The Nation Newspaper

Category: Commentaries

  • Charcoal wealth, environmental poverty

    Charcoal wealth, environmental poverty

    • By Aliyu Abubakar Bello

    Sir: Across rural Nigeria today, the charcoal business is booming. It has become a livelihood embraced by the young and the old, men and women alike. It knows no gender, no age bracket, and no boundary. For many families, charcoal production has transformed into a reliable source of income in the face of limited economic opportunities. While the dignity of earning an honest living deserves recognition, the ecological cost of this thriving trade is alarmingly catastrophic.

    Trees are being felled indiscriminately and in record numbers, often without replacement, regulation, or long-term planning. Forests that once stood as guardians of life are disappearing silently, reduced to smoke and ash. Worse still, charcoal is no longer consumed locally alone; it is now being exported in large quantities, accelerating deforestation at a pace far beyond natural recovery. What appears to be short-term economic gain is, in reality, a long-term environmental disaster unfolding before our very eyes.

    Trees are not mere plants; they are life-support systems for humanity. They provide shade and shelter, serve as sources of traditional and modern medicine, and supply raw materials for furniture, construction, paper, and countless industrial uses. They combat climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen, purify the air we breathe, prevent soil erosion, restore soil fertility, protect watersheds, regulate rainfall patterns, and serve as a formidable barrier against desertification.

    Above all, trees sustain the delicate balance of life on earth.

    It was therefore with immense joy and renewed hope that I received the announcement by the governor of Niger State, Umar Bago, on the launch of a massive tree-planting initiative. This bold step stands as a shining example of visionary leadership—one that recognizes that environmental sustainability is not optional but existential.

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    However, isolated efforts, no matter how commendable, are not enough. The federal government, state governments, and local governments must collaborate urgently and deliberately on a nationwide tree-planting and forest regeneration programme. This project should be institutionalized, well-funded, and continuously supervised at federal and state levels, with local governments strategically tasked with grassroots implementation and monitoring.

    Economically important and fast-growing tree species—those valuable for timber, energy, medicine, fruit production, and environmental protection—must be given top priority. If properly managed, forestry can evolve into a renewable economic powerhouse capable of creating millions of jobs, generating sustainable revenue, ensuring energy security, and, in the nearest future, even rivalling oil as a strategic national resource.

    Nigeria stands at a critical crossroads. We can continue to burn our forests for charcoal and export our ecological future, or we can invest wisely in trees and export sustainability, prosperity, and life itself. The choice we make today will define the air our children breathe tomorrow.

    •Aliyu Abubakar Bello

    Dorayi, Kano.

  • Elders and illicit drugs

    Elders and illicit drugs

    • By Tosin Damola

    Sir: In many African societies, elders are traditionally regarded as custodians of culture, ethics, and good conduct. A woman aged 60 and above is often seen as a mother, grandmother, adviser, and moral compass to younger ones. When someone at that age is linked to criminal activity, it sends a deeply unsettling message: that age and experience no longer guarantee moral uprightness. This represents a troubling breakdown of long-held societal expectations and responsibilities.

    It is particularly disheartening to witness the involvement of elderly persons—both men and women—in the distribution of illicit substances. The situation becomes even more alarming when those who should be warning the young against crime are instead being arrested for the very acts they ought to condemn. Such developments suggest that greed and moral compromise are increasingly overtaking conscience.

    The recent arrest of a 65-year-old woman popularly known as “Mama Kerosine” by NDLEA in Ibadan, Oyo State, for alleged involvement in large-scale drug trafficking is a disturbing example. Beyond the crime itself, the incident raises serious questions about the erosion of values that once guided individuals, families, and communities. At an age when wisdom, restraint, and moral leadership are expected, she is instead accused of contributing to a menace that destroys lives and futures.

    This reality reinforces a painful truth: criminality cuts across all age brackets. When elders are implicated in crime, it weakens the moral foundation upon which society is built. Young people who observe such behaviour may begin to lose faith in honesty, dignity, and the value of hard work, believing that success can be achieved through any means.

    Reports of arrests carried out by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency in recent times further underscore this concern, with accounts of men and women in their 70s and even 80s apprehended for drug-related offences across different states. These cases confirm that old age neither excludes individuals from involvement in crime nor shields them from the consequences of the law.

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    While economic hardship and social pressure are often cited as reasons for criminal behaviour, such explanations cannot justify actions that endanger lives. Many Nigerians face similar challenges yet choose lawful paths of survival. When elders abandon morality under the excuse of hardship, they rob younger generations of the moral courage to endure difficulties with integrity.

    Although the efforts of law enforcement agencies in exposing and dismantling drug networks deserve recognition, arrests alone cannot cure moral decay. The deeper roots lie in weakened family values, eroded community structures, and declining accountability among elders. Moral decay flourishes where wrongdoing is excused, normalized, or ignored.

    Parents, guardians, religious leaders, and traditional authorities must rise to the challenge of restoring discipline and values. Elders, in particular, must remember that leadership is not defined by age or status alone, but by example. When moral failure occurs at the top, its consequences ripple through generations.

    The arrest of the 65-year-old woman is a sobering reminder that moral decline knows no age limit. It should serve as a wake-up call for collective reflection and action. Society must recommit to integrity, contentment, and social responsibility, reinforcing moral education at home, in schools, and within communities.

    A society that loses its moral compass ultimately risks losing its future.

    •Tosin Damola,

    Lokoja, Kogi State.

  • Make Armed Forces Remembrance Day public holiday

    Make Armed Forces Remembrance Day public holiday

    • By Fisayo Ajala PhD

    Sir: January 15 is celebrated annually as Nigerian Armed Forces Remembrance and Celebration Day (AFRD). This day honours the supreme price paid by fallen heroes of the Nigerian military. It recognizes the sacrifices of serving soldiers and veterans who have fought under challenging climatic, psychological, social, and physical conditions to protect and defend the territorial integrity of the Nigerian state. The date also marks the end of hostilities between the Nigerian state and the secessionist Republic of Biafra, following the latter’s surrender on January 15, 1970.

    While the AFRD has gained symbolic recognition among members of the Nigerian military community and the public, the activities associated with it remain mostly military in nature: ceremonial parades, official wreath-laying ceremonies, and events held in military barracks. For the average Nigerian citizen, it is just another national day lacking deep reflection, appreciation, or symbolic significance.

    Designating the AFRD as a national public holiday could enhance national unity during this time of growing social mistrust, insecurity, and division. It also has the potential to boost civilian-military relations. This is especially important given the strained relationship between the Nigerian military and its citizens, evidenced by human rights abuses committed by the military, many of which have occurred not only during the current democratic era but also date back to the decades of military rule in the country.

    Although AFRD is often viewed primarily as a military event, the effects of Nigeria’s various low-intensity armed conflicts have also impacted civilian communities, whose safety depends on military efforts. This supports transforming AFRD into a shared national celebration that extends beyond the military and includes civilians, whom the military is meant to protect. Therefore, a public holiday like AFRD, similar to the October 1 Independence Day celebrations, can foster a sense of national ownership, belonging, and unity. It can also encourage private and civil society groups to organize commemorative events through partnerships with established military charities such as the Nigerian Legion, the Retired Army, Navy and Air Force Officers Association (RANAO), the Defence and Police Officers Associations (DEPOWA), various Officers Wives Associations (OWA), the Military Wives Association (MIWA), and other social groups dedicated to protecting their interests.

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    Declaring the day a national holiday would promote public reflection and support for the sacrifices of Nigerian military families, including wives and children of serving officers and personnel, wives and caregivers of wounded soldiers and disabled veterans, widows of fallen heroes, veterans suffering from combat-related injuries, and other post-combat conditions. It would also inspire calls for greater accountability and transparency regarding the human costs of military operations and their effects on families and communities.

    A public holiday would also create an opportunity to draw more national attention to the needs of active soldiers and veterans, encourage policy discussions on veteran welfare and rehabilitation, and serve as a platform for fundraising and veteran-support initiatives, similar to practices in advanced militaries.

    Like other militaries with remembrance days, such as the United States (Veterans Day on November 11 and Memorial Day on the last Monday in May), the United Kingdom (Remembrance Sunday, observed annually on the second Sunday in November), and Ghana (Veterans Day on November 11), which all establish dedicated national holidays or nationwide observances to honour their fallen soldiers and veterans, Nigeria—with its history of civil war, a notable peacekeeping record, and ongoing internal security challenges—has even greater reason to do likewise.

    A national AFRD holiday would place Nigeria within this global tradition of respect and remembrance for its military.

    The AFRD deserves broader public and national celebration, beyond digital spaces and social media hashtags and posts, to extend further into civilian spaces and life across elementary, secondary, and tertiary institutions, government, religious and financial establishments, recreational and hospitality centres, and ultimately to the hearts of individual citizens instilling a shared sense of responsibility to honour and publicly commemorate the Armed Forces of Nigeria. The government should declare this day a national public holiday. This would serve to publicly celebrate the occasion, promote national appreciation for active soldiers and veterans, and honour the ultimate sacrifices made by fallen heroes defending the nation’s integrity and sovereignty.

    •Fisayo Ajala PhD,

    University of Bath, England.

  • America’s lost credibility will take a generation to rebuild

    America’s lost credibility will take a generation to rebuild

    By Ian Bremmer

    This will be a tipping-point year. The biggest source of global instability won’t be China, Russia, Iran, or any of the 60-odd conflicts burning across the planet (the most since World War II). It will be the United States.

    This conclusion runs throughout the Eurasia Group’s Top Risks 2026 report.

    The world’s most powerful country and architect of the postwar global order is now actively unwinding that order, led by a president who is more committed to, and capable of, reshaping America’s international role than any of his modern predecessors.

    Last weekend offered a preview of what this will mean in practice. After months of escalating pressure – sanctions, a massive naval deployment, and a full oil blockade – US special forces captured Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro in Caracas and flew him to New York City to face criminal charges.

    A dictator removed and brought to justice with no American casualties – it was President Donald Trump’s cleanest military win yet.

    Trump has already branded his approach to the Western Hemisphere the “Donroe Doctrine.”

    It is his version of President James Monroe’s 19th-century assertion of US primacy in the Americas.

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    But whereas Monroe warned European powers to stay out of America’s neighborhood, Trump is using military pressure, economic coercion, and personal score-settling to bend the region to his will. And he’s just getting started.

    The disturbing implications of a US president recklessly playing geopolitical monopoly.

    The spheres-of-influence framework

    “America First” isolationism this is not. Simultaneously, the US is becoming more, not less, entangled with Israel and various Gulf states.

    Trump’s willingness to strike Iran last year and meddle in European politics doesn’t exactly scream retrenchment, either.

    Nor does the spheres-of-influence framework fit what he is doing. That label implies that Trump is carving up the world with rival powers, each staying in their own lane.

    But his administration just sent Taiwan its largest-ever arms package, and its Indo-Pacific posture does not evince a desire to cede Asia to China.

    Trump’s foreign policy doesn’t run on traditional axes like allies versus adversaries, democracies versus autocracies, or strategic competition versus cooperation.

    If the answer is no, and you have something he wants, you are a target. If the answer is yes, you can probably cut a deal.

    A simpler calculus is at work: Can you hit back hard enough to hurt the man in charge?

    In the case of Venezuela, Trump wanted to topple Maduro, and there was nothing Maduro could do to stop him.

    He had no allies willing to act, no military capable of retaliating, and no leverage over anything Trump cared about. So, he was removed.

    Never mind that Venezuela’s entire regime structure remains intact, and that any transition to a stable democratic government will be messy, contested, and largely Venezuela’s to manage (or mismanage).

    Trump is content with Venezuela continuing to be run by the same repressive regime, as long as it agrees to do his bidding (indeed, he chose this arrangement over an opposition-led government).

    The law of the jungle

    The threat of “or else” appears to be working so far. Trump has just announced that Venezuela’s “new” authorities will hand over 30-50 million barrels of oil to the US, with the proceeds “controlled by me, as president.”

    Moreover, continued success in Venezuela, however narrowly defined, will embolden Trump to double down on this approach and push further – whether in Cuba, Colombia, Nicaragua, Mexico, or Greenland.

    On the other end of the spectrum is China. When Trump escalated tariffs last year, the Chinese retaliated with export restrictions on rare earths and critical minerals – essential ingredients for a broad array of 21st-century consumer and military products.

    With US vulnerabilities exposed, Trump was forced to back down. Now, he’s intent on maintaining détente and securing a deal at all costs.

    America is unilaterally exercising power wherever Trump thinks he can get away with it, uncoupled from the norms, bureaucratic processes, alliance structures, and multilateral institutions that once gave US leadership legitimacy.

    What we are dealing with here is not grand strategy, but the law of the jungle

    As constraints tighten elsewhere – voters angry about affordability ahead of this year’s midterm elections, for example, and shrinking US trade leverage – Trump is eager to cement his legacy.

    His willingness to take risks on the security side, where he remains largely unconstrained, will only grow.

    The Western Hemisphere happens to be an especially prey-rich habitat – and one where the US has asymmetric leverage that no one can counter. Trump can score easy wins with minimal pushback and costs.

    America’s lost credibility

    But Trump’s approach is hardly confined to America’s immediate neighborhood.

    If it wasn’t clear already, the administration’s threats against Greenland show that Europe is also in its sights.

    The continent’s three largest economies – the United Kingdom, France, and Germany – all entered the new year with weak, unpopular governments besieged by populists within.

    With Russia at their doorstep, the Trump administration is openly backing far-right parties that would further fragment the continent.

    EU Leaders, Volodymyr Zelensky

    Unless Europeans find ways to gain leverage and credibly impose costs that Trump cares about – and soon – they will feel the same squeeze he’s applying across the Western Hemisphere

    For most countries, responding to an unpredictable, unreliable, and dangerous US is now an urgent priority. Some will fail, and some will succeed.

    It may already be too late for Europe to adapt, but China is in a stronger position, content to let its chief rival undermine itself.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping can afford to play the long game. He will be in power well after Trump’s term ends in 2029.

    The damage to American power itself will persist past this administration. Alliances, partnerships, and credibility aren’t just nice to have.

    They are force multipliers, giving the US leverage that raw military and economic power alone cannot sustain.

    Trump is burning through that inheritance, treating it as a constraint rather than an asset.

    He is governing as though American power operates outside of time, and as if he can reshape the world by force without lasting consequence.

    But the alliances he’s shredding won’t snap back when the next president takes office.

    America’s lost credibility will take a generation to rebuild if it can be rebuilt at all. That is why 2026 is a tipping-point year – not because we know how things will end, but because we are already starting to see what happens when the country that wrote the rules decides it no longer wants to play by them.

    • This article was originally published in www.kyivpost.com

  • Christianity and my dialogue with complex religious questions

    Christianity and my dialogue with complex religious questions

    I have always been fascinated, like a host of intellectuals, philosophers and theologians, by the place of religions in the human search for meaning. Even more than this, I have been intrigued by the role that religion and its complexities play in the national consciousness of a plural and fragmented nation like Nigeria, or any other nation for that matter. This plays into a kind of a general pattern of investigation for an institutional reformer who is consistently intent on those variables that are conducive to building a formidable set of institutions for making a nation work. But beyond this professional interest, religion and spirituality have featured as fundamental dimensions of my philosophical search for meaning in life. It seems almost inevitable that humans would confront and engage the divine, given the complexity of the universe and the diverse experiences that life involves.

    Christianity plays a very significant role in the human search for meaning in a world of meaninglessness. It is a unique spiritual formation that embeds theological, existential and philosophical concerns that serve as a source of eschatological comfort and reflective interests for millions all over the world. I have narrated the story of my Christian journey and spiritual trajectory many times. Christianity possesses two significant meaning for me. On the one hand, it has been a source of a deep, stimulating and continuing experience of faith that hold a person in awe of the divine and allows for personal and spiritual development. On the other hand, Christianity also possesses an intellectual interest that is stimulated by existential challenges, especially of the kind that a postcolonial lifeworld generates for those trying to make sense of their existence.

    For me, the relationship between these two dimensions of my relationship with Christianity reflects the perennial question of how faith and reason relate. This is a question that define a long trajectory of theological discourses in medieval philosophy. From the theologians and philosophers to the apologetics, reason has served as one critical tool for understanding the “why” behind the architecture of belief. St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, hold quite some philosophically fascinating framework that allow reason and faith to sit together as the manifestation of divine intelligence. For Augustine, faith is needed to guide reason into virtuous action. For Aquinas, faith and reason are two complementary ways for apprehending divine truths. For Tertullian the Apologetic, on the other hand, faith and reason are critically opposed. When he asked, “What has Athens got to do with Jerusalem?” he was asking if there could be any form of relationship between reason and faith.

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    In my lifelong search for discernment, I have articulated a frame of reference that enables me to hold strongly to my Christian faith while allowing my intellectual quest for enlightenment to continue without ceasing. Reason challenges my intellectual curiosity and allows me to increase learning in terms of how faith, knowledge and existence relate especially for billions of people across the world. Like the medieval churchmen, keeping faith and reason apart or in delicate balance has not always been easy for me. This is because my keen intellectual curiosity keeps exploring the boundaries where reason and human experiences challenge faith and spirituality. In this piece, permit me to reflect on such boundaries that, I believe, would further contribute to how religion, spirituality and Christianity can enable us to think about living together and building not only a personal but also a collective and ecumenical framework in a multi-religious space.

    My first question is how to understand Christianity’s relationship with non-Christian beliefs, especially in contexts where Christianity has to jostle for religious dominance with other religious belief systems? This is a fundamental question that bothers on how Christianity is diluted, concretized or complemented when it arrives in a different context in the process of its universal spread. Take the practice of Christianity in Nigeria as a good example. This raises three cogent concerns for me. One, how does Christianity relate with African cultures in ways that “culturalized” the faith without stigmatizing the cultural practice as fetish or idolatrous? The phenomenon of African Indigenous (or Independent) Churches (AIC) has been studied by scholars working in the area of African Christianity and Pentecostalism. The idea of the Aladura Church and the Christ Apostolic Church, for instance, provides a strong religious and spiritual framework for answering my question. But that of the Reformed Ogboni Fraternity does not. The ROF seems to represent an unsuccessful attempt to graft Christianity into a framework of esoteric and cultural framework.

    Two, the contextualization of Christianity—especially Pentecostal Christianity—within Nigeria’s tough postcolonial context of struggles and search for meaning has given birth to all sorts of caricatures that generate deep queries about the social mission of Christianity itself. No two people have spoken to this challenge as deeply as Karl Marx and Fela Anikulapo Kuti. On the global scene, Marx considers religion as the opium of the people; a delusional tool by which the priestly class keep the masses on a leash to an ideological frame that keeps exploiting them. In Africa and Nigeria, Fela lambasts the political and religious classes for deepening the crisis of meaning confronted by the people. “Shuffering and Shmiling” is Fela’s classic and devastating complement to Marx’s criticism. It is so easy, within this context, to see how Nigeria’s development condition could have served as the instigator for the dominance of the prosperity theology and the miracle mentality that have unfortunately become commercialized. From Christianity to Islam, we now have a huge cohort of charlatans and impostors who have beclouded the genuine spiritual experience of salvation and enlightenment for millions. And now we have abject Christians who are shrouded in sham religiosity devoid of deep spirituality that connect personal growth to collective responsibility towards others, and towards one’s nation. 

    The third point is even more fundamental. And it has to do with religion’s role in nation-building. We all are familiar with how religion has contributed immensely to the fragmentation of the Nigerian polity. The constant conflict and theological and political opposition, especially between Islam and Christianity, has continued to be the source of tension in the continuing attempt by successive governments to facilitate the project of achieving One Nigeria devoid of ethnic and religious animosity. Here, the spectre of theological absolutism rears its ugly head! In summary, this is the belief that one religion holds the key to the understanding of God’s plan for humans and the eternity. One immediately sees how and why such an absolutist claim (ostensibly canonized to foreclose regression of the faiths into syncretism), held by Islam and Christianity, could be the source of practices that undermine any ecumenical or inter-faith relations in Nigeria. Theological absolutism excludes other religions and their perspectives on the relationship between God and humans.

    I have always been deeply suspicious of theological absolutism, especially when it concerns my quest for an understanding of how God and humans interact. If God is all we have been saying about Him—the eternal and the divine that is unknowable sufficiently by the human mind—how then can one religion capture the entire essence of that God? My worry is even more aggravated within the complicity of Christianity, Islam and other faiths in Nigeria’s underdevelopment. The fundamental question is simple enough: How can Nigeria achieve a civic national space of mutual relations if religions eschew open-minded and ecumenical relationship with one another? Or, how can they step into the breach as a collective spiritual panacea to Nigeria’s myriad postcolonial predicaments if they attempt to exclude and cancel out one another as “false”? Indeed, for me, the combination of the caricaturing of the Christian faith mentioned earlier, as well as the refusal by many clerics to engage in ecumenical conversation, serves as the basis for my conviction that Christianity has arrived at a reformation point that explore its complexity and significance in a context like Nigeria.

    But then, I still have to content with my own attachment to Christianity and its construction of itself as the only religion that guarantees eternal life through the work of salvation done by Christ. How do I navigate Christianity’s theological absolutism without falling into the trap of excluding other faith from their attachment to their convictions? How am I not part of the refusal of inter-faith relations that I am suspicious about? These are crucial and fair questions for any Christian or even Muslim. Indeed, I had the conviction very early in my spiritual trajectory that the believer’s pilgrim journey is strictly personal and is self-validating. And this validation is achieved through personal experience of faith and theological conviction, and the guidance of spiritual mentors and masters in the faith. And here, I return to role of reason in my spiritual discernment. While I hold firmly to the limitation of reason in grasping spiritual enlightenment, I equally put a lot of weight on how limited human understanding of the vast stretch of mysteries not only behind the Christian faith but also in the universe as a whole. When the Bible, in I Corinthians 2:14, therefore insists that the natural understanding cannot grasp spiritual matters, I read this not only as the extension of the domain of faith beyond that of logic and reason. It is also the strategy for trusting my Christian faith to assist me in navigating my existential predicament without limiting other’s right to their own spiritual paths. More precisely, acknowledging, for instance, Christianity’s insistence on the role of Christ in God’s plan of reconciliation and redemption, does not necessarily imply invalidating other religions’ existence and spiritual understanding.      

    This is the firm implication of saying that the spiritual journey is deeply personal and self-validating. When I accept Christ’s injunction in John 14:6—“I am the way, the truth, and the life”—I accept it for myself as a pathway to spiritual meaning. And yet that injunction does not stand alone. It is wrapped in a complex relationship with other injunctions that insists that I must love my neighbors, give unto Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar, and pray for those in government. 

  • Venezuela: The return of rule by force

    Venezuela: The return of rule by force

    By Yasemin Aydın

    Regardless of how one judges Nicolás Maduro’s rule, a line was crossed the moment the sitting president of a sovereign country was forcibly taken from his bed in the middle of the night. This was not simply a change of power. It is clearly a symbolic rupture, the kind that alters expectations long before it reshapes institutions. A moment when one of the last protective assumptions of the international order was openly suspended: that sovereignty, however fragile, still provides a minimum shield against direct force.

    What makes this moment particularly dangerous is not the individual removed from power, but the logic now being normalized. From a social anthropological perspective, the decisive question is not what happened, but how it is being framed. Violence does not operate solely through physical coercion. Its deeper impact lies in symbolic normalization: in the stories told to justify it, the moral language used to soften it and the approval that follows.

    This is where Venezuela matters far beyond Venezuela. The dominant narrative is not one of law, restraint or international process, but of political necessity. The operation is described as “strategically understandable,” even if legally questionable. That framing alone is enough to erode norms. Because once violence is accepted as politically rational, international law is reduced to a secondary concern: optional, conditional, negotiable.

    And this has consequences well beyond Latin America. Anyone who calls a violation of international law “strategically understandable” deprives Europe of its strongest argument in support of Ukraine. Russia can then respond with brutal logical consistency: “We are a great power. We act out of security interests. Your closest ally does the same.” At that point, condemnation loses credibility. What remains is power speaking to power.

    International law either applies universally, or it loses its meaning altogether. Anything else is a double standard; and double standards are not a moral flaw alone, they are a structural weakness. They hollow out precisely the order Europe claims to defend.

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    This shift is not a rhetorical one, it is structural. The demonstrative use of raw force is not a sign of strength but of normative weakness. It signals the erosion of shared limits. Consent is replaced by coercion; restraint by post-hoc justification. Violence, once framed as necessary, ceases to be exceptional and becomes a legitimate instrument of political resolution.

    Max Weber’s classic definition of the state as the holder of the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force becomes newly relevant here, precisely because it reveals the limits of legitimacy beyond the state. There is no world government. No global monopoly on force. International law serves as the substitute: a fragile system of self-restraint that functions only as long as major actors choose to bind themselves by it. When those self-bindings are selectively abandoned, a gray zone emerges in which violence is no longer legitimized, only enforced.

    Anthropologically speaking, this is the moment when rules continue to exist formally but lose their social authority. They become rituals without binding power: invoked when convenient, ignored when costly. Finnish legal scholar Martti Koskenniemi has long warned that international law oscillates between normativity and power and begins to collapse when it is perceived merely as an instrument of the strong. When law is confused with moral superiority or strategic convenience, it loses its universality. What remains is hierarchy, not justice.

    What follows is not chaos, but something more insidious: a learning process. States observe which violations go unpunished, which are excused, which are even applauded. Non-state actors — militias, mercenary groups, hybrid forces — draw their conclusions. From a social anthropological standpoint, this is not the breakdown of order, but order in decline: a harsher grammar of global action in which taboos erode, boundaries blur and rules apply primarily to those without power.

    This is why the argument that Venezuela merely represents the removal of an authoritarian regime is deeply misleading. It reduces politics to moral psychology and ignores structural consequences. The decisive question is not who was targeted, but how. Methods create realities. They shape expectations, fears and future behavior far beyond the immediate case. They teach others what is now possible and what will be tolerated.

    Venezuela is therefore not an exception. It is a signal. A moment revealing how fragile the remaining self-restraints of the international order have become. What we are witnessing is not a sudden collapse, but a quiet shift in collective norms: away from law, toward enforceability.

    The real danger lies not in the fall of one ruler but in the growing familiarity with a world in which power once again openly replaces what was painstakingly established as law. A world in which violence no longer needs justification, only success.

  • De-marketing Nigeria: An unaffordable national invoice

    De-marketing Nigeria: An unaffordable national invoice

    Sir: Nigeria is paying a perception tax it can no longer afford. Even as the state pursues difficult but necessary reforms including tax consolidation, foreign-exchange liberalisation, and subsidy removal, it is bleeding value through a quieter channel: the systematic de-marketing of the country by citizens at home and in the diaspora. This is not a public-relations issue; it is a fiscal, monetary, and national-security risk.

    In a world of fragile supply chains and risk-averse capital, national image functions like currency. It shapes risk pricing, borrowing costs, partner confidence, and crisis dynamics. Criticism is essential, but an unfiltered narrative of permanent failure has become Nigeria’s dominant export and its cost is now measurable.

    De-marketing Nigeria is not dissent, protest, or accountability; it is the persistent amplification of the country as ungovernable, hopeless, unsafe, or terminal by citizens, elites, and influencers across global digital, media, and professional spaces.

    This reputational over-correction, sustained without proportional acknowledgement of reform, variation, or complexity, even amid positive macro signals noted by Moody’s and S&P in 2025, carries penalties in a world where algorithms reward outrage and markets price fear faster than facts.

    At home, de-marketing thrives through a feedback loop. Lived experience (real hardship, insecurity, bureaucratic failure) is packaged as proof of total state collapse. Isolated incidents are framed as definitive. Nuance disappears. Global platforms amplify the most extreme representations because they travel faster.

    The social cost is not abstract. Persistent negativity corrodes civic patience, weakens reform coalitions, and normalises exit over engagement. Afrobarometer surveys show that over half of Nigerians, and nearly two-thirds of those aged 18–35, have considered emigration, with pessimism about national trajectory rising sharply since 2020. This despair has consequences: declining volunteerism, lower institutional trust, and reduced tolerance for reform adjustment periods.

    Nigeria’s diaspora estimated by the United Nations at over 17 million is one of the country’s most strategic assets. According to the World Bank, Nigerians abroad remit over $20 billion annually through official channels, exceeding foreign direct investment and sustaining households while supporting foreign exchange inflows. Yet segments of this same diaspora have become inadvertent de-marketers.

    When departure is framed solely as escape from a “burning house,” the signal transmitted is not resilience but terminal decline. Posts discouraging investment, professional forums depicting Nigeria as irredeemable, and de-contextualised viral narratives shape institutional risk perception. While remittances remain vital, diaspora credibility increasingly competes with them, manifesting in heightened scrutiny, visa denials, and compliance burdens documented in international mobility and migration studies affecting Nigerians abroad.

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    Governments can ignore online noise. Markets cannot. Ratings agencies, development banks, sovereign wealth funds, and multinational boards do not read social media for entertainment; they read it as signal. Persistent narratives of dysfunction feed directly into sovereign risk perception, alongside fiscal data, regardless of nuance.

    In today’s geopolitical climate, narrative is security, as countries perceived as unstable face tighter scrutiny in arms procurement, intelligence cooperation, and strategic partnerships, and are treated as potential liabilities rather than anchors.

    Stopping de-marketing does not require censorship, propaganda, or image laundering. It requires a shared defence of national credibility rooted in accountability. Transparency must function as strategy, not confession; documenting response and correction rather than endlessly restating harm. Citizens, particularly the diaspora, should be engaged as partners through credible feedback channels, reform tracking, and investment de-risking mechanisms. Reform must be made visible through verifiable indicators, not slogans.

    Criticism should sharpen state capacity, not pre-emptively liquidate it. Nigeria is not asking for silence; it is asking for proportion. In a fragile global system, narratives are priced in real time. De-marketing Nigeria may feel righteous, even necessary, but its costs are socialised. The choice is not truth versus loyalty, but truth that builds versus truth that bankrupts the future.

    •Lekan Olayiwola, lekanolayiwola@gmail.com

  • Plea to Makinde and Oba Ladoja on Onido stool crisis

    Plea to Makinde and Oba Ladoja on Onido stool crisis

    Sir: For nearly two decades, Ido has lived with an uncomfortable contradiction: a town with history, land, and promise, yet without a settled traditional leadership. What should have been a unifying institution has instead become a symbol of confusion, contestation, and stagnation. The lingering crisis over who truly occupies the stool of the Onido of Ido is no longer just a traditional dispute; it is a development emergency.

    Ido, a strategic border town between Ibadan and the Ibarapa zone and one of the local government areas within the Ibadan metropolitan structure, ought to be thriving. Its proximity to Ibadan, fertile land, and growing population should place it on a steady path of economic and social growth. Instead, unresolved traditional leadership disputes have slowed progress, scared away investors, and denied the town its fair share of government attention.

    Now, at the centre of the problem is a succession crisis that has produced three claimants to the Onido stool. For the people of Ido, this is not merely about titles or prestige. It is about legitimacy, order, and the authority required to attract development and maintain peace. A community cannot move forward when its traditional leadership remains unsettled.

    Historically, Ido was headed by a Baale, with recognised ruling houses under the Agura family tree, Akinyemi, Alalade, Dada-Pero, and Okanlawon. The elevation of Baales to Obas during the agitation for the creation of Ibadan State changed the traditional landscape, and Ido was not exempt from the consequences of that transition. Oba Benjamin Ademola Ishola Orobiyi II’s coronation in 1997 as the Onido of Ido was part of this broader restructuring of Ibadanland’s traditional system.

    However, what followed exposed the fragility of that transition. His suspension and deposition in 2007, the installation of Tajudeen Adeosun (Akinola Agura), the subsequent legal battles, and the prolonged court processes created a leadership vacuum that has never truly been filled. Each intervention, rather than resolving the issue conclusively, appeared to deepen the fault lines.

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    The brief reign and eventual suspension of Oba Tajudeen Akinola Agura, amid allegations of abuse of office and forgery, further eroded public confidence in the traditional institution. Then came Oba Gbolagade Muritala Babalola (Gbadewolu I), whose suspension in 2024 over alleged security concerns, followed by his reinstatement, only added another layer of complexity to an already tangled situation.

    Today, the reality is cold: Oba Benjamin Ademola Ishola Orobiyi II, Tajudeen Akinola Agura, and Oba Gbolagade Muritala Babalola are all, in one way or another, laying claim to the Onido stool. For a town yearning for stability, this is an untenable situation.

    The danger is not abstract. Traditional institutions still command deep loyalty in many Nigerian communities. When legitimacy is disputed, tensions can easily spill over into conflict. Ido has so far avoided large-scale violence, but history teaches that unresolved traditional crises rarely remain dormant forever.

    This is why the appeals to Governor Seyi Makinde, the Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Senator Rasidi Adewolu Ladoja, and relevant traditional authorities should not be treated as routine petitions. They are a call to prevent a looming crisis and to restore order to a community that has waited far too long.

    Oba Ladoja, in particular, enjoys a reputation for firmness and fairness. Many in Ido believe that his leadership presents a rare opportunity for a decisive and credible resolution. That confidence should not be wasted.

    Ultimately, this crisis is a pointer that tradition, when left unresolved, can become a barrier rather than a bridge to development. Ido does not need another temporary fix or political compromise. It needs clarity, finality, and justice, delivered in a way that respects history while securing the town’s future. Until that happens, Ido will remain a town with one stool but too many kings, and a community paying the price for uncertainty.

    •Ogungbile Emmanuel Oludotun,<thedreamchaser65@gmail.com>

  • Kano’s unfolding power game

    Kano’s unfolding power game

    Sir: Kano politics has been thrown into uncertainty following reports that the Kano State Governor, Abba Yusuf, is planning to defect from the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC). For years, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso aspired to be Kano’s undisputed political kingmaker. He only succeeded in realizing this ambition by installing his perceived political godson as the current governor of Kano State. His earlier attempts had failed; notably, the current governor is the only candidate Kwankwaso attempted to install twice.

    The governor’s recent move to cross over to the ruling party has been strongly opposed by the state party leadership and the NNPP’s national leader, Senator Kwankwaso. This development has triggered internal disagreements within the NNPP, particularly between supporters of the governor and loyalists of the Kwankwasiyya movement.

    From a rational political standpoint, the situation reflects a deep and intense struggle—a clear attempt at reclaiming the throne between the Governor of Kano State and the leader of the Kwankwasiyya movement, Senator Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso.

    By all political indicators, the governor’s effort to reclaim the throne appears aimed at securing absolute control and liberating himself from total submission to the national leader of the Kwankwasiyya movement.

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    Although no official statement has been issued by the governor’s office since reports of the planned defection emerged, the body language of prominent government officials suggests that the plan is already in motion and that it is only a matter of time. So far, only the Speaker of the State Assembly, Yusuf Falgore, has publicly endorsed the governor’s planned defection. Sources also indicate that a significant number of local government chairmen have joined the governor’s defection train.

    The Kwankwaso–Abba conflict is, at its core, politics in its truest form—a search for solutions and self-determination. There is a clear distinction between betrayal in politics, the pursuit of solutions, and the quest for independence from total submission.

    If Governor Abba succeeds in taking the bulk of NNPP’s structure to APC, it’ll be a major blow to Kwankwaso’s influence. It seems Kwankwaso’s biggest fear is Abba taking the state with him, leaving him with a movement without a state.

    No doubt, the planned defection would reshape Kano’s politics significantly- APC regains dominance in Kano, strengthening its position ahead of 2027, while NNPP’s national relevance takes a hit, struggling to recover from losing its only governor. Kwankwasiyya faces a tough test without state power, potentially losing influence. New alliances might emerge as Yusuf’s move triggers political recalibrations across the North.

    •Abba Dukawa,Kano

  • A hollow plea

    A hollow plea

    A stakeholder group, the Northern Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN), lately canvassed criminalisation of ransom payment to abductors to discourage the menace of kidnappings in Nigeria. The group called on authorities to strictly implement existing statute prohibiting payment of ransom in the country.

    Agency reports cited an open letter in which the group’s National President Isah Abubakar lamented the trend by which despite efforts by gallant security forces, kidnapping remains a profitable venture for criminal actors owing to ransom payments by desperate citizens. His plea, according to reports, was by an open letter addressed to National Security Adviser (NSA) Nuhu Ribadu. Dated January 3, 2026, the letter was copied to the Minister of Defence, Chief of Defence Staff, military Service Chiefs and the Inspector-General of Police.

    Abubakar said he was writing on behalf of not just NYCN, but millions of northern youths bearing the brunt of insecurity ravaging different communities. He called on authorities to take a strong stand by enforcing the law against ransom payment because, according to him, such payments have been the “oxygen of banditry”. Every ransom paid, he argued, enables bandits to buy weapons, fund logistics and recruit soldiers; hence, paying ransom inadvertently subsidises terrorism.

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    The youth leader urged immediate gazetting and publicisation of existing law criminalising ransom payment. He said such law must not be merely on paper but should be forcefully applied, as that is the only way to break the demand-and-supply chain. He also canvassed intelligence-driven rescue operations using technological tools in place of negotiating ransom payment for release of kidnapped victims. While he acknowledged the emotional trauma families face when loved ones get abducted, he argued that ransom payment create a bigger public challenge and called for criminal liability against families or societal groups that negotiate with kidnappers.

    Abubakar’s plea is persuasive but hollow. It is likely the legal framework he had in mind was a legislation processed in 2022 by the National Assembly, which prescribed a 15-year jail term for paying ransom to free abductees. Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, then chairman of the Senate’s judiciary, human rights and legal committee, told the red chamber that making ransom payment punishable with lengthy jail sentences should “discourage the rising spate of kidnapping and abduction for ransom in Nigeria.” The bill also prescribed the death penalty for convicted kidnappers where the abduction leads to loss of life, and life imprisonment in other cases. The House of Representatives, later same year, passed the legislation prohibiting ransom payment to free kidnap victims.

    The fatal flaw of the legislation, which it is doubtful ever became a law, is that it is double jeopardy for abductees and their families. You could not stop innocent citizens from being kidnapped, and now you want to hamstring relatives from securing their release from abductors. You could well go tell it to the birds.