News
‘To Keep It Coming’: Reflections on Framework Building, Idea Formation and Scholarly Reception
By Max Amuchie | The Sunday Stew
There is a specific kind of validation that academia confers and another that the world confers. The academy signals acceptance through citation, peer review, and the slow machinery of scholarly publication. The world signals it differently — through use. When a scholar picks up your framework not merely to interrogate it, but to build with it, something important has shifted. That is not endorsement. That is adoption.
That is what happened when Dr. Omoniyi Ibietan — Secretary General of the African Public Relations Association (APRA) and a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR)—reached for The Insecurity Triad to anchor the theoretical foundations of his paper on crisis communication in the Agatu conflict. He did not cite it as a curiosity. More importantly for this discourse, Ibietan is a member of doctoral faculty at Rome Business School’s DBA programme.
He used it as a load-bearing wall.
His words, addressed to Premium Times editorial page editor Ololade Bamidele, are worth sitting with: the framework took him back to Mbembe, offered fresh insight into, and — and then did something rarer. It shaped what he was about to write. “So compelling was it,” Ibietan noted, “that it shaped my theoretical framing for a new paper I just submitted.”
Ibietan’s message to Bamidele was in response to last week’s edition of The Sunday Stew entiteld: ‘The Insecurity Triad: Azikiwe, Awolowo, and Chinweizu — Nigeria’s Elite Class of Framework Builders’.
Dr Ibietan’s words: “Thank you Ololade Bamidele. Please tell Dr. Amuchie to keep it coming. The first part of this took me back to Mbembe (one of Africa’s leading representation of activistic scholarship). Amuchie offered me a refreshing, lovely insight of the works of (Ali) Mazrui, (Claude) Ake, (Jean-François) Bayart, (William) Reno, especially his treatise on the ‘Relocation of Authority’ and of course Mbembe. It was a meta-analytical enterprise. So, compelling was it that it shaped my theoretical framing for a new paper I just submitted on Crisis Communication in the Agatu Crisis. Needless to say this is also beautiful.”
This is not simply a compliment from a respected scholar. It is evidence of intellectual utility. Scholars are exposed to thousands of ideas during their careers. Very few are incorporated into ongoing research. Fewer still alter the theoretical architecture of work already in development. When an established academic changes the lens through which he interprets a conflict because of a framework he has encountered, that framework has crossed an important threshold. It has moved from proposition to application.
What makes Ibietan’s validation particularly significant is his position within African scholarly and professional networks. He occupies a rare intersection of communication studies, governance research, public policy, and professional practice. His adoption therefore functions as more than an individual scholarly decision. It is an early signal that the Insecurity Triad possesses interdisciplinary reach. A framework developed primarily to explain insecurity and conflict dynamics has proven capable of informing crisis communication research. That is not a small achievement. It suggests conceptual elasticity without sacrificing analytical precision.
What makes this moment even more consequential is that the Insecurity Triad was never designed as a self-contained theoretical exercise. It was built to travel. Its three pillars — Money, Land, and Mind — were deliberately constructed to be analytically portable across conflict environments, governance challenges, and security ecosystems. Ibietan applied it to the Agatu crisis, a deeply localised conflict in Benue State with its own history of farmer-herder tensions, displacement, and contested narratives. The framework held. It supplied categories capable of explaining not only the drivers of insecurity but also the communicative environment surrounding conflict.
That portability is often what separates enduring frameworks from temporary concepts. Many theories explain a single case. The most influential frameworks explain multiple cases without losing explanatory power. They move across disciplines. They generate new questions. They create intellectual bridges between fields that previously appeared unrelated. The early evidence suggests that the Insecurity Triad possesses precisely these qualities.
There is also a broader significance to this moment. African intellectual production has long suffered from a structural asymmetry. Frameworks generated in Europe and North America routinely become the default lenses through which African realities are interpreted, while concepts generated from African experience often struggle to achieve comparable visibility. As a result, African scholars frequently find themselves applying imported theories to indigenous problems rather than exporting indigenous theories to the wider world.
The Insecurity Triad represents an attempt to reverse that flow. It is a framework theorised from Nigerian and Sahelian realities, derived from empirical observations of conflict, governance failures, criminal economies, and social fragmentation. Its ambition is not merely to describe Africa but to contribute to the global vocabulary of security studies.
That is why Ibietan’s engagement matters. Validation from a scholar of his standing demonstrates that the framework is not circulating solely because of media visibility or public debate. It is entering scholarly workflows. It is influencing research design. It is becoming part of the knowledge-production process itself.
His comparison to Mbembe is instructive. Achille Mbembe’s concept of necropolitics did not become influential because people admired it. It became influential because scholars found it useful. It provided explanatory power where existing frameworks fell short. Researchers adopted it, tested it, extended it, and applied it across contexts far removed from its original formulation.
The Insecurity Triad is not Mbembe, nor should it be measured against the trajectory of a mature global theory. But the comparison illuminates an important principle: intellectual influence begins when a framework starts solving analytical problems for other scholars. Ibietan’s adoption suggests that this process may already be underway.
The Agatu application is therefore more than a citation. It is proof of concept. It demonstrates that the framework can survive contact with a different discipline, a different methodology, and a different research question. In academic terms, that is often the first indication that a concept has genuine staying power.
What the scholarly community should watch is not whether the Insecurity Triad receives more praise — praise is abundant and often fleeting — but whether it continues to be used. Frameworks earn their place in the canon not through applause but through repeated deployment. They become influential when researchers begin treating them as tools rather than subjects.
Ibietan’s paper carries the architecture of the Triad into the literature on public relations, crisis communication, and conflict management. Tomorrow another scholar may apply it to political economy, peacebuilding, migration, state legitimacy, or violent extremism. Each application expands the framework’s reach. Each successful application increases its explanatory credibility.
That is how ideas compound. That is how indigenous theories become established traditions. That is how a framework moves from being an author’s insight to becoming part of a field’s intellectual infrastructure.
The Insecurity Triad is now in motion. The significance of Ibietan’s validation lies not simply in who endorsed it, but in what he did with it. He built upon it. He carried it into new terrain. He demonstrated that it travels.
The question is no longer whether the framework can move beyond its point of origin. It already has.
The question now is how far it will travel.
Unveiling the DSI in The Sunday Stew
As an undergraduate at the University of Calabar, one of the first sets of books to catch my attention was The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper’s landmark two-volume 1945 work of political philosophy. In it, he passionately defended liberal democracy and mounted a fierce critique of totalitarianism. The other book of his I picked up was The Poverty of Historicism published in 1957, where he attacked the intellectual and logical validity of authoritarian teleology. While The Poverty of Historicism targeted the foundational logic, The Open Society dismantled the devastating political consequences of totalitarian rule.
However, long before he turned his sights on totalitarianism, the Austrian-British philosopher had already revolutionised western epistemology. In his groundbreaking 1934 book, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Logik der Forschung), Popper introduced the concept of falsifiability as a solution to the demarcation problem—the question of how to distinguish between genuine science and non-science (such as pseudoscience, metaphysics, or myth). At its core, the concept insists that for a theory to be considered scientific, it must be falsifiable. This means there must be at least one logically possible observation, metric, or experiment that could prove the theory wrong. A theory that explains everything, explains nothing.
For three consecutive weeks in this column beginning on April 26, I laid bare the Trinity of State Decay (TSD)—a macro-diagnostic theory mapping how nations fracture into dual or competing sovereignties. I analysed how this structural deterioration plays out in Nigeria and across the wider Sahelian context. Yet, the theory is fundamentally scalable; it applies to all contexts and geographies where the devastating conditions of the Insecurity Triad take root, from the fault lines of Latin America to the fragile corridors of Southeast Asia.
But to save the Trinity of State Decay from the graveyard of mere political commentary or fluid narrative, it must meet Popper’s uncompromising standard. It must be measurable. It must be testable. It must expose itself to empirical refutation.
By anchoring the theoretical formulation to quantitative metrics, I provide international organisations and the global scholarly, policymaking and intelligence communities with a verifiable yardstick. If the state’s legal authority and empirical reality remain tightly bound, the index will prove it; if they are violently drifting apart, the index will map the velocity of that separation.
Next week, therefore, I cross that scientific Rubicon. I will unveil the Decoupling Sovereignty Index (DSI).
I am moving from description to diagnosis.
Trust is sacred. Stay seasoned.
•Dr. Max Amuchie is the CEO of Sundiata Post and architect of The Insecurity Triad and Trinity of State Decay. He writes The Sunday Stew, a weekly syndicated column on faith, character, and the forces that shape society, with a focus on Nigeria and Africa in a global context.
X — @MaxAmuchie | Email: max.a@sundiatapost.com | Tel: +234(0)8053069436
Have you been watching the drama happening in ADC? I have, and I have been thoroughly amused doing so. Have you been following the television appearances of Rotimi Amaechi recently? Did you see how the former Governor of Rivers State had been vibrating, assuring of his victory at the party’s presidential primaries?
Did you hear him boasting how he was going to vanquish Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President and now the presidential candidate of the party, indicating that ADC members would prefer him over the seventh-time election-contesting Nigerian record holder, because of his (Amaechi’s) records?
Did you see the vehemence with which he warned that television host, to “stop that nonsense,” for suggesting that he could end up as the VP candidate to the same Atiku? Did you see how he rolled his bulging eyes and how angry he sounded?
Did you read the statement of the former Minister of Transportation, rejecting the outcome of the ADC presidential primaries, even before it was finally announced on Wednesday.
Now, pan the camera to the Abuja home of the same Amaechi – by the way – I could swear the ambiance could compete with the palace of the Sultan of Brunei – how did he do it – but how could I forget his wife is a money-minting machine!
Did you see the selfsame man with Atiku? Did you notice the difference? Did you notice the robustness, the comicalness? Did you watch the chumminess and the camaraderie? What meaning did you read into it? You actually have to be an initiate to correctly read everything perfectly.
Just wait for a few days to hear the announcement. I won’t be the one to tell you that the huffing and puffing, the air-punching and the table-banging is all for one thing – the VP position.
For those who had advocated that Obi stayed back and contested with Atiku, it would have been a fatal gambit. He would have come a distant third in the contest, competing with Mohammed Hayatu-Deen. Not because it will be so by the desires of the members, but the goons, wanted it so and would have made it so.
Even the position of the VP which hitherto had been bandied as his for the asking, would have eluded him. Amaechi was there to pick it up.
You heard Dele Momodu an accomplice in that plot telling you that Amaechi was more experienced than Obi in that interview with Charles Aniagolu on ARISE NEWS Television’s Prime Time.
It was all figured out. If Peter Obi had fallen to the plot he would have been the greatest political mugu of the century. He would have rubbished the rock-strong foundation on which his profile was built and stands today – as businessman and politician.
Indeed the plot appeared skewed towards not only making him wave goodbye to politics forever, but caast a huge slur on his exhilarating credentials that account to his being celebrated as one of the most successful Nigerian business tycoons today.
Only a few seconds and the trap would have snapped. Had he waited a few days more in that ADC environment, it would have been over. He would have been trapped in the odd situation of point of no return.
By now he would have become an object of mockery and an item of sport for his enemies. Tons of them would be having a bellyful of laughter over his ordeal by now – had he wasted a second more.
But having that laugh would mean that the eagle has lost its lustre. Obi isn’t Obi just by name. Now, here is the Obi they wanted to trick into a trap. Still in his early 20s, he drove three cars he bought with his own money before graduating from the university.
First year – a Volkswagen Beetle (today’s Venza) – second year a Peugeot 505 (today’s Prado) – third year – a BMW (Today’s Maybach). Now think of yourself as a student then. Think of your children that are students today. That would bring you closer to the persona in question.
It didn’t end there. Still as an undergraduate, he owned the supermarket on campus. There was more. He built residential houses and became a landlord to students and locals in the university community – one of them, said to be Abubakar Sa’ad, the current Sultan of Sokoto, who was then a military officer.
De hear o! This same Obi, was among the 1,000-ONLY, UK customers the American Express Bank gave their Platinum Cards. You know what that means. In the whole of the UK – including oyibo people of all nationalities doing business.
Before his 33rd birthday, this Obi, had become Chairman of a commercial bank and director of other blue-chip companies. At the same age when his colleagues still clutch files in their armpits in pursuit of jobs, he was already heading a conglomerate of firms dealing with supplies and distribution of goods.
So, add all these up! Imagine the number of intriguing situations he must have dealt with in this long journey. Imagine the boardroom politics. Imaging the various business tricks he must have survived.
In politics, this same Obi practically cut off the head of the political monster prowling Anambra for years.
Before his arrival, the whole of the state was one huge conflagration and cataclysm. Elements sponsored by patrons of evil had razing down structures including the Government House of governor’s residence. Anambra was all chaos – a huge bedlam!
But all these Obi faced and conquered, arresting the tempest, quietening the tide and smoothening the waves – not without battles – there was a deluge of them – but with willpower, wisdom, tenacity, consistency, and above all – courage.
He battled the electoral heist that stole his original mandate, won, then impeachment, triumphed, then abrupt tenure termination, challenged it and returned to power – battled entrenched interests in the labour unions – teachers, doctors, workers – et al – prevailed and handed down a new Anambra sitting on the foundation of sobriety and good behaviour.
Now this was the man they wanted to trick. Obi’s case would have been that of the late John Chukwu, the hero in the tragicomedy, Isubru Ekperi – described as the crab which swam across the mighty ocean, but fell in the woman’s pot of soup.
Had Obi, stayed in ADC to contest against Atiku, his fate would have mimicked Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, whom for fear of being thought weak, destroyed his own destiny by killing Ikemefuna and ended up committing suicide! But providence was on his side;
Thankfully, he did not. And today, NDC provides a new horizon. Nigerians are being provided the opportunity of a new country, that could rise from the ashes of the old order – a clean break from the past – a new hope of awakening the sleeping giant!
The Tiny Voice!
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!?
Only a man of rare courage and unquestionable love for country, could have been daring enough to undertake the level of reforms President Bola Tinubu has taken the country through in the last three years that is turning its fortunes around.
This was the verdict of Godswill Akpabio, Senate President, on Friday, as he extolled Tinubu’s exceptional foresight, grit and resilience in pursuing policies that have resulted in quantum growth for the country, stating that under him, the National Assembly would remain solidly behind him all the way.
Akpabio, who joined other Nigerians in hailing the President in the celebration of his three-year anniversary in office, said in a statement he personally signed, noted that for three years Tinubu had undertaken bold reforms, strategic leadership, and unwavering commitment to Nigeria’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
Stressing that the administration’s focus on economic diversification, infrastructure renewal, security, and social welfare, had laid a solid foundation for sustainable growth and prosperity, Akpabio praised the bold leadership and the Renewed Hope Agenda, noting that three years of focused governance had produced landmark projects and reforms that are repositioning Nigeria for its growth and greatness.
Naming some of the initiatives as the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, now opening up coastal trade and connectivity, the Nigerian Student Loan Scheme, making tertiary education accessible to more youths, the Renewed Hope Housing Programme, delivering affordable homes nationwide and the nationwide rollout of Compressed Natural Gas buses and conversion centres to ease transport costs.
Akpabio also spoke about the ongoing tax reforms aimed at broadening the tax base while reducing burden on low-income earners and the completion of OB3 pipeline delivery two billion standard cubic feet of gas per day into the national transmission network.
His words: “The courage to remove fuel subsidy, unify exchange rates, and drive infrastructure despite global headwinds shows a President committed to long-term prosperity over short-term comfort.
“The 10th Senate remains a committed partner in enacting laws that will sustain these gains and secure the future we all desire,” the Senate President stated. Mr President, your courage to take difficult but necessary decisions in the national interest is already yielding results Nigerians can see and feel.”
Praying for God to continue to shower the President with wisdom, strength, and good health, while leading the nation into the next phase of transformation, he also wished him victory in 2027 to finish his assignment of transforming Nigeria.
Hear him:: “Mr. President, on behalf of my family, constituents, the Senate and entire 10th National Assembly, I wish you a successful completion of your tenure and resounding victory in the forthcoming elections.”
-
News3 weeks agoTinubu to African leaders: Copy Nigeria, produce your way out of poverty
-
News2 weeks agoBREAKING: US-Nigeria troops slaughter 175 ISWAP fighters
-
Columns1 week agoDear General Gowon: That apology you’re running from is your nemesis
-
News3 weeks agoWhy we pegged presidential ticket forms at N60million – NDC
-
News3 weeks agoBREAKING! Coast brightens for Obi, as NDC zones presidency to South
-
News3 weeks agoGowon on civil war: My book is to put records straight, remove falsehood
-
News2 weeks agoBREAKING: Wait over! Arsenal are CHAMPIONS! Win EPL after 22 years hiatus
-
News2 weeks agoBREAKING: Jonathan emerges presidential candidate *Gets automatic PDP ticket!