Editorial

Supreme Court: Serving death in the temple of justice

Published

2 years ago

January 23, 2024

Out of the lengthy and most times verbose expressions with which cases are determined in court, the only key distillation any right-thinking member of the society is usually concerned with is the popular principle of justice – justice must not only be done, but seen to be done. Anything else are just empty words.

It is quite apposite that the late Chukwudifu Oputa, Justice of the Supreme Court (JSC), as he then was, stretched it more for further and better understanding by propounding and defining the three-way traffic concept – justice must be done to the accused, the accuser and the society.

Now, from foregoing, could any right-thinking member of the Nigerian society, divested of personal biases, look at the verdicts flowing out of the mouth of judges in Nigeria today and pronounce them justice in the context of the principles laid out.

As the late Obiora Nwazota, Justice of the High Court of Anambra State, once explained, right-thinking members of the society should not be sought among fishmongers at Ose Okwodu market in Onitsha. What the principle has in mind is someone with basic education that must have equipped him with some fundamental elements of knowledge, he reasoned.

But even for the purposes of argument, let us include those fishmongers or the women selling fruits and vegetables at Ketu market in Lagos. Would they look at what happened in the 2023 general elections and after linking it with the subsequent court verdicts call the outcomes justice in real terms? That must inform the correct reading of the entire gamut of judicial content of the nation’s democratic package and its assessment at this time.

Now, let us take a critical look at the nature of judgement in giving further impetus and assessment to those verdicts. Did anyone else notice that virtually all the judgements from the Governorship, Houses of Assembly and National Assembly Election Petition Tribunals, the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) and finally the Supreme Court panels, were unanimous? Was it not strange? Was it a mere coincidence that none of the judges dissented at any point with the positions of their colleagues?

How is this possible if indeed there were no external influences and the judges were just thinking and acting on their own? If actually any of the judges wrote a dissenting judgement from the tribunals to the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, it must be an isolated case. So, how is it that the judges would always agree on one issue in the same manner?

Justice Inyang Okoro, in closing on his lead judgement in the case of Atiku Abubakar, challenging the election of President Bola Tinubu, had admonished Nigerians to “always learn to respect the courts.” Of course, the courts must be respected because they have been likened to temples which impose not only total piety from worshippers but obeisance.

But was it not from such a temple that Paul Mackenzie served death to adherents of the Kenyan church – Good News International Ministries – between 2022 and 2023, when he asked and watched them to starve to death in order to meet Jesus?

Was it not from the same temple that Jim Jones, Peoples Temple founder, on November 18, 1978, led hundreds of his followers to a mass murder-suicide at their agricultural commune in a remote part of the South American nation of Guyana when they willingly ingested a poison-laced punch while others were forced to do so at gunpoint, which led, at the final count to the death of 909 souls, a third of them children?

What this means is that death could come from even the most virtuous sanctuaries and respected quarters. Looking at it critically, would anyone boldly and accurately claim that the courts in Nigeria have not served the people death in place of life, in a manner similar to the two cases above and numerous others that may not be reported, by those recent pronouncements?

Come to think of it, death does not come only when the head is cut off or somebody is shot with a gun and dies instantly. There is also slow, painful death, which could result from hunger and disease or psychologically from denial of justice.

Take for instance, when a woman is denied the husband’s properties by the relations or a poor man loses his only piece of land to a rich and powerful village chief who employs a powerful lawyer to defend his atrocity, what kind of life would they live and what kind of death is expected, if not miserable life and slow, painful one?

In the same vein, when a court by its verdict, sanctions and validates the worst election in history, what is the consequence? Look at the picture of Nigeria today. See how the people, whose dreams have been killed are practically being served death on a platter by an oppressive and evil government that have been enthroned. This group of privileged people, with the levers of power are openly, deliberately and wickedly denying the rest the basic needs of life, while they wine and dine in lavish opulence?

More tragic is the suggestion that Nigerians are fools that do not know their left from their right or totally blind to the colour of justice or injustice once the wool is pulled over their eyes. Look at the recent Supreme Court judgement. Anyone could laugh at the inanity of it all. Only an imbecile will fail to notice that the carry-go judgements are mere tokenism to assuage the huge damage already wrought on the polity in the presidential election petition.

Even a plane on autopilot or a programmed robot would not be as placid and monotonic. Even in the worst of times before now, there had always been one or two instances where elections were cancelled, results upturned or fresh polls are ordered. But now, even such face-saving minimum has become too much to allow. The meaning is of course obvious – just get there, press the right buttons and the rest is easy.

Yes! In the worst case scenario, just throw some small bones at them to clutch. Imagine Atiku, jumping around and hugging the same Supreme Court he spared no words to lampoon just a few months back, simply because it reversed the verdict of the Court of Appeal in Plateau State. That is how well they seem to have read the polity.

With Kano, Zamfara and Kaduna finally spared, who is likely to continue talking about those women who went stark naked in Nasarawa State to protest the electoral heist committed against them? Their case has died a natural death. Henceforward Nigeria will move on. Tragic!

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Editorial

Rabe Abubakar et al: Different military, shame of a nation!

Published

2 weeks ago

June 14, 2026

Whirlwindnews

What does Dura community of Dura-Du area of Jos South Local of Area of Plateau State, 2018, Okporo, Ihuoma and Amaifeke communities in the Orlu Local Government Area of Imo State, 2022, and Okuama community of Ughelli South Local Government Area of Delta State 2024 have in common? Do they ring a bell?

Certainly! They are just a few of many demonstrable examples of military anger, recently on display in the Nigerian polity. Here are some details.

In September, 2018, Idris Alkali, was declared missing. The retired Major General of the Nigerian Army, was said to be travelling through Jos, Plateau State to Bauchi when he disappeared.

Reactions: The army came calling! In what they termed “search and rescue operation,” soldiers descended on communities along the route. It was a brutal exercise – the imprimatur of military operations. The youths of the communities, especially Dura-Du area in Jos, virtually disappeared into the bush or scampered out of town to escape the blitzkrieg.

Scores of the unlucky ones who fell into the wide net they cast on the entire area, meant to drag everyone in, regardless of status, were reportedly subjected to some of the most harrowing experiences they might not forget in their lifetimes.

The situation even worsened when the remains of the ex-military top brass was discovered in a disused well in one of the communities. That was when war was actually declared on the people in their bid to fish out the supposed culprits – albeit – military style.

Even after more than four years, the people of Okporo, Ihuoma and Amaifeke communities, are still nursing the physical and psychological wounds they sustained in the hands of the military who came visiting in April 2022.

Their only crime was to be the host of a hot gun battle between soldiers and elements said to be members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), during an ambush, which reportedly left casualties on both sides.

Many reportedly lost their homes and businesses in inferno, as the soldiers who descended on the communities, reportedly set many facilities on fire outside mowing down many residents, who they termed IPOB members.

What about Okuama? The case of the Delta community perhaps the freshest in mind. There, residents are still reeling in the pain inflicted on them in similar circumstances as their counterparts in Plateau and Imo, following the military operations that took place after some 16 personnel, including two officers were reportedly ambushed and killed by natives.

Tukur Gusau, then spokesman of Defence Headquarters (DHQ), Nigeria’s seat of military authorities, who reported that the troops from the 181 Amphibious Battalion were deployed in the Bomadi region and were on a peace-keeping mission in the Okuoma community when they were killed, had indicated that there would be grave consequences.

That promise was kept to the letter, with virtually nobody escaping the wrath of the military, from the ordinary citizens, the community leaders and even the traditional institutions. Even the fishes in the river and trees in the forest of the Niger Delta community, felt the anger of the soldiers.

Now, the question: Where is that anger today? On Saturday, Nigeria and its citizens were dazed from the hangover of another celebration of Democracy Day with the news of Abubakar Rabe, a retired Major General and former spokesman of the Nigerian Army.

The ex-military boss, just retired after more than three decades of service to country, died like an infected chicken in the hands of some rag-tag ruffians, unfit to polish his military boots when he was in service, who took him hostage and detained him in the bush in the last two weeks.

Yes, for two weeks, Rabe, who was abducted alongside his wife while travelling through Katsina, a hotbed of terrorist activities in Nigeria, was kept in the bush in a decrepit condition with signs of obvious failing health quite evident.

There was even a video of him begging the authorities including the Katsina State Government to come to his rescue, all which failed to get any positive result until he eventually took a bow on Friday, the same day the same country he served were celebrating what they termed – Democracy Day. What an irony!

Neither the central government under President Bola Tinubu, Katsina or the military authorities to whom he devoted his youth, could lift a finger to help him, or his wife, whose fate even remains unknown after the sad incident. What a nation!

But Rabe Abubakar is not an isolated case. Maharazu Tsiga (rtd), a Brigadier General and former Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) was abducted by bandits from his hometown in Bakori Local Government Area of Katsina State, spent 56 days in captivity before eventually regaining his freedom, while Rabi’u Garba Yandoto, a retired colonel and two of his children were abducted along the Gusau-Tsafe road in Zamfara State, also spent 10 days in captivity before regaining freedom.

They were the lucky ones. Others who were not that lucky, never lived to tell their story. One of them was Musa Uba. The late Brigadier General, and former Commander of the 25 Task Force Brigade, was leading his men and members of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) when insurgents struck.

The attack, which reportedly happened along the Damboa–Biu axis, led to the killing of four operatives: two soldiers and two CJTF members.

However, Uba, who reportedly escaped the initial ambush, was again encircled by the terrorists as he was communicating with military authorities on how to be rescued and returned to base. He was captured and subsequently killed.

Again, on April 8, 2026, Oseni Omoh Braimah, another Brigadier General Commander of the 29 Task Force Brigade, under Operation Hadin Kai, also met a fatal fate in the hands of the same Boko Haram -ISWAP fighters.

They were said to have launched a coordinated, midnight assaults on military formations in Benisheikh, a strategic town in the Kaga Local Government Area of Borno State.

Before then, Alex Bardeh, a retired Air Vice-Marshal and former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) was killed on December 18, 2018 by hoodlums who attacked his convoy on the Keffi- Kaduna Expressway while he was returning from his farm on the border between Nasarawa State and the Federal Capital Territory.

Ironically, all these tragedies took place under the nose of the All Progressives Congress (APC), a party, which, before assuming power in 2015, had made a song and dance of how they were going to offer Nigerians a breather from what they saw then as the parlous condition of the Nigerian polity, particularly in insecurity.

Interestingly, the government of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which they heavily assailed as incompetent and clueless in arresting the situation, did not count a single case of a General being killed in such a manner.

Today, the terrorists who had hitherto seemed to be acting scared by hitting soft targets and disappearing, now appear quite frontal unfazed.

They no longer limit themselves to civilian targets. Outside kidnapping and outright carnages on civilians, which are now daily stories, they have since upped the ante – hitting even some of the highly-fortified military bases, slaughtering soldiers at will.

After Alex Bardeh, Musa Uba, Omo Braimah and now Abubakar Rabe, the question that seems quite natural now, is who is next? The other question, is where is the notorious Military Anger that kept the polity in check and the nation safe?

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Editorial

Can Nigerians endure another term of Tinubu’s years of poverty, tears and death?

Published

4 weeks ago

May 31, 2026

Whirlwindnews

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!?

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Editorial

Rivers State and Fubara: So, this is the democracy Tinubu boasts about?

Published

1 month ago

May 21, 2026

Whirlwindnews

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!

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