Columns
Samoa Agreement: They gave our fathers mirrors, now, they give us SUVs
By Sunny Igboanugo
Picture this! Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, was Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy (MoF-CoMoTE) in Nigeria. During this period, her official movement was like that of an Arabian monarch. Pomp and circumstances, pomp and pageantry, pomp and ceremonies, whichever is applicable.
It was chaos – blaring sirens, breakneck speeding pilot cars, swerving and dangling along the road with dark-goggled, war-like-well-kitted policemen hanging or perching dangerously on them – a convoy of luxuriant Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs), looking as if freshly-minted from the factories in Japan, squeezed in the middle and trailed by backups with equally well-kitted operatives. You would never miss it.
Today, the same Okonjo-Iweala, is now the Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), a global entity worth zillions of times in rating and influence than a mere minister of a country, not the least, in Africa. But spot the difference. Today, the same woman goes to her office in just one car and a driver. All the chaos is gone. In fact, the only ceremony to underscore her present status, was when she assumed office on March 1, 2021.
What was it like? On that day, a welcome party was organised, comprising no more than a dozen men and women, probably only staffers of the organisation, who lined the corridor leading to the entrance of the building, clapped, shook hands and led the way. End! No speech, no food, no drinks, no party. The ceremony did not even last up to 10 minutes.
Pan to Number 10 Donning Street, home of the United Kingdom Prime Minister. On Friday, July 5, 2024, Rishi Sunak, stood at the foyer of the building to give a farewell speech after 19 months in office as PM. After a short speech which lasted for less than 10 minutes, he stepped into a waiting Audi sedan, and drove away.
Enter Kier Starmer, his successor, few minutes after. He even came in a smaller car alongside his wife into the welcoming cheers from a large crowd that gathered at the same venue, went about shaking hands and exchanging kisses. No airs, no chaos, no security forces with whips in hands brandishing all manner of firearms to scare away citizens.
That session ended and with his own speech, equally short and pointed, he moved into his residence and that was it. From now on, all that would come from him are policies of how to make UK better and leave the country better than he met it. He would never give approval to any contract, let alone sign one. It will be the duty of the bureaucracy to prepare all his budgetary items, which would be geared towards this end. Nobody would hear him making budgetary provisions of billions of British Pounds for feeding in that residence or billions more for either the purchase of more vehicles or the changing of tyres of the ones already acquired.
In fact, if he needed an extra pillow for his bed, he would have to buy it from his own pockets. If he needed to repair the air conditioner, he simply alerts the maintenance team that are probably inhouse.
Now, does anyone think that even without any single person wielding a gun without an open show of the paraphernalia of security presence in that arena, the British PM is more vulnerable to attack than an African President on a day like this? Certainly no! Any fly that posses a threat at that event would be dead before it could even get close to achieving the aim.
Do not forget that the UK is home to the most impressive, exotic and expensive automobiles in the world. Rolls Royce, reputed as one of the world’s most prominent vehicles only fit for the royals is a British product. So is Range Rover, Jagua, among others. So, the PM, could as well order hundreds of the latest and most luxurious of these cars, have them fitted with state-of-the-art contraptions to deliver maximum comfort only fit for royals.
But why are they not doing so? Simple answer! Restraints! Both official and personal fetters, ensures that such a route would never be travelled. On the official side, the workload and the proclivity for government office as problem-solving arena as opposed to a place for maximum enjoyment, strips them of any impetus towards such a life of ease and pleasure. Besides, it is completely impossible, for such a demand to be met, assuming a PM with such mindset finds his way into office. Official checks and balances would make sure of that.
From where would he start to make such a requisition? Would it come from watertight chain of bureaucracy where every official is put in check? Certainly impossible. Even a mere mention of that or a shadow of it could cost him his job. So, no official limousine, no long official convoy. Even an official plane is not there. Why? The PM is just like any other British citizen and sees himself as so.
On the individual level, it is all about values, about honour. How would a British man of high office feel with the insinuations, side glances and snide comments given to politicians and people in high places in Nigeria, let alone being labelled a thief? He would probably lock himself in a room and put a bullet in his scull rather than live with the shame. Yes, it is an ample incentive for suicide.
There, values and honour far outweigh any form of vainglory. Thus, because the essence of such opulence and individual display of it, would be lost, or be swallowed in belly of high value, nobody would travel that road. In other words, instead of attracting admiration the result of such open display, would conduce public disdain, ridicule and rejection. It is an environment, where the littlest veneer of mistrust would not only individual rating in the society, but also consequently destroy political fortunes.
Unfortunately, those values as found in Britain and other western nations, are intrinsic. They are confined within the territories of those countries. They are never carried beyond the shores of the land. Elsewhere, particularly in Africa, those individual and official restraints are not encouraged among leaders. Rather, the same British officials, loathing of the slightest act of malfeasance in his country will do everything and use every means to encourage African leaders to steal, as long as the proceeds would end up in their country in the form of buying expensive goods and properties or simply salting away raw cash.
Indeed, because leadership evolution in Africa is still tied to the apron-string of these western nations, those who want to copy western styles are not allowed to do so. Because directly or indirectly, African leaders secure, hold and enjoy power at the pleasure of these controlling forces abroad, the recruitment process is careful and deliberate to ensure that government offices from top to bottom are populated by economic brigands – mindless thieves without mercy for the common till.
This is what the west look forward to – simple application of different dynamics, in pursuance of the ubiquitous term – national interest – a dangerous phenomenon that is as ruthlessly delivered as it is destructive to the recipients.
Ask yourself what happened to all African leaders, who tried to live like a British PM. First, they were dubbed rebels and marked as dangerous. Is it a coincidence that the likes of Zaire’s Patrice Lumumba, Nigeria’s Murtala Mohammed, Burkina Faso’s Thomas Sankara, and most recently Tanzania’s John Magafuli, virtually all met some sort of unpleasant, and in some cases, brutal ends? The case of the sudden death, through “COVID-19 complications,” of the late Tanzanian President, reputed to have rejected foreign loans and foreign pressures that he believed could further fetter his country, controversial as it is, remains quite revealing.
The rest and many more of these leaders, were brutally mowed down in their primes to stop their ideologies from taking firm roots, in sequence of events, with the overt and covert imprimaturs of western plots. Of course, their places were supplanted by individuals with diametrically-opposing ideals, such as dominate the continent today.
So, because, one way or the other, they have the dominant role in the recruitment process, they choose very well by ensuring that only those with the mindset of extravagance, unquenchable greed, insatiable knack for egocentrism, narcissism make to the leadership podium, as opposed to what is acceptable in their countries. Frugally-minded leaders with sound national agendas are never allowed close to power.
Why? The enduring argument is that the west needs bad leaders in Africa and elsewhere to thrive. Indeed, it is stressed that the day leadership in Africa finds expression in prudence, moderation and uprightness, a heavy hammer-blow would be delivered to the heart of Europe and America. Not only would it end the mindless feasting and pillaging of the rich natural resources of the continent, but it would also end the tendency of African being a dumping ground for luxury goods from the west.
So, while Members of Parliament (MPs) in Britain would ride in trains and buses to work and legislators in the US resort to car-pooling to save cost, their Nigerian counterparts, would apply proceeds of loans obtained from their countries to buy SUVs. While the Governor of New York would drive to work in one car, the governor of Zamfara, one of the poorest states in Nigeria will do so in a convoy of 10 cars.
While the PM of The Netherlands rides bicycle to work, his Nigerian counterpart, goes to the mosque, church or his private home in a convoy of 120 SUVs, all fuelled at the expenses of the common purse. But also picture the difference in the societies created therefrom. Again, they are as sharp and contrasting as night and day.
The result clearly show in the development of public infrastructure. So, while those in power in Nigeria use public money to purchase SUVs to navigate roads ridden with craters, muds and ditches, the roads in western countries, in contrast, provide a completely different picture. There, public funds are used to pave their roads into classy, durable and enjoyable structures for the public, but here, only few enjoy the SUVs cruise while the rest have to survive on what is left. Even at that even the SUVs offer little succour in the end. Many of them had even imprisoned their owners either in stretches of immovable traffic or impassable spots on the same roads.
Now, the abiding question is why this difference. Again, simple answer. The sight of an SUV, does not create the same imagery in the west as in Africa. In Nigeria, it connotes arrival and announces wealth and influence. It is the sign of the Nigerian big man. In the UK however, it is rather a burden. Anybody on a regular salary could equally walk into a car shop and get it either on rent or hire-purchase on easy terms. But that also means higher taxes in all ramifications. So why travel the route in the face of alternatives.
It is this dynamics that remain at play. Recognising the influence of pride, egoism, self-conceitedness in the African leadership structure, the west knows that promoting these tendencies is the most potent weapon to preserve their leechlike relationship with Africa. So, not only do they pump in more SUVs, they ensure that only leaders that will buy more and more of them would get to office or survive in them.
They are aware of how these leaders act like little children lured with new toys and how they are fascinated with little things. They could not have forgotten how the forebears of these people sold off their children into slavery with mundane gifts like whiskeys, gunpowder and mirrors. It is not surprising that they are doing exactly the same today just to buy SUVs and other fancy products from Britain and other countries around the world.
So, do not be taken aback by the length Nigerian officials could go. When the white man gave their fathers those mirrors, they used them as symbol of wealth. People flocked their homes simply to use the mirrors to see their faces. For that privilege alone, they were able to take other people’s wives and marry many for themselves from the numerous women making themselves available just to be called wives of men who had mirrors.
Today, the raison d’etre is not different. In recent days, the controversy across the nation is about the Samoa Agreement and the implication of Nigeria and African countries signing it. Stop asking why they did. The alluring smell of money is such a binding factor. For $150billion loan, they could willingly sign off anything after perceiving that irresistible smell. For that money, they are willing to allow half of their citizens being corralled into slavery to go and work in foreign factories as before or sign off their entire continent into colonialism once again.
When they do, never ask why. The reason is staring everyone in the face. Just like their ancestors received mirrors, and to demonstrate the I better pass my neighbour mentality, sold out their children to slavery, their sons might all but be willing to repeat the same just to be the toast of the society. They will do it. All for what? Today’s mirrors – SUVs!
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice!
By MAX AMUCHIE | The Sunday Stew
In the last two weeks, Parts One and Two diagnosed a structural mutation in the Nigerian state: a dual sovereignty system in which the Institutional Mirage performs authority while the Shadow Order exercises it, sustained by The Insecurity Triad as a mechanism of mutual reproduction.
What remains is the hardest question in political theory: not what is happening, but whether it can be reversed.
The answer is yes—but not through reform.
Systems that reproduce decay cannot be repaired within their own logic. They must be structurally interrupted.
The Trinity does not collapse. It is displaced.
From Ritual Governance to Peripheral Presence
The first reversal targets the geography of illusion.
The Institutional Mirage is concentrated in the symbolic centre—where governance is performed through summits, communiqués, and administrative ceremony—while dissolving at the periphery where authority is actually tested.
This produces a distorted state: visible in Abuja, absent in the borderlands.
To reverse the Trinity, the state must abandon Ritual Governance—the substitution of performance for presence—and return to the empirical occupation of territory.
This is not military occupation. It is administrative presence as sovereignty.
A state exists not when it speaks in the capital, but when:
a child attends a functioning school without paying a parallel tax of fear;
a farmer harvests without negotiating with non-state authority;
a dispute is resolved by a recognised court faster than an armed intermediary.
Governance is not restored by declaration. It is restored by continuity.
Where state presence becomes routine, the Shadow loses its monopoly on predictability.
From Pacification Bargaining to Sovereign Integrity
The second reversal confronts a deeper failure: negotiated sovereignty.
The state has increasingly drifted into a system of Negotiated Sovereignty sustained through what may be described as Pacification Bargaining—the purchase of temporary calm from rival authority structures through ransom logic, amnesty arrangements, protection payments, or informal accommodation.
This is not strategy. It is dependency disguised as pragmatism.
Every bargain strengthens The Insecurity Triad by:
monetising abduction economies;
legitimising territorial extraction;
reinforcing the Shadow’s role as a negotiating sovereign.
The result is a system of self-financing violence in which each concession funds the next cycle of coercion.
Pacification Bargaining does not resolve insecurity. It institutionalises it.
Each transaction deepens the perception that coercion is profitable, territorial pressure is negotiable, and sovereign authority is conditional rather than absolute.
Sovereign recovery therefore requires rupture in this economy.
The state must reassert a non-negotiable monopoly over:
taxation;
adjudication;
legitimate force.
Integrity, in this context, is not moral posture. It is institutional refusal to participate in markets of coercion.
A state that bargains over its coercive authority is not managing insecurity—it is outsourcing sovereignty.
The Critical Break: Dismantling the Insecurity Triad
To dismantle The Insecurity Triad is to break the loop between performed sovereignty and enforced sovereignty.
This cannot be achieved through security operations alone, though coercive force remains an essential and non-negotiable instrument of restoring empirical sovereignty. It requires something deeper: the reconstruction of institutional credibility in the very spaces the Institutional Mirage has abandoned.
It requires the state to stop performing governance and start delivering it. To stop negotiating the terms of its own authority and start enforcing them.
To recover the map—not in abstraction, but in detail: name by name, community by community—that armed actors are actively redrawing through coercion, taxation, and enforced renaming.
Dismantling the Triad is therefore not only a security task. It is a reversal of political geography itself.
The Cartographic Re-occupation of the Republic
The Shadow Order does not only occupy land. It reorganises meaning.
Through what may be understood as Constitutional Erasure, it renames territories, restructures local identity, and replaces the symbolic map through which authority is recognised.
Once this occurs, sovereignty is no longer contested physically alone—it is contested cognitively.
Cartographic Re-occupation is therefore not symbolic politics. It is structural restoration.
It requires three coordinated acts.
First, administrative re-anchoring: the immediate restoration of functioning institutions—schools, clinics, courts, and local administration—under continuous state presence.
Second, symbolic restoration: the reassertion of original geographic and civic identities through formal public renaming and constitutional recognition.
Third, cognitive consolidation: governance must cease to appear as intervention and become the default condition of life.
The state is not restored when it returns to territory. It is restored when territory returns to the state’s cognitive map.
Intellectual Closure: The State After Fragmentation
The deeper insight of this architecture is that sovereignty in Nigeria is no longer singular.
What has emerged is a fragmented order in which authority is distributed between competing logics of governance—one performed, one enforced, both partially functional, neither complete.
This is where African political thought clarifies the structure beneath the surface.
The logic of adaptive survival described by Jean-François Bayart explains why the state persists even as it weakens. Achille Mbembe explains how survival itself becomes managed rather than guaranteed.
Together, they clarify the central claim of the Trinity: this is not collapse. It is reorganisation.
Closing Movement
Nigeria does not face a singular collapse of authority. It faces a structured competition between performed sovereignty and functional sovereignty.
The Mirage still speaks in the language of the state.
The Shadow still governs in the language of necessity.
Between them, society survives by navigating two competing logics of order.
The question is no longer who governs.
It is whether governance itself can be reassembled into a single coherent structure.
The Reversal Condition: Sequential Sovereignty Restoration
The Trinity is reversible, but only in sequence.
Protection must be restored before compliance can shift.
Compliance must shift before territorial credibility stabilises.
Territorial credibility must stabilise before institutional authority can move from performance to function.
Any inversion of this order produces relapse.
The system is not resistant to reform. It is resistant to mis-sequencing.
The Trinity reverses only when sovereignty becomes empirically enforceable again through the sequential reconstitution of protection, compliance, and territorial credibility, thereby disrupting the mutual reproduction loop between the Institutional Mirage and the Shadow Order sustained by The Insecurity Triad.
Where this sequence fails, the loop does not weaken. It adapts.
The Social Contract Is Not Broken — It Is Being Replaced
There can be no social contract in a state where the sovereign performs authority it does not possess, negotiates with rivals it cannot defeat, and watches—from the polished corridors of Abuja—as the names of its own communities are erased from the landscape it claims to govern.
The conventional framing of Nigeria’s crisis describes a broken social contract: the state has failed its obligations, and the people are paying the price.
That framing is not wrong. But it is insufficient.
A broken contract implies a single agreement that has lapsed—and the possibility, in principle, of renegotiation and restoration.
What the Trinity of State Decay reveals is something more structural.
The social contract is not merely broken. It is being replaced.
In the spaces where the Institutional Mirage does not reach—in the northwest, northeast, and Middle Belt, in renamed villages and abandoned farmlands—a rival contract is being written.
On rival terms. Under rival authority. With rival consequences for those who refuse to sign.
The Shadow Order does not offer freedom. It offers a different captivity—one organised around extraction, fear, and the brutal clarity of power that does not pretend to be something it is not.
Within its own logic, it is internally consistent and therefore predictable.
And in conditions where protection becomes uncertain and uneven, predictability itself begins to function as a substitute for legitimacy—not as consent, but as adaptation under constraint.
The Institutional Mirage, by contrast, sustains a different form of instability: the unpredictability of protection, the inconsistency of enforcement, and the performance of authority that does not reliably translate into outcomes.
It is this asymmetry—between predictable coercion and unpredictable protection—that accelerates the silent transfer of compliance from formal sovereignty to rival order.
Conventional state failure frameworks assume a linear erosion of capacity.
The Trinity departs from this by demonstrating a dual-state condition in which formal and rival sovereignties coexist, interact, and reinforce decay.
Nigeria is not a failed state.
It is a state in the grip of a Trinity.
The Definition
Drawing on the full architecture of the foregoing analysis, I now offer a formulation of the Trinity of State Decay theory:
The Trinity of State Decay is the decoupling of a state into rival sovereignties: the Institutional Mirage, which performs authority without fully possessing it, and the Shadow Order—or competing Shadow Orders—which exercises de facto authority in spaces the Mirage has vacated, both sustained by The Insecurity Triad as the mechanism of their mutual reproduction.
The Trinity intensifies where the Mirage fragments into competing centres of performed authority, accelerating the transfer of empirical sovereignty to rival structures.
The Trinity reverses only when sovereignty becomes empirically enforceable again as a stable condition of governance.
This condition is not defined by the mere presence of the state, but by the alignment of three realities: protection must be enforceable, compliance must orient toward the state, and territorial authority must remain continuous.
Where these diverge, sovereignty fragments.
Where they converge, sovereignty reconstitutes.
Recovery is not repair or return. It is the production of a new equilibrium in which the Mirage collapses into function, the Shadow is displaced, and The Insecurity Triad loses its organising role.
This condition is produced through sequence: protection must precede compliance, compliance must precede territorial credibility, and territorial credibility must precede institutional function. Any inversion produces relapse; where the sequence holds, the loop breaks.
While derived from the Nigerian case, the Trinity offers a generalisable framework for analysing state decay in contexts where formal sovereignty persists alongside entrenched systems of rival governance.
Stay seasoned.
•Concluded
•Dr. Max Amuchie is the CEO of Sundiata Post and architect of The Insecurity Triad Analytical Framework, and the Trinity of State Decay theory. He writes The Sunday Stew, a weekly syndicated column on faith, character, and the forces that shape society, with a focus on Nigeria and Africa in a global context.
X — @MaxAmuchie | Email: max.a@sundiatapost.com | Tel: +234(0)8053069436
Godwin Obaseki, former Governor of Edo State was the first to raise the alarm. He rang the bell in the most dramatic manner in that video that went viral on the heels of the 2023 presidential election. It was about the impending tsunami confronting the Nigerian political space – the Peter Obi phenomenon!
The forum the ex-governor spoke was supposed to be a family meeting – a kitchen cabinet affair, where he interacted with the inner caucus of his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in his state. But he ended up not only alerting the nation, but passing the message about the new reality in the must pungent, direct and unobtrusive manner – something new has come – Peter Obi.
Whether it was meant to be a warning, an admonition or simply a subject of amusement – as the governor seemed tickled while delivering it – Obaseki’s words in that outing hit the right spot in national consciousness across board. The young, the old, the healthy and the infirm, all heard it clearly. Now whatever they did individually remains a different kettle of fish.
In that encounter, Obaseki had told his audience how, despite being a governor and the engine room of the PDP in the state, his own family had turned against him with all children and other young members enlisting into the Obidient Movement and how that was true of every other family in Nigeria.
Now, was Obaseki’s depiction false? Didn’t it come to pass on February 25, 2023, when Nigerians went to the polls? If Yakubu Mahmoud and his INEC had not contrived that technical glitches arrangement to abjure the mandate of the people in line with the grab, snatch and run philosophy of the present beneficiary of that obvious heist, Obi certainly would have been Nigerian President.
Had that happened, Obi’s would have been not only a clean and wholesome mandate, untainted by the paintbrush of rigging or other electoral infamies bespattering previous efforts, it would have been a national mandate – delivered by the people of Nigeria – likened only to Moshood Abiola’s June 12, 1993 presidential election victory.
In fact, so pan-Nigerian was the Peter Obi effort that Nigerians of all ethnic and religious persuasions came together and on their own, in clusters, within housing estates, in villages and communities, contributed money to fund their individual campaigns to promote the project of getting him to the Aso Rock Villa for the nation’s number one job.
Nigerians abroad – Yoruba – Hausa – Ibibio – Jukun – Igala – Tiv – Kalabari – Igbo – Edo – made special arrangements to return home with the sole purpose of not only promoting the agenda, but actually making the idea a reality by casting their votes for him.
Obi was the only one out of the lot that contested the election in 2023 that secured the endorsement of virtually all the ethic organisations across Nigeria.
Afenifere – the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation – the Middle-Belt Forum (MBF) from the North Central – Pan-Niger Delta Forum PANDEF – for the South South region and Ohanaeze – their South East counterpart – all came together to declare their support for his presidential ambition.
Now this is the same person that some naysayers are labouring too hard, day and night to closet inside the straightjacket of ethnicity and religion. From Reno Omokri to Daniel Bwala to Bayo Onanuga and others controlling working from the Presidency to their counterparts at the Blantyre Plaza APC secretariat in Abuja – they continue to trumpet the spurious, bogus and fake narrative of Obi’s ambition being steeped in some sort of Igbo agenda.
Ironically, out of the entire lot, the selfsame Obi, is the only one who came out to boldly declare that nobody should cast a vote for him because he is Igbo, rather, they should do so because they are convinced about his ability to deliver on a new Nigeria of their dreams. No other had the courage to make such a bold declaration.
Surprisingly, even Wole Soyinka, one of Nigeria’s most iconic figures – a central voice in national and international affairs – Nigeria’s man of the century – the Kongi himself – who had hitherto shot himself to a position of a super being – of immortality – beyond reproach – without any credible reason even by his own conjecture – called the Obi ambition – an IPOB agenda.
That underscores the seriousness of the entire scenario. But interestingly, no matter how they try to trumpet it, their efforts have continued to mimic a snake striking at the shell of the tortoise with the aim of infusing its killer poison.
Their frustration not only hinges on this apparent failure but their current desperation too! The Obi brand has continued to soar beyond comprehension. So, when you hear the echoes of ethnic baiting, religious smears or other primordial sentiments, just know they are trying to increase the tempo of the din! Such a frustrating task!
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice!
“This is Lagos!”
How many of you have seen this sign that introduces you into Lagos? Whoever coined that expression is highly ingenious because the essence of those three words ensconces a lot within its bowels.
It could mean that Lagos is a land of opportunities, where a man who started off as a truck loader at Iddo Motor Park, could discover opportunities to become the next billionaire around. There is a surfeit of examples.
It could also be introducing you to Nigeria’s Centre of Excellence and the pride of the nation where high-stake activities from the signing of multi-billion-dollar transactions conducted in the penthouses of Ikoyi and Victoria Island and the beautiful ambiances of the Victoria Garden City (VGC), Lekki, Banana Island and other high-brow places mimic other big cities across the globe.
Yet, it could also be a warning to the new entrants to the fact that Lagos is not for the faint-hearted, the indolent and imprudent. In other words, Lagos is not a place to loose-guard, as it is said in the local parlance, but a city where street-wisdom is as important as existence itself being the major factor and fine line between success and failure.
For me, the third example is the most relevant and essential here, because it is quite germane to the matter at hand – the current political scenario in Nigeria – regarding Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar. Obi’s defection from the African Democratic Congress (ADC) to the Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC), is a demonstrable example of street-wisdom at play and an emphatic message of its potency!
Since Sunday when it came to the fore that Obi had dumped the ADC and moved to the new party alongside Rabiu Kwankwaso, his new-found ally, the Atiku camp has remained on the offensive, raising the battle-cry – BETRAYAL!
They say Obi abandoning the ADC ship and porting to the NDC represents a betrayal of not only Atiku and the coalition arrangement but the battle to end the calamitous governance President Bola Tinubu – its main goal. How laughable!
Dino Melaye – Obi detests the heat of a kitchen and prefers an air-conditioned one. If he couldn’t face party primaries, having not participated in any right from his APGA days, how would he face the presidential election?
Dele Momodu – I would have wished that Obi would have waited to test his popularity in ADC…Obi did not leave because of Atiku, he left because he knew he lacked the capacity to take on Atiku.”
Even Babachir Lawal – a hitherto Obi supporter, fired his own arrow – Obi is shifty! A politician who fears elections, have no business being one. He doesn’t want to participate in primaries. He prefers a consensus candidate and that consensus must be him!
All the well-choreographed mantra, you hear from these guys, bespeak more of lamentations at missed plot to capture Obi into Atiku’s inextricable ADC web than reality of Obi lacking the sturdiness, durability and gusto to face tough battles.
In fact, Obi has nothing to prove in terms of his ability to fight. He proved this in the 2023. So by this outing alone the pale, trembling coward image they’re trying to sell to the world through this desperate narrative, falls flat on its face. But there’s more!
Talking about battles and the heat of the kitchen, this was the same Obi that stood through the courts to snatch his stolen mandate after it was snatched by the hounds in the 2003 governorship elections in his home Anambra.
This was the same Obi that sacked Chris Ngige in 2006 to retrieve his mandate and Andy Uba in 2027 in the tenure interpretation case – two seating governors in a space of one year. Who else has achieved this? This was the same Obi, who fought and returned to office after he was impeached from office as a governor.
Isn’t it laughable that it is the same man they claim is afraid to fight? What Obi is afraid of is his name being soiled in any way. It was for the reason of maintaining a clean name that he would rather yield to the pain of impeachment than offer bribes to the members of then Anambra State House of Assembly to spare his job.
Obi simply showed the hounds in ADC the import of that inscription – This is Lagos. It showed how much he understood its implication in terms of street-wisdom. How could Atiku and his men believe they could outwit Obi in that manner?
It’s like urging Ishi-Udene, my village dibia to sit at a beautiful table underneath which you buried a drum of boiling oil. He would have seen the danger in his divinity pot long before you concluded the plot.
Obi, fighting for the ADC ticket is akin to that dapper-looking bank manager, decked in designer suits, alighting from his sleek automobile and engaging those red-eyed, broken-tooted, scared faces at Mushin, Agege or Ajegunle bus stops, just to prove his toughness. What’s the use?
Now, picture this! You ran into a crowd and out of curiosity, went to observe, only to discover your spouse, clothes off, drenched in mud, broken bottles in hand, in roforofo fight at Oshodi bus stop!
Would you excuse your spouse even if provoked into that fight or celebrate the outcome, assuming the opponent was beaten to a pulp and taught a lesson?
For Peter Obi to engage in the ADC battle, it would not only take energy and sweat, it would certainly take away INTEGRITY and CREDIBILITY – the two elements that give essence to the Obi brand.
That would mean committing suicide to polish an ego. That is foolhardiness! The last time I checked, recklessness is the opposite of wisdom. And Peter Gregory Obi is not foolish. He’s a wise man!
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice!
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