Editorial

Rabe Abubakar et al: Different military, shame of a nation!

Published

2 hours ago

June 14, 2026

What does Dura community of Dura-Du area of Jos South Local of Area of Plateau State, 2018, Okporo, Ihuoma and Amaifeke communities in the Orlu Local Government Area of Imo State, 2022, and Okuama community of Ughelli South Local Government Area of Delta State 2024 have in common? Do they ring a bell?

Certainly! They are just a few of many demonstrable examples of military anger, recently on display in the Nigerian polity. Here are some details.

In September, 2018, Idris Alkali, was declared missing. The retired Major General of the Nigerian Army, was said to be travelling through Jos, Plateau State to Bauchi when he disappeared.

Reactions: The army came calling! In what they termed “search and rescue operation,” soldiers descended on communities along the route. It was a brutal exercise – the imprimatur of military operations. The youths of the communities, especially Dura-Du area in Jos, virtually disappeared into the bush or scampered out of town to escape the blitzkrieg.

Scores of the unlucky ones who fell into the wide net they cast on the entire area, meant to drag everyone in, regardless of status, were reportedly subjected to some of the most harrowing experiences they might not forget in their lifetimes.

The situation even worsened when the remains of the ex-military top brass was discovered in a disused well in one of the communities. That was when war was actually declared on the people in their bid to fish out the supposed culprits – albeit – military style.

Even after more than four years, the people of Okporo, Ihuoma and Amaifeke communities, are still nursing the physical and psychological wounds they sustained in the hands of the military who came visiting in April 2022.

Their only crime was to be the host of a hot gun battle between soldiers and elements said to be members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), during an ambush, which reportedly left casualties on both sides.

Many reportedly lost their homes and businesses in inferno, as the soldiers who descended on the communities, reportedly set many facilities on fire outside mowing down many residents, who they termed IPOB members.

What about Okuama? The case of the Delta community perhaps the freshest in mind. There, residents are still reeling in the pain inflicted on them in similar circumstances as their counterparts in Plateau and Imo, following the military operations that took place after some 16 personnel, including two officers were reportedly ambushed and killed by natives.

Tukur Gusau, then spokesman of Defence Headquarters (DHQ), Nigeria’s seat of military authorities, who reported that the troops from the 181 Amphibious Battalion were deployed in the Bomadi region and were on a peace-keeping mission in the Okuoma community when they were killed, had indicated that there would be grave consequences.

That promise was kept to the letter, with virtually nobody escaping the wrath of the military, from the ordinary citizens, the community leaders and even the traditional institutions. Even the fishes in the river and trees in the forest of the Niger Delta community, felt the anger of the soldiers.

Now, the question: Where is that anger today? On Saturday, Nigeria and its citizens were dazed from the hangover of another celebration of Democracy Day with the news of Abubakar Rabe, a retired Major General and former spokesman of the Nigerian Army.

The ex-military boss, just retired after more than three decades of service to country, died like an infected chicken in the hands of some rag-tag ruffians, unfit to polish his military boots when he was in service, who took him hostage and detained him in the bush in the last two weeks.

Yes, for two weeks, Rabe, who was abducted alongside his wife while travelling through Katsina, a hotbed of terrorist activities in Nigeria, was kept in the bush in a decrepit condition with signs of obvious failing health quite evident.

There was even a video of him begging the authorities including the Katsina State Government to come to his rescue, all which failed to get any positive result until he eventually took a bow on Friday, the same day the same country he served were celebrating what they termed – Democracy Day. What an irony!

Neither the central government under President Bola Tinubu, Katsina or the military authorities to whom he devoted his youth, could lift a finger to help him, or his wife, whose fate even remains unknown after the sad incident. What a nation!

But Rabe Abubakar is not an isolated case. Maharazu Tsiga (rtd), a Brigadier General and former Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) was abducted by bandits from his hometown in Bakori Local Government Area of Katsina State, spent 56 days in captivity before eventually regaining his freedom, while Rabi’u Garba Yandoto, a retired colonel and two of his children were abducted along the Gusau-Tsafe road in Zamfara State, also spent 10 days in captivity before regaining freedom.

They were the lucky ones. Others who were not that lucky, never lived to tell their story. One of them was Musa Uba. The late Brigadier General, and former Commander of the 25 Task Force Brigade, was leading his men and members of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) when insurgents struck.

The attack, which reportedly happened along the Damboa–Biu axis, led to the killing of four operatives: two soldiers and two CJTF members.

However, Uba, who reportedly escaped the initial ambush, was again encircled by the terrorists as he was communicating with military authorities on how to be rescued and returned to base. He was captured and subsequently killed.

Again, on April 8, 2026, Oseni Omoh Braimah, another Brigadier General Commander of the 29 Task Force Brigade, under Operation Hadin Kai, also met a fatal fate in the hands of the same Boko Haram -ISWAP fighters.

They were said to have launched a coordinated, midnight assaults on military formations in Benisheikh, a strategic town in the Kaga Local Government Area of Borno State.

Before then, Alex Bardeh, a retired Air Vice-Marshal and former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) was killed on December 18, 2018 by hoodlums who attacked his convoy on the Keffi- Kaduna Expressway while he was returning from his farm on the border between Nasarawa State and the Federal Capital Territory.

Ironically, all these tragedies took place under the nose of the All Progressives Congress (APC), a party, which, before assuming power in 2015, had made a song and dance of how they were going to offer Nigerians a breather from what they saw then as the parlous condition of the Nigerian polity, particularly in insecurity.

Interestingly, the government of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which they heavily assailed as incompetent and clueless in arresting the situation, did not count a single case of a General being killed in such a manner.

Today, the terrorists who had hitherto seemed to be acting scared by hitting soft targets and disappearing, now appear quite frontal unfazed.

They no longer limit themselves to civilian targets. Outside kidnapping and outright carnages on civilians, which are now daily stories, they have since upped the ante – hitting even some of the highly-fortified military bases, slaughtering soldiers at will.

After Alex Bardeh, Musa Uba, Omo Braimah and now Abubakar Rabe, the question that seems quite natural now, is who is next? The other question, is where is the notorious Military Anger that kept the polity in check and the nation safe?

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Editorial

Can Nigerians endure another term of Tinubu’s years of poverty, tears and death?

Published

2 weeks ago

May 31, 2026

Whirlwindnews

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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Editorial

Rivers State and Fubara: So, this is the democracy Tinubu boasts about?

Published

3 weeks ago

May 21, 2026

Whirlwindnews

Now that Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has fully executed his plot against Siminalayi Fubara, Governor of Rivers State, where would it be placed in terms of identity, nuances, ethos and history? Where would it be placed in democratic arrangement and value? In other word, by what name would it be called?

So, this is what President Bola Tinubu’s much-advertised democratic credentials is all about? This is what being listed among the arrowheads in the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), the body that fought relentlessly against the late Sani Abacha and his henchmen has finally come to?

Is this where “The Last Man Standing” – apologies Tony Elumelu – has ended up? So, after wedging an epic battle for and through Lagos State, against then President Obasanjo and practically defeating him, even if perceptibly, in all the struggles – such as running government without federal allocation for years and surviving the political onslaught that took away other South West states like a tsunami, it has come to this?

Don’t forget that it was this selfsame Tinubu that served as the bastion of opposition in Nigerian politics from when he was Governor of Lagos State, not only standing up against Obasanjo, but undertaking the relentless battles that led to the All Progressives Congress (APC), winning the war eventually in 2015.

So, this is what all the struggles, the speeches, the colloquia, the meetings and the strategies have come to – the end result? So, the definition of democracy, to Tinubu, is selling the dog to buy a monkey – replacing democratic bad-behaviour with democratic-heist? So, this is it?!

Make no mistake about it. What you saw play out in Rivers is nothing but Tinubu at work. It is all about him, it is for him. Never make the mistake of adorning Wike in the toga of a powerful man. That would be a fatal error of judgement. Every power he exercises, real, imagined, inferred or contingent belong to and are exclusive to Tinubu.

Take away the President and Wike would turn to a political meek-lamb or a jellyfish. Fubara would have eaten him for lunch a long time ago. So, Tinubu it is – the reason the klieglights must be beamed on him. That is why he must carry the can in this odious construct in Rivers in particular and the entire Nigerian political scenario in general.

With the picture that assaulted Nigeria regarding the APC primaries that have just held, what is different from the edition we saw in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of old? Is it not worse or the worst in real and imagined terms? What then has Tinubu been fighting all these years?

Incidentally, where we have Wike today, we had Lamidi Adedibu, the Amala Politics exponent, Tony Aneni of the Mr. Fix-it fame and the Uba brothers in Anambra to whom the political firmament in Nigeria once bowed, among many plethora of examples.

So, there is nothing really new about the development, but for the fresh dimension that has been introduced into the narrative by the Wike phenomenon, which is totally novel. Before now it was a case of one behemoth in a political party rampaging the system.

But today, it has gone beyond that. Wike has developed the penchant for taking no prisoners. In his own strange construct, he has now coalesced the entire APC and PDP structure into his shoulder basket, from where he dispenses favours.

Imagine Kingsley Chinda, purchasing APC governorship election form, as a PDP federal lawmaker without first resigning from his original party. That is how wacky it has become. Wackier still is that nobody – not even the APC apparatchik has been able to raise a finger. Why? Obvious answer – the Tinubu factor.

Now, here is the danger. By the heist in Port Harcourt adding to the sequence of political oddities and absurdities since the Tinubu years, it has become obvious that Nigeria is headed towards a Paul Biya’s Cameroun, a Yoweri Musaveni’s Uganda and Zimbabwe under the late Robert Mugabe.

Tinubu, has shown obvious incapacity to tackle the parlous economic crisis in the country with 150 million Nigerians plunged into multidimensional poverty and many more growing the list daily, while also displaying uncommon powerlessness towards addressing the debilitating state of insecurity.

Under his nose citizens are daily being forced from their homes into the forests by terrorists, with some of them taken from their crutching positions, positioned before the camera and slaughtered – heads cut off like animals at an abattoir and video images freely displayed on social media.

Yet, by what has now happened in Rivers State, it has become obvious that Nigerians are not being factored into the whole equation and if they were, scant regard is paid to their opinion, ending in their powerlessness to change the situation. That is the tragedy!

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Editorial

Closure of Onitsha Main Market: How not to gaslight the people

Published

4 months ago

January 31, 2026

Whirlwindnews

In the early hours of Monday, January 26, 2026, Charles Chukwuma Soludo, stormed Onitsha Main Market, reputed to be the biggest enclave for trading and other commercial activities in West Africa, on what he called on-the-spot assessment.

It was a military-style display, reminiscent of the Muhammadu Buhari-Tunde Idiagbon, best-forgotten taskforce days, when soldiers, without warning swooped on markets, broke into their owner’s shops and practically sold available goods to the public at giveaway prices – many their cronies, in the guise of forcing their Essential Commodities policy.

In like manner there and then, the governor ordered the immediate closure of the market after accusing the traders of harbouring criminal intents and engaging in economic sabotage that costs the state a whopping N8billion in lost revenues. To boot, he even warned not only to close the market on a permanent basis, but if need be, even bulldoze it to the ground, should the traders remained recalcitrant in their decision.

Hear him: “Each Monday, we’ll come and inspect. If people are not in their respective shops, it will be shut down again. If you like I don’t mind shutting down this Main Market for the remainder of this year. If you don’t like it, go elsewhere and trade, but if you’re here, we’re not going to allow this plain economic sabotage. Also, we suspect whoever closes their shops to have some criminal intents.”

From the outset, we must state that what the world saw in that spontaneous encounter and subsequent days as the issues therein remained on the front burner, has little place in democracy, neither does it reflect sound, people-oriented leadership under the ethos of what has now been accepted across the globe as the best form of government.

Now, the last time we checked, Soludo is neither a military General nor even a soldier, but a highly-decorated academic, whose influence in the knowledge industry spans beyond education institutions, government – he was formally Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) – to international reckoning – consulting for some of the highest global bodies, including the United Nations.

Now, how does this selfsame global icon, reduce himself to a local dictator, dishing out orders as in regimental commands rather than employing that power of persuasion, which distinguishes brainpower – the emblematic factor of his training from raw strength of dictators in the gun business?

How does it fit? Do concepts like immediate effect and automatic alacrity form part of the recommendations Soludo makes to those global institutions he consulted for? Certainly no! So, why introduce them as his own governance template? That is the confusing, if not the disturbing part.

Is it not becoming clearer now? Is this military-style tendency not finding expression in the audacity captured in that ghoulish spectacle last year, where one Jennifer Elohor Edema, the young lady serving Nigeria under the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme, was stripped down to her birthday suit by some youths, visibly inebriated on influences of some brain-damaging substances, who were working for Soludo’s government?

By the way, when last did anyone hear anything about those criminals, outside the initial apparent crocodile tears at government places in Awka? Has anyone heard of any form of punishment? Have they been arraigned in court? If yes, what is the state of the trial?

In the instant case, we particularly detest the governor’s attempt to feign ignorance of the issues behind the conduct of the traders or his efforts to bury them under the veneer of righteous anger. To so do is deceitful, arrogant, if not self-serving – elements that seem to have, so unfortunately, formed part of the governance structure in Anambra State, as in most other states across the country, including the central government.

The issue here, if Soludo needs be reminded, is about the fate of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), currently serving life sentence at a facility in Sokoto, to where he was sent by Justice James Omotoso of the Federal High Court, Abuja.

Of course, the governor was right in claiming that the dangerous security situation in the state has changed for the better and that Anambra is no longer the killing field it was until recently. Obviously, the blood-thirsty terrorists responsible for the carnages witnessed in the state, including those ostensibly aimed at enforcement of the sit at home orders, seem to be on holiday and from the look of things are no longer returning.

So, if the governor says security or insecurity of the traders is no longer the big issue, he has a foundation to so state. At least for the first time in recent years, Christmas was celebrated in the entire Igboland with the usual fanfare under the robust atmosphere devoid of fear. That alone gives credence to the extent of these changes.

But that is not the end of the story. Kanu’s fresh ordeal seems to have introduced a new chapter to the entire saga. Now, the current sit-at-home option appears no longer out of fear of being attacked or killed, but the willingness of the traders to donate every Monday, in solidarity with the IPOB leader. This was evident in the Tuesday demonstration, where the message of the traders who thronged the streets of Onitsha, was clearly delivered with renditions like – Nnamdi Kanu is another saviour.

Therefore, Soludo, must be a complete novice or pathologically naïve to claim he is not aware of this new sentiment. But he is neither of the two. There is no way the governor would not have been seized of the compelling emotions around him.

So, for him to put up that show on Monday, is nothing but a gambit tailored towards gaslighting the public. His feigned anger against the traders for not opening their shops is as manipulative as it is deceitful, just as argument thereto regarding the economy implications is as puerile as it is spurious.

It is demonstrative of lack of emotional intelligence, as it showcases the absence of the required synergy between the government and the people, a phenomenon that has become characteristic in the South East in recent years, where a huge gulf and trust deficit exist between the people and those who lead them.

It is indeed laughable when South East governors, including Soludo, lay claims to the current calm in Igboland, when on the contrary, many of them are accused of being collaborators, either as active agents of being complicit through their conspiracy of silence.

Who does not know that the late President Muhammadu Buhari, was the vector that transported that killer disease to Igboland? Dan Nwanyanwu, National Chairman of the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), has remained relentless in establishing this fact most pungently in the past and even quite recently.

Soludo, in his chest-beating mode, gives the impression that he somehow sprung a genie out of the magic lamp to create a sudden miracle that turned the parlous security situation around. No! It was the death of Buhari that ended the blitzkrieg in the South East. Simplicita!

Where was this genie when during the Buhari days, when the Aguata Local Government headquarters, where he comes from was razed to the ground or when a swathe of Ihiala and adjoining areas in the state became a hunting ground for the rampaging terrorists, codenamed Unknown Gunmen.

He was only content in the open and shut attitude of dismissing the carnage they wrought as the handiwork of Kanu’s Eastern Security Network (ESN), even when the group swore on their father’s grave that they were not involved.

Indeed, if there is ever going to be anything good in the government of President Bola Tinubu, it is the fact that he is not as hungry for the blood of the Igbo man as Buhari, who never hid the fact of his desire to continue the civil war against Ndigbo, more than 50 years after.

Had Tinubu, who upped the ante in the marginalisation of Ndigbo in many ways, escalated this penchant by toeing the line as part of his continuation of the Buhari legacy, which he promised Nigerians, he might have renewed the military contract Asari Dokubo claimed to have with Buhari.

Yes, though he never revealed details of the so-called contract, its nature could be gleaned from the manner the people were dying wotowotowoto, as the Niger Delta warlord, himself gloated about some years back.

He even backed his gloating up in that viral video, with a display of an AK-47, boasting how he would use the weapon to cure Ndigbo their “madness.” Is it not surprising that in all his public comments, neither Soludo nor his South East colleagues ever mentioned this obvious threat to his people.

So, nobody is deceived by the governor acting like Idi Amin of Uganda, who went berserk because he could not get more money printed from his central bank. Nobody is moved by his threat to even bulldoze that market. He is only being clever by half, if not acting a script.

It does not remove the fact that he and his colleagues suddenly went mute, then and now and remained tongue-tied at a historic moment when Ndigbo are battling to extricate themselves from the soggy, foggy, belly of the whale, like the biblical Jonah, as they are in Nigeria today. It does not belittle the fact that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is a metaphor for that horrible situation.

It is even worse that Soludo, arguably the most intellectually-gifted governor in Nigeria today, would be introducing some ethnic, sectional or indigene-based sentiments into the matter by trumpeting that those pursing the sit at home drive are not from Anambra. What a shame!

Who cares? Instead of such obtuse, infantile, if not asinine suggestion, would it not be more apposite for him to conduct a census in the entire Anambra, Aguata, his local government, Isuofia, his community and even the Soludo family to determine the number of Igbo people that are happy with the fate of not only Kanu, but Ndigbo in the hands of his friends in high authority today?

We hear that the traders have caved in. So, by Monday, expectedly, they would return to their shops – though definitely against their will. Soludo, would have scored another point and proven himself a strong man. But is it not a crab that makes itself king in shallow waters? Times shall tell!

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