Following allegations that the current governor of Kogi State Usman Ododo foiled the arrest of his predecessor Yahaya Bello, by the EFCC, the former governor has been declared wanted by the anti-graft agency. It is truly chaos personified, another grand shock to democracy’s dreams of grandeur: a sometimes overzealous government agency (which may just be reaping its just desserts)on the one hand, on another one of its forages, the law as a caricature on the other hand, and a former governor caught in between. Already, as with other high-profile cases in Nigeria, there is a forge of competing narratives so…
Author: Ike Willie-Nwobu
Like one wants a woman and her wrapper at the same time, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC) wants a complete control of the anti-corruption war and its narrative. It wants to shoot and control the trajectory of the bullet all at once. Following the arrest of controversial crossdresser Idris Okuneye aka Bobrisky, by the EFCC for Naira mutilation, the commission drew a sharp rebuke from Chidi Odinkalu, a professor of law and former chairman of the National Human Rights Commission. Odinkalu who felt that the EFCC was abandoning weighty anti-corruption issues to chase shadows called out the commission for…
The clearest hurdle to Nigeria’s rather feeble efforts to check those who kill and destroy its people is that there is no genuine commitment. If there was, the bloody experience of the last decade would have been mined to provide a lasting solution to insecurity. Because with the killers, it is more a question of when and where rather than will or if. Every society exists on the basis of a social contract variously hailed as the masterpiece of social engineering, and the engine of every seamless social machine.When a society calcifies into a country, any existing social contract acquires…
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the face of a presidency that is keeping its promises to Nigerians. Food may have become unaffordable; insecurity may be suffocating many, but the president has remained hopeful that his government can deliver. Historically, democracy has not always yielded its famous but sometimes fictional dividends. In fact, in many places where there has been a democracy, it has sometimes gone on a barren run, the majority content that it fills a vacuum that dictatorship would otherwise fill, unconcerned that it remains childless. Nigeria’s experiment since 1999 has not been barren even if it has yielded…
Death has become unnervingly cheap in Nigeria. Incredibly, life manages to be even cheaper. In many parts of the country, lives are being snuffed out of people with alarming regularity. Every day, people are being snatched and led to their deaths like sheep to a slaughter. On 12th March, the red mist descended on popular Wuse Market in Abuja, when a hastily convened mobile court which tries environmental offenders found a teenage hawker liable for a couple of environmental offence. He was duly convicted and while he was being taken away by men of the Nigeria Correctional Service, the familiarly…
The glass appears to have overflowed for Nigeria’s out-of-school children, with all thirty-six states and the Federal Capital Territory all featuring prominent on an index of states with out-of-school children. Kebbi State tops the index released by the Cable, an online media organization. It is closely followed by Sokoto and Yobe states, their percentages pointing to a truly perilous situation. Anambra State expectedly brings up the rear with decades of massive investment in education in the ‘Light of the Nation’ state, showing the rest of the country the way to go. The list indicts Nigeria, insistently lamenting the failure of…
Danger lurks in every part of Nigeria and to serve the country is to die. For Nigerian soldiers, this death from service is mostly literal. For political office holders, death is often of conscience, with corruption serving as the chief culprit. There is no love lost between Nigerians and members of their Armed forces. Indeed, for many Nigerians, the dominant image they associate with the armed forces is one of high-handedness and oppression. This is surely a relic from Nigeria’s history of brutal military dictatorships and invasions. Nigerians also suspect the professionalism of their soldiers. For many, poorly paid and…
It isn’t just hearts that are broken in Kaduna State. It isn’t just the serenity of many families that has been shattered by uncertainty. The loss of face for a state that hosts Nigeria’s premier military institutions might be irreversible. But that is only one theme in a country of tear-streaked themes. On 7th March 2024, while they were still basking in the solemnity of a general assembly, about 287 pupils and some staff members of LEA Primary School, Kuriga 1, in the Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State were jolted back to reality and hustled into an unimaginable…
Nigeria is very much a country in pain. While the few optimists remaining in Nigeria would describe the pains as those of childbirth, the numberless pessimists, optics and skeptics would beg to differ. They would argue that all they can hear is a death rattle. The transition period was alwayss going to be tough. After the previous government which was very much a disaster waiting to happen huffed and puffed to no avail, Nigeria was left with a mountain to climb. To say that the process has been exhausting and exasperating is to put it mildly. President Tinubu is the…
In the latter few months of 2023, internet service providers’ (ISPs’) market penetration increased. According to checks conducted by The Guardian, there were 193,199 active customers overall for 126 ISPs whose data was provided to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in June 2023. However, by November, that number had increased to 213,876 as operators saw 20,677 additional users. With 2,364 points of presence around the nation, these operators served 35,973 customers of wired internet and 177,903 users of wireless internet. While wired networks use cables to link devices, like laptops or desktop computers, to the Internet or another network, wireless…
To judge is to give life or death. It is to make or mar, to repair or ruin. Like Peter during the transfiguration, judges ask justice to allow them make three tents – one for the complainant, one for the Defendant, and one for the court. A key characteristic of justice is that it must not only be done, but it should be seen to have been done. Elisha Abo is a bitter man who is also dazed. The controversial senator dished out a few slaps since he became senator. On…it was his turn for a thunderous slap when the…
Fifty thousand Naira salary: money that cannot even buy a bag of rice. Billions spent in the fight against terrorism. Incalculable losses. A desperate, despairing struggle to stay motivated. The diary of the Nigerian soldier can take much more, just as his back can take many more wounds; the way his heart can take many more blows. It was in 2009 that Boko Haram emerged as a credible, formidable threat. Turning the Northeast upside down from Borno State, the group soon spread its tentacles to the Northwest and the rest of the country. More decisive and deadly factions soon emerged…
In Nigeria, those who rig elections no longer stop at visiting violence on the ballot boxes, they now follow up at gunpoint. They now also snatch the complaints of those who would go to court. On November 11, 2023, while a beleaguered INEC sent its staff under the midday heat, a scandal simmered. In Magongo, even before voters could dust up their accreditation and cast their votes, result sheets showing an overwhelming victory for the ruling APC surfaced. In the run-up to the election, the state had become punctuated by gunshots ostensibly fired by agents of the state. In what…
The culprits were as legion as the complicity was lethal, but by the end of the election of November 11, 2023, Ndi Imo were left wielding the short end of the stick and sore. Ahead of the elections, the incumbent Hope Uzodinma had let loose some outrageous promises to a wounded state, none more outrageous than the ‘four thousand jobs in Europe by December’ delusion. While Uzodinma who became governor only by dint of a last-ditch legal maneuver at the Supreme Court in 2019 also promised to continue with his projects, many wondered if those projects only existed in the…
Nigeria is currently a gripping confluence of contradictions. Every now and then, in one corner of the country or another, confusion springs up sprinkling its fair share of chaos along the way. In May 2022, on flimsy excuses of blasphemy, 22-year-old Deborah Samuel was lynched by a crowd baying for blood in Sokoto State. By the time the smoke cleared enough for anyone to see, the student of the Shehu Shagari College of Education Sokoto had been killed in the most agonizing manner possible. While her devastated family was forced to collect her bones and ashes and attempt anything resembling…
Predictably, the Nigerian Army has debunked allegations that one of its own, Captain Alphonsus Bazza, took his life. This denouncement is despite overwhelming evidence that the overwhelmed officer took his life in Uyo,Akwa Ibom State. In the face of Nigeria’s unrelenting man-made challenges, it has become ever more difficult to serve the country. In fact, in many instances, to serve Nigeria is to sign a death warrant, very much like rushing into battle unprepared. In 2009, Boko Haram, which has since proven itself to be the Nigerian nemesis, regrouped and escalated their attacks on the Nigerian state. The relentless attacks…
Shortly before the November 11 election in Imo State, Joe Ajaero, the Chiarman of the Nigeria Labour Congress was beaten to a pulp. In Kogi State, what was circulated was a ridiculous circular which informed hoteliers within the state that all their hotel rooms, including booked-out ones were fully booked. These two events, separated by distance and difference, had everything to do with the November 11 election, and very much defined Yahaya Bello and Hope Uzodinma, delineating in the process their kind of politics: ruthless, reckless and rotten. In Kogi State, a titanic tussle quickly ensued between Ahmed Ododo of…
One would think that in Nigeria renovation equals reforms. If a country where poverty is widespread could be more modest, more miserly, Nigeria is anything but. In a country of starving citizens, one would expect that renovating properties that are otherwise in good condition, or changing vehicles that are still usable, would be the last thing on the mind of the government. However, for the government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, it appears that the mundane takes priority over the masses. 13.5 billion Naira is what has been allocated for the renovation. In a country of avaricious politicians, lying bureaucrats…
Eight months after the controversial elections of February 2023 which produced Bola Ahmed Tinubu as winner, Nigeria’s Supreme Court has finally laid to rest the question of who truly won the election. In an eagerly awaited judgment, the Supreme Court held that the duo of the Labour Party and the People’s Democratic Party failed to prove their appeals. The court also tossed attempts by the People’s Democratic Party candidate Atiku Abubakar to introduce fresh evidence. For many Nigerians, it is a judgment shred of every iota of justice. In Nigeria, the judiciary has long been on trial. As the country…
Every four years, Nigerians trudge to the ballot box, to select new leaders. As impending elections heat up the polity and ratchet up the politics, Nigerians experience a familiar wave of hypocrisy and cowardice. Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999 heralded the return of elections. With a constitution in place and the military tucked away in their barracks, democratic elections, those unerring barometers of democracy, were making a comeback. The comeback has been sustained, even if every election cycle has been a painful learning curve for Nigerians, and a deathly struggle for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). In deed,…
The controversial decision by the lower house to gift its members exotic cars running into millions of Naira, and which have no bearing on their legislative duties, point to an institution convulsed by greed. Worse still, it paints the grotesque specter of the institutional greed in Nigeria. In a country of staggering oil riches, vast, arable lands and immense human and material resources, 57.6 billion Naira is chicken feed. However, when it is to be spent on 360 sports utility vehicles for 360 legislators, the implications become clear and dire in a country where about a hundred million people scrape…
Nigeria’s democracy may be undergoing a turbulent period, but the wealth of options it offers Nigerians remain unparalleled. On October 23, 2023, Nigeria’s Supreme Court reserved judgment in the petition filed by some presidential candidates against the victory of Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the February 25, 2023, polls. The judgment delivered on Thursday, October 25, 2023, confirmed the election of Tinubu as Nigeria’s sixteenth president. A new administration was sworn in May 2023 but not a few Nigerians continue to reel from the aftermath of polls they deemed manipulated. On November 11, in what is a monument to Nigeria’s mammoth…
What happens in a country, any country, where uncertainty about the credentials of private individuals, but especially of public figures, bother on the ridiculous? There is no gainsaying that such a country is a country very much on the brink of a crisis. Nigeria currently suffers from a credibility crisis. In what can only be fittingly described as a stunning installment of ‘ the more you look, the less you see’ phenomenon, many things have happened in Nigeria recently to resurrect the age-old debate over whether Nigeria is a country with a tarnished reputation. Earlier this year, one Ejikeme Mmesoma,from…
The brutal killing of nine members of the ‘Yan Ba Beli’ vigilante group in Bauchi points to the perilous nature of their crucial job. Vigilantes may not have the aura or glamour of security personnel. They lack their support and funding. Yet, they are always brutally efficient, hands-on, and quick to the task. Nigeria’s mighty struggle to rein in insecurity has come at a staggering cost. Gallant men and women in its security forces have often met their painful end at the hands of criminals and miscreants. The memory of how about 20 soldiers were killed by criminals in Niger…
Three years on from the riotous protests of 2020, Nigeria’s young people remain as frustrated as ever. The situation which inspired the protests remains largely unchanged. In 2020, a storm which started in Sapele washed over Nigeria. The protest ignited by the death of a young man soon spread like a firestorm. From Lagos to Abuja to Portharcourt, young people took to the streets. Galvanized by a grating sense of injustice, they marched on Nigeria for weeks. They demanded change. The unprecedented protests soon claimed the scalp of the notorious Special Anti Robbery Squad. But the protesters were not done.…
Millions of Nigeria’s young people face an uncertain future bristling with poverty and unemployment. What can the country expect from this generation of the deprived? Life always comes in stages and circles. At independence in 1960, Nigeria brimmed with prodigious promise. Six years earlier, oil had been discovered in Oloibíri. The discovery was like a lottery ticket for a country that was always headed in one direction-up. There is really no need to rehash why a beautiful story has since turned sour. Nigeria has many of its citizens aged between 18 and 25. That time is universally recognized as the…
Nigeria’s election season may have long come and gone. But it appears from all indications that the wounds inflicted by the election are yet to heal. At least for Nyesom Wike who played a critical role in the election. On February 25, 2023, Nigerians queued at different polling units across the country to take their political destinies into their hands. In different states, Nigerians braved the weather and the odds to line up for hours to cast their votes. Many knew that it was important to have a say with the direction the country had gone in the last eight…
It is unlikely that between now and December, any Nigerian leader can secure four thousand jobs within the country, not to talk of outside the country. The gale of gullibility grinding thorough Nigeria with glacial gusto recently gripped some residents of Imo State. With the state governorship elections billed for November, Hope Uzodinma, the current governor who is seeking a second term, told a group of his supporters that by December, four thousand Imo residents would be gainfully employed in Europe. Many of those who were at the event loudly cheered him. By now, every Nigerian of voting age, and…
The verdict of the Kano State Election Petition Tribunal not only sacked Yusuf Kabir of the NNPP but showed that the conspicuous red-cap movement in the state sufficiently irked the tribunal to draw a damning rebuke. Abdullahi Ganduje may be the current Chiarman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, but his journey to the post, via the governorship of Kano State, was anything but smooth, particularly in the later part. In 2019, having bitten the finger that fed him by publicly falling out with Rabiu Kwankwaso, his erstwhile boss and benefactor, Ganduje suddenly found himself in a titanic tussle to…
Following what it deemed a public show of disrespect to traditional rulers by former President,Olusegun Obasanjo , the Yoruba Council Worldwide has threatened a lawsuit against the former president if he fails to apologize. Age is sage or at least should be sage. Wisdom also comes with age, or so the saying goes. In Africa of which Nigeria is very much a part of, old age is regarded as a blessing as it is widely believed that wisdom comes with age. In 1999, fresh out of incarceration by the military government of Sani Abacha, Olusegun Obasanjo,himself a former military president,…
