• As Fulani Terrorists strike Yobe state, time to end Nigeria’s support of foreign Fulani fighters against Nigerians

By Emmanuel Ogebe

After repeated alerts from the general public regarding multiple mass atrocities in Benue state last year, US Nigeria Law Group deployed a rapid response fact-finding and relief mission to one of the massacred communities due to the overwhelming nature of the multiple massacres.

We reported on the Adoka massacre of April 2023 at the National Press Club in Washington saying,

“I went on a fact-finding mission to Adoka, Benue State, and what I was told was chilling. I was told that three days after the declaration of the presidential election results on March 1, the Fulani herdsmen invaded the community and began to rob and rape members of that community. They did that for 30 days, and then in the first week of April, they started killing people in the community. 

The military arrived, and after 45 minutes, they said they were leaving. The community pleaded with them. Major Awul who led that team, left with his troops, and 15 minutes later, the Fulani herdsmen came in and slaughtered 52 people in cold blood. 

Now, the members of the community tell me that these herdsmen came in to celebrate the victory of their enablers in the election. If you notice, the killings stopped just around the elections, but they have resumed with a vengeance after the elections, which means they’re trying to make up for the numbers they didn’t kill during the time of the election.”

In this same community of Umuogidi in Adoka Benue state which we visited nine months ago, the Fulani invaded again weeks ago. The youth asked them to leave and over 12 of them were massacred on the spot.

The same thing happened in Yobe state last month during our fact-finding mission commemorating Leah’s 6th abduction anniversary. 

Seven villages in four Local Govts were attacked after villagers protested looting and destruction by Fulanis who then remobilized for a major offensive. 

After days of onslaught, local vigilantes captured several fulani militia – larger than the numbers of Fulanis arrested by the army for the killings of hundreds in Mangu from Christmas till now. 

Worse still the army bragged about arresting one Plateau villager that it claimed was a gun manufacturer. 

The Defense Industry Corporation and NNPC cannot produce weapons or petroleum but rural natives can, apparently. In northeast, local vigilantes capture the terrorists but in north central the authorities capture local vigilantes. 

Despite the capture of a some Fulanis in Yobe, a full scale conflict continued according to locals as they are caught between Boko Haram and the Fulani terrorists. For several years now as we have exclusively reported, Boko Haram and Fulani terrorists have been in an operational alliance.

During the abduction of Leah in 2018, Fulani collaborators served as guides to Boko Haram as they came to attack the school.

Similarly when Leah escaped and ended up in a Fulani camp, they captured and returned her to the terrorists.

For some years now, the multinational Fulani kidnap syndicate captures Christians on northeastern roadways and sell high value captives and women to Boko Haram as sex slaves while ransoming back small fry.

In 2020, the Fulani terrorists abducted  American missionary Walton in Niger and transported him to Nigeria where President Trump ordered his rescue by elite U.S. special forces before he could be sold to Boko Haram.

However now in Yobe, the Fulani terrorists have graduated from kidnapping, raping and looting to mass killings just like in Adoka Benue state. A firm and decisive response is needed right now.

Instead the Federal Government said it would commence the Pulaku Initiative, “a large-scale resettlement programme to address the causes of clashes between farmers and herders in various flashpoints nationwide” in seven states. They are Sokoto, Kebbi, Benue, Katsina, Zamfara, Niger, and Kaduna states. 

According to the programme, Houses, Schools, Hospitals and other basic amenities will be provided for Fulani herdsmen.

Security and Food Security is more critical than housing estates. Rather than rehabilitate over 1,000,000 displaced farmers in middlebelt so they can farm and crash food prices, Tinubu is taking their land to build estates for Fulanis who destroyed and displaced them. There are 160,000 rehabilitated terrorists but no single rehabilitated farmers.

Why this logical incongruity? 

Firstly, you can loot more from construction projects than from agro but secondly this is part of a political perpetuation strategy. 

Implanting vast Fulani enclaves distorts election maps in the states – granting Tinubu sympathy and stronghold amongst the Fulani caliphate whom he successfully excluded from the presidency for the first time since the 1999 return to democracy.  

That a non-Fulani presidency allows Fulani massacres of its citizens obviously means he’s not ruling for anyone other than himself. The fact is Tinubu has already finished his game plan. As exposed in  an Amicus brief in the Bagudu Abacha loot case in USA, they borrowed $10Billion using our future oil ($3B) and future gas ($7B) earnings. The loans were not tied to any project except shoring up the naira but the currency even reached over 60% devaluation. A banker friendly with Tinubu made $66million from the $3Billion loan transaction which will cost an estimated $12Billion to repay. The terms of the $7Billion can only be imagined…

Even if he is deposed tomorrow, they’ve collected the money before the crude was even drilled from the ground!

Under Buhari, Fulanis in Niger and everywhere else were empowered to kill Nigerians all over. 

Under Tinubu they’ve been empowered to kill Yoruba chiefs like they killed in Plateau and S. Kaduna for years before with impunity.

It appears Tinubu is out to punish the Yorubas for boldly voting for merit and morals. He is the state, he is the nation, he is now west Africa and they are just a tribe.

But he has consolidated all legitimate and illegitimate coercive forces under his sphere including BH via Shettima and Niger Delta militants via Asari and there’s still insecurity.

He even brought in the failed Zamfara governor who used to photograph with Fulani bandits as minister of state for defense. Its their political absorption that he’s seeking now. They have really began carving up the land they conquered in addition to the looting. And poor IDPs remain in camps in north east for over 12yrs and in middlebelt for nine years!

Why is it only in the northeast that we have both well-funded Civilian JTF and vigilante while in the middlebelt even gunsmith for local hunters are detained?

Who is born to rule men and who is born to be killed for cows in Nigeria?

The update from Yobe’s war continues:

“Thanks for prayer. this morning of Friday my blood Brother was attacked on their way to market by herders along Damaturu to Buni_Yadi they burn two cars. Since morning we did not hear from him because he was running in the bush. But thanks Jesus we are able to talk to him around 6:pm he is now in Damaturu.

 “They have started blocking roads in Yobe state and attacking vigilantes. We are in terrible situation in Yobe state. we do not have place to go woo. Even last night the Fulanis herders attack one community that is close to where we used to go for… They burn their food and carry their cows so and is only vigilantes that now acting very well that many villages were depending on them than police or soldiers because the vigilantes can come at any time while they have the information. But if it is soldiers or police they will not come until they have done every things.”

 Saturday –Thanks great God we are able to see him today. They killed 4 peoples and they go away with another. He escape narrowly because he see peoples were falling down being shot by the herders but as God will save him he was not hit by any bullet or arrows as he is running beside main road. Because if you run inside main bush then the both side were bh and Fulanis in which all are dangerous. He run for 10 km before he can reach Damaturu and his phone was off. Glory belong to Jesus woo. And today we have to stayed at home because if you go to market the herders or bh Will attack you and things are becoming difficult pray over our situation here in Yobe.”

This is a live update from our team member who survived after nearly being slaughtered by Boko Haram 13yrs ago and has already lost countless family members to terrorism. The Tinubu regime has purportedly agreed in principle to the establishment of state police but this will take time to constitutionally implement. 

Tinubu has also urged governors to strengthen their forest guards and other local enforcement agencies. This is a step in the right  direction. But who really has been frustrating the forest guards in the states?

In Benue state, the police declared wanted an Assistant to the state governor after Fulanis massacred worshipers during morning mass killing two Catholic priests and 17 members at St Xavier’s church in 2018.

Even after we attended the mass burial for Father Felix and other victims, some of those who were present with us were killed that night upon their return home even after the governor’s assistant had turned himself in to the authorities. 

The Fulani attackers who dressed up in choir robes and released videos of themselves beating drums while desecrating the sanctuary were never arrested. 

But the police arrested, disarmed and detained the lawfully established Benue state forest guards. 

In Plateau state under the Tinubu administration, local watchmen including an auxiliary policeman were killed by the Nigerian army and not the Fulani attackers last year.

Until every Nigerian displaced by Fulani terrorists is rehabilitated, there should be no discussion of imposing RUGAs or any enclaves on anyone’s lands.

Ironically, Nigerian farmers just want to live in peace on their ancestral lands and farm. They don’t lack houses or schools. Any construction is therefore for the intruders.

If they must, why isn’t the government building these infrastructure for the Fulanis in their own land? Well because these are foreigners who have no villages here.

They were invited here by Buhari and co to occupy Nigeria and have refused to withdraw with Buhari’s tenure over.

Ironically Buhari boldly borrowed to build a $4Billion rail line in Niger bigger than any rail line in Nigeria today. It showed where his true allegiance is but also was a power pertuation strategy – to flood Nigeria with imported foreign voters. Tinubu is trying to achieve the same demographic democratic re-engineering by building strongholds in non-Fulani states.

A 22-year old Nigerian NGO Stefanos Foundation took me on a fact-finding mission to see Nigerian refugees in Cameroun 10years ago. Stefanos repatriated hundreds of them to Nigeria and got them land to rent and farm on outside Abuja since their village is still occupied by Boko Haram over a decade later. These returned Gwoza farmers have helped food supply at lower cost in Abuja earning even the commendation of then Agric Minister Audu Ogbe.

The government can negotiate with Fulanis to settle in Sambisa forest which was designated by the British colonial government as a game reserve (after all VP Shettima governed Sambisa) but it must not take the lands of any Nigerian.

When Jonathan used our collective wealth unconstitutionally to build hundreds of Almajiri schools in the north, he didn’t do it on lands of the middlebelt. Why is it now that they want to take other people’s land for the Fulanis?

Russia currently occupies 20% of Ukraine but the Fulanis occupy forests across the length and breadth of Nigeria with only the creeks of Niger Delta left.

Nigeria is under enemy occupation in an undeclared war all over the country and it is way past time for the country to be liberated from Trojan terrorism within.

By Bosun Emmanuel & Kontein Trinya (On behalf of 73-member National Prayer Altar (NPA)

Lately, there has been understandable nationwide outcry at the shocking welcome granted by President Tinubu of Nigeria to Hamas, an organization sadly linked with international terrorism. The worrisome Presidential and diplomatic concessions to that group have compelled progressive Nigerians to wonder if terrorism is President Tinubu’s foreign policy, and if the threats portended in such an ominous visit are intended to be the next new dish of unfolding woes in the nation, since about the middle of 2023.

One Nigerian proverb states that elders do not sit by and watch a tethered pregnant goat labour to deliver. That is the sense of responsibility that now prompts the National Prayer Altar to join voices with the multitude of peace-loving and security-conscious Nigerians to ask, “What is happening?”

The visit of Hamas, of all groups, at a time when Nigeria is grappling with countless cases of unresolved terrorist attacks strongly suggests a lack of sensitivity and a lack of empathy by the still fresh Tinubu administration. That such a visit would receive the direct or indirect support of the government would seem to be saying that the present government has officially endorsed terrorism as a foreign policy, especially against the backdrop of Tinubu’s campaign promise to “continue from where Buhari stopped.”

While continuing “from where Buhari stopped” might have been a successful campaign slogan in certain parts of the country, adopting it as a template in governance is ill-advised. Every index of presidential performance assessment indicated that Buhari was a colossal failure as leader of Nigeria. For President Tinubu to posture himself as following in those hated footsteps is to bring upon himself such infamy and ridicule that would not only affect him but also scar his ancestry in unending ignominy.

Since assuming office less than a year ago, President Tinubu has taken some steps that are a disturbing reminder of the regrettable Buhari era; steps that seem to support terrorism, insecurity, religious intolerance, as well as the violation of Section 10 of the Constitution. Some of those infamous steps are:

1. The access granted Dr Zakir Naik to enter Nigeria and deliver “lectures” in Sokoto, Abuja, Keffi, and Ilorin. That is a man who has been banned from many countries, including his home country of India, for promoting terrorism;
2. The resuscitation of the controversial RUGA project for Fulanis, by attempting to misappropriate the lands of ethnic nationalities for an immigrant group in the country. According to the Land Use Act, the Federal Government has no authority to allocate lands;
3. The condoning of a group that left Sokoto to travel all the way down to Lagos to declare an OIC resolution at the Abiola Park in October 2023, notwithstanding that Section 10 of the Constitution forbids government from adopting any religion as state religion;
4. The loud silence of the President, in his New Year speech, on the murder of 238 Nigerians on Christmas Eve in 2023, by Fulani terrorists in Bokkos, Mangu, and Barkin Lardi Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Plateau State;
5. The permission granted to Hamas to enter Nigeria and justify its terrorist activities on prime TV, as if it were government’s unfortunate endorsement of international terrorism.

We fully support freedom of worship in Nigeria. However, the exercise of such a freedom should neither compromise national security nor jeopardize the rights of other citizens who are equally entitled to their freedom of worship. That freedom is not the exclusive right of any group in the country, according to Section 38 (1) of the Constitution.

Since 2009, Islamist extremists with their sponsors have used religious intolerance as a basis to threaten national security as well as the food security of Nigeria. As of today, Nigeria has neither security for lives nor sufficient food to feed its population.

The famine in the country is the direct consequence of the serial attacks on farmers and the destruction of farmlands all over the country by Fulani terrorists masking as “herdsmen” in their purported bid to feed THEIR cattle – at the expense of others’ lives and properties and welfare. Nigeria is not suffering from any drought, and the weather in Nigeria has been stable, with farmers willing to cultivate their land for food crops.

Under the circumstances, a conscionable government should have been seeking lasting solutions to dismantle terrorism in the country, to restore the security of lives and food. Section 14 (2)b of the Constitution clearly states that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.” Are we to believe that the security and welfare of citizens are not the primary interest of President Tinubu?

Hamas, one national TV in Nigeria, claimed that it was not a terrorist organization, and that it was Israel committing genocide in Gaza. However, organisations such as the European Union (EU) and countries such as the United States of America and the United Kingdom hold the opposite view, pointing out that Hamas’ invasion of Israel on 7th October 2023 and the killing of unarmed men, women, and children were blatant and unprovoked acts of terrorism.

Whatever the side that someone might pick, our concern is for the President not to drag Nigeria into an international conflict that does not concern us. Nigeria must maintain its neutrality on the Palestinian question and focus on resolving its internal challenges, rather than make Nigeria the location of a proxy war between Arabs and Western powers in support of Israel. The President should not go shopping for additional problems for the country. We have enough troubles already.

President Tinubu should focus on resolving the many issues that his political party, the APC, has plunged Nigeria into. At the moment, Nigerians all over the country are protesting against hunger, publicly chanting “We are hungry.” Resolving those crises is more important than dabbling into the self-inflicted misfortune of Hamas.

To ensure that Nigeria maintains its neutral stand on such religious and political issues, as enshrined in the Constitution, President Tinubu should equally extend invitation to Israel to visit Nigeria, with time also on Channels TV, to present its own position on the Palestinian question. If the President is sincerely interested in a resolution of the Palestine issue, he should engage the president of the State of Palestine and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Mr. Mahmoud Abbas, rather than a terrorist organisation there, like our Boko Haram, that does not represent the people or government of Palestine. Nigeria should steer clear of Hamas and similar terrorist organizations.

It is our hope that President Tinubu will heed our counsel and restore balance and normalcy to Nigeria by inviting Israel to present its side of the narrative. This must be done quickly, before other international terrorist organizations begin to consider Nigeria as their patron, their safe haven.

God bless Nigeria.

For and on behalf of the National Prayer Altar:

***Emmanuel & Trinya sent this article on behalf of 73-member National Prayer Altar (NPA)

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

1. Bosun Emmanuel SW
2. Kontein Trinya SS
3. Omodele Sonde SW
4. Buraimoh Segun SW
5. Mayowa Banji SW
6. Ngozi Udombana SE
7. Tim Obiaga SE
8. Tunde Chukwujekwe SW
9. Doris Andrew SS
10. Ibukun Oluwafemi SW
11. Patricia Tawo SS
12. Ohio Enakeno SS
13. Odezi Evezi SS
14. Yvonne Ben-Kalio SS
15. Moda Simon-Hart SS
16. Caleb Atoyebi SW
17. Helen Akujobi SE
18. Rose Okoro SE
19. George Bari NW
20. Hauwa Kure NW
21. Olayemi Ajayi-Ejiogu SW
22. Ngozi Azubike SE
23. Benjamin Dike SE
24. Charity Okujagu SS
25. Ahunsimhenre Arheghan SS
26. Oludamisi Kuku SW
27. Nwamaka Eddy-Ikwueze SE
28. Olufunmilayo Ewa-Jesu SW
29. Alisa Daniel NE
30. Larry Sylvans SE
31. Chijioke Maduka SE
32. Ekashili Sunday NW
33. Helen Ogbonna SS
34. Olukemi Oluwagbemi SW
35. Roger Tanko NW
36. Felicia Okwuchukwu SE
37. Vicky Daniel NW
38. Obiageri Okorafor SE
39. Chinwe Nwagbo SE
40. Patience Oyeneye SE
41. Miranda Ifere NC
42. Gladys Onyebuchi SE
43. Biodun Oniye SW
44. Funmi Oniye SW
45. Comfort Ewang SS
46. Uduak Ekanem SS
47. Idongesit Essien SS
48. Ima Emmanuel SS
49. Mary Emmanuel SW
50. Nanpon James NC
51. Linda Ndache NE
52. Nanna James NC
53. David Alabi SW
54. Seth Odeneye SW
55. Tuate Alagoa-Nene SS
56. David Ndace NC
57. Ofoefule Akuzuo SE
58. Christiana Lawal SW
59. Durotoluwa Akinyemi SW
60. Olusola Soyoye SW
61. Patricia Ona NC
62. Paul Etiubon SS
63. Rebecca Etiubon SS
64. Marie Orgah SE
65. Chinyere Ukaegbu SE
66. Stella Jacks SS
67. Obele Ibanga SS
68. Tom-George Isobo SS
69. Joan Abanda SS
70. Steve Oluwalowo SW
71. Chamberlain Osueke SE
72. Comfort Piwuna NC
73. Chiedu Issachar SE

Key:

NC – North Central
NE – North East
NW – North West
SE – South East
SS – South South
SW – South West

By Suyi Ayodele

If I were President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, I would choose to answer the name of the sixth child of Tortoise. According to the folklore, after the first five children had been dismissed as failures for the names they adopted, the sixth cradle, when asked which name, he would answer, said: “E maa pe mi ni Afi-oro-oloro-se-arikogbon – call me He-who-learns-from-another-person’s-experience.”

While he may not have forgotten anything Buhari did or did not do, it is also clear that Tinubu has not learnt anything from what Buhari did or did not do. Are we really sure that he is also not printing money like his soulmate, Buhari? Indeed, a Development Economist/Investment Banker, Nnaemeka Obiareri, was on Channels TV a few days ago alleging that in seven months, Tinubu printed N7.8 trillion and is still borrowing. Here is what he said: “Buhari came, under eight years he printed N23 trillion and wasted it. Under President Tinubu in seven months, we printed N7.8 trillion and we are not talking about that. What did they do with the naira and we keep borrowing and Nigeria keeps worsening?” We have not read or heard the government denying that claim. It should.

The thumb is called atampako in my roots where a premium is placed on family ties. They warn that no matter how one struggles to cut the thumb into two, it is perpetually difficult to say that the head has no relationship with the neck (Bo ti wu ki a la atampako si meji to, a o le so pe ori o ba orun tan). The neck is the pillar which supports the head. Any attempt to separate the two spells doom. That is exactly what the Minister for Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun attempted to do last week. Edun was before the Senate Committee on Finance to answer questions on why the nation’s economy has collapsed, irredeemably, under the government he serves. The senators, one is tempted to believe, were worried, like the poor masses, about the economic calamities that have been the portion of the masses in the last nine months’ administration of President Tinubu. Like someone under a spell, the Coordinating Minister of the Economy told his audience that the present administration should not be blamed. Rather than ask the ‘strategist’, Tinubu, why he has not been able to fix a single aspect of our ailing economy, Edun said that the inquisitive senators, and other Nigerians, should go back to the lethargic General Muhammadu Buhari’s era which brought Nigeria’s economy to its knees. Edun told his audience that for good eight years, the Buhari administration was just printing money! He added that most unfortunately, the money printed was not matched by any productivity. Then he submitted thus: “For eight years, the weak were left to their own devices. It is the privileged few that took everything.”

In essence, what the man appointed to midwife our economy said at the senate session is that Buhari and his gang merely printed money for eight years and nothing was put in place to put the money so printed into any productive venture. As I read over the submission of the minister, again, my mind went back to my secondary school days. I pictured Messrs Alebiosu and Fabamise as they taught us elementary Economics, especially the causes of inflation. Again, I remember that Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State, about two years ago, said that the government of General Buhari was printing money to be shared as allocations to the remaining two tiers of government. I wish I were a Cardinal in the Catholic Church. I would have just canonised Obaseki and my good secondary school teachers! Nigerians are in for the biggest economic mess. The ones we have asked to manage our affairs have no idea of what the problems are. This administration, like the immediate one it took over from, has nothing to offer than blame game. We have entered a typical one chance! The Babalawo we ask to consult the oracle for us cannot read a simple divination corpus. Where do we go from here?

Back to our atampako allegory. I find Mr. Edun’s appearance before the Senate Committee on Finance as most unfortunate. It is not just unfortunate, but equally very insulting on our collective sensibility. By all standards, Edun is the most senior member of Tinubu’s cabinet. As the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Edun is expected to be the brain box of the administration; the very go-to-man, whose fountain of wisdom all other cabinet members are expected to tap from. But look at what the man dished out before the committee! For eight years, the Buhari administration blamed its predecessor, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, and the 16 years of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governments for our economic woes. The likes of Edun and his principal, President Tinubu, queued behind Buhari in the blame game. Because Nigerians were greatly dissatisfied with the performance of the PDP-led administration, they elected to follow the Mai Gaskiya to the battlefield.

In that war of political, security and economic attrition against the Jonathan administration, Tinubu was the Aare Ona Kakanfo, with the like of Edun and other Tinubu’s boys acting as General Officers Commanding. For those eight ruinous years of the locusts that the Buhari administration was, not a whimper of condemnation was heard from the Tinubu camp. Rather, while seeking for votes, Tinubu promised to continue from where Buhari stopped. Pray, if Buhari’s achievements were not fanciful, why would anyone use them as the parameters to be considered to be elected? So, is it the same Buhari that Edun is asking us to carry canes and whips and flog for ruining our economy? What does Edun think Nigerian people are? Fools?

What happened in the eight years of Buhari that is not happening now? Was it not under General Buhari that Nigerians first heard of “budget padding”? Has that changed? Why are the northern senators (those ones again?) complaining that the 2024 budget was increased by N3.7 trillion ? What about insecurity, abduction, bloodletting, killings and other vices that were the hallmarks of the Buhari regime? Have they stopped? Should we also blame Buhari for the recent abductions in Kaduna and Sokoto States? Is it not the same All Progressives Congress (APC) that ruined our economy and printed money for eight years that is also in power today? How does Edun intend to cut the atampako into two and declare that the head is not a sibling of the neck? Where was Edun when Tinubu asked for the cows when Pa Reuben Fashoranti’s daughter, Mrs. Olakunri, was murdered by killer-herdsmen in 2019? Which party rode to power using the propaganda of students’ abduction in Chibok, Borno State in 2014? How many students were kidnapped under the Jonathan administration? How many have been abducted in the APC-led administrations between 2015 and today?

What lesson has the Tinubu administration learnt from the failings of his immediate predecessor? Truth be told. The APC sowed the seed of students’ abduction, when, instead of joining forces with the ‘clueless’ administration of Jonathan to find a lasting solution to the Chibok abduction of the 276 school girls in their dormitories, it chose to use the unfortunate incident as a weapon to get rid of the administration. By doing so, the APC, as an opposition party then, planted the evil seed. That which was planted must grow and bear fruits. We are in the harvest season; our baskets are filled to their brim. Check it out. Between 2012 and today, 1, 630 students have been either abducted or killed. Of the figure, the PDP government accounted for 375. The remaining 1,255 students were abducted under the APC administration. And, we are still counting. Last week, over 300 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), were abducted in Borno. The list is endless.

Within two days last week, over 300 students and teachers were abducted in Kaduna and Sokoto States. That should ring a bell. If we add over 300 IDPs abducted to the figure, we will know that we are in real trouble. Nothing has changed. Maybe Tinubu should also blame Buhari for that! It is rather sad that nobody in this government appears to be bringing past experiences to the table. The Vice President, Dr. Kashim Shettima, was the governor of Borno State when the Chibok abduction happened. What did he learn from that unfortunate incident? How, will an experienced hand like Shettima be in government and thunder would strike us on the same spot not just twice, but, multiple times? Funny, again! How on earth do you transport 287 pupils out of their schools in the name of abduction? How many vehicles were used for the operation? How many hours did it last? The teachers that escaped; what did they do? They just went back home to drink their fura de nunu? How about the villagers; nobody saw anything? No one among the students was stubborn enough to resist being taken away? Or those who came for them gave them our old goody-goody candy to lick? Where on earth are 287 pupils being housed; who is feeding them, and attending to their medical needs? My father advised me that I should never join anyone to plan evil. May the good Lord bless his soul (Amen). Shettima, the other time, lamented that saboteurs were after this government. I shook my head. What do people say about karma being a beast? God have mercy! This administration should thank its stars that it has a docile party, the PDP, as the opposition. We all know what the APC did while in opposition.

Enough of excuses and blame games! President Tinubu and his boys should know that as much as Nigerians regard the PDP government as a failure, life was more abundant under the party. Again, the PDP ruled for 16 years and left power nine years ago. If the current administration wants to continue where Buhari stopped the blame game, let it be known therefore, that Nigerians know how much they bought a bag of rice under the ‘clueless’ administration of Jonathan. They know how much a litre of petrol was then. The masses know that on the roads and highways, they could travel and sleep in the conveying vehicles without any fear of kidnappers or killer-herdsmen as we have today. Equally, Nigerians know the exchange rate under that administration and what is obtainable now. It is totally pea-brained for anyone to think that the present ineptitude could be blamed on the past administration. Tinubu was not elected to tell stories about how Buhari printed money for eight years. His job is to fix the ruined economy left for him by his protegee and friend, like the ‘master strategist’ they told us he is. This is the time for him to tap the brains of the ‘technocrats’ they promised he would assemble. If indeed the Buhari government was so foolish as to print money endlessly, there is a solution to that. Interrogate the man at the helm of affairs then, and get him punished wherever any infraction is established. Tinubu should borrow Professor Tony Afejuku’s appellation: ‘No Paddy for Jungle’, instead of the current futile Aunty Sally exercise. Majority of Nigerians know that Buhari was a monumental disaster in government. We need no further profiling. This excuse is becoming irritatingly dippy! Buhari blamed Jonathan for eight years without a single probe of the man. Tinubu cannot afford to do the same. If Buhari printed money, and we cannot point to a single thing he used the money for, as Edun stated, the man should not be allowed to continue picking his teeth in his Daura farm. Yes, he warned that nobody should call him for questioning while leaving on May 29, 2023. That is an empty threat. Except Tinubu benefited from the rots in the Buhari administration, I don’t see any reason why the ‘Mai Gaskiya’ cannot be made to account for his obvious misdeeds while in government. If Tinubu cannot probe the allegation of money printing, barmy as it is, then the government should keep quiet and get to work. Only an indolent workman blames his equipment!

By Lasisi Olagunju

What is the State?” Louis Blanc, politician and historian in 19th century France, asks himself.

He answers:

“The State, under democratic rule, is the power of all the people, served by their elect; it is the reign of liberty.

“The State, under monarchical rule, is the power of one man, the tyranny of a single individual.

“The State, under oligarchical rule, is the power of a small number of men, the tyranny of a few.

“The State, under aristocratic rule, is the power of a class, the tyranny of many.

“The State, under anarchical rule, is the power of the first comer who happens to be the most intelligent and the strongest; it is the tyranny of chaos.”

The lines above I took from Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s ‘The State: Its Nature, Object, and Destiny’ (1849). Nigeria is a fine combination of four of the five Louis Blanc’s definitions of the state. In case you pretend not knowing what the four are, this should be a guide: Last week, Finance Minister, Olawale Edun, frontally accused the defunct Muhammadu Buhari regime of criminal printing of about N23 trillion naira. Northern senators on Saturday alleged a criminal infusion of N3 trillion into the 2024 budget of Nigeria by powerful ghosts in Abuja. On Friday, in one northern state, a judge sentenced two kidnappers to death by hanging but quickly undermined himself with an advice to the felons to seek pardon from the executive “since no life was lost in the process of kidnapping.” On Thursday, bandits abducted 287 students in Kaduna. On Saturday, bandits invaded a Zamfara school and stole 15 students. Before the school abductions, senior brothers of the bandits, Boko Haram, had kidnapped over 400 displaced persons in Borno. In Benue and Plateau, a murderous campaign against helpless people is on without ceasing. From the desert to the coast, agonizing cries of existential woes rend the land. What we have is chaos pro-max.

Yet, we remain here. To whom or to where shall we turn? “We must make Nigeria a viable place for people to stay, and not a place to run away from.” I heard that counsel from African Development Bank Group’s president, Akinwumi Adesina, last week Wednesday in his lecture after receiving the Obafemi Awolowo Prize for Leadership in Lagos. I heard him and asked myself who would make Nigeria “a viable place for people to stay.” Those who print money and steal what they print? Those who serenade banditry with negotiation? Where are the leaders? Adesina in that same lecture looked deep into the past and declared that “Nigeria missed its best opportunity to be great under a ‘President’ Awolowo.” I heard that truth and whispered to myself that Nigeria is an expert at missing ways. Yoruba musician, Ayinla Omowura, sings about the one destined to eat hideous vulture, forbidden bird of carrion. Omowura sings that “the head that will eat vulture will not listen. If we give him chicken to eat, he will reject it.”

That is the nature of destiny – determinist philosophers say it is inevitable; people of religion agree but add that it is also inscrutable. Should it be Nigeria’s destiny to be a jungle forever? It looks like there is nothing we can do about it. Arab folklore character, Nasrudin, walks with utmost innocence along an alleyway. He is deep in thought and careful about not putting his feet where he may have them injured. But a man falls from a nearby roof and lands on Nasrudin’s neck. The fallen man is unhurt; innocent Nasrudin has a broken neck. He is asked what lessons he learnt from that experience. Nasrudin tells his disciples to note the place of fate in his fate. He asks them to note that the other man “fell — but my neck is broken!” At independence, Nigeria had all the chances to be great, but it soon had the ill-luck of falling into the mouths of big cats of the jungle. They’ve finished with the flesh, they are cracking the bones.

Adesina’s lecture focused on what he called five critical areas that would save Nigeria and transform the people’s lives. He said the government should make rural economy work and provide food security. He said our rural areas “have become zones of economic misery.” He is right and correct. He said the city falters today because the village has been abandoned to faltering. The result is “the spread of anarchy, banditry, and terrorism” – what he called the “troika of social disruption” entrenching themselves to our collective sorrow. Adesina said our leaders should give health security for all, provide education for all, give affordable housing for all. He told us quoting data by UN-Habitat, that “in Nigeria, 49 percent of the population live in slums …That is a staggering 102 million people!” He exclaimed and told our leaders that what Nigerians needed “is decent housing and not upgrading of slums…There is nothing like a 5-star slum. A slum is a slum… ”

Then, Adesina reached the fifth of his points: Our leaders should be accountable: “If people pay taxes, governments must deliver services,” he said and quickly added that “taxation in the absence of a social contract between governments and citizens is simply fiscal extortion.” He stressed that Nigeria must enthrone fiscal decentralisation for a true federalism.: “To get out of the economic quagmire, there is a compelling need for the restructuring of Nigeria…Instead of a Federal Government of Nigeria, we could think of the United States of Nigeria.”

Those are great ideas. But in this country, the bush is the way – because the blind is the guide. Leadership will always make a difference. In a 2002 academic piece, psychologists Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzio and Annie Mckee speak on the imperative of societies enthroning leaders with positive emotions. They say the society achieves equilibrium when it is governed by leaders with a sense of accountability; leaders who know how to transform “the art of leadership to the science of results.” One writer said “the executive mind is impotent without power, power is dangerous without vision, and neither is lasting or significant in any human broad sense without the force of integrity.”

No enduring structure can stand on a faulty foundation. American singer and songwriter, David Allan Coe, asked us not to look at the beauty of a building. He said “it is the construction of the foundation that will stand the test of time.” British architect, Stephen Gardiner, was more philosophical about the place of foundation in people’s affairs. He wrote that “good buildings come from good people, and all problems are solved by good design.” We cannot solve Nigeria’s problem by ignoring the fissures in its foundation.

We tell the knock-kneed that what he carries on his head threatens a fall, he asks us to stop looking at the top. “Look at the base!” He points at his impairment, the awkward gait of his lower limbs. Think about how every road taken has led to nowhere. Think about our propensity to leave the vaults of our destiny open and complain about theft later. The Monday, October 10, 1960 edition of TIME magazine contained a report with the title: ‘Nigeria: The Free Giant.’ It was supposed to be a celebration of Nigeria’s independence which happened ten days earlier. But the author of the piece nursed a fear about the future of the brand new country. He wrote that “backward African nations inevitably must suffer the chaos of a Congo when the blacks take over.” Congo got its independence from Belgium on June 30, 1960. It fell apart on July 5, 1960 – less than a week after independence. The TIME magazine described that Congo as “a panorama of disaster.” How do we describe our Nigeria since independence?

A dark prophecy of inevitable chaos was published for Nigeria ten days after independence. To “inevitably suffer the chaos of the Congo” was a strong statement. The dictionary meaning of ‘chaos’ is “complete disorder”. If you like you can replace the word with “mayhem” or “bedlam” or “a mess.” There are a million other words that share meanings of madness with the chaotic. ‘Inevitable’ means “certain to happen.” Its other synonyms are ‘unavoidable’; ‘inescapable’; ‘fated’. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet we hear the protagonist, Hamlet, King of Denmark, seeing “providence in the fall of a sparrow.” In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare says the love birds are “star-cross’d” – stuck with their tragic end, their fate. It was the destiny of the Congo to explode within a week of its freedom from foreign rule. It has been Nigeria’s destiny to hop from disaster to catastrophe. But why?

If destiny will manifest itself in a disaster, it presages itself. It is not rain that falls without warning the blind and tapping the deaf. Thirty-eight years ago, Chief Awolowo himself spoke on the evils which dominated the hearts of Nigerians “at all levels and in all sectors of our political, business and governmental activities.” In his famous letter to the political bureau set up by the military in 1986, Chief Awolowo spoke about “the abominable filth that abounds in our society.” He said as long as Nigerians remained “what they are, nothing clean, principled, ethical, and idealistic can work with them.” He warned that unless we allowed our hearts to be impelled “to make drastic changes for the better,” Nigeria stood the chance of succumbing to what he described as “permanent social instability and chaos.”

The chaos is here. We feel it in the price of food and drugs and in the cost of life itself. It is overwhelming. Today’s government reacts by grumbling about the malfeasance of its predecessor. Yet, the past was a disaster that came dancing without a mask. After Muhammadu Buhari was declared reelected in 2019, the late Dr. Obadiah Mailafia said in his March 4, 2019 Nigerian Tribune column titled ‘A guide for the Perplexed’ that Nigeria faced “what amounts to a peace of the graveyard.” He said he saw “fear and alarm in the eyes of certified patriots.” He noted that “only Almajirai in tattered rags from the president’s home region are celebrating with daggers and bayonets spoiling for a fight that nobody is really interested in.” He called on “genuine statesmen to (come and) salvage our democracy from the jaws of catastrophe.” History should have guided the public intellectual. Mailafia should have read Chief Awolowo. Nigeria is not structured to have “genuine statesmen” as its managers. Vulture does not eat clean meat; its meal is carrion.

Adesina declared that “Chief Awolowo was bigger than Nigeria. He said Awo “was the pacesetter and forerunner for development in Africa.” He spoke about Awolowo’s “intellectual capacity, vision, pragmatic social welfarism (which) helped him accomplish what was seemingly unimaginable at the time.” Adesina listed Awolowo’s firsts: “He built the first skyscraper in Africa — the Cocoa House. He built the first television station in Africa, WNTV. He built the Liberty Stadium, the first of its kind in Africa. He implemented a blueprint for development that focused on building human capacity through massive programs to educate the people, develop skills, lift people out of poverty, provide massive rural infrastructure, and develop institutions that turned farmers into wealthy entrepreneurs…Chief Awolowo implemented the sustainable development goals decades before the phrase was coined. He was an inspiration for Africa, far beyond the shores of Nigeria. His philosophy…helped shape programs and policies in other countries.”

Where I sat was some seats away from where Adesina stood and spoke from. Where he stood was a few seats away from where the government of Nigeria sat, expressionless. I heard Adesina; I turned and asked a colleague who sat beside me if he thought Nigeria could benefit from the wisdom of the bow-tied. I told my friend that Adesina’s first four points rested on the fifth. Nothing positive will happen unless Nigeria’s crooked structure is worked on by surgeons. But, where are the physicians? Even if the surgeon is found and present, Nigeria is as difficult and dangerous as danger could be. The country is that mental patient who hates his doctor because he hates being cured of his ailment. Nigeria kills its prophets.

Adesina’s five pills are capable of healing Nigeria. But Nigeria won’t listen to him. It did not listen to Awolowo. It doesn’t listen to the wise. It is a conundrum – an abductee of its crooked structure. In the 1999 Yoruba political film, Saworoide, we hear the old man Adebayo Faleti (Bàbá Òpálábá) chanting the praise name of his Jogbo Kingdom: “Jogbo bí orógbó, Jogbo bí orò (Jogbo, bitter as bitter kola; dangerous as oro cult). With two eyes, you can cope at the riverside; with two eyes, you will survive Kaduna; but you need twelve eyes to survive in Jogbo. With two mouths, you get by in Ibadan; with two mouths you get by in Lagos; but you need 18 mouths to survive in Jogbo…” Nigeria is that Jogbo – a sick, deformed, bitter country in need of a surgeon.

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