Nigerians knew that Bola Ahmed Tinubu, would be a bad President. What they probably did not know is that he would be this terribly bad or that it would be this fast, so soon after. Or put another way – a complete disaster, tapering towards a national fatality.

Yes! Fatality! That is the only correct reading of the fate of Nigeria if something does not happen soon and quickly too, apparently not to stop – for that would be too much to ask – but at least mitigate or slow down the galloping descent to the jagged rock down the precipice – the only bargain any right-thinking person might hope for at times like this.

It takes only an imbecile or a listless moron with the Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA), of a Mongolian idiot not to have recognised the signs, or noticed where the country would be headed with him at the driving wheel. Of course the last time I checked, no Nigerian shares the history of the Mongols. The devil in the room therefore is not that Nigerians lacked the knowledge or wisdom to do the right thing, but other myriads factors helped to bring him to power.

Yes! Let it be stated again that Tinubu was not the choice of Nigerians. That one is settled irrespective of what the judges at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) decide. No matter the bold face anyone puts up, the truth about who Nigerians chose to lead the country in 2023, is ensconced in the inner recesses of every heart. But it is what it is, as the saying goes in our hood.

Indeed, even if he were not showing the signs of clear incapacity, figuratively and in real terms, it would have been easier for the camel to enter through the eyes of the needle than for the All Progressives Congress (APC), his party, co-led with as the National Leader, to have produced another President after Muhammadu Buhari and the calamity he wrought on the country.

A little digression might help understand this position. In December, 2008, I had a sit-down with Nana Akufo-Addo, today’s President of Ghana, at his home in Accra. As then, candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the ruling entity in the country, he had just won the election on the first ballot, but missed being declared winner and would-be successor to John Kuffor, by the skin of the teeth. His votes were not enough to declare him President by a few hundred – mind you not thousands or millions – just a few hundred votes – that were denied him.

Of course, not under the watch of Kwado Afari-Gyan – I hear he is now late – Chairman of Electoral Commission of Ghana (ECG), would anyone be rewarded with half a vote not earned legitimately – government candidate or not – unlike his Nigerian opposites – Maurice Iwu, Attahiru Jega or the babanla of them all – the cyber-shutting, Mahmoud Yakubu, who has given the world the new meaning of the word, glitch.

So, I had asked my host his expectations regarding the inevitable recontest between him and the late Atta Mills, the candidate of the National Democratic Party (NDP). You know what he told me? He did not take me on a cruise inside the space coaster of political lies like the archetypical Nigerian in the mould of Adams Oshiomhole who changes colours like ogwomagana, but shot straight from the hips.

“I know that Ghanaians have become weary of voting one party. Our party has been in power for two terms and there might be that urge for a change. Besides there might be a coalition between the opposition and other parties. Those are my fears.”

Those were his exact words. He did not tell me how the people loved him and how they saw him as the next best thing in the world since the discovery of Ewa Agonyi and Agege bread. He told me the truth the way he knew if. Incidentally, I was still in Ghana to see his prediction come to pass, exactly the way he read it.

Atta Mills went ahead to win that election. Parenthetically, I was one of those invited to meet with the new President, years later, when he came to Nigeria to seek help at Synagogue Church of All Nations of the late Temitope Balogun (TB), Joshua for his ailing health issues. Unfortunately, I didn’t know that the late cleric was using us to “catch cruise” as it is said these days.

For try as we did using all the tricks in the book, my team and I were not allowed to meet with him. The only sign that he was actually in the building was the long black Mercedes Benz car with all the insignia of his high office, of course befitting an African President, inside the living quarters of the church. I had hoped to confront him with the Ghanaian experience and beg him on how he could help Nigeria transmit the Ghanaian model or get it to their level of election without tears, such as I witnessed in the one that produced him.

On a personal level, I would also have used the opportunity to confront him about how his aides gave me the short end of the stick, when they kept me waiting for hours in a futile attempt to get an exclusive from him, only for some white men and ladies wielding cameras, to be expressly ushered in straight with immediate effect and automatic alacrity, as Chief Eleiyimi of Oja, in Village Headmaster, would put it, while I was still waiting and hoping.

Who knows, I could even have been invited to Ghana on a pleasure trip as compensation in addition to the apologies for my troubles, including nearly missing my flight back to Nigeria. But, I never got the chance, no thanks to Joshua and his tricky ways.

Of course, there is no chance of that anymore, here on earth, except, perhaps in heaven. The man has since died and ironically, Akufo-Addo is now President, some years after that interesting encounter in Accra. Nonetheless, that singular event with the Ghanaian President then, remains instructive till date – people get weary of voting one party and make changes for the sake of it.

So, that the APC was destined for its political Waterloo, even on this singular factor, was known to the goat and the hen. Indeed if any miracle could have sprung them from the depth of political morass, the genie would have come from the magic lamp of Yemi Osinbajo, then Vice President who ought to be the party’s talisman and not Tinubu.

But he has gotten there anyways, by his simple political technique of snatching it, grabbing it and running with it, one that he perfected in the uncanny relay race agreement he struck with Buhari. So now what? The answer is what you are seeing today. The worst Nigerians have feared is unfolding already. The Tinubu phenomenon, Yinka Odumakin, his once close ally warned long time ago, is unravelling before everyone’s eyes.

Imagine just how one thoughtless, rash, impulsive quip – subsidy is gone – has set off a domino effect – a chain reaction that has cascaded throughout the country, leaving in its stride a flood of pain, anguish, hunger and death. Imagine the supine, banal and vapid solution that has been offered to contain it when the horse has already bolted from the stable.

Worse still, indications are that there are many more of such faux pass where that came from, as evidence of groping in the dark, has become the major imprimatur of the last three months. Like handing over the job of piloting a plane to a cobbler, nobody seems to know what to do.

As flood from the dike began to drown everything in sight from that singular move, the first step was the wackiest proposal that he would release N8,000 to the “poorest of poor Nigerians.” No data, no clear idea of the target is. Just empty words that would neither scratch the surface of the problem, assuming the money really got to anyone in the first place, nor make the littlest impact.

Now, it became obvious that the completely asinine move would fall flat on its face, another one banger, has just been released. We’re being told of how, this time, N180billion would be released as a panacea. Guess what the money would be used for! Five trailers of rice for each of the 36 states of the federation, N5billion for them to procure 100,000 bags of rice and other palliatives.

Now, ask where this rice would come from? Does Nigeria have the capacity to produce a quarter of the quantity of rice needed for this project? In the end, it would be a fresh chase for foreign exchange as the states take a recourse to importation, again, assuming that the governors would not pocket the money.

Now, has anyone heard Tinubu, or any of his officials speak strongly about corruption? Has anyone heard him proffer solutions on how the oil thieves in the Niger Delta could be stopped and oil production upped to such a level that Nigeria would meet its quota at the international oil market?

No! Never! But who is not aware that Nigeria is emphatically the only oil producing country in the world that is not benefitting from the ongoing war in Ukraine? Have you heard him, in all the discussions going on about subsidy and or lack of it, talk about the restoration of the four refineries in Nigeria? Again, who is not aware that Nigeria is the only oil producing nation in the whole wide world without a functional refinery?

Certainly, those are no-go areas. Why? That is where the vested interests operate – those responsible for the calamity that has befallen Nigeria today – the actual devils in the room. Solve the corruption in the two critical areas of the economy and half of the problems is gone.

Ask many of the billionaires in Nigeria today their sources of sudden wealth and the ready answer would be – oil and gas? Doing what? You would meet a brick wall. But you need not be told that in there lies the metaphor for mindless pillaging of the national economy. When someone tells you that crude oil is not a piece of sweet or biscuit that you could steal from a shelf, the question is why would it persist for a second with the right government in place?

Why is it impossible to ascertain and peg the amount of petrol consumed in Nigeria today, which is the real issue behind the entire subsidy debate? But no attempt would ever be made in producing an answer. Would it surprise anyone to learn that these vested interests, the economic leeches, mostly from the Western countries, who have found collaboration with their willing Nigerian enablers were the ones that shut down the server of the INEC server – the glitch, Yakubu spoke about?

Of course, not! Because, a good election and credible result would have produced a different outcome. It means a good leader would emerge, which would ultimately be the end of their vice grip on the soft underbelly of Nigeria’s massive wealth. Bad business!

The twin brother is what has been playing out as the obscene and vulgar display of opulence and luxury you have seen so far. In less than 100 days, you must have noticed the notorious convoys of both the President and those of the leadership of the National Assembly. Tinubu and Godswill Akpabio, Senate President seem to be in competition of who would have the longest and most wasteful motorcades in Nigeria. Even Tajudeen Abbas, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and other principal officers of the House, have also joined in the lewd game.

You have heard about how the National Assembly carved out N110billion from the N819.5billion for themselves – N70billion for “to support the working conditions of members” with another N40bllion to purchase Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) for them. This was at the same time, 12 million so-called poorest of the poor Nigerians were to be given N8,000 monthly as palliatives.

In other words, while each of the 469 members would go home with at least N228.7million in just one instance, 12 million others would get N24,000 in six months. What could be more guttering? That is what Tinubu and his team call palliatives. But for Nigerians who shouted blue murder, that parlous offering would have passed. Now, what has it been replaced with? Imagine five trailer-loads of rice standing at Agege Market? How far would that go for the residents, not to talk about the entire Lagos?

Yet, that is what a thinking government, is proposing as its magic wand to take hunger off the people. Of course even the imbecile would know what would happen to the N5billion the state governments would be given. In the end, even the poor old woman in the village that was supposed to get the N8,000 would be lucky to get a quarter of that.

The next stage of the flogging is actually doing press-up somewhere within the Aso Rock Villa precinct. The so-called palliatives are just to lullaby you for now, because the petitions at the PEPT are still waiting. Nobody would probably talk about that soon. Wait for the heist of February 25 to be certified. Then you will discover that the words of the biblical Rehoboam to burden the people further is not just for the Israelites.

Yes! While Buhari’s burden was to flog Nigerians with whips, Tinubu is actually coming with snakes and scorpions. For one, nobody with the mindset to appoint 48 ministers, populated by known economic brigands including former governors whose record was to lay heavy yokes on their people, would do less.

How could he? With the crowd in Abuja, where each member of the cabal has already fixing a pipe and taken a vantage position to start milking the commonwealth? And for all these, the common binding factor is captured in one word – Greed. Uncontrollable desire to acquire more and more of what they never need.

For instance, check the garages of the NASS members who are angling for new SUVs. You would find that there are so many cars that are under cover and have not been driven for years. Yet, their desire is to add more. What else could anyone call it? Yet again, the picture pales to insignificance to what would happen in the executive branch. Else, what would make a Senator abandon the job of representing his people where it matters most after an intense electoral process to take up a ministerial position? Imagine a US senator leaving the job of a congressman to take up an appointment in a cabinet.

Yes! If indeed Tinubu is thinking about how to pull Nigeria out of the economic and social nadir, where Buhari plunged it in his disastrous eight years, would he be thinking of leading Nigeria to a war in Niger? Certainly not! Don’t forget that Nigeria currently wears the unenviable crown of the poverty capital of the world.

Yet in that war under the guise of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Nigeria would be providing close to 80 per cent, if not more of the resources needed in that war which could run into hundreds of billions of naira if not trillions, if the ECOMOG experience of former military President, Ibrahim Babangida is the template to go by.

More regrettable, on a closer look is that the war itself has little or nothing to do with the main motive for it, which is to restore democracy in Niger, where a military junta recently sacked Muhamed Bazoum, elected in 2021. Instead, it has more of a proxy war for the West – US and France, believed to be pulling the string from Washington and Paris for the reason of their own obvious interests.

To fix Nigeria does not need any special sophistication. The solution is clear like the image on a bright wall. One – fix corruption. Plug all the loopholes from where the huge resources of Nigeria escape. The revenue husbandry therefrom would generate a pool of funds capable of leading to a new burst of economic energy similar to picture of decades ago when Nigeria was a huge construction site with chimneys from the various factories, busy emitting smokes.

Two – fix greed. What is wrong if a Nigerian government official owns one car? Those who watched the welcome party for Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on her first day in office would probably have been taken aback when she arrived in one simple sedan – not even an SUV instead of a convoy. Did it take anything away from her high office?

This Monday, August 21, 2023, 45 ministers would be taking charge of Nigeria as Tinubu’s foot-soldiers. Do they look like those that would keep their fingers off the public till as to save up money to build the financial power bank needed to reignite the economy? Do their pasts suggest those who could drive in one car to their offices and in the streets? How many of them have you seen mixing up with people and engaging with them? Elsewhere, do you not see leaders riding bicycles to their offices or taking trains? Does the governor of California, whose economy is 10 times bigger than Nigeria drive to office in a convoy?

So, if you thought that for one moment that the Tinubu men would give Nigeria the leeway for climbing out of the hole it has found itself over the recent years, you would be in for a long thing, as it is said. It would be worse if you thought that Tinubu really cares. The President capable of any magic is the one with the propensity to shed weight and give his government a haircut. Is Tinubu prepared to do that? The answer is out there already.

Soon, you would discover that just like Buhari, whose capacity, mindset and calling ought not have taken him beyond the position of Emir of Daura, Tinubu with all his claims of a thinker and a doer, does not have any business being at the Villa as President of Nigeria. And that is putting it mildly.

Muhammadu Buhari hates Ndigbo. Buhari, until May 29, this year, Nigeria’s President for eight years from May 29, 2015, never made any bones about it nor had apologies to anybody. It was obvious that his sentiments were deap-seated. It must have been an offshoot of what Femi Fani-Kayode once described in one of his outings, some years back.

The former Minister of Aviation, in a video of his encounter with the former President, narrated how he swore never to forgive Ndigbo, because, as he said, “they killed our leaders.” He was obviously referring to the January 15 coup that claimed the lives of former Prime Minister, Tafawa Balewa, Sarduana of Sokoto, Ahmadu Bello and some other leaders in the putsch that was allegedly led by the late Colonel Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu.

Despite that the North had had ample opportunities to retaliate at various times, first with the counter-coup of September 29 of the same year, the pogrom that followed the civil war, where about three million Igbo were slaughtered and others allowed to die in hunger and disease, as well as the various riots that had taken place in their region, subsequently, Buhari, who was actually one of the soldiers, who was used to vent the anger of his people in retaliation, as a civil war veteran, seems not assuaged.

It was evident in his eight years in office, where the Igbo was handed the short end of the stick. In fact, that an Igbo man did not become President in 2023, was the high-point of his agenda for Ndigbo. Indeed, it would have been as tasking as moving Mount Kilimanjaro with bare hands for an Igbo man to have replaced Buhari. There was no way it would have been possible before his very eyes.

It would have defeated the essence of what he lived for in his entire adult life. So, whatever happened to Peter Obi, who evidently won that election, had the imprimatur of Buhari, than it had to do with Yakubu Mahmood and his Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) or the All Progressives Congress (APC) thugs in Lagos or ex-Governor Nyesom Wike’s arrangement for policemen to move ballot boxes in Rivers. Without Buhari’s malevolent attitude to Ndigbo, things would obviously have turned out differently.

But nowhere else, was Buhari’s sentiments for the Igbo more demonstrable than in his handling of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) saga. That was where he demonstrated the rare quality of a quintessential soldier and a strategist. His trapping and abduction of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the group, is one that needed the release of several cannons to celebrate his deep thinking and prowess as a soldier.

Many people must have been wondering how he achieved the feat. But the answer to the jigsaw puzzle did not come until recent unfolding events. The recent unravelling of Muhajideen Dokubo Asari and the revelations he made, has led to what seems a watertight theory that could only be defeated by a more concrete contrary evidence. It is to the effect that the leader of the Niger Delta Volunteer Force (NDVF), played a key role in this.

Recall that Kanu once teamed up with the NDVF boss for the IPOB self-determination project. This was the time Asari swore to the world that he was first Igbo before anything including Ijaw. What is not known is whether it was a decoy to worm himself to Kanu or that his sentiments were actually genuine until he was reached to sell out. What is known is that the pact between the two eventually broke down with each one vowing to get the other. Recall how Kanu, revealed that he gave the Niger Delta militant a whopping N100million for his efforts, which he blew, before turning against the IPOB project.

But even with the breaking of the relationship, it was too late. Enough damage had been done to enable Kanu to insulate himself completely. For one, he must have disclosed the inner secrets of IPOB and by their association, Asari, must have gotten enough knowledge of some key figures close to Kau, no doubt, Simon Ekpa, an indigene of Ebony State, an APC state. All he needed was to identify those pliable ones willing to play ball and with the dangling of bundles of dollar notes, which must have had in abundance from his sponsors, it was easy to squeal on the target.

Thus, with a well hatched plot, the IPOB boss was finally trapped in Kenya, and delivered to the waiting hands of the Buhari men. Of course the reward of good work is more work, as they say. Having delivered very well, it was time to move further – the total annihilation of the true IPOB set up by Kanu. With the IPOB boss now firmly out of circulation, it was easy.

The only way to do this, following the huge support the group enjoyed in the South East was to give it a bad name. This was where Ekpa came in. As a trusted ally to Kanu, whom he had ordered IPOB faithful to listen to, he was clearly fit for purpose for the task. So, while Asari had the gun, Ekpa had his phone camera to record propaganda messages.

It was a tripartite arrangement. Ekpa churns out sit-at-home order, Asari’s men enforce it and the sponsors trumpeting the message that Ndigbo are killing themselves. Thus, nobody would ever hear that while the attacks – carnages unleashed on the citizens, burning local government headquarters, INEC offices, police facilities, be it the zone 13 headquarters of Ukpo, Anambra State, or Imo State Police headquarters in Owerri or any other related crimes, the perpetrators were ever rounded up on the spot.

The nearest anyone would hear or see are either videos of people “confessing” or dead bodies of those killed during “raids.” End of the matter. Nobody ever witnessed a court session where IPOB members allegedly captured in operation are put on trial in a regular law court and evidence adduced to him to elicit clear punishment under the rule of law.

Now, having worked effectively with Buhari, as he himself confessed, he seemed to have turned to Tinubu, apparently to negotiate a new contract or perhaps, extend the preceding one. There is no doubt that this is all his recent outings are for. Of course, he makes no bones about his relationship with President Bola Tinubu, Buhari’s successor. He has already visited the President at the Villa to underscore this and even used the platform, with the Nigerian Coat of Arm embossed on his seat to make his pitch.

For instance, apart from discrediting the Nigerian military and boasting of how his own men whom he recruited to work in parts of the country actually did the job of degrading in the onslaught of insurgents in his areas of duty, he had also made videos depicting him as ready to work with the President in further punishing the Igbo, his supposed current enemy.

After making a video a few weeks back, brandishing his latest weapons and practically threatening the Igbo, his latest move was to showcase his men he had not only trained to defend the President, but crush his enemies, which are no doubt the Igbo. Not surprising, in another video, he had also warned that Kanu must never be released, while urging that the Igbo should be left alone to “kill themselves!” How convenient!

Of course, the reason for demanding that Kanu should not be released, ought not surprise anyone. With the arrangement he probably has with Ekpa, Kanu’s release would definitely destroy his pot of soup. In a state of flux that he has created, the words of Emma Powerful, the official voice of the Kanu IPOB, since recognised its spokesman, no longer counts. Even when the IPOB spokesman, gives the official position that the group did not order the evil sit-at-home, it is easily ignored because Ekpa’s own version would come with power of cohesion through the guns.

Daily, the IPOB authentic IPOB, has laboured together with Kanu to give the correct picture that they are either responsible or in support of the onslaught against the Igbo people in their name, all to no avail. The latest is the handwritten letter, unveiled on Friday, July 28, where the IPOB boss in his own handwriting ordered the stop of the sit-at-home. That too is discountenanced by Ekpa and his group, who brushed it aside and released another sit-at-home order for two weeks, which, of course he is sure would be observed because his enforcers would be prowling around during the period.

Now, would Tinubu nibble at the bait or even swallow it? That is the question. It would be the greatest tragedy if he does, because the result would be quite grave. In the first place, outside politics and the need to preserve himself in power, the President, does not seem to have any primordial beef with Ndigbo, unlike Buhari.

So, it would be suicidal on many grounds for him to toe the step of his predecessor or follow his route. For one, it would effectively put paid to his touted political wizardry and deep thinking capacity, because there is really nothing to gain, but accumulation of more evil baggage, as has been shown in Buhari’s own case of leaving office in infamy, having left the business of governance to settle scores with real and imaginary enemies.

Has the Fulani hegemony he spent his eight years trying to enthrone in Nigeria succeeded? Instead, despite the huge credit he came into office with as Nigeria’s messiah, he left with the unenviable trophy of the worst President Nigeria has ever seen, with even his people his government was all about, badly hit to the extent that speculations are rife that he has been confined to constantly looking behind his back today even among his people. How sad!

While Buhari, for the already established reasons, would not mind the pool of blood of Ndigbo following him to Daura, his home town or even Niger, his alternative home, Tinubu would have a lot to contend with should he allow himself to be hoodwinked into the thinking that the Igbo are such an enemy that must equally pay with their blood. For one, who already has a lot of baggage, the outcome will not only be grave, but fatal.

On February 9, 2015, there was a sort of chaos at the conference room of the Presidential Villa, Abuja. It was a revolt carried out by reporters covering the Presidency. For the first time in the history of journalism in Nigeria, there were open confrontation against between the source and the recipients of news – a conduct anyone with the littlest classroom knowledge about journalism would not only find totally unprofessional, but reprehensible.

What was in issue? Doyin Okupe, Senior Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan, as he then was, had pinched the retinue of reporters seated before him with a needle at a point they found unbearable. Apparently unaware of what was before him, he had made a definite statement that General Muhammadu Buhari, as he then was, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), would not win the election that was scheduled for February 23 – just 14 days away.

With that statement, he practically touched the tiger’s tail. The reaction was spontaneous. The room erupted in an almost riotous situation as his audience practically threw their practice out of the window and in a conduct – never permissible – shouted him down. Some even poked fingers in his face, daring him to do his worst.

For anyone conversant with the peculiar nature of coverage at the Villa and the conduct expected of the media men, known as State House Correspondents, the development, was not only strange, but the height of audaciousness. In the first place, the rule book allows journalists to ask questions, tough questions as far as they could, but NEVER to step into the gallery, taking sides or betraying their bias. The penalty for such could be huge back home in the newsroom, where the editors would be waiting.

But in this instance, it was the case of the child whose father sent to steal, that smashes the door with his feet. Who would carry out the sanction? The editors? No! Long before, they had taken the lead in taking the same route. They not only betrayed their own bias, but did so unapologetically and unabashedly.

What is more? They may have even been the instigators to the outlandish behaviour their reporters carried out, for all anyone could know. In fact, doing otherwise, could have given their eyes and ears at the Villa as supporters of the Jonathan Government, which was not only a sort of hara-kiri, but one that was fitted for a fatwa, deserving of a red ink.

The situation appeared even worse with the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs). Led by prominent Nigerians who championed the various socio-political struggles that led to the return to civilian rule and their patrons, whose voices boomed beyond the shores of the country to attract international attention, virtually all of them lined up behind Buhari, again, boldly and brazenly.

It was therefore no surprising the ululation that erupted in the two critical circles when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), announced Buhari the winner of the election on April 1. In fact, not even Jonathan conceding defeat, a historic act that has remained unprecedented, not only in Nigeria, but in Africa and even beyond, mitigated his case.

The volcano of anger against him, was simply too severe as to be cooled by such a gesture. Whatever remained of the venom stored in their glands were unleashed mercilessly. Editorials fell upon themselves, while analyses fell over themselves. Various images, including one depicting him as the Otueke Drunken Man, heading home with his belongings on his head, were conjured to complete the entire mocking narratives.

Then enter Buhari, the new messiah. Initially, it was heralded with fanfare and endless hypes. There was a period of Body Language. Then, everybody began to look at each other. Though the ululations continued in the expected quarters, particularly APC, and obviously among the traditional cheerleaders – Any Government in Power (AGIP), the murmuring among the more prudent and stable quarters, including the media and CSOs, as they began to read the signs with the dark cloud beginning to encircle the horizon, showed that they knew that danger was nigh.

That was when they were expected to have picked up the gauntlets from where they left them during the Jonathan war. But that route appeared closed or substantially unattractive. Why? Shame? Intimidation? Blackmail? Vested interests? All came into the mix and many more. It might also be a case of going too far into the Buhari Project, that retreat was impossible or that there were still some layer of hope for the better.

The result was, apart from some few established media houses that actual went frontal against the former President and his party, the usually fearless and vibrant Nigerian media that practically confronted moving trains that were the military and their apologists, went on holidays. It was even worse with the CSOs. In their own case, it was probably a case of dogs do not eat dogs syndrome that set in. What with the APC harbouring within its leadership echelon veterans of the pro-democracy movement, with whom they were either in the trenches or exiles together.

The result was for the eight years of Buhari, all the faulty steps, deliberate and intentional, were greeted with either heavy silence or in some rare cases, occasional commentaries, with the obvious discontents couched in carefully-chosen words, coated in such a manner that even the whimpering of wounded puppy could have been more effective.

Or did it surprise anyone that for the eight years the APC was in power, neither the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress (TUC) never that usually seized the momentum, never called a strike for one day. What could be stranger than that?

The only major shakeup the Buhari government got, was organised by Nigerian youths who practically used the #EndSARS protests to try to save themselves from the looming danger of being exterminated by not only security operatives, particularly the police, but also to protest the bad government policies that were churned out on daily basis. Even in this singular effort, the CSOs were missing.

While the traditional media, which ought to have championed the initiatives, could not be totally waved aside in the entire engagement, having played a significant role, they only managed to trail behind. The major battle was fought in the social media, coordinated by the youths, who seized the moment and directed it their own way.

But even after that singular effort, how far did the two critical entities go? Did the CSOs not continue snoring in their cocoons like lazy fat cats that ate too much oil? How much challenge did the media give to Buhari? Where was that crowd that almost threw chairs and tables to Okupe and his master, Jonathan?

Not a few believe that if Buhari had received less than a quarter of the heat of the criticisms meted out to his predecessor or even former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the monumental damage disaster his era wrought on Nigeria would have been mitigated by far. No matter how bizarre or outlandish, there was always a means of deodorising every mess.

What could be funnier than the farmer-herder crisis expression employed as baptism to sedate the import of the outright slaughter and butchery of citizens by Fulani herdsmen in many parts of the country? Apparently, the fear of giving offence to the government, whose goons, coined the expression, superseded the need to stand up to facts on ground. To say that Buhari got away with blue murder under the nose of the tiger brand Nigerian media, would be an understatement.

It was under Buhari that Ibrahim Magu served for years in office as Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) without confirmation by the Senate. It was in that regime that operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) invaded the homes of Supreme Court judges in the dead of the night and their lordships sprung off their beds, some stark naked.

Buhari got away with increase in pump price of petrol. He got away with a record of 98,083 Nigerians killed by bandits and terrorists under his watch. He got away with Nigeria descending to the nadir of economic degeneration, becoming the poverty capital of the world. He got away with $19billion sunk into the nation’s refineries without a drop of refined crude coming out of any of them. He crowned it all with delivering the worst election in the history of Nigeria.

It was under Buhari that the buildup to the cock and bull stories about the unsustainability of the subsidy regime gained the intensity and extra verve that led to what Nigerians are experiencing today. It was against the backdrop of the big, fat lies that Nigerians have been told that led to President Bola Tinubu, out of sheer brain-waive, announce the removal of subsidy, ad-lib at his inauguration on May 29.

Suddenly, everybody is now trumpeting the song that subsidy is the devil in the room rather than the managers of the project. Who says that Nigeria cannot sustain subsidy? The only way it would seem impossible is because the customs officer that has just been posted at the border sees it as an opportunity to make money, because he is in competition with his classmate who had just been elected into the National Assembly on who would build more houses across the country and drive the most exotic cars minted from factories in Europe and Asia.

In the same way, subsidy will be impossible because the desk clerk at the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), would want to build more mansions in Abuja and elsewhere as well as travel to London with a private jet to take evening coffee after work in the evening after tripling the figures of the amount of petrol actually imported. Subsidy will remain impossible because the direct sale, direct purchase system where Nigeria exchanges crude oil for refined products, has remained a dark book, where nobody is required to look into except those in charge.

Pray! Why should the issue of palliatives dominate discussions in the Nigerian media more than questions about why the NNPC, which as at the last count, sunk another $1.5billion into the revamping of the Port Harcourt refinery? Why is the emphasis not on the whereabouts of the billions of dollars sunk in the refinery projects? Why are the basic questions not being asked? Have the Nigerian media and the CSOs become so lazy as not to know that they are being led by the nose and that where they are going would lead to a cul-de-sac?

But no! It seems more plausible that one analyst after the other appears on television to argue about the crumps being thrown to Nigerians as “palliatives” while leaving the substance which is that subsidy as a policy is not impossible, only that those managing it are the devil in the room.

The question is, why are the Nigerian media not holding the beaming their searchlight into the posterior of the APC government as it did with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) starting from Obasanjo to Jonathan? Why adopt this passive, prudent and reticent attitude of see nothing, say nothing? Why chasing shadows rather than substance? Tragedy!