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  • Tinubu’s leadership and democratic restoration in Guinea

    Tinubu’s leadership and democratic restoration in Guinea

    By Ademola Oshodi

    Guinea’s presidential inauguration on January 17 marked a formal return to constitutional rule following the September 2021 military coup that dismantled the country’s democratic order. That ceremony did not conclude Guinea’s transition. Instead, it inaugurated a broader regional test: whether the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), with the leadership of Nigeria and commitment of President Bola Tinubu, can still enforce its democratic norms, and whether Nigeria, as the bloc’s most influential member, can translate diplomatic weight into principled leadership

    The presidential election held on December 28, 2025, Guinea’s first since the 2021 coup, has assumed significance beyond national politics. It has become a measure of how West Africa manages post-coup transitions at a time when elections increasingly function as instruments of political closure rather than democratic renewal. How ECOWAS responds, and how Nigeria shapes that response, carries implications beyond Conakry. It speaks directly to the credibility of regional democracy promotion in an era when unconstitutional changes of government and tightly managed transitions are no longer exceptional.

    Guinea’s transition sits at the intersection of two competing imperatives: the need to stabilise post-coup states and the obligation to prevent the normalisation of power acquired through unconstitutional means. Nigeria’s role within ECOWAS places it at the centre of this tension. Since the overthrow of President Alpha Condé, the bloc has relied heavily on Abuja’s diplomatic engagement to balance pressure with dialogue. This reflects Nigeria’s long-standing assessment that unconstitutional seizures of power generate security, economic, and political risks that rarely remain contained within national borders. In practice, instability in one member state reverberates across the region through insecurity, disrupted trade, and weakened collective institutions, costs that Nigeria often absorbs disproportionately.

    The December 2025 election represented an important procedural milestone, but it did not constitute a definitive democratic settlement. Mamady Doumbouya, who led the 2021 coup, was declared the winner with 86.72 percent of the vote from an officially reported turnout of 80.95 percent. International reporting confirmed that voting day itself was largely calm. It also documented deeper structural constraints that shaped the political environment, including the dissolution of multiple political parties, restrictions on opposition activity, and the side-lining or exile of prominent political figures. These conditions are not incidental. They determine whether elections operate as mechanisms of genuine competition or as vehicles for consolidating post-coup incumbency.

    Nigeria’s diplomacy has had to operate within this reality. On the one hand, the organisation of a presidential election marked a necessary departure from prolonged military rule following the suspension of the constitution and the dismantling of democratic institutions after the 2021 coup. On the other, the political conditions surrounding the vote raised legitimate questions about inclusiveness and competitiveness. Nigeria’s engagement has reflected an effort to recognise procedural progress without collapsing democratic legitimacy into the mere occurrence of an election.

    Nigeria’s decision to maintain high-level engagement with Guinea should be understood within this context. The attendance of Vice President Kashim Shettima at Guinea’s presidential inauguration was not an ad hoc gesture. It was framed by the presidency as a reaffirmation of Nigeria’s leadership role within ECOWAS and its commitment to regional stability. Nigeria’s presence in Conakry signalled support for constitutional order while preserving channels for continued engagement on democratic consolidation and governance reforms. This approach aligns with ECOWAS’ established logic of phased reintegration rather than abrupt normalisation.

    Crucially, Nigeria’s engagement with Guinea neither began on election day nor ended with the inauguration. It has been anchored in process-oriented diplomacy, working through ECOWAS to sustain pressure for a return to constitutional rule while avoiding the kind of isolation that can entrench military dominance and deepen instability. This method is consistent with Nigeria’s historical approach to regional crises. In Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s, and in The Gambia in 2017, Nigeria combined sustained engagement with clearly articulated normative boundaries. The current cycle of coups has complicated this model, but not rendered it irrelevant.

    Recent ECOWAS precedents underscore what is at stake. The imposition of heavy sanctions on Mali in 2022 following repeated election delays, and the suspension of Burkina Faso after its coup the same year, established expectations that unconstitutional changes of government would attract collective consequences. These actions signalled that transitions would be assessed against substantive benchmarks, not merely the scheduling of elections. Guinea’s case tests whether those standards will be applied consistently, or whether the threshold for democratic restoration risks being lowered through selective accommodation.

    For Nigeria, this question is not abstract. Guinea is a strategically significant state whose political economy has regional implications. Mining accounts for roughly 90 percent of Guinea’s exports and over one fifth of its GDP, and the country holds the world’s largest bauxite reserves at 7.4 billion tonnes. Governance outcomes in Conakry therefore shape investment patterns, resource governance norms, and economic stability across West Africa. For Nigeria, whose economy and security environment are deeply intertwined with regional dynamics, the consolidation of accountable civilian rule in Guinea is a matter of pragmatic foreign policy rather than normative idealism.

    This strategic realism explains Nigeria’s tone within ECOWAS. Rather than treating Guinea’s transition as a binary success or failure, Nigeria has emphasised the restoration of constitutional order as an ongoing process, with a focus on the post-election phase. This includes credible legislative and local elections, the restoration of political party rights through due process, and effective civilian oversight of the security sector, expectations that remain fully consistent with the 2001 ECOWAS Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance.

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    Nigeria’s leadership under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been shaped by this dual imperative of stability and standards. As ECOWAS confronts its most serious credibility challenge in decades, including the announced withdrawal of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso in 2024, Abuja has sought to prevent further erosion of the bloc’s normative authority. Engagement with Guinea, in this context, is not an endorsement of every aspect of its transition. It is an effort to keep Guinea anchored within a regional framework where democratic benchmarks remain negotiable only in sequence, not in principle.

    That said, clarity remains essential. If ECOWAS restores Guinea to full decision-making status solely on the basis that an election has occurred, it risks reinforcing a precedent in which coups are converted into civilian incumbency through tightly managed ballots. Nigeria’s responsibility, as the bloc’s most consequential actor, is to ensure that reintegration remains conditional, transparent, and tied to measurable reforms. This is not punitive. It is protective of ECOWAS’ credibility and of the democratic standards the organisation was created to uphold.

    Nigeria’s diplomacy toward Guinea thus reflects a broader foreign policy logic. It recognises political realities while insisting on institutional standards. It avoids isolation that could push states further from regional frameworks, while resisting the temptation to redefine democracy downward for the sake of short-term calm. This balance carries risk, but it remains consistent with Nigeria’s historical role as a stabilising anchor in West Africa.

    Guinea’s reintegration into ECOWAS should therefore continue to be phased and conditional, linked to concrete benchmarks such as credible legislative and local elections, the restoration of political party rights through due process, protection for peaceful opposition activity, and effective civilian oversight of the security sector. These measures are not obstacles to stability; they are the mechanisms through which stability acquires democratic substance.

    For West Africa, democracy remains a process rather than an event. The region’s future will be shaped by whether regional leaders insist that transitions remain credible, competitive, and accountable over time and not by isolated election days. Nigeria’s engagement with Guinea demonstrates how leadership within ECOWAS can reinforce that principle, if elections are treated as gateways to sustained accountability rather than endpoints.

    •Oshodi is Senior Special Assistant to President Tinubu on Foreign Affairs and Protocol.

  • Tax reform: Lessons for national health financing

    Tax reform: Lessons for national health financing

    By Oladoja M.O

    Nigeria’s new tax law regime arrives at a moment when questions of domestic resource mobilization have moved decisively from the margins of fiscal discourse to its centre. The reform is ambitious in both scope and intent. It consolidates previously fragmented statutes, modernizes tax administration, strengthens compliance mechanisms, and expands the state’s technical capacity to mobilize revenue in an increasingly constrained macro-economic environment.

    Read on its own terms, the law represents a serious effort to stabilize public finance and reduce long-standing inefficiencies in the tax system. But tax laws, particularly of this magnitude, should not be mere instruments of collection, rather reflections of what a state understands taxation to be for.

    When examined from the perspective of national health financing, Nigeria’s new tax law reveals not hostility to health, or ignorance of its importance, but striking institutional restraint, a deliberate decision to keep taxation largely neutral to the direct financing of public health.

    This neutrality is especially significant because it runs counter to the evolving global understanding of domestic resource mobilization (DRM). In contemporary public finance, DRM is no longer conceived simply as the ability of a state to raise revenue, but as its capacity to do so in a manner that deliberately underwrites social protection, safeguards human capital, and reduces long-term economic vulnerability, where health occupies a central place.

    Ill-health is not a random misfortune but a predictable social risk, one that drives household impoverishment, reduces labour productivity, and places sustained pressure on public finances. For this reason, many countries have increasingly integrated health financing into their tax systems, whether through general taxation, earmarked levies, or hybrid arrangements that link tax administration directly to social insurance and prevention financing.

    It is against this backdrop that Nigeria’s new tax law must be read.

    The law unquestionably strengthens the means of mobilization. A unified tax administration framework, enhanced enforcement powers, clearer compliance obligations, and improved data coordination substantially upgrade the state’s fiscal machinery. In theory, this expanded administrative capacity could support innovative approaches to financing social sectors, including health. In practice, however, the law exercises marked caution. Health appears within the tax framework, but only at the margins, and only in forms that preserve the traditional separation between revenue mobilization and social sector financing.

    This pattern becomes evident when examining how health-related elements are treated across the law. Contributions to the national health insurance scheme are recognised as allowable deductions for personal income tax purposes. This recognition is not insignificant; it affirms health insurance contributions as socially legitimate expenditures deserving of fiscal relief. Yet the logic remains passive. The tax system responds only after individuals have already contributed. It does not actively mobilize resources for health, nor does it deploy its collection infrastructure to expand coverage, pool risk, or subsidize access. The fiscal relationship ends at recognition, not generation.

    A similar logic governs the treatment of consumption taxes. Essential medicines, pharmaceuticals, and certain medical equipment continue to benefit from favorable VAT treatment. These provisions are defensible on equity grounds, particularly in a system where out-of-pocket spending remains high. But from a financing perspective, their effect is limited. They shield households from additional burden, yet they do not generate fiscal space for the health system. Again, health is insulated from taxation, not financed through it.

    The clearest illustration of this restrained approach lies in the treatment of excise duties on tobacco, alcohol, and sugar-sweetened beverages. These taxes are frequently framed as “sin taxes,” ostensibly justified by their potential to alter harmful consumption patterns. In principle, excise taxation is meant to operate through a behavioural channel: higher prices reduce consumption, lower consumption reduces disease burden, and reduced disease burden lowers long-term health expenditure. In Nigeria’s case, however, this logic remains largely theoretical.

    First, the excise rates themselves are modest. The levy on sugar-sweetened beverages, for instance, is widely recognised as too low to produce a meaningful price shock capable of altering consumption behaviour. Similar concerns apply to alcohol and tobacco, where cultural entrenchment, affordability, and illicit trade further blunt the intended deterrent effect.

    Second, there is no publicly available evidence demonstrating that consumption of these products has declined since the introduction or adjustment of excise duties. On the contrary, available market indicators and anecdotal trends suggest that consumption has increased. Crucially, the state does not appear perturbed by this outcome. Higher consumption translates into higher excise revenue, and excise duties, in practice, function as reliable inflows to the general federal pool.

    This reveals a deeper truth about how sin taxes are governed in Nigeria. Despite their rhetorical association with public health, excise duties are not treated as health instruments. They are treated as revenue lines. There is no systematic effort to measure behavioural change, no routine publication of consumption data linked to tax policy, and no formal evaluation of health impact. In policy terms, a behavioural instrument that is not measured is indistinguishable from a revenue instrument.

    The absence of evidence of reduced consumption is not merely a data gap; it is an indication that behavioural change is not being actively governed as an objective.

    From a health financing perspective, this has serious implications. Excise taxes generate revenue, yet none of that revenue is structurally linked to health financing. No portion is dedicated to prevention programmes, health insurance subsidies, or system strengthening. The public bears the health consequences of continued consumption, rising non-communicable diseases, increasing treatment costs, and productivity losses, while the fiscal gains accrue centrally, unconnected to the sector that absorbs the burden. In effect, Nigeria taxes harm, tolerates its persistence, and finances neither its prevention nor its consequences through the tax system.

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    This outcome is unlikely to be accidental. The new tax law is too carefully constructed for its silences to be incidental. Rather, it reflects a broader fiscal philosophy that prioritizes flexibility, central discretion, and revenue pooling over sector-specific commitments. Earmarking, even in its softer forms, constrains the treasury’s freedom to allocate resources across competing priorities. From a public health financing standpoint, this caution is costly. It leaves health structurally dependent on discretionary budgets, weak insurance enforcement, donor support, and household spending, even as the state’s revenue-collection capacity improves.

    The result is a growing asymmetry. Nigeria now possesses an increasingly sophisticated tax apparatus without a correspondingly sophisticated approach to financing social risk. Revenue mobilization is advancing, but allocation logic remains largely unchanged. Health remains acknowledged but peripheral, recognised, accommodated, and indirectly supported, yet excluded from the core architecture of taxation.

    None of this implies that the new tax law should have transformed itself into a health financing statute. No! Tax laws cannot, and should not, bear the full weight of social policy. But in an era where domestic resource mobilization is increasingly framed as a means of financing development rather than merely sustaining government, the continued treatment of health as fiscally incidental is striking. The administrative infrastructure now exists to do more than collect revenue efficiently. What is missing is the institutional decision to deploy that capacity deliberately to protect households from the economic consequences of ill-health.

    The most important lesson of Nigeria’s new tax law for national health financing, therefore, lies not in what it includes, but in what it leaves unresolved. The law strengthens the state’s ability to mobilize resources, yet remains silent on whether that capacity should be harnessed to address one of the most predictable and economically damaging social risks. As Nigeria deepens its commitment to domestic resource mobilization, the critical question will not simply be how much revenue can be raised, but how intentionally that revenue is aligned with protecting human capital. A tax system that grows in efficiency without growing in social purpose, risks becoming technically impressive but socially thin.

    •Oladoja writes from Abuja and can be reached at: mayokunmark@gmail.com

  • Alaafin: Preserving Yoruba cultural authority

    Alaafin: Preserving Yoruba cultural authority

    By Remi Ladigbolu

    Any fair reflection on the present controversy surrounding the Alaafin’s place within contemporary governance must begin with that honesty.

    Oyo’s historical relegation did not arise from a single cause. It arose from a mix of internal missteps, deliberate political manoeuvres, colonial priorities, and post-colonial calculations. Acknowledging this does not weaken the Alaafin institution. It strengthens the credibility of any serious defence of it.

    I maintain, without qualification, that the Alaafin’s prestige remains untainted and unblemished. I speak of the throne, not the individual who occupies it at any given moment.

    Cultural authority is not conferred by statute, governmental circulars, political goodwill, or administrative convenience. It grows out of history, collective memory, the deep emotional geography of a people, and the enduring symbolism they attach to power and continuity. That is why the Alaafin, alongside the Ooni of Ife, remains central to Yoruba civilisation.

    This reflection does not contest Ife’s role as the spiritual source of the Yoruba world. Ile-Ife occupies that sacred position and will always do so. But spiritual origin and historical evolution are not the same thing. The greater arc of Yoruba political development, statecraft, territorial expansion, military organisation, and imperial administration flowed primarily through Oyo. That distinction matters, not for supremacy contests, but for historical clarity.

    From ancient times, the Alaafin throne has been repeatedly assailed, not because it was weak, but because it stood as a symbol of Yoruba survival and cohesion. Jihadist incursions recognised Oyo as the political spine of the civilisation they sought to dismantle. Colonial administrators later saw in the Alaafin a ruler too proud, too rooted, too autonomous, and too self-assured to be easily managed. His resistance was not always tactful, but it was unmistakable.

    This tension reached a critical point in the 1930s. Alaafin Siyanbola Onikepe Ladigbolu I, for all his administrative shortcomings, embodied the old conception of kingship. He saw himself not as a local chief, but as a sovereign shaped by centuries of authority, ritual legitimacy, inherited power, and communal allegiance. That self-image clashed sharply with colonial expectations.

    It was during this period that the Resident of Oyo Province was controversially relocated from Oyo to Ibadan, officially for administrative convenience, bureaucratic efficiency, logistical ease, and colonial oversight. Historical records show that this decision was taken without approval from Lagos and against the clear objection of the Alaafin.

    Scholars such as J. A. Atanda later documented how this single act shifted the political and administrative centre of gravity in ways that permanently altered the fortunes of both cities. It marked the beginning of Ibadan’s steady ascent as an administrative capital, a status it would later consolidate as the capital of the old Western Region, the old Western State, and eventually Oyo State itself. If Ibadan occupies that position today, this was how it happened. The explanation offered then echoes eerily in present justifications offered today.

    Earlier still, that same Resident, H. L. Ward-Price, reportedly told the Owa Obokun of Ijesaland that white ants were already eating the legs of the Alaafin’s stool. It was not an idle metaphor. It was an official acknowledgement that colonial policy had set in motion a gradual erosion of Oyo’s political influence, institutional leverage, territorial reach, and symbolic authority. That erosion did not erase the Alaafin’s cultural authority, but it reshaped the landscape in which it had to exist.

    It is therefore no coincidence that Ibadan’s rise followed that relocation. Even the naming of institutions such as Adeoyo Hospital in Ibadan reflects an older recognition of Oyo’s overlordship at a time when there was neither an Oyo State nor an Ibadan-centric political order. These are historical markers, enduring administrative traditions, cultural signposts, and institutional memories, not matters of sentiment.

    Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s 1945 article on Alaafin Ladigbolu captured this contradiction with rare candour. He was unsparing in his criticism of Ladigbolu’s administrative style, governing temperament, political instincts, and relationship with colonial officials. That relationship undoubtedly bred resentment and contributed to Oyo’s later neglect. Yet, in the same piece, Awolowo affirmed that Ladigbolu was the ruler of nearly the entire Oyo Province and described him, without ambiguity, as the king of the Yoruba. Both truths coexist. One does not cancel the other.

    That same Alaafin hosted and presided over the first conference of Yoruba Obas in Oyo in 1937. This fact alone is often overlooked, yet it speaks volumes about where cultural leadership was instinctively located at the time.

    It is also important to state, soberly and without celebration, that when Ladigbolu died, the ritual role traditionally performed by the Olokun Esin was deliberately frustrated by colonial authorities. The Olokun Esin himself was detained and prevented from carrying out that role. In consequence, the ritual was performed by the Olokun Esin’s son in his place. This is a matter of historical record, not approval. It remains one of the many tragic symbols of how external power interfered with deeply rooted institutions.

    The Western Region government later deepened this shift. In seeking political balance, it elevated the Ooni of Ife to a prominence that served contemporary needs, electoral strategy, regional stability, and administrative pragmatism. While this did not diminish Ife’s spiritual importance, it was also part of a broader strategy to dilute the Alaafin’s influence. Over time, this recalibration hardened into convention.

    Today’s debates must be understood against that long backdrop. Councils of Obas and Chiefs are political constructs. Their chairmanship is, by nature, fluid, rotational, contingent, and situational. What is permanent is cultural legitimacy. Only two Yoruba stools command instinctive reverence across Yoruba communities at home and in the diaspora, the Alaafin of Oyo and the Ooni of Ife. That reality already sets them apart, regardless of who occupies any rotating administrative position.

    It is also worth noting that history warns against triumphalism. Mokan, mokan loye nkan; oye to kan ara Awo, o nbo wa kan ara Ede. (What afflicts one neighbour will, in time, reach another). Those who today derive relevance from political convenience should recognise how quickly such arrangements change. Rotational chairmanships can always rotate further. Political favour is never permanent. Cultural memory is.

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    I agree with thoughtful counsel offered to the new Alaafin that relevance today requires wisdom, restraint, service, and moral clarity. I also agree that traditional institutions must continuously justify their place through leadership, example, community engagement, and ethical consistency. Where I differ from some contemporary commentators is in the suggestion that historical relevance has expired. History does not expire. It recedes or resurfaces depending on how societies choose to remember.

    The Alaafin institution does not require political or cosmetic validation to remain relevant. Its authority does not rest on proclamations, councils, legal instruments, or ceremonial rankings. It rests on centuries of continuity, sacrifice, statecraft, and symbolism that no legislation can erase. Empires fall, but thrones rooted in collective identity endure as reference points long after power has shifted.

    This reflection is not written in anger, or as a call to arms. It is an appeal for perspective. Yoruba history is large enough to accommodate Ife’s spiritual primacy, Oyo’s political legacy, Ibadan’s historical assertiveness, and the evolving realities of modern governance. What it cannot afford is the casual erosion of institutions that anchor identity.

    In the end, those who identify as Yoruba inherit more than political structures. They inherit memory, obligation, responsibility, and continuity. The Alaafin stool sits at the heart of that memory. To honour it is not to deny others. It is to preserve a heritage that belongs to all.

    •Ladigbolu is a Lagos-based journalist.

  • ACF, time to move beyond talk-shops

    ACF, time to move beyond talk-shops

    • By Muhammad Musa-Gombe

    At a time when Northern Nigeria is bleeding from insecurity, poverty, and despair, the leadership can no longer afford the comfort of conferences without consequences.

    When the Arewa Consultative Forum marked 25 years of existence in 2025, expectations across Northern Nigeria rose sharply. The celebration was not just about history or nostalgia. It came with the announcement of a development fund reportedly exceeding N10 billion, buoyed by substantial contributions from leading industrialists such as AbdulSamad Isiaka Rabiu of BUA Group and Aliko Dangote. For many northerners, it felt like a turning point, a long-awaited shift from speeches to solutions.

    Months later, that optimism has thinned. Rather than immediately engaging its vast constituency, rolling out sensitization programmes, or launching quick-impact projects capable of touching lives across the region, the ACF returned to familiar territory. Another talk-shop followed, this time reflecting on leadership 60 years after Sir Ahmadu Bello, Tafawa Balewa and Samuel Akintola.

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    While history deserves reflection, the timing unsettled many who believe the North needs action more urgently than remembrance.

    The sense of urgency is unmistakable. Across the North, communities are battling relentless insecurity. Farmers abandon their fields. Traders travel in fear. Children remain out of school in alarming numbers. Entire local economies are stifled by violence, displacement and poverty.

    In this environment, many northerners expected the ACF to seize its development fund as a tool for immediate relief and strategic intervention.

    Instead, silence greeted the public on what to expect, how the funds would be deployed, or which priority sectors would benefit. No broad communication. No regional sensitization. No visible low-hanging fruit projects to signal a new direction. For a region in distress, this pause feels costly and unsettling.

    The frustration is heightened by developments elsewhere in the country. In the Southwest, regional cooperation has moved beyond declarations into infrastructure planning, economic hubs, technology clusters and coordinated policy direction. States collaborate, pool resources and pursue long-term competitiveness. In the South-south, structured community engagement and development frameworks increasingly shape how interventions reach the grassroots. Even parts of the North-central are quietly building innovation hubs and targeted economic programmes to prepare young people for a digital future.

    Against this backdrop, the North appears to be lagging not in ideas but in execution.

    What makes the situation more troubling is that the North no longer enjoys the political luxury it once did. Demographic advantage without human capital has become a liability, not strength. Electoral numbers cannot compensate for weak productivity, poor negotiation leverage and diminishing moral authority. Regions that invest in ideas, data and delivery increasingly shape national outcomes, while those relying on sentiment and size alone are steadily side-lined.

    The ACF must confront an uncomfortable truth: relevance in modern Nigeria is earned through results, not reminiscence.

    This is not for lack of resources. The North has land, people, history and influence. It has goodwill from its sons and daughters in business, industry and public service. What it lacks, many argue, is a clear, time-bound development plan that translates concern into coordinated action.

    The ACF occupies a unique position in this equation. It is not a government, but it is also not a mere social club. It has access to policymakers, traditional institutions, private sector leaders and international partners. Its voice carries weight. Its convening power is respected. With that influence comes responsibility.

    Stakeholders are therefore asking simple but powerful questions. What is the roadmap for northern development between now and 2030? How will the development fund be used to complement federal and state efforts? Which sectors are priorities – education, agriculture, health, youth employment, security support or infrastructure? How will communities be engaged and results measured?

    These are not unreasonable demands. They are the expectations of a people under pressure.

    The danger of endless reflection is that it risks disconnecting leadership from lived reality. While conferences debate leadership decline, ordinary northerners are coping with hunger, fear and shrinking opportunities.

    While papers are presented, young people are leaving the region in search of dignity elsewhere.

    This moment therefore calls for humility as much as it calls for boldness. The forum must listen; especially to voices it has historically side-lined. Young professionals, civil society actors, women leaders, development experts and technocrats across the north are already doing hard work in silos. Harnessing this energy does not weaken traditional leadership; it strengthens it. The ACF does not need to abandon its elders or heritage. It needs to expand its tent, modernize its methods and accept that the north it seeks to lead today is not the north of 1965 or even 2000.

    To be clear, reflection and dialogue have their place. The legacy of the Sardauna and his contemporaries deserves study. But legacy becomes meaningful only when it inspires action. The greatest tribute to those leaders is not another symposium but bold programmes that lift people out of despair.

    What is required now are visible steps; small but impactful projects that restore confidence. Sensitization tours that explain plans and timelines. Strategic partnerships that unlock jobs and skills. Clear communication that reassures contributors and beneficiaries alike that development funds will not sleep in accounts while the region burns.

    The road to 2030 is short. Development does not happen by speeches alone. It happens through planning, implementation and accountability. The North cannot afford to drift while others move ahead with clarity and purpose.

    The ACF still has an opportunity to redefine its relevance. It can move from being remembered as a forum of speeches to being recognized as a catalyst for regional recovery. But that window will not remain open indefinitely.

    For millions across Northern Nigeria, the message is clear. This is not the time for more talk-shops. It is time for action.

    •Gombe is a media practitioner based in Abuja. Email: mlgombe@yahoo.com.

  • Yakubu Mohammed: A reporter’s reporter

    Yakubu Mohammed: A reporter’s reporter

    • By Ray Ekpu

    When my friend, colleague and brother, Yakubu Mohammed, was hospitalised a few weeks ago, I called him on the day he was to be discharged. “Yakky, have you been discharged?” I asked. “No, I don’t know why I have not been discharged,” he answered.

    The next day I decided to call his daughter who is a medical doctor in that hospital. I asked her: “Is your father’s condition stable?” She said “yes.” “Can I speak to him please?” I asked. “He will call you later,” she answered. I decided to dial his number. His wife answered. I asked the wife the same question that I asked the daughter. Is your husband’s condition stable? She said “yes.” With those two yesses, I was calm, believing that he will be discharged soon.

    Then the next day the story suddenly shifted. Yakubu is dead. That is what is called The Chisholm Effect. The Chisholm Effect is that “when things are going well, something will go wrong.” Yakubu was not someone who was frequently sick. At his age, he was still driving himself. So the sudden-ness of his death is stunning.

    He was a very decent man who believed fervently in God. In an interview with The Niche he said: “I have no regrets in life because there is nothing I can do of my own strength. My life is totally in God’s hand.” His belief in God gave him a heart that was loaded with fairness. When I left the Daily Times Group in December 1982, he worked with Dr Doyin Abiola and Dele Giwa to bring me into the Concord Group of newspapers as the chairman of the Editorial Board. At that time, Yakubu was the editor of the National Concord and he allowed me and the Editorial Board to have a free hand in deciding the editorial topics for his paper.

    After our meetings, I would decide which of my staff would write the editorial. I would then edit it and send it to the compugraphic section. I would send copies to the editor of the paper and the editor in chief. Yakubu neither condemned our editorials even if he did not agree with what we wrote. He gave us ample editorial independence.

    On one occasion, I published a letter on the letters’ page of the National Concord that queried why MKO Abiola, a Muslim, should allow his paper to publish adverts on alcohol. Abiola was unhappy that the letter was published but Yakubu, also a Muslim, did not disagree with me on it. He did not see anything wrong with publishing it and we did not stop publishing those adverts. He believed, as I did, that a newspaper is a free market place of ideas irrespective of proprietorship. In Newswatch we also published such adverts on alcohol and cigarettes even though Yakubu and three external directors were Muslims. We had no problems with our Muslim directors. Our only restriction on such adverts was not to publish them on the front or back pages of the magazine.

    When I got to Concord, I noticed that the company did not have a good research librarian. I told Yakubu there was a man I knew who was very good on the job. Could I bring him? Yakubu said yes. So I got the company to invite for an interview, Nyaknno Osso, a man I had worked with at the Nigerian Chronicle. He came, did well at the interview but he was not employed because the file of the interview had disappeared. Office politics! When we started Newswatch, we employed him as our research librarian. I eventually recommended him to help set up the Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta, the first presidential library in West Africa.

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    At Newswatch, it was Yakubu and I who decided that we should make Dele Giwa and Dan Agbese leaders of the company. This decision was based on the fact that we believed that their former employers Concord and the New Nigerian respectively treated both men unfairly. That was our own way of showing fairness and compassion to the two men.

     Yakubu and I left the Concord because we did not think that Abiola treated Dele very fairly. None of us had any problem with the Chief who had, towards the end of our tenure, started calling us “strangers” based on false stories that those who wanted to damage our relationship with him planted in his ears. Big men can easily become victims of unverified but vile gossip. Abiola was a victim. It was when we started to smell the rancid odour of frustration that we decided to leave Concord.

    I was a student in the Department of Mass Communication at the University of Lagos from 1970-73. Yakubu came into the Department in 1972 and graduated in 1975. During his student days, he showed quite early that he was going to be a good journalist. He was involved in amateur journalism on campus. After his graduation, it was clear that there was a career waiting for him: journalism. During his days at the New Nigerian, he was a line editor of the paper in Lagos. Fela Anikulapo Kuti was being tormented by the military government based on the flimsy accusation that calling his residence Kalakuta Republic was a way of having a republic within a republic. They burnt down his residence and took him into prison. Some soldiers went to various media in Lagos ordering them not to publish the story. Yakubu defied them. He wrote the story and got it published in the New Nigerian, a government-owned newspaper. That is the definition of courage.

     When Yakubu brought out his book “Beyond Expectations,” The Niche interviewed him. In that interview he gave a definitive stand on his choice of journalism as a career. He said: “I have no regrets picking journalism. If I have to come back to this world again, I will be a journalist.” That is evidence of his belief in the nobility of journalism as a profession. Yakubu was a very good reporter. He had seeing eyes and hearing ears. These are the qualities that a reporter needs. Most big events are covered by many reporters. For any reporter’s report to stand out, to be fresh, to be deep in the coverage of such an event, the reporter must use his eyes and ears well. That is the only way he might get something that is close to exclusive and not something that reads like a run-of-the mill report. Yakubu was that kind of reporter, a reporter’s reporter who always looked out for exclusive details of an event. And in reporting such events, he did so simply, without too much flourish because he was a very good story teller. Even in his columns, the strength of his writing lay in the stories that he told to illustrate his points. He did not go for grandiloquence or intellectual exhibitionism or writing gymnastics. He just wanted to tell a story and tell it in such a manner that anyone who read it understood what he wrote. He did not go for the glow of glamorous writing.

    As a person, Yakubu was always calm, always stable. He did not get into paroxysms of outrage over minor or major happenings. I never saw him giving people, old or young, duchessy orders. At Concord where he was my senior, he did not build a wall of prejudice against me even though he knew that I was very close to Dele Giwa. He did not also seek to consign me to the margins as evidence of his superiority even though he knew that I had edited four newspapers in two other organisations before coming to Concord. He was always in fine fettle.

    On the two occasions that he left journalism and pitched his tent at the camp of politics, I did not seek to stop him. I knew he wanted to get into politics and governance out of conviction. He was convinced that if he succeeded in getting into office as governor of his state, Kogi, he would make a difference to the well-being of his people. That is why he decided to sink his feet twice into the murky waters of Nigerian politics. Why he did not succeed is because Nigerian politics is an algorithm of complex calculations fenced round with barbed wires of false promises, extreme corruption, public deception and bouts of mago mago and wuru wuru. That is what decent people who put their feet in the door of politics found out. Yakubu found that out too. He found out too that in politics, the hand you cannot kiss you must bite it, cut it, chew it and swallow it. He was not ready to do that.

    But he was successful in another field. He was the Pro-chancellor and chairman of the Governing Council of the Ahmadu Bello University, (ABU), Zaria. He took the fairness doctrine which is an important journalism doctrine into the governance of this premier university. When he left, he left fairness behind as a legacy that the university must cherish and chant.

    Yakubu will be remembered as a great journalist, a remarkable columnist and story teller, a fair and painstaking administrator, a respected nationalist and a man of admirable compassion.

    Yakky, goodbye. 

  • Dearth of monitoring culture in Nigeria

    Dearth of monitoring culture in Nigeria

    By Oluwole Ogundele

    Apart from the challenges of neo-colonialism and/or cultural imperialism including fierce global power play, the Nigerian modes of leadership across the board, are promoting greater underdevelopment. Leadership in this context goes beyond the spheres of local, state and federal engagements. Indeed, our primary, secondary and tertiary institutions are not an exception. Every sub-system of the society has its leadership structure.  However, the central goal of any leadership is service to humanity on a robust scale. That is to say, that responsibility and responsiveness occupy centre stage in the scheme of things. But shockingly, many leaders in this part of the world fail to appreciate let alone appropriate the above time-tested principle.

    Therefore, holding leadership positions (as far as most Nigerians are concerned) is a golden opportunity to enrich themselves through the lens of maximum corruption. Corruption is rubbishing their sanity. Nigeria has a lot of institutional frameworks to serve as checks and balances. But those in charge have consistently bastardised almost everything. Without mincing words, most of the country’s institutions are not working. The megalomaniacs have sent these institutions to the guillotine. Indeed, Nigeria is in a mess. Who will save us from ourselves?

    The overall head of a system or sub-system becomes unreachable and unmindful of the agonies of the people he is supposed to lead. This negative attitude is inseparable from some inflated ego. The ordinary people despite their contributions to the survival of the system are often treated like a bunch of trash. Dissenting voices are quickly and tactically silenced.  The body language of an average Nigerian leader is that the followers should wait for their turn or get punished. Not surprisingly, most people including NGOs and other pressure groups have gone to sleep. This is dangerous for Nigeria’s collective progress.

    The Nigerian academia needs to show much more commitment to the promotion of high ideals. The university is supposed to be a model to the larger society. That was the narrative in the past.  Academics should not join the evilly crowd despite the economic hardships ravaging the land. A great deal of sanity is needed.  In this connection, I salute our past heroes in the academia for their fiscal discipline, meticulousness and uncommon dignity. The Nigerian society and the entirety of the global community respected them. Most (if not all of them) refused to serve as errand boys for some political class members. Today, the narrative has changed.

    The youth are now being polluted and de-culturalised more than hitherto by our leaders.  They (the youth) hear every day about maximum looting of the public wealth by leaders and yet most people continue to celebrate them. Their biographies are all over the place. For how long is Nigeria going to continue to romanticise their abusers and thieves?  The future of Nigeria is certainly very bleak. Everybody is waiting for his turn to loot the commonwealth while the toiling masses continue to wail.

    It seems to me, that demons are let loose. Material poverty and greed are some of the basic underlying factors for poor leadership culture in Nigeria.  Salaries of all categories of workers are grossly inadequate. This ugly situation leads to some survival instincts enshrined in all kinds of immorality and/or criminality. No government can reduce insecurity and looseness in the various administrative offices to the barest minimum, in the face of hyper-inflation that rubbishes workers’ salaries.  Although President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is working round the clock, he still needs to do much more to correct the imbalance.  Shameful romanticisation of bureaucratic bottlenecks is a disgusting administrative culture largely traceable to corruption. We must reject it.  For instance, hiding files of innocent people in order to get bribes is gradually becoming a way of life. Their computers or servers are always having fake technical problems. In Nigeria servers are regularly having malaria fever or coughs and bribes are the medications.  What a country! Although some people are pathologically corrupt and irresponsive, I still feel that meaningful wages for workers can go a long way in dousing (to a reasonable extent) the tensions in our system.  Material poverty promotes corruption in the offices.

    The senior officers who are supposed to ensure smooth operations in a given division look the other way. This leads to helplessness of gargantuan proportions. Monitoring remains a critical component of administrative operations. It engenders efficiency, accountability, transparency and probity. However, all these elements of healthy administration can be revived in the face of determination. Sustainable development is anchored to the above elements. PBAT can seamlessly test my hypothesis by approving realistic wages for the Nigerian workers across the board. I believe that with better wages, bribes and other corrupt practices would be reduced to the barest minimum. This is a non-kinetic and humane approach to poverty alleviation. Without close monitoring of how government financial resources are being used by the different leaders, corruption would continue to go from bad to worse.

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    It is a fact, that in Britain and America among other parts of the developed world, institutions such as parliament and judiciary are respected. Nobody is above the law of the land. The structures are not put in place for cosmetic reasons. They are meant to serve as checks and balances in order to promote robust human societies. These are societies defined and ruled by mutuality of respect, empathy and compassion.

    A gross lack of seriousness is an invitation to a chaotic present and an unhealthy future.  Integrity has gone to the dogs. Today’s leaders (with a few exceptions) have no space for most of the time-tested, noble African values and value systems. These are indigenous values embedded in idealism as opposed to unholy materialism or avarice/hedonism. Things are falling apart but the centre can still hold, with the sophisticated intervention of President Tinubu. We need a revolution in administration. This has to be baked into workable laws in the interest of sustainability. Promotions must be merit-based. Irresponsible workers should get the boot. Scrutinisation coupled with actions on reports/allegations bordering on impropriety is critical to progress. The monitors across the spectrum must also be secretly monitored. Unfettered impunity has to end. Currently, there is no fear of punishment. Anything goes!

    Locusts are having a field day as if nobody is in charge. Certainly, PBAT has the uncommon capacity to change the ugly narrative in the interest of a robust Nigerian society. There are a lot of avoidable stresses and strains. Nigerians (with the exception of the political class members and their gluttonous business associates) are bleeding profusely.

    Leadership at every level must wake up. State governors, local government chairmen, ministers, university vice chancellors and polytechnic rectors need to wake up from their slumber. PBAT alone cannot successfully do the job.  He is not a magician. Most Nigerian leaders need deliverance from the bondage of stone age arrogance or exaggerated sense of self-importance, at the expense of sophisticated performance. The Nigerian ship is drifting inside the turbulent ocean of modern globalisation. There is an urgent need for a rescue operation.

    •Prof Ogundele is of Dept. of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Ibadan.

  • Why Northern Nigeria must put education first

    Why Northern Nigeria must put education first

    By Abayomi TJ Ishola

    UNICEF has released a statistic so damning it should halt governance as usual across Northern Nigeria. As of late 2024, Nigeria now carries the grim distinction of having the highest number of out-of-school children in the world – 18.3 million. That is one in every five out-of-school children globally. But the real tragedy lies in the geography of this failure. According to UNICEF’s June 2025 Humanitarian Situation Report, 45 percent of these children live in the Northwest and 28 percent in the Northeast. In other words, 73 percent of Nigeria’s educational catastrophe is concentrated above the Middle Belt.

    In states like Yobe, 43 percent of children never attend school. Zamfara follows with 41 percent and Sokoto with 37 percent. A Universal Basic Education Commission study confirms that two-thirds of Nigeria’s out-of-school children live in the Northeast and Northwest. These are not marginal numbers; they represent a civilisational emergency.

    One would reasonably expect governments facing such statistics to channel every available kobo into classrooms, teachers, textbooks, and safe learning spaces. Instead, northern budgets tell a different story, one of misplaced priorities, moral confusion, and fiscal recklessness. The house is on fire, yet the budgets are busy buying scented candles.

    In December 2025, the Kebbi State government approved N10 billion to subsidise 1,300 Hajj seats for the 2026 pilgrimage. Each seat costs about N7.6 million. This single decision consumed 59 percent of the state’s total 2024 revenue and over 71 percent of its internally generated revenue for the first nine months of 2025.

    To put this in perspective, Kebbi allocated just N86 million for capital spending in its Ministry of Water Resources, N2 million for boreholes, and N20 million to build a clinic. That same N10 billion could have funded 5,000 boreholes, 500 health centres, or furnished 1,300 schools. Instead, it was spent ensuring no pilgrimage seat was “wasted.”

    Kebbi’s Pilgrims Welfare Agency praised the governor’s “foresight.” Yet Kebbi remains one of the states with the worst school attendance figures in Nigeria. The irony is brutal.

    Kano State’s 2025 budget, totalling N719.75 billion, earmarked N2.5 billion for quarterly mass weddings across all 44 local governments. By October 2025, the Hisbah Board planned weddings for 2,000 couples, complete with medical screening and official ceremonies.

    Meanwhile, Kano allocated N955 million merely to count out-of-school children, less than half of what it spent marrying people off. Another N1 billion went to Ramadan feeding and N267.6 million to Islamic calendar production, Da’wah programmes, and welfare packages for new converts.

    In July 2025, Kano received N26.6 billion from FAAC. Its N8 billion Ramadan feeding budget alone consumed nearly a third of that monthly allocation. The children who never make it to school are evidently not considered as urgent as feeding adults during fasting periods.

    Katsina State’s 2025 budget turned religion into a full-scale industry. The Pilgrims Welfare Board received N4.58 billion, while the Ministry of Religious Affairs got N4.79 billion. Add allocations to Hisbah, Zakat boards, and N2.3 billion for Ramadan food, and you have a religious governance structure worth billions of public money, not private charity.

    Across northern states, over N16 billion was approved in a single cycle for Ramadan palliatives: Kano N8 billion, Jigawa N4.8 billion, Katsina N2.3 billion, and Sokoto N1.28 billion. These are not emergency donations; they are permanent budget lines.

    Zamfara went further, approving N1 billion for the construction of an Emir’s Palace and N550 million for “special days and celebrations.” In states where children learn under trees, or not at all, palaces rise and festivals flourish.

    The security vote black hole

    If religious spending raises eyebrows, security votes demand outrage. In just nine months of 2025, 14 northern states released N56 billion as security votes, opaque funds spent at governors’ discretion, without audits or public scrutiny.

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    Borno alone released N32 billion, more than twice its July FAAC allocation. Yobe released N5 billion, Adamawa N4.5 billion, Nasarawa N4.39 billion, Katsina N3.1 billion, Jigawa N2.4 billion, and Kebbi N1.49 billion. Several states, including Kano, Bauchi, Niger, Plateau, and Sokoto, did not even disclose their figures.

    Transparency International describes security votes as “cancerous tumour” in Nigeria’s budgets. Nationally, over $670 million is spent annually on these votes, more than the combined budgets of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Yet insecurity worsens.

    Between May 2023 and May 2024, 2.2 million Nigerians were kidnapped, mostly in the North. In late 2025 alone, 315 students and 13 teachers were abducted in Niger State, while 26 schoolgirls were taken in Kebbi, states awash with security votes.

    What the children never asked for

    Northern Nigeria holds 73 percent of Nigeria’s out-of-school children, yet consistently prioritises pilgrimages, mass weddings, palaces, religious bureaucracies, and secret security funds over education. Female net attendance in the Northeast and Northwest hovers around 47 percent. Over 800 schools remain closed, hundreds destroyed or damaged.

    This is not a failure of religion or culture. It is a failure of governance and moral clarity. Every N10 billion spent on pilgrimage seats, every N2.5 billion on mass weddings, every opaque security vote is a choice, a deliberate statement of what matters.

    UNICEF puts it plainly: “It is our shared responsibility to keep our children safe in schools.” Northern governors have chosen otherwise. They have found a formula for political comfort: keep adults spiritually appeased, ceremonially married, and rhetorically secured while the future quietly collapses.

    There is a fire in the house. And until education becomes the first line in northern budgets, not an afterthought, no amount of prayers, weddings, or security votes will put it out.

    •Ishola writes from United Kingdom.

  • Chimamanda’s tragic loss

    Chimamanda’s tragic loss

    • We demand an inquiry into the circumstances leading to the death of the 21-month-old toddler

    Renowned writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and her family have been in mourning over the sudden passing of her 21-month-old son, Nkanu Nnamdi Esege, on January 7. Expectedly, many individuals and groups, including Ohaneze Ndigbo, an Igbo socio-cultural organisation have been commiserating with the family over the loss.

    Expectedly, too, both the family and Euracare Multispecialist Hospital, Lagos, where the child died have issued statements about the incident.

    The family, through Adichie’s sister-in-law, Dr. Anthea Esege- Nwandu, a physician and professor with decades of experience said that she had been told “ the boy had been administered an overdose of Profopol to sedate him in order to conduct MRI tests”. She alleged that the anaesthesiologist had been “criminally negligent” and had not followed proper medical protocol.

    Dr. Esege-Nwandu also alleged that the boy suffered cardiac arrest when he was being transferred on the anaesthesiologist’s shoulder, disconnected from the ventilator.

    The family alleged medical negligence, citing excessive sedation, inadequate monitoring and delayed response to complications.

    But the hospital management claimed “to have provided care consistent with international standards and worked collaboratively with external medical teams recommended by the family…”

    The hospital added that it would conduct “a detailed investigation into the matter, promising transparency and cooperation with regulatory processes”.

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    As a public figure, the Adichie tragedy has gone viral, and, while sympathising with the family, many people, both informed, half-informed and totally uninformed have expressed their opinions on it.

    The Lagos State government and the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) have equally launched investigations into the family’s complaints. We expect clarity at the end of investigations.

    A medical issue like this is of global concern not because of the mother’s stardom alone but because children ought to be protected by parents, citizens and the state. Across the globe, because humans are fallible, the field of medicine often records fatal cases like the one under review, but the difference is in the systemic order and functionality that guarantee accountability on all sides — the patients, hospitals and government agencies that regulate the healthcare sector.

    Nigeria as a developing country has been struggling with its health sector for decades. However, healthcare is not cheap and must be well structured and institutions well-funded, administered and supervised adequately.

    It is a known fact that Nigeria in the 1970s and ‘80s was a health-tourism country that even boasted of the Saudi Royal family coming to University College hospital (UCH), Ibadan, to seek medical care.

    But over the years, Nigeria lost it. The healthcare sector, like most other sectors, began to deteriorate.

    Despite interventions from global institutions and both the European Union (EU) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) even before the Trump administration, the health sector has been in dire straits and citizens continue to pay dearly for the under-funding.

    We request a fast government intervention in handling this particular case. The mob-like attitude of the public must be countered with real government’s response. This is necessary to avoid a continuation of commentaries by both those who know and those who do not know, all speaking like medical experts.

    There have been a series of legal cases for past medical issues with family and patients alleging medical negligence. Chimamanda’s allegations about her son’s death should be an opportunity for introspection and reforms in the health sector. Her case might have gone viral due to her public persona. Yet, she is still human, a mother and a Nigerian citizen who in her works always points out what the society is and what can be changed for the better in the nation.

    So, in this case, action must replace mere knee-jerk reactions.

    The Federal Ministry of Health must do more than politics and policy suggestions. There is an urgent need for more regulatory consciousness that can preempt acts and bring defaulters to book. As the saying goes, ‘prevention is better than cure’.

    The concerned government and regulatory agencies must dig into the truth about the allegations. The public can only trust a transparent system that works for everyone, irrespective of status.

    The death of Nkanu Nnamdi Esege should be an opportunity for a systemic change and national consciousness, not just for the family, but for every citizen. Nigeria must seize this moment to make amends.

  • The world is silent as bloodbath in Iran intensifies

    The world is silent as bloodbath in Iran intensifies

    • By Felice Friedson

    A tipping point has been reached in cities across Iran, as stark images of mass demonstrations—now turning violent—spread. It is a fight for economic freedom and, for many, life itself, as people endure water shortages, inflation continues to skyrocket, food prices soar, and the Iranian rial keeps depreciating. This is a call for change, with most shouting “freedom!”—and with Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late, exiled shah of Iran, emerging as a symbol for many in the streets. How the outcome unfolds depends, in part, on the backbone of world leaders who all too often shy away from the problems of others.

    The most disturbing element is the silence from institutions that claim to exist for moments like this. We have seen it before, including during the Israel-Hamas war, when silence should have given way to public condemnation and recognition of the rape of innocent women among its litany of horrors. Although many are criticizing the deafening quiet as Christians are massacred in Nigeria, few would suggest the United Nations has offered an appropriate response there, either.

    And now the same pattern is repeating itself with Iran: The United Nations has issued statements of shock and restraint, with Secretary-General António Guterres saying he is “shocked by the reports of violence and excessive use of force by the Iranian authorities” and urging Tehran to exercise “maximum restraint” and “refrain from unnecessary or disproportionate” force. While such language expresses concern, it stops far short of a call to action. It does not say what should happen to support human rights in Iran, how to protect civilians, how to document abuses, or what consequences should follow if the regime escalates. Those words reflect alarm, not direction, at a moment when direction is exactly what is needed.

    Unfortunately, the media is often complicit in this silence.

    At the same time, the US Democratic Party’s reaction to the carnage has been markedly muted compared with its vocal responses to other crises. Yes, there have been statements. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries declared, “Millions of people across Iran are displaying tremendous bravery in the face of decades of oppression and dictatorial rule. The world is watching in awe as they lead an honorable fight for freedom, dignity, and self-determination. I stand with the courageous protestors who are under attack by the Islamic Republic.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote: “The Iranian government’s violent crackdown on demonstrators is horrific and must stop now.” But that is precisely the point: The words are broad, clean, and cost-free. They do not spell out what Democrats believe should happen next to support human rights in Iran, to pressure the regime, to help protesters communicate, or to impose consequences that match the scale of the slaughter. You can speak of genocide in Gaza and hear impassioned calls for justice, but when thousands are being butchered in over 200 cities in Iran, where are your voices now? Where is the urgency, the organizing, the sustained pressure, the clear moral language that insists the Iranian people have rights that must be defended? In a moment like this, silence is not neutrality; it is abandonment.

    As Iranians suffer at the hands of the ayatollahs—and are killed for life’s basic rights—the organization whose existence is supposed to embody humanity shuts down.

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    What is happening inside Iran is not only a domestic crisis. It is a global one. The Islamic Republic has held the world hostage through its nuclear aspirations and through the use of proxy terror armies, including the Houthis, whose attacks have threatened international shipping along vital maritime routes, particularly in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

    Given that reality, it is difficult to understand why the very countries most directly affected by the ayatollahs’ ambitions do not see this moment as a window—perhaps the best in years—to empower the only people who can, in fact, turn Iran around and potentially bring about regime change.

    Where are the Arab countries? Where is Europe?

    Russia is unlikely to take a meaningful stand. Vladimir Putin is embroiled in his own war with Ukraine and will not jeopardize his alignment with Tehran. China, as the largest purchaser of sanctioned Iranian oil, has built its own interests around the regime’s survival. As Iran’s key backer, Beijing will not be serving the people of Iran anytime soon.

    America and Israel, by contrast, have publicly taken a stand behind the Iranian people.

    President Donald Trump has warned Iran that they will intervene if “protestors are touched.” Looking through a social media lens, the Israeli Foreign Ministry has been telling the people of Iran that Israel stands with them. Governments can ensure the demonstrators have the tools they need to strengthen their protests. Enabling virtual private networks so people can communicate, organize, and tell the truth to the world is essential.

    The US is also gravely concerned that Israel remains in Tehran’s crosshairs as Iran grows its ballistic missile program and continues to invest in military capabilities that threaten the region.

    Yet for all the regime’s years of investment in nuclear facilities and weapons manufacturing plants—while casting its web through proxies across the Middle East—the neglect of its own resources may become its worst nightmare. Mismanagement and a lack of oversight on water could become a crisis that the regime cannot contain.

    This is not the first demonstration, but this time, traction is evident—and the plea must be for the world to step in. Months ago, I warned in an opinion piece titled “Did Mahsa Amini die in Vain?” that the failure to confront the Islamic Republic after her death would only deepen Iran’s crisis and embolden further repression. What is unfolding now is the answer to that question. The people on the streets today, bravely fighting for life and basic dignity, are carrying the consequences of global hesitation. Their struggle is our struggle, and the least we can do is be vocal.

    For decades, Iranians have pressed for outside assistance to place pressure on the government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, so they can bring about the freedoms they desire: a stabilized country, an end to economic mismanagement, and the overthrow of the repressive Islamic Republic—one that has been swimming in political corruption and human rights abuses.

    The opportunity for Iranians to seize this moment has never been stronger. The time is here for leaders who care about humanity to recognize this historic turning point and to shield the Iranian people from tyranny. The future of Iran is in all our hands.

    • This article was originally published in www.themedialine.org
  • Christianity and my dialogue with complex religious questions

    Christianity and my dialogue with complex religious questions

    • By Tunji Olaopa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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