Compatriots, come, let’s reason together. You know one of the biggest diseases this country is cursed with today is hypocrisy. It is a major malaise that has not only afflicted the people at every level, but eaten deep into their hearts and souls at any given time.

This obviously debilitating condition, is the reason Nigeria is currently in its sorry state today. Nowhere is this quite demonstrably evident than the political field. I will give you an apt example to adumbrate my position.

Without the disease of hypocrisy, Bola Ahmed Tinubu would not have been President today and Nigeria would have been saved the nightmare that his coming into power has inflicted on the populace.

I’ll explain. Throughout the events culminated to the disastrous 2023 presidential election, the burning issue around the vortex of that exercise was zoning. This was the factor around which Nyesom Wike, leading the G-5 – group of five Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members – anchored his agitation.

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Many chieftains of the PDP, especially from Southern Nigeria, sang it like a credo that it was the turn of the region to produce the next President after Muhammadu Buhari, a Northerner. In fact, it was the Governors from the South that began the agitation, culminating in the Asaba Declaration.

But see where it got quite interesting. Majority of these chieftains trumpeting the refrain equity, justice and fair-play would always stop half-way. For instance, it was the same Wike that shouted his voice hoarse about equity in the PDP, that tipped the presidential election in Rivers in favour of Tinubu instead of Peter Obi, the only Igbo candidate in that election.

Is it that the self-same Wike did not know that the justice, equity and fair-play of the 2023 presidential election was that a Peter Obi from the South East, deserved that position more, given the political trajectory in Nigeria?

Throughout that time and even now, I stretched my antenna to the numerous interviews granted by Bode George, as he waxed the morality of the argument like a gospel singer. But in all, he would always stopped at the mantra that it was the turn of the South without extending the issue to the other leg of the argument – Ndigbo.

How else would anyone describe it? Even the Atiku Abubakar, who they directed all their arrows could not help but fire back at their hypocrisy when he told the world that had the PDP ticket been zoned to the South East, he wouldn’t have contested.

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Now, to the music playing today. Aren’t you hearing the same lyrics as you did in the months and days before 2023? Doesn’t it capture the same subterfuge, half-truths and outright lies? Aren’t you seeing the same actors as well?

They trumpet it to your ear the unwritten political tradition made it mandatory the that the presidency must remain in the South, but lack the same moral suasion to underscore that the same arrangement also makes it mandatory that it must also rotate around the three zones with the area that has not produced, having the first choice of refusal – in this case – the South East.

Hear this: “In recent time, some groups have introduced aggression and rambunctiousness into a fledgling cooperation, and collaboration, of all. How can a coalition work if some groups, insist they must produce the top ticket by donation, and coronation, without election or persuasion? Why unleash tantrums and expletives on one another as if one group can win National elections without the others?

“This is why, and when, ADC must rise up and enforce discipline before it is too late. This was how NYESOM WIKE held PDP by the jugular till it became too late to be dislodged or expelled. ADC should be a party of love and not a Fuji house of commotion…”

This was Dele Momodu. You know the people he is tagging as aggressive and rambunctious? The Obidient Movement! You know why? In recent times, this group have become quite loud in demanding that Peter Obi, their principal should never accept the vice-presidential slot to Atiku Abubakar in the ADC coalition arrangement.

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They insist that Obi should settle for nothing outside the presidential ticket. This of course, has unsettled people like Bob D, who believe that the former Governor of Anambra State should play the second fiddle to the former VP, not because the latter is fitter and would do a better job, but for purely personal reasons of advancing their individual interest at the end of the day.

Now, it is not that brother Dele doesn’t understand the issues behind the agitation of these people. Sure, he does. He knows that the Obidient Movement is not afraid about Obi squaring up to Atiku for the ADC ticket if the process would be free, fair and democratic. But would it be?

Could Bob D swear he was not aware that many delegates to the PDP primaries in 2022 where Atiku eventually picked the ticket went home with as much as $50,000. Is he not aware that it was for the same reason that Obi pulled out of the PDP contest – that it was because he swore that he would not buy votes of the delegates – that he pitched his tent with the Labour Party eventually?

Would Dele Momodu swear with his conscience and all that is good in him that he’s not aware that Obi won the 2023 presidential election above Atiku, his principal and that – give or take – Obi towers above the ex-VP in terms of organic votes in today’s Nigeria?

Sure, he does. More so, is he saying he’s unaware that much of the suffering Nigerians are undergoing today is traceable to Atiku’s stiff-necked intransigence to drag what doesn’t belong to him. Again, he sure does. But he’s got a job to do!

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But hear him blaming Wike, for the ugly fate of the PDP, instead of Atiku – for usurping the slot of the South. He forgets that the same slot donated to him exclusively in 2019 by the same party. What a barefaced hypocrisy!

Today, he carries the same duplicity to the ADC and pretends that Nigerians are fools. Now, when brother Dele, tells you that Atiku is the only one that could match Tinubu, ask him what he really means. Is it that the ex-VP would rely on credible votes of the people? Whosai! What he really means is contrived votes through corruption of the institutions – bribe INEC, bribe the judiciary and commandeer security.

Pray, is this what Nigerians want? What difference does it make if Atiku cheats the system to emerge President? Isn’t it akin to selling the monkey and buying a dog – thereby retaining a squatting animal in your house?

No, Bob D! Nigerians are clamouring for a complete break from this system of climbing to power on a staircase of stashes of cash. They want a President that has their mandate. That is what they see in Obi. It is only him that will give them that clean break. That is the reason for their agitation.

Dele Momodu deceives nobody when he cries democracy. The discipline here is to end cash-induced politics. Therefore, if anyone should be called to order, it’s the people that insist that Nigeria must continue on the road to Golgotha.

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Compatriots, do you know how irredeemable our national politics is? O no! you don’t know. Let me give you an interesting story – two in fact – to underscore the parlous situation. The two happened at different times within an election circle.

Some years ago, I had this very interesting conversation with a state governor who was a friend. He had picked interest in playing tennis, knowing that I was a tennis player, as I still am. We had earlier discussed about revamping and putting to use the two tennis courts in the governor’s lodge.

So, this Saturday morning, I had driven to the government house bringing along the tennis items I bought for him – tennis shoes – racquet, bag, shorts, shirts and others. I met my friend having breakfast and he invited me.

While at the table, our discussion delved once again towards his performance. Without mincing words, this man was virtually on a gravy train in terms of popularity.

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His approval rating was so high that the din was reverberating beyond his state to the national and even international level. I told him so, when he asked me what the feelings out there were. Of course, we had agreed from the beginning that I was going to be his eyes and ears in the outside word to tell him the truth – the real – authentic truth not dressed in sycophancy or praise-singing.

I actually meant every word of it when I told him that his rating was quite high. Naturally, he was happy. We were both happy. But it was in the euphoria of the moment that my friend gave me the shock of my life – as at that time – because nothing shocks me today regarding the Nigerian polity or politics. Who could imagine that Nigeria would become a one-party state as we’re witnessing today?

Terrible Sunny – that was his name for me – you know, this thing you’re seeing now is just for two years. After this, we’re going to pause and prepare for election. Even if it warrants importing soldiers from North Korea, I’m prepared to do that.

The bread and egg in my hand hung mid-air, as I paused to stare at him, not sure I heard right. Importing soldiers from North Korea, what for? I asked. Don’t you know we’re going for war? That was his reply. War, what war – with what you’re doing now in the state, if you sustain half of it, your re-election will be a stroll in the park, I told him.

You know his reply – Terribly Sunny – you don’t know politics. Of course, I needn’t recount the level of argument we had as I tried to persuade him about the futility of the line he was about to toe. I was definite that my position of relying on tangible evidence of delivery – what the late Chukwuemeka Ezeife used to call eye-marked achievement was the way to go.

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Folks, all my attempts not only failed, but my consistency earned me enmity as my friend, whom I helped become a governor by the fact of my providing his media backbone got sucked in and eventually got encircled in the morass of evildoers – the hyenas and brood of vipers hovering around government.

Now, this wasn’t the only time I was told this about not knowing politics. Another of my friend, this time a Senator, who later became a Senate President, also used exactly the same words. In his own case, I had visited him on the morning of an election and overheard him giving directives. It was clear that he was instructing his field-soldiers on how to rig election for him.

When the coast was clear was, I confronted him, because like the governor, we had more than casual relationship. He was also a friend. Oga, no be election una wan rig so? It was both a joke and a serious statement. Do you need to rig. This election is in your hand, I stretched!

Again, the same expression – Sunny you don’t know politics. You only know how to write. Sometimes you need to teach this people a lesson. So, in his own case, even though he could win re-election effortlessly, his own reason for rigging, was to teach his opponent a lesson – for contesting against him – which was an affront. As I said, this same Senator, later became a Nigerian Senate President.

Why do I tell this story. You must have seen the latest video of our brother, Benjamin Okezie Kalu telling Alex Ottit to cross over to APC or kiss second term goodbye. Now why do you think he is talking this manner?? He knows that head or tail, he stands no chance to confront Alex Otti, who stands in a class of his own as the best governor in Nigeria today in terms of performance.

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Don’t get it twisted! Otti doesn’t oppose President Bola Tinubu, the deity to whom all political forces in Nigeria today are bowing. No! His only offence is that he chose to serve the deity his own way. Instead of defecting to the APC, he wants to remain in his party.

In fact, it is said that Otti has actually promised that he would donate at least 50 pre cent of the votes of Abia people to the President. But even though these promised votes are going to be contrived – actually stolen from the storehouse, because no Abia man will vote for Tinubu – yes – neither Tinubu nor APC will get up to 1000 organic votes in the state – this effort is not enough. They want to rub it in.

APC or you fall. You know why? How can I be a Deputy Speaker and my state is in the hand of a non-APC governor? This obvious ego-tripping statement is the reason why the people’s will must be rubbished. Because as you know it is all boiled down to the strategy of winning elections in Nigeria which Dr. Sam Amadi actually captured recently – bribe INEC, bribe the judiciary, commandeer the security.

Now, if you look at this our brother – take another look at him, what do you see? Didn’t you find the charisma of Nnamdi Azikiwe, the intellectual endowment and captivating eloquence of Oyi of Oyi, Chuba Okadigbo – or is it the courage and boldness of Mikael Iheonukara Okpara and Sam Mbakwe rolled into one.

Yes! He stands the chance of being the new political phenomenon coming from the South East from what I see. But what does he do with the talents nature and his creator have endowed on him. He has packaged them and donated to Tinubu – a man that has maintained the ignoble record of being the worst President Nigeria has ever been cursed with.

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Ask him to point at one thing Tinubu has done in the South East and see how he would skirt around the issues and paint the image of a non-existent castle in the air. Ask him what this APC has brought to the states in the South East, where they have been existing for more than four years now.

Now, the same man that is boasting of his APC standing sleeps and wakes up from his mansion in Abuja and Umuahia to the fact that Nnamdi Kanu, his constituent and cousin is in prison today. He knows that Kanu is languishing in Sokoto prisons and eating watery beans not because he killed 30,000 people as his fellow brother Orji Uzor Kalu claims, but because he is an Igbo man.

But what has he done? What can he do? He’s as helpless as the next man in the street regardless. Use your number six now to set him free! Whosai!

In the earlier story. My friend the governor, ended up winning his second term, of course importing his North Korean soldiers – or the local variant. But ask me what became of him. Ask me where he ended up.

Today, he shares the reputation of Idi Amin – that flesh-eating demon of Uganda for the brutality and mass murder that happened in his state with many fingers being pointed at him.

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Today, he is as worthless as a faeces-soaked toilet paper. He cannot even win a local government councillorship. This was a man that, had he sustained as much as half of what he used to import those soldiers, would have remained one of the best things that happened in the Nigerian polity since the discovery of white rice and fresh fish pepper soup.

We shall see how this Tinubu project works, both for Otti and his promise of 50 per cent votes and for our brother BOK, who wants to force the poisoned cocktail through the throat of Abia people.

But how many times do I need to warn that whosoever commits evil in Igbo land and against Igbo people answers for it? It’s worse when you spill blood. I won’t say more.

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

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Compatriots, come, let’s reason together. Is there anything that is happening now in Nigeria that has not happened before? Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” Alphonse Karr, the French writer and Journalist, wrote in 1849, more than 176 years ago. Today that great saying – the more things seem to change, the more they remain same – has remained true and unchanged.

I just picked my history book and looked into the trial of Obafemi Awolowo in 1963. As I replay the scenario in my mind’s eyes, I could see the same images appearing and disappearing like a montage before my very eyes. I could see Awo standing before Justice Sodeinde Sowemimo trying to convince the jurist why he should let him and the other 26 with whom he was charged in the historic treason trial, to go home because they were not guilty as charged.

Picture Awo, an accomplished lawyer and leader of the Yoruba people in that courtroom. Did you see anything different with Mazi Nnamdi Kanu before Justice James Omotosho, on November 20, 2025, some 62 years after?

O yes! Both the characteristics of the two cases and the personalities involved are certainly different. But certainly not the endgame. While Awo a politician was blamed for setting off the Agbekoya uprising – the wild, wild West, Kanu a freedom fighter, was convicted for sponsoring the Unknown Gunmen (UGM) that supposedly created the – The Bloody East. Like Awo, Kanu opted to defend himself.

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They both shared the same fate – long prison terms. The similarities didn’t stop there. Awo, was meant to be sent to a prison in the North, but the late Nnamdi Azikiwe – Zik of Africa, then ceremonial President, was said to have intervened and stopped it. Hence, he ended up in the Calabar Prison. But in MNK, there was no Zik to influence his case. His traducers were fully in charge – Yoruba President – Yoruba Attorney General – Yoruba prosecutor – with tribal marks to boot – then Yoruba judge – so, he ended up in the North – Sokoto.

Like IPOB, like NADECO, like them all!

On June 11, 1994, Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, made the Ekpetedo Declaration, pronouncing himself President. His arrest, detention and subsequent trial for treason by the late military despot, Sani Abacha, arguably the most brutal military leader in Nigeria’s history sparked off global outcry.

The world remonstrated. Local and global leaders not only protested and denounced; they also pleaded. Institutions too – local and global – countries and government organisations – they all reacted in different ways – some even imposing sanctions. But Abacha remained unmoved. In his blindness, he practically played God.

Even the Pope – Pope John Paul, reputed for commanding global respect and having the ears of the world, came begging. But not Abacha. He wanted one thing – a broken Abiola, not only denouncing his mandate, but crawling on his knees or lying flat on his bellies in remorseful supplication. It never came. And Abacha never gave in even when Nigeria practically became a global pariah nation.

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As the voice of Omotosho, reverberated in the courtroom blaming Kanu for virtually all the killings in the South East in the last 10 years or so – the same line toed by all the security agencies – particularly the police and the Department of State Services – DSS, the memories of Abacha came flooding back. His voice rang like the echoes of the Abacha men in a replay of the soundbites that howled – NADECO!

Those voices never ceased until the table turned. They trumpeted the official government mantra that concerned the National Democratic Coalition, the group Abacha saw as his arch enemy, as a terrorist group. But all the body did was demanding the restoration of Abiola’s mandate and an end to his evil government. Yet!

It took the death of the merciless despot to hear from the likes of Sergeant Rogers, the man who actually pulled the trigger on behalf of the government, the truth. It took his exit from the scene to change the official narrative that the bombs that went off in Lagos and Abuja, and many of the security breaches, were not the handiwork of NADECO chieftains, but Abacha’s agents.

The reason was not farfetched. It was a gambit to hang something on the neck of those Abacha thought were his nemesis and whom he wanted out of circulation for him to hang on to power. He succeeded. Many of the NADECO men were nowhere near Nigeria thereafter. Many had scampered to foreign embassies to escape into exile. Those who couldn’t, had to make it through the bushes to cheat apparent and sure death.

That Bola Ahmed Tinubu, later became a political powerhouse that saw him as Governor of Lagos State and now President of Nigeria, is because the table turned against Abacha. Otherwise, he and his NADECO cohorts would have still been holed up as refugees in foreign countries, having been designated as terrorists.

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MNK was not so lucky. Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s former President, wasn’t a man to give up. He went for the kill. Now, has anyone noticed that since 2017 when he designated IPOB a terrorist organisation, no other government outside Nigeria has adopted the position? Has any foreign government hailed Omotosho even after designating MNK as an international terrorist? Quite instructive!

Again, how come that in the entire South East where IPOB supposedly carried out this blitzkrieg that killed 30,000 Ndigbo according to Orji Uzor Kalu, and destroyed billions of naira worth of businesses, nobody has rolled out the drums to celebrate the almost fatal fate of the man who wrought this havoc on the people.
Why is it that the ululations and cannon shots are heard from the homes of outsiders – mostly the households of APC members in Lagos? Is it not, like in the case of Awo in the hands of the Northern People’s Congress (NPC), all about the biblical hands of Esau and voice of Jacob?

Like Awo in the hands of Sowemimo and Abiola in the hands of Abacha, Kanu’s fate is not only about the cockroach searching for justice in the court presided over by lizards, it is about the lion not telling its story about the hunt after the hunter had prevailed.
For us Nigerians – if we could only learn by history – if only we could see that it is the same storyline, much from an old cinema reel – if only we could instill in the society, a culture embedded in justice equity and fair-play – if only we could build a nation where no man is oppressed.

Then we must await another Awo, another Abiola, another Kanu, where treachery, subterfuge, half-truths and outright propaganda are not only sustained, but a heap of official lies, forced down the throat of citizens like bitter cocktails. For no nation built on a quicksand of deceit lives! We wait!

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – The more things seem to change, the more they remain the same! _ The Tiny Voice!

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