In 1992, I was on the entourage of visiting Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), to Anambra and Enugu States during his tour of Igboland. I was the reporter of The Guardian in Enugu at that time. Working for then most influential and authoritative newspaper in Nigeria, provided me the opportunity of being in the locus in quo, as the lawyers would say – scene of actions, not only in the state but the heart of Igboland.

Both governors at the time, Okwesilieze Nwodo, in Enugu and the late Chukwuemeka Ezeife, in Anambra, made sure I was incorporated into the planning and execution of the visit by providing the media backbone for its success. I was therefore in a vantage position throughout the event to interpret virtually all the nuances that went with it.

From that position, as I tagged along, I perceived the smell of the breath of all the dramatis personae, as the then Military President, who visited virtually every local government in the two states, made his stops in communities, including mine in Anambra, and witnessed first-hand the outpouring of joy and love for the gap-toothed military General.

I could swear then and today that the ululations that accompanied IBB were not only natural fascinations for his urbane, dainty and suave appearance in his smart military gear, but prompt responses to his personal charm and many more positive attributes including management of the Nigerian diversity.

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They were prompt, impulsive, genuine, conspicuous and generative, rather than artificial, contrived or induced – emotions generated out of sincere spur of the moment and excitements borne out of other fanciful stories told by the numerous friends he kept in the area.

I guess you already know where I’m headed. Yes! Pan to that visit of President Bola Tinubu on Thursday, May 8, 2025. Weighed against the balance of reason or passed through the sieve of social scrutiny and political integrity, how would it fair? How do the events fit in? I’ll explain further.

At the Awka edition of the visit, IBB was conferred with the title of Izuatu – meaning one that couldn’t be conquered by evil plots. Why this? Two years earlier in 1990, Babangida survived death by the whiskers of a cat, when Gideon Orkar, a Major in the Nigerian Army, led soldiers to attack him in what could be considered as one of the bloodiest coups in the country.

The events of that episode were still fresh in the mind. To add the pep, even the echoes of the firing squad that eventually saw to the end of Orkar and his fellow adventurers in that failed plot, were yet to die down. So, when the people joined Ezeife in echoing Izuatuuu, as the red cap lowered on the head of the military President, no one was at sea as to the reason.

Now, at the Enugu edition, marking the grand finale, with more traditional rulers from beyond the state, in its recognition as the capital of Igboland, the cap again lowered on IBB’s head, this time with the reverberating echo – Oguguo Ndigbo. Now how does that title – the consoler of the Igbo fit?

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After the putsch of 1985 with which Babangida, Abacha and other strong men in the military ended the iron-fist government of Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon, the new regime announced Ebitu Ukiwe as the Chief of General Staff (CoGS). It was a pronouncement that shocked the entire Nigeria if not the world. How could an Igbo man occupy what was seen as the position of the number two citizen in Nigeria in a military government?

It was a tall position which symbolised the mindset of Babangida, as diametrically opposed to the two years of Buhari, where Ndigbo were kept as far away as possible. Notwithstanding the drama that led to Ukiwe’s resignation nobody was in doubt about IBB’s sentiments towards Ndidgo, because their faces were never missing at any time.

In fact, like the Obasanjo, Goodluck Ndigbo were practically in charge of the economy under IBB with the likes of Kalu Idika Kalu and Chu SP Okogwu, quite prominent with Humphrey Nwosu the Chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC), and others playing prominent roles in decision making.

So, why would IBB not be deserving of that title? Only recently, it was the same man that came to do a yeoman’s job fixing the decades-old lies that the January 15, 1966 coup carried out by Kaduna Nzeogwu and his men, was an Igbo coup.

Let’s return to the Anambra parody. Since Thursday, when under the supervision of Charles Chukwuma Soludo, Governor of the state, Igwe Chidubem Iweka, Ogalagidi, Eze Iweka111, the traditional ruler of Obosi lowered the red cap on Tinubu’s head with the pronouncement – Dike si mba Anambra, I have continued to scratch my head as to the meaning of the title or its significance to the people of the state the same way those of IBB related.

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Pray! What does Dike si mba Anambra connote? Literally, it means a strong man, a warrior or a great man from distant or foreign land. I’ve also reached out to many of my folks including those who were present at that event, but struck no luck in terms of credible explanation.

By the way, I’m quite glad that it was not the Obi of Onitsha, the most revered traditional institution in my state that was compelled to suffer the indignity of handing over that title. It would have been double-whammy for me and tragedy of the highest order were the Agbogidi subjected to such humiliation.

The title doesn’t fit into today’s Igbo political trajectory. In the first place, the Presidency Tinubu is currently enjoying doesn’t belong to the Yoruba. But conspiring with the likes of Muhammadu Buhari, his predecessor, he practically twisted the hands of Ndigbo to collect that job, consistent with his grab, snatch and runaway idea of power. Is that what makes him a hero as implied by that title? Is that what Soludo and his men are celebrating?

In fact, as Governor of Lagos State, Tinubu would have been quite deserving of the highest title in Igboland given how the sentiment of his government tilted towards Ndigbo positively. But that was before he found an alluring political union with Buhari who never hid his place as the number one living hater of the Igbo man.

It is even better understood that Soludo, who was seen fawning around the President like a star-struck child with a Victor Osime or Davido, all the while would claim that the state never had it so good in history as under Tinubu. Such a hyperbole depicted nothing but taking sycophancy to the highest level. Tinubu himself would be amused at the extreme lies, perhaps saying to himself – this man thinks I’m a fool. But this dike si mba!

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As I said, not even Soludo’s men have any inkling. Is it an accolade to Tinubu for insulting the entire state with a paltry junior Minister and to one of the most iconic symbols of the state – the wife of Ikemba Nnewi, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu to boot – or for snatching the Presidency from them? Pray! What does dike si mba mean? I wait!

My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice!

By Sunny Igboanugo

There are few names in Nigeria today frequently mentioned as performing governors. Alex Otti, Governor of Abia State is one of them. The echoes from the din in Umuahia are as loud as the Big Ben, the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster, in the heart of London, which, by the way, chimed for the first time on July 11, 1859.

I haven’t heard anyone list the names of five performing governors in the country without mentioning his name, no matter from what political nuances and convictions. In fact, in most cases, he comes in as number one or two or at the worst, the third position. I have also seen several images, either in form of videos of jubilating crowds of people cheering him to project sites or at other auspicious occasions.

Let me digress. I must confess that I have lost touch with the God’s Own State in recent years. Indeed, I was a friend of the house in the Abia State Government at a point in time. I became a regular face from the time of Orji Uzor Kalu. I was there when the great transition happened, through the Progressives Peoples Alliance (PPA).

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In fact, I was so close that I broke the news about the formation of that party, because I was fed the information by the aides of ex-governor, now a Senator. A caveat: I wasn’t particularly close to him. It was more of his aides. I recall it was after a breakfast with him in Lagos arranged by them that they broke news of the new party to me. Don’t forget that, that PPA went ahead to win two states in the South East – Abia and Imo.

Let me confess also my admiration of his politics superseded my interest in his performance in office, because I practically got sucked into his bold, courageous and fire-eating pronouncements and moves on the political scene at that time.

I was not alone. At a point OUK was the new genie of Nigerian politics. I recall that particular scene in 2001 at the Cinema Hall of Hotel Presidential Enugu – how people soaked each other’s sweat just to listen to him. It was his lecture at that year’s edition of World Igbo Day, organised by the World Igbo Congress (WIC), a powerful group propelled by the Igbo intelligentsia based all over the world.

The only person I know, who came close to pulling that unique spectacle was the late Ikemba Nnewi, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. But not even the Ikemba’s outings at the historic Mkpoko-Igbo forum, to rouse Ndigbo to the issues of the 1995 constitutional conference, considered, one of his most memorable, post civil war, matched the OUK crowd at that event.

Then OUK went ahead to prove his mettle more when he practically pulled off that historic feat of snatching two states from the jaws of the lion the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the political moving train crushing everything on its way at that time. So daring was he that his men practically chased away some of the goons allegedly sent by then President Olusegun Obasanjo to arrest his mother. Who has forgotten that encounter believed to be men of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the gun duel that reportedly ensued in Umuahia?

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Is it not terribly saddening today that the selfsame OUK cuts the picture of a beggarly, grovelling, political lackey. When I see him these days, grabbing every opportunity for photo-ups with President Bola Tinubu, who was his classmate at the College of ’99 governors, it convokes a feeling of pity rather than outrage. When I see him, these days swearing on how high he could jump to please, first Muhammadu Buhari, and now Tinubu, I repeat the biblical dirge of Jonathan to Absolom – how are the mighty fallen?

Back to my tale. My last touch with the state and its government, was under Theordore Oji, Kanu’s successor. It was a natural transition from the former boss to the Chief of Staff (CoS). But unlike OUK, whom I connected through his aides, my relationship with Ochendo Global, was more personal than official. But then I lost touch with his government midway, when I left journalism for a while to answer some national callings.

So, to a large extent, I knew what the issues were in Abia quite well from the foregoing. One of them was what to do with Aba. In fact, during a media tour, which was my first visit to the state, reporters had taken OUK on over the sorry state of Aba, the commercial city and the most prominent town to boot. The perennial flooding of the town is such that visitors at Ariaria Market, practically had to swim in and out.

The convenient answers throughout the times the issue was raised, was that the solution was between the axiomatic devil and the deep blue sea. I remember Kalu telling the reporters on that trip that for the problem to go, hundreds of houses had to be pulled down – a politically impossibility – because their owners built on water channels created to evacuate the flood. There was a particular metaphor that captured the gory situation called – Ukwu Mango.

Because of this almost impossible situation, the only solution was to desilt the drainages to create temporary reliefs. Of course, Ochendo Global, did not have a better story either. Now, I don’t know how much the situation has changed and what the new issues are today. I’ve already explained from the outset.

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My question therefore. Has that problem been solved or is it that the people have resigned to their fate of finality and no longer regard the nightmare as a problem? If yes, by whom? I want to know because that is where I want to jump in on the current ear-splitting verbal warfare between Otti and Okezie Ikpeazu, his predecessor. In the whole noise of the recent engagement, I’ve heard nothing about that hitherto monumental problem.

Now, it is my contention that whoever of the two that achieved the feat of ending that nightmare, is the true hero of Abia. On the other hand, if that eyesore is still lingering amid the clatter of these bitter tongues none of them deserves any accolade yet as the hero.

Now I come into the main issue that began with that sizzling interview with Rufai Oseni aired on The Morning Show, the breakfast programme on ARISE NEWS, television network. Otti had shocked the world with three major outrageous revelations – that Ikpeazu commissioned an uncompleted government house – left N192billion debt and spent N10billion on a non-existent Abia Airport.

Naturally, only an inanimate object would keep silent, having been so bespattered with the paintbrush of shame, especially with the traction the expose generated across the globe. So, Ikpeazu moved, quite appositely too. Since then, his men have been up and about telling the world how foul a lair Otti is. John Okiyi Kalu, spokesman of Ikpeazu’s government as Commissioner for Information, on the same programme described the governor as high on propaganda and short on performance.

Yet, on Newsnight, another programme in the same station, Eric Ikwuagwu, spokesman of the PDP in the state, was also vibrating, echoing the same sentiment. His own conclusion was that Otti should move on with the business of governance, move Abia forward from where he met it rather than lying to the people.

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Now, I ask, why would Ikpeazu commission a non-completed building as completed? Isn’t that fraud on its own without Otti saying so? Kalu’s explanation that his boss deliberately left the uncompleted part, so that the next governor would fix it according to his taste, is puerile. That house does not belong to a particular governor. Yes, if Otti came in and decided to change anything or remodel the house, it would be solely his remit.

Would the UK leave number 10 uncompleted so that the next Prime Minister would fix it or the White House be left fallow for the next President? Such untenable if not uncharitable thinking could only come from places like Nigeria, where people in authority in scant regard to the feelings of the people just utter anything. Imagine!

Conversely, did Otti spend N5billion to fix his own private residence in lieu of moving into the government house? Isn’t that a greater fraud if it ever happened? What would happen in other climes if a governor spent just N1,000 of government money in his private estate? What happened to Boris Johnson? Why did he resign as British PM? Was it not for just sharing drinks at the private garden of his residence during COVID-19 lockdown?

Now, imagine what N5billion could do to that government house. If truly Otti is guilty as accused,  he is surely worse than the Ikpeazu. Why should the official residence of a Nigerian governor be more majestic than that of a UK PM? On what basis. Would a Peter Obi spend government money in fixing his private house? Is it that Otti is not a true apostle of the Labour Party (LP), presidential candidate?

Regarding the N10billion audio airport, I find it funny that the only defence from Ikpeazu team is the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), looked into the matter and exonerated the former governor. EFCC? Does that body smell roses itself? If it were such a credible body to be relied on, how many of Nigerian politicians would be walking the streets as free men today? We want to hear a more credible explanation.

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This is also true of the debt profile of the state. Did Ikpeazu really leave N192billion debt. Borrowed from where? How? When? These are questions that must also be answered from both sides. Gratifyingly, Otti, the financial engineer he is, claims he is wiping the state clean of the debts. But that doesn’t mean that the public would be denied of the truth.

This is also germane in the celebrated Aba Port Harcourt Road Otti has just completed. Did he actually spend N36billion on the project? If yes, why so. The Ikpeazu team raised a relevant question in this regard to wit: why would a 17 kilometre road in Port Harcourt with a swampy terrain be awarded for N30billion and this one of less than six kilometres, as they claimed, with a more clement topography gulp such a whopping figure?

But come to think of it, why should there be such a sharp difference in the image of the two dramatis personae in this matter? Why would Otti be maintaining his place in the top 11 of Nigerian governors today while Ikpeazu could not even make the reserve bench? Who are these Abia people we see in the streets daily celebrating him like a god? Are the images AI-generated?

I heard Kalu, say that his boss, Ikpeazu deliberately refused to hug the media by choosing the let-my-record-speak-for-me model. Now, has that record spoken? If yes, where? If no, why not? Is the media Otti’s real niche? Is that the advantage he has over his predecessor. Who indeed is high on propaganda and short on performance? Otti or Ikpeazu? Who amongst them fixed the Aba flooding menace? Somewhere lies the lies and the truth as well.

My name is Sunny Igboanugo and I’m The Tiny Voice!

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By Sunny Igboanugo

On September 27, 2014, Peter Obi stood at the podium to receive an award as the best performing governor in Nigeria for the Millenium Development Goals (MDG). It was at the 69th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, USA.

After the award, Carinne Wood, Director of UN Millennium Campaign of the global body, invited the then Governor of Anambra State to speak. Thereupon, he narrated how the government reached the milestone. Focus, discipline and hardwork did the magic.

The MDGs the UN member-states had agreed to try to achieve by the year 2015, through the United Nations Millennium Declaration, signed in September 2000, were aimed at combating poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and discrimination against women, with indicators to monitor progress from 1990 levels.

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To underscore the level, a chart from the UN showed that Anambra State under Obi, scored 96 per cent, just four per cent of securing the 100 per cent mark. Wood personally commended Obi, for his innovative vision of mainstreaming the MDGs into governance as governor from 2006 to March 17 2014.

Echoing her sentiments at the event, Amina Mohammed, former Senior Special Adviser to the President on MDGS (SSAP-MDGs), who later became Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General on Post-2015 Development Agenda, who oversaw the entire programme, enthusiastically described the former governor as The Champion of MDGs.

Fast-forward to 2025, more than 10 years after. What do you hear? Obi came into Anambra state, stayed for eight years and left it poorer than he met it. This is the new mantra being sung in all the places members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and their supporters gather.

I don’t know where they got the record they are bandying. Had it come from Reno Omokri, the award-winning professional propagandist and Nigeria’s version of Josep Gaobels, who obviously believes that praise-singing and name-calling go pari passu – or that lies and truths are one and the same and could share the same bed space, it would have been more understandable.

But last Sunday, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Lagos State Governor, was on same mantra. Surprisingly, Sanwo-Eko, as he is fondly called, broke tradition. Never was it known that the easy-going, smooth-talking, almost Gen Z Chief Executive Officer (CEO), of Lagos, Nigeria’s most important city, bandied words with anyone. So, what changed?

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Whispers have it was an attempt to worm his way back to the heart of his boss and master – the Asiwaju of Lagos and Jagaban Borgu – President Bola Tinubu, whom, it is also whispered, has practically frozen him out. I must confess I don’t have details. But you know in these political times, you hear a lot of things.

One of them is that the internecine battle that took place at the Lagos State House of Assembly – or is it still taking place? – was actually a battle between godfather and godson. Perhaps, the latter, imbued by the noise around him had blighted his memories from how he was practically plucked out from relative obscurity and used to teach Akinwunmi Ambode, his predecessor a lesson in 2019. Perhaps he simply had too much amala and ewedu to eat that like nwanza, the canary bird, who got overfed on free grains, decided to challenge his god to a wrestling.

Now, what was in issue? Obi had at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, on Thursday, April 24, 2025, delivered a speech, in which he once again drew attention to the poverty trajectory in Nigeria, something he had done several times in recent past, only this time, he was speaking to a global audience.

Bemoaning the situation which he said had worsened astronomically under Tinubu, who he accused of messing up the economy, the former governor, as it is wont with him and statistics, drew a parallel with China and Vietnam – two countries he insisted were trailing far behind Nigeria in the 1990s, in terms of prosperity, but had now galloped ahead. His conclusion was that the odious situation was traceable to Tinubu’s bad leadership, reflecting in his poor policies.

Now you know how these things sound in the ears of Tinubu and his men both at the Presidency and the APC, particularly when it comes from Obi. You also know that nothing he said at that forum, was new or strange. They were rather all common knowledge – facts, as we say in Nigeria – that are clear to both the goat and the fowl. In fact, the world bank had given a more damning verdict earlier. But because Tinubu, et al obviously, in their naivety – believe Nigeria still dwells in a dark underground cave somewhere beyond human reach – where everything done and undone are hidden from global attention, are intent on hide and seek. So the familiar mantra – Obi is demarketing Nigeria.

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Don’t forget this was the same sin, David Adeleke, the Nigerian prolific singer, otherwise known as Davido, committed, a few months back when he also raised concerns about the ugliness of the situation back home during an engagement in the US.

Now, Sanwo-Olu has broken into what used to be the remit of the ubiquitous Villa Boys or those Ali Ndume, the Senator from Borno South, usually referred as maga-dogs normally let loose on Tinubu’s critics at times like this.

As I said, I can understand Reno Omokri, the self-appointed Minister of Obi Affairs, in breath telling the world that he is the best thing to happen to Nigeria since the discovery of akara and bread sandwich and in another castigating him as pure poison. Was it not the Reno that once travelthousands of kilometres to London to tell the world that Tinubu is a drug baron and unfit to govern Nigeria that is now telling the same audience that Tinubu is the answer the world need to cure its degenerative diseases that have defied centuries of solutions?

I can also understand a Chukwuma Soludo, who joined in the fray to denigrate Obi. On Monday, Charlie Nwa Mgbafo, was quoted as saying on X that poverty more than doubled under his last, but one predecessor and more than 50 per cent of the people of Anambra became poor. Mind you, he did not say anything against Willie Obiano, his immediate predecessor and Obi’s immediate successor.

No doubt, Soludo, knows that even if he paints the entire state with gold that will not guarantee his second term. What will is how good he is with Tinubu. The electoral template in Nigeria today has taken care of that. So, because Nwa Mgbafo, is to win the November 8 governorship election he needed to be on Obi’s matter regardless of how needless and childish he sounds.

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He believes every dart he aims at Obi to shoot him down so that he would be less threat to Tinubu who would also be a candidate in 2027 election, would earn him a point with Tinubu.

Yes! Sanwo-Eko baffles. Yes! Reno, we know, Soludo we know. But, should it be to please Tinubu, I strongly recommend that he finds another way to do so outside Obi. That route is closed. Let him task himself more diligently. Who knows? He might be lucky to discover Obi has a link with the late Osama Bin Laden or invention of COVID-19.

But this route? This senseless mantra of Obi did not build schools in Anambra? It a cul-de-sac, leading nowhere. Anambra is Obi’s forte. His transformative record there is tangible and self-evident.

He took Anambra’s education from the doldrums to the zenith in so short a time. Has Sanwo-Olu achieved that feat in Lagos, despite its huge resources?

Under Obi, Anambra was declared the safest state in Nigeria. Anambra was declared the best in terms of road networks and so many other firsts in other bits and pieces, odds and ends that make governance all it ought to be. So, why not look for something else. As I said, if Sanwo-Eko searched enough, he might discover that Peter Obi is the brother of Shekau of the Boko Haram fame. Why not explore that?

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Now, I don’t if he would ever get to reading this. If he does, good! But if he doesn’t, those who did and who are close to him should let him have this as a warning – jump and pass on anything Peter Obi. Preserve the little respect you’ve saved.

Already, we’ve begun to hear some kepu-kepu!  Obi has become the property of Nigeria! Nobody attacks him and doesn’t emit pungent, repelling smell like nkakwu the shrew. I won’t be there to cry with anyone when jungle matures. I like him enough to say that much!

My name is Sunny Igboanugo and I’m The Tiny Voice!

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