant for the government’s Grants for Vulnerable Groups initiative instead of a government account.

At 37, Edu was the youngest minister in President Tinubu’s cabinet. Her appointment as the Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation Minister seemed revolutionary, depicting Tinubu’s administration as a force with a strapping innate promise. But no sooner did Edu get fingered in the alleged diversion of public fund into a personal bank account than she was suspended by Tinubu.

The President subsequently ordered an investigation of Edu’s ministry and called for a reform of government institutions that run the National Social Investments Programmes Agency (NSIPA) stressing the need to “win back lost public confidence.”

Edu, who lost her job barely six months after she assumed office, has denied any wrongdoing even as she submits to grilling by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Also being grilled at the EFCC headquarters is a former Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar-Farouq, over alleged fraud in handling N37.1 billion social intervention funds during her tenure under then President Muhammadu Buhari. Halima Shehu, the suspended chief executive officer of the NSIPA, is also under investigation by the EFCC.

Read Also: The Betta Edu in us all

Yet Edu is the only one with a curious band of die-hard supporters who have resorted to more desperate measures across physical and social spaces to demand her reinstatement.

Edu has, however, disowned groups purportedly fighting for her reinstatement claiming that she did not sponsor any public activity. She said, in a recent press release, that she did not authorise groups organising public prayers and protests to seek her reinstatement to President Tinubu’s cabinet, stressing that she is cooperating fully with her investigators.

The shenanigans of the Edu-herd commands an exercise of the eye, not of the mind. At best, they should be accorded the passing tribute of a sigh. While they defend and stroke their infinite delusions, such characters secretly suppress, perhaps, their mind’s wars with treacherous nature.

Nigeria’s culture of corruption remains a vast behavioural gash across successive administrations.Even as hope sprouts on the margins through the daring of the incumbent government, Nigeria has begun to look like an immense illustration of chaos theory and corruption.

In the face of comatose industry and a distressed economy, public officers have been found to repeatedly loot public money that would otherwise provide infrastructure and fund social intervention programmes.

How President Tinubu handles the Edu case, among others, would determine the consequent trajectory of his anti-corruption campaign and public opinion about his administration.

The burden of proof of his fabled sagacity rests on his response to social crisis or opportunity in real time.

It took a great deal of spirit for him to assert the legend of his sagacity, en route to the presidential polls. As President, it is easy for him to trash his repute and all of his associated mystique. He probably wouldn’t.

From the get-go, President Tinubu dared to assert his mettle, making an earnest wish to serve the people from the trenches of governance. Just two weeks into the job, he made rousing pirouettes signing the student loan bill into law and promising to review the N30,000 minimum wage to reflect current global realities thus tugging on the people’s heartstrings.

From dousing the threat of industrial action by a partisan and corrupted labour union, suspending the heads of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Godwin Emefiele and Abdulrasheed Bawa respectively to investigate weighty allegations of abuse of office, to his appointment of key State House officers, President Tinubu expressed his eagerness to hit the ground running with the right calibre of staff.

While his opening acts seem emphatic of his will, the citizenry impatiently seek the manifestation of the promised dividends of his policies in their lives. They earnestly await the implementation of the new minimum wage, student loan bill and promised reduction in fuel price at the operationalisation of the refineries.

More importantly, they await his urgent intervention and enthronement of justice in scandalous cases of corruption and abuse of public office, involving crucial government organs like the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.

From his swearing-in, Tinubu cut the image of a leader eager to to rid Nigeria of the affliction of the parasitic cabal that hitherto misappropriated the fortunes of the oil and finance sectors and Nigeria’s commonwealth.

Yet passion is never enough to survive the storms outside and within the corridors of power. Tinubu must assert his integrity of intent, unwavering in the face of random subterfuge and organised animosity. If he intends to be taken seriously, he must shun subtle and barefaced artifice.

As he supervises the Betta Edu inquisition, among others, Nigerians are counting on him to prevent the miscarriage of justice, hoping he understands that no matter how adroitly a leader cartwheels on moral fibre, if he feigns integrity as a rite of perfidy, he would fall splat in the court of posterity.

President Tinubu must shun such recreant retreat. If not, he would be forging a bad karma, for himself and the country.

January 25, 2024