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  • Security sector at Tinubu’s mid-term

    Security sector at Tinubu’s mid-term

    By Ismail Auwal

    There are stories that do not scream. They unfold not on television, social media scrolls or in the exaggeration of viral tweets but in moments of stillness, in places where peace used to be a stranger and is now fully settled. They whisper from war rooms lit by strategy, not spectacle. From farmlands where once no child dared to run, now echoing with laughter. Police outposts resurrected brick by brick, from rubble and ashes. I believe this is one of those stories, a chronicle of how Nigeria, through quiet resolve and determined strategy, began to reclaim itself from the grip of chaos.

    In the days before May 29, 2023, Nigeria resembled a federation of fragilities. Boko Haram’s menace in the Northeast had become a grim tradition. The forests of the Northwest served as capitals for bandit warlords, and separatist violence in the Southeast had turned whole communities into no-go zones. In Kaduna State alone, officials recorded 1,192 people killed and over 3,300 kidnapped in one year alone. By 2023, more than 35,000 had perished in the decade-long insurgency in Borno. In the oil-rich Niger Delta, pipelines suffered more attacks than some military formations. We had not only inherited chaos; we had normalised it.

    But then came a change; not the kind that arrives with fireworks or national applause, but the kind you almost miss until it begins to reshape your mornings. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu brought with him a clarity of purpose, and in the shadow of that vision emerged a key figure—Nuhu Ribadu, the National Security Adviser (NSA), whose name evokes a different kind of fear now: fear among criminals that Nigeria has stopped sleeping.

    The NSA was called upon at the APC midterm conference to give an account of this salient sector in the last two years. With no drama or innuendo, Ribadu gave an excellent account, using facts and figures. Many in the room nodded because, like millions of Nigerians, they could identify how the reign of terror that once stopped many people from going home now caves in to strategic warfare.

    In two years under Tinubu’s leadership and Ribadu’s supervision, the story is pleasant for every dispassionate follower of events. In terms of figures, over 13,500 terrorists and armed criminals have been neutralised. More than 17,000 arrests were made. Over 11,200 hostages were freed. More importantly, over 124,000 insurgents and their families surrendered, handing over more than 11,000 weapons. These are not just numbers, they are milestones engraved in human relief. They are the sighs of parents who once despaired of seeing their children return from school, or from bandits’ camps.

    In the Northwest, especially Zamfara and Kaduna, 11,250 hostages have been freed, and some of the most dreaded warlords—Ali Kachala, Boderi, Halilu Sububu—are no longer here to perpetrate their reign of terror. The government also deployed a comprehensive system of non-kinetic approach using dialogue and community engagement. Dubbed the Kaduna Model, it’s a precursor to a full-scale initiative called Operation Safe Corridor Northwest, which is in the works. Through it, 35 repentant bandit leaders laid down their arms. It is not forgiveness out of weakness, but a recovery strategy.

    In the Northeast, where peace seemed like a myth, Borno is witnessing what can only be called thoughtful rebirth. Over 13,543 insurgents were neutralised. Over 102,000 surrendered. In the charred heartlands of the Timbuktu Triangle and the marshy lairs of Tumbu Islands, soldiers pushed insurgents into retreat. Eleven thousand recovered weapons and 252,596 rounds of ammunition lie in silent testimony.

    Villages once erased from maps are reappearing in census reports. Resettlement has moved from policy to practice, and the air hums again with the sound of trade.

    The Niger Delta, once a corridor of corruption and criminal oil syndicates, witnessed a quiet economic resurgence. Crude oil production, which had dipped to less than a million barrels per day before 2023, climbed to an average of 1.8 million barrels in 2025. This was not a fluke. It was the product of relentless operations. Operation Delta Safe dismantled 1,978 illegal refineries, 3,849 dugout pits, and 3,773 cooking ovens used to process stolen crude. The pipelines turned green—operational—for the first time in years. And then, history was made: oil production was scheduled to resume in Ogoniland, a region silent for over three decades, this time with community consent and federal protection.

    In the Southeast, the tide is turning. IPOB’s once-feared sit-at-home orders are losing their grip. Fifty police stations have reopened. Separatist strongholds are collapsing. The streets of Enugu, Owerri, and Abakaliki hum again, not with threats, but with trade, traffic, and talk.

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    Perhaps the most underreported but crucial front is cyberspace security. Ribadu’s war room doesn’t just fight with boots on the ground—it wages battles in the cloud. The Binance case exposed billions in crypto-linked economic sabotage. Dozens of suspicious accounts tied to terrorism and separatism were frozen. The newly established National Digital Forensic Laboratory now supports military and law enforcement investigations. A robust plan to protect critical national infrastructure has been activated and enforced.

    And still, Ribadu does not claim the spotlight. When he speaks, it is to remind us of the horrors we survived—the Kaduna train bombing, the Owo church massacre, the 1,841 inmates who vanished from Kuje and Owerri. He asks us not to clap but to remember.

    This is not to declare total victory. The Sahel still burns with jihadist fury, and regional instability laps at our borders. Arms still flow illegally, and climate-driven conflicts remain a threat. But there is a difference now: Nigeria is not merely reacting. It is anticipating. It is prepared.

    Eight pillars now guide our national security approach: intelligence, inter-agency coordination, frontline operations, equipping, aerial upgrades, cyber defence, capacity building, and international collaboration. These are not bullet points on paper; they are the reason we can now speak of progress, not just pain.

    If President Tinubu lit the flame, Ribadu has guarded it, shielding it from the winds of cynicism and sabotage. Two years on, the flame does not flicker. It burns brighter.

    This is the story of a country still marked by its wounds, but no longer defined by them. The story of a nation that now walks with purpose where it once stumbled in panic. The battles are not all won, but for the first time in a long time, Nigeria is not on its knees. It is on its feet.

    •Auwal writes from Abuja   

  • Ruled by commentators

    Ruled by commentators

    By M.O. Oladoja

    There’s a peculiar tragedy that defines the Nigerian state. A tragedy of complete surrender of responsibility by those elected to bear it. A full-blown case of irresponsibility institutionalised at the highest levels. It is as if we are not being led at all. It is as if we are simply being watched, pitied, narrated to. Our so-called leaders behave like helpless spectators, not as those with the authority to fix the very problems they moan about.

    Shamefully, what we have in Nigeria is far from leadership. What we have are men and women who love the microphone more than the mandate. We are not governed. We are ruled by commentators.

    Just days ago, a state governor resurfaced with yet another alarming statement: that Boko Haram has infiltrated the government. Again. This is not the first time he is saying something like this. Several times, he has come out to decry the killings, to point fingers, to lament the destruction. And every single time, one question keeps hanging in the air. What exactly has he, as the Chief Security Officer of the state, done about it? What has he changed? What systems has he challenged? What heads have rolled on his watch? Beyond the endless news appearances and emotional speeches, where is the real action? It is not enough to wear a bulletproof vest and take a stroll in a burned village. That is not leadership. That is performance.

    I mean, this individual is not a social media activist. He is not a political analyst. Not a powerless citizen. He is not a sympathiser. He is a sitting governor for goodness’ sake! He has the resources, influence, and intelligence at his disposal. If all he can do is complain, then he has failed. And that is the bitter truth. Or how did the weight of office shrink to the mere performance of sympathy and public outrage? Because for all I know, leaders do not just point to problems. They solve them. They don’t weep when the house burns. They command the water. But what we see here is the opposite.

    It is as if holding public office in Nigeria has been reduced to a speaking exercise. The governor speaks. The senators speak. The representatives hold press conferences. Everybody speaks. But nobody leads. They describe problems they were empowered to solve, like detached observers, rather than active agents of change. It is nauseating. It is tragic. It is dangerous. Because this governor is just one symptom of a far deeper rot.

    Nigeria’s leadership structure is littered with voices that echo sorrow and rage without ever lifting a finger to stop the bleeding. The National Assembly, for instance, has become a festival of talkers. Lawmakers who go to the chambers not to legislate, but to lament. Some of them even act as if their job is to criticise the government when in fact, they are the government. You hear them talk on TV and wonder if they were mistakenly sworn into opposition. These are people elected to craft laws, drive policies, and oversee the executive. Instead, they pick microphones and begin to “express worry,” “condemn in strong terms,” and “call on the federal government,” as though they are not the federal government themselves. It is embarrassing. It is pathetic. It is a national disgrace that in a country so battered, the loudest voices in power are often the most passive.

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    And the tragedy is even louder when we look at the so-called new breed. Peter Obi, for instance, who has earned the admiration of some Nigerians because they see in him a departure from the past. But in reality, he’s just the same recycled blaming and deflecting game-player. Recently, when asked about the internal crisis tearing through the Labour Party, a party he is seen as the head of, his response was a flat finger-pointing exercise. He explained who caused what and who did what. Zero sense of responsibility. No ownership, nor plan to fix it. Is it hard to understand that leadership is not explaining the problem but solving it? If someone aspiring to govern 200 million people cannot manage internal party squabbles, then what exactly are we banking on?

    Being soft-spoken is not leadership. Throwing statistics around is not leadership. What Nigerians need now are people who carry the weight of responsibility and act with urgency, not people who are always ready with talking points.

    This country is bleeding. Virtually every region, every sector, every institution is either hoping to set into recovery or picking on survival. From poverty to insecurity, from joblessness to healthcare collapse, from fuel inflation to decaying infrastructure, we are a nation gasping for air. And what do our leaders do? They gather at events and in press briefings to express sympathy. They talk. They hold conferences. They issue long tweets. And then they disappear. It is now a full-blown epidemic. Everyone in power wants to talk about the problem. No one wants to be responsible for the solution. They love the headlines. They love the interviews. But when it is time for hard decisions, for bold reforms, for deep accountability, they vanish.

    This is not leadership. Leadership means bearing the burden of others. It means thinking, planning, executing, sweating, failing, trying again and never passing the buck. But Nigerian leaders today see power as a shield from responsibility. To them, power is for glory, not for duty. It is for title, not for toil. And we, the people, must also take some blame. Because time after time, we bring these same people back. We vote them in. We defend them. We hail them. We wash them, rinse them, and repackage them for another round of useless governance. It is insane.

    A time must come, and it should be now, when Nigerians wake up to the bitter reality that what we call democracy today is mostly a circus. A time when we say it clearly and loudly: enough of all the empty noise. We do not want more commentators. We do not want glorified orators. We do not need prophets of doom in positions of power. We want leadership. Real, practical, accountable leadership.

    If you are in office, your job is not to narrate the problem. Your job is to change it. If you are governor and your people are being killed, we expect action, not pity. If you are a senator and the economy is crashing, we expect reform, not press conferences. If you are a party leader and your house is on fire, don’t blame others. Fix it. Nigeria can no longer afford leaders who vanish when it matters most. We cannot survive another decade of commentators posing as commanders. The country is on the brink, and what we need now are not voices of complaint, but minds of action and hearts of steel.

    Until that happens, let the records reflect it plainly. We are not being led. And that is the greatest insult of all.

    •Oladoja writes from Abuja

  • Economic patriotism: The example of Rabiu, Dangote

    Economic patriotism: The example of Rabiu, Dangote

    By Otega Ogra and Temitope Ajayi

    There is a particular kind of silence that greets progress in Nigeria—when food prices fall, inflation slows, the country is positively recognised, debts paid, or things begin to work. It is the kind of silence that would rather keep a good story buried than be told. But make no mistake. What we see in the market today is not magic. It is the outcome of vision, backed by execution, from the Tinubu-Shettima administration.

    When President Bola Tinubu signed off on a six-month waiver to allow the importation of select food items, it was not an act of political showmanship. Rather, it was a visionary economic strategy at play. That singular decision broke a cartel of hoarders who had turned food insecurity into an immoral enterprise. But strategy alone does not and cannot lower the cost of rice. What does is when industry leaders respond with urgency.

    Last week, at the Aso Villa, the seat of the Presidency in Abuja, Abdul Samad Rabiu, did not just show up to thank President Bola Tinubu. He came prepared and showed up with results. He brought evidence—bag by bag, commodity by commodity—of how Mr President’s policy met action. Rice that once sold for N110,000 for a 50kg bag now sells for less than N70,000. Flour is down. Maize is down. And for once, the loudest people in the room are the ones who used to profit from scarcity, not the ones out to end the criminal profiteering.

    What happened here was disruption. The BUA team, as well as other major Nigerian manufacturers and industrialists who heeded President Tinubu’s call, understood the assignment. They flooded the market, shattered the economics of hoarding, and exposed a truth few want to say: sometimes, the real enemy is not the system. It is the silence and sabotage that follow reform.

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    But Alhaji Rabiu did not stop at food. He announced a second move upon the advice of fellow billionaire industrialist Aliko Dangote, which was just as consequential. In an economy that is recovering from FX volatility, energy price surges, and imported inflation, cement manufacturers have decided to freeze the price of cement, not for everyone, but for every contractor working under the government’s Renewed Hope infrastructure projects. This is not charity at play. This is alignment.

    Our two big businessmen understand the time, and they are doing their businesses conscious of the need to balance profitability with social responsibility. We have Aliko Dangote and Abdul Samad Rabiu to thank for leading the way and showing how to be worthy examples to Corporate Nigeria. The truth is that the business environment has been quite challenging. While this is so, there is also the problem of arbitrariness in how prices of goods and services have moved in the last two years. Many businessmen and women have taken undue advantage of Nigerians to engage in price gouging, unduly raising the cost of living for average Nigerians.

    Cement isn’t just a product. It is the bloodline of infrastructure. By holding the price steady for public works under the Renewed Hope Agenda, Dangote Cement, BUA Cement, Lafarge, and new entrants like Mangal Cement didn’t just make a corporate gesture. They bought the government fiscal room, time, and momentum. That is what nation-building looks like when it wears a private-sector face.

    It gets deeper. Working with Aliko Dangote, Abdul Samad Rabiu in the same spirit of putting country first, other cement manufacturers are partnering with the two prime movers in the cement manufacturing sector to resuscitate the Cement Technology Institute of Nigeria, pledging up to N20 billion annually to train artisans, real human capacity, not PowerPoint plans. We live in Nigeria, where, for the longest time, conversations about growth rarely touch skills. This novel move is, therefore, a bet on people because when people are trained, projects do not just get built but they endure.

    President Tinubu alluded to something important during that meeting. He did not just commend BUA, he called the actions of the private sector who have taken a bet on Nigeria throughout this period, “economic patriotism.” Whilst many sit on the sidelines waiting for stability before they act, it matters when Nigerians step in to create it.

    Nigeria does not just need big men; it also needs bold moves. What Rabiu, Dangote, and their peers are doing, from freezing prices and disrupting hoarding to funding technical skills, is not corporate PR. It is policy execution; and that is what separates firms that extract value from those that build it.

    In this phase of Nigeria’s transformation, we will need more of the latter. Our country can make do with more businessmen and women who understand that the private sector is not a spectator sport; that stability is not gifted but engineered. And to win the confidence of 250 million people, you must show, not tell, that the future of Nigeria is under construction.

    And if we tell these positive stories loud enough and well, if we stop whispering good news while bad actors shout, we may just shift the national mood from that of despair and hopelessness to productivity.

    We make bold this statement because when industry starts to move like this, it is more than just a market correction. It is a clear signal that the tide is turning positively.

    Our country must be a nation of strong, hopeful, and productive people. While some of the challenges of nation-building still persist, we must never shy away from telling those who take undue advantage of fellow citizens that businesses can still make fair and decent profit and not overburden citizens.

    President Tinubu knew from his first day in office that the task of reforming and retooling our economy for optimum performance would not be easy. He also knew what would be his place in history if he refused to take the difficult but necessary decisions that would create medium – and long-term sustainability and prosperity for Nigerians.

    Truly, the last two years have posed some economic challenges for Nigerians. As the reforms kick in, the macroeconomic variables are turning positive. The fiscal space is becoming more robust. National and subnational debts are being repaid, investors’ confidence growing faster at a higher rate than last decade. Nigeria is getting a more favourable credit rating from global institutions, inflation slowing down and the country is in a stronger balance of trade position with more robust foreign reserves.

    All these positive indicators point to how effective the policy prescriptions have been. The government is also working hard to tackle insecurity across the country with remarkable progress. At the same time, the government is investing in critical infrastructure such as roads, energy, rail, ports, irrigation, and social services.

    Overall, the economy recorded 3.84% GDP growth in Q4 2024, the highest in three years. The President Tinubu-led administration restored a new wave of final investment decisions into the oil and gas sector by signing an executive order that shortened the contracting cycle and freed up more fiscal incentives. On the back of these, the hydrocarbon economy has been bolstered by over $8 billion in new investments from SHELL, ExxonMobil, and TotalEnergies.

    The economic prospects are very bright, and the shared prosperity promised by President Tinubu is crystallising. Nigeria only needs more patriotic and passionate citizens who will always commit to national development and advancement.

    As the President has always said, the future of Nigeria will be one built by Nigerians, for Nigeria, and indeed, for Africa. No one, but ourselves, will build the Nigeria of our collective dream or Africa for us. The time to build together is now!

    •Ogra and Ajayi are senior aides to President Tinubu

  • Public service in Nigeria and the big questions of public administration

    Public service in Nigeria and the big questions of public administration

    • By Tunji Olaopa

    One of the founding theses of public administration reform philosophy is that the dysfunction and reconstruction of the administrative system must be figured out both in theory and in practice, and public administration had therefore historically functioned within frameworks of communities of practice and service and their knowledge networks. And that, among other things, implies that theory and practice must first be seen as being two sides of the same coin rather than two mutually exclusive frameworks. When I made the decision so early in my public service career to study the theoretical foundations of the Nigerian public service system, it dawned on me that dissecting the dysfunctional dynamics of the public service system provokes theoretical insights by which to engage with these same dysfunctions. However, the gross anti-intellectualism of the policy space in Nigeria contributes to one of the fundamental deficiencies in the institutional framework of the public service in Nigeria: a mix of conception-reality and passion without knowledge gaps that manifest in terms of a mismatch between theoretical and reform paradigms on the one hand, and local conditions, circumstances and realities on the other. Indeed, administrative reforms are conceived and implemented to a significant extent with scant recognition that public administration has a theoretical foundation that is way distinct from the theoretical assumptions of the core management science.

    We therefore arrive at a most significant reason why the public service system has been struggling to constitute the institutional mechanism to backstop democratic governance and its dividends for Nigerians. If we take it as axiomatic that the bureaucracy is a necessary complement to democracy, then it implies that the public service must be in topnotch shape—in terms of human resource management, performance accountability and productivity metrics—to be able to deliver on the imperatives of good governance. The public service system in Nigeria has however been struggling with the necessity for institutional reform that will transform it into a worldclass mechanism that could serve the need of a developmental state and its democratic requirements.

    Ultimately, the fate of the public service and its optimal functionality—its capacity readiness to service democratic governance anywhere—lies firmly in the type of theoretical questions we ask in terms of what should drive the practice of public administration. The big questions are fundamental questions that articulate the relationship between theory and practice, and provide the directions that enable theorists and practitioners to make sense of any endeavor. The big questions that public administration is confronted with help to shape how it grounds its frameworks, dynamics and paradigms, especially when applied to the working of the state and the imperatives of governance.

    Three initial big questions have been offered that are meant to ground public management. One: how can public managers break away from non-innovative fixation with excess of procedural rules which prevent pubic agencies from achieving measurable result and outcome? In other words, how might we ignite the shift from current input-process fixation to an output-outcome-impact-results-based management framework? Two: how can public managers motivate their workforce to achieve more in performance terms? Three: how can public managers measure these achievements?

    These how-questions underscore the capacity of the public manager and her capacity to facilitate the capacity readiness of the public bureaucracy. This approach, especially in public administration, focuses on the public managers and their objective of capacitating the public agencies as an organization with its own unique character. However, as the objection goes, such an approach is limited in its failure to connect the functionality of the public bureaucracy or agency to the institutional demands of a democratic government. Public administration in a democracy is a whole ballgame all by itself. Once we see the intimate connection between public administration and a democracy, then we immediately see how there is a need for new set of big and fundamental questions that will adequately guide public administration practice within a democratic context.

    Seven of such questions have been provided in the literature. “(1) What are the instruments of collective action that remain responsible both to democratically elected officials and to core societal values? (2) What are the roles of nongovernmental forms of collective action in society, and how can desired roles be protected and nurtured? (3) What are the appropriate tradeoffs between governmental structures based on function (which commonly eases organizational tasks) and geography (which eases citizenship, political leadership, and societal learning)? (4) How shall tensions between national and local political arenas be resolved? (5) What decisions shall be “isolated” from the normal processes of politics so that some other rationale can be applied? (6) What balance shall be struck among neutral competence, representativeness, and leadership? (7) How can processes of societal learning be improved, including knowledge of choices available, of consequences of alternatives, and of how to achieve desired goals, most importantly, the nurturing and development of a democratic polity?” 

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    Unfortunately, it is not just sufficient to align public administration and public management to the imperatives of democratic government, as these seven questions by John Kirlin of the University of South California has attempted to do. A further criterion is missing. And this, because the experience of public administration and democracy differs from context to context. The contextual criterion ensures that the fundamental big questions we need to ask will be those that will take seriously the peculiarities and uniqueness of the context within which public administration will be expected to interact and backstop democratic governance. This is even more so in the Nigerian context where public administration and democratic government must factor postcolonial circumstances into the type of fundamental questions they are meant to engage with.

    The Nigerian state, since its post-independence trajectory, has generated its own unique experience of public administration. This can be framed in terms of the myriad attempts at achieving institutional reform of the public service system inherited from the British colonialists. The commencement of the democratic experiment in 1999 puts a new spin on the urgency of bending public administration to the demands of democratic governance that will transform the quality of life of millions of Nigerians who have been promised the dividends of democracy. How then can we articulate the fundamental questions that should guide our understanding of the relationship between public administration and democratic governance in Nigeria? What are the critical issues that the government, its bureaucracy and public administration theorists ought to make the core of their reflective endeavor? 

    In what follows, I frame seven of such big questions in line with my many years of theoretically and practically engaging with the perils and promises of the public service as a mechanism for democratic fulfilment in Nigeria.

    One: How can public managers break away from non-innovative fixation with excess of procedural rules and regulations that prevent public agencies from producing results and outcomes that translate to better life to the people in a democracy? This question speaks to the centrality of the “I-am-directed” Weberian tradition and the centrality of the input and process-oriented business model that undermine the output-oriented model which demands performance, efficiency, productivity. 

    Two: ⁠How can the public service resolve the seemingly jinxed pay and remuneration policy problem which has prevented the public service from achieving an excellent talent management regime that enables attraction and retention of talented professionals and some of the scarce skills the service requires to perform at optimal levels? This is a question that stems from government’s loss of status as the employer of choice which in turn has eroded civil service’s prestige as a brand, as well as the inability of the public bureaucracy to attract and retain the brightest and the best while managing adversarial industrial relation that undergirds employer-employee contractual obligations.  

    Three; ⁠How can public managers measure the achievements of their agencies in a way that is game-changing for performance of government and the productivity of the national economy? The success of democratic governance in Nigeria is aligned to the urgent need for a shift in the productivity paradigm that ensures that the public service system becomes motivated by a performance management that increases the productivity profile of the Nigerian state. 

    Four: ⁠How can the nature and role of the state be sustainably redefined and how to leverage same to organize and utilize government resources to better achieve the collective good? The nature and the role of the state keeps changing in relation to its governance responsibility. And this demands that the success of public administration is seen in terms of the state’s relationship to other non-state and nongovernmental actors that are stakeholders in the governance space.

    Five: ⁠How can the public service regain public trust and foster social equity within framework of stewardship relationship with the people in a democracy? This question addresses the modalities by which the public service system function as a democratic institution that is transparent, accountable and open to the citizens as the most significant component of a democratic government.

    Six; How should NGOs be empowered so they can play more positive role in society and in getting public policy to achieve the common good, and how can their desired roles be better protected? NGOs, as a nonstate actor, opens up the governance space (hitherto dominated by government and its agencies), and serve as the critical mediator between the government and the citizens.

    Seven: ⁠How can the public service strike a balance between the values of being neutral and non-partisan as basis for strengthening professional ethics and the public servants’ capacity to speak truth to power? The founding dichotomy in public administration—the politics/administration distinction—insists that the politician and the administration must operate on different level of the policy divide. However, this dichotomy must be balanced with the capacity of the public servant to confront and engage with policy somersaults that fails the test of policy intelligence and action research.

    These big questions constitute core issues which the public administration profession in Nigeria must foreground as the central reflective points for rethinking the functionality of the public service in Nigeria’s quest for democratic distinction on the continent. 

    • Olaopa is Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission & Professor of Public Administration, Abuja
  • Defections, Tinubu’s endorsement and 2027 elections

    Defections, Tinubu’s endorsement and 2027 elections

    • By Tunde Rahman

    When the debate is lost, slander becomes the loser’s tool.”

    It looks like the Greek philosopher Socrates had Nigeria in mind when he made the statement above. How does one rationalise a situation where notable opposition figures choose the rather pathetic path of self-immolation instead of putting their political camps in order, strengthening their ranks, and presenting actionable alternative ideas to the people? These opposition figures have made a mountain out of a molehill. They are crying foul over the gale of defections to the governing All Progressives Congress and lamenting the so-called trend toward a one-party state.

    Recently, Delta State governor, a former presidential running mate, several senators and House of Representatives members, entire state cabinet and House of Assembly members, and many other chieftains in the opposition camp defected from their various political parties to the APC. More party chieftains, including at least two serving governors and a former Peoples Democratic Party governor from the northwest region, are expected to join the APC soon.

    One of the serving governors that is set to cross over to APC is the Akwa Ibom State Governor Umo Eno. Last Thursday, during the state executive council meeting, Governor Eno declared that it was no longer news that he had decided to defect to APC, saying, “Anybody who claims he is not aware of my intention to leave PDP is still living in the 18th Century.” The governor also directed his commissioners and political appointees to move with him to APC as Delta State Governor Sheriff Oborevwori and his appointees and lawmakers sensationally did. The Akwa Ibom State governor added he had long admired President Tinubu from a distance and would want to align with him in APC.

    Defections have now become a raging issue in our politics. This gale of defections into APC could be primarily attributed to two factors, notably the appalling state of the major opposition parties and the performance of President Bola Tinubu in just two years in office. The major parties like the PDP, Labour Party and even the Kano-based New Nigerian Peoples Party have been torn apart by internal acrimony and factional crisis. Several leaders of the parties are laying claims to the same leadership positions, fighting and struggling, and dragging their parties in the mud such that their centres can no longer hold. Some of the chieftains and members of these parties now seek accommodation in the governing party.

    It is unlikely we would be witnessing the kind of mass exodus to the governing party that we see if the key policies and initiatives of the President Tinubu administration, particularly the removal of the fuel subsidy and abolition of multiple exchange rates, which created initial bump, are not delivering favourable outcomes. Even though the key presidential candidates in 2023 all agreed the two policies had become imperative to salvage the economy, the story would have been markedly different for the APC today if the policies were not yielding good fruits.

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    In his leadership of the country, President Tinubu had demonstrated rare courage and boldness in making those decisions from which his predecessors shied away. The president and his party are certainly reaping from the current positive political  and economic trajectories.

    Importantly, however, the recent defections are a natural realignment of politicians, common in our democratic evolution. We do not have to dig too far. I have stated this position elsewhere. It bears restating. In 1999, at the rebirth of democracy and the present political dispensation, the PDP won 21 governorship seats, the defunct All Peoples Party got nine, and the Alliance for Democracy six governors. By 2003, the rampaging PDP machine had “snatched” a total of 28 governors, leaving the ANPP with seven governors, while the AD had just one governor to its name – Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, as he then was. He had survived President Obasanjo’s onslaught on the South-west.

    2007 was the era of President Obasanjo’s do-or-die politics. The PDP somehow still had 28 governors. Under the PDP’s watch, things even went bizarre. Elections became a bazaar. The party organised a sham election everyone dubbed the worst in our electoral history. The late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who won the 2007 presidential poll, admitted it was massively rigged.

    My point, therefore, is defections are not new in our politics. And it is not akin to attempts to impose one party on the country. It’s normal in the run of politics; it’s free entry and free exit. The PDP boasted it would rule for 60 years. However, when the opposition at the time got its acts together and formed a united front with the leading parties in the North and South coalescing to form the present APC, they unseated an incumbent president. They terminated the PDP rule in 2015 after just 16 years. Asiwaju Tinubu, now President, was in the vanguard of that unprecedented effort. He was one of the leaders who cobbled the alliance that propelled General Muhammadu Buhari to power in 2015.

    It is relevant to state here that while in opposition, Tinubu never wavered. No matter the provocation or persecution, he refused to jump ship, remaining consistent within the progressive enclave. He continued to build the progressive forces until the APC defeated the PDP in national elections in 2015. The current and disparate opposition must emulate him, build their parties, and aim at forming a united front. Neither President Tinubu nor the APC will do it for them. The President succinctly made this point at last Thursday’s APC National Summit at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

    “I just need to tell those who say a one-party system is no good: you don’t blame a people bailing out of a sinking ship when they have no life jackets. I’m glad for what we have, and I’m expecting more to come. That is the game. Welcome to progress; sweep them clean,” he said.

    At that summit, which was themed “Renewed Hope Agenda: The Journey So Far,” the party leadership, its 22 governors, and National Assembly leadership endorsed him for a second term in office. That summit could pass for a mini-convention. The Chairman of the Progressive Governors’ Forum and Governor of Imo, Hope Uzodimma, Senate President Godswill Akpabio and APC National Chairman Abdullahi Ganduje engaged in a battle of wits in their move to adopt President Tinubu as the APC consensus presidential candidate for 2027. Party chieftains and members were also falling heads over heels to be part of the endorsement. It was a celebration with prominent musicians like Wasiu Ayinde Marshal and Dauda Kahutu, alias Rarara, on the bandstand.

    President Tinubu and the APC can hardly be blamed for having their day in the sun.    The opposition elements allowed the governing party to further flourish with their indiscipline and inability to organise and perplexing tendency to self-destruct.

    Indeed, for the opposition to make any appreciable impact in the 2027 elections, those parading themselves as the leaders must be ready to put in the work, forgo self-serving ambitions, and forge a cohesive front. The discord we are witnessing today within the opposition parties aided the election of President Tinubu in 2023. How could the opposition have won in 2023 with a disunited front? Former vice president Atiku Abubakar ran a divisive race as PDP presidential candidate, telling the North he was its candidate who could protect the Northern interest. His presidential running mate in the 2019 election, Mr. Peter Obi, ran the 2023 election essentially on both ethnic Igbo and Christian religious agenda as the candidate of the Labour Party. He won the entire South-east and had majority votes from the South-South and parts of the core middle-belt states.

    Meanwhile, five PDP governors led by the then-governor of Rivers State, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, had left the party to join ranks with President Tinubu. The PDP clearly lost the debate a long time ago and resorted to cheap slander. At the moment not much has changed within the ranks of opposition parties. With the opposition parties in disarray, still roiled by internal strife and disunity, history is bound to repeat itself in 2027.

    • Rahman is a Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media & Special Duties.
  • President Tinubu’s unprecedented commitment to Nigerian athletes

    President Tinubu’s unprecedented commitment to Nigerian athletes

    • By Paul Okoku

    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has redefined the trajectory of sports in Nigeria with a groundbreaking approach that prioritizes athletics as a central element of the nation’s development. His leadership has introduced an era where sports—especially football—are not merely celebrated but supported in tangible and unprecedented ways. Through his leadership, President Tinubu is setting a new standard, elevating sports from the fringes to the forefront of national progress, with the hope of securing global recognition and a stronger sense of unity for Nigeria.

    A major turning point came with the approval of Nigeria’s ₦54.99 Trillion budget for 2025, a momentous leap forward for the country. This budget does more than allocate funds; it symbolizes President Tinubu’s unwavering commitment to ensuring that Nigerian athletes, particularly those in football, receive the recognition and support they so greatly deserve. For the first time in Nigeria’s history, a clear, strategic commitment has been made to invest heavily in sports, which will catalyze national unity, economic growth, and global respect.

    For decades, Nigerian sports, especially football, were neglected, left to fend for themselves despite the hard work and dedication of the athletes. As a member of the 1984 AFCON Silver Medalist team, I can attest to the long-standing neglect we faced after our own historic achievement. After our final match in Cote d’Ivoire, where we secured our silver medal, we were abandoned. There was no form of recognition or encouragement from our leaders, not even from the president of Nigeria at the time. We were left to find our way back from the airport.

    The only support we received in Cote d’Ivoire came an hour after the final whistle, from late Moshood Abiola and former Nigerian superstar, Muiwa Oshode, who came inside our bus to offer words of encouragement. That moment was a brief flicker of recognition amidst our years of invisibility.

    Fast forward to today, and we see President Tinubu taking the exact opposite approach—recognizing the dedication and effort of athletes like the Super Eagles, regardless of the result. This unprecedented support is a testament to his leadership and commitment to empowering Nigerian athletes. Even after their narrow loss to Ivory Coast in the AFCON final, the President did not allow their efforts to go unnoticed. He not only honored them but used their example to demonstrate to all athletes that hard work and pride in representing the nation will always be celebrated.

    This kind of leadership is essential in shifting the paradigm in Nigerian sports. In the face of this kind of unprecedented recognition and encouragement, it is clear to all athletes—past and future—that their sacrifices will not go unnoticed. We are witnessing the birth of a new era where effort and determination are met with tangible rewards.

    The increase in funding for Nigerian sports, particularly football, marks a pivotal moment in the country’s sporting landscape. Under this new financial commitment, the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) will be empowered to:

    • Compensate Players and Staff Appropriately: Adequately compensating athletes for their sacrifices is crucial in attracting top-tier talent and ensuring the long-term sustainability of the sport.

    • Build World-Class Infrastructure: With this funding, Nigeria will upgrade its football facilities, creating a competitive environment where players can hone their skills to global standards.

    • Invest in Grassroots Football: Ensuring that the next generation of football stars has the resources and opportunities they need will build a foundation of long-term success for Nigeria.

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    • Enhance Global Competition: This investment lays the groundwork for Nigeria to rise in global football tournaments, starting with the 2026 FIFA World Cup and continuing to build momentum at subsequent AFCONs.

    This momentous investment is more than a financial commitment; it is a vote of confidence in Nigerian football’s ability to rise and compete globally.

    A Legacy for Generations to Come

    The legacy of President Tinubu’s leadership will undoubtedly be felt for generations to come. His decision to place sports, and particularly football, at the center of national development will inspire youth across the country to pursue excellence not just in sports, but in all areas of life. This is about more than just trophies—it’s about creating a culture where excellence is rewarded, where athletes are recognized and supported, and where national pride is built from the ground up.

    For those of us who have worn the green and white, from the Flying Eagles in 1983 to the 1984 AFCON Silver Medalists, we know how much it takes to carry that flag. The effort, sacrifice, and blood, sweat, and tears invested in representing Nigeria is immeasurable. It’s not just about winning; it’s about giving everything for the nation and doing so with pride.

    I have lived that experience. As part of the first Nigerian national football team to compete in a FIFA World Cup, I know firsthand the pride of representing my country on the world stage. To have that effort overlooked, with no recognition or support, was painful. Yet, here we are today, watching a president who values sports as we do, lifting up our athletes and sending a powerful message to the world.

    This is the kind of leadership that will change Nigeria forever. It is the leadership that promises the next generation of Nigerian footballers that they will not be forgotten, no matter the outcome. We saw it with the Super Eagles, and we will see it again with the Flying Eagles, the Super Falcons, and every athlete who has ever donned the national colors.

    The Time is Now!

    The 2025 budget, the investments, and the recognition of athletes are all part of the shift. The future of Nigerian football is no longer uncertain. The time is now for the Super Eagles, the Flying Eagles, the Super Falcons, and all national teams to rise and build on the foundation laid by President Tinubu.

    The 2026 FIFA World Cup is on the horizon, and with this renewed support, there is no limit to what Nigerian football can achieve. To the Super Eagles, your nation stands with you. To the Flying Eagles and the Super Falcons, the world is watching, and we believe in your greatness.

    This is our time to rise, to make history, and to do it together. Sports and politics may never mix, but we all stand united in sports. No matter your political affiliation, let us set aside politics in this instance—this is not about politics. It’s about sports, particularly football, which unites us as an economic engine and an emblem of freedom from despair. Let us not allow politics to cloud our judgment and prevent us from recognizing the exceptional leadership shaping Nigerian sports’ future.

    Together, under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, we will create a legacy of sports excellence that will last for generations. This is not just a dream; this is our reality.

  • Trump, Malema, Ramaphosa and the Oval Office grill

    Trump, Malema, Ramaphosa and the Oval Office grill

    • By Chief Femi Fani-Kayode

    It was quite a show at the Oval Office in the White House a few days ago when South African President Cyril Ramaphosa met with American President Donald J. Trump to discuss bilateral issues and world affairs.

    It began with Trump’s unsubstantiated and frankly asinine allegation that the white Boers of South Africa are being subjected to mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide.

    This is not only false but also painfully absurd.

    Sadly it did not stop there. Trump went on to assert that Julius Malema, the inspirational charismatic and colourful M.P. and leader and founder of the South African Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), is a hate-filled black supremacist and racist and a cold-blooded murderer and ruthless terrorist whose intention it is to kill every white person in South Africa.

    Needless to say these allegations are baseless and false. The Americans are attempting to give a dog a bad name in order to hang it. It is nothing but yet another well-crafted but unsubstantiated mendacity.

    Even though Malema is very vocal and highly controversial, he does not strike me as a hater of whites but rather as a hater of injustice, oppression, persecution and institutional racism.

    He is a man with a social conscience who speaks for the poor, the weak, the vulnerable and the oppressed and who has constituted himself into a major thorn in the flesh of the political establishment and the ruling elites in South Africa both white and black.

    He is very eloquent, well-informed, well-read and quick off the mark and these qualities, coupled with his obvious courage and strength, make him a formidable adversary which every person of class, rank or privilege in his country has every reason to be wary of.

    He also speaks a good deal of sense and his passion for truth, justice and equity for the black majority population of South Africa and commitment to the emancipation of the African continent from the forces of imperialism and neo-colonialism cannot be denied.

    To millions of South Africans Malema is a deeply courageous, insightful and profound man and possibly the greatest post-Mandela hero and rising star that their nation has ever known.

    To add to this millions of Africans (including Nigerians and Zimbabweans) who live in South Africa regard him as a loyal and trusted friend who has always spoken up for them and sought to protect them from the rabid xenophobia that most black South Africans suffer from and who has a strong and commendable Nkrumaist Pan-African vision.  

    For Trump and his White House to attempt to disparage such a man that brings so much to the table and that has done so much to restore the self-respect and dignity of black South Africans and Africans all over the world simply because he sang an old outdated, pre-independence, apartheid-era, anti-Boer war song at his political party rally is uncharitable and unkind.

    Read Also: Trump revokes Harvard University’s authority to enroll foreign students

    To turn down the lights of the Oval office, watch a film on him on television for four good minutes and make him the centre of discussion at a bilateral meeting between the Presidents of two of the most respected nations on earth only proves the fact that he is no longer only an African phenomenon but also a global brand and a rallying point for blacks from all over the world.

    To that extent Trump has inadvertently elevated his profile rather than diminish it.

    Like in the case of the Biblical Joseph, what Trump meant for evil, God meant for good.

    Yet perhaps the most shameful thing that Trump did on that day was not what he attempted to do to Malema but rather the following.

    He presented a picture to Ramaphosa and his delegation of what was purportedly “1000 white South African graves with white crosses on them of white South African farmers” that were supposedly “dispossessed of their land by black terrorists” and “murdered in cold blood”.

    Contrary to the American Presidents assertions it was later confirmed that the picture was NOT of the graves of white farmers in South Africa but rather of a burial ground in a completely different country called Congo!

    One wonders how the President of the most powerful nation on earth could make such an egregious and monumental blunder and indulge in such deceit and doublespeak all in an attempt to humiliate the South African President.

    Sadly it didn’t stop there. Trump literally ambushed Ramaphosa, lectured him, bullied him, spoke down to him, accused his government and people of heinous crimes, kept interrupting him when he attempted to speak, mocked his role as a peacemaker in the Ukraine/Russia conflict and sought to utterly humiliate him.

    To behave in this unacceptable manner and indulge in such mendacious falsehood is below any President let alone the most powerful one in the world.

    I see the hand of Elon Musk, who himself is a South African and who has not hidden his contempt and disdain for the ANC-led South African Government and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu, whose government has been accused by South Africa of genocide and indeed taken to the International Court of Justice and to the International Criminal Court both at the Hague, in all this.

    Both must have thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle!

    Yet the truth is that even if his predominately white right-wing MAGA base in America may have been excited and thrilled by his proverbial lynching and carpeting of a helpless and whimpering black President at the Oval office it has also alienated a lot of black and particularly African Trumpers like yours truly who have always refused to regard Trump as a racist but rather as a man who was specially chosen, prepared, raised and anointed by God to destroy the American Deep State, to terminate the Godless agenda of the globalists, to stop the wars of the world, to put God at the centre of affairs when it comes to politics and governance, to re-establish and re-instill the Christian virtues and values that America was built on, to break the back of the unholy, Luciferean trinity and anti-Christ philosophy of Obama, Clinton and Biden in world affairs and American politics.

    I sincerely hope that we do not end up regretting our support for him but if he continues in this way that support shall undoubtedly dwindle.

    Why do I say this? Consider the following.

    First it was “let us grab Greenland, Canada, Mexico, the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal and rename the Gulf of Persia”, then it was “let us turn Gaza into an American Riviera”, then it was “let us wage a tariff war against the nations of the world”, then it was “let us alienate and abandon our European allies”, then it was “let us provoke China”, then it was “let us go to the three richest nations in the Middle East and compel their Kings to invest trillions of dollars in America and even give us a new presidential  jet”, then it was “let us bring the little African leader who leads a country with the largest and most prosperous economy on his continent to the Oval office, humiliate him before the world and bully him into leaving our white brothers in South Africa alone” and the latest is “let us stop foreign students from attending Harvard University because the authorities of that school have refused to bring to an end the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that are taking place on campus”. 

    These actions are increasingly troubling, and whether we have hitherto admired, loved and prayed for Trump or not, we cannot support a confirmed bully and racist. That would be ungodly.

    We cannot support a man that finds it difficult to empathise with the suffering of others or that is fast losing his humanity. That would be incorrigible.

    Trump needs to retrace his steps, divest himself of these glaring and obvious symptoms of megalomania, obsessive vanity and extreme narcissism and get real.

    God did not deliver him from the hands of his enemies and make him President to do this sort of nonsense but rather to make America great again and to make the world a better and safer place. If he fails to do this God will leave him, remove him and replace him with another.

    Back to the episode at the White House.

    Cyril Ramaphosa’s responses to the grilling were equally embarrassing and frankly disappointing.

    Most western commentators have described his disposition, body language and reaction as “weak”, “cowardly” and “cringe worthy” and I am constrained to concur.

    No President should bow and tremble before another no matter how rich and powerful the latter may be.

    In the African context Nelson Mandela would not have done so and neither would Murtala Mohammed, Olusegun Obasanjo, Jerry Rawlings, Thomas Sankara, Ahmed Ben Bella, Muammar Ghadafi, Patrice Lumumba, Gamal Nasser, Sani Abacha, Ibrahim Babangida, Kwame Nkrumah, Muhammadu Buhari, Robert Mugabe, Samora Machel or Ibrahim Traore.

    This ritual of inviting foreign leaders to the Oval office like King Hussein of Jordan (who literally had to bow and lick Trumps posterior), President Vlodomer Zelensky of Ukraine (who was insulted, rubbished, humiliated and finally thrown out) and now Cyril Ramaphosa (who was forced to watch an embarrassing scene about his country on television) and belittling and denigrating them must stop.

    The humiliation of the South African President particularly was painful for me to watch because of the frightful history of his country and the terrible atrocities and apartheid system that the white Afrikaaner Boers subjected the black Africans to for hundreds of years.

    They went through all that and now they have to suffer this in the hands of yet another white man.

    This same white minority that oppressed and enslaved them in their own land for hundreds of years control 80% of the economy and own 90% of the land in their country today despite the fact that they only constitute 8% of the population.

    These are the people that Trump is claiming are being subjected to genocide and is offering asylum in America.

    These are people that in the main and in the past have regarded black Africans as being “no better than animals”.

    These are people that practised apartheid and that described black people  as the biblical “hewers of the wood and drawers of the water”.

    These are the people that once regarded a black man as being a quarter of a human being and that not only refused to have legal inter racial sex or marriages but compelled black people to live in shanty towns that were little better than concentration camps and subjected them to pass laws much in the same way as the Israelis are subjecting the Palestinians to such inhumanity and degradation today.

    If a Nigerian leader had been treated like this at the Oval office and I was in the room believe me all hell would have broken loose and Trump, his VP, his Ministers, his team and the American White House Press Corps would not only have got more than they dished out and bargained for but they would have been given a curt history lesson about the past and present atrocities of their nation and a thorough and precise lecture about the matter at hand.

    I am a Trump supporter but in all matters my nation and continent must come first.

    I despise the way he bullied Ramaphosa and I hope and pray that if he or any other foreign leader tries this with any Nigerian leader that I am in the room.

    The days of talking down to African Presidents are long over.

    More importantly the days of cowardly, weak, subservient, spineless, grovelling, corrupt, compromised and ignorant African lichspittles and quislings who call themselves leaders but who lack self-esteem, self-respect and pride in their people and who have no shame or dignity, who are hopelessly compromised, who have no knowledge of world affairs or world history, who are pawns of the neo-colonialists and imperialists and who have sold their soul and destiny of their nation to the western powers are long over.

    This fact can be confirmed by what can best be described as the “Traore spirit” that is blowing into all the nooks and corners of our continent today.

    As much as I love and support Trump his attitude and policy on Africa and Gaza leaves much to be desired.

    He needs to do better and he must understand that the Palestinians and the Africans, though facing challenges, are far more resilient than his people ever were and come from a far older and greater civilisation than his country ever did.

    We may not have their money and power but we have God.

    Their time is now, but tomorrow belongs to us. That God that put them up there and established their hegemony and empire shall remember us.

    We too shall rise and at that time all men shall say that the rejected stone has become the corner stone, that the Lord uses the foolish things of this world to confound the wisdom of the wise and that in truth all things are possible with God.

    • Chief Femi Fani-Kayode is the Sadaukin Shinkafi, the Wakilin Doka Potiskum, a former Minister of Aviation and a former Minister of Culture and Tourism.
  • Climate Change: The rising tide of climate migration

    Climate Change: The rising tide of climate migration

    By Adebayo Adeleye

    Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time, with far-reaching consequences for our planet and its inhabitants. One of the most devastating effects of climate change is climate migration – the forced displacement of people due to rising temperatures, sea-level rise, and extreme weather events.

    The Alarming Reality: The World Bank estimates that climate change could displace up to 143 million people by 2050, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. This is not just a humanitarian crisis, but also a threat to global stability and security.

    Causes of Climate Migration

    Rising Sea Levels: Coastal communities are being displaced due to rising sea levels, erosion, and increased flooding.

    Drought and Water Scarcity: Changes in precipitation patterns and increased evaporation due to warmer temperatures are leading to droughts and water scarcity, forcing people to migrate.

    Extreme Weather Events: Increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters, such as hurricanes, wildfires, and floods, are displacing communities and destroying livelihoods.

    Loss of Livelihoods: Climate change is impacting agriculture, fisheries, and other industries, leading to loss of livelihoods and forced migration.

    Consequences of Climate Migration:

    Social and Cultural Disruption: Climate migration can lead to the loss of cultural heritage, social networks, and community cohesion.

    Economic Burden: Climate migration can place a significant economic burden on host countries and communities, straining resources and infrastructure.

    Human Rights Concerns: Climate migrants often face human rights challenges, including limited access to education, healthcare, and employment.

    Global Security Risks: Climate migration can contribute to global security risks, including social unrest, conflict, and terrorism.

    Solutions and Strategies:

    Climate-Resilient Infrastructure: Investing in climate-resilient infrastructure, such as sea walls, levees, and green roofs, can help protect communities from climate-related disasters.

    Sustainable Agriculture: Promoting sustainable agriculture practices, such as agroforestry and permaculture, can help communities adapt to changing climate conditions.

    Climate Education and Awareness: Educating communities about climate change and its impacts can help them prepare and adapt to climate-related challenges.

    International Cooperation: Strengthening international cooperation and agreements, such as the Paris Agreement, can help address the global challenges of climate migration.

    Conclusion: Climate migration is a pressing issue that requires immediate attention and action. As the world grapples with the challenges of climate change, it is essential that we prioritize the needs and rights of climate migrants. By working together, we can reduce the impacts of climate migration and create a more sustainable and equitable future for all.

    Dr. Adebayo Matthew, Adeleye (Ph.D., Ibadan) – Researcher on Environmental Pollution and Control badeleye@gmail.com  +234 803 525 6450

  • Insecurity: Elephant in the room

    Insecurity: Elephant in the room

    By Nnaji Jekwu Onovo

    The administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been doing everything possible to save Nigeria from the vicious cycle of push for development and pull for underdevelopment. The administration puts up brave fight against the various factors hindering the nation’s development especially in the economic sector. It confronted and dealt with the two critical issues derailing the economic programs and policies of governments; eliminating fuel subsidy and dual exchange rate. The success in the two fronts came with some discomforts and Nigerians are still grappling with the ripple effect. Nonetheless, an honest assessor of the present economic trajectory, knows we had no option than to eliminate those factors as they created uncertainties and made it difficult for policy makers and analyst to come up with exact figures.

    The latest development in the economic sector is the administration’s response to the raging global trade wars ignited by President Trump of USA. Instead of imposing tariff on imported goods, the government maintained the traditional route of ban on some imported goods. FEC Approved ‘Renewed Hope Nigeria First’ Policy to Boost Local Content, Domestic Economy. This policy aims to reduce import dependency, stimulate local production, and enforce local content compliance. This ban affects products like beef, pork, poultry, fruit juices, medicaments, and alcoholic beverages, among others. Additionally, some products like parboiled rice have been banned from import through seaports.

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    A critical analysis of the banned items indicates that agricultural products constitute a sizeable chunk of the bulk. It therefore entails intensifying effort in food production. However, there is elephant in the room, insecurity, which deters farmers from cultivating the farmlands.  Insecurity in Nigeria significantly hinders agricultural productivity and food security. Farmers face threats to their lives and property, leading to displacement, abandonment of farmlands, and reduced labour availability. This, in turn, causes lower crop yields, livestock losses, and disrupted supply chains, ultimately impacting food availability and affordability.

    We need to give attention to the agricultural sector. With an array of vastly available agricultural friendly land, we need not look further for economic emancipation as massive investment in agriculture will not only ensure food security but also address the troubling question of unemployment. Our greatest challenge is INSECURITY, which is the elephant in the room, and should be addressed. Thank God, the present administration is giving it attention, as both the executive and the legislative arms of government are taking steps to tackle insecurity.

    The Senate’s resolve to organize a two-day national security summit in Abuja for participants from all levels of government, traditional institutions, civil society and the security sector is welcome. The security summit is coming at a time when the nation’s security challenges appear to be increasing in virtually all the six geo-political zones in the country. They expressed concern over pervasive and growing insecurity in all regions of the country. They had also decried widespread banditry, random kidnappings, terrorism and other forms of violent crimes that placed communities under siege and undermined the work of security agencies. In the 7th Assembly, the Senate organised a similar summit, but its recommendations were never implemented. I hope the recommendations of the scheduled summit will be implemented.

    President Bola Tinubu approved the establishment of a national forest guard system and ordered the recruitment of over 130,000 armed operatives to secure the country’s 1,129 forest reserves. The initiative, approved during expanded Federal Executive Council meeting, mandates each state to recruit between 2,000 and 5,000 forest guards based on their capacity.

    Agriculture, particularly farming, has historically been a crucial livelihood for a significant portion of Nigeria’s population. However, the country’s escalating instability has made farmers and agricultural investors increasingly cautious and skeptical about investing in the sector.

    Furthermore, the entrepreneurs who had ventured into farming for food security and job creation are now reconsidering their continued involvement in commercial agriculture due to the pervasive insecurity. This has, in turn, raised the rate of unemployment in the country. The disruption of agricultural production, coupled with the reluctance of investors to participate in the sector, has had far-reaching consequences on food security and employment. Addressing the underlying security challenges is crucial to reviving the agricultural sector.

    Government should leverage on technologies such as drones for surveillance and general security of the farming communities. Communities should form viable and active vigilante groups to complement government efforts in curbing insecurity in the area.

    With criminal networks getting more sophisticated than ever, new high-tech approaches are being developed to identify them and bring perpetrators to justice. We should explore the new technologies including Mikrokopter, Satellite Imaging, and Digital Radio.

    ⦁ Mikrokopters: Mikrokopters are universal aerial platforms that hover. They can identify a position and hold it as long as necessary to identify images, collect data, or calculate distances. Most mikrokopters are equipped with GPS, compasses, altitude control, telemetry and automatic systems that report back on altitude, power consumption, and so forth. Like drones, mikrokopters can either be pre-programmed to fly specific routes, or operated manually by means of a control stick and can be equipped with sophisticated camera systems.

    MikroKopter and drones are often used interchangeably, but MikroKopter refers specifically to a brand of open-source, customizable UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) platforms, while “drones” is a broader term for any unmanned aircraft. Essentially, MikroKopter is a type of drone. MikroKopter platforms are built on an open-source philosophy, meaning the hardware and software are freely available for modification and customization by users. Commercial drones, on the other hand, are typically proprietary, with less flexibility for users to alter the system.

    ⦁ Satellite Imaging: Global Forest Watch, which was launched by the World Resources Institute in February 2014, is a dynamic, online forest monitoring and alert system that facilitates forest management by combining satellite technology, open data and crowdsourcing to guarantee access to timely and reliable information about changes in forests. Furthermore, seemingly innocuous roads cutting into virgin forests can lead to massive criminal camps that are impossible to identify from the ground. Satellite imaging can help monitor such changes.

    ⦁ Digital Radio: The forest guard service should not use two-way radio network, prone to interference and lacking security features, instead they should be supplied with a digital radio network that allows guards to communicate securely over long distances, coordinate with headquarters, and respond faster to incidents.

    Jekwu Onovo Plot 18 Whitesand Avenue, Lekki, Lagos – Tel: 08184553078, Email: Jekwuonovo@gmail.com

  • Tinubu @ 2: Trouncing traducers?

    Tinubu @ 2: Trouncing traducers?

    By John Ekundayo

    Turning back the hand of the clock to 29th May 2023. Dateline: Eagle Square, Abuja. Nigerians, albeit, seemingly divided along political leanings, were expectant of a new dawn in leadership. The elated, excited, and enthusiastic adherents and admirers of the man elected to sit in the saddle were upbeat about their mentor, coach and leader. Why would they not be? Taking cognizance of the twisted and thorny path to his emergence and election, which was laced with myriads of obstructions and obstacles – human, partisan, and organizational – his mentees and acolytes have more than enough reasons to exhibit their excitement amid the pomp and pageantry. 

    Aftermath of the swearing-in of the President, there was the usual longing for a speech. It is customary for most presidential address after the oath taking to be cosmetic and semantically laden with rhetoric of getting the country connecting, collaborating and cooperating in the journey to an elusive El Dorado. Enter the seeming stormy petrel of Nigeria’s politics and politicking, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT). The enigmatic Tinubu mounted the rostrum and jolted not only the enthusiastic crowd at the venue, but millions of Nigerians watching live on television and the internet with his firm declaration of withdrawal of petrol subsidy and unification in the exchange rate of the local currency – Naira!

    Beholding Buhari’s Best

    Human memory, some say, is short. It will be intriguing and interesting to bring back a synopsis of the state of the health of Nigeria’s economy in May 2023 before the erstwhile President Muhammad Buhari (PMB) handed over the baton to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT). This essayist, as a columnist way back then, could vividly recount and recollect that almost 90% of the country’s earnings (revenue) was used in debt servicing, hence the government of PMB had to go cap in hand to borrow most times to the chagrin of the populace. Pontificating it further: Buhari’s Budget (2023) depicts a damning scenario: Total budget was $47 billion; projected revenue was $22 billion, while expected borrowing (loan) was put at $25 billion. PMB, in the difficult and damning situation his government was enmeshed in, could not do contrariwise without stepping on powerful toes, within and outside the context of Nigeria.

    Fast-forwarded to 2 years after, PBAT’s 2025 Budget is $34 billion, expected revenue accruals to the federation account is $28 billion, while the government at the centre intends to borrow only $6 billion. What a sharp contrast! What has shifted and changed? Tinubu’s adroit and adept adoption of sagacious strategic leadership principles, policies, processes and practices that have enabled the steering of the ship of state through tough times. One can be curious: do all the steps work well all the time? This writer will come to that later in this essay.

    Globally, this season is not easy for any economy, even in developed climes, to thrive without leaders tinkering beyond the norm – it is a time synonymous with “leadership without easy answers” (apology to the leadership scholar and author – Ronald Heifetz). It could be surmised that PBAT, as a strategic leader, he was and is still is, taking cognizance of his hey days in Lagos as the Governor of that epic centre of Nigeria’s economy, from the outset, had to put on his cerebral collaborative cap of audacity to take those tough decisions of withdrawal of subsidies and unification of the exchange rate of the Naira. These are two bitter but necessary pills to administer to a dying economy, almost on life support. Painting gory and gloomy picture of the economy, a professor of economics; once the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, and the incumbent Governor of Anambra State, Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, attested on national television (specifically on Channels TV), that Tinubu inherited “a dead economy from a macro economic point of view.”

    As we speak, collectively and cumulatively, Tinubu reforms have transformed the country’s revenue in 2 years, in the saddle, and simultaneously slashed borrowing by almost 75%, whilst earnings (revenue accruals) to the coffers of the government have grown by over 30%. Putting it saliently and succinctly, only petty, puerile and pedestrian armchair analysts will downplay and denigrate President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration performance on fiscal and budgetary discipline with such glaring metrics that the international community can decipher. While it is not doubtful that the reforms are functional and fruitful, Nigeria can do better! Furthermore, as the National Assembly concludes the passage of the tax reform bills, the economy will be revved to life again. It could be better envisaged!! Can we say that Nigeria, synonymous with a parabolic-shaped structure, has passed the turning point, and is on the way up and out of economic mess and miasma? This could not be far from the obvious when juxtaposed with the World Bank projection of economic growth of 3.6% in 2025. What of the recent statement from the IMF that Nigeria has fully paid the $3.4 billion loan she owed that international monetary authority, except the paltry special drawing right amounting to $30 million, which can be settled on an annual basis over a few years! These two undeniable attestations from these two global bodies have thrown the camp of many of Tinubu’s traducers into a state of despair, thus taking the wind out of their sails!

    It is remarkable, in the heralding hoopla of hardship in the country, that three Governors, at different fora, expressed delight in receiving more than double their allocation in the present PBAT era compared with the previous administration. Governor Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji (BAO) of Ekiti, Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo, and Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa, all attested to doing more for their people, especially in areas of infrastructure and agribusiness, as more resources are coming in for them from the centre every month. Hence, it is left for courageous followers to demand accountability from their Governors in the States. It is worth pointing out that Ekiti, leading in transparency rating nationally, stands out as the 1st State in Nigeria to procure a strategic pillar monitoring system (SPMS) tagged Ekiti Dashboard, depicting in real time with pictures and video evidence of ongoing and completed projects. This is worth emulating by states and the federal government.

    Tinubu: Tickling Testimonies?

    Even in the Holy Writ, the Almighty God is tickled by testimonies. Virtually all faiths and religions gravitate towards thanksgiving. As we speak, the students’ loan scheme, even though initially doubted, is on full throttle in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Tinubu came on board and closed the door to fuel subsidy; borrowing has not stopped, but abated. Renewed Hope initiatives have moved up the needle of the net reserves from a paltry $3 billion to a whopping $27 billion in two years! Evidently, the national cake is becoming bigger, thus enabling the country to finance her loans more comfortably without headache or heartache. It is indicative of the revving to life of the once dying economy under the previous administration. One can curiously ask: where are the advisers and counsellors of Tinubu’s administration urging the President to go the way of Argentina? The recent release of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (April 2025 to be precise) has the South American country topping the list of debtors of the global financial body!

    It is remarkable to draw attention to a widely circulated post, which has not been rebutted by the opposition, naysayers and wailers of the Tinubu administration as we speak. It was authored by the famous social media influencer, lawyer and activist, Reno Omokri. It was titled: “Tinubu Making Many Richer.” In it, he recalled that as of May 2023, Aliko Dangote’s net worth was $13.5 billion, and almost 2 years of Tinubu in the saddle, Africa’s richest man’s haul hovers at a humongous amount of $27.8 billion. Likewise, the wealth of Mike Adenuga Jr, Abdulsamad Rabiu, and Femi Otedola has spiralled by not less than 25%. Moreover, Reno went further, stating that even corporate bodies in the financial sector were beneficiaries of the reforms under Tinubu, even though they seemingly wear a placid face of hard times! In his words: “For instance, Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GT Bank), Nigeria’s largest bank by market share, made a profit of ₦1.1 trillion last financial year, up from ₦367.4 billion in 2023 … Fidelity Bank Plc, made a record-breaking pre-tax profit of ₦385.2 billion for 2024, representing a 210% increase compared to the ₦124.3 billion recorded in 2023 …” He went further, that even the subnational, the States, have faired better citing Lagos State’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rising from $100 billion to a whopping $259 billion under the watch of Tinubu, in just 2 years! Does anyone still remember the campaign mantra of Governor Sanwo-Olu in the run-off to the 2023 election? Is “A Greater Lagos Rising” indeed?

    Tinubu: Tackling Transformation

    “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”. – Winston Churchill

    In developmental diction, transformation is a series of successive, successful, salient and succinct changes leading to a desired outcome. In accordance with John Trudel, “the future is not something we enter, it is something we create.” Going back in memory lane, predating the 2023 election, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT) needs to be reminded to read, reflect, rehearse, and ruminate on his well-crafted “Renewed Hope” in what he tagged: “My Vision for Nigeria.” It is possible the poise, pleasure or pressure of office might have swayed away the focus or blurred the vision of Mr. President regarding the building blocks making up the mantra of the incumbent administration. Is it not desirable, during this half-time, like in the game of football, to examine the tactics and techniques adopted and adapted so far, and decipher: what works; what does not work; and why it does not work! Not all seemingly sagacious and strategic steps have been successful in enacting a positive change. A good and strategic coach will call out his team at half time; offer counsel; give admonition; and seldom make vital changes in the team make-up, if the expected audacious results, despite investing humongous resources, are not felt, seen or embraced by the fans or followers! This is one way the President can trounce and truncate traducers in their tracks. 

    Read Also: How to drive sustainable growth in Nigeria’s pharmaceutical sector, by Industry CEOs 

    Tinubu: Time To Tackle Traducers!

    This writer as a monitoring and evaluation (M & E) scholar, would like to sound it loud and clear to Mr. President that it is high time he paid attention to the application of the principles of monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL). Nigeria should adopt a MEAL template that is user-friendly and that followers (citizens) can read, relate and respond to. One major way to depict this is the Federal Government of Nigeria directing all major ministries to procure Dashboards that will depict to the public projects being executed, showing all details to the public, anywhere in the world. Moreover, the Federal Executive Council should identify legacy and/or iconic projects that should be migrated from the ministries’ Dashboards into a one-stop platform, Nigeria Key Result Areas (NKRAs) in tune with the content and context of the Renewed Hope Agenda of the incumbent administration. For instance, Malaysia has National Key Result Areas (NKRAs), likewise, some other countries are adept at planning. It is high time Nigeria took a cue. Not only should practitioners in government know where the government is heading, but the followers, in a transparent and accountable manner, should also have a glimpse and should be able to relate and respond to governance.

    In addition, so that this laudable initiative will not be another mouthed mantra or paper tiger, it is imperative to set up an independent body that would be reporting directly to the President monthly bringing up situation report of: what works; what does not work; and why it does not work, whilst tracking the NKRAs. The high-powered body should be headed by a seasoned technocrat, and members composed of credible scholars and successful private sector players. This author could recollect with nostalgia the inculcation of robust and rugged application of monitoring and evaluation system in Lagos, starting from the heydays of Mr. Ben Akabueze as the Honourable Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning – was privileged to serve under his tutelage as the Director, Monitoring and Evaluation. It was pioneered by him, under the leadership of then Governor Bola Tinubu, now President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, transcending to the era of Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, Akinwunmi Ambode, and the incumbent Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu as Governors. This is the beauty of building strong institutions. No wonder Lagos is working! President Bola Tinubu should ingrain and inculcate this into governance at the centre in Nigeria to not only depict accountability, transparency, performance, but value for money as humongous resources have been deployed, and are being deployed, into diverse sectors of the economy with little to exhibit and encapsulate!

     Conclusion

    Finally, the Governors have a lot to contribute as the resources are trickling or pouring into their coffers monthly. It is high time they developed more proactive and practical life-impacting programmes and projects focusing on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) and Agriculture, exploiting all the value chains of the latter. The States should not just exhibit farm produce but go down the line of processing, manufacturing, packaging and exporting to countries to earn foreign exchange. This is Agribusiness. Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) could be explored and exploited in this context to boost the economy. Over time, these moves will ensure food security, enhance foreign exchange earnings, provide jobs for our teeming youth and reduce insecurity. The Federal Government could incentivize States so that many of them can plug in. The more the merrier!

    In concluding this treatise, I want to poignantly point out my experience in one of the modules of the Strategy Execution at Harvard Business School. It was unbelievable that Kenya was planting tea leaves, harvesting and drying the leaves in Kenya, whilst the processing, manufacturing, packaging and marketing all took place in the United Kingdom (UK). Unilever, the firm with a presence in Kenya and most parts of the globe, annually grosses billions of dollars in revenue, and in a particular year, paid more than $1 billion in tax to the coffers of the UK government. In essence, it is high time our leaders exploited the full agricultural value chain locally, rather than letting Nigeria be exploited through exporting our raw produce to the Western world for peanuts. One is therefore excited with initiative and intervention in resurrecting Cotton and Cocoa development. The full value chain should be exploited! I remember growing up in the early 70s seeing my late father, Pa Joseph Ekundayo, of blessed memory, in Ekiti, growing cotton and doing well on our soil. We can exploit the full value chain of our food and tree crops in the present age. There is much more to gain and garner from this venture. Wrapping it up, all the initiatives and interventions highlighted in this essay should be explored and exploited whilst applying rigorous and robust monitoring, evaluation, accounting and learning (MEAL) template with the inauguration of the Nigeria Key Result Areas (NKRAs) that followers can read, reflect, ruminate and respond to in real time.