Editorial
Obasanjo vs Tinubu: Between eczema and cancer
Nigerians for the better part of last week, were treated to another round of entertainment, though of the usual macabre hue. On stage were Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s longest serving leader in history – three years as military Head of State and eight years as civilian President and the incumbent, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The curtain opened with the former President stepping out to play the character with which he has established himself in the consciousness of Nigeria for decades now, whether in or out of office. He spoke out again, when everyone else was silent. The former President, kept a date as he mounted the rostrum to tell the entire world the story of today’s Nigeria.
As the Guest Speaker at the Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum, Yale University New Haven, Connecticut, USA, on Saturday, November 15, 2024, Obasanjo once again, broke the somewhat unwritten law within the corps of the National Council of State, where leaders of Nigeria either in military or civilian garbs hold court and where official reticence and silence to state matters, have always been maintained as tradition.
Historically, Obasanjo has always been the deviant in keeping to this tradition, which in the main, is explained away as a way of not distracting the incumbent since they individually have direct channels of communication to offer their advice, but one reason, all the same which mostly fail to resonate with the people, especially in moments of extreme situations such as Nigeria is experiencing now.
So, speaking on the topic: Leadership Failure and State Capture in Nigeria, Obasanjo put a knife directly in the centre of the boil and delivered the message to what millions of Nigerians had known and been talking about for many months – the country is in dire straits – Nigeria is crumbling – Nigeria is failing! That message, obviously was for the global audience, because virtually everyone living in Nigeria at the moment can connect with it.
Of course, the culprit, the former President pointed to were Muhammadu Buhari, his mimic as both former military Head of State and civilian President, who left power to Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in 2023. Both Buhari and Tinubu have run a relay of running the country on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) since 2015.
This period – 10 years short of few months, since May 29, 2015, Obasanjo summed up as disaster in his treatise before the world. With the systematic bastardisation of the polity through poor election, supervised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and a massively corrupt judiciary, he was unequivocal that Nigeria as a county had been firmly and officially captured by the two.
Regretting that the two had shown complete lack of ideas and absence of zeal in putting things right for the county, but instead demonstrated the direct opposite, he was also unequivocal about the direction the country was headed under Buhari, whom he named as Baba Go Slow and Tinubu, with the sobriquet – Emilokan – was determined – complete doom!
Hear him: “As we can see and understand, Nigeria’s situation is bad. The more the immorality and corruption of a nation, the more the nation sinks into chaos, insecurity, conflict, discord, division, disunity, depression, youth restiveness, confusion, violence, and underdevelopment.
“That’s the situation mostly in Nigeria in the reign of Baba-go-slow and Emilokan. The failing state status of Nigeria is confirmed and glaringly indicated and manifested for every honest person to see through the consequences of the level of our pervasive corruption, mediocrity, immorality, misconduct, mismanagement, perversion, injustice, incompetence and all other forms of iniquity.”
In a dig understood to describe Tinubu’s iron grip since he left as Governor of Lagos State in 2007 and which he is apparently replicating in Nigeria as President, Obasanjo told his audience: “My military training and experience taught me that what you capture, you tend to hold under your sole control for as long as you can hold it. That is the case of one governor of a state who still holds the state captive in his pocket 25 years after being the governor of the state.”
Of course Tinubu, who would not allow the heavy laceration slide has since fired back, though not directly as Obasanjo, but through his various spokesmen, with his conclusion being that Obasanjo lacked the moral suasion to deliver such preachments as he was far guiltier as a bad leader, given his records between 1999 and 2007 when he held sway.
Bayo Onanuga, presidential spokesman, in a statement conveyed Tinubu’s clapback thus: “Brazen illegality and assault on the Constitution of Nigeria reached a disturbing height under the leadership of Chief Obasanjo. During Obasanjo’s era, the unconstitutional impeachment of four governors who belonged to his party occurred.
“The governors impeached by minority members of the Houses of Assembly were Joshua Dariye of Plateau, Rashidi Ladoja of Oyo, Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa. A man under whose watch all of these egregious infractions occurred should certainly not be the one to give any lecture on leadership and corruption. He should not be taken seriously as he reeks of profound hypocrisy of the worst form.”
What is our position? We agree that both sides do not smell roses on all counts. Just as Tinubu observed, the Chinua Achebe Obasanjo copiously quoted as a model in his treatise during the US outing, rejected the highest national honours awarded to him, referencing the bad behaviours of the former President as his major reason.
Citing his hands in the massive acts of brigandage in Anambra State where he hailed, leading to the kidnap of Chris Ngige, then sitting governor and the burning of the assets under the nose of state agents, Achebe had told Obasanjo: “Nigeria’s condition today under your watch is…too dangerous for silence. I must register my disappointment and protest by declining to accept the high honour awarded me in the 2004 honours list.”
But in comparison to the Obasanjo era, Tinubu, as they say, is something else. At no time in the history of Nigeria has the country witnessed what is happening to it today. Many Nigerians have dubbed it official wickedness or more poignantly in the local parlance – shege banza. They say Tinubu is deliberately and intentionally supervising official blitzkrieg on Nigerians. We could not agree more or less. There is no other way to describe the situation.
What we cannot establish is why? Of course, the official explanation for the uncanny policies which were unleashed on the country even before the ink on which Tinubu signed his signature on the documents declaring him President dried up, is that he is reforming the Nigerian economy. But much as few people would disagree on such a need, the more compelling, groundswell position is that Tinubu’s is a government of self and deceit.
Adewole Adebayo, presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), in the 2023 election seemed to have captured the meaning better when he told his host on Arise News Television that Tinubu’s government is one in which the officials see Nigerians as customers in a business transaction with the intention of milking them consistently for profit. This is one of the most fitting depictions.
Yes! Obasanjo may have represented the depiction Tinubu attempted to tag him with and even more. But even his worst outing pales into insignificance in comparison. In terms of magnitude of impact, it is like comparing eczema to cancer. Obasanjo, still left a room for the welfare of Nigerians in all his policies and would never have allowed some of the actions and activities that have not only manifested, but pumped up under the nose of Tinubu.
Take for example the oil theft currently going on in the Niger Delta. Would it have happened under Obasanjo that half of the proceeds of Nigeria’s oil production ends up in private pockets? But this is the scourge currently besetting Nigeria. Imagine what the recovery of this stolen wealth could have done to the economy. It could have taken care of the economic needs of the country, which Tinubu claims to be solving by plunging the people into such untold hardship.
Nigeria is the only country under the aegis of Organasation of Petrol Exporting Countries (OPEC), which did not profit from the different global events that shot up oil prices, in recent years from the COVID-19 to the wars in Ukraine and most recently, the Middle East owing substantially to the activities of these oil thieves.
Instead of the 2.5million barrels per day OPEC quota, the country has remained at 1.3million per day production level for years on and on, while the rest are blown up in the wind. This is even when the usual economic sabotage from militants who blow up oil facilities in the creeks or kidnap oil workers, which used to account for such low production, have since disappeared.
During the period Obasanjo depicted, the world has heard some of the wackiest stories beyond the contemplation to human mind. Imagine a ship fully-loaded with stolen crudes, after managing as usual to escape the “vigilant eyes” of the Nigerian security apparatchik, being arrested in a foreign country and sent back to Nigeria. The expectation would be that the ship would be seized, its contents returned or sold and not only that the crew are arrested, but a massive onslaught would therefrom be unleashed to fish out others in the chain of the syndicate.
But what did the world hear? The said ship with the content of crude buried in its bowels, was reportedly set ablaze. Till date nothing else has been heard. Not even those who were reportedly arrested inside the ship have been brought to trial not to talk of extending the dragnet to include capturing those pulling the strings from behind the scene and ultimately tighten the noose to asphyxiate the obvious syndicate. In fact, after the initial noise, the matter ha since died down. if anything ever happened thereafter, nobody knows.
Now, anyone slightly above the imbecilic fringes, would agree that stopping the massive stealing of Nigerian oil and ramping up the production level is where any plausible reform ought to start. But what do you have? Tinubu and his men, having promised to continue where Buhari stopped, believes the only way to his own idea of reform is to squeeze the last air from Nigerians, as his policies indicate.
Yes! Obasanjo in his eight years in office actually made the constant increase of price of petroleum products a state policy. But not even in his craziest of moments did he contemplate what Tinubu did. Minutes after taking the oath of office, Tinubu unilaterally and some say, whimsically announced the end of subsidy on the Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise known as petrol. This shot the pump price from N189 to N560. In the last few months, the price has since shot-up several times to the present N1,200 or more.
The immediate reaction was not only witnessed in the instant concomitant jump in the prices of commodities, but the progressive rise in over the month so much that a bottle of groundnuts that cost N120, and a crate of egg that were sold for N300, have since jumped to N3,000 and N4,500 respectively. Even garri that used to be the last hope of the common man in Nigeria, has now become a luxury with the cost jumping to more than 500 per cent in recent months.
Obasanjo would never have allowed the level of provincial and nepotistic government Tinubu is running today, which is beyond the mimic of what Buhari introduced and which he has taken to a new high. A situation where the now ubiquitous Lagos Boys have completely taken over the show and are looming writ-large is not only out of the question, but totally impossible under the former President.
Tinubu had said in his reply: “Brazen illegality and assault on the Constitution of Nigeria reached a disturbing height under the leadership of Chief Obasanjo. During Obasanjo’s era, the unconstitutional impeachment of four governors who belonged to his party occurred. The governors impeached by minority members of the Houses of Assembly were Joshua Dariye of Plateau, Rashidi Ladoja of Oyo, Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa. A man under whose watch all of these egregious infractions occurred should certainly not be the one to give any lecture on leadership and corruption. He should not be taken seriously as he reeks of profound hypocrisy of the worst form.”
Ironically, Nuhu Ribadu, former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), who Obasanjo used to perpetrate the said heist on the governors, is today the National Security Adviser (NSA), in charge of all the security architecture in the country. What a contradiction in terms! The implication is obvious, even to the unwary.
While we repeat without equivocation that we are on all fours with Obasanjo on all the issues raised and we are greatly appalled by the tenure of Tinubu, who instead of withdrawing to his inner room, doing some reassessment and probably showing some remorse and retracing his steps and cause some redeeming actions to take place, is not only assuming a dismissive mien but engaging a combative gear.
These, we dare say, will come to naught. No one can fight the truth. No matter the nature of combustive language or gragra fight, lies will never become the truth. Obasanjo has told the truth. Incidentally, when he was in government, Tinubu and the others who formed the bulk of the opposition, told him the same truth about the impunity and bad behaviour of his government. Now, it is his turn.
But the difference is that while the Obasanjo era posted the greatest moments in recent Nigerian history where the economy grew in leaps and bounds, while that era saw Nigeria as the investment destination of the world and while the economy was the largest in Africa, under Buhari and Tinubu the reverse is the case.
It is not only that Nigeria is hosting the flag as the poorest nation in the world, it has also assumed the inglorious toga as one of the four most corrupt nations. If things continue to move progressively down the slope as it is currently, there is no doubt that even before the last days of his four-year tenure, Nigeria would have eventually attained its destination as a failed state or worse as Obasanjo predicted.
The answer is not in engaging in hiring attack dogs and unleashing them to real or imaginary enemies or stepping into the ring against the former President. Tinubu must copy what Obasanjo did. One of them purge himself of the iniquity of parochialism and nepotism. He must also strip himself of the arrogance of an untouchable.
To start with, he must retrieve governance from those he has handed it over and ensure a more open, global and futuristic government. There are many Nigerians capable of doing the job. A situation where more than 80 per cent of the government appointments are given to Yoruba people – nay – The Lagos Boys – must be rescinded and must never be allowed to return.
Again, Obasanjo would never have borrowed to sponsor consumption. Obasanjo would never have bought vehicles for members of the National Assembly from proceeds of loans borrowed from other countries – or renovate the house of the Vice President or buy vehicles for his own wife or a yacht. No! He would never have done that.
Obasanjo showed himself a Nigerian, Tinubu is showing himself a Yoruba man. In fact Obasanjo cannot even be closeted in the Nigerian garb. He is more of a global citizen. So, in terms of reckoning both are kilometres apart. The question is in how many global stages, such as the one that hosted Obasanjo would Tinubu appear tomorrow when he leaves government? The clear realisation of this is enough to redirect the thinking of the President.
President Tinubu must realise that stepping into the ring with Obasanjo over matters as clear as those he raised in the US is a recipe for failure. It is even worse when such an engagement takes the shape of measuring height with the former President. No matter how fat a butterfly grows, it can never be seen as a bird and no matter a lizard grows, it can never become a crocodile. That is our view!
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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