The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • A label and its self-righteous designer

    A label and its self-righteous designer

    MAKE NO MISTAKE about it. Trump’s redesignation of Nigeria as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ (CPC) is of the American President’s making only. It has become state policy because whatever he does carries the presidential seal. But does Nigeria deserve this tag? Should the country be so dubbed considering all it has been doing to stop the atrocities being perpetrated in some parts of the country by evil persons and groups.

    Before Trump’s threat to come ‘guns-a-blazing’ to that now ‘disgraced country’ to rescue our ‘cherished Christians’, the Nigeria state has been doing all within its power to curtail the activities of terrorists and insurgents, especially in the northern parts of the country. What these elements are doing is not state approved. Rather, the government has been going all-out on the offensive against them.

    Trump himself can attest to the fact of Nigeria’s seriousness to deal with the situation. What else is there to say, if a nation can go to the extent of acquiring sophisticated military hardware like the Super Tucano Jets to fight the terrorists, bandits, insurgents and other criminal elements operating under one guise or the other in the northeast, northwest and northcentral? Has Trump forgotten so soon that those jets were acquired during his first tenure as POTUS (president of the United States)?

    The jets would have gone a long way in helping Nigeria to flush out these elements from their hiding, but the same US that sold them to us, then from nowhere set the conditions under which they could be used. Those terms and conditions had serious effects and repercussions on the war against terror, banditry and insurgency. Some of the jets were supplied, others have not been delivered, despite being paid for upfront, several years ago. With the perpetrators getting access to more sophisticated weapons (obtained from only God knows where), Nigeria’s military march against them was slowed down.

    In the process, the face and tone of the campaign against terror changed. How can the US which is now again under Trump, who claims to be so concerned about terrorism, set those conditions for using the Super Tucanos at a time Nigeria was winning the war against the terrorists? To return now a few years later to redesignate Nigeria as CPC, about 60 months after he first labelled us as such during his first coming, is unfair, unjust and unkind. By doing so, Trump is only throwing his weight around as the most powerful leader on earth today.

    “O”, as Shakespeare said, “it is excellent to have the strength of a giant, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant”. Trump should remember these immortal words because the power America wields today was once wielded by another country. Where is that country today? Come to think of it, can what is happening in Nigeria be described as ‘Christian genocides’, on which ground Trump tagged it CPC when the killings for which he is so much concerned are not state sanctioned nor targeted at any particular region and religion? It is obvious that Trump did not get his facts right before he acted. That is vintage Trump. He acts first and thinks later. He is quick to respond but slow to listen and rationalise things before going for the kill.

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    What Nigeria needs is help to fight the insurgents, and not the kind of action he is planning. He says he would move in swiftly and wipe out the perpetrators of this evil. All well and good, but has he thought about the consequences of doing that without working with Nigeria? Nigeria accepts that it has security challenges. It has never shied away from this fact. But it is challenged in getting the military hardware for prosecuting this unconventional war, which experts say is the most dangerous kind to undertake because the enemy is ensconced among the vulnerable, the same people that the fighting military must protect.

    No one is making excuses for what is happening in parts of Nigeria, but it is unkind to paint a picture of gloom and doom about the country – for which it has been wrongly labelled CPC. Every nation has its problems. Trump’s America has its own problems too. It is renowned for gun killings, police brutality and drug abuse, among others, but who on earth can designate it a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ for all these atrocities? Who?

    One is not begging the issue. I side with Trump on flushing out the insurgents by all means, but describing what is happening as ‘Christian genocides’ amounts to giving Nigeria a bad name to hang it. The perpetrators of this evil do not discriminate on the grounds of religion and region. They kill people anywhere they go, no matter where the victims come from or religion. This is the simple truth. To peddle the story of ‘Christian genocides’ or any genocide of whatever hue as some faith leaders and frustrated politicians who should know better did and are still doing, as if the killings are state sponsored, stands this truth on its  head.

    President Bola Tinubu sums it up succinctly:  “Do we have problems? Yes. Are we challenged by terrorism? Yes. But we will defeat terrorism. We will overcome the CPC designation. We shall spare no effort until we eliminate all criminals. We want our friends to help us”.  Yes, our friends should help and not undermine us. There are no ‘Christian genocides’ in Nigeria to warrant the CPC label.

  • The Trump threat to liberate Christians

    The Trump threat to liberate Christians

    President Donald Trump of the United States has threatened to intervene in Nigeria’s 15-year old incendiary attacks on Christian communities in northern parts of our country. He puts this to our country’s unwillingness or inability to stop this dangerous incendiary movement allegedly of Fulani ethnic group, or broadly speaking, allegedly of Muslim groups to ethnically cleansed large portions of land of indigenous Nigerians and to occupy the lands and change their names so that the remnants of their victims would have difficulty of recognizing or claiming their ancestral land.

    In the language of international order, this amounts to genocide which is punishable under international law and should be punishable under national law. Theoretically, we may be able to argue that those cleansing indigenous groups of the area are extraneous to the area and are therefore criminal but there is evidence that the Fulani herders also have claims of access to the area but the way they are asserting their claim is absolutely wrong.

    There is also the allegation of the foreign origin of those Fulani who are causing these troubles as distinct from the Fulani who, for more than a century, maintained pacific relations with their compatriots in the Benue valley. Historically, there is evidence that the attempt by some Fulani ethnic group to extend some form of control over the non-Muslim indigenous peoples of the  entire Northern Nigeria  and in particular the Benue valley failed  during the Fulani-led jihads of the 19th century and that this was what the British conquistadors met when they put down the Union Jack in the area and established rule Britannia in the entire Northern Nigeria.

    Looking at the whole are from the prism of history, it seems to me as if the Fulani are living in the past of regular migration of African peoples as epitomised by the movement of the Fulani from the area of the Futa Djallon across West Africa up to the Cameroons over centuries or the  Bantu expansion from east of the southern part of the Cameroons and the Uganda area down to Southern Africa over centuries and the Nguni migrations in the opposite direction from Zulu land up to the Ndebele area in present day Zimbabwe. This illustrates that migration has always been a feature of African history. The case against the Fulani in the plateau, Benue and in Adamawa hills are compelling about a people bent on dominating the indigenous peoples under the guise of spreading Islam. Here, the religion of the prophet has been appropriated to support local imperialism.

    The problem is therefore very complex and would be difficult to solve by foreign intervention. It would require land management and education and strong federal government military presence. It must be added the herder/farmer conflict may not always be seen in terms of ethnic conflict or religious conflict but economic opportunity that the recent kidnapping in Nigeria seems to have been hijacked by opportunistic criminals to whom ethnic or religious background of victims is totally irrelevant.

    I say this because the killings, though predominantly in the Benue valley, has metastasized to all parts of Nigeria and not just the North.

    The question to ask is whether Trump’s decision to force a solution on us is based on genuine concern for the suffering Christian  people of Nigeria. There is no doubt about the religious motive behind Boko Haram, ISWAP, or their variants and off-shoots. What has not been firmly established is their local and foreign sponsorship and financing. What is clear is that the insurgents could not have remained in their struggle for almost 15 years without some local and foreign support providing sophisticated weapons and munitions and financing.

    Some sources point to North Africa particularly Libyan sources and Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the same countries that have been fingered in the case of the Sudan civil war which has lasted as long as the  disequilibrium and insurgency in northern Nigeria. This means any genuine effort to help in the pacification of Northern Nigeria must involve persuading the source of external support and vigorous efforts of the Nigeria military and mobilization of the people of the affected states to support their extirpation wherever in Nigeria they raise their ugly heads.

    The federal government must approach the Trump government with request for appropriate weapons including theatre use of drones and aerial surveillance equipment. This may not be the time for the Nigeria government to be too sensitive and sentimental about their sovereignty. No country can be totally sovereign in these days when peace maintenance demands joint efforts. It is not important whether President Trump is driven by ulterior motive of fishing in our troubled waters or not. We have always been exposed to situations for external meddling because of inherent weakness of our country arising from ethnic differences and differences in our religious beliefs despite the non-nativity of these religions to our country. The corruption of our people, not just our leaders, but everyone makes it difficult to develop our economy to the point where the issue of ethnic and religious differences would not matter. Until such a time when economic development takes precedence over the emotional pull of religion and ethnicity, we will always have divisions that are exploitable by local or external forces. Now that the prestige of America is on line for intervention in Nigeria, we must engage the United States diplomatically using all the tools of the game to blunt all arguments that can be marshalled for American intervention.

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    There is a need for the president to call  in the Sultan of Sokoto, the leaders of the Christian community, the governors of Borno, Bauchi, Plateau, Adamawa, Taraba, Benue,  Nasarawa, Kaduna, Zamfara and possibly Kano, Katsina and Kebbi and Sokoto, to a close meeting about how to solve the problem and to assign responsibility to each and every one of them.

    This should be in two meetings of the first named eight states and then with the others. In these meetings, the top hierarchy of the military should be present along with the ministers of the economy, defence and the governor of the Central Bank. This must be a frank discussion in which the collapse of the country and its consequences must be made plain for all who may have some hidden plans about inheriting power. It must be stated that Nigeria  rests on the shoulders of all the states of the federation and particularly the economic strength of a few viable states and that Nigeria remains strong on the strength of all of us and this strength must be maintained on the mutual safety of lives and property of all of us irrespective of our ethnic and religious differences and that in the Nigerian republic, there are no first class and second class citizens. The president must fast forward the setting up of local government police that must be well trained to protect their areas from rampaging criminals in whatever form they come. The president should declare a state of emergency in all the states affected by this insurgency for six months so that the military can show its teeth to all those who want to challenge it. Appropriate financial measures should be put in place to palliate the social and economic problems facing several communities in all the areas of the emergency.

  • Before you cut your nose to spite your face (2)

    Before you cut your nose to spite your face (2)

    Donald Trump’s threat to invade Nigeria to protect Christians from genocide asserts the dire logic of colonial rescue: the white knight arriving to save the native land from itself, and in so doing, carve out fresh domains of control.

    By responding with cheers and urging foreign invasion under the pretext of faith, Nigerians enact a tragedy of identity: we become supplicants rather than sovereign agents.

    It is entirely proper to mourn the deaths of Nigerians, to demand justice for victims of terrorism, banditry, herder-farmer clashes, and kidnappings. But to elevate that mourning into a narrative of “Christian genocide” is analytically flawed and cynical.

    The celebrated scholar Bulama Bukarti (PhD, SOAS, University of London) anchors us in clarity. His analysis — in his PhD thesis — of the major civilian attacks by Boko Haram from May 2011 to December 2020, based on the Nigerian Security Tracker (NST) of the Council on Foreign Relations in the U.S., reveals that Boko Haram struck 83 churches, resulting in 1,521 deaths, and 72 mosques, yielding 2,017 deaths.

    Bukarti’s work asserts that killings are not exclusively or even primarily Christian-targeted; they are indiscriminate acts by violent extremists whose mission is carnage. In contrast, the voices declaring Christian genocide are rooted in fog, not scholarship. Their claims are built on hyperbole, not data. They sprout from a divisive grievance-economy, not evidence.

    When a Nigerian pastor, political hanger-on, disgruntled election loser, or sectarian demagogue applauds Trump’s threat, they expose a willing slave-mind. To cheer that a foreign soldier might walk through Abuja, Kaduna, or Borno on a flawed claim that “Christians are being deliberately massacred” is to pawn our sovereignty for the shackles of an occupying force.

    No doubt, we have our problems. Bandits and terrorists prowl the northeast, northwest, and northcentral regions, preying on lives and homes; the southeast sees local actors murdering co-Christian neighbours under the guise of separatism.

    Chukwuma Soludo, Governor of Anambra State, recently affirmed that many perpetrators in the southeast bear Christian names. “People are killing themselves; Christians killing Christians. The people in the bushes are Emmanuel, Peter, and John, all Christian names, and they have maimed and killed thousands of our youths. It has nothing to do with religion,” he said.

    By ignoring such conflict dynamics and urging a foreign invasion meant to “save Christians,” we misdiagnose our sickness and submit our necks to the leash of American colonists hawking gall as goodwill.

    If we peel back the rhetoric, we’d see through the multiplex of interest. Nigeria occupies a resource-rich terrain, key to the supply chains of U.S. high-tech and defence industries: oil, natural gas, rare earths, uranium, lithium, cobalt, heavy mineral sands. The country is ranked fifth globally in rare earth deposits, behind China, the U.S., Myanmar and Australia.

    Trump’s performative compassion for Nigerian Christians stems from Washington’s panic over America’s rare earth-dependency on China. Recently, Trump’s threat to slap the latter with a 140 per cent tariff over rare earths failed, thus, he reversed course to secure yearly access to mineral flows on China’s terms. Then, Washington’s focus shifted to Nigeria, which occupies a corridor, extending through Niger and Chad to Sudan, of vast critical minerals.

    Trump’s threat of a “vicious military response” was provoked by Nigeria’s growing defiance of Western economic orthodoxy and its audacious steps toward self-determination. First is Nigeria’s deepening partnership with China, not in token trade but in revolutionary infrastructure: railways, ports, refineries, and telecommunications networks. Projects Western lenders had dangled for decades with sovereignty-eroding conditions.

    When Beijing arrived with a less paternalistic model, Nigeria reimagined its alliances and economic interests. Whatever one thinks of China’s motives, the difference is tangible. China builds, where the West exploits.

    Then came Nigeria’s stance in the global energy market. As Europe scrambled to replace Russian gas, Nigeria, blessed with immense reserves, found itself courted by Western buyers desperate for supply. The country, As pundits rightly note, negotiated smartly, seeking partnerships that would help transition its economy.

    Adding to Washington’s irritation is Nigeria’s quiet revolution in the oil sector. For the first time in history, Nigeria can refine its own crude at scale, thanks to the Dangote Refinery.

    Next, Nigeria’s growing independence became evident at the United Nations. When the conference voted on resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Nigeria abstained, out of moral clarity, not solidarity with aggression. How could the same nations that invaded Iraq on a lie, destroyed Libya under false pretence, and yet enable Israel’s genocidal siege on Palestine, even as you read, claim moral high ground? Nigeria thus declared that it would no longer be anyone’s automatic vote.

    The final straw came when Nigeria announced it would begin accepting payments for its oil exports in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. To Washington, this was heresy. Dollar dominance, especially in global energy trade, is the cornerstone of American power. When countries start trading in yuan, rupees, or their own currencies, it chips away at that hegemony. Nigeria’s decision, coordinated with other oil producing nations, symbolised a seismic shift. Trump’s reaction was predictable. He declared that nations who “betrayed the dollar” might face “vicious consequences.”

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    His threat of military action over fabrications of genocide, intones American menace of resource grab, a base installation, and a fresh chapter of dependency. Nigeria must never invite that.

    If America is allowed to invade under any pretext, the losses will be immense: the surrender of territorial integrity, the erosion of the principle of self-determination, the setting of a precedent for any foreign power to define our “crisis” and dispatch its troops accordingly.

    Such an invasion would corrode the social contract between Nigerian citizens and their government: that we govern ourselves, make our own mistakes, and chart our own course. It would endanger our right to choose alliances, currencies, economic structures. And once the foreign boot is in the door, it will not depart simply because we protest.

    Nigerians must, therefore, rally to defend our territorial integrity and national pride. We must resist disgruntled election losers and pastors who have lost the trust of their flocks, following their failed prophecies of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s defeat at the 2023 elections. Their claims of Christian genocide are borne of cynical intent; and their calls for America’s invasion betray a desire for destabilisation, not reform.

    Nigerians must seek the country’s unity, not its unraveling. President Tinubu and his service chiefs must equally intensify the fight against terrorists, bandits, and kidnappers; especially in the southern corridors where the danger is less acknowledged.

    Besieged families will find it hard to commit to the Renewed Hope Agenda if their loved ones are not safe. Thus, Tinubu’s leadership must entrench more credible, transparent, and localised security measures that protect lives and property, across faiths and ethnicity.

    There must be a data-driven accountability of killings, so no group is compelled to believe only one faith is under siege; a national narrative that honours victims but refuses divisive victim-capital of artificial genocide claims.

    No matter how turbulent the United States is—with soaring gun violence and racial strife—Americans do not call in Russia or China to invade their cities. They defend America, flawed though their democracy may be.

    Likewise, Nigerians, for all our faults, must refuse the abdication of agency. We must distinguish legitimate calls for justice from neocolonial invitations to subjugation. We must recognise the credibility of scholarship, such as Bukarti’s, in preference to sectarian shouts, exaggerated statistics and grandstanding demagogues.

  • Thieves as victims of tankers explosions

    Thieves as victims of tankers explosions

    Life has today become very cheap in Nigeria. If it is not Boko Haram insurgents indiscriminately killing people and abducting young schoolgirls in the northeast, immigrant Fulani terrorists visiting death on subsistence farmers at night and confiscating victims’ sacked villages in the middle belt region, it is Fulani settlers engaged in reprisal killings with their Hausa hosts with whom they have co-existed for close to 200 years in in northwest states of Zamfara and Katsina. And now driven by greed, even those Nigerians who are not under siege are dying in droves while attempting to scoop fuel from overturned tankers.

    Data from the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), showed that 1,531 petrol tanker crashes occurred in 2020 alone, claiming 535 lives and injuring 1,142 people while report from National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) claims victims often met their untimely death when they rush to the scene of overturned tankers with jerry can to scoop petrol. We also gathered from the same FRSC statistics that  in 2024, at least 411 Nigerians lost their lives while in the last  three months over 300 people have literarily committed suicide while attempting to scoop fuel from overturned fuel tankers.

    Of this figure, about 42 came from an oil tanker explosion which occurred near the Essan and Badeggi communities along the Bida-Agaie road in the Katcha Local Government Area of Niger State, with 52 people with varying degrees of injuries according to Abdullahi Baba Ara, head of the Niger State Emergency Service. Captured within this figure were over 100 bodies of residents recovered from the scene and buried, with most victims burned beyond recognition when a truck carrying about 60,000 litres of petrol overturned near Suleja, also in Niger State. These avoidable deaths continue to occur in spite of several awareness campaigns about the danger of scooping oil from fallen tankers.

    Unfortunately, for some newspapers, TV news anchors and civil society groups, the government, often accused of not paying sufficient attention to bad roads and general infrastructural decay is often the culprit. They often ignore other variables such as deployment of old rickety petrol tankers by NUPENG and PENGASAN and the aggression of the fuel scoopers.  Lanre Issa-Onilu, the Director-General of the National Orientation Agency recently revealed how “the police arrived almost 20 minutes before the fire and tried to prevent the people from approaching the product, but the security personnel are often chased away, before the explosion occurred”.

    And precisely because victims are quite aware of the danger is one more reason why many believe Onilu’s recently launched new campaign which brought together traditional rulers, religious leaders, youth and women groups, and security agencies to address the deadly trend is not likely going to stop the recurring explosions and loss of lives which he has associated with poor community leadership and eroded national values.

    We live in an environment where we don’t speak ill of the dead. But much as we feel for those who literarily committed suicide, empathize with those they left behind, there can be no other name for those who are ready to fight  security men trying to stop them from taking what does not belong to them than thieves. And if you are wondering at the source of such audacity, just take a look at our new-breed military-baked politicians who have since the birth of the fourth republic in 1999 behaved like an army of occupation interested only in sharing spoils of war.

    In 2001, claiming they were anxious to recoup their expenses having sold properties to contest election, National Assembly members created artificial fuel scarcity. They stampeded Obasanjo to sign a bill into law which became the instrument PDP politicians and their children used to defraud Nigeria of billions of naira. Under the ill-implemented privatization programme, they sold Nigeria’s total investment of over $100b to themselves at a paltry $1.5b. Under their monetization policy, they sold to themselves properties dating back to pre-independence period.

    I have searched without finding any difference between those who chased away policemen trying to prevent them from taking what they considered as their own share of the national cake and David Mark, who as senate president, bought the senate president mansion and was quick to drag EFCC to court to protect what he believes was his own share of the national cake. Didn’t the fuel scoopers witness how presidents Obasanjo and Jonathan arm-twisted sitting governors and government contractors to raise over N7b each with which they built private presidential library in Abeokuta and recreational centre and church in Otuoke? They have seen their religious leaders receive huge tithes from criminals and our traditional rulers share 5% of LGA allocation without any constitutional role or the policemen shoot drivers who refuse to give them bribe.

    Lastly, those risking their life to scoop fuel from overturned fuel tankers are aware some of the fuels are in any case being ferried illegally across our borders to neighbouring countries. For many impoverished Nigerians, the prospect of getting free fuel is seen as part of their own national cake. As Professor Wande Abimbola, former vice chancellor of University of Ife who was ridiculed for not having a car after serving as majority leader in the senate has observed, Nigerians expected their elected representatives in Abuja to steal funds meant for development and share with their constituency members. As far as he is concerned, most of us are thieves.

    It is just as well Onilu recalled that Tinubu in his speech on January 1 had promised to unveil the National Values Charter for the benefit of all Nigerians. But it has to start with our youths who in spite of opportunities available to them today, have continued to complain of betrayal. It is hard for them to imagine that even in Western Region that guaranteed free education at the primary school level, youths had to go to farm settlement to save enough money to go to Modern School, then Teachers Training Colleges from where many secured their GCE O/ level through correspondence that opened the door to the university if you have a sponsorship or secure a scholarship.

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    Many of our today’s youths who have an opportunity of free education from primary to secondary school in many of the states cannot just imagine what it meant to be youths in the sixties and seventies when poverty struck people directly in the face in most of our rural areas. Yet, that was the period when traders openly displayed their wares by the road side while prospective buyers pick their choice and drop money. Sometimes the sellers may not turn up for over a week to collect their money.

    Since it will be difficult to change the mind-set of our current leaders, the target of President Tinubu’s National Values Charter, should be the youths from primary through secondary school to the university.

    However, as well intentioned as the charter may be, many believe it can only succeed if we first address our crisis of nation-building. Nigeria is a multicultural and heterogeneous society with different groups at different levels of cultural development. No one group can impose its values on the other. The challenge will be how to balance the interest of those who work for a more egalitarian society and those who believe stealing government funds meant for development is not corruption but misapplication of funds – (apology to Augustus Aikhomu).

  • Ndi Anambra vote

    Ndi Anambra vote

    Forty-Eight Hours from now, the people of Anambra State will go to the polls to elect their governor. Will they return Governor Chukwuma Soludo, or will they elect a brand new governor? The election will be a test case for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Prof Joash Amupitan, who assumed office last month. He is barely three weeks old on the job.

    It is good that he is starting with an off-cycle election and in one state for that matter. With the security challenges in Anambra and the Southeast, in general, he must roll up his sleeves to ensure that this problem does not mar the election. Security is not his job though, but it is vital to a successful election. The security agencies must lend him a helping hand in this regard.

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    Amupitan has his job cut out for him. It is free and fair election or nothing. He has a huge task ahead and as he makes his debut as INEC Chair, with the Anambra poll on Saturday, the country’s chief electoral officer must have his eyes on how posterity will judge his tenure. His name, Amupitan, which means “a catalyst of history”, speaks to that. The nation cannot wait to see him not only make history, but also be a catalyst of change.

  • PDP’s jinxed convention

    PDP’s jinxed convention

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is sinking deeeper and deeper into the mud by the day. As it were, it is without a clear-cut strategy for freeing itself. Instead of devising one, some of its leaders are trying to use the playbook that paved the way for the June 12, 1993 quagmire, which almost consumed the country. They went to a court in Ibadan, Oyo State, to obtain an order to hold the party’s November 15 convention in the ancient city, four days after a court of concurrent jurisdiction in Abuja stopped the exercise.

    The  Abuja court also barred the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from upholding the convention’s outcome, if it held. It was delivering judgment in a case brought by three chieftains of the party who claimed that due process was not followed in fixing the convention date.

    Rather than appeal, another party member, apparently being teleguided, ran to Ibadan – where else? – to obtain orders which are in variance with those of the Abuja court. The issues in  contention are not different. The plaintiffs in the Abuja court are praying that the convention should not hold until the party does the right things. Some of these things, they contend, are the holding of congresses at the ward, local government and state levels to precede the convention, in line with the party’s constitution and INEC guidelines.

    Were the congresses held? If they did not hold, what prevented them from holding, and what are the remedies available to the party? Were these remedies pursued? In the Ibadan case, which has a sole plaintiff, who claims that he is contesting for deputy national organising sectetary at the forthcoming convention, the picture being painted is that everything is good to go. This may well be true, at least to the plaintiff and his sponsors, who sought and got an interim injunction to hold the convention.

    They are to return to court on Monday to argue the motion for interlocutory injunction in the presence of the defendants who were not there when the exparte motion for interim injunction was heard. The court may be packed full that day as many interested and necessary parties will show up. For sure, the plaintiffs in the Abuja case and their backers will be there as they would not want their heads shaved behind their backs. Nobody needs a soothsayer to know that PDP is haemorhaging. The party has been suffering losses left, right and centre.

    It has lost four governors in quick succession and a host of national and state lawmakers to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Even the run up to its convention was and is still being dogged by infighting within the national working committee (NWC). This crisis prompted the Abuja suit in which Justice James Omotosho delivered judgment on October 31 after listening to all the parties. Based on legal authorities, the court acknowledged the conditions for conducting the convention, and emphasised the need for the party to follow its own rules and INEC guidelines before going ahead with the exercise.

    The court held that until the party did what is expected of it, the convention cannot hold. Now, the Ibadan court has given a conflicting ruling, without hearing the other side, on the strength of an exparte motion, setting the stage for another round of battle for PDP’s soul. Exparte motions can be heard in open court or in chambers, with only the applicant(s) in attendance. The applicant(s) is/are expected to give an undertaking to indemnify the other side in case it turned out that the interim order should not have been granted.

    The Ibadan court cleared the convention to hold and ordered INEC to monitor it. With this ruling, INEC now has two court orders to contend with. Which should the commission obey? Mercifully, Prof Joash Amupitan, the INEC Chairman is not only a lawyer, but also a Professor of Law of Evidence and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).

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    Perhaps, Justice Laditan Akintola of the Ibadan High Court was unaware of his learned brother, Justice Omotosho’s judgment, which came before his interim injunction. Politicians are sly and cunny. They have their own ways of doing things as long as the end justifies the means. If you ask me, I would say there was no longer the need for the Ibadan suit, following the Abuja court verdict. Both cases are the same in terms of the reliefs sought. The only thing is that one wants the convention suspended and the other is saying no, it should go on.

    With a party obtaining judgment in Abuja stopping the convention as well as INEC from upholding its outcome, if it held, should another party have gone to Ibadan to obtain what amounts to conflicting orders, as the plaintiff before Justice Akintola did? The orders by Justice Akintola reversed all the orders of his brother judge, Justice Omotosho. I am sure that Justice Akintola would not have made those contradictory orders if his attention had been drawn to Justice Omotosho’s judgment. It is in the nature of politicians to hide such facts, especially when they are in desperate situations.

    But it is for the judges to be a step ahead of these politicians always by asking the right questions to ferret answers that will stop the litigants in their tracks and ensure that the courts are not misled. The filing of the Ibadan suit was deliberate and it was instigated  by those dissatisfied with the Abuja verdict, who want the PDP cinvention to hold at all costs, and without regards for due process. This resort to multiplicity of suits which the Supreme Court has condemned on many occasions will not help the cause of the PDP governors who are behind the Ibadan case.

    In cases of this type, the first in time prevails. I have no doubt that INEC will comply with the Abuja verdict barring it from upholding the outcome of the convention, if it holds. Those who ran to another judge for an order to hold a convention already stopped by a fellow judge should not take the nation down this road again. The wound of the June 12 debacle is still fresh in the people’s memory, 32 years after the bitter enterprise,

    May I remind them that the Federal High Court where Justice Omotosho sits and the State High Court where Justice Akintola sits are of coordinate jurisdiction – that is one is not higher than the other. As such, one cannot reverse the orders made by the other. Only the appeal court can do that.

  • Hurricane Melissa and the call for assistance

    Hurricane Melissa and the call for assistance

    Hurricane devastation seems to be a permanent feature of life in Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica and the other islands in the Caribbean. About 37 years ago, Hurricane Gilbert hit Jamaica, causing extensive damage to human lives and huge material damage and this was the first time that Nigeria hearkened to the cry of fellow human beings in the Caribbean. The reason for our response then was because of the engagement of the then military president, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida with foreign policy and the push of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under its dynamic and influential General Ike N Nwachukwu for our investing in this humanitarian venture. The Guardian newspaper, under the influence of Yemi Ogunbiyi, had visited Jamaica and had written well-informed articles about the politics of the island in the  1990s when Michaels Manley was its prime minister from 1989 to1992, being his second term in office having served earlier in the same post from 1972 to 1980.

    Professor Ade Adefuye was Nigeria’s high Commissioner in the island from 1987 to 1991 and he was very influential in ensuring the success of Chief Emeka Anyaoku in securing the several votes of the Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean in the election of a new commonwealth secretary general in Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth heads of states or governments  Summit in 1989.

    I am mentioning all these factors to indicate how a paltry donation of $3 million dollars to a sister country in distress may have altered the course of history  in which an African of great distinction, Anyaoku  with great personal credentials on his own became the head of a major international organisation like the Commonwealth.

    This long preamble is to say that the time has come again for Nigeria to demonstrate leadership to rescue the black peoples of Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba that have just been hit by the force of nature. 

    Of course, Nigeria and most states in Africa are economically distressed; there is never going to be a time when it is right to do right without pain, I suggest that Nigeria should take a memo to the African Union (AU) suggesting the African Union should collectively send donations to Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti on moral grounds of solidarity with the poor humanity of those countries, and secondly, because the Caribbean constitutes part of the AU in correct progressive thinking. Secondly, Cuba in particular deserves to be recognized for its historical role in the liberation of Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, Namibia and Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde. This is a case of service deserving its rewards.

    Nobody knows when the mother African continent may again call on its children in the new world to redress the power weakness of the old continent.

    Global politics is in a phase which regrettably is entering the struggle for global relevance and struggle for our very existence. This is becoming important in Trumpian and post Trumpian politics. We must not be caught napping!

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    If the plea by Nigeria falls on deaf ears, then Nigeria should go solo. The fewer we are will be the greater the share of honour said Shakespeare because at end, we will be judged by posterity. The question is not what Nigeria is going to get from a policy of giving when our children at home have no food to eat and no fees for our school children. When we supported the liberation of Southern Africa from the time of our independence in 1960 till 1994 when Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela, the question in the public was qui bono? The answer was always that black humanity should take its rightful place in the comity of nations. No one can really judge the rightfulness of the money spent in the advancement of a country’s foreign interest on the basis what the British call pounds and pence. But a country should always be found on the side of what is right.

    When I was in our foreign office’s minister’s office, we tried to research into how much money Nigeria had spent since Independence till 1991, we came up with an estimate of close to one hundred billion dollars in money, manpower and material and educational support for the Southern African states including South Africa itself. At the end of our efforts, I think Nigerians were justified to ask for some kind of dividends.

    To blunt the question we suggested for example that Ibru Fishing Company should go and be fishing in the fish-rich coast of Angola. But after a few trials, it lost interest showing that Nigerian companies have no staying power outside Nigeria. They were most satisfied being agents and collectors of commissions from their foreign partners. 

    Sometimes, Nigerian traders flooded the streets of Southern African countries calling for fights with their host countries and boasting about their country liberating ungrateful people. This tended to lead to hostilities and bad blood. We should not see ourselves as conquering gladiators fighting to free others from colonial bondage and settler racism because these people fought for their freedom and we only aided them with no strings attached believing that our freedom and dignity as human beings is undermined when another black man is denied freedom and dignity on the basis of his colour of being black. In other words helping the other colonised Africans was fighting for ourselves. When we give assistance, we should do this because it is right and not because we want to profit from another dominated man. If that was our belief then we are not better than the capitalist exploiters who we justifiably criticize and condemn. In conclusion, we should assist the distressed people of the Caribbean without counting the cost.

  • Before you cut your nose to spite your face (1)

    Before you cut your nose to spite your face (1)

    The thing about a knife: it is easy to feed a town to the sharpened kiss of its blade. Whether adult or minor, male or female, Muslim or Christian, the blade hardly discriminates.

    Hence, there was no pity on the edge of the machete that butchered the Hurti clan. And there was no mercy in the stab that decapitated the peasant farmers of Zabarmari. On April 2, Fulani militia struck Hurti, a Christian community in Bokkos, Plateau State, killing 46. On November 28, 2020, Boko Haram terrorists struck Muslim farmers in a rice field in Jere LGA, Borno. They tied them up and brutally slit their throats. The United Nations put the death toll at a minimum of 110, describing it as the “most violent direct attack against innocent civilians” in 2020.

    Lest we forget the bloody Yuletide of 2011, on December 25, Boko Haram bombed St. Theresa Catholic Church, Madalla, killing 37 worshippers. Three years later, on November 28, 2014, the terrorist group struck the Great Mosque of Kano during Juma’at prayers, killing 100 Muslim worshippers.

    Permit me to intone, Simon Kolawole, at this point: Did the phrase “genocide” creep into your mind at the dawn of the first two tragedies, or the latter? When the terrorists bombed the Nyanya motor park, the UN building, the THISDAY offices, and the police headquarters in Abuja, did you deem it a joint genocide against Muslims and Christians alike? Or did you, like many Nigerians, assign victimhood and martyrdom to your faith alone?

    Did you cherry-pick which corpses to count and which to forget? This selective moral vision is why, decades after terror first came bursting through our borders, we are unable to tame its scourge. It explains, too, why we are once again tap-dancing to the gimcrack trumpet of United States President Donald Trump’s evangelical crusade.

    Last week, Trump conveniently found his Caps Lock and, with it, a new crusade. Twice, he posted about Nigeria, first to allege that “thousands of Christians” were being slaughtered by “Radical Islamists,” and then to warn that the United States might stop aid, or worse, ‘invade guns-a-blazing.’

    This same Trump, who turned a blind eye to the real-time genocide in Gaza, where U.S.-funded Israeli jets have carpet-bombed hospitals, kindergarten schools, churches, mosques, and refugee camps, killing hundreds of thousands, now presumes to avenge Nigerian Christians.

    Trump’s genocide fever is stoked by curious characters like Bill Maher and Senator Ted Cruz, who, from the comfort of American studios, cite inflated casualty figures. Maher, an atheist, recently claimed that “over 100,000 Christians have been killed since 2009, and 18,000 churches burned.” Cruz quoted smaller – about 50,000 murdered Christians – but equally dubious figures. They do not acknowledge that Muslims have died in equal or greater numbers as victims of the same nihilist terror they mislabel as religious war.

    These merchants of outrage, who see “genocide” in Nigeria but “self-defence” in Gaza, peddle suffering as spectacle, feeding the American evangelical machine that thrives on tales of persecuted Christians abroad.

    The same zealots who cheered as the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) buried both Muslim and Christian Palestinians have suddenly grown teary-eyed over “Nigerian victims” half a world away. Not even US Congressman Scott Perry’s claim, in February, that the USAID had been funding Boko haram and other international terrorist groups, matters in their consideration.

    There’s a word for this kind of drama: shall we call it dissembling or outright pretence?

    If Trump, Cruz, Maher and fellow evangelicals in the US and Nigeria were genuinely moved by faith or fairness, their voices would rise for the Christian families bombed in Gaza’s Holy Family Church, where bodies of priests and children still lie beneath the debris. They would mourn the Muslim and Christian medics who perished when Israel flattened the Al-Ahli hospital. But their compassion nourishes a different calculus.

    Nigeria, to them, is both a morality market and a slave plantation, and it is ripe for the taking. Recall that Cruz, in a July address, emphasised that America must fiercely fight off China from Africa’s mineral trove, and so doing, protect the US’ capacity to stash its mineral reserves. It is the old colonial catechism: civilise the savage, save the heathen, exploit the land, now rebranded for the algorithmic age. This is the inconvenient truth in the gospel written by imperial hands.

    But perhaps more tragic than Trump’s threat is the chorus of Nigerians cheering the menace. In newsrooms, cafés, churches, and on social platforms, Nigerians applaud their own humiliation, demanding that the US invades their country to “save the Christians.”

    Even presumed intelligentsia are furnishing the hysteria, as if our land-tract were a chessboard and our people pawns for American domination. It is heartrending to see a nation incite its own doom with applause. Among these cheerleaders are frustrated separatists and partisan clergy, people who see in Trump’s threat a shortcut to unseat a government they despise. To them, Tinubu’s Muslim-Muslim ticket remains an unforgivable sin, and his presidency an affront to prophecy. So they embrace Trump’s threat as divine justice, even if it means burning the house to kill the rat.

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    But do they imagine that when America comes ‘guns-a-blazing,’ it will pause to separate saints from sinners? Or that the invader’s bullet will discriminate between masjid and altar?

    To call the Nigerian conflict a “Christian genocide” is to consecrate a lie. The United Nations Convention on Genocide (1948) defines the crime as acts committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” No credible evidence supports such intent in Nigeria’s case.

    What we face instead is a tangled web of poverty, criminality, politics, and faith: banditry in Zamfara, terrorism in Borno, herder-farmer clashes in Plateau. It is a war against the nation itself, not against one religion. As Reverend Joseph Hayab of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) stated, “These terrorists started by killing Christians, then moved to killing virtually everybody.” The Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) agrees. So does MURIC. Even the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, reminds us that “many Muslims in Nigeria are themselves victims of the same intolerance.”

    Senior Adviser to President Trump on Arab and African Affairs, Massad Boulos, has dismissed allegations of a “Christian genocide” in Nigeria, acknowledging that, “People of all religions and all tribes are dying as a result of terrorist acts. We even know that Boko Haram and ISIS are killing more Muslims than Christians. People are suffering from all sorts of backgrounds. However, any loss of life is one too many, and we should work together in partnership to put an end to this.”

    Yet Trump’s evangelical forces ignore this complexity, preferring the simplicity of the “Christian victim” narrative, because it suits their script of intervention. History teaches us that when America claims to protect, it often destroys. They protected Iraq from tyranny and left it in ruins. They liberated Libya into chaos. They defended Afghanistan until its mountains bled. Now, they brandish “Christian genocide” to justify a new conquest: Nigeria, the heart of Africa’s black pride, rich in oil, gas, and rare minerals.

    Trump’s threat is no charity to Nigerian Christendom; it is imperial strategy, another bloodthirsty ploy to balkanise a resource-rich land. If we allow it, they will set us against each other, arm our warring divides, and pretend to keep the peace. And while we kill each other, they will harvest our resources.

  • The transformation of Soludo

    The transformation of Soludo

    In another four days, November, the people of Anambra State will go to the polls to elect a new governor.  The Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) has so far cleared 16 candidates for the battle. Of the 16, Chukwuma Soludo, an outsider and the incumbent governor who joined politics only four years ago however remains the candidate to beat. Political pundits have in fact tipped him to win with a landslide beating all his other seasoned and professional politicians round and square.

    The rise of Soludo is unprecedented. Many are therefore anxious to know the sources of his transformation. In fact, on account of his unparalleled rise and extraordinary performance, not a few believe the Soludo brand will require future studies by intellectuals. Here was a cynical intellectual who has spent his most productive years in the Ivory Tower.  He was a professor of Economics at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka; visiting professor at Swarthmore College, USA; Smuts research fellow at Cambridge University; visiting scholar at University of Warwick and Oxford University; visiting fellow at Brookings Institution, Washington, DC; research fellow at UN-Economic Commission for Africa, Ethiopia and a visiting scholar at IMF research department, among others.

    He was a former Finance Adviser to the federal government and one time governor of Central Bank of Nigeria. He was the founding chairman of the African Finance Corporation and has consulted for many international organisations including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), UNCTAD, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the African Development Bank (ADB), etc.

    Nothing therefore prepared Soludo, an intellectual, a cynical breed that regards all men as fortune hunters, for politics as a calling. Many of his predecessors who took the risk ended up in grief. They were unable to survive in the real world of politics where being a politician itself is a nightmare because all politicians are regarded as tricksters, corrupt, untrustworthy and an unscrupulous breed. 

    Beyond the struggle to protect their integrity as builders of institutions including  bureaucracy without which society decays, involvement of  intellectuals in politics meant learning anew how to survive party intrigues, betrayal by trusted allies and stabbing in the back by those driven by party ambition. And if they survive navigating that purgatory, then comes the true test of being in power – balancing self-interest of pressure groups and that of public interest they are elected to serve. This task, as many who fell by the way side have discovered, often requires a politician’s versatility, brinkmanship and skilful exploitation of innermost fears of the masses in order to satisfy the demand of the rich, the real owners of society and the power behind the throne.

    That Soludo was able to successfully balance the interest of the poor masses of Anambra and the greed of their economic elite regarded as the richest group in Nigeria was part of Soludo’s unique record he celebrated through dancing and rendition of local songs about Igbo folklores and folktales as he carried his campaign message from one Local Council Area to the other. And that was all he needed to win the trust of ordinary people of Anambra who freely added their widows mite to the huge donations from Anambra super rich, to offset Soludo’s campaign expenses.

    But Soludo, a highly resourceful fellow, in spite of that advantage did not take his peoples’ support for granted. He campaigned vigorously, selling a new vision without forgetting to remind his people of fulfilled promises.

     On the other hand, many of his opponents are unknown, are without structures while some launched their campaign a week to Election Day, forcing Soludo to observe: “This is shocking and a mockery for a political party like the APC to flag off its campaign seven days to the voting process”.

    It is not just that Soludo’s opponents in the battle coming up in four days’ time are unprepared; they don’t appear to have anything to sell beyond fear. They are apprehensive that Soludo might rig the election through either vote buying or the use of the state security apparatus to intimidate opposition.

    This was the narrative of three of Soludo’s opponents viz John Nwosu of African Democratic Congress (ADC), Chioma Ifemudilike of African Action Congress (AAC) and Onyekwelu  YPP’s spokesman who stood in for  Paul Chukwuma, candidate of the Young Progressives Party (YPP) during their last Saturday’s encounter with  Channel TV’s  Ayo Makinde.

    For instance, the governorship candidate of ADC, John Nwosu who listed his assets as ‘18 branches of his IT firm’, his expertise as a trained economist and IT expert, has declared that the only thing that stands between him and victory is Soludo’s possible vote buying and abuse of the of Anambra security outfit to intimidate the opposition’. He was silent on the fact that his party, ADC has no structure to man the polling booths in Anambra in an election that comes up in another four days.

    The excuse of Chioma Ifemudilike, the governorship candidate of African Action Congress (AAC), whose party is not known to the masses, and has no structure or even agenda, was not different. The only reason she could lose the election is if Soludo rigs the election. Similarly, Onyekwelu YPP’s spokesman alerted Nigerians that if his principal, Paul Chukwuma, loses, it will not be because his party is unknown but because Soludo rigs.

    This why many believe that Soludo’s opponents have made his victory inevitable. For while they sell fear, he advertises his achievements. Campaigning in Oguata LGA last Saturday, Soludo reminded the people of how he dislodged IPOB terrorists from eight Local Government Areas (LGAs) it controlled before he assumed office in 2021. He also told them of how he employed 8000 teachers, over 1000 doctors and nurses and empowered over 13,000 youths.

    As November 8 draws nearer, Soludo’s records continue to speak for him. The latest recognition came from BudgIT which rated, Anambra State as 2025 Nigeria’s best-performing state in fiscal management, rising from second position in 2024, to beat Lagos to the second, as well as Kwara (third), Abia (fourth), and Edo to the fifth position. Anambra government has attributed the feat to Soludo’s “strategic economic reforms and disciplined financial management, which have placed the state on a sustainable growth path.”

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    On the health sector, Governor Soludo’s administration according to his commissioner of health has revolutionised the state’s health sector through the “construction of five new general hospitals and the rehabilitation of over 130 others, including primary healthcare centres, across the state within three years.”

    Soludo’s education policies focus on free and compulsory education from nursery to senior secondary school in Anambra State, “to ensure that children from all socio-economic backgrounds can access quality education and develop their full potential”.

    On agriculture, Soludo has said his agriculture policy in the last three years focused on ‘an agriculture-led transformation in Anambra State to boost food security and create wealth’. To achieve his government set goals, some of his administration’s initiatives include the “Farm to Feed” campaign”.

    The lack of seriousness on the path of Soludo’s 15 opponents is the reason many believe that the problem with elections in Nigeria has always been politicians who exploit our religion and ethnic faults to behave like outlaws. We remember Chief Remi Fani Kayode of NNDP in the First Republic, emboldened by Nnamdi and Ahmadu Bello, swore his party would win the 1965 Western Region election  whether the people voted for his party or not. That sounded the death knell of the First Republic. In 1983, the same group with Walter Ofonagoro as rain doctor spoke of ‘landslide and sea-slide victory in opposition strongholds”. That led to the sacking of the Second Republic by the military. In 2023, the same group led by unprincipled serial cross-carpeters – Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar, driven by greed on the eve of an election splintered their party into three. For two years each of them has continued to claim victory despite the verdicts by INEC and the Supreme Court. Following their rhetoric, their unthinking followers openly canvassed for insurrection or military takeover thereby once again, bringing the past to pain.

    As we have often said, the federal arrangement often produces egocentric men who behave like outlaws. Solution can therefore not come through electoral law but through politics. With defecting politicians almost turning the nation to one party state, the president has the yam and the knife.

  • Democracy in retreat everywhere

    Democracy in retreat everywhere

    In 1863, the United States of America was fighting for its very existence during the civil war that lasted from 1860 to 1865. In what is known as his Gettysburg address, President Abraham Lincoln said in his closing remarks to honour the living and fallen Union troops that:  “…it is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people by the people  for the people shall  not perish from the earth.”

    Almost a century later in 1961 at his inaugural speech as president of the United States on January 20 1961, President J.F. Kennedy said America was ready to pay any price, meet any hardship for the defence of freedom and challenge his country people to not ask what America can do for them but what they can do for America in spreading the gospel of freedom enshrined in democracy. He ended his inaugural address by equating American defence of liberty which he called God’s work which every American should make their own work.

    From the time America was fully involved in global politics from the First World War through the Second World War, it had always been in the defence of freedom and democracy or presented as such.  The pivotal declaration of American presidency is to suggest that the defence of freedom is worth fighting and dying for. Of course, the revolt against the government of the United Kingdom and asserting their separate identity in 1776 was also always presented as a people justly fighting for freedom against royal tyranny. Cynics may dismiss the certainty and truthfulness and commitment of the American government which even though it fought a civil war from 1861 to 1865 partly to free the slaves and waited until 1965 before granting full franchise to blacks which even today President Donald Trump and the Republican Party would cancel if it had the chance.

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    Today, it is doubtful if the United States is fully committed to the defence of freedom, liberty and democracy as previous American presidents were determined to do. President Trump and people in his Republican corner are more favourably disposed to the authoritarian regimes in Arab North Africa and the Middle East and  their fellow travellers in South East Asia and the strong leaders in India, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea even though many of these countries parade  themselves as democracies  but they are not. Even in Europe, Trump is more at home with Vladimir Putin and the Hungarian president, Viktor Orban and the American Vice President JD Vance and their friend Elon Musk were heavily promoting right wing party Alternatif fur Deutschland (AFD) in recent German elections when Friedrich Merz was elected chancellor of Germany.  In Great Britain, Trump and Elon Musk his former buddy are clandestinely or openly supporting the anti-Europe and anti-immigrant Nigel Farage and Reform UK which does not hide its espousal of racist tendencies in Britain. This party today has highest support in the UK, if one believes the gallop polls. The Trump government has no African policy except to invite  Cyril Ramaphoza, President of South Africa to the White House and to humiliate him in front of the global media and to falsely accuse him of heading a murderous government killing white farmers in South Africa whereas it is white farmers who are killing blacks. The only other time he invited Africans is when he brought some leader of guerrilla forces in Congo DR and the country’s president to the White House and to ask them to stop fighting and then boasted to the whole world that he has magically brought peace to Africa. The following day, the effete Congo government allegedly alienated a large part of the country to American miners for rare earth mining. All these claims have been rightly denied.

    In Latin America, Trump is massing troops in Venezuela’s coast under the pretext of stopping drug smugglers into the United States. His Air Force has killed close to 20 people allegedly for smuggling drugs without any evidence. He is goading the country’s president, Nicholas Maduro to make a move before ordering the navy armada on its coast to start an invasion of the country.

    Maduro may be a bad president but that does not give America the license to invade a sovereign country. He is also poised to give the same treatment to erstwhile pro-American president of Columbia Juan Guaido the same treatment unless he bends to his will.

    At home under President Donald J. Trump, America appears to have abandoned its democratic constitutional tradition for authoritarian rule of one man supported by an oligarchy of fat cats to which the president is beholden. By executive fiat, President Trump is raising or lowering trade tariffs with all countries of the world according to his whim and caprices without reference to Congress. He is disobeying court judgements and rushing legal challenges of the lower courts to the Supreme Court whose membership he has packed with Republican judges who in most cases defer to him in their judgments. He is also weaponising the judiciary against his so-called enemies such as the previous head of the FBI and the Attorney General of New York State and some members of Congress who impeached him for offenses committed against the USA when he reluctantly ceded power to President Joe Biden but supported armed rebellion against Congress in 2020 after a concluded election. He is also using troops to force compliance to forced eviction of illegal immigrants and deportation of the same from the United States. He is against the constitution sending troops to states with Democratic governors under the pretext that the governors have lost control and threatened to arrest sitting governors and mayors if they resist federal troops and armed immigration enforcement.

    Now Congress has been shut down and federal workers are not being paid and the country is witnessing delays to civil aviation while he is junketing from one country to the other in Asia while his country is shut down. If what is happening in the USA were to be happening elsewhere, there would have been non-constitutional measures encouraged by the USA to force the issue.

    In short, America has ceased being a beacon of democracy to the rest of the world. The same President Trump is testing the waters of a possible third term knowing fully well  that it would illegal and unconstitutional but nevertheless, he is  flying the kite of a third term and he and his supporters are saying why not? It seems anything is possible in Donald Trump’s United States of America.