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Category: Wednesday

Why Nigeria’s political alliances rarely work

Every election season brings with it a familiar spectacle: hurried press conferences, tight handshakes, and grinning political heavyweights announcing yet another ‘historic alliance.’ The mood is often triumphant, the language dramatic, ‘a new dawn,’ they say, or ‘a coalition to rescue Nigeria.’

But those who have followed our politics for any length of time know that these alliances are little more than stopgap arrangements. They are formed not out of ideological conviction, but out of necessity.

We are told alliances represent a maturing democracy; that politicians are learning to collaborate, to compromise. But the truth is far less noble. These arrangements are not symbols of strength; they are confessions of weakness. Over the last one year, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar repeatedly warned the opposition that their only chance against President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was to pool resources.

Time and again, these groupings collapse under the weight of their own contradictions. Yet they keep coming back, like a recurring fever. Why? Because our politics remains transactional, not transformational. The goal is not to build something enduring – it is simply to seize power, by any means necessary.

There’s recurring failure, not because alliances are inherently bad, but here in Nigeria, they are never rooted in shared purpose. They are marriages of convenience, and like most such unions, they rarely end well.

To understand the failure of political alliances in Nigeria, one must begin from the First Republic. In the years leading up to independence, regional and ethnic loyalties took precedence over any sense of national cohesion. The three dominant political parties – Northern People’s Congress (NPC), National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), and Action Group (AG) – each drew their strength from specific regions and ethnic blocs. NPC was rooted in the Hausa-Fulani North, NCNC found its base in the Igbo-dominated East, while AG was primarily strong in the West.

The political alliances of that era were more like tactical ceasefires than genuine partnerships. For example, after the 1959 federal elections, the NPC formed a coalition government with the NCNC. On paper, this seemed like a promising national partnership. In reality, it was a power-sharing deal forged by mutual suspicion and necessity, not by shared vision. The alliance was fraught with mistrust, and the ideological differences between the parties were never reconciled. Within a few years, the centre could no longer hold.

The Action Group, meanwhile, was isolated from the central government and mired in internal crises. Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s imprisonment and the eventual declaration of a state of emergency in the Western Region only deepened the political fault lines. Regionalism continued to fester, and what little remained of national cohesion quickly disintegrated.

By the mid-1960s, Nigeria had descended into chaos. The 1966 military coup – triggered in part by the failure of political leaders to manage alliances and ethnic rivalries – signalled the collapse of the First Republic. The alliances that were supposed to unite Nigeria had instead hastened its disintegration.

When Nigeria returned to civil rule in 1979, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), which emerged as the ruling party, entered into an alliance with the Nigerian People’s Party (NPP), led by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. This was meant to present a national front, but it quickly devolved into another transactional arrangement. The alliance collapsed within two years, marred by accusations of betrayal and marginalisation.

Opposition parties like the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), led by Awolowo, offered a more ideologically coherent vision, but lacked national reach and viable allies. Once again, alliances failed to deliver any lasting unity or reform.

The Third Republic, orchestrated by General Ibrahim Babangida, introduced two government-created parties—the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republican Convention (NRC). This was an artificial alliance structure, an attempt to engineer na tional consensus. But while the parties had ideological labels, in practice, they were filled with the same recycled elites.

The most meaningful alliance of that era – the nationwide support for Chief MKO Abiola – was not elite-driven. It came from ordinary Nigerians across ethnic and religious lines. But when Abiola won the 1993 election, it was annulled. That fragile, people-powered alliance was destroyed by the military, and with it, the last vestige of hope for a genuine national coalition.

When civilian rule returned in 1999, it was the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that dominated the scene. The party functioned as a coalition of convenience – a “big tent” that brought together retired generals, political godfathers, and regional power brokers. It offered no ideological clarity but plenty of access to federal power. Zoning arrangements were designed to manage tensions, not resolve them.

But like all alliances in Nigeria, PDP’s cohesion was surface-level. Behind the scenes, factions jostled for power, and internal betrayals were common. By 2013, the party’s internal contradictions led to a fatal fracture.

Enter APC – a mega-alliance built from the merger of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP, a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), and disgruntled PDP defectors. It was hailed as a political masterstroke. But once again, this alliance was a tent that housed awkward bedfellows who had little in common beyond the termination of PDP rule.

After APC won power in 2015, its internal contradictions exploded. Power blocs fought over appointments and influence. Bukola Saraki and the ‘New PDP’ wing revolted against the party’s leadership arrangements in the National Assembly. Joining forces with the main opposition, the former Kwara State governor was successfully installed as Senate President in a humiliating chapter for the new ruling party.

Today, many of those PDP elements have since returned home or drifted to the latest ‘coalition’ – African Democratic Congress (ADC). This new contraption is not known for its ideological stripes but for their desperate desire to unseat President Bola Tinubu.

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These alliances always fall apart for a host of reasons. For one, they are never built to last.

Personal ambition trumps collective vision. Everyone in the alliance wants to be president – or at least kingmaker. Once the power-sharing deals start breaking down, so does the alliance. There’s already talk of ADC being ex-VP Atiku last hope of becoming president. For their part, supporters of Peter Obi insist that their man be handed the ticket.

Ethnic and regional distrust runs deep. Alliances in Nigeria are fragile truces between suspicious partners. Each region watches the other, expecting betrayal. There have been reports that the plot to create ADC began barely six months into Tinubu’s tenure. Shorn of all pretension, this new coalition was largely born of the frustrations of a section of the Northern political elite with the Tinubu administration.

Early in its life it was already facing resistance from a so-called League of Northern Democrats – which has since dissolved into the bowels of ADC. Scratch the surface and you’ll find that the only place where the party is gaining traction is above the Niger.

There is no ideology. Nigerian parties do not disagree on principles – they just disagree on whose turn it is to ‘chop.’ Without a common vision, there is nothing to hold an alliance together.

Alliances are election tools, not governance plans. Once power is secured, the glue melts. Positions are fought over, factions splinter, and voters are forgotten.

Still, alliances remain a staple of Nigerian politics. Why? They are a signal of desperation. When a politician can’t win alone, they form an alliance. It’s not a power move; it’s a survival tactic.

Political alliances in Nigeria are not instruments of national progress – they are tools of political survival. They rarely work, because they were never built to work. They are formed in panic, driven by ambition, and destroyed by greed.

Until our politics is grounded in ideology, integrity, and genuine accountability, alliances will remain what they have always been: a mirage sold to a weary public every four years. Let’s stop being impressed by coalitions formed in hotel ballrooms. Let us stop mistaking handshakes for hope.

July 23, 2025
Zard, Makinde; CSR awards, CSR pre-contracts?

There was a function organised by the Zard family for late Chief Dr Raymond Asaad Zard, the departed public face of the Zard Dynasty. Organised by Camille Zard, his son, along with other family members, it also remembered Zard’s brother, Maurice. The occasion was graced by Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State and the Archbishop of Ibadan Archdiocese Gabriel ’Leke Abegunrin. The Archbishop highlighted the huge contribution of Dr Zard through massive employment and especially philanthropy.

Makinde, who was pleasantly surprised when a six-year-old girl, sweetly echoed his name to applause, praised the late ‘Uncle Ray’ Zard as an astute businessman who contributed massively to the infrastructural road network and to the social and economic empowerment and the entrepreneurial development of millions of youths and families earning him many laurels, including OFR. He commended the Zard’s road construction and chicken industry as having impacted transport reliability and food security.

As founder and chairman of Educare Trust, I commended Makinde for unhesitatingly clearing the huge debt of unpaid pensions left by predecessors and for his political sagacity by naming the University of Technology, Ibadan after late Governor Abiola Ajimobi as the initiator of the project, though he was from a different political party.

It is to be noted that NOT PAYING SALARIES & PENSIONS is an abomination as it disempowers and disembowels the historic solid Nigerian Family and Extended Family structure. When the elders have no money, and petty things like sweets, treats and even birthday presents dry up, the grandchildren and children often manifest their impatience, disappointment, disgust and disrespect resulting eventually in a breakdown of the domestic social order.

Remember that the EXTENDED FAMILY WAS THE REAL HISTORIC ‘FIRST BANK IN AFRICA’ with internal loans and never-to-be-paid-back borrowing and Fox’s glacier mints and Cabin biscuits in Grandma’s hand or left strategically in one of the thousand Captain cigarette tins under her bed. Grandpa would always have a halfpenny for good grandchildren. Governors who undertake to deliberately not pay salaries and pensions, sap the hierarchal authority of every worker or pensioner family structure. This creates sometimes irreversible financial and mental instability now, and in the future; creates the environment for an army of disgruntled youth who look down on their parents. Being broke can destroy the family through the destruction of the family leading to divorce, domestic violence, unruly youth, suicides and youth who look outwards into the dark streets for peer and moral mentorship leading to drug, sexual and physical abuse and crime.

Importantly also, the youth affected do not respect the ethics around work. The youth see no value in waking up early in future for work as they have a ringside seat or are participants in the drama around zero income of seeing their parents go and come from work with excuses, empty handed and nothing to show for it.

So, the disturbed and destabilised youth ask: ‘Why the hype about “get a job” when your job yields no wages or pension? You have to borrow money to go to work, and grandma has to line up in an endless queue for three days and still does not get her pension which is devalued as well?” .

Note that every government salary and pension feeds multiple families, inside and outside the pension-less home, including domestic staff, drivers, market women, barber, extra lesson teacher, schools, Okada or tricycle etc. So, one salary and pension impacts many lives.

No doubt, the importance and danger of pension debt and urgency of stabilising the family financial state were known to Makinde when he stepped up with a high sense to political and moral responsibility to pay trillions in pensions owed by his predecessors.

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Any governor who refuses to pay salaries and pensions is actually shooting himself in the foot, morally and politically and making enemies of the citizens. We thank Makinde for paying past pensions, with our money of course.

We must remind all governors that paying current salaries and pensions as-at-and-when- due, is routine, normal and not reportable as an achievement or dividend of democracy. We do not hear when salaries and pensions are paid abroad. It is the sacred routine responsibility, not an option, on taking political office,

Other guests including myself, highlighted Uncle Ray’s contribution through large financial support for various university projects and NGOs like Educare Trust of which he was life patron. Prof Tim Tayo highlighted his contribution to Rotary International while Zonta International appreciated him also. Dr Zard also supported Nigerwives and in providing braille books for the blind. I pointed out that ‘A FORTUNE NOT SHARED IS A MISFORTUNE UN-FORTUN-ATE!’

I also suggested to the governor the importance of encouraging CO-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES to uplift the physical and mental health of students and teachers and that a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) portfolio of past CSR activities by contractors be made part of contract award submission processes. That would bring an avalanche of CSR into schools, hospitals and youth activities. This would fit into government activities through Public Private Partnerships. All governments can easily increase CSR inflows to aid their schools and communities from the private sector by offering annual state based PPP-CSR rewards, recognitions and awards to private sector initiatives to encourage more ‘giving’ so that the CSR heights reached by Dr Raymond Zard may be achieved by a collective effort of widening the net of CSR.

July 16, 2025
Time for the government to retail information

Retailing products and services is central to the production-consumption chain. For example, most Nigerians today do not have to go to the bank to cash money. Instead, they go to a roadside POS kiosk near them. Similarly, they don’t have to go to a bakery to buy bread for breakfast. Instead, they buy it from a roadside kiosk or a street hawker. Indeed, in many parts of the country, where there are intermediariesneither banks nor bakeries, these retailers are the only points of purchase. Often, there are intermediaries, such as bank tellers, who make cash available to the POS retailers, or bread wholesalers, who sell bread to kiosk owners and hawkers. As Nigeria’s cashless transactions policy took root, bank Apps became available for money transfers and payments.

Similarly, if information about government policies and programmes were to reach the yam farmer in Benue state, the cocoa farmer in Ondo state, or the cattle herder in Ekiti forest, it has to be retailed. Unfortunately, with the exception of political campaigns during the four-year election cycles, there has been no consistent effort to do so on the part of the federal and state governments. Yet, retailing information to reach the masses and rural dwellers, especially illiterates, is critical to the government’s inclusivity agenda. The masses need to know about what the government is doing to improve their lives, and in a language and style they can understand.

There are several reasons why retailing information is necessary. First, effective communication of government policies and programmes to the masses allows them to distinguish between such policies and their distorted varieties. It is also not enough to tell them that better days are coming. They want to hear from the horse’s mouth or delegated spokespersons why not today? It is important to explain to farmers, artisans, and market women why fuel subsidy removal and flotation of the Naira were necessary to stabilize the economy, given the economic distabilisation into which they were thrown in 2023. True, such policies often result in unintended consequences, including a hike in prices, the steepness of the hike needed explanation.

Second, such knowledge allows voters to rigorously evaluate government performance for reelection. Without such knowledge, voters become victims of distortion and misinformation. If that is all they hear, then they could easily believe that the government has failed.

This is not to say that nobody knows what the government is doing. However, those who do constitute a negligible proportion of the population. It is a small fraction of the country’s 65 percent literate population, who consume information via print and electronic media. However, in a country where the poverty rate is about 70 percent, few can afford the cost of a newspaper or television to read or watch the news.

Some of the educated and half-educated folks also consume government information on social media, especially X, to which the government’s media team posts information from time to time. Unfortunately, however, much of the information is distorted, especially by Obidients and opposition readers, before it reaches the majority of social media subscribers. In 2023, I followed a message posted by the Tinubu campaign organisation on Twitter (now X). By the time the seventh response to the message was posted, it had been distorted. Obidients picked on the distorted version and distorted it even more. More of this should be expected as preparations get underway for the 2027 election cycle.

Read Also: Buhari worked to ensure unity of Nigeria – Ex-IGP Okiro

Yet, it is among the educated folks that government information circulates. On various occasions, it is the distorted version that reaches the masses. True, Tinubu’s major policies were intended to stabilise the economy, it is unlikely that the Lagos market women who sang Ebi n pa wa (We are hungry) knew about those policies and their implications. Similarly, many retailers interviewed in 2024 had no idea why prices went up and were distrustful of price decline with some items (When will prices begin to come down?, The Nation, April 17, 2024). The question is: How does government information reach the masses?

In an excellent comparative essay, the Director of New Media and Corporate Services for the All Progressives Congress, Bamidele Ademola-Olateju, outlined several ways in which the government could reach the masses, especially at times of economic distress like ours (Communication at a time of renewed hope, The Nation, June 25, 2025). She suggested weekly press briefings and monthly town-hall meetings. The only caveat about the comparative cases is the high literacy rate in those societies, where the vast majority of the population reads newspapers or watch the news.

In our situation, where ethnic and religious rivalries are rife, where at least 45 percent lives in rural areas, where the illiteracy rate is near 40 percent, where the poverty rate is near 70 percent, where insecurity is high, and where the political opposition is desperate, government communication strategies must be adapted to existing social, political, and economic realities.

Accordingly, there must be a four- or five-tiered communication pattern that targets different populations, some in English, the official language, and others in relevant local languages. The different strands in the pattern will be explored next week.

July 16, 2025
The Muhammadu Buhari legacy

It is fashionable for Nigerian political official holders to invest time and resources on edifices and infrastructure they grandiosely dub ‘legacy projects.’ Their hope is that future generations would remember them positively for the brick and mortar monstrosities they left behind.

Ancient Greece and Rome also had grand edifices which are just ruins today. What has endured from those civilisations are the idea of democracy and the concept of republican rule.

We see in the Muhammadu Buhari transition, that the greatest legacy may be the noble character of an individual that a nation can look to as a compass.

Amid the deluge of tributes to the late president, a recurring reference has been to his integrity and aversion to corruption. This is rare in a nation when public office is a tried and tested route to unbelievable wealth; where occupants of powerful positions quickly acquire outsize egos in addition to wealth of questionable origin.

Despite spending the better part of his working life in public service – occupying some of the most ‘juicy’ positions in government – he managed to remain ‘poor’ in comparison with his peers.

This was a man who once superintended the Petroleum Ministry and never managed to soil his hands in the tricky business of dispensing oil wells. No scandal arising from mismanagement of public funds successfully attached itself to him. Little wonder he could, with much credibility, offer on multiple occasions to be an agent for cleansing the rot in the land. His consistency caused him to become known as Mai Gaskiya, Hausa for the honest or truthful one.

Aside his rejection of corruption, he was known as a stickler for discipline. An older generation of Nigerians would be familiar with how in the early 80s he and his side kick, Brigadier General Tunde Idiagbon, tried to remake the nation in their image. Their ‘War Against Indiscipline’ (WAI) crusade sought to whip into line a boisterous and unruly populace who had turned their country into some African version of the Wild, Wild West. That project was akin to forcing unwilling horses to the stream: they just refused to drink.

No surprise, therefore, that Buhari’s military colleagues, uncomfortable with his spartan rigidity, conspired and toppled him. His downfall was a breath of fresh air for an elite and general population that longed for a return to corruption and lawlessness. The stern general would spend the next couple of years cooling his heels under house arrest while his compatriots rushed back to business as usual.

Read Also: Buhari worked to ensure unity of Nigeria – Ex-IGP Okiro

While the nation returned to its accustomed debauchery, he retreated into his shell – hardly ever interfering in the scheming successor regime of President Ibrahim Babangida. He would briefly reappear in the public eye when the General Sani Abacha administration wanted a respected figure to oversee the management of the Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund (PTF). This was an aggregation of revenue from removal of subsidies and an increase in fuel price. The proceeds were to be invested in infrastructure projects across the country. The jury is still out on how equitably the projects were distributed, but there was no question that people could see where the money had gone.

One curious thing about Buhari is how he transformed from this stern, unsmiling military ruler into a man beloved of his people once he exchanged his fatigues for civvies. I presume it’s because they could compare this unassuming individual with a spartan lifestyle – despite the opportunities he had for self enrichment – to the demi-gods in power gorging themselves from our commonwealth.

As public outcry rose with the unveiling of some new, mind boggling financial scandal, the Buhari mystique grew. His cleanliness became a stark alternative to the rank smell of graft in high places. More and more, people began playing with the idea of, once again, entrusting power to a man they once feared.

This sentiment wasn’t universally shared among the elite. It is well reported that many within the powerful Northern ruling class admonished leading promoters of the nascent All Progressives Congress (APC) to drop the idea of enthroning Buhari as president. Their lobbying came to nothing in the face of unstoppable historical forces.

If people keep talking about the man’s unique attributes, it’s not because he lacks achievements in the indices by which success in political office is more commonly measured. The late president accomplished much in eight years. He built the landmark Second Niger Bridge connecting the rest of the country to the Southeast. This was after several false starts by preceding administrations. He got trains running across the country, modernised the military and rolled back the takeover of large swathes of territory by Boko Haram and other terrorists. His investment in growing local staples like rice are notable.

Like every leader, he disappointed in many areas. For while his personal integrity was never in doubt, the same couldn’t be said about leading figures in his government.

The late president was an uncommon political phenomenon; a man who always managed to attract around 12 million votes in every electoral cycle in his region.

He was truly the Nigerian equivalent of the ‘Teflon president.’ These types of individuals only appear once in a generation.

In life, he changed Nigerian politics – becoming the only opposition candidate to defeat an incumbent president. Even out of office, without aspiring to become some sort of Olusegun Obasanjo type of godfather or power broker, he continued to influence things. Politicians from APC and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) beat the bush path to his Kaduna redoubt seeking blessings for the looming 2027 battles. The likes of former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, made a song and dance about consulting him before defecting.

But at core Buhari was an honourable man. He quickly distanced himself from any suggestion that he would work against a house he had built, or undermine Tinubu whose support had made it possible for him to become president.

Now, he’s gone. Pretenders may think they can inherit the locked-in loyalty of his 12 million voters. They deceive themselves. There would only be one Muhammadu Buhari. His political family – the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) – would quietly dissolve with local strongmen asserting themselves over their fiefdoms.

It was already happening with the departure of the likes of El-Rufai and former Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, to the evolving African Democratic Congress (ADC). Reiterating their loyalty to APC and Tinubu are the wing led by former Katsina State Governor, Aminu Bello Masari and his erstwhile Nasarawa colleague, Umaru Tanko Al-Makura.

His exit makes Northern Nigeria open territory in the run up to the next elections. It becomes a field of opportunity for all players, with unique advantages for the incumbent president and his party. It would also expose the true strength of many who have been prancing about claiming to be heavyweights, when in reality they only rode on the back of the Buhari wave at each election.

The late president was loved to bits by his admirers, despised in equal measure by haters. He was a polarising figure not just for his political and religious views, but for his role as a senior officer during the civil war. That made him an object of suspicion in the Southeast despite his best efforts to court the region through picking the likes of the late Senate President, Chuba Okadigbo, as running mate at some point. Judging from reactions in the zone to his passing, he never became flavour of the month.

Think what you may of the man, Buhari was a giant whose life and actions have impacted Nigeria and would continue to do so. His critics would do well to remember that the work of nation building is never truly done. Now, the nitpickers have their opportunity to show they can do better.

July 16, 2025
2027 and premature obituaries

In 2013, when a stellar cast of opposition figures across the political spectrum, unveiled the All Progressives Congress (APC) as their platform to break the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) 16-year grip on power, then Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on Public Affairs, Doyin Okupe, reportedly invited people to ‘call me a bastard’ if the party survived one year.

Two years later, after his principal was dethroned at the ballot box, many Nigerians obliged him with name-calling. In April of 2015 he posted a clarification on Facebook. What he actually said was ‘I will change my name.’ Never mind. The import of his words was contemptuous dismissal of a band of politicians he felt didn’t stand a chance against the PDP behemoth.

Ever since former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and his collaborators announced the African Democratic Congress (ADC) as the vehicle they would use to challenge President Bola Tinubu in 2027, their action has been greeted with feverish political chatter – much of it pessimistic.

A couple of days ago, Special Adviser to the President on Public Communications, Daniel Bwala, predicted that the group would scatter in six months. He’s not the only one to take such a position. Many independent analysts have equally been sceptical about this patchwork of strange bedfellows.

While there is a surfeit of reasons not to take Atiku and his co-travellers seriously, it would be unwise for the ruling party, or even the main opposition PDP – who they seek to supplant – to do so.

First, let it be said that elections in Nigeria are not necessarily determined by reason, an abundance of good works or ideological clarity. Rather, many contests have been resolved by ethnicity, religion, emotion, personality and pecuniary factors.

All of these factors were in strong play in 2023 and many would still be there in two years. Who can forget the impact of the Muslim-Muslim or same faith ticket across large swathes of the South and Christian-dominated areas of the North? Who can forget the millions of votes that were garnered on account of ethnic or regional solidarity?

But the greatest reason why ADC – a me-too project that aims to reprise the APC experiment of 2015 – should be monitored by its rivals is the desperation factor. The opposition wilderness isn’t a place the typical Nigerian politician who has ever tasted power wants to be. And I use the word desperate more in an adjectival sense than pejoratively.

Read Also: Tinubu not distracted by 2027 election discourse, says Idris

Take ex-VP Atiku, for instance. There is a sense that this could be his last shot at the presidency given that he would be 80 in two years. Many expect him to run again – defying strident calls for the presidency to remain in the South on the basis of zoning.

But wouldn’t it be expecting too much to think he would now accept power rotation, when his rejection of the principle in 2023 led to his defeat at the polls? In all his comments after defeat, not once did he attribute his loss to a disastrous performance down South. Instead, he chose to blame Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) rigging and collusion with APC for his humbling.

It is possible that he may have had an awakening, realising that Southern sentiments which back a regional hold on the presidency till 2031 are still as strong as ever. In that event, he could choose not to run and back a candidate from the same region as Tinubu just to spite him.

The smart money, however, believes the serial contestant would make the same old noises about competence, his constitutional right to aspire and the democratic imperative of open primaries – and by so doing torpedo this latest contraption. Indeed, some believe it’s his creation for one final push for the presidency.

The other indication of desperation is that even before ADC has been able to identify what it stands for, Atiku’s would-be rivals are already offering to serve just one term of four years.

It’s not for nothing that the framers of our constitution provided for two terms of four years. It could be that they understood that not much can be achieved in the initial period when incumbents are busy paying political IOUs and are too wary to take adventurous steps.

Whether they are governors or presidents, many who have held office since 1999 were careful not to alienate those they needed to secure a second tenure. That’s why the pledges by former Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi and ex-Transport Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, to serve just one term, have been met with mockery.

Their offer isn’t because both possess magic wands. It isn’t something driven by altruism but by a desperate realisation that the window of opportunity is closing. If they don’t get the ticket this time, in four years it returns to the North for another eight years. That is to say power won’t rotate down South again until 2039 – by which time Obi would be 78, Amaechi 74, and irrelevant in most political calculations.

What is looming is the retirement of a generation of politicians who have been active for the last four decades. For them, the fear of irrelevance is a powerful motivational factor. It’s akin to what drives a cornered animal to fight for survival.

While the desire for relevance may be pushing many to ADC, their flight is also fuelled by the assumption that PDP is done for. But anyone who understands the power of incumbency in determining electoral outcomes in these parts knows that people may be writing premature obituaries.

So far, the much-hyped ADC is just a congregation of ex-this, ex-this – many exhumed from deep retirement. At inception, the legacy parties that formed APC had 11 governors. This number rose to 16 in November 2013 when five PDP governors broke away to join them.

The same group that had sneered at the defection of Delta’s Sheriff Oborevwori and Akwa Ibom’s Umo Eno, to ruling party, saying the next elections would be between ‘Nigerians’ and the incumbent, are desperately searching these type of defectors. We’ve also been reminded about how Obi secured six million votes without a governor on his side. Sure, but see where it got him.

There’s no question that like most incumbent administrations, Tinubu’s government is in for a tough fight. Unlike two years ago, it now has a record that opponents can savage and voters assess. What makes it more difficult is the deep cynicism and polarisation within the polity. He faces foes who are unwilling to acknowledge that he has achieved anything in two years – even in the face of evidence.

He took the risky gambit of picking hot potatoes that his predecessors fled from. It would be his challenge to reassure the electorate that the bitter medicine has been worthwhile. It’s a tough sales pitch but not an impossible one.

On the positive side, he’s been able to neutralise a lot of the demonisation that polluted the voting climate last time. For instance, by his appointments and governance style he’s been able to banish the Muslim-Muslim bugbear, making it a non-factor going forward. After all the talk, Nigeria hasn’t been Islamised.

He was painted as ill and bedridden. But the same man has been crisscrossing country and globe, so much so that his foreign travels have become a point of opposition attack.

Those among his foes who have been excitedly writing him off on account of economic challenges forget that he won last time amid similar turmoil.

In 2015 an incumbent was beaten because there was a united effort that brought together all the major opposition parties root and branch. The copycat bid of 2025 doesn’t come close. PDP, LP and APGA would still go into the next elections in current form, only to be joined by the nascent ADC to further fragment the votes of those want to unseat the incumbent. This was the undoing of the opposition in 2023. The more things change the more they remain the same!

July 9, 2025
Time and culture

You do not have to be an anthropologist to know that culture is not static. Rather, it is dynamic. Every aspect of culture changes from time to time but at an unpredictable rate. Depending on the stimulus, some aspects change slowly over time, others extremely fast. What is frightening about cultural change in Nigeria today is the quantity and quality of change and the effects, both positive and negative, on extant social, political, and economic practices.

Changes to the body and appearance

Let’s begin with physical appearance. For those who are 60 years or older, there are many noticeable features in the appearance of today’s youths, some of which attract jaw-dropping reactions. “Look at this young man, Prof,” said a fellow octogenarian to me as we waited in the Departure Lounge in Warri for a flight to Lagos. The boy in question had two distinguishing features: his hair was braided like that of a woman, while his girlfriend wore a yellow wig on her head, with the “hair” drooping over her shoulders. As my friend and I continued our conversation, more youths boarded the plane until over half of the passengers were young men and women mostly under 30. In addition to braided hair and coloured wigs, there were differently shaped beards and more wig colours.

As we focused on the girls, we noticed unusually rounded butts and hips, protruding backwards and sideways. I was told they wore butt and hip pads for enhancement. The pads are filled with silicon. Many wore similar enhancements to round out their breasts. In certain cases, the enhancement pushed up half or more of the breasts which made them look like they were about to pop out. Some cared less about breast enhancement than about how much of their breasts were exposed. They wore V- or U-shaped vests that exposed as much of their breasts as you cared to look. The craze for bodily enhancement has generated many customers for cosmetic surgeons, who pump the silicon into butts and hips. I am told some girls even enhance their lips!

What we observed at the Warri airport led me into deeper reflections on widespread cultural change among Nigerian youths, using Yoruba youths as a reference point. My mind went straight to women’s gele (headgear) and the new makeup tradition. A billion Naira industry has developed, consisting of itinerant makeup artists, who beautify women’s faces and tie their headgear for social occasions, such as weddings, birthdays, and funeral ceremonies. I understand that ready-made gele is now in the market.

I also recalled the traditional Yoruba sooro and buba, which our young men have reduced into tight-fitting outfit in the direction of English trouser and shirt. Even the traditional voluminous agbada has been reduced in size by the youths. The result is that the extra volume flowing beyond the hands is no longer there to wrap around the shoulders for fashion effect.

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Music and pop culture

For today’s Yoruba musicians, music is about rhythm, not about lyrics. True, youths sing along with the musicians, but there’s nothing about philosophy, culture, or history in the songs. Octogenarians like me cannot but be nostalgic about the musicians of our time: Fatai Rolling Dollars; Adeolu Akinsanya (Baba Eto); Ebenezer Obey; Sunny Ade; Dele Abiodun; Orlando Owomoyela (popularly known as Orlando Owoh), and, of course, the Afro King himself, Fela Anikulapo Kuti. They produced historical, cultural, political, and philosophical songs you remember and learn from. The scanty lyrics of today’s music are about self, sex, money, and other material things. Their cultural basis is not the Yoruba that I know.

Change in attitude and value orientation

Traditional values of community and respect for elders have given way to emphasis on individuality. Hard work is no longer considered the best path to wealth accumulation and material possessions.

Change agents

This leads to the drivers of cultural change in contemporary Nigeria. In the forefront is the intertwined influence of globalisation, modernisation, and the technologies of communication. Interactions with other cultures have been influenced by these factors more than ever before. In particular, American pop culture and the American dollar are global currencies. American pop culture has had the greatest influence on Nigerian musicians. American musicians and some sports icons are also among the drivers of dress change and bodily practices—beard, plaited hair, and clothing style—among Nigerian musicians and youths in general.

Another driver of change is corruption and the material orientation of the society, led by the political class. Corruption erodes necessary support for educational institutions, which are the grooming ground for the youths. In the absence of necessary tools for learning, most of the youths pass through the system with little or no skills to sustain them after graduation. While in school, many join gangs and Yahoo groups, while others engage in other deviant practices. In the absence of employment, they engage in more deviant practices or professionalise the ones they carried over from school.

For many of them, social media provides a means of escape. All they need is an adopted mentor and a target of abuse on X, Facebook, and similar media. This was particularly evident during the 2023 presidential election, when Peter Obi’s Obidients (Obidiots) targeted his political opponents and whoever expressed a contrary opinion. Their behaviour manifested the erosion of values that social media promoted.

The point about culture is that it takes a life of its own once change sets in. You cannot stop it by legislation or coercion. Nigerian youths are on a course of change that may consume the whole nation in a few decades when my generation and the one after me are long gone. The social practices at that time will be regarded as the culture of the people.

July 2, 2025
Wanted: ‘Quarterly Audits with Consequences’

The Senate Committee on Public Accounts is belatedly querying NNPCL and its predecessor NNPC over audit discrepancy queries for 2017-2023 amounting to N210 trillion -N210,000,000,000,000. Assuming a realistic Nigerian population of 160m, 160,000,000 not the much boasted but questionable 200m+, that is N210trillion divided by 160m i.e. N1,312,500/per Nigerian or N187,464/year/Nigerian. It is fraudulent and disgraceful and speaks volumes that the 2017,2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 audits were not done or dealt with as and when due WITH CONSEQUENCES. Is the 2024 Audit also ongoing? There is also a Police probe over N50b.

There is no Ministry, Agency and Department, MAD, and Corporate ‘Fear of Audits’. But there is Corporate ‘Fear of Audits with Consequences’. Such ‘Consequences’ must include public disgrace, appointment termination, demotions, return of funds and prosecutions/jail terms. This fear is a tool to help prevent fraud and misuse or abuse of funds.

Nigerians are tired of often fruitless but very costly media circus lawyer-led frenzy and multi-year consuming EFCC, ICPC-led chases through endless smiley-lawyer courts to recover billions or trillions of already stolen people’s funds all made useless by the naira crash. Look at the ex-CBN banker demanding reversal of court ordered forfeiture of the estate with 753duplex i.e. 1506 actual homes. Think what that money, if ‘unstolen’ in the first place, would have done in the education and child and mother care of Nigerians, many now dead, deprived or suffering.

‘AUDITS WITH CONSEQUENCES’ IN GOVERNMENT AGENCIES SHOULD BE QUARTERLY, EVERY THREE MONTHS, AND ADDED TOGETHER AT YEAR END AND MADE READY BY MARCH THE FOLLOWING YEAR.

It is quite distressing to the general population to see the huge press coverage given to the slightest information, misinformation or deliberate rumour, true or false, about any politician. At the end of the day, these stories have little or no positive impact on the individual citizen. Entertaining politics, political shenanigans and politicians take up too much of our media space.

Meanwhile, there is hardly ever any assessment of the contribution of the politician to the development landscape. The media would be better concentrating on performance than on the glitz and glamour of political life provided at the expense of the poor citizens. In addition to information of how many wristwatches, cars and houses a particular politician owns, we expect a report of the contribution that particular politician to the development of the society.

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As we move through 2025 and into 2026, politicians and the press seem to have cancelled that period from the political calendar and are now vocal about 2027. This is the beginning of a repeat of past mistakes culminating in the shutting down of governance for one year pre-election. We cannot allow this to happen between July 2025 and 2027. The poor citizens suffering in IDP camps, driven from homes and farmlands, without jobs, without a school cannot afford for politicians to take a sabbatical year off their development responsibility just to raise an ‘election war chest’ for an election campaign. Nigerians have suffered too much from such ‘Time out’ periods.

Politicians must work out the best way of continuing their political ambitions while continuing to work the machinery of development for the entire elected period, without disrupting the growth of infrastructure or truncating the dreams and the delivery to the citizenry of progress. There is too much for politicians to do for them to take their eye off the people’s needs. And besides, the politicians can hold up the achievements in 2026 to increase their chances of winning the election in 2027 on merit not money.

POLITICIANS: WORK TILL YOUR LAST DAY IN OFFICE AS IT MAY JUST BE YOUR LAST DAY IN OFFICE IF YOU ARE NOT RE-ELECTED…and then Judgement Day. Of course, politicians should further their careers. However, by taking the fat salaries per month they cannot stop working for development for one year or more pre-election. If you take the money, do the work every month. Nigeria cannot afford to pay politicians huge amounts of funds and ‘Salaries And Perks’ only to have large numbers of them take a year off with nothing tangible done, just to try to win the next elections.

President Tinubu has had his New Tax Laws agreed and has signed into law after several months of wrangling. They come into force January 1, 2026 and suggest a very cerebral approach to prevent over-taxation, double taxation and puts more money in the pockets of poor and low-income workers, considering the poor naira value. There is no increase in VAT which remains at 7.5% though it could have gone to 10% for upper class consumptive products like food, clothing, cars and expensive drinks and perfumes. There were vicious objections in area of VAT distribution especially between VAT-generating states and VAT consumer states. There will be VAT exemptions for low-income workers and lower taxes for medium income workers and reduction in tax in certain productive areas like agriculture and an introduction of redistribution of VAT proceeds.

This will introduce a huge responsibility on tax authorities and the citizenry. A lot will depend on the patriotism and subsequent honesty of the citizenry, accountancy firms and tax officials. The Bible singled out judges and tax officials for special prayers to enable them to avoid temptation. How have times, opinions and practical aspects in these areas changed over 2000 years? Only time will tell.

July 2, 2025
Put ‘sickle cell awareness’ in primary school curriculum

International medicine. The UK has introduced ‘Assisted Death’ for terminally ill and pain-ridden patients leading miserable terminal days. This means more control over Date of Death (DOD). In Nigeria, ‘terrorists’ inflict premature DOD on hundreds of healthy Fellow Nigerians in Plateau and Benue and Nasarawa states with vicious and callous regularity. Nigeria, where is your security as you retire over 400 senior officers in wartime? Too many Nigerians die from the disease ‘lack of adequate government security’.

Elsewhere a billionaire had six ‘biological children and ‘had’ a further 100 children ‘fathered indirectly’ by him through sperm bank donations. Magnanimously, he has arranged a will equally favouring all of them amounting to $132m each. Fair!

Already there are stem cell and gene manipulation methods to eliminate abnormal genes like sickle cell and other ‘bad’ genes from our babies, pre-birth or at birth or later. There are many inherited disorders causing a very heavy burden on families. Soon it will be possible to prolong natural life, eliminate many diseases and even unwanted societal ‘no-no’ traits like inherited perceived stature, weight, facial ‘imperfections’. In Nigeria, we still grapple with malaria and typhoid and cholera, non-gene problems.

The SICKLE CELL TRAIT is our most common genetic abnormality in Nigeria and especially in Western Nigeria occurring in about 25% the population. Not all of them get sick. Only the ones with SS are prone to more life-threatening sickness and SC will have less sickness. The AS and AC are never sickle cell sick but may occasionally have blood in the urine from exercise.

If you have ever known the suffering of a sickle cell patient, you will appreciate the need to prevent your children getting Sickle Cell Disease. At nine, in the early 60s, I lost a six-year old cousin, Isho in a Yaba Lagos Flat. I sat wondering why someone playing football with me two hours before, was said by my father, a doctor and his uncle, to have died aka ‘gone to fill a vacancy in heaven’. Many years later as a registrar in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in UCH, Ibadan, I was devastated when informed that Isho’s senior sister, Yetunde had died in childbirth in Lagos. They both had Sickle Cell Disease.

Of course there are more and more SCD patients surviving longer, but many more did not. Since then, many good citizens and organisation have combatted SCD through many other avenues including the Sickel Cell Foundation, Educare Trust, UCH Sickel Cell clinic etc and improved government medical facilities etc, to prevent and to care for those with Sickle Cell Disease.

The sickle cell rate remains high despite the efforts by many including Educare Trust to educate, empower and encourage our youth to ask when meeting the opposite sex not only ‘what is your name?’ but to ask instead, ‘WHAT IS YOUR NAME AND WHAT IS YOUR BLOOD GENOTYPE’ . They should then only make amorous moves in cases where they are compatible. HB, AA, GENOTYPE is free to fall in love and have SS and SC free babies with anyone even SS. Those with AS AND AC SHOULD NOT RISK falling in love with AS, AC OR SS OR SC partners if they want to totally prevent the SCD in their future family. The Sickle Cell gene is believed to protective against severity of malaria but we have anti-malarials for that now.

EACH OF OUR YOUTH SHOULD BE ASKED AND ASK OF EACH OTHER ‘IS LOVE WORTH THE RISKING SICKLE CELL DISEASE?’ Please AI research ‘SCD COMPLICATIONS’ which include misery, bone and abdominal pains, ulcers and deformities, blood flow crises, eye diseases and many days and months off school and work, limiting education and work opportunities. Sickle Cell Disease is not a political football. SICKE CELL DISEASE CAUSES PREVENTABLE DISEASES AND DEATH, debilitating the victims and their families. But all is not lost. YOU CAN SAVE A SICKLE CELL LIFE!

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Nigeria’s primary, secondary and tertiary curricula must have sickle cell maths/logic, medicine, socio-economic impact lessons. Millions leave school, abandoning ‘formal learning’ after just primary school. Therefore, it is not nuclear physics to logically introduce ‘SICKLE CELL LOGIC’ INTO THE NIGERIAN PRIMARY SCHOOL CURRICULUM WITH RELATED COMPULSORY QUESTIONS IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL LEAVING CERTIFICATE AND COMMON ENTRANCE and added to with at higher knowledge content at secondary and all tertiary courses and subjects from Accountancy to Zoology and General Paper in all universities.

Despite a National Health Insurance Service, NHIS and various state HIS organisations, few offer free service to the sickle cell population. They are now joined by Adekunle Gold and his AG Foundation’s five star care programme offering free health insurance cover for 1000 sickle cell children with LASHMA AND SAMI -Sickle Cell Advocacy and Management Initiative. HURRAY. God Bless AG and all teams involved.

A FREE SICKLE CELL TEST & CERTIFICATE SHOULD BE MANDATORY FOR ALL VULNERABLE CHILDREN.

THE UK’s NHS is about to ‘DNA screen’ all new-born babies for hundreds of illnesses which can be prevented by genetic modification treatments thus reducing or eliminating millions of hospital visits and bed occupancy days, countless medicine prescriptions and ‘missed work’ for illness. Serious ethical and data theft issues exist around discussing such results with the child’s family members. Should information be revealed pre-marriage to potential spouses and in-law families who may reject the individual if there is a potential for future severe or life-shortening disease. Medical ethical questions for the future.

June 25, 2025
2027 coalitions and collisions

The undeclared kick-off of the 2027 general election campaign is something of a false start. It’s a start nonetheless – one laden with boasts, bluster and outright threats. To be fair, the stuff isn’t just coming from one direction: the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and those who would love to oust it, are giving as good as they get.

Last weekend, the party’s high command descended on Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, to formally receive Governor Umo Eno, who had finally executed his oft-threatened exit from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Everyone from Vice President Kashim Shettima to the party’s entire slate of governors was present.

The state is home turf for Senate President Godswill Akpabio who was once its governor. Naturally, he was in his element celebrating the bloodless coup that further enfeebled the main opposition party. Akwa Ibom, like most states in the South-South zone, was until recently died-in-the-wool PDP territory. So, it was no mean feat that the entire structure of the governing party would dissolve overnight into enemy camp without resistance.

While applauding Eno for making the right political choice, Akpabio suggested governors of Bayelsa and Rivers would soon follow. It wasn’t the appeal of a suitor; it was a statement delivered with the certainty of a prophet. Were his prophecy to be fulfilled, not too many would be surprised given that stranger things have been happening lately.

The punch-drunk PDP didn’t have much of a response to the loss of another heavyweight from within its ranks. It was probably too preoccupied trying to identify which of many claimants was its rightful National Secretary to worry about the rising number of rats fleeing its listing ship.

With its 10 governors, 36 senators and 118 members of the House of Representatives, it remains, on paper, the preeminent opposition party. But it’s a measure of how low its stock has sunk that some of its leading lights like former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and ex-Senate President David Mark are among sponsors of the yet-to-be-registered All Democratic Alliance (ADA).

By their actions and utterances, the two men have written off PDP as a viable vehicle for prosecuting the 2027 election. Atiku has been arguing for months that the only way President Bola Tinubu and APC can be defeated at the next polls is for all opposition platforms to come together. Mark has been less voluble but no less committed to the cause.

Unfortunately for Atiku, his passion for defeating his one-time ally by all means necessary is not shared by PDP governors who have declared they won’t touch his coalition with a ten-foot pole. This is a significant disagreement which suggests that those who now control the party are unlikely to make the former VP flag bearer given he’s lost faith in the platform. It’s also a pointer that he could yet exit to actualise his ambitions elsewhere.

Although it remains very much work in progress, what the coalition, or a likely new party, lacks in terms of membership or office holders, it makes up for with bluster and threats. In the face of every setback dealt the opposition by way of high profile defections to the ruling party, its boosters head for television talk shows to offload incendiary interviews.

Former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, was at it again this week, regurgitating the same talking points. Apparently, he and his confederates had been conducting opinion polls which claim Tinubu had less than 10% approval in every corner of the country.

For a man of his intellect and sophistication, this faith in his “scientific” polls is touching. Beyond offering comfort to he and his co-conspirators, El-Rufai should treat polls and pollsters with a healthy dose of caution. For one thing, their reputation isn’t what it used to be after they misfired badly in the 2016 Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump presidential contest.

For months last year they predicted a tight race between Kamala Harris and Trump – only for Election Day to reveal a chasm in support between the two candidates. What’s more, today’s polls may be meaningless in two years when actual voting would be taking place.

Truth is wise men don’t rush to conclusions on the strength of dodgy opinion polls – especially in a country as unpredictable as Nigeria. If tough economic conditions were the only determinant of electoral success or failure in these parts, then Tinubu wouldn’t be president given the state of the nation between January and February 2023.

Another noisy figure in the nascent opposition platform is one-time Foreign Minister and former Jigawa State Governor, Sule Lamido. What can be gleaned from his regular utterances is his readiness to join any grouping that can remove the incumbent from office.

While the focus of these individuals is clear, how to transit from dreaming to reality has become a giant obstacle. For all their hot air, the would-be coalition hasn’t done much to inspire confidence about their project within the political class and in the wider polity. They can’t even agree on how to proceed.

At the onset, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) was touted as their platform of choice. El-Rufai announced his defection there with much fanfare. But their ardour for the arrangement cooled rapidly. The party’s National Secretary, Dr. Olu Agunloye, now describes his would-be collaborators as “confused people” who are only interested in taking over.

Former presidential adviser turned critic, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, has been equally unsparing, describing the coalition’s promoters as only concerned with being the face of project. Just as many had predicted, a collision of egos and ambitions is already playing out.

Baba-Ahmed laments that even before getting out of the starting block, Nigeria’s latest set of would-be saviours have blown the opportunity of offering a credible challenge to the administration.

“The most important thing they’re doing wrong is putting themselves forward,” he said on Arise TV. “It’s a coalition of a few politicians who hope that they can arrive at some understanding and then open the door and say, ‘ok, fellow Nigerians, we’ve agreed. This one will be this, and this one will be that, and you can now come in.’

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“It’s the wrong way about it. None of these people should lead or be seen in a position where they’re determining who should be in that coalition. They can work behind the scenes. What they need is a generational shift and a political shift away from who they are, what they’ve done, what they want to do, to a different set of Nigerians who can give Nigerians hope.

“These are not the people who are saying, give us trust. Trust us again to solve the problems that the APC is creating. This is the wrong thing. And it’s very difficult to convince politicians that Nigerians can see through you. They don’t have faith that you actually represent a future, a different future from this government. You just want to replace President Tinubu.”

Put differently, those offering change are as stale as they come, laden with all sorts of unattractive baggage. Virtually all have been active participants in making Nigeria what it is today. That’s why their project is having difficulty scaling the credibility hurdle.

It’s often said you don’t get a second chance to make the first impression. What those who claim to be speaking for the coalition have succeeded in doing so far is projecting vengeance and retribution, as well as the promotion of the interests of a section of the country, as their agenda.

Bitterness and outpouring of venom against the incumbent president is no alternative to providing voters an alternative governance vision. All we hear is “we must remove Tinubu.” If that’s all Atiku, El-Rufai and company have to offer, they are set for a rude collision with reality in the not-too distant future.

June 25, 2025
Communication at a time of renewed hope

The Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci pointed out that the main essence of political action is to determine the course of the discourse in favor of your own project. Today, Nigeria is witnessing unprecedented, profound change. It is dislocating and must be explained to the public in a multi-ethnic and multilingual state as to why this painful but necessary adjustment has to be made.

Much of government communication today appears to be directed at literate people. Unfortunately, this is not the issue. The government must direct the message at the hoi polloi – the traders, the artisans, workers’ unions, students, street hawkers, and so on. The key point in directing the territory of the discourse at those outside the elite group is to convince the grassroots, the base, to accept government policy, despite temporary dislocation and pain. The message should be about why this temporary pain will in the long-term benefit all of us and our families.

What the government needs to do today is to emulate Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who, in getting into office in 1964 and facing a devastating economic outlook, appointed one of the youngest Britain’s professor of economics to explain the economic crisis to the public. The key point here is that Professor Balogh, from Balliol College, Oxford University (not Babe College London University), was not a media person per se, but he could explain and enlighten the hoi polloi as to why the crisis arose and why the government had to respond in ways that may, at first look, seem harsh and punitive. At the time, his appeal was not to the elite but to explain the economic crisis to those who were disaffected, those with very low levels of education, and those who now saw the crisis as a punitive tax on the least protected sectors.

He did his job with aplomb.

President Tinubu’s media team will do well by studying how the United Kingdom Labour government of 1964 managed the economic crisis, and won re-election by a landslide in 1966 to learn how to explain an economic crisis in a way that will favor the government’s own position. This is important. The grave economic situation President Tinubu inherited, necessitating the current measures, has not been explained to the overwhelming majority, and the disaffection is getting pronounced. People are experiencing a massive erosion in their cost of living, in their standards of living. As one pundit has said, “We no longer have a cost of living crisis,” but rather, “a cost of existence crisis.” Therefore, we must note that the government did not cause the economic crisis, but it must explain its way out of it and show how things will gradually get better for future generations yet unborn. The key issue here is that the government itself must stop being reactive and be preemptive, by anticipating what the naysayers and the opposition might say about any government policy.

There have been a lot of particularly good government policies, such as the student loans and so forth, but they have not been explained with the clarity of how they benefit the overwhelming majority in the way that they ought to have been. Politics, as Machiavelli said, is about “the law of constant reminders.” The government must constantly remind the audience of the positive changes that are already in place. After two years in the saddle, the law of constant reminders is of extreme importance, and urgency in directing public acceptance of government policy and acceptance of the government itself.

Therefore, the two key strategies now must be “preemptive” and understanding the law of constant reminders, which is that the government’s own positive bearing in a difficult climate must be constantly explained in simple language to give the public the impression that things are getting better and will continue to get better.

The format also needs to be legitimate. As the late, much-revered Canadian communications expert Marshall McLuhan pointed out decades ago, “the medium is the message.” A new framework has to be drawn up of weekly press briefings, not press conferences, to present the economic message in simple terms with background graphics and data analysis in a humorous and enlightening way that can capture and captivate the audience at the same time, with the presumption that the audience has only a junior secondary school-type education.

This should be followed up with monthly town hall meetings across the six geopolitical zones, in which the message is presented with clarity in ways that can be understood by the overwhelming majority.

A good exponent of this kind of format was Charles de Gaulle, as President of the French Republic. He held press conferences explaining the dilemma of the Republic in ways which looked, in many instances, like pure theater. People loved watching them on television; there were live audiences, and there were a lot of things that were stage-managed to favor the perception of the government not as cruel but as caring and working towards a better future for all.

The entire format of government presentation must be rejigged. What obtains now is out of sequence with today’s 24/7 social media news cycle. It is too reactive; it must dictate and direct the terrain of thinking, thought, and action in favor of continuing momentum to gain support for the government.

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The government must be wary, because another example for the United Kingdom is that of John Major. He was a good Prime Minister, but he never really had a communications team to explain the very important gains that were being made under his government. He ended up losing by a landslide to Tony Blair. A better alternative is to look back at the past, to the intervention of President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he took over as president in the midst of a terrible economic crisis in 1932, in which Americans were eating out of the dustbin. In addition, we can borrow a leaf from the public presentation of policies by the Labour government in the United Kingdom in 1945, when the welfare state was created against opposition, but in which they carried the majority of the people with them.

The government must now be proactive, preemptive, and realize that a lot of fine-tuning has got to be made in the presentation of policies in order to rally the republic behind its own good intentions. We must now not just look at public policy as good intentions but present them in a way that people will accept that, yes, there’s temporary pain, but things are getting better in the direction of helping myself, my children, and generations yet unborn.

In the reality of today, we must not only look at geopolitical, ethnic, and religious disparities in tailoring messages to specific locations, but we must also begin to look at subgroups and social cleavages, such as age and gender. Pinpointing specific messages and formats, for example, to the informal sector and even sub-groups within the informal sector, is crucial. We need to explain why all these are a benefit to them.

The days of looking at the public as one whole are out of the question. We must now put together several specific groups and tailor messages towards encouraging them and steering them towards accepting government policy and, indeed, gradually becoming supporters and, in the end, enthusiastic supporters of the government. The work is very clear-cut.

The spokespersons of the government must see Nigerian as a fragmented population which must be rallied in a republic. to use the phrase must associated with President Charles De Gaulle . Tailor made messages must now be targeted at focus – groups and sub – divisions. This must be the way to revive and reinfigorate the communication strategy and strengthen the perception that all of these is to make tomorrow better.

Bamidele Ademola-Olateju, a former Ondo Commissioner for Information, is Director of New Media and Corporate Communications for the All Progressives Congress (APC)

June 25, 2025