The Nation Newspaper

Category: Commentaries

  • Why NWDC should not be hampered by funding delay

    Why NWDC should not be hampered by funding delay

    Sir: The North West Development Commission (NWDC) was established to address one of Nigeria’s most pronounced developmental disparities. Encompassing seven states, 186 local government areas, and serving over 54 million people, the Northwest represents nearly a quarter of the nation’s population. It is also the region most afflicted by insecurity, poverty, educational deprivation, climate pressures, and youth unemployment.

    In this context, the NWDC transcends the remit of a conventional intervention agency, functioning as a stabilisation mechanism whose effectiveness has direct implications for the Northwest and Nigeria’s broader stability, prosperity, and cohesion.

    Almost a year after the appointment of its board, the commission has yet to attain full operational momentum. Oversight engagements with a joint committee of the National Assembly revealed persistent internal governance tensions that have impeded progress. The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Professor Shehu Abdullahi Ma’aji, disclosed ongoing disputes regarding statutory responsibilities between the Board and Management. These disagreements have constrained decision-making and delayed the execution of essential initiatives.

    Although such frictions are not unusual during the early stages of new public bodies, they should not obscure a more pressing concern: the non-release of the commission’s take-off grant. Without this critical financial foundation, the NWDC remains structurally limited in translating its statutory mandate into tangible and measurable developmental outcomes.

    During oversight proceedings, the National Assembly emphasised the vital importance of the commission’s mission. Lawmakers noted that the Northwest bears a disproportionate share of Nigeria’s development challenges, including the highest numbers of out-of-school children, widespread banditry, kidnapping, drug abuse, arms proliferation, and environmental degradation. These challenges are not abstract; they are lived realities that disrupt livelihoods, displace communities, and escalate security expenditures.

    The NWDC was established specifically to tackle these complex and interconnected challenges. Its mandate is deliberately expansive, covering security, agriculture, education, infrastructure, health, youth and women empowerment, ecology, and mining. The commission’s approved budget, with roughly 75 per cent allocated to capital projects, demonstrates a commitment to action over bureaucratic inertia. Yet budgetary approval alone, without timely disbursement, represents legislative intention without practical implementation.

    The managing director has underscored the foundational work already undertaken. These include engagement with state governors, participation in national and international development forums, the establishment of functional organisational structures, and partnerships with major development institutions such as the World Bank, African Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, UNDP, JICA, GIZ, and the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Strategic initiatives, including the creation of a Northwest Investment Company and the development of power, transport, and commodity exchange platforms, reflect foresight and readiness to deliver.

    Nonetheless, strategic frameworks and partnerships cannot replace execution. Roads cannot be constructed, schools rehabilitated, security infrastructure deployed, nor agricultural productivity enhanced without adequate funding. The protracted delay in releasing the take-off grant has confined the commission to preparatory activities, reinforcing the perception that visibility has taken precedence over tangible impact.

    Read Also: Stakeholders call for review of Nigeria’s health insurance scheme

    The urgency of disbursing the take-off grant extends beyond administrative convenience; it is a matter of national interest. The Northwest functions as Nigeria’s agricultural backbone, and instability in the region undermines national food security. Insecurity diverts federal security resources, while educational deprivation contributes to chronic unemployment and social fragility. Financial empowerment of the NWDC is not a regional concession but a strategic instrument of prudent national risk management.

    The release of the grant would enhance accountability. Access to funds would enable the establishment of clear performance benchmarks, enforceable timelines, and meaningful legislative oversight. Withholding, by contrast, obscures responsibility and allows underperformance to be attributed to structural limitations rather than managerial competence.

    Addressing governance challenges and releasing the take-off grant must proceed simultaneously, as development imperatives cannot wait for administrative perfection. Equally critical is managerial cohesion. Harmonious collaboration between the Board and Management is indispensable for accelerating decision-making, optimising resource deployment, and delivering measurable results. Disunity at the top will only prolong delays, undermine public confidence, and restrict the commission’s capacity to fulfil its mandate.

    Ultimately, the success of the NWDC will be measured not by the sophistication of its strategies but by the improvements in the lives of those it serves. For the Northwest, the take-off grant represents a crucial opportunity to tackle entrenched challenges through coordinated action. For Nigeria, it is a timely and strategic investment in stability, productivity, and national cohesion that can no longer be deferred.

    •Abdulrashid Sani Gimi, PhD, Kaduna.

  • Gains, pains of Nigeria telecom sector in 2025

    Gains, pains of Nigeria telecom sector in 2025

    Sir: In 2025, Nigeria’s telecommunications sector finds itself at a defining moment. Once celebrated as one of the country’s most successful liberalisation stories, the industry now sits between resilience and public discontent.

    While operators are recording higher revenues and data usage continues to grow, consumers are increasingly frustrated by rising costs, inconsistent service quality and controversial billing practices. The story of Nigeria’s telecom sector in 2025 is therefore one of gains, pains, and an urgent need for a clearer path forward.

    Despite economic headwinds, inflation, naira depreciation and rising operational costs, the telecom industry has remained one of Nigeria’s most resilient sectors.

    Data consumption continues to surge. Even after a significant upward review of tariffs in early 2025, Nigerians did not reduce their reliance on mobile internet. On the contrary, data usage recorded double-digit growth within months, underlining how deeply connectivity has become embedded in daily life, from business and banking to education, entertainment and social interaction.

    Operators also benefited financially from the long-overdue tariff adjustment. For more than a decade, telecom prices remained largely static while costs soared. The 2025 tariff increase improved cash flows and strengthened the balance sheets of major players, enabling them to better absorb forex pressures and rising energy expenses. Industry analysts estimate that data services alone could generate trillions of naira in revenue this year.

    In addition, Nigeria’s teledensity remains strong, and mobile broadband penetration continues to expand, reinforcing telecoms as a critical pillar of the digital economy and a major contributor to GDP.

    While operators speak of sustainability, many subscribers feel the burden has shifted squarely onto them.

    The 2025 tariff hike, affecting voice, data and SMS, sparked widespread backlash. For millions of Nigerians whose incomes have not kept pace with inflation, the cost of staying connected has become increasingly painful. Students, small businesses and low-income earners are particularly affected, as connectivity is no longer a luxury but a necessity.

    More troubling for consumers is that higher prices have not translated into better service. Complaints about slow internet speeds, frequent network outages, dropped calls, and inconsistent coverage remain common across major networks. In many areas, especially outside urban centres, service quality remains unreliable.

    Infrastructure challenges play a major role. Frequent fibre cuts, vandalism of base stations, power shortages and high diesel costs continue to undermine network performance. Operators spend billions annually repairing damaged infrastructure, costs that ultimately find their way back to subscribers.

    This disconnect between price and performance has eroded trust. Many users now question whether the industry’s gains are coming at the expense of service quality and consumer welfare.

    Another flashpoint in 2025 has been the controversy surrounding USSD services, which are widely used for mobile banking and financial transactions.

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    Under a new billing model, telecom operators now charge subscribers directly for USSD sessions, rather than billing banks. While the move brought clarity and ended years of opaque deductions, it also introduced new costs for users, particularly those who rely heavily on USSD for daily transactions.

    For low-income Nigerians and those without smartphones or mobile apps, USSD remains the most accessible gateway to financial services. Even modest per-session charges can quickly add up, raising concerns about financial inclusion and affordability.

    The USSD debate highlights a recurring theme in Nigeria’s telecom space: reforms that make business sense but risk alienating the very consumers the sector depends on.

    For Nigeria’s telecom sector to thrive sustainably beyond 2025, several issues must be addressed decisively.

    First, service quality must improve. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) must enforce stricter quality-of-service benchmarks and ensure that tariff increases are matched by measurable network improvements. The NCC has barked enough; it must now show that it can bite. Consumers deserve value for money.

    Second, infrastructure protection should be treated as a national priority. Telecom assets are critical infrastructure and should be safeguarded accordingly. Reducing vandalism and fibre damage would significantly improve service reliability and reduce costs.

    Third, regulatory and operating costs need reform. High right-of-way charges, multiple taxation and inconsistent state-level policies continue to inflate operating expenses. Harmonising these costs would ease pressure on operators and, in the long run, subscribers.

    Fourth, affordability and inclusion must remain central. Targeted data plans for students, small businesses and rural communities can help ensure that higher tariffs do not deepen the digital divide.

    Finally, consumer engagement and transparency are key. Clear billing, responsive customer service and honest communication will go a long way in rebuilding trust between operators and subscribers.

    •Elvis Eromosele, elviseroms@gmail.com

  • Reconsider ban on buses and tricycles in Enugu

    Reconsider ban on buses and tricycles in Enugu

    Sir: One decision taken by Enugu State government which will hit everyone like thunder bolt come January 1, 2026 is the ban placed on buses and tricycles in most major roads within the state. The introduction of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) powered buses for intra-state transportation by government is highly commendable. CNG buses are environmentally friendly.

    However, any attempt to prevent other stakeholders from plying major routes within the city transport ecosystem by invoking the powers of state to take over substantial chunk of the sector providing employment for individuals and struggling group of people stifles competition. It shrinks further the informal sector potentials, daily and family incomes.

    Nigeria is a vanguard of free market economy where forces of demand and supply converge to drive businesses. Let it not be seen that Enugu State government tends to avoid healthy market competition.  This government should not be seen to have reinforced monopolistic tendencies. Nothing stops government vehicles from operating side by side existing buses and tricycles. It will offer ndi Enugu better options to choose among many lots. That is practical democratisation of the transport system in practice.

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    For the avoidance of doubt, previous administrations of Chimaroke Nnamani and Sullivan Chime had done things similar. Today, the impacts of such policies can be seen in the absence or worse still, relics of those vehicles parked for years in mechanic workshops.

    What is needed from government is the creation of enabling environment and infrastructure to drive the system like the bus terminals already constructed in selected locations in the state. It is left for government to charge affordable transport fare very competitive with other buses. There should be robust mechanism which ensures that statutory levies are paid as at when due by bus drivers while a directive for everyone to patronise the Bus Terminals and decongest blocked access roads by commuters within the area will bring the needed sanity.

    There are hardly jobs opportunities available at the moment in Nigeria nay – Enugu. Therefore, limiting the potentials of individuals striving to survive through transport entrepreneurship should be totally discouraged.

    If government goes on with its plan in January, the act will put more strain on the already strained lower stratum of the society and artisans who eke a living through private sector driven transportation system. Moreover, the relative peace and security ndi Enugu take for granted may be ruptured as a result of resurgence of  crimes and criminality. The old aphorism that an idle mind is the devils workshop should not be taken for granted. Government should not be seen as an enabler of unemployment.

    •Sunday Onyemaechi Eze, Uzo Uwani LGA, Enugu State.

  • Gumi and his bandit ‘neighbours’

    Gumi and his bandit ‘neighbours’

    Any attack on terrorists who have troubled Nigeria for so long is attack on family. That is the new gospel according to Islamic cleric, Sheik Ahmad Gumi. He urged Nigerians to learn to live with armed herders, typically associated with terrorism and banditry, because they are “neighbours” and should not be treated as enemies.

    The controversial cleric made his apologia in a video post against the backdrop  of recent United States airstrikes on terrorist hideouts in Nigeria, which the Nigerian government said it authorised and actively collaborated with. He said the people being attacked were part of the country and were not going anywhere. His words: “They are going nowhere. They are a part of us, and we are part of them. We must learn to live together and should never become enemies with them.”

    Gumi said treating terrorists as enemies was detrimental to national security because “real enemies” could then use them against the nation. The cleric has often canvassed dialogue with, and amnesty for bandits, arguing they are driven by a sense of marginalisation and are more a “resistance movement” than violent criminals His latest intervention falls in line with that rhetoric of framing the activities of terrorists as a survival struggle and not a crime deserving of crackdown.

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    A day before the video post, Gumi called on the Nigerian government to stop all military cooperation with the US following America’s airstrikes on suspected terrorist hideouts in Northwest Nigeria. In a post on his Facebook page, he warned that any foreign military intervention, particularly by the United States, would exacerbate insecurity rather than remedy it. The cleric asked the government to instead seek military assistance from countries he termed more “neutral” like China, Turkey and Pakistan. “Nigeria should halt all military cooperation with the USA immediately because of its imperial tendencies worldwide and seek the help of those neutral countries mentioned.” He played what could be construed as a subtle blackmail card, saying: “Nigerians are too educated to be played with. This is going to be a 2027 campaign discourse.”

    While acknowledging that fighting terrorism is legitimate, Gumi believes that such efforts must not be outsourced to foreign powers that have ulterior motives. “The US involvement in Nigeria will attract the real anti-US forces, making our land a theatre of war. As a principle, no nation should allow its land to be a theatre of war, and no nation should allow its neighbours to be their enemies,” he argued.

    Gumi is always butting into national conversation to advocate for terrorists whenever they are being dealt a heavy hand. He should spare Nigerians the irritation of his advocacy and join the terrorists to be treated as one of them if he’s sufficiently passionate. Enough of this terrorism apology!

  • Insecurity and the question of sovereignty

    Insecurity and the question of sovereignty

    • By Zayyad I. Muhammad

    Sir: Bandits, Lakurawa, Ansaru (Jama’atu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis Sudan) and other terrorist groups have been terrorising Nigerians through killings, kidnappings, and rape. They have displaced thousands of people, carved out territories for themselves, collected taxes, and effectively governed parts of the Northwest and North-central regions.

    For 13 years, the violent separatist group IPOB/ESN, designated a terrorist organization by the federal government, has been operating in southeast Nigeria, terrorizing the region through armed attacks on security forces, the enforcement of sit-at-home orders, and the killing and coercion of citizens to obey its directives.

    For over 15 years, Boko Haram and ISWAP have established their authority on soft targets in some parts the Northeast, as well as attacking military formations, killing and kidnapping civilians, and carrying out suicide bombings against innocent people.

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    From the Northeast to the Northwest and North-central regions, both local and foreign terrorist groups have carved out territories within Nigeria, killing and kidnapping innocent citizens, collecting taxes, imposing their own laws, displacing hundreds of people and brazenly displaying their weapons in public and on social media platforms.

    On December 25, the United States, with the coordination and approval of the Nigerian government, launched 16 GPS-guided missiles at terrorist targets in parts of Sokoto State. As a result, some debris fell in Jabo and Offa. In Jabo, the debris fell on open fields while in Offa, two hotels were hit.

    Nigeria’s failure to completely eliminate these terrorists has brought the country to this point. No nation welcomes foreign military intervention on its soil.

    However, which constitutes a greater infringement on Nigeria’s sovereignty: the existence of local and foreign terrorist groups operating freely, killing, kidnapping, conducting suicide bombings, collecting taxes, and displacing innocent citizens from their lands, homes and places of businesses for nearly two decades, or a few hours of a U.S. missile strike authorised by the Nigerian government?

    •Zayyad I. Muhammad,

     Abuja.

  • The coming of End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV) policy

    The coming of End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV) policy

    • By Tosin Adeoti

    Sir: Just as households are still adjusting to higher fuel prices, the federal government has found yet another way to complicate daily life. This time, it is through the full implementation of the End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV) policy, scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2026.

    On paper, the policy sounds sensible. Who does not want fewer unsafe vehicles and cleaner streets and better environmental outcomes? But in practice, the way it is being rolled out reveals a deeper problem with Nigeria’s current approach to revenue generation. It raises money, yes, but it does so with little regard for how ordinary Nigerians actually live.

    Nigeria is not a country where used vehicles dominate out of preference or nostalgia. We buy “tokunbo” cars because new cars are simply out of reach. With minimum wage barely covering transport and food for many households, car ownership is already a stretch, even at the bottom end of the market.

    Some buyers even deliberately seek accidented vehicles because they are cheaper to repair incrementally. It is not ideal, but it is survival. Any policy that touches car ownership touches livelihoods.

    According to the Director General of the National Automotive Design and Development Council, Joseph Osanipin, the ELV policy will introduce several new requirements.

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    First, used vehicles imported into Nigeria will need a special pre-export certification issued under Nigerian standards before they even leave their country of origin. While officials insist that exporters will bear this cost, basic economics tells a different story. Costs introduced anywhere in a supply chain do not disappear. They are instead passed down, eventually, to the final buyer.

    Second, buyers will pay a mandatory recycling fee when purchasing or registering a vehicle. This fee is meant to fund responsible disposal of old cars. The NADDC is already projecting over N150 billion in annual revenue from this charge alone.

    Third, there is the likely return of the four percent Free-on-Board levy in 2026. Car dealers warn that this levy could triple the cost of clearing a single vehicle at the ports.

    Taken together, these measures represent a substantial new financial burden on car ownership.

    Slapping multiple new fees on used vehicles in this context is not neutral policy. It is regressive. It hurts those with the least ability to absorb the shock. The wealthy will still buy new cars or import high-end vehicles with minimal inconvenience. The poor will simply be priced out.

    The government is under real fiscal pressure. That much is clear. With a N58.47 trillion budget, projected revenues of N34.33 trillion, and a deficit of N23.85 trillion, the search for new revenue sources is intense.

    But there is a difference between broad-based, productivity-enhancing revenue reform and what this looks like: squeezing an already struggling population through narrow consumption charges.

    Raising N150 billion annually from recycling fees sounds impressive until you ask who is actually paying it. It is not corporations or high-income earners. It is the man buying a 15-year-old car to run a taxi. It is the woman importing a used vehicle to support a logistics business. It is families stretching their finances just to move. This is revenue generation without empathy.

    If unsafe vehicles are genuinely the concern, then where are the alternatives?

    Where is affordable public transport at scale? Where are incentives for locally assembled low-cost vehicles that actually match Nigerian purchasing power? Where are financing mechanisms that allow gradual transition rather than sudden exclusion?

    In countries where ELV policies work, they are paired with support systems like trade-in programmes and transport infrastructure. Nigeria is implementing the stick without offering the carrot.

    That is not reform. It is punishment disguised as policy.

    Policies like this simply erode trust.

    When citizens feel that every government action exists primarily to extract more money from them, compliance weakens. Informality grows. Smuggling increases. Enforcement becomes more expensive and more coercive.

    In the long run, revenue suffers.

    Revenue is necessary. No serious country runs without it. But revenue policy is also moral policy. It reflects what a government believes about the lives of its people.

    Right now, the message is troubling.

    Nigeria does not need less revenue ambition. It needs more humanity in how that ambition is pursued.

    •Tosin Adeoti,

     <tosinjadeoti@gmail.com>

  • Detty December: Unpacking a cultural phenomenon

    Detty December: Unpacking a cultural phenomenon

    • By Dr. Olusola B. Adegbite

    Sir: If, as Heraclitus once mused, one never steps into the same river twice, then Lagos in December is a river in ecstatic flood. “Detty December” that riotous phrase now etched into Nigeria’s cultural lexicon, is both description and incantation: a season when Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital and emotional nerve centre, sheds its week-day grind and dons sweat and sound. To ask what is “detty” about December is to ask what Lagos is, when it remembers itself not merely as a city of survival, but as a city of spectacle.

    Originally, Detty December was an insider slang; streetwise and playful, suggesting that December is “dirty” in the sense of excessive fun, late nights, loud music, and reckless laughter. Over time, the phrase matured into a phenomenon, an annual cultural migration marked by concerts, club nights, beach parties, art fairs, food festivals, and a carnival of human traffic. The Gen Z generation, digital natives with an instinct for virility, seized Detty December and branded it globally, transforming Lagos into a global melting pot of some sort. Instagram stories became travel brochures; TikTok clips became cultural manifestos. When it comes to “Detty December” the message is clear: Lagos in Christmas is not lived quietly.

    Yet Detty December did not emerge ex nihilo. Lagos has always been a city of loud survival and louder pleasure. The city’s identity, restless and electric, has long oscillated between struggle and splendour. Detty December merely ritualised this oscillation, concentrating a year’s worth of deferred joy into 31 feverish days. Christmas, once a modest domestic affair of rice, stew, and church clothes, has been ingeniously reimagined as a public festival of consumption and communion.

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    Economically, the season is a masterstroke. Hotels bloom, airlines rejoice, vendors thrive, and the government, smiling quietly, counts billions of naira in Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). Detty December galvanised a $75 million tourism boom for Lagos state in 2024. Clearly, 2025 is poised to surpass that record. Detty December is also a season of return: Nigerians in the diaspora, the self-styled I Just Come Back (IJCB), descend like migratory birds, armed with foreign accents and sentimental longings. In their homecoming, Detty December becomes an emotional bridge, a proof that Lagos, despite its chaos, still calls its children home.

    But every carnival casts a shadow. Lagos, already a city where movement is a metaphysical struggle, becomes almost mythically congested. The recent Lekki traffic snarls, exacerbated by IJCB enthusiasm and relentless events, remind us that excess has consequences. As Thomas Hobbes might have revised it – Detty December traffic is “nasty, brutish, and long.” Detty December complicates an already complicated city, turning joy into gridlock and pleasure into exhaustion.

    Still, Lagos endures. Detty December is satire made flesh: a city laughing at itself, dancing atop its contradictions. It is Lagos insisting, against all odds, that joy is not a luxury but a form of resistance. It is a city affirming life, even when life refuses to be easy.

    •Dr. Olusola B. Adegbite,

    United Kingdom.

  • Unhealthy situation

    Unhealthy situation

    A recent report quoted the UK’s Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) as saying, “As on 30 September 2025, there were 16,156 nurses on the register who were educated in Nigeria.” It is the regulatory body in the UK responsible for registering qualified professionals and investigating concerns related to nurses, midwives, and nursing associates. Notably, as of March 31, 2025, the number of Nigerian-trained nurses was 15,421. These figures show a nearly five percent rise over the six months.

    Indeed, the 2025 Nigeria Health Statistics Report, released by the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in November, corroborated the continued large-scale medical migration. The report revealed the sheer magnitude of brain drain in the country’s health sector, describing the situation as “a significant challenge.”

    According to the document, 43,221 health professionals—including doctors, nurses, pharmacists and medical laboratory scientists—migrated out of the country between 2023 and 2024, relocating to countries offering better remuneration and working conditions.

    “External migration surged by 200 percent across all cadres between 2023 and 2024,” the report said. It further revealed that “In 2024 alone, a total of 4,193 doctors and dentists left Nigeria, with approximately 66 percent migrating to the United Kingdom.”

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     The report listed the top 10 destinations for Nigerian doctors and dentists in the 2023–2024 period: the United Kingdom (4,627), Canada (934), the United States (561), Australia (188), the United Arab Emirates (140), Ireland (113), the Maldives (77), Botswana (67), India (57) and Saudi Arabia (43).

    Nurses and midwives “are the most affected groups,” the report said, with more than 23,000 migrating abroad as of 2024. Pharmacists and medical laboratory scientists also joined the flight to foreign lands, deepening the loss. 

    Predictably, this exodus means fewer personnel are left to cope with the increasing demand for healthcare, posing a severe threat to the country’s system. Consequently, the report underlined the urgent need for policies aimed at retaining health workers and strengthening domestic capacity.

     It is noteworthy that the Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Iziaq Salako, also acknowledged the workforce crisis during the Joint Annual Report meeting of the health sector in Abuja.

    He said: “Our doctor-to-population ratio is 1:5,000 (against the WHO recommendation of 1:600), while the nurse-to-population ratio is as low as 1:2,000 (against the WHO recommendation of 1:300).”

    There is no doubt that the escalating exodus of healthcare professionals from the country is detrimental to its health sector.  The situation calls for urgent intervention by the authorities; the nation cannot afford to continue losing its healthcare experts by failing to provide an enabling environment for their work.

  • Yuletide reflections: Dirty December, quiet hearts etcetera

    Yuletide reflections: Dirty December, quiet hearts etcetera

    By Ebuka Ukoh

    In Nigeria, December arrives like a festival competing with itself. The streets get louder, the music gets brighter, and the pressure to feel joyful rises faster than airline ticket prices. It is a beautiful season, yet many of us enter it carrying a quiet tension. We try to look happy while our hearts whisper a different truth.

    Christmas in Nigeria is loud, perhaps not so loud nowadays. The excitement is real, and December is dirty. But music blares from every corner. People travel home in droves. Photographers line up for family portraits. New clothes, new hair, new plans. All that joy deserves celebration. Yet, beneath the glitter, many of us feel a pull inside. We perform happiness while harbouring unspoken worries.

    I felt that tension myself. My mind drifted to checklists. Did I hit my goals this year? Did I grow? Did I become the person I hoped to be? Reflection matters, but I have assessed myself by outcomes. So, I pause. I ask a different question. Am I well?

    Christmas can be loud while we are not in tune with ourselves. We rush. We give beyond our strength. We pretend. Sometimes the external noise hides the innermost feelings.

    Name what is going on

    This year, some people celebrate their first Christmas in a new city. Some are spending it with a significant other. Some hold newborn babies. Some sit at tables with one empty chair. Some juggle quiet family tensions. Some hope the year ends without more chaos. Others pray the new year brings softness.

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    Before planning anything, take note of what is present. Notice yourself. Name your state. Joy. Grief. Pride. Confusion. Exhaustion. Gratitude. The heart deserves recognition before instruction.

    Jesus understood this

    If you study the life of Jesus, you see a man in tune with himself. He stepped away to think, pray, and reflect. He explained rather than convinced those who doubted him. He acted from clarity, not desperation. He paused at key moments, and those pauses shaped direction.

    We love to tell the stories of miracles. We forget the stillness that made them possible. Peace starts with inner honesty. He did not pour from an empty cup.

    Your feel-good self matters

    There is a type of helping that is not love but anxiety. We rush to fix others because we fear sitting with our own discomfort. We want to feel needed. Then we call it care. Sometimes it is avoidance.

    The best gift you can give anyone this Christmas is your well self. Not your decorated self. Not your pretending self. Your well self. When you show up with clarity, you create space for others to carry their responsibilities. You make room for truth. You create boundaries that protect growth. Things may not go smoothly, but you can be well. That presence changes the atmosphere more than any gift.

    Courage to say, “I am not okay”

    There is dignity in honesty. When you hurt, admit it. When you need rest, take it. When you need support, ask. Strength is not silence. Strength is truth spoken with care. You do not earn love by hiding your condition. You honour love by naming it.

    Slowing down is not failure. Pausing is not giving up. It is choosing to treat yourself as human and valuable. Remember, the body keeps the scores; if it is not cared for adequately, it manifests in mostly unpleasant ways.

    Look beyond yourself, then inward again.

    After noticing yourself, notice others. The neighbour who looks strong but feels alone; the cousin who jokes too much, and the friend who always plans and never receives care. True presence comes from being grounded. When you are well, you carry comfort without losing yourself.

    Christmas is not a competition of who looks happiest. It is a moment to be truthful about humanity.

    Real reason for the season

    People say Jesus is the reason for the season. That is true. Yet he lived with the conviction that you are worth showing up for. Your healing matters. Your peace matters. Your well-being matters. You and I are part of the reason for the season…because God saw value in us. Love requires healthy carriers.

    This year, permit yourself to be well. Permit others to take responsibility for their well-being. Let joy be real. Let grief be acknowledged. Let rest be honoured. Let’s be honest.

    Christmas begins in the soul before it reaches the streets. When we treat ourselves with truth, we treat others with grace. That might be the gift that makes the season meaningful again.

    I hope this season meets you with softness and gives your heart the space it needs to breathe.

    • Mr Ukoh, an alumnus of the American University of Nigeria, Yola, and PhD student at Columbia University, writes from New York.

  • Re: Is Tinubu relocating Nigeria’s capital to Lagos, piece by piece?

    Re: Is Tinubu relocating Nigeria’s capital to Lagos, piece by piece?

    By Victor Okebunmi

    “When a man is cursed by the gods, they strip him of peace, deny him sleep, and turn him into a midnight town crier shouting at his own reflection.” – African Proverb.

    This proverb captures, in full, the strange and unfortunate spectacle Nigerians witnessed in the late hours of Christmas Day (11:34pm to be precise). At a season when the nation was largely at peace with itself, families travelling freely without fuel scarcity, markets bustling, parents shopping for their children, homes filled with laughter, food, prayers, goodwill, and the spirit of love, one former unfortunate governor, named Nasir El-Rufai @elrufai, chose to spend the season consumed by bitterness. Instead of joining millions of Nigerians in celebrating a rare festive period without panic buying or endless petrol queues, he sat awake in what can only be described as political discomfort, amplifying an opinion piece attacking President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR. The coward lacked the courage to write the piece himself, too timid to put his name to the bile. Instead, he outsourced his bitterness to a hired hand and then, in a fit of nocturnal anxiety, rushed to post it on social media at midnight on Christmas night, a timing that exposes restlessness, suppressed rage, and a profound inability to accept a political reality he no longer controls, one that has permanently confined him to the graveyard of irrelevance.

    This rejoinder is not written to trade insults, but to restore facts, logic, and perspective, and to do so in clear, simple language that most will understand. Context matters deeply here. The opinion article titled “Is Tinubu relocating Nigeria’s capital to Lagos, piece by piece?” was not written by disgruntled El-Rufai. He merely amplified it. Men with conviction write their arguments openly, attach their names to them, and defend them publicly. Men unsure of themselves hire others, hide behind borrowed words, and then distribute those words quietly in the dead of night. If El-Rufai truly believed in the substance of the claims, he would have written them himself, signed them boldly, and stood by them. Instead, he outsourced the task and chose the most symbolic night of goodwill and peace to push division. That choice alone speaks volumes about motive.

    The national atmosphere at the time makes this even more revealing. Nigerians are, for once, enjoying a festive season without the familiar stress of fuel scarcity. Petrol stations are open and orderly. Transportation is moving. Food prices are trending downward in many markets compared to previous months. Traders are smiling, buyers are bargaining, and families are travelling to villages and cities alike. Terrorists and bandits are being decisively neutralised, sent to their final reckoning under sustained and precise aerial bombardment. Children are home from school, parents are present, and people are sharing meals and laughter. Churches and mosques are preaching love, forgiveness, and hope. In sharp contrast, El-Rufai appears locked in a personal war with reality, obsessively fixated on President Tinubu’s success, unable to rest or celebrate, and seemingly determined to poison a season of peace with bitterness. The contrast is not accidental; it is instructive.

    At the heart of the opinion piece is the claim that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is quietly relocating Nigeria’s capital from Abuja to Lagos. This claim is not just wrong; it is fundamentally dishonest. Nigeria’s capital remains Abuja in law, in practice, and in reality. The President lives and works in Abuja. The Presidency is in Abuja. The National Assembly conducts its business in Abuja. The Supreme Court sits in Abuja. All foreign embassies remain in Abuja. No bill has been proposed to change the capital. No constitutional amendment has been debated. No referendum has been contemplated. In simple, everyday terms, nothing about Nigeria’s capital has moved. The article deliberately confuses administrative efficiency with constitutional relocation, hoping readers will not notice the difference.

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    Lagos has always been Nigeria’s commercial and economic nerve centre. This is not a Tinubu-era development. It was so under military rule. It was so under Obasanjo. It was so under Yar’Adua. It was so under Jonathan. It was so under Buhari. Businesses, banks, ports, airlines, manufacturers, investors, and markets are heavily concentrated in Lagos and its surrounding corridors. That reality did not suddenly appear in 2023. Federal agencies operating actively from Lagos are responding to economic gravity, not political favouritism.

    Take FAAN, for instance. Lagos airports handle the overwhelming majority of Nigeria’s passenger and cargo traffic. This is a statistical fact that predates the Tinubu presidency by decades. Keeping operational decisions closer to where most flights, passengers, and revenue are generated is common sense. It reduces delays, improves coordination, and saves costs. Nobody described this as “relocating the capital” when similar operational dominance existed under previous administrations.

    The same applies to the Central Bank of Nigeria. Financial regulation, banking supervision, payments systems, and consumer protection naturally gravitate towards where financial institutions operate. Nigeria’s banking industry is concentrated in Lagos. This is how global finance works. New York is home to Wall Street, yet Washington remains the capital of the United States. No serious analyst claims those countries secretly relocated their capitals. To suggest otherwise in Nigeria’s case is either ignorance of global norms or deliberate misrepresentation.

    The Bank of Industry exists to support industrial growth, manufacturing, and private sector development. Industries, factories, investors, and supply chains are clustered heavily around Lagos and the South-West industrial corridor. Locating operational headquarters closer to industry is a governance decision rooted in practicality. It does not strip Abuja of its status, nor does it transform Lagos into a capital city. These agencies remain federal in mandate, funding, and reach. The idea of “institutional drift” is a narrative invention, not a factual development.

    The most glaring intellectual failure in the opinion piece is the attack on the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway. One must ask plainly and without apology: was El-Rufai expecting a coastal road in the North? The project is called a coastal road because it follows Nigeria’s coastline. Coastal literally means along the coast of a sea or ocean. The North, by geography, does not have a coastline. Geography is not discrimination. Nature is not biased. You cannot accuse a shoreline project of regional favouritism simply because the shoreline exists in one part of the country. That argument collapses the moment it is spoken.

    The coastal highway is designed to protect Nigeria’s fragile shoreline from erosion, connect coastal states, unlock tourism potential, facilitate maritime trade, and open up new investment corridors across the South-South and South-West. It serves national economic interests, not regional sentiment. At the same time, substantial infrastructure investments are ongoing in the North, including roads, rail expansion, agriculture, power projects, and massive security spending concentrated in northern theatres due to ongoing insecurity. These realities are ignored because they do not serve the narrative of grievance. Bitterness has a way of narrowing vision.

    The misuse of budget figures in the article is another example of deliberate distortion. Comparing the cost of a multi-year, multi-state federal infrastructure project to the annual budgets of individual states is dishonest, if not criminal. Federal projects are designed to last decades, serve millions of people across state boundaries, and are financed through layered funding mechanisms. State budgets, on the other hand, primarily fund salaries, pensions, healthcare, education, and basic services. They are not meant to deliver national-scale infrastructure. By the logic of the article, no country should ever build highways, bridges, railways, or dams, because such projects always cost more than provincial budgets can afford. That is not economic reasoning; it is propaganda aimed at stirring resentment.

    The article also expresses sudden concern about poverty, insecurity, displacement, and low literacy rates in the North. These problems did not emerge overnight, and they certainly did not begin under President Tinubu. The obvious and uncomfortable question is: who governed Nigeria over the last forty years or more, who shaped national security policy, and who sat at the centre of power during that time? Rapscallion El-Rufai was not an outsider either. He was a key participant in recent history, hobnobbing and sneaking from one bedroom to another, backstabbing his fellow executives, according to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, alongside his catastrophic, inglorious, poverty-generating tenure in Kaduna. To speak as if he has just discovered northern suffering is political amnesia. You cannot preside over decline, contribute to policy failure, and then rebrand yourself as a shocked commentator when the consequences become undeniable.

    The most dangerous aspect of the opinion piece is not its poor logic, but its intention. It seeks to reduce governance to ethnic arithmetic and development to regional rivalry. It attempts to pit North against South, Lagos against the rest of Nigeria, and geography against national unity. This is not statesmanship; it is mischief. It is the politics of division deployed by those who can no longer shape outcomes constructively.

    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is governing pragmatically. He is placing institutions where they function best, investing based on geography and economic logic, stabilising the economy, and confronting inherited challenges with realism. That approach is producing visible results, including relative fuel stability, improved market confidence, enhanced security, and renewed economic activity. That success is the nightmare that leaves our Man Friday frozen in envy, suffering acute erectile dysfunction, and the vertically, intellectually, and politically stunted El-Rufai completely unhinged.

    Nigeria’s capital is not being relocated. Nigeria is being rebuilt. And that, more than anything else, explains the anger. El-Rufai is not fighting for federalism. He is fighting irrelevance. When a man loses power, he fights geography. When he loses arguments, he hires writers. When he loses peace, he posts at midnight on Christmas Day. Meanwhile, Nigerians are moving forward, shopping, travelling, celebrating, reconnecting with family, spreading love, and finding Renewed Hope. And that reality is the loudest rebuttal of all.

    • Okebunmi is Senior Special Assistant (Publicity), Renewed Hope Global.