By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

Depending on what view one takes of the matter, 10 February 2025 promises to be Proxy Wars Day at the Supreme Court of Nigeria in Abuja. On that day, a panel of five Justices of the Supreme Court will take arguments on seven appeals connected with the synthetic political crisis in Rivers State.

The issues that the court will be asked to decide include the validity of last October’s local government elections in the state; the fate of the faction in the Rivers State House of Assembly who claim to have switched their affiliation from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP, on whose platform they were elected) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC); the legality of the state’s 2025 budget passed by the rump of the state House of Assembly; and the effort to importune judges into denying Rivers State access to its share of the Federation Account.

The effort to frame these as legal issues is transparently valiant. Despite the shameful conversion of judges into politicians in the Rivers State crisis – or indeed because of precisely that fact – the imminence of Rivers State Proxy Wars Day at the Supreme Court is evidence of what has gone wrong with Nigeria’s judicial system and why fixing it is essential for the health of Nigeria’s attempt at government with electoral legitimacy.

This is not the first time that legal disputes about power and how to share the spoils from it have ended up at the highest court in the land. That tendency in Nigeria is over a century old and arguably goes back to the 1921 judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the case of Amodu Tijani, over the effort by the colonial authorities to split Herbert Heelas Macaulay from his support for Eshugbayi Eleko, the Oba of Lagos.

For the hearing of that case before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in 1920, Herbert Macaulay travelled to London with the Oba’s Staff of Office in support of Amodu Tijani and the Idejo Chiefs of Lagos. From London, he issued a statement claiming that the Eleko was the King of over 17 million Nigerians and in possession of a territory more than three times that of Great Britain. Despite a healthy revenue of over £4 million, he claimed, the British had reneged on a treaty commitment to compensate the Eleko.

Embarrassed at being publicly called duplicitous in this way, the British required the Eleko to disown Herbert Macaulay. He issued a public statement clarifying his position on Herbert Macaulay’s statement but declined to disown him through the Oba’s Bell Ringers, as the Brits required.

Unable to secure the support of the popular Eleko, the colonists chose to head off rising tension by deposing him. On 6 August 1925, they issued an ordinance de-stooling him and, two days later, on 8 August, they arrested and removed the Eleko into internal banishment in Oyo. In his place, they installed Oba Ibikunle Akitoye.

Oba Akitoye’s rule lasted an uncomfortably brief three years, largely because he lacked the support of the people of Lagos. Indeed, in 1926, he suffered physical assault by his people. Supported by the elite and people of Lagos, the deposed Eleko took his case to the courts, fighting all the way once more to the Privy Council, which decided on 19 June 1928 in favour of his claim for leave for a writ of habeas corpus. This all but sealed the fate of Oba Akitoye, who is suspected to have facilitated his own earthly demise shortly thereafter.

The crisis in Rivers State shares some unsettling similarities with the events in Lagos nearly one century ago. In Rivers today, as in Lagos then, a powerful man – in this case the current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and immediate past governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike – seeks to banish the current governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Fubara, from office using surrogates beholden to him in the state House of Assembly.

There is one important difference, though: the issues in Rivers State today hardly involve principle or the public interest. Framed though they are in legalese, these cases from Rivers State are about power and money grab. This is not a first. It appears to be the standard procedure of the current FCT Minister to seek to inveigle judges into acting as his political surrogates under ruse of law.

In instigating this crisis, Mr. Wike suffered a characteristic failure of his frontal lobe and forgot his public vow to “give himself that respect” and not interfere in the affairs of the state after his exit from the office in May 2023. Rather, since leaving office as the state governor, Mr. Wike has sought to install himself as both the Minister in Abuja and Sole Administrator in Port Harcourt. He makes no effort to conceal the fact that much of what passes as his political dare-devilry appears to be accomplished under the influence of sufficiently gluttonous amounts of dangerous beverage as to entitle him to access to a defence of automatism in criminal law.

In October 2024, he told Seun Okinbaloye with undisguised hubris on Channels Television that the only solution to the crisis in Rivers State was for the incumbent governor to “obey court judgment.” This was no advocate for the rule of law, however. Instead, Mr. Wike projected an air of political impregnability purchased with a currency bearing a distinct whiff of procured judicial crookery.

To be fair, this is not something entirely unexpected of an ambitious Nigerian politician without an alternative address (apologies to Deji Adeyanju). What is more difficult to overlook is the high judicial tolerance for undisguised political importuning of judges.

Nigeria’s judicial system has been overtaken by a category known as “political cases.” In November 2023, former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Olukayode Ariwoola, reported that his Supreme Court registered 1,271 motions and appeals from 12 September 2022 to 11 July, 2023, out Of this, the court “heard 388 political appeals, 215 criminal appeals and 464 civil appeals.” Two years earlier, in 2021, Ariwoola’s predecessor, Tanko Muhammad, reported that the court’s portfolio of 269 appeals disposed of included 139 civil appeals, 102 criminal appeals, and 28 “political cases”.

According to CJN Ariwoola’s report, the court “delivered a total number of 251 judgments, of which 125 were political appeals, 81 were civil appeals, and 45 were criminal appeals.” In just two years, the output of the court fell by 6.69% but “political cases” rose from 10.67% to 49.8%. Even allowing for the fact that 2023 was an election year, this is system collapse.

Nigeria’s judges appear to have decided that the only people entitled to exit from the courts are politicians. In turn, the politicians are happy to enjoy this exclusivity and to overwhelm the courts to the point that even judges now complain. They hire the priciest lawyers to frame undisguised power and money grabs as questions of law.

The Supreme Court can end this but feigns reluctance to. Rather, the court affords powerful politicians the kind of tolerance that they are unwilling to extend to lesser mortals, preferring instead to enable this joint enterprise of senior lawyers and politicians while fettering its own capacity to determine for itself what should be a question of law deserving of its rarefied attention.

This sucks for many reasons. It prostitutes the bench; casualizes the constitutional guarantee of fair trial “within a reasonable time”; and portrays the judiciary as captured.

To describe this as Supreme pusillanimity is to be generous. It is a form of judicial lasciviousness syndrome, promenading judicial wares before political gawkers in a peonage system in which the only effective currency is high political patronage. In these Rivers State cases, the Supreme Court has an opportunity to make a bold statement. If it doesn’t, then it should be ready for many more proxy war days yet.

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at [email protected]

By Louis Aminadokiari Koko

On 18 December, 2024, the President of Nigeria, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu presented a fiscal appropriation bill of N47. 9 trillion to be financed by taxes, export revenues from oil and gas, and non- oil. However, these projected receipts are not sufficient to have a balanced budget. Therefore, the budget has a deficit of N13. 4 trillon to be financed by both domestic and external debts.

It is also projected that Nigeria will produce 2.01 million barrels per day of crude oil and the price has an average projected estimate of $75 /barrel . What this means is that if we produce the volume of crude oil and the price averages on $75/barrel, we need to still borrow about N13.14 billion to finance the 2025 budget as to deliver on its theme: Budget of Restoration, Securing Peace and Rebuilding Prosperity.

As lofty and assuring this budget theme sound, it appears that what is coming out of the land of the free and the country of the brave ( USA) whose current President is a maverick and a transactional politician is capable of causing oil price shocks for oil revenue dependent countries of the world, if US oil companies ramps up crude oil production which may likely cause global oil glut in the international market .

If USA becomes self sufficient in crude oil production, then the oil supply in the international market may exceed demand thereby causing downward adjustments in prices of crude oil.

I foresee drastic decrease in crude oil price to about $45 to $55 per barrel. This forecast is based on the average oil price in 2016 during DT 1.0 administration.

If this scenario painted here plays out in 2025, that is average crude oil price of $45 to $55 per barrel in the international market, how can Nigeria finance the 2025 budget that already has a deficit of over N13 trillion?

Assuming that Nigeria produces the targeted 2.01 million barrels per day, can Nigeria sell this daily production quantity if crude oil supply is already saturated in the international market?

What may likely happen is that the gulf in the FG 2025 budget will further increase , that is, the deficit will further expand with its consequences on the economy. The federal government maybe unable to finance the capital projects, which may lead to under performance.

Other consequences of likely oil glut as germane to our economy are many but not limited to the following.

1. Exchange rate of naira to dollar will continue to increase causing serial depreciations of naira. This is not good for an import dependent country like Nigeria.
2. Interest rates will continue to increase and crowding out domestic private investments.
3. Cost of living crisis will escalate
4. Poverty will increase
5. Crime will increase and Nigeria maybe in dire situation.
6. Nigeria may find it difficult to service her external debts and this can cause the country to move into debt trap.
   All these adverse consequences will flow out of President Donald Trump’s decision to ramp up oil production and supply which is likely to cause global oil glut and decrease in average price of oil in the international market this year. Nigeria will be worse hit by this Trumpism effect.

Louis Aminadokiari Koko, Esq (PhD)

By Sonnie Ekwowusi

Donald Trump staged a dramatic and triumphant comeback to the prestigious and powerful office of the White House on January 20, Martin Luther King Day, as the 47th President of the United States. The epochal global presidential inauguration was marked as the 60th inauguration in American political history. This event was unprecedented, as it marked the first time foreign heads of state or government attended a U.S. presidential swearing-in ceremony.

The inauguration was graced by foreign dignitaries, members of the diplomatic corps, crème de la crème of the global elite, and powerful world leaders such as President Javier Milei of Argentina, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and China’s Vice President Han Zheng, representing President Xi Jinping. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was conspicuously absent, likely due to surgery he underwent earlier in the month. Notable attendees also included tech moguls Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his fiancée Lauren Sánchez, and Mark Zuckerberg with his wife, Priscilla Chan. For reasons that appeared obvious, Bill and Melinda Gates were notably absent.

As early as 5:30 a.m., I left the house where I was staying, located at Wyoming Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20008, to trudge through the snow-covered streets to Capitol Hill to attend and cover the inauguration. It had snowed the previous night, leaving roads and vehicles blanketed with layers upon layers of snow. Furthermore, Washington, D.C., was reportedly experiencing its coldest weather in three years.

Despite wearing a coat designed for American winter, I was chilled to the bone. Imagine a Nigerian walking atop snow! I almost started saying my last prayers as I felt death staring me in the face. At one point, I considered returning to the house, but the thought of retracing my steps seemed as daunting as continuing the arduous journey forward.

Luckily for me, I managed to reach the Metro station, completely frozen. My hands and head were numb and felt paralyzed. Upon entering the station, I saw a middle-aged American walking toward me. I stopped and asked him for directions to Capitol Hill. Smiling at me, he said, “You must be very cold.”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Where do you come from?” he asked, a hint of suspicion on his face.

“I am from Nigeria,” I replied.

“From what part of Nigeria?” he queried further.

“I come from the southeast of Nigeria,” I responded. His face immediately lit up.

“Are you Igbo?” he asked quickly.

I answered affirmatively. He extended his right hand, shook mine firmly, and asked, “I hope I am safe if I reveal something to you?”

“Why not? You are perfectly safe,” I assured him.

Without hesitation, he stepped aside, reached into a small bag he was carrying, and pulled out a miniature Biafran flag, showing it to me with pride. I was stunned to my core. I stared at him, unsure whether to applaud him or react angrily.

In any case, I decided to remain calm. After all, I needed his help to find my way to Capitol Hill. He graciously assisted, leading me across to the other side of the Metro line. Together, we boarded a train to Union Station. When we disembarked, he gave me detailed directions on how to walk to Capitol Hill. I thanked him profusely for his help and bid him farewell.

Upon arriving at Capitol Hill, I was greeted by a multitude of people, too many to count. Men, women, young and old, short and tall—all adorned in colorful T-shirts, face caps, and weather hats with inscriptions like:

“Donald Trump’s Inauguration, January 20, 2025”
“The Return of President Trump”
“Make America Great Again”
We walked silently, peacefully, and joyously, lined up in single file for nearly two and a half hours along the esplanade, all hoping to secure a good vantage point to witness the inauguration. Occasionally, the silence was broken by spontaneous, thunderous chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”

Walking beside me was a beautiful young Black lady. Upon learning I was Nigerian, she introduced herself as Chinyere from Imo State, Nigeria. Beside her was a prosperous-looking young American man, whom she introduced as her brother-in-law. She cheerfully explained that her younger sister was married to him.

In front of me walked an elderly man, who I guessed to be in his 80s. After walking for nearly two and a half hours, he became visibly tired and struggled to catch his breath. At one point, he could barely walk. I feared he might collapse. A lady, whom I presumed to be his daughter, supported him with her elbow. Eventually, she was almost dragging him along the esplanade.

I could sense that the old man had resolved to attend the inauguration no matter the cost—dead or alive.

Due to dangerous cold and high winds (and, in my view, for security reasons), the inauguration, initially scheduled to take place in the open air of the National Mall, was moved indoors to the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C., which can only accommodate about 700 attendees. This marked the first time since Ronald Reagan’s 1985 inauguration that a U.S. presidential swearing-in ceremony was held indoors.

To accommodate the surge of attendees and supporters, the Capital One Arena in downtown Washington, D.C., hosted a live viewing of the swearing-in ceremony and the presidential parade. Numerous streets leading to the inauguration area were blocked off to vehicular access, ostensibly to enhance security. The Metro Center entrances at 13th and G Street NW and 12th and F Street NW were completely closed to both motorists and pedestrians. The United States Secret Service was omnipresent, screening all guests entering the National Mall. Items deemed potential security risks, such as alcoholic beverages, balloons, firearms, explosives of any kind, chairs, balls, banners, signs, placards, and umbrellas, were strictly prohibited.

The Secret Service also imposed rigorous security checks and surveillance at the gates. No one was allowed to enter with a large bag. Those who brought bags had to leave them outside the gates, resulting in mountains of abandoned bags at the entrances. Interestingly, after the swearing-in ceremony, the owners of these bags did not return to claim them.

The inaugural program began with a church service at St. John’s Church, Lafayette Square, followed by tea at the White House. After the swearing-in ceremony, President Trump addressed his teeming supporters who had gathered at the Capital One Arena to hear him speak.

Interestingly, nearly all the open drinking bars, coffee shops, and restaurants around 13th and G Street NW, 12th and F Street NW, and the Capital One Arena were bustling with inauguration attendees who were partying, eating, and drinking.

In keeping with his campaign promises, President Trump had, at the time of this writing, signed 42 executive orders, including:

Reinstating service members dismissed for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine: This order reinstates military personnel discharged for vaccine refusal and provides them with back pay.
Declaring a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border: This declaration aims to address illegal immigration and criminal activities by directing the military to be deployed to the border.
Withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Paris Climate Agreement: President Trump criticized the WHO for promoting an ideology that he argued undermines life, health, and family values.
Halting federal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs.
Restricting federal recognition to two sexes, male and female: This order defines sex based on biological anatomy and halts federal recognition of gender identities beyond male and female.
Prohibiting transgender women from participating in women’s sports.
Halting federal funding for abortion services.
Declaring a national energy emergency.
Reinstating the “Remain in Mexico” policy.
You may recall that former President Joe Biden, in his first few hours in office, issued an executive order without congressional approval allowing male students in the United States who identify as female to compete in sports with female students, regardless of their biological sex. Transgenderism also influenced Biden’s foreign policy in Africa. Under the guise of “redefining all policies and regulations regarding discrimination based on sex to include ‘gender identity’ or ‘transgenderism,’” Biden implemented measures that made President Obama appear conservative by comparison.

It’s worth noting that, apart from the commonly discussed gender identities like transgender, New York City and other cities recognize over 112 additional gender identities. These include: Gender Neutral: Individuals who identify as neither male nor female.Aero Gender: Those who claim their gender fluctuates with their surroundings; .Gender Fluid or Gender Flux: Individuals whose gender identity is in a state of constant change.

Happily shortly after his inauguration, President Trump issued an Executive Order banning the above-mentioned social constructs, affirming that gender is biologically determined as either male or female. In contrast, during his administration, President Biden lifted the ban on using American taxpayers’ money to fund abortions in African countries, including Nigeria. During his first term as president, Donald Trump had stopped this funding, and he has now reinstated the ban through another Executive Order.

While President Trump is focused on making America great again, the repercussions of his actions may usher in a new international order aimed at restoring peace and unity in war-torn regions, such as the Middle East. Trump envisions establishing an international order where peace, justice, service, respect for human dignity, the intrinsic worth of every individual, and mutual understanding can thrive. Trump has proudly stated that his “proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.”

Signs of this paradigm shift are already evident. Both the Biden group and the Trump group are claiming credit for the recent agreement on an imminent ceasefire in Gaza. However, many believe President Trump has been instrumental in pushing for the ceasefire and in facilitating the recent hostage deal. Similarly, the end of the Russia-Ukraine war seems within reach, with President Trump vowing to broker a peace deal in the conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed openness to holding talks with Trump to bring an end to the war.

As President Trump inaugurates America’s “Golden Age,” his priority during his first 100 days in office, in my view, should be the restoration of fundamental principles—the truth claims, practical wisdom, and constitutional insights of America’s founding fathers. These principles serve as the bulwark of American democracy and, given America’s global influence, as the superstructure of democracies worldwide.