His mien betrayed his inner heart. There was no way anyone could miss it – Pain – anguish – sorrow – confusion – fear! – All registered in the face of Caleb Mutfwang, Governor of Plateau State, as each word tumbled out that Tuesday, April 8, 2025, while appearing on Channels Television.

Clearly, Shakespear obviously did not have the likes of the governor in mind when he wrote: “There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face!” For in this particular case, that popular expressions from Macbeth, one of the writer’s most celebrated epics, was proved as fallacy rather than true.

A guest on Politics Today, a public affairs programme on the popular television network, the governor practically placed a mirror to expose every bit and pieces as well as the intricate fibres of his inner soul, as he detailed the harrowing ordeals of how merciless terrorists, unleashed mindless onslaughts on communities in the state, decimating his people in the process.

The most pungent part of that account, was how, in Bokkos  local government alone, 64 communities were displaced, with the terrorists succeeding in chasing out original owners, renaming and occupying their communities.

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Hear him: “To be honest with you, these attacks are not new. They’ve been going on for the last 10 years or more. It is just that they were never brought to national attention. In Bokkos particularly, Bokkos is one of God’s gift to Plateau State – beautiful landscape, great mineral deposits – but it is a very treacherous terrain. These communities that were recently attacked were part of the communities that were attacked in 2023. But they survived it, they rebuilt themselves. The Ruwi community that was first attacked, lost about 17 people in 2023.

“But they bounced back to show you the resilience of the people. Now, if this sort of attacks has been going on for close to 10 years, it tells the story that there is a deliberate, conscious attempts to clean out populations and for what reason other than to reoccupy.

“As I’m talking to you, there are not less than 64 communities that have been taken over by bandits on the Plateau between Bokkos, Barkin Ladi and Riom Local Governments. They have been taken over, renamed and people are living there conveniently, on lands they pushed people away to occupy.

“These are things we’ve been trying to embark on dialogue to make sure that these people return to their communities. But because of the proliferation of arms, which has become quite alarming – and I’m talking now, not about arms, but real, sophisticated arms in the hands of non-state actors. It has become more challenging for communities to be able to live in peace.”

But, here then was the catch. In this horrible narrative, the governor never brought himself to name the culprits of these attacks. He could not summon the courage to do so, despite his ostensibly full knowledge of story. Every effort to pressure him to name them, was futile.

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See how he tried to dodge that bullet: “I can tell you in all honesty that I cannot find any explanation other than genocide, sponsored by terrorists. The question is who are the persons behind the organisers of this terrorism? This is what the security agencies must help us unravel. We must come to a point where we know the sponsors, because it is not just the work of ordinary people.”

Now, therein lies one of the major issues in the Plateau crisis and to a large extent that of Nigeria. No doubt, Mutfwang, not only knew the culprits, he also knew how and where to find them. But he would never bring himself to name them – he would never dare! The consequences would be too great for him. But, in place of clarity, he chose political correctness, while trading fear for courage and sacrifice.

In fact, Solomon Dalang, former Minister of Sports, who is also an indigene of the state and equally affected by the obvious siege, had some hours before, made the coast very clear. At a separate interview, he said the culprits were not only known, but their locations as well.

His take was that those who should arrest the crisis decisively – to pursue, decimate and wipe the killers out – had either deliberately refused to do so or were compelled to turn the other way. Otherwise, with the right intention and political will the menace would have since been over and forgotten.

What other evidence could have captured this audacious conclusion from the ex-Minister than the 64 communities Mutfwang spoke about?

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If, as the governor said, these communities are actually in existence, with those who took them over living in them undisturbed and unperturbed, what other evidence does anyone need to fathom the agenda for the mass killing and for the inaction by higher authorities?

Why then dance and skirt around the issue? Ordinarily, the expectation is that Nigerian soldiers would have moved in, dislodged the invaders and restored the land to the original owners, while those so extricated would be profiled, and the guilty among them brought to book according to the law.

So, why is this not happening? Could it be that the spiritual dimension many people have talked about is truly at play after all? Yes! Not a few people have raised the Igbo question in the entire saga. Voices, understandably, from the South East, adducing this interesting, but germane angle, point to the horrendous activities of the progenitors of today’s victims in creating the Nigeria where their children and grandchildren have been trapped.

They describe both physical narratives and mental pictures of the ghoulish massacre of Ndigbo during the pogrom in Northern Nigeria, particularly in those areas currently witnessing these bloodbath, as evidence of the connection of the past and present, showing obvious similarities in their graphic constructs.

From Borno to Adamawa to Zamfara and Katsina – from Kaduna to Plateau and Benue, horrible depictions of morbid decapitation of human beings, portend the same or similar imprimatur of the gory pictures being spread in the same areas today, even several decades after.

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The eerie images of young men with placid, emotionless faces – made so by years of carrying out the same task – making deep burrows in the ground and throwing what remained of the kits and kins, into them like dead animals killed by a deadly disease, replicate the same pictures of war-era Igboland after each bombing of markets, churches, hospitals and other public places while the dismissive and utterly bland, if not lame explanations by the military governments then to the wanton massacre, mimic the current stance of the Nigerian authorities to today’s persistent human carnages.

Indeed, many of the purveyors of this spiritual angle narrative, infer further, that the fact that those who supervised the bestial onslaught against Ndigbo, are alive today to see the same slaughter visited on their own kits, is evident that the current situation is a payback to atone the cries of the Igbo victims.

They contend that those loud cries and silent pleas of the victims – the pregnant women, whose bellies were torn open and their unborn babies ripped off – the young ladies corralled into leprosy colonies and forced to be raped by the inmates – the young children with their heads severed – their fathers pulled out from train coaches and vehicles and thrown into rivers – leave ghostly images of unsettled spirits refusing to rest until fully avenged.

There is no way of determining this spiritist angle. However, whatever picture or narrative – spiritual of temporal – the reality remains that the Plateau crisis is a very clear phenomenon. The essence, motive and impetus are captured in those 64 communities.

As the issue is neither complicated nor complex the solution is also straightforward. That it is not resolved yet and likely not to be soon, captures the sad story of Nigeria.

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When Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the February 25, 2023 election told his host on Prime Time, a public affairs programme on ARISE NEWS Network, on Tuesday, that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has done exceedingly well in destroying Nigeria, it was taken as sarcasms, more or less or oxymoron at best.

The former Governor of Anambra State, was simply alluding to the comment of the President during his campaign for the job ahead of the 2023 election that he would continue where his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari – President 2015-2023 – stopped.

Buhari, the first to defeat an incumbent President in the history of Nigeria, achieved that historic feat on the platform of the All Progressives Congress and as many political watchers have acknowledged, on the back of Tinubu who was the alter ego of the great political movement that emerged to take power from then Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the behemoth that assumed power at the termination of military rule in 1999 and held it with vice grip for 16 years.

Now, Buhari, before he left power in May 2023, held the record of the worst leader in Nigerian history – military or civilian. He was not only the most underwhelming, listless and indolent, but the most idealess and clueless.

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So, for Tinubu, a presidential candidate to tell an electorate population, daily winching and twitching from the pains of such a totally bereft and insipid government that he would continue where the President who harboured such massive negative traits stopped, was the height of political hara-kiri.

But regardless the obvious implication of what ought to be a serious blunder that would have seen the electorates run with their legs touching their ears, Tinubu went ahead to emerge winner of the election – or was declared the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Granted that many believed that Tinubu made that audacious statement, more out of necessity to placate and humour the former President, lest he did the unthinkable that could quash his take-over ambition – more of stooping to conquer – and not that he actually fancied Buhari’s outrageously disastrous performance, the picture of the last two years his presidency has lasted, seems to have proved the direct opposite.

If anything, Tinubu has bested Buhari in all departments to prove that he was not joking, but rather meant every word of his promise that he was going to continue where his predecessor stopped in punishing Nigerians.

That punishment started from the first minutes of signing off on his new job on May 29, 2023, when he made that notorious statement – subsidy is gone – that three-word phrase, considered a rash, impulsive and brainwave quip that had nothing to do with any sort of rigour or painstaking plan of action.

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From that moment and since then, Nigerians have known nothing but progressive physical and psychological torture that wraps their collective life’s experience in one word – PAIN!

Right from that particular moment, even before the ink with which he etched his signature on the dotted line proclaiming himself President, the price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise known as petrol, the life-blood of the Nigerian economy soared from N198 a litre to N550.

To complete the job, he also added the inglorious policy of the floating of the Naira that saw the local currency previously exchanging at $1 to N330 when he came on board, jump to an incredible, if not disgraceful $1 to N1,700 in a matter of weeks.

Today, the combined effect it that the Nigerian economy has been demobilised – shattered to smithereens, leaving the citizenry who picking food from the dustbins under Buhari going to bed on empty stomachs because those who threw the leftovers into those bins have now joined the daily-stretching queues of hungry population.

Now, Tinubu has upped the ante. Like Buhari who was a two-country President – spending his days in the UK and nights in Nigeria or vice versa, he has also adopted the model, only that he seems to fancy the beautiful city of Paris more, apparently for its rather relaxed life, compared to the knit-up, conservative, if not airtight London variant.

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For now, Tinubu is yet to spend a whole five months in France as Buhari once did by moving the seat of government to London, an act by which he virtually threw Nigeria into a Limbo. But he seems to be getting there. It will only be a matter of time. If he could pick up his bag and zoom off, what stops him from taking permanent residency in the French city and merely visit Nigeria? After all, are his aides not telling inquisitive Nigerians that their President could work from anywhere?

Of course, for Tinubu’s goons, whether at the Presidency, the APC or anywhere, the anxiety of Nigerians to the parlous situation in the country, is usually dismissed as hatred, and cast in either ethnic or political colours. It is even worse when it has to do with opposition figures like Obi.

For instance, Obi in that outing on Tuesday, once again reinforced his earlier position a fortnight ago that Tinubu and his APC have virtually demolished the country’s democracy, by personally capturing and pocketing all the structures – executive, legislature and judiciary.

But hear how Felix Morka, APC spokesman, on Wednesday, dismissed his intervention. To him, the concerns are nothing but frustrations coming from the pains of losing election. In other words, he thinks Obi, as a Nigerian has no other life outside the desire to be President. He thinks Obi would be loathing of Nigeria that mimics the same France or would be averse to its economy overtaking Germany, because a Tinubu is in power. To him, Obi, is that inconsiderate and wicked.

Hear him: “Even Mr Obi’s trademark opportunistic sensationalization of transient difficulties that Nigerians have endured in patriotic support of the President’s bold and transformative economic plan availed no respite, as he floundered on national television, framing himself as a portrait of frustration and political desperation.

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“Mr Obi’s favourite retort, ‘I would have done better as president’, must be a symptom of a protracted bout of election failure-induced hangover from which he has not awakened to the reality that he is not the president. Like an unlicensed back seat driver that thinks himself to be a race car driver, Mr Obi needs to tame his bloated and deluded imagination.”

Now, in which other country of the world where democracy thrives on the concept of government of the people, by the people and for the people, would their President whimsically pick up his bag, travel to another country and call it working-visit without prior knowledge?

Would it happen in France or UK, or Italy, or Germany or England or the US? Would it even happen in China that is not considered a democracy per se! Okay, these are developed nations. Let apples be apples and oranges be oranges. Would it happen in South Africa? Would it happen in Kenya or even Ghana, Nigeria’s backyard?

Again, would Tinubu pick up his bag and zoom off to Paris at the drop of a hat, if he actually believes that he was made President by Nigerians and holds same in trust on their behalf and at their behest?

Is it not because he knows that there would always be a variant of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), headed by Yakoub Mahmood that would hand him re-election on a platter, kneeling down that he could afford to spit, urinate and fart on Nigeria democracy from as far as the Eiffel Towers?

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Indeed, what remains? What separates Nigeria from Paul Biya’s Cameroun, Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe or Yuweri Musaveni’s Uganda, where even the corpses could resurrect or their pictures placed at strategic places for them to continue in power after their death? Is this danger not clear for all to see? Tragic!

A few hours ago, the curtain finally fell at the Senate. It signified the end to one of the acts in the long scene of the drama Nigerians had been regaled with in the last one week. It came with the gavel sounding on the fate of Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, the Senator representing Kogi Central Senatorial District.

Of course, the end of this particular scene would only surprise the non-initiates. A passive observer, a fresh inductee or even a complete political imbecile would have predicted what would be the eventual fate of the Senator, one of the four female lawmakers in 10^th Senate.

In the afternoon of Thursday, March 6, the Senate handed her a set of unsalvoury package, relying on the recommendations reached earlier in the day and provided by the members by the Nada Imesuen Committee on Ethics, Privileges, Code of Conducts and Public Relations.

The package: She would be stripped totally of her status as Senator for six months, including being suspended from plenary, her office being fastened, loss of all salaries and allowances for her and her aides, not getting close anywhere within the precincts of the National Assembly and barring her from embarking on foreign trips as a Senator.

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Nobody would have predicted otherwise, except for the totally bereft in the politics of the land. At least, there were about five previous cases within the chambers since 1999 when Nigeria returned to civilian rule to guide anyone. It was obvious that Natasha would suffer the fate of Joseph Waku, Arthur Nzeribe, Ovie Omo-Agege, Ali Ndume, and Abdul Ningi, who had all tasted the same bitter pill.

What was probably left to conjecture was not predicting beforehand the scenes in-between that would garnish the drama side of the entire saga. That came with Natasha stretching the show beyond the confines of the Senate Chambers.

On Friday, February 28, 2025, she used her appearance on The Morning Show, a breakfast programme on ARISE NEWS, a popular Nigerian television network to regale the whole world with some salacious tales of how Godswill Akpabio, President of the Senate of Nigeria and Chairman of the National Assembly, had been labouring strenuously to lure her into his bed.

Now, any ear that heard such an earth-shaking accusation, especially the full details of the various attempts of sex-baiting as narrated by the Kogi Senator, would expect that the political firmament in Nigeria would come to an instant halt. All over the saner climes, everything else in government circle is supposed to take the backstage from that moment.

But that is the difference – most certainly – the tragedy. In those climes, yes! But certainly not here! Nigeria, is in a class of its own in terms of exhibiting behaviours expected of a modern society. Here, officials are usually never shirking in calling for the highest level of adulation even while constantly fouling the air with stinking farts from the putrefying genre of Nigerian politics.

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For them, citizens are supposed not only to open their mouths and nostrils to gulp and inhale the odiferous stench constantly being released from their posteriors, but are supposed to be smiling doing so. Any other reaction is indefensible, unpatriotic and in most cases punishable to as much as high treason.

That was at the core of the imbroglio in the Natasha case, some people have since dubbed – the Akpabiogate! So, while the entire world would have expected that the issue of Nigeria’s number three citizen being bespattered with the paintbrush of shame as a molester of women, to take the front burner of both political and governmental activities, it has conveniently been relegated to the backstage just like in virtually every other cases.

Yes! For every Senator, who spoke on that Thursday, while Natasha’s political neck lay on the slaughter slab, it was all about the integrity of the Senate. Never bother about the meaning of that expression. It simple assumes a difference in Nigeria. Its only interpretation is the protection of the Senate President at any given time – simplicita!

Now, picture the contradiction between a female Senator, who committed the sin of refusing to move to an assigned seat before speaking and a possibly serial sexual predator sitting at the helm of the highest lawmaking body of the country. What is likely to happen, say in the UK parliament or the US Congress?

Which is more important and which should have come first? But trying to unravel the contradiction or attempting to understand why the reverse should be the case, is akin to the hard labour of struggling to comprehending Nigeria. That is the uphill task. Is it not the reason for the assumption that only an insane mind could actually achieve such a feat?

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Yes! To make sense of Nigeria, requires putting a meaning to a Senate President thinking of, let alone, celebrating his birthday in stadium in the first place. It also requires grasping the mindset of the gaily-dressed citizens in various colourful attires, in the crowd-filled seats with each singing and dancing at that occasion without asking the basic questions – where are all these coming from – the funding and all – and why such lavish fund to promote it could not be channelled into production of nets for the immediate fishing communities. You would be trying to understand Nigeria, if you did as much as raise such a question. You could even get a slap from the man sitting behind you eavesdropping into your thoughts.

Knowing Nigeria would explain the private jets that took over every space in the local airport like locusts in a green vegetable farm during the birthday event. It would even explain the tour of the said mansion with ornamental furniture and all – one of the crime-scenes for the supposed expression of the sexual desires.

Now, in which other country of the world has it been heard that a Senate President celebrated his birthday in a stadium and what mindset would have led to it? Julius Ceasar, one of the most celebrated noblemen in world history was never recorded to engage in such monumental displays even with all his regal splendour.

Again, attempting to give a meaning to why the Senate saw Natasha’s behaviour as more crucial and urgent than addressing the sex-for-favour allegation against Akpabio, would involve trying to fathom the situation where lawmakers in a hunger-ravaged country would be the highest paid in the world, far beyond their counterparts in the most buoyant countries like the United States, Europe and Asia.

It would explain why the 469 lawmakers at the Nigerian National Assembly would be gifted Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) costing N160million each from funds borrowed from rich countries while lawmakers from the same rich countries went to work using car-pooling arrangements, because they could not afford riding in expensive cars.

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It would explain why Nigerian Senators would be entitled to new houses each four years while Senators of the United States would share hostel-like apartments because they could hardly afford the rents in Washington and still make good laws that benefit their societies and make them sought-after in the world.

Imagine what SOTUS like Joe Biden would have collected in cars and housing allowances for the 36 years he spent in congress, were he a Nigerian Senator. Yet, he would probably be still paying mortgage as his own housing arrangements if he did not sort himself out through other means.

These are the contradictions that must be settled for those attempting to grasp what happened in the Senate on Thursday. Yes! It is all about the integrity of the Senate. But that integrity must not include inquiring into the foolishness of acquiring a N160million SUV to navigate – wait for it – the bad roads in Nigeria – instead of employing the huge amount used in buying the exotic automobiles in fixing the roads so that citizens with bicycles could also access them with ease. That, certainly is the thinking in other climes, not Nigeria.

No! Integrity of the Senate must not include appropriating funds borrowed from global financial institutions for the executive to buy a presidential yacht, purchase exotic cars for the office of the first lady or build a N21billion house for the Vice President in a country where more than 100 million citizens go to bed on empty stomach daily. By the way, has it not been said that the N21billion VP mansion is currently unoccupied and could now be home to rodents, serpents and scorpions?

Nobody will understand the Senate brand of integrity without first fathoming a Nigeria where the President and or his handlers, not only desiring, but actually going ahead to acquire a mimic of The Beast, the US presidential limousine in addition to a model of Air Force One, and lining hundreds of other state-of-the-art automobiles each time he travelled in the streets amid deafening cries of ebi kpa wa – we are hungry from citizens.

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Yes! To understand what happened in the Senate on Thursday, means fathoming a country whose successive leaders over the years borrow hard currencies from lending institutions, steal the entire funds, return same to the countries they were borrowed from, borrow again and return, in an endless circle of official graft.

Come to think of it, is it not surprising that till date, not a single Senator has raised a voice to speak against the hunger in the land or made any whimper against official shenanigans in the executive – not even the opposition – not even members of the fire-eating Labour Party (LP) members, who had sworn to mimic the public display of austerity of Peter Obi, the man they rode on his back to office? Why have they all suddenly gone silent? That is the Senate that is talking about integrity!

In fact, is it not even more surprising that the two principal actors – Ireti Kingibe, the Senator representing the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and Neda Imesuen, Edo South, who led the indictment without hearing of Natasha are from the same LP? Has anyone heard the voices of other female Senators? They are all imprisoned in the Ometa of silence the National Assembly adopted since the All Progressives Congress (APC) came into the picture in Nigeria.

Naturally, as the curtain fell on Thursday, those whose eyes remain on the stage would certainly not be disappointed. They would no doubt get the entertainment they seek. Soon, the curtain will rise again for a fresh act in another scene, as the drama continues.

But one thing is sure – in this act Natasha is bound to lose no matter how strong her performance. Those seeking to see Akpabio in the dock on that stage, should better banish the thought. He will never come to trial. In fact, he must end up the hero. He will never be the villain. Even the imbeciles in Nigeria and elsewhere know this. Anyone who fails to get it should forget about it. It is how Nigeria rolls. To fathom it, requires one state of the mind – madness

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