Opinion
Foolish is not Igbo! Neither is cowardice wisdom!
First of all, I don’t believe what I have just read, which was attributed to General Azubuike Ihejirika, was written by him. I don’t. Indeed, if I believed for one second that the revered General wrote that piece, I would simply have taken a more reticent position of ignoring it. Why? The Igbo have a saying that a man that allowed an idiom to be explained to him should know that the dowry paid on the mother’s head is a waste.
In that context, I would see it as a military stratagem by the accomplished officer, a way of saying the opposite of what is in the public sphere. After all, stooping to conquer is a weapon commonly used by the military. So, I address this to the person that wrote that trash under the caption, Foolish is not Igbo, purely out of the need to counter the war currently being wedged against my people, Ndigbo and not as a reply to General Ihejirika. Who am I, even, a bloody civilian to join issues with such an accomplished soldier and a gentleman?
I can’t really remember the first time I read the piece of trash. It must be several months ago. I ignored it at that time for obvious reasons, one of them being that the political atmosphere in Nigeria is not as charged as it is at the moment and it would amount to a complete waste of time. I cannot afford that luxury today, because of the critical issues at hand and the place of the Igbo people who are the major target in them require the fullest attention to any element, no matter how minute capable of damaging them further. In fact, to keep silent now to the deliberate effort to destroy the Igbo essence, which this is all about, is criminal.
Yes! Just like the trash written by Chukwuma Soludo, Governor of Anambra State, my governor, I couldn’t make head or tail of what informed the entire rubbish I read outside the fact that there seems a hidden agenda by the author to sustain an onslaught against a people that neither stole the yam or cocoyam of Nigerians, but whose only sin is wishing and sometimes demanding to be allowed to be Nigerians – to be allowed to be citizens, not only as spare parts sellers at First Gate in Ogba, Lagos, okirika merchants at Sabon Gari in Kano or rubber shoes at Ochanja Market in Onitsha, but to actually raise the bar, by joining other groups in the country in the alluring dream of reaching the zenith of self-actualising aspirations of clinching the nation’s number one job. Matter finish!
Now, how did Ndigbo wrong the naysayers in Nigeria? The author of the trash opened with pure lies, as usual, which have been employed times and again to try to hoodwink the unwary, to the effect that Ndigbo captured the juicy positions in the years of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Pray! What position did Ndigbo get in Nigeria at that time to the exclusion of other ethnic groups? In 1999, Obasanjo, a Yoruba was the President, Atiku Abubakar was the Vice President, while an Igbo man was the Senate President. Recall, no Igbo man was a Service Chief under Obasanjo. An Igbo man was not the Chief Justice of the Federation (CJN). In fact, none has been, ever!
The likes of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Obi Ezekwesili and others, whose names were loud in that government, were just Ministers, which was statutorily allotted to every state. Is it the fault of the Igbo man that these Ministers, by sheer dint of performance became the stars of that government.
Okay, Chukwuma Soludo became the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) But before him, there was Joseph Oladele Sanusi, a Yoruba man. So, was it that position that is causing the whole deafening din of the Igbo took all the positions?
Under the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, Ndigbo lost the Senate Presidency and began to play the second fiddle in all departments. The only notable position then, was the Inspector General of Police (IG), held by Ogbonnaya Onovo. Outside it, what next? In then National Assembly, they only occupied the positions of deputies.
It gets funnier, when you hear the din loudest about how President Goodluck Jonathan practically handed over his government to Ndigbo. Abeg, how? What were the positions they held in that government? That Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala held the position of the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy? She was nothing more than a Minister. The highest position was the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), held by Anyim Pius Anyim, outside Ike Ekweremadu and Emeka Ihedioha being Deputy Senate President and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, respectively.
Okay, it was under Jonathan that appointed Ihejirika as the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), the first of that position ever held by an Igbo man since history. But how long did it last before he was practically bullied out by those who believed that it was unheard of, in the same manner that they dealt with Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe as Chief of General Staff under the Ibrahim Babangida military presidency?
Indeed, I’ve searched in vain to see how Ndigbo were specially favoured during this period under reference that many people continue to bandy about. The only plausible explanation is that somehow, because of the need for balance, which are sometimes inevitable under democracy, except in the current dispensation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) era of President Muhammadu Buhari, where impunity has become such a fashion, the various leaders in Nigeria during the period tried to refrain from the primordial attitude of unabashedly relegating Ndigbo, or indeed any group to the background. That was how the Igbo man found himself in positions hitherto believed to be sacrosanct.
Thus their long absence from these positions, is what gave the impression of favouritism towards them. But, that was until the coming of Buhari, who, having no penchant for pretenses about his special hatred for the Igbo, and who seems to savour every opportunity to prove it in words and actions, reversed everything.
Now for those blaming the Igbo for playing bad politics under Buhar, let us examine the facts starting with the APC. Did you know that Ogbonnaya Onu was the National Chairman of the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) and that Rochas Okorocha brought his own faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), both of which collapsed into the party at its formation?
This was the contribution of the South East. But in the end, what did they get in return – Organising Secretary – given to my friend, Osita Izunaso – to be arranging chairs and tables and booking hotels for members during party events? That’s all the South East, a whole leg of the tripod that is Nigeria. That is the party you want the Igbo people to rush into.
The author of the trash that was mimicking Ihejirika, pretends that it was the Igbo that began throwing stones at Buhari, causing him to act against them. What a blatant lie! Yes! Ndigbo didn’t vote for him. But so did the Yoruba not vote for Obasanjo in 1999. But did Obj draw out his bayonet to pursue every Yoruba man? Did he not employ his number six, to capture the zone subsequently, such that only Lagos survived the political tsunami that swept the entire South West into the PDP?
So, Buhari’s manifest treatment of Ndigbo, was not because they failed to vote for him, but a function of deep-seated hatred, flowing apparently from the vestiges of his civil war memories. Recall the confession of Femi Fani-Kayode, who disclosed what the President allegedly told him at a private meeting at Transcorp Hotel in Abuja, about why he would never forgive the Igbo.
Okay, Fani-Kayode could be lying. For a man that talks from both sides of his mouth as times demand, you couldn’t take that past him to lie against the President. But, has the President himself discharged himself to the contrary to disprove him either in words or deeds? Did the world not hear when he made his 97-5 per cent remarks in far away United States regarding Ndigbo? Has he deviated from its full implementation? Okay, what crime did that Igbo youth corps member commit in 2016, when he was singled out in Daura, during Christmas visit to the President, to be schooled about how his fathers were defeated in Biafra, a boy – whose parents, apparently were not even born during the war.
The impostor, writing in the name of Ihejirika, forgets that this is the time of the internet when just by a punch of the keyboard buttons, many information would unravel. He is telling the world how the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) is the harbinger of the bad luck Ndigbo have been suffering in the last seven years plus. He talks glibly about a campaign of violence to pull down Buhari and his government. Where? When? At what point? What violence did the youths at Onitsha Head Bridge and Upper Iweka carry out before hundreds of them stopped bullets with their chests? What violence did the Igbo youths praying at a primary school in Aba commit, before they were mowed down in a hail of bullets from the guns of Nigerian security operatives who invaded the arena, knelt down in the manner of practice at a shooting range to take aim and open fire? Have you forgotten how the President refused to watch the video of that sad incident during an interview with Aljazeera?
Indeed, what record of violence did IPOB have before the group was designated a terrorist organisation as against Fulani herdsmen, known to have invaded and wiped out whole communities, which earned them the unenviable tag of the fourth deadliest terrorist organisation in the world, which was never acknowledged in Nigeria till date? Which house did they burn, public or private? Who did they kidnap or kill, outside carrying harmless flags, with IPOB inscribed on it?
Yet, there had been many pictures of these youths being asked to swim in mud waters and gutters for non other reason than being found in the wrong places, by operatives, who see it as a sort of sport to subject them to the most excruciating treatment, just to show power and have fun. In fact, many parents have had to warn their children to steer clear of certain areas and be prayerful always, because, nowadays one of the easiest ways of losing a limb or two, denied freedom or even death, is to be designated an IPOB member. Some governors in the South East, who conveniently keyed in to the onslaught, have seen it as a pastime to deal with youths outside their political camps by simply designating them IPOB. Of course, it is an open and short case in such instances.
Till date, which of those arrested supposedly in the name of IPOB or Eastern Security Network (ESN), has been taken to court and proven to be behind the mindless carnage in the South East or elsewhere? Instead, the public is constantly assaulted with a harvest of dead bodies displayed on the floor by security forces, in the name of slain IPOB members.
Why would “Ihejirika,” not advise security operatives to comb the forests said to have been taken over by some terrorists, local and foreign, from where they launch attacks and cause mayhem, ferret them out and expose them by taking them to court, where the full stories would be disclosed, whether IPOB or not?
Or is shouting IPOB the only option? Why would the same supposed IPOB have a field day to attack their targets for hours without any challenge even with a police station or security formation just a shouting distance? shouldn’t these also come into the mix? Instead, what we hear are the puerile narrative that they are being sponsored by Igbo leaders, who have refused to rein them in. Ask who these Igbo leaders are, you’ll hardly get an answer.
Regarding Nnamdi Kanu’s release, Ndigbo have not asked anything out of the ordinary by toeing a familiar line. It has been done before. If he is a criminal or a terrorist as has been designated, let him suffer for his crime. But if he has not attacked anyone with cutlass or gun or arrow, as he once said in his interview, let the laws take its course. It is also important to state that whatever treatment he received should be meted out to others like him in equal measures.
In all, like Ndigbo would say, those with lost items must visit on the day the thief would bury the mother, to see whether they would be found in his house, one day also, the truth would be exposed about who really is the culprit in the mayhem in Igbo land. May be when a Daniel will come to judgement, which might not be too long.
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
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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