Editorial
Dave Umahi and S’East governors: Quo warranto? On whose authority?
On Thursday, May 22, 2025, Osita Ngwu, representing Enugu West Senatorial District of Enugu State in the National Assembly, bewailed profusely at the Senate plenary. What was his worry? Once again, the South East zone, where he comes from, has been handed the short end of the stick in the scheme of things in Nigeria.
This time, it had to do with the N380billion earmarked for irrigation development across Nigeria under the President Bola Tinubu N3.2 trillion Renewed Hope Infrastructure Development Fund. Specifically, N380billion out of the fund was earmarked specifically for irrigation development projects to be implemented through the various River Basin Development Authorities (RBDAs).
As usual, the zone was given zero in the allocation of funds. A whopping N380billion project and nothing for the South East, out of the six zones of the federation. Now let us do the math. Shared pro-rata, each zone is expected to get N63.3billion, ceteris paribus.
But accepted that all things will not always be equal and there would be areas with greater needs than others, does that justify a zone not getting anything at all? That question underscored the core of the argument of Ngwu, while contributing in a protest by the South East caucus at the Senate.
Reports quotes the profile of allocation to the RBDAs as follows: Benin Owena (South South – South West) , N42.2billion; Chad Basin (North East), N40billion; Hadjia Jama’Are (North West – North East), N66.9billion; Ogun-Osun (South West), N45.4billion; Sokoto Rima (North West), N43billion; Upper Benue (North East), N40billion; and Upper Niger (North Central – North West), N24billion.
Notice there was no mention of the South East. Jubril Barau, Deputy Senate President who presided over the session, in apparent move to mitigate the embarrassment, explained that the development could be a possible omission.
Hear him: “I think it’s probably an omission. We shouldn’t go that length. I think it’s probably an omission from those who had the duty of doing this. So, there is no point of going to a prolonged debate. Let’s cool down. We’ve drawn the attention of the authorities concerned. They’ll correct that. We have a listening President. He’s somebody who listens, somebody who cares. Nobody is 100 per cent perfect. It could be an omission. What you have done now is a wakeup call and we’ll send the message and it will be corrected.”
Now from the outset, we do not him. Instead we hold it as true that this was a deliberate action meant to hurt the South East further, consistent with the philosophy and reflective of the policies and programmes of the All Progressives Congress (APC), from the formation of the party to its current 10 years in office the question.
We align with Ngwu, when in his submission told his colleagues: “If this is an omission, it is an expensive omission. The South East cannot continually be treated the way Nigeria is treating the South East. Let me give you an instance. Out of the dams that were listed here from the South East, the Ivo Dam, was last funded about 12 years ago with N5billion spent on it.
“It has been abandoned by Nigeria for the last 12 years. I’ve written three letters to the Ministry of Water Resources. We’ve done everything possible to see if they could bring up Ivo Dam. But here, a zone is allocated N66billion and the entire South East has zero! What kind of omission is that, Mr. President?! We should be treated better than that.”
At Thursday’s session, Adamu Aliero, former Governor of Kebbi State, had risen to rationalise the obvious insult as many Nigerians are wont whenever issues surrounding the bad treatment of Ndigbo are raised. In his attempt to beguile the South East Senators, he posited the obtuse narrative that other projects were on their way that the zone could benefit from.
How convenient! As Ngwu riposted to him: “When will the South East ever have a lion share in any project distribution in Nigeria? We could not agree more! For hat day to come when the Igbo would benefit in any sector more than any other zone, would be akin to the proverbial waiting for Godot. Not with the mindset of those running the APC.
Intriguingly, this Senate incident is coming less than 72 hours after Dave Umahi was quoted by the Presidency as saying the entire South East political structure including all the governors had elected to support Tinubu’s re-election bid in 2027 because the zone had never had it so good as presently being enjoyed.
Hear him: “Before, when I was governor and deputy governor, one of our major concerns in Ebonyi State was the lack of federal presence. But today, nobody remembers that issue anymore. Under President Tinubu, at least four federal projects are ongoing in Ebonyi State. Today, the South East has a Minister of Works for the first time, and we’re seeing real projects – Port Harcourt to Enugu, Enugu to Abakaliki, Enugu to Onitsha, Onitsha to Owerri, and the Second Niger Bridge.
Even a complete imbecile knows that Umahi, like Charles Chukwuma Soludo, who a fortnight earlier, toed the same hyperbolic line of praising Tinubu, is at the best, merely engaging in platitudes or at the worst, talking nonsense for the simple reason that what he listed above pales to insignificance compared to the issues at hand regarding the relationship of the APC with the South East.
We dare ask, when the APC government conveniently left out the South East in the Nigerian rail-line masterplan, the only zone that was so ignored, despite being a major hub of the Nigerian economy and overlooked in the Nigerian gas masterplan, despite warehousing the most viable gas stock in the country, how die his rosy picture fit into that narrative?
Now, why should being left out of the N380billion irrigation project be treated as an omission as Barau suggested? Before President Tinubu sent the proposal to the Senate, it had passed through the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), particularly the Ministry of finance, Budget and Economic Planning and Water Resources, all which went through it. Does it mean that none of the officials along this route spotted out the so-called omission?
Of course, for the likes of Umahi who as Works Minister had the presence of mind to send bulldozers to demolish the Landmark Event Centre, a multi-million-dollar edifice in Lagos, owned by a fellow Igbo man, his place is already well documented. It does not matter what he does with the power he thinks he has.
Let him prance about in his cavalier mien, display all the haughty, self-conceited air. But when he eventually emerges with his governors to make a pitch for Tinubu, Ndigbo will not fail to ask him, quo warranto? On whose authority?
On Wednesday, July 8, 2026, Peter Obi, candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), practically took the media space of Nigeria by storm, with his alarming claim that he might not be alive to contest the 2027 presidential election.
Obi was not talking about some strange illness discovered by his doctors, which had limited his days on earth or alluding to any other kind of natural cause of death. On the contrary, he was forecasting of a more diabolical, highly sinister variant of unnatural, untimely kind of death – political assassination or any other dimension relating to it.
The former Governor of Anambra State, who has remained the main thing in the polity since taking the Nigerian political firmament by storm with his emergence as contender for the nation’s number one job in 2022, ending up with a stunning performance in the February 25, presidential election as candidate of the Labour Party (LP), despite all odds, and prediction of naysayers, was not in doubt about where the threat was domiciled.
A guest of #WithChude, a popular podcast, hosted by Chude Jideonwo, he was instead quite emphatic that his reading of his current ordeal suggests that his traducers, might not stop with their clear intent of preventing him from being on the ballot in the 2027 presidential contest, but up the ante to the level of taking his life if the push eventually graduated to shove.
He did not mince words where the arrows were coming and who was pulling the bows, but was equally emphatic of that as well – the All Progressives Congress (APC) government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Hear him: “Every single thing I do for a living, this government is frustrating it. Deliberately so. Everything. So, there is even a possibility, if they have the opportunity, I will not be alive.
“It’s not an accusation. I know. I get frustration every day. Because you do things that you think would be normal – it is not normal anymore. They won’t come directly and say, ‘Oh, we’re doing this,’ but you can see their hand in virtually everything.
“They are attacking everybody who is in opposition personally. I am being attacked personally. Everything. Even to provide me with necessary things that I should have been entitled to, not at all. I had a case recently at the airport, where people who work in the airport came and locked my car. And I said, ‘It’s me.’
“But I said, ‘Look at the cars of other people.’ And you could see them talking to each other, as if, ‘Who is this one? And I see people I know at the airport, they will not greet me because they are fearing that if they greet me…And I have people send me invitations and say, ‘My son, my daughter is wedding, but please don’t come.’”
Since this outing, it has been hoopla on the Nigerian turf as the centrifugal and centripetal forces pull from all sides on the matter in a dog-fight between the government forces and Obi’s supporters.
In fact, Abuja did not waste time in producing a quick riposte, with Bayo Onanuga, spokesman of the President, ostensibly conveying the sentiments of his boss on the matter, dismissing the NDC candidate as a liar and a cry-baby.
He has support from Festus Keyamo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Management, who quickly pulled out a video of what was supposed to be the airport incident Obi was referring to underscore the point that the former governor was indeed the guilty party.
In fact, so intense was Keyemo’s intervention that he not only instructed Obi to render an immediate and unreserved apologies to the airport staff – the selfsame people he accused of insulting him – but pay N25,000, which he claimed was the mandatory fine for the “crime” of parking in an unauthorised place, he allegedly committed.
Now as the drama in the nation’s theatre of the absurd continues to build up into a fearsome political fireball, it is pertinent to assess the situation, based on the facts on the ground – past and present.
In so doing, it is apposite to review the images on the huge national screen playing from the reel of events since Obi happened on the Nigerian political space. This will underscore whether his outcry could be considered as coming from genuine fears or dismissed as non-issues, as the Aso Rock Villa, enjoins.
Does NEXT International Supermarket, arguable once the biggest monuments in Abuja and one of the visible concerns linked to Obi, suddenly going up in flames some years back, not deserve a mention in the current conversation?
What about the outburst of Monday Okpebholo, Governor of Edo State, warning the NDC candidate never to step his foot in Benin the capital or anywhere within the territory without his express say-so? Where does that fit in?
How does Abuja capture the real life attack on Obi, then a chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), in the same Benin under the nose of the selfsame Okpebholo? Does that bullet-ridden vehicle that told the story of the entire macabre event in more ways than words not mean anything?
Okay, how is Obi supposed to process the silence of Abuja after an APC chieftain warned him not to step his feet into Rivers State or do so at the pain of death, when elsewhere such open threat ought to instigate an instant action, including the arrest and prosecution of the culprit?
What about the outburst of the selfsame Onanuga warning the NDC candidate – never to interfere in Lagos politics – following the blitzkrieg that came after trouncing Tinubu in his own backyard during the 2023 presidential election?
How was Obi supposed to process the pulling down of a prime property in Lagos belonging to his brother, in the context of this warning and other events that nuanced the actions of Alausa and other players since that 2023 routing?
Given this list of what is in the public domain, though not exhaustible yet – not knowing what else could have transpired beyond what is known to him and his supposed traducers alone, does it make for Obi to be complacent and believe that all is well?
For us, no politician in Nigeria today could be accused of being too careful with the foregoing events, not the least, Obi, given the long list of unresolved political killings history in the country.
The horrendous cases of the likes of Funso Williams, Bola Ige, Aminasori Dikkibo, Harry Marshal, Ogbonnaya Uche (OGB), who fell to the bullets of gunmen at various times, have not continued to blur the nation’s political firmament, but remain sad reminders of how awry things could go.
WHIRLWINDNEWS believes, therefore that the case of Obi deserves more than being dismissed with a wave of the hands as Abuja has since done. We believe that, not only the NDC candidate, but the nation needs the assurance that he is alive to contest in the election.
The consequences of Obi coming to harm might be graver than those who believe they are safe in the fortresses of Abuja foresee. It might signal the doomsday. Therefore, that assurance must come in visible words and deed. Now!
It began less than 10 minutes after taking the oath of office. In his address to the nation, he uttered those three-letter words – subsidy is gone. The ink with which he signed the documents declaring him President was yet to dry.
That was it. From that moment, Nigerians have known nothing but poverty, tears and death. It was a declaration that came out of impulse rather than articulacy. It was not even contained in his original speech prepared for the occasion. But it sprouted out – from a rash, unthinking and impetuous mental construct.
But the effect was instant, the impact direct. From that moment, Nigerians have never known peace. Every thing took a cue. Minutes after, the news broke that the price of Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise known as petrol had jumped from N189 to N550. It was that instant. Today, it hovers around N1,500.
The effect: Within minutes, transportation cost quadrupled. So too, commodity prices. Caught unawares, marketers, who had earlier thought it was a day of the rains as customers rushed to their shops, soon became suspicious and then got wiser – these were not ordinary customers but smart alecs playing a fast one on them.
They stopped selling, retrieved the items they could from those who had not disappeared with their goods and closed shop to study the situation properly. Hours after, they responded. A plate of eba and soup, went up from N200 to N1,000. Prices hit the rooftops.
In fact, the vehicle transporting what used to be Nigeria, which had been moving at a horse and buggy pace in the days of Muhammadu Buhari, stopped abruptly, engaged the reverse gear and began galloping backwards. That has remained the ugly, parlous tale of the Tinubu days, since May 29, 2023.
Now, the expectation would be that the President and his government that wrought such a horrendous punishment on the polity, would themselves take some blows. But nada! Instead, the opposite was the case. Within months of plunging the citizens into the untold hardship Tinubu went on a binge, spending money – in the words of Olusegun Obasanjo, former President – like a drunken sailor.
Few weeks after, as Nigerians were reeling and gasping in pain from the impact of their new situation, 469 newly-minted Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs), rolled out from factories in Japan, where they were produced into the premises of the National Assembly for the just inaugurated members.
Put the cost at N100billion – that is N160million for each unit, plus other charges. Reason: The lawmakers needed the vehicles because of their good suspension system, to navigate the so many bad roads in Nigeria. Yes, you heard right. How could they think well and make good laws after the hassles of the bad roads? Tinubu saw reasons, acquiesced and voila!
But it did not end there. Tinubu suddenly realised that Kashim Shettima, his deputy, needed a new home “befitting” his new office. Pronto! A voucher of N21billion was raised and he had it. Till date a haze still hovers over the project.
The last news that was heard was that Number Two refused to take residence because the entire environment, including the toilets was wired to the teeth to monitor him. And Number Two needed privacy.
Again, in the same weeks, Oga Patapata, also realised that Madam needed to transport more comfortably. Pronto! It was arranged. Another voucher was raised for cars for the Office of the First Lady. Cost N1.2billion. Of course, madam needed the comfort for peace at home.
Naturally, since transportation is not done by land alone, he also took care of that. For the sea, a yacht was procured. Cost N5billion. Because the birds in the presidential fleet were not good enough, Tinubu did the needful.
He enriched the fleet with the one befitting of his status and had it transformed to mimic the US Air Force One. To complete the status symbol project, he also added a replica of The Beast, the US presidential automobile.
Ironically, the funds used in procuring these luxury lifestyle, came, not out of productive ventures of Nigeria, but through borrowing. Today, Tinubu has practically borrowed Nigeria blind, doubling or even tripling that of his predecessors.
Meanwhile Nigerians had upped the ante from mere groaning and skreiching. Citizens, unable to take it anymore, now stop their hitherto sleek vehicles on the Third Mainland Bridge and plunge into the Lagos lagoon to end it all. The option is now more rampant than remote and occasional.
Many others, taking the Socrates option, now drink hemlock and many more simply sleep off without any intention of waking up. That is where we are. That is the new Nigeria – the Tinubu Nigeria. But there is more.
Terrorists and the landlords of the forest, having now discovered that the Commander-in-Chief has other fancies than security and welfare of the people – the constitutionally-declared primary purpose of government and scant regard for the citizens, have practically gone haywire. They have taken over and established their authority.
Presently, outside those wantonly slaughtered or butchered in their homes like animals at the abattoir, incinerated alive while sleeping on their beds, among other forms of decimation, many more citizens are now spending months, going to years as victims of captivity with them in various forests in Nigeria.
In their rampage, the terrorists have since broken all barriers considered out of place hitherto. One of their escapades is the present videos of the school children and teachers taken from Oyo State. The gory imagery captures the current Nigerian story.
For instance, on Thursday, just as the sound of heavy celebration was going on in neighbouring Ogun State as the world marked the Ojude Oba yearly carnival, two of the victims, one of them with a toddler on her back, were pleading for their lives, as others went through various forms of torture, including heavy whipping like beasts.
Don’t forget that the terrorists had earlier slaughtered one of their colleagues. In the new video, the totally terrified women, informed that they had chosen another victim to be similarly eliminated. Yet, no word about rescue! Terrible!
Interestingly, if not painfully, Tinubu’s response, in the few cases he bothered, was to see the crisis through the politics lens. His most recent reaction was to tell the world that the harvest of attacks and carnages ravaging the country, were sponsored by his political enemies, intent on shoving him out of power. That to him was all that mattered.
Now, where are your powers as C-in-C? They are mostly found in the most disgraceful economic and political acts of impunity. Nigerians now waking up to hear of the award of brain-dazing contracts such as the N15trillion Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Badagry-Maiduguri Highway – with scant regard for official regulations, is now becoming more common than rare.
Few days after one of the teachers was beheaded and the video of the hideous act made to circulate on the social media, the President and his All Progressives Congress (APC), party, rolled out the drums of his winning the party’s ticket to contest the 2027 presidential election.
To say that it has been three years of weeping, wailing, mourning and gnashing of the teeth, is a clear euphemism. There is no starker way of putting it than calamity – pure, unmitigated catastrophe – disaster.
Then comes the big question. Nigeria is already breasting the tape of these ruinous years of the first term. Suppose Tinubu succeeds in renewing his tenure by January next year? Will Nigeria survive five more years of a life like the last three? What will be left of Nigeria? Is there a way out, outside shouting – God forbid!?
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