Columns

Why God disgraced Buhari!

Published

3 years ago

May 29, 2023

By Sunny Igboanugo

Nna anyi Pope di emefie-emefie. Isi ya wee bulu na Pope ama emenata njo. Unless you’re a Catholic and Igbo, you might not grasp the true depth of this, because it loses a lot of its mystics and mysteries along the way of translation and transliteration. To fully comprehend, you have to be, or assume the place of sub-10-year-old child in a nondescript village some four or five decades ago, whose mental skies, struggled to grapple with all manner of images and imaginations coming from personal experiences and teachings of the older generation.

So, while chanting at the catechism class, Nna anyi Pope di emefie-emefie. Isi ya wee bulu na Pope ama emenata njo, it meant far more than its English translation of the infallibility of the Pope, which the teacher, made the students recite repeatedly.

For me, as for virtually every child in those classes, the only picture comparable to the processing of that teaching of the Pope, his infallibility and sinless state, was the imagery of Christ sitting at the right hand of God – more so, when you had heard some fantastic stories about the Catholic Pontiff himself.

I recall my elder brother, whose story-telling skill, surpassed that of Chinua Achebe, narrating how the world would gather in Rome, on rare occasions, to watch the Pope bring out his hand from a tiny window and wave to a privileged crowd. For no human ever saw the Pope physically. With his propensity for adding salt and pepper to every of his alluring, but mostly, fantastically false, if not mischievous narratives, it is impossible to ascertain how much he knew himself and whether he did not believe those stories either.

How was I to know that so soon after, I would be among the privileged, not only to see the waving hands of the Pope, but his whole being, shaking hands and embracing people, not from a window, but in a crowd?

What is more? I have also since discovered that the teaching of the infallibility of the Pope is completely false in the manner it was presented to us by those catechism teachers, whom I assume, knew no better themselves or preferred to believe themselves out of piety for the Catholic faith.

It was much later that I got the context and concept of the teaching. The Pope is infallible only when speaking ex-Cathedra – when he mounts the Papal Chair of St. Peter to make pronouncement. In other words, papal infallibility, in Roman Catholic theology, is described as the doctrine that the Pope, acting as supreme teacher and under certain conditions, cannot err when he teaches in matters of faith or morals. This, some say, is derived from Christ’s promise to remain always with his church and to send the Spirit to “teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.” (Jn 14:26).

For this, there are four conditions: “When the Pope (1) intends to teach (2) by virtue of his supreme authority (3) on a matter of faith and morals (4) to the whole Church, he is preserved by the Holy Spirit from error. His teaching act is therefore called “infallible” and the teaching which he articulates is termed “irreformable.”.

What it means in clear terms is that the Pope, as an ordinary human being, is as vulnerable to sin as any other person. In other words, he could commit sins and indeed, commits sins. Further down the line, it also means that if the Pope, the only being, known to have been conferred with this status of infallibility, is himself a sinner, who most often admits to this fact, goes to confession, like any other Catholic. It means therefore that no human being is free from sin.

But Muhammadu Buhari, doesn’t appear to acknowledge this fact of life. My reading of him, both in public conduct and charactersation, conduces of one who had since, not only believed the godlike image conferred on him by a fawning group of followers, but appropriated same to himself. Unlike the Pope, who acknowledges his frailties as human, he appears to see himself as infallible, and seems to frown at any suggestion otherwise.

Granted that he might not have made himself God and did not confer the status on himself, but he not only grabbed it, he hugged it or so it seems. That, to me has proved fatal.

The Bible, reports that this was the sin of Lucifer. He was said to be so beautifully made and possessed everything that not only did pride set in but he became so possessed with and hugged his status, so much that the next move was to rebel against God and take His place. It was for this that he was cast into hell. But here on earth, the world is replete with numerous other examples of how pride and self-conceitedness had pushed people to fall from glory to perdition.

Else, what could account for Buhari being such a disaster in office? What could make Buhari become a reference pointer for monumental failure in all aspects of public engagements as President? What is it that he lacked? Arguably, no other President or indeed elected official in Nigeria enjoyed the type of acceptance that welcomed him to the seat of power eight years ago. Such was the ululation that a certain Dahiru Buba, had to trek from Gombe to Abuja in solidarity.

But what did Nigeria get in return? Woes and tales of woes – uncanny, bizarre and eerie outcomes – sorrow, tears and blood – weeping, wailing, mourning and gnashing of the teeth. Those who rolled out the drums to celebrate, now retreat into their cocoons, fasten their doors as they retire to daily supplications against the dangers outside, praying for an end to their nightmares. The din from the collective hissing as the people turn away their faces, bidding their ears be deaf, now echo resoundingly.

How else could a man be humbled? How else could a man be disgraced? The king, who was so impervious to counsel and forbade his subjects from advising him, has now become a pitiable object of mockery as the flies besiege him because nobody could tell him about the patches of elements from the toilet that have stained his royal robe. Perhaps a lesson to others coming after him.

Already, the ubiquitous professional courtiers, jesters and entertainers, in Aso Rock Villa, at its corridors and elsewhere, who saw nothing wrong in the faux pass of the eight years of the locust, and who told him that he was the best thing to happen to creation, are fast disappearing, perhaps with their eyes on another target.

Yes! The cheerleaders, who chanted that it was the best that The Man of Wisdom – who sees tomorrow sitting in his comfortable couch, should take his time, when Nigerian practically descended into limbo from which it never woke up or recovered, are already shifting ground and brushing off all vestiges of vicarious responsibility of what they helped to create.

Yet, they were the ones that rationalised it when a bemused public began wondering what was happening, after the signs of danger started manifesting. They shouted down petrified compatriots, who dared raise their voice at the early inanities. Those who dared question the rationale of waiting for a whole six months to appoint a cabinet were called names. Even after it turned out that those appointed was an assemblage of funny characters after the world was made to believe that some strange beings from outer space were coming – opportunists, whose only interest appeared to be a seat at the table to share in the spoils of the game, those who complained were denounced and called – wailers!

With these early signs of failure not heeded and him being goaded and egged on, things could only get worse. The government had come in with a blazing record of fanfare and public trust with the mantra of Insecurity, Economy, Anticorruption on its lips. Alarmed Nigerians, who had been crying about the records of the government of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), especially that of President Goodluck Jonathan he displaced in 2015, had believed that he was going to wave his magic wand or release the genie out of the magic lamp to tackle the problems.

But like a possessed emperor, everything took the penchant for an uncanny pattern – policies decreed with a sort of brainwave. For instance, without warning, Nigerians, who had been encouraged to domicile their individua foreign currency accounts locally, woke up one morning to be told that they could no longer withdraw their money from their banks in Nigeria. The immediate result? Chaos and more chaos. Many citizens, believing that their lifesaving had vanished died of heart attacks and other debilitating ailments developed as a result. The bedlam that ensued as panicking customers rushed to the banks in search of a way out to reclaim their forex became the inevitable skyrocketing cost of forex and the crisis today.

By the time the policy was lifted, the value of the forex had hit the roof as Nigerians in panic, rushed straight to the banks to withdraw every cent they had saved and took their money elsewhere. Today, a dollar that stood at less than N200 is gradually inching towards the N1,000 mark. This was his idea of making the greenback stand at par with the naira.

You heard him boasting the other day how he closed the Nigerian borders some years back. Again, that happened without warning. Nigerians woke up one morning to hear that. What was the reason, you would ask? His answer was that he wanted to end smuggling of rice. The result? More foreign rice found their way into Nigeria, but at higher cost, because the fat cats in charge of the borders, responsible for the problem in the first place, who ought to have been called to question and checked through a fortified and deliberate means, grew fatter as they smiled to the banks, by simply upping the ante and raising the stakes for the rice smugglers. That was another of his fantastic ideas!

But there was more. Genuine businessmen, suddenly found it impossible to transact inter-border trades. Consignments they had ordered could not cross into Nigeria, while those to be exported outside got stuck back home. As their capital began to deplete and finally drained out, many obituaries were announced. Again, it was either heart-attacks or suicide induced illnesses. On the contrary, the cost of rice, both local and domestic soared to the level that many Nigerians took what used to be their staple out of their menus or looked for ways of making up. Again, another economic masterstroke!

In the end, for all his economic solution was worth, Nigeria became the poverty capital of the world, with all imaginable economic indices – inflation, employment level, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), life expectancy, money in the pocket, etc – going south.

Don’t forget that at the time he came in, the debate was that Nigeria was among the fastest growing economies in the world and the biggest economy in Africa and the capital for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Whether true or not, at least that was what was on the table by the time Jonathan was leaving office as President. But today, what is the debate all about? Nigeria hitting the bottomless pit – at the very nadir of its economic existence as a country.

Why? Don’t ask me! They have a ready answer to that. COVID-19! War in Ukraine! But in their haste to blight out original local memory, they forget that the nosediving economy of Nigeria formed the major issues of the nation’s debates far before these latter-day events. The presidential campaigns of 2019 was all about how the nation’s economy had hit the jagged rocks at the bottom of the valley.

But, as they blame the crises, other countries have since moved away and moved on, quickly. In the first place, they will not acknowledge the obvious – that no other countries across the globe engage in the clandestine and ugly lifestyle that became emblematic of their governance model during their years. Which and how many other countries in the world went about borrowing and spending same like drunken sailors within the period in question? How many countries used virtually every kobo or cent they earned for servicing debts?

How many countries gave open license to a group of people in their countries to kill compatriots, simply because they had recourse to a President, who would admonish the victims to live peacefully with your neighbours? Yet this was a General who went about the insecurity mantra and promised to tame troublemakers.

They would remind you readily that 14 local governments were in the hands of insurgents by the time they came into office. But ask them, was there any local government that election in 2015 did not hold before they took over? They sing a song about how the North East have been liberated from Boko Haram? But speak to experts and hear a somewhat more plausible explanations.

You would hear that after announcing their presence through bombings in Abuja and other cities in the North, terrorists, especially Boko Haram, which has since coalesced with the Islamic State of West Africa (ISWAP), simply changed gear, farmed out their soldiers and spread out across the country, such that today, no single day passes without records of kidnapping and slaughtering Nigerians in different parts of the country.

Today, the Genelismo, is leaving behind a record of close to 70,000 deaths – of his countrymen slaughtered in cold blood – in peacetime to boot? That is even the official record. Some argue that unofficially it is far worse, putting it at double or even triple of that. Recall that at the beginning, he had ordered the military to end Boko Haram in three months. But all that had to end in the damning picture of death and sorrow.

The rest of the picture is painted in the bombing of a Nigerian train and kidnapping of hundreds, the breaking into the best fortified jails in the country and releasing some blood-thirsty killers, who are today prowling through the forests and local villages, milling through the streets and roads to decimate the people to the extent that today road travels have become the worst nightmare of Nigerians.

Even the anti-corruption on which his entire personality derived its essence, he didn’t fare any better. In fact, it turned out a ruse. Under him was a systematic bastardisation of the entire concept and process of fighting corruption. While the institutions, erected by previous administrations became huge public theatres where macabre dramas were churned out almost every day, his own appointees in various positions, were no less ready to join in the circus.

That was when you heard of how men of the Department of State Services (DSS) broke into the homes of judges in the thick of the night and roused their scared lordships from their bed, some of them in their birthday suits with their spouses, while still asleep. It was a time the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), regaled an entirely stunned nation with their own version of the drama.

On occasions, it was either caches of dollars rolling out from conveyor belts at the airports or stashes of local and or foreign currencies discovered inside uncompleted buildings. The anti-climax was the discovery of a whopping N13billion hidden in a residential apartment in Ikoyi, Lagos. But wait for it, till date, the selfsame agency has continued to keep sealed lips over the identities of the owners. Just like in other cases.

Remember, that drama took place in 2017, six years ago. But since then, mum has remained the word. Instead, the next stage of the drama was that Ibrahim Magu, the theatre director and curator, became a character in the obscene drama himself, when he was suddenly arrested and hounded out of office in the most controversial manner.

In the end, just as his appointment became mired in controversy when, in spite of being denied confirmation by the Senate on the declaration of the DSS, which forbade it, his end, saw him practically being dragged on the floor to the Justice Ayo Salami panel, where he was made to face charges of monumental corruption. What an irony.

You did also hear more recently of how his successor, Abdulrasheed Bawa was accused of demanding a bribe of $2million from the Governor of Zamfara State, Bello Matawalle. The governor, who made the disclosure with his full chest out, in a BBC Hausa Service interview, had dared him to do his worst about it and face further revelations, with evidence. Have you heard anything else since then? Never! For all you might know, an olive branch must have exchanged hands to cease fire, for obvious reasons. That was the texture of the anti-corruption war.

If you were still at sea as to the colour of corruption a la Buhari, turn to the COVID-19 era. It was an ear-full! You’d hear all kinds of funny tales – how tens and hundreds of billions of naira, were disbursed to your fathers and mothers, uncles and aunts in your villages and how they danced in the streets thanking your Buhari – how your children and those of your relations were fed well on daily bases, with an egg a day in tow. The funnier part is you’ll be declared a liar and hater of the President, if you as much as asked for proof. If you asked which child and continued searching for the schools where the goodies were being distributed in your locality, you’re quick to be labelled a hater.

Didn’t you see that video where one Hajia Sadia Umar Farouq, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, had stacks of money, from which she was handing out stipends to those women dancing and singing in appreciation? We even heard on one occasion how about N2.6billion was shared out in one day. Funny?

In fact, the bazaar of that era became so widespread that tracking became almost impossible. Don’t even attempt to count the figures. Was it the N60billion for the revival of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), N100-plus-billions for aviation, or the N30billion from Ca-COVID warehoused by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for infrastructure and essentials? Where would the counting start or end? It was a situation of the proverbial elephant meat where people came to take their own cuts. All you heard were billions and more billions.

It even got to a point where Nigerians, who could no longer wait started breaking into warehouses and started helping themselves. A particular warehouse in Lagos was actually invaded to retrieve cartons of palliatives meant for the people. Even in their various states of damage due to long storage, they were carted away all the same. The strange part was the same item was already bearing the image of a certain Lagos lawmaker and high society woman, preparatory as giveaways for her birthday. Of course, she was not alone. While moneys disappeared into thin air, most probably finding their ways into banks abroad, food items, medicals and other essential products, meant to be shared were taken to private homes or even repackaged and sold in the markets. Consequences? Find it!

What consequences could be meted out to those involved in mere pilfering of pittances when the main brigands who completely shut the nation out of its very economic livewire were neither identified nor punished? Or didn’t you hear that in the last three years, not a single kobo accrued to Nigeria from oil sales. They simply disappeared into oblivion. Every single cent of oil sold! During the period, oil thieves, said to have existed for decades, simply went haywire, graduating from mere piping of products into local barges to allowing shiploads coming into the country, lifting the oil and taking off to their destinations without batting an eyelid.

Even when one of the ships was caught in the shores of another country and sent back to Nigeria, what did we hear? It was said to have completely burnt down, of course, with probable evidence destroyed. But don’t even bet on it. That could even be a decoy. The same ship in question, might have set sail again, this time under cover. The patrons of the banditry could have also procured an old carcass from somewhere and set it ablaze to confuse Nigerian. Even beyond the drama, have you heard anything again?

Don’t even talk about the case of oil subsidy. That has since become an old, worn-out story. What is new is that the thievery have become more pronounced and stakes gone higher. As the heist went on in the oil industry, other sectors were not spared. You probably didn’t hear about the can of worms opened up at the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), when the former Director General Hadiza Bala Usman launched her book, recently. Find and read her tales.

You’d also may not have heard how the Abacha loot controversies – how each of the millions of dollars returned from foreign countries became mired in a morass of inane tales – how they developed wings. The recent we’ve heard is how Abubakar Malami was being drilled by members of the National Assembly on the loss of $2.4billion unremitted oil revenue.

If you didn’t or have not been following, you’d certainly be unaware of the current case of the Nigeria Air, a project in which multiple millions of dollars were buried only for planes owned by another entity to be brought into the country. Read that up also. That would help you understand the damage of the Buhari regime.

What could be more petrifying than the 2023 general elections? In fact, Nigerians would have forgiven him if after destroying virtually all things he touched, he had bestowed the country with a credible election as he not only promised them but boasted to the world. But like Pharaoh, whose heart remained hardened in spite of the afflictions of his people of Egypt, he was determined to punish Nigerians further – the reason he conducted the worst election in the history of Nigeria.

As the curtains fall on his inglorious era, the world could only scoff at a Buhari, who got everything he needed to be great, but who is leaving the stage totally disgraced for failing to perform. It was with with his hands that he destroyed the mystery of a Spartan, no-nonsense nationalist, and replaced same with an unforgiving, petty leader, who went as low as to arrest and detain a compatriot for naming his dog Buhari. That’s his record.

He also would be remembered for running the most divisive and nepotistic government in history, where unless you were either a Fulani or Muslim, you must take the short end of the stick, where the likes of Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho would be hunted down, hounded and clamped into detention or sent on exile, for airing their opinions but Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen, who wiped out whole communities are released and handed down privileged positions.

As he exits power, it would be the end of an inglorious era – the end of body language which heralded the beginning – the end of Mai Gaskiya (the Man of Truth) – the end of deceit and lies. Hopefully, it will also be the end of the killins – the sorrow, tears and blood in Kaduna, in Jos, in Benue, in Owo, in Anambra and other places!

Yes! His aides and hangers-on will defend him and give him titles, but for millions of Nigerians, he remains the worst the country has ever witnessed. That fact will come home soon when the coterie of courtiers as cheerleaders must have disappeared and history begins to take its full count. Yes! The haze would soon disappear to leave a disgrace, lonely man who earned his place for not only being wicked to his people, but playing God!

Lessons? They’re already dressing Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the one on whom he conferred a stolen mandate with the same robe. They call him great names – lullaby him as The Wise Man of Bourdillon, The New Aso Rock Jagaban – the new God. Will he hug the title? We watch!

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Columns

Mike Adenuga @73: Salute to the icon who changed the story!

Published

1 day ago

April 29, 2026

Whirlwindnews

By Sunny Igboanugo

“If you woke me up today and put the question – who is the most patriotic businessman in Nigeria in recent history – the answer will pop-up out instantly – Mike Adenuga! I won’t even have enough time to wipe my drowsy eyes or clear my head out of the sleepiness. It is an answer that has lived in my sub-conscious for years.”

These were my exact words last year. I wrote those words out of a thankful heart to celebrate the multibillionaire, whom, I have just learnt, also goes by the sobriquet – The Chairman or The Great Guru – thanks to Uche Nworah – Ezeudo Ozonmkpu of Enugwu-Ukwu na Umu-Nri – a guru himself in many respects – who has just delivered a heartwarming dissertation on the telecommunications magnate from an insider’s perspective.

I also wrote those words out of great pains and immense regrets that The Great Guru doesn’t own a refinery – just yet – because if he did, Nigerians would not be subjected to the hellish, harrowing and nightmarish experience they are forced to undergo today by the present-day shylocks playing in that field. I won’t name names. Take your tongue and count your teeth.

Just as I commented on Uche’s emotion-laden essay on his ex-boss, if Mike Adenuga owned a refinery today, Nigerians might not be buying petrol above N300 per litre. Reason is he would have found some magic to get around all the arguments offered by the shylocks that have made them continue to see shege banza as the cost of the product, which has remained central to their very existence continue to soar.

You might dismiss this as foolhardiness or ignorance. But I have my reasons. As I wrote last year – Mike Adenuga, has done what I have never seen any other Nigerian do in my long years on earth – sacrifice profit for the benefit of the masses. The introduction by GLO of per second billing in Nigeria, years ago, is the reason you and me are not swimming in the pool of our own tears today.

It was the game-changer that actually put telephony in the hands of the ordinary people – the reason that you could be calling your mother in the village from as far as the UK, US and even China, outside Nigerian cities of Sokoto, Osogbo or Umuahia.

Else, were it not for this move, GSM, would still remain a big luxury like the days of the 090 – naught nine naught – days – telephony will still be a status symbol in Nigeria today – not because of the actual global cost implications – of course neighbouring countries like Togo, Ghana and Benin Republic – far less endowed – had been using it for years – but simply because the shylocks had cornered it.

Remember all the excuses they had offered on why per second billings were impossible in Nigeria. Don’t they sound similar the arguments being made about fuel today. Aren’t they same as the reason for why the cost of owning and maintaining DSTV is higher in Nigeria than any other country the services exist?

Now don’t get it twisted. I was one of the highly privileged here. For one, I wasn’t subjected to some of the hard experiences some people went through. Sampler! Less than a week GSM came into Enugu, I was sitting at 23 Edinburg Street, office of The Guadian, when some gentlemen walked in and handed me a package containing a GSM handset, SIM card package and scores of N1.500 recharge cards.

This was at a time anyone who wanted to key into the new status symbol would go to the courts to swear affidavits, return to the banks to pay a whopping N25,000 – close to N1million in today’s reckoning before being allowed to purchase a GSM SIM card. I didn’t go through the riguours. That was even long before GLO made it to the scene.

So, as a typical Nigerian, I ought to be grateful having a place in the “I better pass my neighbour” list in this regard. But the sheer thievery that followed would not allow that. You know in those days, these shylocks configured their billing to the model that if you generated a call you paid and if you received a call you also paid. This was the level the got. That was until the advent of GLO that changed those thieving models.

I had been wondering why Adenuga chose that game-changer model, which had been declared IMPOSSIBLE before then. Recall that it took the other networks some months to adjust to the per second billing which they must have taken more out of the force of business losses than compassion for the people or change in their original business environment to adjust. For all the variables and excuses they had cited for their shylock behaviour were still in place when they began to copy GLO.

So, I could relate with Uche when he wrote these words: “The Guru is the most kind and greatest benefactor that I know. He gifts, gives, and ‘dashes’ staff, friends, associates and others cash in naira and foreign currency, cars, watches, jewelries, choice drinks and other items. No wonder Dele Momodu uses the phrase ‘the spirit of Africa’ to describe him.

“I am a great beneficiary of his magnanimity as a staff. Not only does he pay above market salaries, he also gives staff money ‘under the table’. The special word for this is in Globacom is ‘stoning’. It is common to hear staff saying; “Mr Chairman ‘stoned’ A & B’. When you are ‘stoned’, you are not expected to tell the other person. It is frowned at in the system to avoid unsettling those who were not ‘stoned.’

Mr Chairman is famous for giving people gifts, even people he doesn’t know, but reaching him to thank him becomes impossible. He does not expect a thank you and also usually doesn’t expect any return favours. He once told us a story during a meeting, of how when he started making money newly, he started buying Rolls Royce cars and other luxury cars.

“He said after sometime he began to realize the vanity in such purchases, so he distributed the whole collection among traditional rulers nationwide. It is a known fact that many people have become multimillionaires just from Mr Chairman’s stoning alone.”

Who else could have chosen that route rather than teaming up with the shylocks to make mega bucks than a man with such a large heart. Without him, Nigerians would probably still be paying as much as N300,000 for SIM cards and cost of calls would still be hitting the rooftops for such mundane, obtuse and criminal reason(s) like – telephony is an international business.

Or haven’t you heard so in DSTV, in petrol and other commodities – as if Nigeria is a different world! So, thank you Uche Nworah. Now we know! I hear it is The Chairman’s birthday, Today, Wednesday, April 29, 2026. May I join the world in saying to the The Great Guru: Hhappy 73rd! We won’t forget.

My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice!

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Columns

Media: Enabling instrument in death of Nigerian democracy

Published

1 day ago

April 29, 2026

Whirlwindnews

All over the world the media are always among the first line of victims whenever and wherever democracy dies and dictatorship or autocracy is enthroned. Through the emasculation and asphyxiation of free speech and or freedom of speech, the media become the immediate target in such circumstances.

From the look of things, I don’t think Nigerian journalists are at home with this reality. No! Not just yet! I don’t know why it seems so. But I could hazard some guesses and build up some scenarios which I believe could suffice in assessing the situation.

Perhaps, it is because many of those who lived this reality in the last days of military dictatorship in Nigeria, have since exited the profession, climbed to higher grounds or just receded to the background, as consequences of natural sequence of events where the old is supposed to give way to the new.

Perhaps, it could be the direct result of the evolution in the profession – one of them – the introduction of electronics – if not the substantial or even total reliance on it as news-gathering instrument, which has made the job less cumbersome – thus introducing a pattern of ease in this regard.

Perhaps, it could be the direct consequences of the dearth, diminished impact and even subdued relevance of the print media, which led in the past, now taking a back stage in the new reality of the dominance of the electronic media.

Most probably, the influence of the social media has played a fast one in determining the direction of the industry to the extent that it is now the main source of news even for the traditional outfits, as much as it serves substantially as a distracting, if not distabilising factor.

But whatever it is, either singularly or by a collection of these factors, there is evidence of a demonstrable detour or bypass of the traditional role the media played in Nigeria that helped to shape its history – including dragging it out of the dungeon of military rule into the globally-acceptable arena of what is supposed to be democratic ethos.

Tempered by the new realities of the current generation, the Nigerian media have not only lost the fight in them but had their fangs and claws so smoothened that they now end up as instruments for caressing the patrons and purveyors of bad behaviour the tore at and clawed deeply in the past.

In other words, they have lost the plot. Otherwise, how could the media watch Nigeria suffer this level of degeneration after its chequered history of practically fighting with a million dark spirits and other anti-democratic forces to extricate itself from the vice grip of military rule?

It takes the Nigerian media which has degenerated into an insufferable degradation and complacency to watch the country gravitate towards a one-party state and pretend that they have no role in stopping the drift. Such never happened in the past.

Before 1999, the Nigerian media fought a bloody war against the military, beginning with the brutal era of the late Muhammadu Buhari, who after emerging the Head of State in 1983, launched the most draconian rule that had journalist caught in the crossfire, accentuated by the infamous Decree 2 of 1984, emblematised by the ugly fate of Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor.

Then came the eight years of Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) nicknamed Maradona fashioned after the immense dribbling skills of the Argentine legend, Diego Maradona, which ended with the disastrous June 12, 1993 presidential election saga. Again, the Nigerian media marked the gap-toothed General, man to man and never allowed him breathing space.

Then came the most brutal of them all – the Abacha era, where the war assumed a cataclysmic dimension with Sani Abacha, the merciless military despot that took over from IBB, receiving an equal amount of blitzkrieg as he unleashed on the media even with the clear mismatch of the arsenals on both sides.

It was this media that made Abdulsalami Abubakar, who took over from Abacha to bail with his feet, completing the transition programme that in chaos after 12 years in just one year and handed over to Olusegun Obasanjo, rather than share in the experience of his predecessors.

Even Obasanjo, throughout his eight years, had his feet under fired by a watchful media, culminating in another internecine war that saw the third term agenda, one of the features of that era, crumbling under its own weight and by the force of massive onslaught launched against it.

Today, where are the same media? They have turned out – at best – some beggarly, acquiescing and insipid entities – and at worst – some undiluted, unapologetic and rabid enablers of the same anti-people, anti-democratic forces they fought in the past at the risk of tears and blood. How tragic!

What do you see today? Rather than attacking the bad behaviour that threaten the polity, it is rationalisation. So, in 2023 when a totally staggered nation was reeling in pain as the courts churned out some of the wackiest, basest and most confusing reasons to support the mindless heist against the people’s mandate, it was a that told his bemused audience – public opinion is kilometres away from law.

Today, victim-blaming has become the answer to the clearly dangerous and life-threatening crisis of Nigeria’s drift to a one-party state where President Bola Tinubu could even emerge as a monarch, with limitless powers, if not limitless tenure.

Now, where is the agenda-setting function of the media? It is the function of the media to ferret out malfeasance, maladministration, and bad behaviour, without which governance will degenerate into an irresponsible cabal or a syndicate that perpetrates its actions in darkness. Unfortunately, that is where Nigeria is today. Else, when the media launched the fierce battle against the military, was it for the absence of the mistake on the opposite side. When the media joined the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) in its battle to revalidate the June 12 election and enthronement of full-blown democracy led by Moshood Abiola, was it that the patrons of that war were all blameless.

Yes! In spite of the large baggage Abiola, an acolyte of the military, this ugly record was pushed to the background in the interest of the bigger good – democracy. Going by today’s standard, Nigerian media would have focused on the Abiola’s association with the military and other faultlines as a basis to blame him.

Had that happened, where would Nigeria have been today? But because the media were focused on the larger picture, they in the realization that whatever touches the nose is already close to the mouth, they fought relentlessly. That is how we got here. Could that be said of the situation today.

Joseph Pulitzer once admonished: “There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy. Get these things out in the open, describe them, attack them, ridicule them in the press, and sooner or later public opinion will sweep them away.”

How much has compromise – imbued by pecuniary, ethnic, religious and other primordial sentiments allowed this work? For how long do you blame INEC and the judiciary without blaming the media? There you find the danger – the TRAGEDY.

My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m the Tiny Voice!

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Columns

Now VDM has become Sowore’s nemesis, does Peter Obi need anther advocate?

Published

2 weeks ago

April 19, 2026

Whirlwindnews

By Sunny Igboanugo

The kite swooped on the herd of sheep and picked a lamb, soared above the skies onto its nest. The father asked one question – what did the parent say when you took their child. The kite replied – nothing father – they were just gazing at me in silence. Then the kites father made an order – return it immediately. Any parent that keeps mute when its child is in danger, has a more sinister intention hidden in his heart. The kite obeyed and returned the lamb.

The next day, the same kite swooped on a brood of chickens and picked one of them. Then the mother went hysterical flying from pillar to post in frenzied movements. On return, the father again put the same question. This time, the kite presented a different picture, describing the shrieking cries of the mother-hen and how it tried to attack and failure to retrieve its chick, went into a frenzy.

Let’s have dinner, the father quipped excitedly. Danger is over. The parent has displayed every weapon in its arsenal. That is the reason chicks remain the main dish of kites till date. My father told me this story decades ago, which of course is one of the anecdotes that is as old as minds could picture. My father probably picked it from his own father.

Yet, the implication in terms of central message has never lost its texture, despite its longevity. Rather, it has become truer with time – be careful of that man with few words – refrain from attacking a man that has not offended you – never bear false witnesses. These are standard cautionary and globally accepted natural edicts, which when observed in breaches, could result in highly disastrous consequences.

Is it not intriguing how this reality has stung Omoyele Sowore like those wicked agbisi – only those who sat on the bare floors would relate with the brain-twisting, sharp and excruciating pains those black ants delivered through the bare buttocks of children – in our mother’s kitchens in those days?

Have you been watching Vincent Otse, alias Very Dark Man, recently? What do you make of the multiple arrows he has been aiming at the heart of the Revolution Now exponent? I have my people and both the optics and the import derivable therefrom could only taper towards a central reality – cow wey no get tail na God dey drive am fly!

It was a song, sung by the popular Prince Nico Mbaga – that legend of the 1980s, whose epic – Sweet Mother – still resonates centrally in the Nigerian music history even till date, long after he was gone. I think it was the flipside of that legendary outing that dominated the airwaves at the time.

Never had that song, which you heard in those days blasting from the record shops at Achapo Street – in Ajegunle – the popular centre for music records business or through the windows of privileged homes in the face me I face you compounds in the days when even the poor afforded stockfish – now a delicacy you could only enjoy the aroma from a distance if your income is not in six figures – days when even the local women looked at ice fish with disdain and derisively related it with the “poor” as Ozu Nwada. O! What memories! But I digress!

But before I walked too far and disappeared into those days when me, as a child sleeping on a mat at a one-room apartment at Number 14 Uzor Street, but still ate lavish meals which I must now struggle to offer my wards, I return to today’s reality to ask myself why this is happening before my eyes. Why must it be VDM that is now waging a war against Sowore – with whom he was only too cozy – just yesterday!

For months now, this selfsame Sowore, had launched a massive blitzkrieg against Peter Obi, candidate of the Labour Party (LP), in the 2023 presidential election. In what is more of a cocktail of bits and pieces, odds and ends set of drivels rather than any form of articulated reasoning based on facts and figures, this same man, actually came out with what has now become his catchphrase – Obi is a packaged fraud!

Don’t bother to ask him for facts supporting his conclusion. The only one he supplied was that the former Governor of Anambra State, was hobnobbing with supposed thieves and brigands responsible for Nigerian woes.

Yet, this selfsame Sowore, conveniently left out his central role, and incestuous relationship with the same people at an auspicious period, which ended up in watering the ground for what he now complains about from the rooftops. Were it not for Sowore, there might not have been a President Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Tinubu as APC governments – the worst era Nigeria has ever endured and currently cursed with!

Videos even showed him being celebrated nationally for this singular role. Yet, this is the same man, assailing Obi for keeping bad company! But that is what happens with the purveyors of anti-Obi sentiments. They inevitably meet a drought and are left with nothing more to rely on but contrivances. Where the well is dry, they import water tankers to try a rescue.

Where deceit fails, they try illogic, then subterfuge, half-truths, outright lies and then mischief as they meet more frustrations. Imagine a Sowore saying that Obi packed Northerners in lorries and sent them back to their homes. In Nigeria? At what period? The same Obi who built his personal and state security architectures around northern people – Northern Aide De Camp (ADC) and Norther Commissioners of Police throughout his eight years?

To Sowore, nothing is good enough! He even mocks Obi for saying that he owns only one house in Nigeria – a development, which elsewhere defines absolute personal contentment. Elsewhere, the fact that Obi could prove this claim is demonstrable evidence of reduced propensity for induced stealing and absence of hunger for corruption and therefore a call for celebration. But what do you have here? Spite, mockery and contempt.

Now, it is not like Obi’s records – public and private are hidden. This was a man, who even as a university student, had become so successful in business that his chain of buildings were used as bank branches – that at a point was one of the 10 richest men in the UK – in fact, one of the 8.000 richest men in the world – so the source of his wealth is not suspect.

In office as governor, this was the same Obi who took schools in Anambra State from number 26 to number one, starting from his second year in office by sheer dint of visionary leadership anchored on self-denial – the only governor in history that left a whopping N75billion in the coffers – capping it all with emerging as the best in the implementation of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs).

Now, if a governor attains the first position in this globally-accepted measurement instrument – covering all indices of developmental – physical infrastructure and policy frameworks for human capital development, what else defines excellence in leadership? Yet, people like Sowore will never be persuaded.

Now you know why! VDM has supplied you with the answer. Sowore is in business. His activism is business – his Revolution Now – business – attacks on Tinubu – business – Obi is a packaged fraud – business – presidential ambition business.

Not that the world didn’t know this. But coming from familiar quarters – given the relationship between the two – both erstwhile friends – it is only gotten clearer and better. It is even moreso when the further and better particulars is not coming from Obi, but a more virulent voice!

Now, what is said about fate? What does the law of Karma say again? How does a tailless cow deal with flies again? Sowore has given us the lead and VDM has given you the answer.

But hear the philosopher! Beware of your thoughts, lest they become words; beware of your words, lest they become actions; beware of your actions, lest they become habits; beware of your habits, lest they become character; beware of your character, lest it becomes your destiny! Nigerians, think!

My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice!

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