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  • How corruption and incompetence broke Abuja/Lagos CCTV project

    How corruption and incompetence broke Abuja/Lagos CCTV project

    By TJ Ishola

    On paper, the National Public Security Communication System (NPSCS) was a modernizing dream: a single, nationwide security backbone — secure voice trunking for security services, CCTV coverage of major cities, video-conferencing for commands, e-policing databases and an emergency dispatch network.

    In practice, it became a cautionary tale of poor procurement, weak oversight, questionable technical choices, vandalism, and the political churn that turned a strategic security asset into expensive scrap. The story of the NPSCS shows not only how projects fail in Nigeria, but also how they can be designed to succeed — if lessons are acted on with political will, technical discipline and strict anti-corruption safeguards.

    The NPSCS contract — commonly described in the press as the “Abuja/Lagos CCTV project” — was awarded in 2010 to ZTE (a Chinese telecoms contractor). The full commercial contract value was about $470 million; China Exim Bank provided a preferential buyer’s credit of roughly $399.5 million (85% of the contract) while the federal government provided a 15% counterpart contribution ($70.5m). The aid/loan terms were long: a 20-year maturity with a seven-year grace period and a low fixed interest rate — attractive loan terms that increased the political appetite to proceed quickly.

    The project’s technical promise was large: base transceiver stations across the country to provide a secure communications backbone, thousands of solar-powered CCTV cameras and control centres to give police and other agencies real-time visibility and interoperable communications. If implemented as designed, NPSCS could have helped coordination across agencies and provided a modern platform for crime detection and response.

    Where it unravelled — procurement, governance and implementation failures

    The collapse of the NPSCS was not a single fault but a cascade of avoidable failures.

    1. Procurement irregularities and weak statutory compliance: Parliamentary probes and committee hearings repeatedly flagged gaps in procurement practice. The House ad-hoc committee that investigated the project (chaired by Hon. Ahmed Yerima) recorded serious concerns — including that due process, as required by the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), was not adhered to in critical respects. The committee’s hearings and follow-up motions in the House made clear that procurement red flags were not limited to bureaucratic error but pointed to structural governance deficits.

    2. Questionable technical delivery and substandard equipment: Independent reporting and follow-up inspections showed that large portions of the deployed equipment were either non-functional shortly after handover or of poor specification. Investigations found that only a fraction of the cameras and subsystems remained operational; some handed-over control rooms were not integrated with police workflows; and key features were missing or incompatible with Nigerian operational environments. Media investigations and technical reviews described kit already dilapidated within a few years of installation.

    3. Treating a system-integration programme as an equipment sale: The NPSCS was approached like a high-value hardware purchase rather than a long-term systems integration and operations programme. Contracts delivered boxes and cameras but did not secure sustainable operations & maintenance (O&M) commitments, spare parts pipelines, training for Nigerian engineers, or service level guarantees tailored to local conditions. Big ICT projects require long-tail O&M and governance arrangements; the NPSCS lacked them.

    4. Vandalism and lack of local protection / maintenance: Physical assets — solar panels, camera housings, fibre runs and BTS sites — suffered vandalism and theft. In many instances there was no sustained maintenance budget or local rapid-response capacity to repair damaged sites; the effect was progressive degradation of what had been installed.

    5. Political discontinuity and fragmented custodianship: The project traversed administrations and ministerial custodians. At hearings, former officials and agencies pointed fingers; some agencies claimed limited knowledge of contracts or their technical content. Parliamentary committee work was sometimes initiated but not always followed to its logical conclusion, and the political appetite to prosecute malfeasance or correct the design choices fell away as priorities changed. The House investigations themselves show the project’s vulnerability to political turnover.

    6. Financial exposure despite non-performance: Even as the system underperformed, the Exim Bank loan was disbursed (100% by 2020 per project records) and Nigeria continued to carry the debt burden. That meant taxpayers paid for a large portion of a system that failed to deliver expected security outcomes — a fiscal as well as operational loss.

    What parliamentary records and committee minutes reveal (quoted and paraphrased)

    The House Ad-hoc Committee hearings in 2016, chaired by Hon. Ahmed Yerima, highlighted the scale of the loss and procurement lapses; during hearings the committee noted that the naira equivalent amount “ran into over a trillion,” and the Bureau of Public Procurement reported that due process had not been followed in award of the contract. Those findings were reflected in motions and order-papers in the House as the committee sought answers and accountability.

    House order papers and committee records (2016–2017) show the House formally receiving and debating the committee’s report and asking for follow-up actions and prosecutions where necessary. The public record of these order-papers underlines that parliamentary scrutiny occurred, but subsequent enforcement and prosecutions — if any — were not commensurate with the scale of the concerns raised.

    More recent government communications (e.g., the Federal Ministry of Police Affairs announcement in July 2023) acknowledge the network’s dilapidation, the vandalisation of facilities, and the need to place the network under a managed concession with a Project Management Team (PMT) to restore and manage the network. That admission is a tacit recognition of both the technical decay and the governance vacuum that followed initial delivery.

    Corruption and accountability — why deterrence failed

    Where major procurement is opaque and oversight weak, corruption becomes a structural risk, not an unfortunate side effect. The NPSCS suffered from a familiar pattern: award of a large single-vendor contract (high concentration of value), limited competitive disclosure of technical specifications and acceptance criteria, and inadequate independent technical verification pre- and post-handover. Parliamentary probes exposed irregularities, but the combination of legal complexity, political changes and weak prosecutorial follow-through meant few visible deterrent consequences followed. The result: a project that delivered far less than it cost — and little evidence that those responsible paid a commensurate price.

    A blueprint for revival — how to redesign and rescue a project like NPSCS

    Reviving the NPSCS (or designing a successor) is possible, but it must be done differently. The following prescriptions are practical, actionable and derived from both the failings of the original project and international best practice.

    1. Ring-fence governance, budget and technical stewardship

    Create an autonomous, fenced Project Implementation Unit (PIU) under statute or regulation with a multi-stakeholder board (Police, NSA, Finance, Budget & National Planning, Justice, BPP, ICRC) empowered to manage procurement, implementation and O&M. The PIU should have procurement authority limited to the project and an independent technical secretariat staffed by qualified engineers and programme managers.

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    2. Force technical due-diligence and phased acceptance

    Competitive, modular procurement instead of single monolithic contracts. Procure in phases (pilot → scale) with hard, independently-verified acceptance tests and performance bonds. No final payment until independent verification confirms system performance (SLA metrics: uptime, video quality, latency, interoperability). Use third-party technical auditors named in the contract and paid from escrowed funds.

    3. Local capacity, maintenance and transfer of skills

    O&M, training and spare parts must be part of the contract with KPIs and local hiring quotas. Long-term maintenance contracts with clear service windows and penalties for non-compliance ensure the system does not decay when vendors depart. Build Nigerian technical centres of excellence for security communications that receive regular audit reports.

    4. Open standards, interoperability and anti-lock-in

    Require open protocols and modular hardware so different vendors can replace components and avoid vendor lock-in. Data formats, API standards and inter-agency interoperability should be mandated in the tender documents.

    5. Transparent procurement, parliamentary oversight and sunshine clauses

    Publish tender documents, bids, evaluation scores and contract addenda on an open portal. Make the PIU’s quarterly technical and financial reports publicly available and tabled in the National Assembly. Parliamentary committees should be empowered to commission independent forensic technical reviews where needed.

    6. Clear consequences — legal, administrative and financial

    Pre-defined sanctions: blacklisting for vendors that breach quality or anti-corruption clauses; criminal referrals and asset forfeiture where graft is proven; contractual clawbacks and performance bonds used to fund remediation. Strengthen coordination with EFCC and ICPC so procurement crimes are investigated swiftly and visibly. Deterrence requires the credible, publicised enforcement of consequences.

    7. Community protection & anti-vandalism strategy

    Pair camera deployments with community policing and visible local value: traffic management feeds, licence plate enforcement, and public emergency-call kiosks. When citizens see direct benefit, community protection of infrastructure improves. Invest in tamper-resistant housings and rapid repair teams.

    8. Debt transparency and fiscal prudence

    Any future financing must be linked to measurable, phased delivery and independent verification. Loan disbursements must align to verified deliverables; governments should avoid up-front full disbursement arrangements that leave creditors and taxpayers exposed while service delivery lags. Use escrowed disbursement linked to validated technical milestones.

    •Ishola writes from the United Kingdom.

  • Ogun 2027: Kings have spoken, let the campaign begin

    Ogun 2027: Kings have spoken, let the campaign begin

    • By Kunle Somorin

    For nearly half a century, Ogun State has stood as a federation of Yoruba subgroups – Egba, Ijebu, Remo and Yewa. Yet one fact remains: since 1976, Yewa has never produced a governor. Equity – affirmed by the Nigerian Constitution and Yoruba custom – demands that no part of a polity be permanently excluded from its highest offices. The late Awujale of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Kayode Adetona, foresaw this imbalance and urged that Yewa should produce the next governor of Ogun State. His prognosis carries truth to its destination. Democracy without fairness descends into exclusion by another name.

    Against this backdrop, Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola (Yayi) emerges not as a mere aspirant but as a corrective to historical imbalance – a moral and democratic necessity. Attempts to weaponise genealogy – casting him as an outsider – have now met their answer. Yoruba wisdom cautions: Àlejò kì í mọ ìtàn ilé – a stranger cannot know the full story of the house. That story has been affirmed by those who keep it, and by the institutions that preserve lineage and belonging. As a Yoruba saying reminds us, ìrò lè rìn pẹ́, òtítọ́ ní í dé l’ẹ́yìn – falsehood may travel far, but truth arrives all the same.

    In Yewaland, Oba Kehinde Olugbenle, the Olu of Ilaro and paramount ruler, publicly affirmed Adeola as a son of Yewa. Indeed, Adeola holds the traditional title of Aremo (prime son) of Yewaland, underscoring a lineage rooted in place and custom. The maternal seal followed. At Kemta Day the previous Sunday, Adeola declared: “Ilu iya mi ni mo wa yi. Emi omo Abibat Olasumbo, omo Akinola Baba Pupa from Kemta Odutolu.” The Alake and paramount ruler of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Aremu Gbadebo, then added a defining pronouncement: “Kemta ti fun wa ni Governor!” In Yoruba cosmology, kings are custodians of heritage; their declarations carry authority. Agbà kì í wà l’ọjà, kí orí ọmọdé tuntun wó – elders do not stand by while a child’s head is misshapen. To question Adeola’s indigeneity now is, effectively, to challenge the crowns.

    Constitutionally, a governorship candidate must be an indigene. Nigerian courts often consider attestations by traditional rulers when questions of lineage arise, recognising that in matters of ancestry, custodians of custom provide important context. With these royal affirmations, the central question – indigeneship – can reasonably be regarded as resolved. Eligibility is clear. Whether Yewa or Egba, count Senator Adeola a bona fide candidate. A kì í fi ẹ̀tẹ̀ sílẹ̀ pa lápálápá – one does not abandon leprosy to treat ringworm. The debate must now shift from ancestry to governance.

    On that score, Adeola’s record is measurable and visible across all three senatorial districts of Ogun State. He has facilitated over 270 infrastructure projects across Ogun West alone; empowered 15,000 market men and women with cash grants; trained thousands in entrepreneurship; and supported over 5,000 students through a Scholarship and Bursary Board. He helped reopen the Ikenne–Ilishan road, a corridor associated with the Awolowo era, long overdue for rehabilitation, and donated 102 transformers serving 435 communities. In Sagamu, youths point to empowerment schemes; in Ifo, traders speak of solar-lit markets; in Abeokuta, students recall scholarships; in Yewa, elders reference roads linking their villages. These are not promises; they are monuments. The works that touch daily life are the truest testimonials across the three senatorial districts.

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    Politically, the Egba Lokan sentiment has broadened into a wider call for justice, grounded in the ethos of balance and inclusion. This call aligns with the current profile of the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, a son of Yewa with an Egba mother. High Chief Bode Mustapha, the Osi of Egbaland, has publicly commended Adeola’s service and described him as highly qualified among the field of contenders in terms of public service records. One voter captured governance’s essence in practical terms: the road he built reduced her car repair costs. Adeola’s dual heritage – paternally Yewa, maternally Egba – is a bridge, not a burden. Tí kì í ṣe ti bàbá ẹni, ó lè ṣe ti ìyá ẹni – what is not of one’s father may be of one’s mother. For advocates of the Egba Lokan agenda, this is a conundrum that requires wisdom. Agbájọ ọwọ́ la fi n s’ọ̀yà; ọwọ́ kan kì í gb’ẹrù d’órí – it takes joined hands to lift a load. In a state sometimes strained by sub-ethnic rivalry, such a bridge can steady the polity.

    Legitimacy, philosophers remind us, is earned. Aristotle wrote: “The good ruler is not he who is born to rule, but he who rules well.” Yoruba thought echoes this in omolúàbí – honour, responsibility and service. Ìwà l’ẹwà – character is beauty. Adeola’s record is his manifesto; his projects are his pledges in brick and mortar, in kilowatts and scholarships. The question of origins is closed by law and custom. The campaign must now be fought on competence, character and outcomes.

    History also counsels balance. Since 1976, Ogun’s leadership has passed from Olabisi Onabanjo (Ijebu), through periods of military rule, to Olusegun Osoba (Egba), Gbenga Daniel (Remo), Ibikunle Amosun (Egba) and now Dapo Abiodun (Remo). Yewa’s omission is glaring. The spirit of federal character – understood as an ethic of inclusion and fair representation – reminds us that cohesion is strengthened when all components see themselves in leadership. When law, custom and conscience converge, the argument is unassailable: justice demands that Yewa should have its turn.

    Service-delivery indicators reinforce the case. In numerous town halls and community meetings, stakeholders point to reopened roads, restored power, improved market lighting, bursaries and training programmes that have equipped young people to start small enterprises. These are lived realities, not abstractions. As policy moves from spreadsheet to street, citizens measure leadership by the bridges they cross, the lights that stay on and the opportunities that open. The test of governance is not rhetoric but results – how many lives are tangibly improved through would‑be leaders’ interventions.

    It is only fair to acknowledge that Yewa/Awori sons and daughters have every right to aspire to the governorship of Ogun State, even as I acknowledge Yayi’s edge. I do not consider any aspirant a footnote. Each is a chapter in this long‑drawn struggle that has marginalised people of Yewa/Awori origin. Over the years, names such as Gboyega Isiaka, Abiodun Akinlade, Noimot Salako-Oyedele, Biyi Otegbeye and others have surfaced – each carrying the hopes of their people. Many observers argue that the seat has eluded Yewa not for lack of talent or ambition, but for want of unity and a common front. Fragmentation, multiple candidacies and internal rivalries have, at times, diluted the collective claim. The lesson is clear: a house divided against itself cannot stand. The right to contend is sacrosanct, but it is best exercised with caution, dignity and a commitment to the larger cause of Yewa’s long‑awaited turn.

    If Senator Adeola has been deemed worthy to sit in the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly, where he has distinguished himself with tangible service and verifiable delivery, then it follows by both logic and justice that he is equally qualified to occupy the Governor’s Office at Oke Mosan. The Constitution does not prescribe a lesser standard for the Senate than for the governorship; indeed, both demand competence, integrity and commitment to the people. Having facilitated infrastructure, empowered communities, and touched thousands of lives through scholarships and social programmes, he has already demonstrated the capacity to translate vision into dividends of democracy. To deny him the gubernatorial ticket after such a record would be to contradict both law and custom, and to deprive Ogun State of a tested hand whose service has spoken louder than rhetoric.

    Within this context, the emergence of Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola should be seen not as a threat but as an opportunity. If he is qualified to be a senator and has delivered verifiable dividends of democracy – roads, scholarships, empowerment and infrastructure – what principle would justify denying him a fair contest for the gubernatorial ticket? The crowns have spoken, the Constitution is satisfied and his record is manifest. What remains is for all aspirants to embrace consensus where possible, coalition where necessary and civility at all times. Campaigns should elevate issues, not inflame identities; they should test plans, not impugn persons. A race anchored on programmes, capacity and probity will serve Ogun better than one framed by whispers of ancestry.

    The road to 2027 will be defined by three questions that every contender must answer plainly. First, what is your plan to accelerate inclusive growth across Ogun’s three senatorial districts – industrial corridors, agribusiness value chains, urban renewal and rural connectivity alike? Second, how will you deliver reliable power, water, primary healthcare and basic education to communities that have waited too long? Third, what is your approach to youth employment – skills, finance and markets – so that entrepreneurship is not a slogan but a pathway? On these questions, Adeola’s portfolio of projects provides an opening bid. Others should place their records alongside his and let the people compare, line by line.

    Good politics is, at heart, good governance. It listens, learns and builds. It makes room for difference without turning difference into division. It honours tradition without becoming captive to nostalgia. It remembers that in a republic, leadership is stewardship: those who seek the people’s mandate must show the people’s returns. As the saying goes, ohun tí a bá fi ọwọ́ ṣe, kì í bà ẹnìkan lórí – the work of one’s hands vindicates. In a competitive field, the voters will look for what is concrete and measurable.

    The argument, then, is complete. Indigeneity has been addressed in law and affirmed by custom. The historical omission of Yewa has been acknowledged by monarchs and widely recognised in public discourse. The service record in question is tangible and verifiable. The Constitution demands fairness; Yoruba tradition demands balance; democracy demands justice. All three converge on a simple conclusion: it is Yewa’s turn. And if the race is to be run on competence, delivery and character, Adeola enters it with a record that can be examined without fear or favour.

    For now, the crowns have spoken. History calls. Let the campaign begin. In that campaign, one name stands – not as a slogan, but as a standard; not as a whisper, but as a monument; not as a claimant, but as a custodian. Yayi.

    • Somorin, former Chief Press Secretary to Governor Dapo Abiodun, writes from Crescent University, Abeokuta.
  • Schools closure and the disease of rhotacism

    Schools closure and the disease of rhotacism

    • By Charles Dickson

    The inability to pronounce the letter r is called rhotacism—a quiet irony in speech pathology, where sufferers lack the tongue to name their condition. Nigeria today appears afflicted by a similar policy disorder: incapacity to articulate the real threats to learning, safety, and development, while endlessly announcing their symptoms. The reflexive closure of schools across states, often with the federal government’s blessing, is not merely a security response; it is a linguistic failure of governance. We cannot pronounce the problem, so we silence the classroom.

    At surface level, school closures masquerade as prudence. No leader wants abducted children, grieving parents, viral outrage. But development practice teaches us to distrust surface logic. If classrooms are unsafe, what calculus deems campuses secure? If primary schools are closed in the name of vulnerability, why do lecture halls hum, convocation grounds fill, churches and mosques swell, markets bustle, and political rallies roar? The policy geometry is incoherent. Risk does not dissolve with age brackets or academic levels; it migrates along opportunity lines. Violence, like water, flows where barriers are weakest—not where regulations are loudest.

    The headline figures tell a damning story. Over 42,000 schools categorized as vulnerable. A $30 million Safe School Initiative announced, lauded, and then largely evaporated into PowerPoint memory. What exactly has closure achieved in this arithmetic? If risk prompted closure, closure must prompt mitigation. Yet what we witness is substitution, not solution. Strategy is replaced by symbolism. Doors are shut to demonstrate action while the engines of threat, the logistics, financing, intelligence gaps, and ungoverned spaces remain scandalously intact.

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    The first ethical question is not poetic distrust; it is arithmetic ethics. How many days of learning are lost per closure? How many children drift permanently out of school into child labour, early marriage, recruitment pipelines, or migration traps? Empirical evidence across fragile contexts, from the Sahel to Northeast Nigeria, shows that prolonged closures fracture educational trajectories irreversibly. A classroom shut today becomes a livelihood foreclosed tomorrow. When education systems stall, insecurity does not retreat; it recruits.

    Development is not administered by press statements. It is built through boring, relentless infrastructure—data infrastructure, trust infrastructure, and response infrastructure.

    Consider Community Early Warning Systems (CEWS). Where they exist and function, attacks are anticipated, routes mapped, and escalation interrupted. Where they are absent, closure becomes the blunt instrument of last resort.

    Yet how many states have meaningfully integrated CEWS into school security architecture? How many have empowered bodies to convene multi-actor protection coalitions that include women, youth, traditional leaders, transport unions, and faith networks? The chalk does not hold risk; the cheque does. And the cheque has been shamefully mute.

     Security is not the absence of pupils; it is the presence of intelligence. Closing schools without opening data is policy rhotacism. We cannot pronounce “threat mapping,” so we mouth “shutdown.” We cannot say “transport node vulnerability,” so we say “holiday.” We cannot articulate “perimeter hardening and community interception routes,” so we declare “postponement.” The oxygen of risk—enrolment points, travel corridors, marketplaces abutting school fences requires monitoring in real time. If threat mapping did not intensify the moment schools closed, then the threat merely changed address, not behaviour.

    The contradiction deepens when worship spaces remain open. Christian Association of Nigeria congregations gather. Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs convenes faithful. If the doctrine is crowd risk, the exemptions are indefensible. If the doctrine is youth vulnerability, then universities must not be exempt. If the doctrine is intelligence deficit, then closure is an admission of systemic failure. You cannot claim safety by relocating learning into chaos. Faith spaces recognize a truth policy forgets: protection flows from relationship density. The congregation knows its strangers. Does the school gate?

    Globally, contexts plagued by school-related violence have moved in the opposite direction—not toward retreat, but toward smart hardening. Drone reconnaissance over school corridors. AI-assisted risk scoring that fuses incident data, weather, market days, and movement patterns. Platforms to defuse land, grazing, and community disputes before they metastasize into school-adjacent violence. Psychosocial resilience units embedded in schools. Community rangers trained, insured, and supervised, not as vigilantes but as guardians accountable to law. Transparent pilots with public dashboards. Sanctions for local leaders who ignore warning signals. None of this is theoretical.

    Because closure is administratively convenient. It transfers responsibility from execution to explanation. Once schools are shut, failure becomes abstract. Metrics blur. When exactly did the risk reduce? Who measures it? At what threshold does reopening occur? Without benchmarks, closure becomes the chief KPI of insecurity governance. That is not security architecture; it is security bureaucracy—forms without force, memos without muscle.

    Local Government Areas on volatile frontiers—whether in Niger State or Kogi are living laboratories of conciliation culture. Traditional dispute resolution, faith mediation, women-led early warning, youth intelligence networks; these are not weaknesses to be ignored until Abuja’s biro approves boots on the ground. They are strengths to be funded, trained, and supervised. Development practice demands co-design. Are LGA leaders co-authoring protection protocols, or passively awaiting circulars? Centralization kills time; time kills children’s futures.

    The opportunity costs of closure are staggering and gendered. Girls pay first and longest. Distance learning fantasies collapse where electricity, devices, and safety at home are uneven. Boys drift into non-state labour or armed networks promising income and belonging. Teachers disengage. Trust between communities and state frays further. When schools finally reopen—if they do—the damage is cumulative. Closure does not pause risk; it compounds it.

    There is also a moral hazard. Normalizing closure teaches adversaries what works. Disrupt learning to extract concessions. Threaten the symbol to paralyze the system. Deterrence requires resilience. A state that keeps schools open while hardening them sends a different signal: intimidation will not erase futures.

    To be clear, this is not romantic defiance. There are moments when temporary closure is warranted. But temporary requires temporality: timelines, triggers, alternatives. Closure without an accompanying surge in intelligence, infrastructure, and accountability is futility dressed as care. It is rhotacism—the inability to name and thus cure the disease.

    So the unperfumed questions must persist. What exactly is being done differently today that was not urgent yesterday? Where are the transparent pilots funded by the Safe School Initiative? Who owns the dashboards? Which perimeters were hardened, which routes monitored, which sanctions enforced? Who measures risk reduction, and when is bureaucracy upgraded into architecture?

    Shutting schools may shelter minds briefly. But without strategy that attacks the root—financing of violence, data blindness, local exclusion, and accountability gaps—it only shelters the conscience of policy. Until answers arrive with evidence of execution, Nigeria’s schools are not closed for safety. They are closed for convenience. And convenience, like rhotacism, leaves us unable to pronounce the truth.

    •Prince Dickson, PhD, is a development & media practitioner.

  • Benin’s failed coup: Three factors behind the takeover attempt

    Benin’s failed coup: Three factors behind the takeover attempt

    • By John Joseph Chin

    Military elements attempted to topple Benin’s government in early December 2025. However, unlike other coups across the Sahel and West Africa since 2020, this bid triggered a military response from Benin’s neighbours.

    Benin is a West African state of 14.8 million people bordered by Togo, Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria.

    Responding to two requests for assistance from the government of President Patrice Talon, Nigeria deployed fighter jets and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) deployed elements of its standby force to target and dislodge the pro-coup forces.

    ECOWAS intervention likely played an important role in undermining the coup’s momentum and restoring order. The dozen or so putschists scored early tactical successes. They captured and broadcast from the national television station, occupied a military camp, and even took the two senior-most army officers hostage. But once ECOWAS intervened militarily, any fence-sitters concluded that loyalists would prevail. Rather than a broad-based uprising, only 14 were arrested with a few plotters still at large.

    I’m a scholar who maintains the Colpus dataset of coups and I have documented the history of post-second world war coups. As part of this work, I have sought to document the complex causes and effects of Africa’s post-2020 “epidemic of coups”, now entering its fifth year.

    Though details remain scant on the motives of the coup plotters led by Lt. Col. Pascal Tigri, three structural factors likely contributed to the latest coup attempt:

    Growing autocracy under Talon since 2016

    Rising jihadist violence in Benin’s north that is spilling over from Sahel neighbours

    Deepening coup contagion as Africa’s coup belt now threatens the West African region.

    From democratic backsliding to democratic U-turn?

    Benin does not have a history of recent coups. It had not suffered a bona fide coup attempt since January 1975.

    In the first 15 years after independence from France in 1960, Dahomey (as the country was then called) experienced nine coup attempts, making it one of the most coup-prone countries in sub-Saharan Africa during the early Cold War period.

    However, political instability through the early 1970s gave way to the stable and durable personalist regime of Mathieu Kérékou (1972-1990). This was followed by electoral democracy after the Cold War.

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    Until recently, Benin had been heralded as one of Africa’s “democratic outliers” and success cases of democratic survival despite challenging conditions. Though poor, Benin has seen decades of improving average living standards. Economic growth in 2025 was 7.5%; the latest unrest cannot be blamed on poverty or an economic crisis.

    However, data on three key dimensions of democracy shows that although electoral contestation and participation have endured, constraints on the executive (and thus liberal democracy overall) have declined in Benin since Talon’s election as president in 2016.

    According to autocratic regime data from US political scientists Barbara Geddes, Joe Wright and Erica Frantz as well as the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project (which surveys experts about democracy worldwide), Benin slipped back into an electoral autocracy in 2019. That is when opposition candidates were prevented from competing in parliamentary elections. The polls were marred by repression of mass protests and an internet shutdown.

    In 2021, an electoral boycott led to Talon’s easy re-election.

    V-Dem data show a very partial and incomplete democratic rebound since 2022. The opposition was allowed to compete in the January 2023 parliamentary elections. And earlier this year Talon confirmed that he would not seek an unconstitutional third term.

    The potential for a coup, however, was foreshadowed last fall when the regime alleged that it had uncovered a coup plot involving a presidential hopeful in 2026. Last month, parliament’s vote to create a Senate was condemned by the opposition as allowing Talon a means to influence affairs after he steps down.

    With the main opposition party barred from running in next year’s presidential election, Talon is expected to hand off power to his ally and finance minister, Romuald Wadagni.

    Though the political leanings of Tigri and coup plotters remain unclear, Tigri claimed to seek to “free the people from dictatorship”.

    The coup makers also presumably sought to block the upcoming 2026 parliamentary and presidential elections.

    A growing jihadist threat

    Among the coup leaders’ key complaints was Talon’s mismanagement of the country. In particular, they cited “continuing deterioration of the security situation in northern Benin and “the ignorance and neglect of the situation of our brothers in arms who have fallen at the front” due to worsening jihadist violence.

    A number of coups in nearby countries since 2020 have been preceded by rising levels of political violence and deepening insecurity born of jihadist insurgencies. That was certainly the case in Mali, Burkina Faso and to a lesser extent Niger.

    Since last year, it has been clear that the jihadist violence was spilling over from Sahel neighbours such as Burkina Faso and Niger into the borderlands of West Africa. This included Benin’s north. ACLED data show a major increase in political violence events since 2022. And a spike in political fatalities in 2024.

    Much of this increased violence is attributable to the advance of operations by the al-Qaida affiliated group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM). The group also managed to launch its first fatal attack in Nigeria at the end of October.

    Russia has become the primary security partner for the Sahel Alliance. The defence pact was signed in 2023 by post-coup juntas of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger to defeat jihadists and maintain power.

    Nevertheless, Benin has continued to rely on western security partners to aid its counter-insurgency efforts and bolster border security. Notably, Benin continues to welcome military cooperation with France. Since 2022 Paris has pledged greater military aid to combat terrorism.

    In September, US Africa Command commander General Dagvin Anderson visited Benin to underscore cooperation to oppose terrorism.

    During the coup attempt, Tigri reportedly warned against French intervention and railed against “imperialism”. The speech reportedly ended with the phrase “The Republic or Death”, which echoes the new motto of Burkina Faso’s junta.

    This suggests that the coup makers may have been inspired by others in the Sahel.

    Risk of the coup belt expanding

    The Benin events mark the third coup attempt and first failed coup this year in the Sahel region. There have been 17 coup attempts in Africa since 2020, including 11 successful coups. This makes the African coup belt stretching across the Sahel and West Africa the global epicentre of coups.

    West Africa’s latest “copycat” coup attempt was condemned by the African Union, European Union and ECOWAS. Yet it was praised by pro-Russian social media accounts, reflecting a growing cleavage between the Russia-aligned juntas of the Sahel Alliance and the remaining ECOWAS -aligned civilian regimes of West Africa.

    Although Nigeria-led ECOWAS threatened military intervention after the coup in Niger in July 2023, the regional body only actually militarily intervened to defeat the coup attempt in Benin. Nigeria, it appears, has drawn a line in the sand to retain a buffer from further instability – including JNIM operations. On the same day of the coup attempt in Benin, it was reported that Nigeria was seeking greater aid from France to combat insecurity.

    •Chin is assistant teaching professor of strategy and technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. https://theconversation.com/benins-failed-coup-three-factors-behind-the-takeover-attempt-271540”

  • Microbial resistance: How farms, clinics, and markets are driving crisis

    Microbial resistance: How farms, clinics, and markets are driving crisis

    • By Emeka Umezurike

    Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) which is the ability of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites to survive and multiply despite being treated with medicines and agents designed to kill them is no longer a distant threat in Nigeria. This silent crisis is becoming increasingly urgent. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 60,000 Nigerians die every year as a result of AMR. 

    The concept of One Health is a concept which recognizes that the human well-being is deeply connected to the health of animals and the environment. In the context of AMR, that means the misuse of antibiotics in livestock, the spread of resistant microbes through markets and waste, and overuse in clinics are not separate problems but they are tightly interwoven.

    On Nigeria’s poultry farms, antibiotic use is rampant, sometimes not to treat illness but to accelerate growth. A recent study of 25 poultry farms in Oyo State found alarmingly high rates of resistance: about 48% of Salmonella isolates, and more than half of E. coli samples, carried genes that make them resistant to critical antibiotics. These resistant bacteria pose a risk not just to the animals themselves but to people who eat, handle, or live near them. Meanwhile, antibiotic misuse in human medicine continues unabated. In many communities, Nigerians purchase antibiotics over the counter, often without prescriptions, and doctors sometimes prescribe them “blindly” because diagnostics are lacking. This means more opportunities for bacteria to develop resistance especially when antibiotics are used inappropriately or stopped too soon.

    On the environmental front, Nigeria is grappling with its own challenges. Research shows that resistant bacteria are common in water sources, soil, and effluents, especially where sanitation is poor or drug waste seeps into the environment. The Second National Action Plan on AMR (2024–2028) explicitly acknowledges these environmental drivers.

    The toll of AMR in Nigeria is staggering. Reecent WHO estimates that approximately 50,500 deaths were directly attributable to resistant infections, with as many as 227,000 deaths associated with AMR more broadly. Beyond the loss of life, the economic burden is immense resistant infections drive up healthcare costs, extend hospital stays, and strain a fragile health system. Some of the most common resistance genes detected in Nigerian bacteria include bla_CTX-M, bla_SHV, and bla_NDM, which undermine the effectiveness of many frontline antibiotics.

    Policy gaps and what must be done

    Nigeria has made progress: it launched its Second National Action Plan on AMR (2024–2028) to strengthen surveillance, stewardship, and cross-sector coordination. Yet implementation remains a serious challenge. Experts point out major gaps: over-the-counter antibiotic access, weak veterinary oversight, and limited data sharing across health, agriculture, and environmental agencies. A recent study involving human and animal health professionals ranked “ease of access to antimicrobials without prescription” and “lack of awareness of AMR” as the top challenges. Laboratory capacity is improving but remains unevenly distributed. The WHO recently supported Nigeria to conduct a survey in six geopolitical zones, strengthening labs in key hospitals to better track resistance and institutionalize antimicrobial stewardship programs.

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    Why Nigeria’s approach needs to be truly “One Health”

    To effectively curb antimicrobial resistance (AMR), policies and interventions must reflect the interconnected nature of its drivers across human, animal, and environmental sectors. In the agricultural sector, stricter regulation is required through the prohibition or tight control of antibiotic classes that are critically important for human medicine when used in livestock production. Within healthcare settings, antimicrobial stewardship programs should be strengthened by expanding access to diagnostic testing to ensure that prescriptions are evidence-based and appropriately targeted. Surveillance systems must also be broadened to integrate data from human health, veterinary, and environmental sources to enable comprehensive monitoring of resistance trends. In addition, sustained awareness campaigns are essential to educate farmers, pharmacists, healthcare workers, and the wider public on the risks of AMR and the importance of responsible antimicrobial use. Finally, environmental protection measures, including proper waste-management strategies for agricultural run-off and pharmaceutical disposal, are necessary to reduce the environmental dissemination of antimicrobial-resistant organisms.

    A critical moment and global spotlight

    Nigeria is not just responding it is stepping into a global leadership role. In 2026, the country will host the 5th Global High-Level Ministerial Conference on AMR, bringing together experts, policymakers, and One Health stakeholders to chart the way forward.  During this year’s World AMR Awareness Week, Nigeria’s coordinated messaging backed by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the Ministries of Health, Agriculture, and Environment underscores how deeply AMR is embedded across sectors.

    Conclusion

    Antimicrobial resistance in Nigeria is not confined to clinics or hospitals; it is being shaped on farms, in markets, and within the very soils and waters that connect us. Tackling it requires more than medical intervention; it demands a One Health approach that aligns policies, strengthens surveillance, and shifts behaviors across sectors. If Nigeria fails to act holistically, the country risks undermining decades of medical progress. But with coordinated effort, robust regulation, and public awareness, there is a real opportunity to turn the tide protecting both human lives and the effectiveness of antibiotics for future generations.

    •Umezurike sent this piece via <umezurikee@yahoo.com>

  • Why Nigeria’s humanitarian reset deserves global backing

    Why Nigeria’s humanitarian reset deserves global backing

    By Kennedy Elaigwu Awodi

    The Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation has long been a flashpoint in our national discourse, a critical institution tasked with the monumental responsibility of managing Nigeria’s multi-dimensional poverty crisis, assisting millions of internally displaced persons (IDPs), and ensuring the integrity of the nation’s social safety nets.

    When I look at the work of the current Minister, Bernard Mohammed Doro, since he assumed office, I see a deliberate shift in strategic intent. He is focusing his initial tenure not on revolutionary dismantling, but on reform-minded institutional strengthening and transparent continuity.

    Doro’s early achievements, as evidenced by his publicly highlighted milestones, paint the picture of a technocrat determined to impose order, accountability, and a long-term vision upon a sector often criticised for short-term, politicised responses. This foundational work is not just internal posturing; it is attracting global confidence.

    Just this past week, the minister hosted high-level delegations from the World Bank, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the Social Protection Development Partners Group (SP-DPG). These meetings, held in Abuja, confirmed my assessment: the global community is increasingly backing the direction President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has set for the sector under the Renewed Hope Agenda.

    The conversations provided concrete evidence of the minister’s success in building partnerships. I was particularly struck by the World Bank’s commendation for the administration’s decisive steps toward a transparent, data-driven social protection system. Doro’s emphasis that the National Social Register (NSR), now covering nearly 20 million households, is being upgraded to serve as a credible nationwide gateway for identifying and delivering support is strategically sound.

    It strengthens the core argument I have been making: the NSR is arguably the most critical tool for effective social welfare distribution in Africa. The World Bank welcoming the ministry’s forthcoming Strategic Partnership Framework as a “game-changing move” to harmonise actions between all stakeholders tells me that this is more than just talk; it is a serious architectural overhaul.

    In a follow-up engagement, the ICRC’s reaffirmation of support for conflict-affected communities, coupled with their praise for the government’s strengthened coordination role, further validates the new phase of proactive, accountable, and people-centred humanitarian governance that Doro is driving. This includes tackling the long-standing, heart-breaking challenge of more than 24,000 missing persons, a critical humanitarian issue that requires decisive, government-led action.

    The minister’s greatest initial achievement lies in this new clarity of vision. His pledge to run the ministry “not on charity, but as a right and a responsibility of the government” is a direct confrontation with the history of opacity that has plagued social welfare programs. Furthermore, the joint session with the SP-DPG, comprising the EU, UNICEF, the US Government, and others, showed partners expressing strong alignment with the push for better coordination and sustainable financing.

    Frankly, when major partners describe the emerging reforms as some of the most promising steps Nigeria has taken in more than a decade, I feel we must pay attention.

    The focus on the “Skill to Wealth Initiative” demonstrates a crucial, forward-thinking shift from palliative care to sustainable economic empowerment. Poverty alleviation must involve breaking the cycle of dependency by investing in vocational skills and, crucially, highlighting innovative green-economy solutions—such as clean cooking, carbon credits and tree-planting.

    Doro is creating new pathways for both poverty reduction and private-sector participation. This aligns with global best practices that advocate for combining immediate relief with livelihood support.

    While the strategic blueprint Doro has laid down is robust, the challenge for the ministry now shifts to implementation, depth, and broadening its impact beyond the initial success. My concerns remain in three critical areas where the minister can strengthen his reform agenda:

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    Deepening the NSR’s integrity and last-mile access: The power of the National Social Register is its size, but its weakness lies in its potential for exclusion. The ministry must institute a verifiable, Community-Driven Mechanism for Grievance Redress and Inclusivity Audits (GRIA), empowering local authorities to validate lists and ensuring the genuine poor in the informal sector are not overlooked.

    Humanitarian action: Nigeria faces cyclical crises. The ministry must spearhead a transition to a comprehensive Anticipatory Action Framework (AAF). This means establishing clear, science-based “triggers” with agencies like NIMET that automatically release pre-allocated funds before a crisis hits, moving beyond reactive disaster response.

    Institutionalising a ‘Poverty Reduction Impact Assessment’: To ensure the work is truly translating to poverty reduction, I urge the implementation of a Poverty Reduction Impact Assessment (PRIA) for all flagship programs. This includes a clear “graduation” or exit strategy for the Conditional Cash Transfer program and securing formal private-sector partnerships for the “Skill to Wealth Initiative” to guarantee apprenticeships and job creation.

    Dr. Bernard Doro has, in his short tenure, successfully provided the crucial initial element: a new sense of direction and moral authority. His focus on governance, data, and sustainable skills acquisition is the right strategic step, evidenced by the unprecedented alignment from the World Bank, ICRC, and the SP-DPG. The message is unanimous: Nigeria is resetting its systems with renewed clarity. The task ahead is operational: embedding that accountability into every layer of implementation to move us steadily toward a more secure, resilient, and inclusive future for our most vulnerable citizens.

    •Awodi wrote from North Carolina, USA.

  • Misreading of Nigeria’s intervention in Benin’s coup

    Misreading of Nigeria’s intervention in Benin’s coup

    By Lekan Olayiwola

    Nigeria’s rapid quashing of the attempted coup in neighbouring Benin sparked anger and disbelief at home. Citizens watched the speed, clarity, and decisiveness of the intervention and asked: if the state can act this fast abroad, why does insecurity still define life at home? Some accused the government of hypocrisy; protecting foreign governments while abandoning its own people.

    Others saw evidence of Nigeria as a regional proxy for Western powers or recklessly entangled in global struggles while domestic violence continued unchecked. Flawed as these reactions may be, they expose a deep crisis of trust: every display of state capacity is met with suspicion, revealing that the true disconnect lies not abroad, but in Nigeria’s fractured relationship with its own citizens.

    Two different logics of war

    Nigeria’s internal struggle against insurgency, banditry, and organised criminal violence is asymmetric warfare against non-state actors embedded within civilian populations, sustained by poverty, displacement, grievance, and fear. Such wars are slow, intelligence-dependent, morally fragile, and brutally complex. Progress is incremental, reversals are common, and victory depends less on firepower than on information, legitimacy, and community cooperation.

    Quashing a coup is a different kind of conflict altogether. It is state-to-state deterrence, executed within severely compressed timeframes. Coups succeed or fail in hours, sometimes minutes. Speed and decisiveness are not optional; they are the strategy. Delay equals collapse. In these moments, clarity of command and rapid mobilisation matter more than the prolonged social repair that counter-insurgency demands.

    Regional security is not domestic policing

    Nigeria’s intervention in Benin was not an extension of domestic counter-terror operations, nor a diversion from them, but a discrete response to an unconstitutional seizure of power in a neighbouring state. Nigeria’s long-standing role within ECOWAS is neither charitable militarism nor impulsive adventurism. It is collective security enforcement, anchored in treaties Nigeria helped design, fund, and uphold for decades.

    From Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s to Guinea-Bissau and The Gambia, Nigeria has repeatedly absorbed the cost of stabilising a volatile sub-region. Counter-insurgency, coup deterrence, and regional security enforcement should not be conflated. A fire brigade that quickly extinguishes a neighbour’s kitchen fire has not proven it can rebuild a city destroyed by years of arson. The skills, timelines, and conditions are not the same.

    Nigeria was not acting alone and not acting for France

    Claims that Nigeria acted as a regional enforcer for France or Western interests resonate because of Africa’s history of foreign interference. Yet Nigeria has long been the military and diplomatic backbone of ECOWAS, acting first when instability erupts due to its capacity and exposure, not because of external control.

    In Benin, the government requested assistance, and Nigeria responded within ECOWAS protocols on unconstitutional changes of government. This was institutional duty, not adventurism, and does not compromise non-alignment. Nigeria’s foreign policy balances sovereignty with responsibility. Suggesting it “chose Benin over Nigerians” misreads security realities: in an interconnected region, instability abroad eventually affects domestic safety.

    What Nigerians’ anger reveals

    Nigerians’ anger stems largely from accumulated trauma. For years, rural and peripheral communities have lived under siege; banditry, kidnapping, terrorism, and criminal militias are daily realities. Villages survive with minimal state presence; families bury loved ones without justice or explanation.

    In such conditions, every display of state competence sparks painful comparisons: if the state can act decisively abroad, why not here? Rapid domestic mobilization remains uneven. When legitimacy erodes, all actions are mistrusted—neutrality feels like betrayal, necessary interventions like abandonment. The Benin episode exposes not just insecurity, but collapsed interpretative trust.

    The trust–insecurity death spiral

    Nigeria’s security crisis is sustained by broken relationships between citizens and the state. Where trust collapses, intelligence dries up. Communities stop sharing information, either out of fear or resentment. Cooperation gives way to silence. Armed groups exploit this vacuum, embedding themselves within traumatised populations by offering protection, income, or revenge where the state is absent or distrusted.

    The result is a vicious, self-reinforcing cycle. Insecurity deepens mistrust. Mistrust weakens intelligence. Weak intelligence prolongs insecurity. Each failure feeds the next. This is why Nigeria can move swiftly to neutralise a coup across borders yet struggle to suppress armed groups at home. Counter-insurgency is not won by speed alone. It is won by legitimacy.

    The real gap was narrative, not action

    The government’s most consequential oversight in the Benin episode was not the intervention itself, but unconvincing explanation. No sustained effort to clarify the difference between coup deterrence and counter-terrorism. No serious attempt to situate the action within ECOWAS obligations. No clear connection drawn between regional stability and Nigeria’s own security interests. Most damagingly, there was little acknowledgment of citizens’ exhaustion and fear.

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    Silence created a vacuum, and outrage rushed in to fill it. In societies where trust has been battered, narrative is not propaganda; it is governance. Explaining why actions are taken is not weakness. It is a form of respect. When leaders fail to communicate moral and strategic reasoning, citizens assume the worst not because they are irrational, but because past experience has taught them disbelief.

    Legitimacy and crisis communication as firewall

    Security is not merely the absence of violence. It is the presence of dignity. Populations that feel seen, protected, and respected become the strongest intelligence network any state can possess. Those who feel ignored or abused withdraw, resist, or adapt in ways that undermine collective safety.

    Regional leadership and domestic legitimacy are not competing priorities. They are mutually reinforcing. Nigeria cannot anchor ECOWAS abroad while neglecting empathy at home. Rebuilding trust requires more than operations; it demands a deliberate action plan including legitimacy and crisis communication as governance.

    Rebuilding trust cannot rest on government statements or military action alone; it requires a civic infrastructure that penetrates daily life. Traditional rulers, religious leaders, civil society actors, and the National Orientation Agency are the connective tissue between state and citizen. Their moral authority and credibility ensure that explanations of ECOWAS obligations or acknowledgements of trauma are heard as empathy, not propaganda.

    Civic education must translate interventions into local idioms, create feedback loops, and foster dialogue. Community repair through schools, clinics, and accountable policing becomes classrooms of legitimacy. Security framed as protecting citizens with dignity, reinforced by civil society monitoring, ensures legitimacy and communication together form Nigeria’s true firewall.

    •Olayiwola is a peace & conflict researcher and policy analyst. He can be reached at lekanolayiwola@gmail.com

  • The eagle on the Iroko

    The eagle on the Iroko

    • By Mike Kebonkwu

    “I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all”. Ecclesiastes 9:11 KJV.

    I am not a pastor but I could not find a better way to start this piece than the above scriptural epigram.   I know that God rules in the affairs of men; coming in time, chances and good luck in predestination! About a fortnight ago, everybody would have thought that it was over and finish with General Christopher Gwabin Musa (retired), the immediate past Chief of Defence Staff of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, a four-star general.  His removal had elicited the usual unfounded national malaise and social media rogue theory of rumpus with the president who decidedly sacked him.

    This is not withstanding that his removal appeared clearly to have been premised on routine change by effluxion of time, and length of service being the only man standing in his 38th Course in the Nigerian Defence Academy after all, his course mates have retired. He reached the apex of his career in the armed forces as a four-star general and the number one soldier.  He appeared to have carried on with his life with measured equanimity to another phase of life, whether he was sacked or removed, after a fulfilled military career. 

    Just as he transits to navigate into the uncertain world of veterans, General Musa secured the nomination of Mr President to replace Mohammed Badaru Abubakar as Minister of Defence who, rumour had it, resigned, citing ill health.  

    Today, Musa sits at the pinnacle of the Nigeria’s Defence architecture like a desert eagle, not a peacock to oversee the entire Nigeria’s security network; arguably like the Dean of Ministers, and first among equals.

    There have been very positive comments from cross sections of Nigerians on the balance of his appointment, as a square peg in square hole, not based on any sectarian consideration.  No doubt, he is on a very familiar terrain with his appointment as Minister of Defence because he has never known any other job besides service in the military, and moving from one theatre to the other.  Even while in office as the Chief of Defence Staff, he was not trailed or tainted by negative comments of partisanship on cleavages. He appears a good mixer and a patriot. 

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    Today, different groups may want to lay claim and appropriate him in confraternity, holding unto the hem of his garment as their own.  That is a usual cultural behaviour with us, success in Africa has many parents and siblings, but failure is an orphan. 

    General Christopher Musa, a northern Christian is a detribalized Nigerian; I understand he is married to a woman from Delta State and his circle of friends to my knowledge is from the pot pourri of the Nigerian society; north, south, east and west.  He seemingly belongs to everyone, and belongs to nobody; not in the manner of late former Head of State and president, Muhammadu Buhari; again, it is up to him to prove himself. 

    Those celebrating and congratulating him as if he has won an Oscar Prize probably missed the point because his appointment is not a party jig of roses, but a clarion call to urgent national duty, and an invitation to carry a heavy cross for a daunting challenge to carry out clinical surgery and operation on the insecurity that has pinned the country down.  The General has to understand this fact before he gets carried away by the Nigerian stream. 

    Nigeria is immersed in insecurity that cannot be dealt with by political rhetoric and theorizing in unconventional or asymmetrical warfare.  There is great expectation from Nigerians who are weary and battle fatigued at the relentless siege from terrorists, bandits, kidnappers, unknown gunmen, armed herders etc., etc.  We are traumatized and terrorized on all fronts; we live in fear at home, we travel and move on the roads and places of work in panic.  Nigeria faces formidable non-state actors bent on destroying our values, with complicit lethargic political leadership unable to muster the political will.

    General Musa is very familiar with the Nigeria’s security terrain and environment and probably well equipped to handle it if he is able to navigate through the complex web of the politics driven by religion and ethnicity. To deal with the asphyxiating insecurity, he has to first compartmentalize the problems into its proper segments.  First, take on the behemoths that are the foot soldiers on the field with uncommon aggression and overwhelming lethal force; no retreat, no surrender!  Acquire the right platforms for the armed forces; drones, scanners and cameras, forensic intelligence and surveillance with curtain edge technology. He has to breathe on the necks of the Service Chiefs and constantly be on the same page with the Commander-in-Chief.  Carry the battle to the enemies in their camps; it is not number that wins battles; it is discipline, training, equipment and the men behind the equipment.  As it is often said, a soldier is as good as his training, weapon and equipment manoeuvrability. No appeasement, no negotiation and no taking of hostages!  The troops must be properly equipped and motivated to carry out the task; they have the capacity and capability driven by the right leadership. 

    In the task ahead, General Musa should be prepared to meet saboteurs,   friendly forces and foes alike cohabiting with him in the same camp.  No single Nigerian should be left in captivity of bandits, kidnappers and terrorists; we must stop the haemorrhage across the country from criminals. 

    The president may have come under sufficient pressure to get to where we are now looking for the right man for the job.  It goes beyond that; he must also give the security chiefs blank cheque and clear orders and set time line; “get me the head of John the Baptist on a platter”! Innocent people cohabiting with criminals should get out of harms’ way if they are not working in sync.  There must be full scale operation; no excuses. 

    The second phase is to go after the sponsors and deal with them in like manner and the heavens will not fall; they have blood in their hands.  Then, the final stage: we must cut off their lifelines and supply routes and chains.  General Musa must distance himself from religious zealots and tribal people.  He should engage true patriots across the length and breadth of the country that have genuine passion for the rebirth of Nigeria.  The General is experienced enough to know that in his position, he is walking on a mined field. It is going to take the sinew, sweat and blood of a true statesman to reclaim Nigeria.  Mr President may have made the right choice and so he also should be prepared for the consequences of his decision.  There is nothing for him to prove again; after all, he has had his hand on the pie as the president of Nigeria which he always wanted to be.     

    The insecurity in Nigeria is ethnic, politico-religious project.  We have zealots who spew hatred and bigotry in our places of worship with political backing and foreign franchise. Let professionals, not politicians handle our security challenges.    In his position like the eagle on the Iroko tree, General Musa should take a bird eye view of the security problems of the country and swoop on the enemies of the state without negotiation while overseeing the Ministry of Defence.  While every other person may be congratulating you, I will not sir, but I would rather wish you good luck, hoping that the entire country is behind you.

    •Kebonkwu Esq is an Abuja-based attorney. He writes via mikekebonkwu@yahoo.com

  • ‘Coup’ in Guinea-Bissau and the dilemma of ECOWAS

    ‘Coup’ in Guinea-Bissau and the dilemma of ECOWAS

    • By Hakeem Jamiu

    In his seminal work, Political Order in Changing Societies (1968), Professor Samuel P. Huntington argues that political order is essential for societal development. He emphasises that strong, adaptable political institutions are necessary to manage conflicts and meet growing societal demands during periods of rapid change. Huntington warns that failure to adapt swiftly to societal shifts often results in political decline and instability (Huntington, S.P. 1968, Political Order in Changing Societies, Yale University Press). These insights offer a valuable perspective for analysing the recent palace coup in Guinea-Bissau, a country on the verge of greater unrest.

    Between September 24 – 26, I was in Guinea-Bissau for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) pre-summit as the lead facilitator nominated by the Amandla Institute for Policy and Leadership Advancement (AIPLA). During this time, I predicted that political upheaval was imminent. It was no surprise, therefore, when, on November 26, a palace coup took place, leading to the forced evacuation of former President Goodluck Jonathan, head of the West African Elders Forum Election Observation Mission. He described the coup as a “ceremonial coup,” an unusual act where President Umaro Embaló himself announced the coup, despite claiming to be under arrest. This move was clearly staged to prevent the announcement of election results, ultimately undermining democracy in the country.

    Embalo’s strategy to consolidate power began long before the coup. He had previously excluded his main challenger, PAIGC’s Domingos Simões Pereira, from the electoral process through judicial manipulation by the Supreme Court, which barred Pereira from contesting the election. Pereira, a former prime minister, had supported the independent candidacy of lawyer Fernando Dias. Despite his official term ending on February 27, 2025, Embaló remained in office, citing a different inauguration date. His controversial decision to seek re-election, despite initial promises not to, prompted public protests, which were suppressed by force, with activists arrested and opposition movements restricted.

    The road to Bissau, however, was not just fraught with political instability but also physical danger. As I journeyed from Zinguinchor to Bissau, a typically two-hour trip extended to eight hours due to the dilapidated roads, squeezed between rising rivers. The road was perilous, especially when we learned of the armed insurgents operating along the route. The driver, having initially misled us about the road’s condition, almost abandoned us at the Senegalese border. Fortunately, immigration officials ensured we continued. Later, it was revealed that the road’s poor condition had been intentionally ill-maintained to prevent insurgents from easily reaching the capital.

    Despite the country’s dire economic situation, with infrastructure deterioration and widespread poverty, the people of Bissau maintained a remarkable sense of joy. Young men and women danced in the streets at 3 am, while others gathered at the hotel we stayed in, socialising late into the night. These youthful social gatherings reflected a society aware of global trends, including political unrest, despite being influenced by their leader’s poverty politics.

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    The summit, held at the Royal Hotel in Bissau from September 24 – 26, focused on the future of ECOWAS, marking its 50th anniversary. The theme, “Political Stability, Peace, and Security in West Africa,” seemed ironically prescient. The dialogue, involving civil society, youth, and security experts, examined the challenges facing ECOWAS, particularly addressing Unconstitutional Changes of Government (UCG). My prediction that Guinea-Bissau would face political turmoil was echoed by ECOWAS’s General Ojabo, who remarked that his troops were primarily tasked with “guard duties at the homes of politicians,” reflecting the mistrust between Guinea-Bissau’s political class and its military. “The minute ECOWAS pulls out from GB, there will be chaos,” he warned, a grim foreshadowing of what was to come.

    The coup led by General Horta Inta-A, just one day before the announcement of presidential election results, claimed that it was necessary to prevent “narcotics traffickers” from manipulating the election. Both President Embaló and opposition candidate Fernando Dias claimed victory, with Dias seeking asylum at the Nigerian embassy due to credible threats to his life. The people’s resolve for change had been underestimated by Embaló, who believed he could easily eliminate opposition. This turned out to be a grave miscalculation, and the coup was a direct result of the president’s failure to meet the people’s expectations. As Huntington’s theory suggests, political instability often arises when rising societal expectations are unmet, leading to frustration and disorder.

    ECOWAS, having strongly condemned the coup, has suspended Guinea-Bissau from its decision-making bodies and is advocating for the restoration of constitutional order. Meanwhile, the African Union (AU) has also suspended Guinea-Bissau from its activities, calling for respect for the electoral process. The United Nations has urged restraint and respect for the rule of law. The coup in Guinea-Bissau presents another challenge to ECOWAS’s credibility, especially as the region has seen an alarming rise in military takeovers. The coup belt, stretching across West Africa, is increasingly a source of concern.

    Guinea-Bissau, with its fragile political and economic situation, faces considerable instability. With a population of only two million and a per capita GDP of $670, the country ranks among the poorest in the world. Around 70% of its population live below the poverty line, with limited access to essential services such as healthcare, roads, education, and sanitation. As the political crisis deepens, there are concerns that drug trafficking could intensify, further destabilising the region.

    For ECOWAS, the challenge is clear: it must persist in applying diplomatic pressure on the coup leaders to restore constitutional order. Military force alone is insufficient; what is needed is a sustained diplomatic strategy supported by respected statesmen. ECOWAS needs to rediscover its role as a facilitator of West African peace, rather than an end in itself. The organisation must act consistently and enhance its operational capabilities to tackle the root causes of instability. Unconstitutional government changes are not merely political anomalies but symptoms of systemic governance failures that must be addressed to prevent further crises across the region. The time for action is now.

    •Rt. Hon. Jamiu, PhD, an ECOWAS Facilitator, writes from Ado-Ekiti.

  • Why banning mother tongue instruction misses the point

    Why banning mother tongue instruction misses the point

    •  By Blessing Tarfa

    Nigeria’s decision to ban the use of indigenous languages in early education arrives at a moment when the rest of the world is moving toward decolonizing knowledge and reclaiming linguistic identity. The choice to ban mother tongue policy, also known as the Language in the Immediate Community reinforces a colonial mind-set that has shaped our educational system for decades. Declaring the policy ineffective under our current educational conditions is disingenuous and there is a need to interrogate the justifications for the ban.

    Blaming indigenous languages for poor exam performance distracts from the actual, well-documented reasons Nigerian children struggle academically. Standard examinations such as WAEC, NECO, and JAMB have never been neutral measures of merit. Using these metrics to declare the mother tongue policy a failure completely ignores the structural barriers that define education in Nigeria. Overcrowded classrooms, absence of adequate materials, poor infrastructure, lack of access to WASH facilities, prolonged school closures due to insecurity and climate-related disasters, trauma, malnutrition, and poverty are the real issues that children grapple with that impact their academic outcomes. It does not matter whether a child is taught in English or in their mother tongue; as long as the basic amenities for a safe and quality learning environment is not met, the education outcomes will reflect these poor structures. Acknowledging that these examinations inevitably privilege students with access to well-resourced schools is important. Socio-economic conditions are a truer determinant of achievement gaps than solely language of instruction.

    The ban also lacks empirical evidence that tracks where mother tongue instruction was effectively implemented and how those learners performed in Nigeria. There is no evidence that learners who were taught using the Language of the Immediate Community model could not transition to English or recorded poorer learning outcomes in foundational literacy and numeracy. It is methodologically inappropriate to link the JAMB, WAEC and NECO outcomes to a policy that does not immediately reach the children writing those exams. With this lack of data, the comparative logic used to condemn the policy falls apart when examined closely. We are left with the classic conditioning of biased interpretations of regional educational outcomes under the cover of English proficiency, rather than a critical analysis of educational quality.

    Other countries have recorded the impact of mother tongue instruction in improving enrolment rate. In Chile, the mother tongue policy led to an increase in enrolment by 50%. Nigeria has over 18 million out of school children; a number that has been on an incline despite the UBEC free education policy of 2014. Learning about the scope of positive impact of the mother tongue policy is key to supporting implementation practices and identifying the dynamic importance of the policy.

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    Furthermore, the ban itself disregards the realities of teachers who have long used indigenous languages as a practical tool to bridge learning gaps in overcrowded classrooms. Mother tongue instruction was not an ideological experiment to practitioners as much as it was a validation of what teachers were already doing to support learning. To suddenly criminalize a strategy that teachers depend on is to disregard their expertise and the challenges they face. Teachers understand the need for learners to learn in a language that they think, communicate and express themselves in coherently. Depending on English as a sole learning language creates fault-lines in learners’ development. Such learners may express English proficiency through rote learning, but lose the tendency for critical thinking and the ability to transfer their learning into their own creation. A ban such as this sends a message that the system does not see the teachers, children, parents, and caregivers who make education possible. This policy was an opportunity to standardize and strengthen the practices that already worked, to support teachers, and to bring structure to a multilingual system. The ban discards all this potential.

    It is also important to note that the MOTHER TONGUE or Language of the Immediate Community (LIC) measures are part of the Language-in-Education model for the implementation of the National Language Policy, launched in 2022. This comes decades after the Sixth Edition of the National Policy on Education of 2013, which also recommends learning through mother tongue instructions. The combination of these policies recognises Nigeria’s vast linguistic diversity and sought to standardize languages, develop orthographies, create curriculum materials, and expand the use of indigenous languages in media, administration, and the economy. Mother tongue instruction is therefore ideally a significant component and core element of nation-building in a multilingual and cultural nation contrary to how the ban views this as solely an isolated experience that happens in classrooms between teachers and learners. Educated Nigerians live in communities that speak languages other than English, and they deserve an education that equips them to serve those communities. For a policy that seemed important enough to receive duplicate recognition and significance in education, suddenly banning it contradicts our awareness of its importance. It reveals a lack of commitment to long-term reform of the education sector in two ways.

    Firstly, the policy itself provided a 10-year window for piloting, refining, and scaling the implementation models including the Language-in-Education model. A policy cannot be declared a failure when the systems required for its implementation were never created. No large-scale teacher training was conducted. Instructional materials were not produced. No comprehensive pilots were run. There were no evaluation frameworks, and no substantial budget allocations. The current budget allocation for education is 7.9% which still falls below the recommended 15-20% stipulated by UNESCO. Realistically engaging with this policy would have required better investment. The government did not invest in building the scaffolding that such a significant reform required. Instead of a premature ban, an ideal response is addressing and confronting the chronic underinvestment that has crippled Nigerian education for decades.

    Secondly, such a reform requires the acknowledgment of underlying nuances in the plights that face intercultural relationships within Nigeria. The socio-linguistic survey of language diversity and language use (National Educational Research Development Council – NERDC 2008, revalidated 2021) found that there are 540 languages spoken in Nigeria. There is hardly a homogenous cultural community in Nigeria; all are richly diverse in language, cultural practices, dialects and religion. This diverse landscape, otherwise an asset, has been weaponized to drive polar relations between cultures over the years. As such, we exist in a political climate of legitimate fear that any language declared as the language of instruction will signal the government’s credentialing of one language over the others. This can create explosive frictions in communities where a language assumes dominance and minoritizes others. This is a valid challenge; however, the government ought to deeply consider the role education can play in building intercultural tolerance and a viable peacebuilding tool in Nigeria. Multicultural consideration in education is not a mere tool of literacy for Nigeria. It is important and critical for the education sector to lead on all fronts of cultural preservation and take the reins in promoting education as a real instrument for social cohesion.

    The use of mother tongue as a language of instruction is not a novel idea, nor is it an impossible challenge. Other multilingual nations have faced similar complexities and responded with intentional investment, careful planning, and context-driven solutions. Nepal has developed reading materials in more than 20 languages, while the Philippines has aligned textbooks in 14 indigenous languages with its national curriculum. Nigeria can do the same or even more if it chooses to

    One way to reverse the longstanding inequities in foundational learning is to recommit to the National Language Policy and honour the 10-year implementation window it established. Following this commitment should be targeted investment in teacher training, development of instructional materials in the languages of the immediate community, and a transparent monitoring and evaluation framework. These are the minimum structural conditions that any policy needs for a chance to succeed.

    Ultimately, a nation that seeks improved learning outcomes must invest in solutions grounded in evidence, context, and cultural relevance. Besides, when we acknowledge that language is both a cognitive asset and a societal development asset, banning its role in the learning of children is an attempt to jeopardize progress in nation building.

    •Tarfa writes from Abuja.