Opinion

Crashing a Dream: The Genesis of Obi – Soludo war

Published

4 years ago

November 15, 2022

I returned to Anambra State in 2008 to meet a state and a people that were excited and upbeat. And they had every reason to be so happy. Anambra had two governors, in fact, those were the exact words of the master of ceremony at the first major function that I attended on my return at the All Saints Cathedral open arena, Onitsha. One was the governor of the state, Peter Obi who was then the rave of the moment having retrieved the mandate the people gave him in the 2003 election; the other was the governor of money, Charles Soludo, who was then the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN. The function was a special ceremony organised by the CBN to encourage communities to set up microfinance banks to boost local economies.

Present at the ceremony were the two governors. Obi and Soludo walked side-by-side like twins in their sparkling suits to the admiration of everyone. In their mid-40s, they exuded energy, confidence and brilliance. The alumni of the University of Nigeria were so proud of the duo and they showed it all over venue in their badges and mufflers. The vice-chancellor of UNN then, Prof. Chinedu Nebo was even there.

The two governors spoke eloquently and gave high hopes to the audience. While Soludo spoke on how the banks consolidation he supervised insulated Nigerians from the then global economic meltdown, Obi urged the people to invest wisely in stocks for there would always be a reward, he being a beneficiary of portfolio investments.

A great platform to take off from had already been set by Obi’s predecessor, Chris Ngige, another UNN alumnus, whose solid road infrastructure projects had rekindled faith in Anambra people that something good could still come from government after a long time of the people fending for themselves through self-help projects.

That look of Soludo and Obi at Onitsha that day looked like the look of the future for Anambra State, that seemed to had done away with the politics of godfatherism and its unpleasantness in the state. It seemed the state had been freed from the old brigade and a new post-Independence elite had taken charge. Anambra people from all over the world began to identify with the development at home.

A few months later, the League of Anambra Professionals, LAP, hosted the two great sons of Anambra at Zodiac Hotel in Enugu. Soludo was rounding off his tenure as governor of the CBN and there was so much expectations of him, given his age, energy and success at the CBN. The two clinked glasses, toasted and shared jokes. They looked like a pair that would work for the greatness of Anambra State and chart a future for the state. But that party at Zodiac Hotel seemed to me to be their parting point.

After a few weeks, Soludo’s tenure as CBN governor tenure terminated and was not renewed. Obi, whose first tenure was ending on March 17, 2010 had kicked off his reelection plans. Many had expected Soludo to support Obi to go for a second term and perhaps enjoy a reciprocal gesture from Obi. But lo and behold Soludo, buoyed by the ratings he got from his CBN tenure, was eyeing Obi’s office. This threw bad blood between their camps.

Soludo’s entry into the race created a problem. The race would have been an easy walkover for Obi with other candidates. But with Soludo something had to happen for him to win. Soludo chose PDP, the ruling party at the federal level and indeed the largest party in the country and Anambra State as of then.

That was where the parting started. Nobody could explain how it happened. Obi smartly won the heart of President Goodluck Jonathan, who chose to ignore a crisis that erupted in the Anambra chapter of the PDP where Chris Uba fought Soludo to a standstill. Even though Soludo eventually won the ticket of the PDP, it took a last minute Supreme Court verdict to validate his candidacy.

Obi played a fast one by guaranteeing an APGA support for Jonathan in his reelection bid if Jonathan supported him in Awka. In return, Jonathan tacitly withdrew support for Soludo. It’s on record that Jonathan did not honour or send delegates to the flag-off of the campaigns of Soludo.

But many believed Soludo’s falling out of favour with Jonathan’s government, which had also denied him reappoinment as CBN was the handiwork of Prof Dora Akunyili, Jonathan’s Minister of Information. Akunyili, who was the aunt of Soludo’s wife, had a no love lost relationship with Soludo. She was said to have opposed his marriage to her niece over class differences.

That meant that PDP in Anambra State lost the federal might support a PDP federal government would have given it in the February 6, 2010 election.

Soludo lost in that election, coming third after Obi and Ngige of the Action Congress. He quietly went home without challenging the outcome of the election in court.

Soludo’s loss was celebration in Obi’s camp, which included Akunyili. It wasn’t long after that his mother-in-law, Dora’s elder sister died. When Dora went to the burial at Isuofia, Soludo’s boys destroyed her canopy and chased her away. She had to host her guests in her father’s compo at Nanka.

By the time Obi was rounding off his second tenure, Soludo had sneaked into APGA in the hope that Obi had forgotten the past. Soludo looked like the best candidate for the APGA ticket until the party primaries panel disqualified him and Willie Obiano was brought by Obi as the preferred Candidate. Again Soludo didn’t challenge his questionable disqualification.

He simply hung around until Obiano and Obi fell out, and jumped on the scene as the guardian angel of Obiano. When Obiano was finding it difficult to impress the people about why he deserved a second term, Soludo came up with his famous declaration, “If it is not broken, why mend it?”

Obiano’s second term reelection victory over Obi’s PDP candidate, Oseloka Obaze, was sweet revenge for Soludo, who literally replaced Victor Umeh as Obiano’s godfather. By the time Obiano was leaving in 2021, he literally handed over APGA ticket to Soludo, who defeated Obi’s candidate, Valentine Ozigbo.

After the last election, the two had been pretending to be brothers again until Soludo lashed out in a TV interview against Obi’s legacies in Anambra State. Not done yet with the controversies that interview was generating he came out with his last letter where he accused the Labour Party presidential hopeful as a pretender.

After 14 years, a friendship that had given hope for the transformation of Anambra State has crashed to smithereens.

Obe, a journalist lives in Port Harcourt, Rivers State

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Bola Tinubu: The man who took the bullet for Nigeria to survive

Published

2 weeks ago

May 30, 2026

Whirlwindnews

By Bayo Onanuga

With politicking intensifying ahead of the January 2027 election, opposition politicians have escalated their campaign of misinformation and calumny to diminish the impact and achievements of this administration over the last three years.

Two years ago, when the administration was struggling to deal with the unintended consequences of its historic reforms, the campaign would have made sense. But not anymore, as the administration can rightly claim bragging rights for what it has achieved against all odds and why the international community is applauding it for putting Nigeria irrevocably on the path of growth and development.

The impact of the three-year-old government is best felt at the subnational level – state and local levels. States that hitherto were unable to pay salaries by May 2023, with months of unpaid obligations to their workers and pensioners, are now doing so with ease and dreaming big about infrastructure. In every state I have visited, I have seen this development. Ogun, my state, Oyo, Nasarawa, Enugu, Ebonyi, Kaduna, Kano, Kebbi, Katsina, and others have witnessed development projects spring up, thanks to President Tinubu’s re-engineering of the federation’s finances and increased allocation to the states. When local councils begin to receive their allocations directly from the Federation Account, the Tinubu effect will ensure that more governance cascades down to the 774 local councils.

State governors who have benefited from this policy have openly admitted that increased allocations have enabled them to bring social and infrastructural development to their states. Many opposition PDP governors who joined the APC did so for this reason—not for the baseless claim that President Tinubu bribed them. Governor Abdulrazak said in December 2024 that his administration embarked on more projects in the first 18 months of Tinubu’s presidency than in his first four years. The Governor of Ebonyi, Nwifuru, who is building iconic underpasses and overpasses in Abakaliki, credited his ambition to President Tinubu. Governor Peter Mbah similarly attested to this, crediting the Naira rain from the centre for his programmes. And Nasarawa State Governor Abdullahi Sule, who understands how Tinubu’s financial re-engineering and the end of the subsidy regime have increased the states’ fortunes, said President Tinubu “has taken the bullets for all of them.”

In May 2023, President Tinubu inherited acute petrol scarcity, an unsustainable petrol subsidy regime due to expire in June 2023, multiple exchange rates, arbitrage, and low revenue, with at least 30 states unable to pay workers, let alone fund infrastructure and social projects. Debt servicing consumed 97 per cent of Federal revenue. Additionally, food scarcity and inflation plagued the country as farmers abandoned their fields, recording massive losses amid the currency squeeze introduced by former CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele.

President Tinubu, guided by the Renewed Hope Agenda, wasted no time. He threw the ruinous subsidy out of the window from Day One. Days later, he floated the Naira and ended the artificial fixing of the Naira-to-dollar exchange rate, a system that had enabled well-connected individuals to profit effortlessly. Tinubu declared a food emergency and announced the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms to examine our outdated tax laws, some of which date back to the colonial era. Immediate gains included encouraging dry-season farming, with subsidies and inputs provided for farmlands abutting dams and irrigation sites in at least 14 states.

Even by President Tinubu’s admission, the early months and the first year were tough as the government implemented its programme. The cost of living went up, and businesses claimed the harmonised exchange rate had put them in the red. A few companies even closed shop and left our shores. On the streets, some Nigerians claimed that the policies have left them hungry, a sentiment the opposition still parrots to this day, without any empirical proof. If not sure of the salience of his reforms, President Tinubu would have taken a reverse gear in fright and abandoned all the new reform policies amid the avalanche of attacks from critics and opposition elements in the media. Instead, he persisted.

Two years after the first challenging year, the story has changed for good. However, some opposition elements are stuck in the sentiment of 2023/24, unyielding and adamant about acknowledging the many gains and milestones achieved by the Tinubu administration. But only the blind will fail to admit that this government has taken the country miles away from the state it inherited in 2023.

The stock market is clear proof of the administration’s economic success. In May 2023, Tinubu met the All-Share Index at 53,000 points and the market capitalisation at N30 Trillion. Today, the ASI has risen five times, to a record 250,000 and a market capitalisation of N160 Trillion. Blue-chip companies, including those initially negatively impacted by government policies, are declaring record profits and dividends. Equally, foreign portfolio investors are flocking in to partake in the Nigerian boom. This is not a bubble. It shows that a fundamental paradigm shift has occurred in the economy, all thanks to the Tinubu administration’s policy direction.

In recent weeks, I revisited the manifesto and policy ambitions that won us the election. The Tinubu administration has faithfully implemented its Renewed Hope Agenda, striving to resolve in three years the cumulative problems of decades.

Roads that will outlast this generation are being built nationwide. I recently went home to Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, and was amazed that the highway to my town from the Shagamu intersection now has a concrete pavement, thick enough to withstand the traffic of trailers from the West to the East. The most audacious road projects ever undertaken by any administration since independence are the Illela-Sokoto-Badagry and the Lagos-Calabar coastal superhighways. President Shehu Shagari conceived the Sokoto-Badagry highway in the early 80s. Succeeding administrations, afraid of the huge cost, abandoned the road. The Lagos-Calabar has also been on the map for decades, but no leader has ever dared to turn the idea into reality. President Tinubu has proven to be a transformative leader who has decided to turn the roads into reality, adding new roads to our road network for the first time, beyond those we inherited from the colonialists. Myopic critics of the two roads have assailed the Tinubu administration for taking loans to accomplish them. How else could the roads have been built if we rely only on FG’s share from FAAC? Relying solely on federal allocations would mean waiting 50 years or more, with costs ballooning out of reach, as in the metro-rail to nowhere started by presidential aspirant Rotimi Chibuke Amaechi in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. In the states, governors are building roads of similar standards. I saw some of these in Ogun, Kaduna, Ebonyi and Enugu.

As with roads, the Tinubu administration is also investing heavily in rail transportation, with the Kaduna-Kano-Gusau-Maraadi rail network scheduled for completion next year. City rail networks in Kaduna, Lagos, Kano and Enugu have been approved for construction, along with the Lekki-Ibadan rail.

When historians write about the Tinubu administration in 2031, they will not remember it only for audacious road and rail networks, but also for historic reforms. The oil and gas sector is one area in which the administration has impacted the country. Apart from ending the regime of wasteful subsidies, the government has instituted reforms that have made the sector attractive to fresh investment. International Oil Companies(IOCs) that once shunned our country are returning with billions of dollars in investment. Domestic refining and the innovative Naira-for-crude policy are ensuring energy security, thereby avoiding acute scarcity arising from the disruptive war against Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. More recently, the administration enacted a policy requiring the NNPC to remit oil sales proceeds to the Federation account.

Confronted by the administration’s stellar performance, the opposition and media propagandists dredged up a campaign video of the President promising a 24/7 power supply. They distorted his words. What he actually said was: “Whichever way, by all means necessary, you will have electricity, and you will not pay for an estimated bill anymore. A promise made will be a promise kept. If I don’t keep the promise and I come for a second term, don’t vote for me, unless I give you adequate reasons why I couldn’t deliver.”

What the distorters failed to admit was that the Discos, privatised since 2013 by President Goodluck Jonathan, are responsible for delivering power to the end consumers, not the Federal Government. What this government has done in the last three years has been to address the problems hindering the capacity of Discos to deliver, such as bringing Siemens to strengthen the grid, activating idle GENCOs, and planning to clear the N4 trillion legacy debts owed to GENCOs and GASCos, which will encourage new investments in the sector. The government has also massively implemented its metering policy, providing over 2.5 million meters to homes. Recently, the Tinubu administration announced the establishment of GAMCO, the Grid Asset Management Company, which will optimise power supply and activate idle facilities.

One of the administration’s impactful programmes, apart from issuing passports in less than a week, is the introduction of NELFUND and CREDICORP in 2024. While Credicorp is making loans available to civil servants to buy Made-In-Nigeria products, NELFUND, with N282 billion committed so far, has made tertiary education more accessible for our children. About 1.6 million Nigerian students have benefited. Payment of school fees and stipends is assured for the children, and the government has also renegotiated the 2009 ASUU-FG agreement, such that in the last three years, our universities, along with the Polytechnics and Colleges of Education, have been spared the disruptive academic strikes. Let’s give the Tinubu government some slack: a four-year programme is now a four-year programme. He promised it during the campaign and has delivered. The government has also invested in technical schools, offering students pursuing vocational education allowances. In the universities, TETFUND is once again funding research grants for dons willing to pursue ideas that will be useful to our society.

Among impactful programmes, apart from issuing passports in less than a week, are NELFUND and CREDICORP, introduced in 2024. Credicorp makes loans available to civil servants for Made-In-Nigeria products, while NELFUND, with N282 billion committed, has made tertiary education more accessible. About 1.6 million students have benefited. School fees and stipends are assured, and the government has renegotiated the 2009 ASUU-FG agreement, sparing universities from disruptive strikes. Today, a four-year programme in the universities, polytechnics and colleges of education is completed in four years. Technical schools offer allowances to vocational students, and TETFUND is funding research grants to academics.

It has not been all rosy the past three years, especially in the area of making our people safe from the band of bandits and terrorists. While the armed forces have been locked in an asymmetrical war against these heartless elements, neutralising their leaders and foot soldiers in several theatres of conflict, the displaced terrorists are attacking vulnerable areas in some of the states, killing and kidnapping. The government is unrelenting in providing the armed forces, intelligence agencies, and police with the tools they need to wage the war. With support from friendly governments like the US, France, and the UK, there is hope that the menace of kidnappers and their political sponsors will become history. The man who has taken the bullets to make Nigeria survive a fiscal disaster is even more willing to take additional bullets to make all Nigerians safe.

Onanuga is Special Adviser to President Tinubu on Information and Strategy

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The man who saw tomorrow: Senator Akpabio and the uncommon politics of certainty

Published

3 weeks ago

May 20, 2026

Whirlwindnews

By Hon Eseme Eyiboh

Let us begin with a confession. There is something unsettling about a politician who no longer appears to struggle.

In the turbulent theatre of Nigerian politics, where noise is often mistaken for relevance, where primaries resemble wrestling contests and delegate management demands the instincts of a hostage negotiator, a man who walks in unopposed does not merely win. He transforms the entire contest into a rehearsal.

On Monday, May 18, 2026, at Methodist Primary School, Ukana, in Essien Udim Local Government Area, Senator Godswill Akpabio did exactly that. No contest. No drama. No nervous counting of votes. He simply emerged as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress for the Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial District without a single challenger.

While many politicians remain trapped in the exhausting rituals of horse trading, factional bargaining, and survival politics, Akpabio’s good works delivered something far rarer in Nigeria’s political environment than gold itself. Absolute consensus.

To the casual observer, an unopposed return may suggest the absence of competition. That would be a dangerously shallow interpretation.
Those familiar with the political phenomenon long associated with the “Uncommon Transformer” understand the distinction clearly. An unopposed ticket does not mean nobody desired to contest. Politics naturally attracts ambition the way light attracts insects. Power always generates interest. Influence always provokes aspiration.
What an unopposed return truly means is far more significant: potential challengers surveyed the landscape, studied the numbers, weighed the networks, measured the emotional connection between the man and the political structure around him, and quietly concluded that the road to victory simply did not exist.
There is a profound difference between lack of opposition and the collapse of viable opposition

Why is there no road to victory for others? Because what Akpabio has built in Akwa Ibom State in general and Akwa Ibom North West in particular is no longer merely a political structure. It is a fortress. Its walls are not made of concrete. They are made of cultivated loyalty. Enduring networks. Strategic generosity. And the unspoken understanding that confronting him politically is not simply difficult. It is often futile and absurd.

The atmosphere at the ward centre resembled less a political exercise and more a carnival of affirmation. Supporters, community leaders, women groups, youths, and party faithful gathered not to determine an outcome but to endorse a grace carrier already settled in the public imagination. The votes were counted without end. The votes were celebrated.

Here is the remarkable part.

The whispers surrounding Akpabio’s dominance do not come only from admirers. They come from seeming opponents too.

They do not fear his voice. They fear his results. They do not tremble at confrontation. They confront something more sobering: the recognition that within his political territory, the arithmetic has been solved with almost clinical precision.

While others are still assembling coalitions, Akpabio consolidated his long ago. While rivals continue calculating delegate figures, he has already moved to the next question: what happens after victory? How does political power translate into enduring relevance and measurable impact?

That is the distinction between a career politician and a political architect. One chases office. The other shapes the terrain on which the chase itself occurs.

Since assuming office as President of the 10th Senate, Akpabio has projected a measure of stability within the Red Chamber. That should not be understated.

The Nigerian Senate has earned a reputation for turbulence over the years. Leadership rebellions. Internal fractures. Floor dramas that generate headlines while weakening governance and social democratic structures. Against that backdrop, a Senate President capable of maintaining institutional stability without recurring crises becomes more than merely effective. He becomes uncommon.

His admirers see in him a politician who has consistently combined institutional authority with emotional loyalty from his base through the National to International arena. From Governor to Minister to Senate President, his rise is framed as the journey of a man who understood tomorrow before others arrived there. A politician deeply conscious of timing, alignment, and the delicate craft of converting social capital into durable influence and uncommon power (political capital).

This point matters enormously. Political capital is easy to squander. This point matters enormously. Political goodwill is easy to destroy. Many politicians exhaust it through arrogance, exclusion, or the endless pursuit of personal advantage. But Akpabio appears to understand something deeper about leadership: goodwill grows when people genuinely feel seen, valued, included, and carried along.
Over the years, he has cultivated relationships not merely through politics, but through accessibility, generosity of spirit, loyalty to associates, and an unusual ability to make people feel remembered even in the midst of high office. That is why his support structure often appears less like a coalition held together by convenience and more like a community bound by shared experience and enduring personal connection.
What some interpret merely as political dominance may actually be the long-term harvest of sustained human investment.
And perhaps that explains the ease with which the field gradually cleared around him. Not because opposition was forcibly silenced, but because many within the political environment saw little wisdom in disrupting a consensus built around continuity, stability, experience, and an existing relationship of trust.
His commitment to continue working closely with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Governor Umo Eno reinforces a broader message of continuity and strategic alignment. At a time when fragmentation remains the temptation of many ambitious actors, Senator Akpabio has chosen coordination. That is not a weakness. It is political arithmetic.

And this is where the conversation shifts from the present to the near future. The same political capital that secured his senatorial return without resistance is not a one-use currency. It accumulates. It compounds. The goodwill he has cultivated, the equilibrium he has maintained, and the pragmatic preference for results over rhetoric are not merely tools for another Senate term. They form the foundation of something larger and forthcoming.

The crystal ball is not required to observe the trajectory. A Senate President who secures his own return effortlessly, stabilises a chamber historically associated with instability, aligns himself with the centre of national power grid while maintaining grassroots legitimacy, is a Senate President who has solved one of Nigerian politics’ most difficult equations.

He has demonstrated to his colleagues that he can deliver. He has shown the party hierarchy that he can be trusted. He has reassured constituents that proximity to power has not disconnected him from them.

This combination is rarer than any single attribute standing alone. So when the 11th Senate eventually convenes and the question of leadership emerges once again, the conversation may prove shorter than many anticipate. Not because there will be no interested contenders. There always are. But because the arithmetic of loyalty, institutional experience, strategic alignment, and demonstrated political capacity will already have completed its quiet work.

Akpabio has not formally declared interest in leading the 11th Senate. He does not need to. The declaration already exists in the pattern of his movements, the stability of his stewardship, and the political field he has cleared without visible strain. It is simply the discipline of reading political signs as they present themselves* .

In the end, Nigerian politics rewards those who understand the people more deeply than those who merely master performance and noise.That is not sentimentality. It is a political reality.

A politician capable of delivering his constituency without violence, panic, or emergency intervention is a politician who understands something fundamental: power is never truly declared. It is demonstrated. And it is demonstrated most convincingly when nobody steps forward to challenge it.

On that Monday in Ukana, the drums rolled. Praises echoed across the gathering. And the political message arrived without ambiguity. In Akwa Ibom North West, the conversation has moved beyond opposition. What remains is an audience waiting to see the next chapter unfold without ceasing.

Senator Godswill Akpabio has once again reminded observers that in certain political spaces, dominance is not always loud.

Sometimes, it is simply complete. And in the intricate chessboard of Nigerian politics, where many players are still learning how the pieces move, that level of mastery remains rare, consequential, and deeply potent.

The man who saw tomorrow understood something else too. The loudest voice in the room is rarely the one that prevails.

The one that prevails is the one that no longer needs to shout because everybody already understands. And that is what Senator Godswill Akpabio has demonstrated that he is the man who saw tomorrow.

Rt Hon Eseme Eyiboh mnipr is a former member and Spokesperson of the House of Representatives and currently Special Adviser, Media/Publicity and official Spokesperson to the President of the Senate

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Senate rule amendment: Why the debate should be about institutional stability, not personalities

Published

3 weeks ago

May 18, 2026

Whirlwindnews

Rt Hon Eseme Eyiboh

The controversy surrounding the recent amendment to the Senate Standing Rules has generated more heat than light. Unfortunately, much of the public conversation has been framed around personalities rather than principles, and emotions rather than institutional logic. Yet the real issue before the Senate is neither about Senator Godswill Akpabio nor Senator Adams Oshiomhole. It is about whether legislative institutions should evolve, strengthen themselves, and create continuity mechanisms that deepen parliamentary stability.

Every serious institution in the world periodically reviews its rules, procedures, and qualifications in response to emerging realities. Legislatures are not exempted from this process of institutional self-correction and growth. In fact, the refusal to review procedures in the face of experience is often a sign of stagnation, not democracy.

The recent amendment requiring senators seeking certain presiding and principal offices to possess a minimum level of legislative experience should therefore be viewed through the broader prism of institutional development rather than through narrow political calculations.

Parliamentary leadership is not merely ceremonial. The office of Senate President is one of the most sensitive and technically demanding constitutional offices in Nigeria. It requires not only political popularity but also deep familiarity with parliamentary traditions, legislative procedures, negotiation dynamics, committee systems, constitutional interpretation, and intergovernmental relations. Experience matters.

Around the world, mature legislatures often evolve unwritten and written traditions that favour institutional memory and legislative continuity. Such measures are not necessarily designed to exclude people; they are often intended to preserve stability, reduce avoidable turbulence, and ensure that those entrusted with managing highly sensitive parliamentary processes possess sufficient procedural grounding.

Critics who fear that experience requirements create a closed, self perpetuating oligarchy are not entirely without reason. Many legislatures have, at various points, used procedural thresholds to entrench incumbents rather than protect institutional wisdom. But the answer to that legitimate concern is not to abandon minimum standards altogether. It is to ensure that the bar is set at a reasonable, not prohibitive, level. A requirement of, say, one full term or demonstrated committee leadership is a safeguard against chaos, not a moat against renewal. The Senate must therefore commit to reviewing this threshold periodically, lest a tool of stability calcify into a ceiling on ambition.

Experience without openness becomes arrogance; openness without experience becomes amateurism. The amendment under scrutiny tilts toward the latter’s correction, but it must not be understood as a final word. What truly elevates an institution is not a single rule change but a culture that values both seasoned judgment and fresh perspective. That means pairing experience requirements with transparent mechanisms for advancement, seniority systems that reward competence, not mere longevity, and leadership elections that remain genuinely contested, not coronations.

Seen from this perspective, the amendment is neither unusual nor inherently anti democratic. Rather, it reflects the Senate’s attempt to refine its internal processes based on accumulated experience.

It is therefore inaccurate to reduce the issue to the suggestion that the amendment was crafted merely to “shrink competition” or protect personal interests. Institutions do not become stronger by permanently freezing their rules in time. They grow by learning from experience and adjusting procedures where necessary to protect efficiency, order, and continuity.

Even more problematic is the argument suggesting that because the new qualification threshold did not exist when Senator Godswill Akpabio emerged as Senate President, he should now resign if the new rule is adopted. Such reasoning fundamentally misunderstands one of the oldest principles of jurisprudence and democratic governance: laws are generally prospective, not retroactive.

A law or rule takes effect from the point of enactment forward unless expressly stated otherwise. The amendment cannot logically invalidate a mandate that was legitimately acquired under previously existing rules. Senator Akpabio contested and emerged as Senate President under the constitutional and procedural framework that existed at the time. To argue otherwise would amount to applying today’s standards to yesterday’s circumstances, which is neither legally sustainable nor institutionally rational.

Following that logic, every constitutional amendment would invalidate previous actions taken under earlier provisions, thereby throwing governance into perpetual instability.

What should matter now is whether the amendment serves the long term interest of the institution. That is the proper question, not whether it benefits or disadvantages any single individual in the immediate moment.

Interestingly, many of the world’s strongest democratic institutions evolved precisely through incremental procedural reforms. Rules governing tenure, committee leadership, succession, seniority, and qualification standards were not static from inception; they emerged through continuous refinement driven by practical governance realities.

It is also important to note that continuity in leadership structures is not necessarily an enemy of democracy. Stability can strengthen democracy when balanced with fairness and openness. A legislature perpetually trapped in leadership uncertainty, procedural inexperience, and internal volatility weakens not only itself but the democratic process as a whole.

Every rule amendment asks the same underlying question: whom does the institution trust to lead it? When a legislature decides that a Senate President should have served a minimum period as a legislator, it is making a quiet but profound statement about the nature of political authority. It is saying that raw popularity or executive favour is not enough, that the stewardship of a co equal branch requires earned familiarity with its rhythms and restraints. That is not elitism. It is institutional self respect. And in a democracy, institutions that do not respect themselves are unlikely to be respected by the public they serve.

This is why the current debate should rise above personal disagreements or chamber theatrics. Nigerians expect lawmakers to approach institutional reforms with intellectual honesty and statesmanship rather than framing every procedural amendment through the lens of political rivalry.

Senator Adams Oshiomhole is entitled to his views, as every senator is. Debate is healthy in democracy. Dissent is legitimate. However, the conversation should be anchored on whether the amendment strengthens the Senate as an enduring institution, not whether it immediately advances or obstructs the ambitions of specific politicians.

Ultimately, institutions outlive individuals. Senate Presidents will come and go. Senators will rise and fall. But the rules and traditions established today may shape legislative stability for decades to come.

That is why this matter deserves to be viewed not through the narrow window of self interest, but through the wider lens of institutional maturity, continuity, and the long term health of Nigeria’s parliamentary democracy.

Experience matters.

Rt Hon Eseme Eyiboh, mnipr, is a former member and spokesperson of the House of Representatives and currently Special Adviser on Media/Publicity and Official Spokesperson to the President of the Senate.

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