Editorial
Like Buhari, Tinubu has no business in Aso Rock
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.
It began less than 10 minutes after taking the oath of office. In his address to the nation, he uttered those three-letter words – subsidy is gone. The ink with which he signed the documents declaring him President was yet to dry.
That was it. From that moment, Nigerians have known nothing but poverty, tears and death. It was a declaration that came out of impulse rather than articulacy. It was not even contained in his original speech prepared for the occasion. But it sprouted out – from a rash, unthinking and impetuous mental construct.
But the effect was instant, the impact direct. From that moment, Nigerians have never known peace. Every thing took a cue. Minutes after, the news broke that the price of Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise known as petrol had jumped from N189 to N550. It was that instant. Today, it hovers around N1,500.
The effect: Within minutes, transportation cost quadrupled. So too, commodity prices. Caught unawares, marketers, who had earlier thought it was a day of the rains as customers rushed to their shops, soon became suspicious and then got wiser – these were not ordinary customers but smart alecs playing a fast one on them.
They stopped selling, retrieved the items they could from those who had not disappeared with their goods and closed shop to study the situation properly. Hours after, they responded. A plate of eba and soup, went up from N200 to N1,000. Prices hit the rooftops.
In fact, the vehicle transporting what used to be Nigeria, which had been moving at a horse and buggy pace in the days of Muhammadu Buhari, stopped abruptly, engaged the reverse gear and began galloping backwards. That has remained the ugly, parlous tale of the Tinubu days, since May 29, 2023.
Now, the expectation would be that the President and his government that wrought such a horrendous punishment on the polity, would themselves take some blows. But nada! Instead, the opposite was the case. Within months of plunging the citizens into the untold hardship Tinubu went on a binge, spending money – in the words of Olusegun Obasanjo, former President – like a drunken sailor.
Few weeks after, as Nigerians were reeling and gasping in pain from the impact of their new situation, 469 newly-minted Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs), rolled out from factories in Japan, where they were produced into the premises of the National Assembly for the just inaugurated members.
Put the cost at N100billion – that is N160million for each unit, plus other charges. Reason: The lawmakers needed the vehicles because of their good suspension system, to navigate the so many bad roads in Nigeria. Yes, you heard right. How could they think well and make good laws after the hassles of the bad roads? Tinubu saw reasons, acquiesced and voila!
But it did not end there. Tinubu suddenly realised that Kashim Shettima, his deputy, needed a new home “befitting” his new office. Pronto! A voucher of N21billion was raised and he had it. Till date a haze still hovers over the project.
The last news that was heard was that Number Two refused to take residence because the entire environment, including the toilets was wired to the teeth to monitor him. And Number Two needed privacy.
Again, in the same weeks, Oga Patapata, also realised that Madam needed to transport more comfortably. Pronto! It was arranged. Another voucher was raised for cars for the Office of the First Lady. Cost N1.2billion. Of course, madam needed the comfort for peace at home.
Naturally, since transportation is not done by land alone, he also took care of that. For the sea, a yacht was procured. Cost N5billion. Because the birds in the presidential fleet were not good enough, Tinubu did the needful.
He enriched the fleet with the one befitting of his status and had it transformed to mimic the US Air Force One. To complete the status symbol project, he also added a replica of The Beast, the US presidential automobile.
Ironically, the funds used in procuring these luxury lifestyle, came, not out of productive ventures of Nigeria, but through borrowing. Today, Tinubu has practically borrowed Nigeria blind, doubling or even tripling that of his predecessors.
Meanwhile Nigerians had upped the ante from mere groaning and skreiching. Citizens, unable to take it anymore, now stop their hitherto sleek vehicles on the Third Mainland Bridge and plunge into the Lagos lagoon to end it all. The option is now more rampant than remote and occasional.
Many others, taking the Socrates option, now drink hemlock and many more simply sleep off without any intention of waking up. That is where we are. That is the new Nigeria – the Tinubu Nigeria. But there is more.
Terrorists and the landlords of the forest, having now discovered that the Commander-in-Chief has other fancies than security and welfare of the people – the constitutionally-declared primary purpose of government and scant regard for the citizens, have practically gone haywire. They have taken over and established their authority.
Presently, outside those wantonly slaughtered or butchered in their homes like animals at the abattoir, incinerated alive while sleeping on their beds, among other forms of decimation, many more citizens are now spending months, going to years as victims of captivity with them in various forests in Nigeria.
In their rampage, the terrorists have since broken all barriers considered out of place hitherto. One of their escapades is the present videos of the school children and teachers taken from Oyo State. The gory imagery captures the current Nigerian story.
For instance, on Thursday, just as the sound of heavy celebration was going on in neighbouring Ogun State as the world marked the Ojude Oba yearly carnival, two of the victims, one of them with a toddler on her back, were pleading for their lives, as others went through various forms of torture, including heavy whipping like beasts.
Don’t forget that the terrorists had earlier slaughtered one of their colleagues. In the new video, the totally terrified women, informed that they had chosen another victim to be similarly eliminated. Yet, no word about rescue! Terrible!
Interestingly, if not painfully, Tinubu’s response, in the few cases he bothered, was to see the crisis through the politics lens. His most recent reaction was to tell the world that the harvest of attacks and carnages ravaging the country, were sponsored by his political enemies, intent on shoving him out of power. That to him was all that mattered.
Now, where are your powers as C-in-C? They are mostly found in the most disgraceful economic and political acts of impunity. Nigerians now waking up to hear of the award of brain-dazing contracts such as the N15trillion Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Badagry-Maiduguri Highway – with scant regard for official regulations, is now becoming more common than rare.
Few days after one of the teachers was beheaded and the video of the hideous act made to circulate on the social media, the President and his All Progressives Congress (APC), party, rolled out the drums of his winning the party’s ticket to contest the 2027 presidential election.
To say that it has been three years of weeping, wailing, mourning and gnashing of the teeth, is a clear euphemism. There is no starker way of putting it than calamity – pure, unmitigated catastrophe – disaster.
Then comes the big question. Nigeria is already breasting the tape of these ruinous years of the first term. Suppose Tinubu succeeds in renewing his tenure by January next year? Will Nigeria survive five more years of a life like the last three? What will be left of Nigeria? Is there a way out, outside shouting – God forbid!?
Now that Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has fully executed his plot against Siminalayi Fubara, Governor of Rivers State, where would it be placed in terms of identity, nuances, ethos and history? Where would it be placed in democratic arrangement and value? In other word, by what name would it be called?
So, this is what President Bola Tinubu’s much-advertised democratic credentials is all about? This is what being listed among the arrowheads in the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), the body that fought relentlessly against the late Sani Abacha and his henchmen has finally come to?
Is this where “The Last Man Standing” – apologies Tony Elumelu – has ended up? So, after wedging an epic battle for and through Lagos State, against then President Obasanjo and practically defeating him, even if perceptibly, in all the struggles – such as running government without federal allocation for years and surviving the political onslaught that took away other South West states like a tsunami, it has come to this?
Don’t forget that it was this selfsame Tinubu that served as the bastion of opposition in Nigerian politics from when he was Governor of Lagos State, not only standing up against Obasanjo, but undertaking the relentless battles that led to the All Progressives Congress (APC), winning the war eventually in 2015.
So, this is what all the struggles, the speeches, the colloquia, the meetings and the strategies have come to – the end result? So, the definition of democracy, to Tinubu, is selling the dog to buy a monkey – replacing democratic bad-behaviour with democratic-heist? So, this is it?!
Make no mistake about it. What you saw play out in Rivers is nothing but Tinubu at work. It is all about him, it is for him. Never make the mistake of adorning Wike in the toga of a powerful man. That would be a fatal error of judgement. Every power he exercises, real, imagined, inferred or contingent belong to and are exclusive to Tinubu.
Take away the President and Wike would turn to a political meek-lamb or a jellyfish. Fubara would have eaten him for lunch a long time ago. So, Tinubu it is – the reason the klieglights must be beamed on him. That is why he must carry the can in this odious construct in Rivers in particular and the entire Nigerian political scenario in general.
With the picture that assaulted Nigeria regarding the APC primaries that have just held, what is different from the edition we saw in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of old? Is it not worse or the worst in real and imagined terms? What then has Tinubu been fighting all these years?
Incidentally, where we have Wike today, we had Lamidi Adedibu, the Amala Politics exponent, Tony Aneni of the Mr. Fix-it fame and the Uba brothers in Anambra to whom the political firmament in Nigeria once bowed, among many plethora of examples.
So, there is nothing really new about the development, but for the fresh dimension that has been introduced into the narrative by the Wike phenomenon, which is totally novel. Before now it was a case of one behemoth in a political party rampaging the system.
But today, it has gone beyond that. Wike has developed the penchant for taking no prisoners. In his own strange construct, he has now coalesced the entire APC and PDP structure into his shoulder basket, from where he dispenses favours.
Imagine Kingsley Chinda, purchasing APC governorship election form, as a PDP federal lawmaker without first resigning from his original party. That is how wacky it has become. Wackier still is that nobody – not even the APC apparatchik has been able to raise a finger. Why? Obvious answer – the Tinubu factor.
Now, here is the danger. By the heist in Port Harcourt adding to the sequence of political oddities and absurdities since the Tinubu years, it has become obvious that Nigeria is headed towards a Paul Biya’s Cameroun, a Yoweri Musaveni’s Uganda and Zimbabwe under the late Robert Mugabe.
Tinubu, has shown obvious incapacity to tackle the parlous economic crisis in the country with 150 million Nigerians plunged into multidimensional poverty and many more growing the list daily, while also displaying uncommon powerlessness towards addressing the debilitating state of insecurity.
Under his nose citizens are daily being forced from their homes into the forests by terrorists, with some of them taken from their crutching positions, positioned before the camera and slaughtered – heads cut off like animals at an abattoir and video images freely displayed on social media.
Yet, by what has now happened in Rivers State, it has become obvious that Nigerians are not being factored into the whole equation and if they were, scant regard is paid to their opinion, ending in their powerlessness to change the situation. That is the tragedy!
In the early hours of Monday, January 26, 2026, Charles Chukwuma Soludo, stormed Onitsha Main Market, reputed to be the biggest enclave for trading and other commercial activities in West Africa, on what he called on-the-spot assessment.
It was a military-style display, reminiscent of the Muhammadu Buhari-Tunde Idiagbon, best-forgotten taskforce days, when soldiers, without warning swooped on markets, broke into their owner’s shops and practically sold available goods to the public at giveaway prices – many their cronies, in the guise of forcing their Essential Commodities policy.
In like manner there and then, the governor ordered the immediate closure of the market after accusing the traders of harbouring criminal intents and engaging in economic sabotage that costs the state a whopping N8billion in lost revenues. To boot, he even warned not only to close the market on a permanent basis, but if need be, even bulldoze it to the ground, should the traders remained recalcitrant in their decision.
Hear him: “Each Monday, we’ll come and inspect. If people are not in their respective shops, it will be shut down again. If you like I don’t mind shutting down this Main Market for the remainder of this year. If you don’t like it, go elsewhere and trade, but if you’re here, we’re not going to allow this plain economic sabotage. Also, we suspect whoever closes their shops to have some criminal intents.”
From the outset, we must state that what the world saw in that spontaneous encounter and subsequent days as the issues therein remained on the front burner, has little place in democracy, neither does it reflect sound, people-oriented leadership under the ethos of what has now been accepted across the globe as the best form of government.
Now, the last time we checked, Soludo is neither a military General nor even a soldier, but a highly-decorated academic, whose influence in the knowledge industry spans beyond education institutions, government – he was formally Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) – to international reckoning – consulting for some of the highest global bodies, including the United Nations.
Now, how does this selfsame global icon, reduce himself to a local dictator, dishing out orders as in regimental commands rather than employing that power of persuasion, which distinguishes brainpower – the emblematic factor of his training from raw strength of dictators in the gun business?
How does it fit? Do concepts like immediate effect and automatic alacrity form part of the recommendations Soludo makes to those global institutions he consulted for? Certainly no! So, why introduce them as his own governance template? That is the confusing, if not the disturbing part.
Is it not becoming clearer now? Is this military-style tendency not finding expression in the audacity captured in that ghoulish spectacle last year, where one Jennifer Elohor Edema, the young lady serving Nigeria under the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme, was stripped down to her birthday suit by some youths, visibly inebriated on influences of some brain-damaging substances, who were working for Soludo’s government?
By the way, when last did anyone hear anything about those criminals, outside the initial apparent crocodile tears at government places in Awka? Has anyone heard of any form of punishment? Have they been arraigned in court? If yes, what is the state of the trial?
In the instant case, we particularly detest the governor’s attempt to feign ignorance of the issues behind the conduct of the traders or his efforts to bury them under the veneer of righteous anger. To so do is deceitful, arrogant, if not self-serving – elements that seem to have, so unfortunately, formed part of the governance structure in Anambra State, as in most other states across the country, including the central government.
The issue here, if Soludo needs be reminded, is about the fate of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), currently serving life sentence at a facility in Sokoto, to where he was sent by Justice James Omotoso of the Federal High Court, Abuja.
Of course, the governor was right in claiming that the dangerous security situation in the state has changed for the better and that Anambra is no longer the killing field it was until recently. Obviously, the blood-thirsty terrorists responsible for the carnages witnessed in the state, including those ostensibly aimed at enforcement of the sit at home orders, seem to be on holiday and from the look of things are no longer returning.
So, if the governor says security or insecurity of the traders is no longer the big issue, he has a foundation to so state. At least for the first time in recent years, Christmas was celebrated in the entire Igboland with the usual fanfare under the robust atmosphere devoid of fear. That alone gives credence to the extent of these changes.
But that is not the end of the story. Kanu’s fresh ordeal seems to have introduced a new chapter to the entire saga. Now, the current sit-at-home option appears no longer out of fear of being attacked or killed, but the willingness of the traders to donate every Monday, in solidarity with the IPOB leader. This was evident in the Tuesday demonstration, where the message of the traders who thronged the streets of Onitsha, was clearly delivered with renditions like – Nnamdi Kanu is another saviour.
Therefore, Soludo, must be a complete novice or pathologically naïve to claim he is not aware of this new sentiment. But he is neither of the two. There is no way the governor would not have been seized of the compelling emotions around him.
So, for him to put up that show on Monday, is nothing but a gambit tailored towards gaslighting the public. His feigned anger against the traders for not opening their shops is as manipulative as it is deceitful, just as argument thereto regarding the economy implications is as puerile as it is spurious.
It is demonstrative of lack of emotional intelligence, as it showcases the absence of the required synergy between the government and the people, a phenomenon that has become characteristic in the South East in recent years, where a huge gulf and trust deficit exist between the people and those who lead them.
It is indeed laughable when South East governors, including Soludo, lay claims to the current calm in Igboland, when on the contrary, many of them are accused of being collaborators, either as active agents of being complicit through their conspiracy of silence.
Who does not know that the late President Muhammadu Buhari, was the vector that transported that killer disease to Igboland? Dan Nwanyanwu, National Chairman of the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), has remained relentless in establishing this fact most pungently in the past and even quite recently.
Soludo, in his chest-beating mode, gives the impression that he somehow sprung a genie out of the magic lamp to create a sudden miracle that turned the parlous security situation around. No! It was the death of Buhari that ended the blitzkrieg in the South East. Simplicita!
Where was this genie when during the Buhari days, when the Aguata Local Government headquarters, where he comes from was razed to the ground or when a swathe of Ihiala and adjoining areas in the state became a hunting ground for the rampaging terrorists, codenamed Unknown Gunmen.
He was only content in the open and shut attitude of dismissing the carnage they wrought as the handiwork of Kanu’s Eastern Security Network (ESN), even when the group swore on their father’s grave that they were not involved.
Indeed, if there is ever going to be anything good in the government of President Bola Tinubu, it is the fact that he is not as hungry for the blood of the Igbo man as Buhari, who never hid the fact of his desire to continue the civil war against Ndigbo, more than 50 years after.
Had Tinubu, who upped the ante in the marginalisation of Ndigbo in many ways, escalated this penchant by toeing the line as part of his continuation of the Buhari legacy, which he promised Nigerians, he might have renewed the military contract Asari Dokubo claimed to have with Buhari.
Yes, though he never revealed details of the so-called contract, its nature could be gleaned from the manner the people were dying wotowotowoto, as the Niger Delta warlord, himself gloated about some years back.
He even backed his gloating up in that viral video, with a display of an AK-47, boasting how he would use the weapon to cure Ndigbo their “madness.” Is it not surprising that in all his public comments, neither Soludo nor his South East colleagues ever mentioned this obvious threat to his people.
So, nobody is deceived by the governor acting like Idi Amin of Uganda, who went berserk because he could not get more money printed from his central bank. Nobody is moved by his threat to even bulldoze that market. He is only being clever by half, if not acting a script.
It does not remove the fact that he and his colleagues suddenly went mute, then and now and remained tongue-tied at a historic moment when Ndigbo are battling to extricate themselves from the soggy, foggy, belly of the whale, like the biblical Jonah, as they are in Nigeria today. It does not belittle the fact that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is a metaphor for that horrible situation.
It is even worse that Soludo, arguably the most intellectually-gifted governor in Nigeria today, would be introducing some ethnic, sectional or indigene-based sentiments into the matter by trumpeting that those pursing the sit at home drive are not from Anambra. What a shame!
Who cares? Instead of such obtuse, infantile, if not asinine suggestion, would it not be more apposite for him to conduct a census in the entire Anambra, Aguata, his local government, Isuofia, his community and even the Soludo family to determine the number of Igbo people that are happy with the fate of not only Kanu, but Ndigbo in the hands of his friends in high authority today?
We hear that the traders have caved in. So, by Monday, expectedly, they would return to their shops – though definitely against their will. Soludo, would have scored another point and proven himself a strong man. But is it not a crab that makes itself king in shallow waters? Times shall tell!
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