By Max Amuchie | The Sunday Stew

Language does more than describe reality. It shapes how we perceive it.
Every enduring discipline eventually develops its own vocabulary. Law has its language. Medicine has its language. Economics, engineering, diplomacy and computer science all possess conceptual vocabularies that enable practitioners to describe phenomena with greater precision than ordinary language permits.

Journalism is no exception.
Yet the vocabulary of journalism has largely remained rooted in the 20th century. We continue to speak of newsrooms, reporters, editors, publishers, news cycles and audiences—concepts that remain important but no longer fully capture the realities of a profession transformed by digital technology, artificial intelligence, data science and knowledge production.
If journalism itself is changing, then its language must also evolve.
Throughout this series, I have argued that the 21st century newsroom should no longer be understood merely as a producer of news but as a knowledge-producing institution. That institutional transformation inevitably requires a corresponding conceptual transformation. New realities require new language.

A Note on the Definition of the Sundiata Post Model

In Part 1 of this series, I defined the Sundiata Post Model as an institutional framework for media-based knowledge production. The development of the Model across the subsequent parts has, however, clarified its institutional character and conceptual architecture. I therefore refine that original definition here and assert the following as the canonical definition:

The Sundiata Post Model is an institutional model for media-based knowledge production in which an independent newsroom systematically integrates journalism, original research, conceptual innovation, and scholarly dissemination to produce original analytical constructs that contribute to public understanding, academic inquiry, and policy discourse within the global knowledge ecosystem. Its conceptual framework sets out the principles, structures, processes and mechanisms through which such a newsroom can become a knowledge-producing institution and sustain that capacity over time.

The Sundiata Post Model (SPM) therefore proposes not simply an institutional model but also a vocabulary through which its conceptual framework can be understood and communicated.
This vocabulary should not be viewed as rigid terminology imposed upon the profession. Language evolves through use rather than decree. Some concepts will prove useful. Others may be revised or replaced. Ultimately, the value of any terminology lies not in its novelty but in its capacity to illuminate reality more clearly.
What follows is therefore an emerging lexicon for 21st century journalism. It gives language to the ideas developed throughout this series.

Knowledge-Producing Institution

Perhaps the central concept within the SPM is the Knowledge-Producing Institution.
Traditional media organisations produce journalism. A knowledge-producing institution produces journalism while simultaneously generating research, analytical frameworks, datasets, policy knowledge and institutional memory. It informs today’s public while contributing to tomorrow’s understanding.
This distinction represents the philosophical foundation upon which the entire model rests.

Dual Engine Architecture

The Dual Engine Architecture describes the internal structure through which journalism and knowledge production become mutually reinforcing.
The Media Operations Engine generates journalism, public engagement and commercial activity.
The Knowledge Operations Engine converts that journalistic activity into research, intellectual frameworks, datasets, publications and institutional knowledge.
Together they create a continuous cycle in which journalism enriches research and research strengthens journalism.

Media Operations Engine

The Media Operations Engine is the institution’s public-facing operational system.
It encompasses reporting, editing, verification, multimedia production, audience engagement, commercial publishing, conferences, public events and other activities through which the institution serves society while generating the resources necessary to sustain its mission.

Knowledge Operations Engine

The Knowledge Operations Engine is the institution’s intellectual infrastructure.
It conducts research, develops theories, constructs analytical frameworks, curates datasets, preserves institutional memory and maintains standards for methodology, research quality and knowledge governance. It transforms information into enduring knowledge.

Institutional Intelligence Cycle

The Institutional Intelligence Cycle describes the continuous movement of knowledge between journalism and research.
Reporting generates observations.
Observations generate questions.
Research transforms those questions into structured knowledge.
That knowledge subsequently enriches journalism, producing deeper reporting and more informed public discourse.
The cycle then begins again.
Knowledge therefore accumulates rather than disappears.

Institutional Memory

Institutions do not become enduring simply because they survive. They become enduring because they remember.
Institutional Memory refers to the organised preservation of knowledge generated through journalism, research, governance and public engagement. It ensures that experience accumulates across generations rather than disappearing with personnel changes, the passing of news cycles or successive algorithmic transformations.

Knowledge Stewardship

Creating knowledge is only the beginning.
Knowledge Stewardship concerns the responsibility to preserve, organise, govern and transmit that knowledge responsibly across generations.
It treats intellectual assets not as temporary outputs but as permanent institutional resources.

Knowledge Governance

If knowledge is to become an institutional asset, it must also be governed.
Knowledge Governance refers to the principles, systems and standards through which institutions ensure methodological integrity, research quality, documentation, accessibility, preservation and responsible use of knowledge.
It provides order to institutional intelligence.

Realm of the Long Term

Every institution eventually reaches the point where immediate performance gives way to long-term stewardship.
The Realm of the Long Term describes that stage in institutional development.
Here, management shifts its attention from short-term success to enduring relevance.
Leadership becomes stewardship.
Growth becomes continuity.
Performance becomes permanence of purpose.

The Seven Pillars

The Seven Pillars constitute the institutional foundations upon which the Realm of the Long Term rests:
Financial Sustainability
Human Capital and Leadership
Knowledge Stewardship
Governance
Innovation and Adaptation
Trust and Reputation
Mission Continuity
Together they provide a practical philosophy for institutional endurance.

The Logic of the Long Term

The Logic of the Long Term is the principle that enduring institutions are sustained not by isolated organisational strengths but by the interaction of mutually reinforcing capabilities. Within the SPM, it explains why the Seven Pillars operate as an integrated institutional system rather than as independent functions.

Institutional Success

Within the SPM, institutional success extends beyond commercial performance. It encompasses four progressively deeper levels.
Operational Success measures present performance.
Institutional Success measures organisational endurance.
Civilisational Success measures the institution’s enduring contribution to society’s accumulated stock of knowledge.
Legacy measures Generational Influence—the extent to which an institution’s ideas, values, methods and contributions continue shaping future generations.
Success is therefore measured not only by what institutions produce, but ultimately by what continues because the institution existed.

The Triple Institutional Architecture

The SPM is not only an institutional model. Its development has also generated an emerging institutional architecture through which its principles can be expressed in practice.
That architecture consists of three complementary institutions: Sundiata Post Media Ltd., the Sundiata Post Intelligence Unit (SPIU), and the Sundiata Post Foundation.
Sundiata Post Media Ltd. constitutes the media and public-information institution. Its primary function is journalism: reporting, investigation, verification, public engagement and the dissemination of knowledge to society. The Sundiata Post Intelligence Unit (SPIU) constitutes the research and knowledge institution. Its function extends beyond journalism into original research, conceptual innovation, analytical constructs, datasets, policy research and scholarly dissemination. The development of The Insecurity Triad, the Trinity of Sovereignty Decay (TSD) and the Decoupling Sovereignty Index (DSI) demonstrates the potential for this research function to generate original intellectual contributions rather than merely reproduce existing knowledge.
The Sundiata Post Foundation constitutes the social-impact and civic-engagement institution within the wider ecosystem.

Together, these institutions form a Triple Institutional Architecture:
Media—Knowledge—Social Impact

The three institutions are distinct in function but complementary in purpose. Their differentiated institutional roles create distinct but mutually reinforcing pathways for sustaining public value.

This architecture also extends the Dual Engine Architecture of the SPM beyond the internal structure of a newsroom. The Media Operations Engine and Knowledge Operations Engine remain the core internal mechanisms of the knowledge-producing institution, while the Triple Institutional Architecture shows how those functions can connect to a wider institutional ecosystem in which journalism, research and social impact reinforce one another.
The four original constructs developed through the Sundiata Post intellectual project provide an initial proof of concept for the knowledge-producing capacity underlying this architecture.
The Triad demonstrates the capacity to develop an original analytical lens. The TSD demonstrates theoretical innovation. The DSI represents an attempt to translate theory into an empirical measurement system. The SPM itself provides the institutional model through which such knowledge can be generated, preserved and disseminated.
The significance, therefore, lies not in the existence of four ideas or three institutions independently, but in their interaction.
The constructs demonstrate intellectual production.
The institutions provide organisational embodiment.
The architecture connects knowledge production to public value.

Beyond Journalism: Strategic Management and Organisational Theory

The SPM sits at the intersection of journalism and media studies, organisational theory, and strategic management.
From journalism and media studies, it draws on the tradition of public service—a profession dedicated to informing society, strengthening democracy, and contributing to public understanding.
From organisational theory, it draws on the study of how institutions are designed, governed, sustained and renewed over time, emphasising organisational structure, institutional memory, culture, stewardship and long-term continuity.
From strategic management, it draws on the principles of institutional endurance—financial sustainability, governance, human capital development, innovation, knowledge stewardship and mission continuity.
These are not separate concerns. The SPM argues that journalism cannot fulfil its public purpose without institutional strength, and that institutional strength cannot be built without understanding journalism’s unique mission.

This interdisciplinary foundation is reflected throughout the Model—in its Dual Engine Architecture, its Seven Pillars, its measures of institutional success, and its proposed vocabulary. Each element integrates the concerns of both fields, offering a framework that is both mission-driven and institutionally grounded.

A Living Vocabulary

No vocabulary is ever complete.
The language proposed in this series should therefore be understood as a living intellectual framework rather than a finished dictionary. As journalism evolves, new concepts will emerge. Existing concepts will be refined. Some terms may disappear altogether while others become widely adopted. That is how intellectual traditions develop.
History reminds us that new ways of understanding the world often begin when someone gives language to a previously unnamed reality. Once that language gained acceptance, the underlying ideas became easier to understand, debate and improve.
The SPM aspires to make a similar contribution. Its value will not be determined by whether every term survives unchanged, but by whether this vocabulary helps journalists, scholars, media executives and researchers think more clearly about what the newsroom of the 21st century can become.
If that conversation continues beyond these pages—if these concepts are questioned, tested, adapted and applied—then the language will have served its purpose.

Because institutions are built with systems.
Ideas are built with language.
The future of journalism will require both.

Across these seven parts, I have defined the problem, formulated a new institutional model, proposed its architecture, articulated its guiding principles, developed measures of success, and finally given it its own vocabulary. Together, these elements give the SPM its internal coherence and completeness.

A Philosophical Triad of Enduring Influences

With humility, drawing on decades of experience at the forefront of the African media industry, a fellowship at the highest level of the Chartered Institute of Human Resource Management (CIHRM), foundational membership in the Institute of Strategic Management Nigeria, and from my desk at Sundiata Post in Abuja, I release these ideas—the Sundiata Post Model—into the world. Their future is no longer mine to determine. If they endure, it will not be because I insisted upon their importance, but because others found them worth questioning, testing, adapting and building upon.

For many years, my life journey and the arc of my interdisciplinary thinking have been shaped by a philosophical triad of enduring influences. The first is Sigmund Freud’s insight that “immortality means being known by many anonymous people”—which, to me, revealed the possibility that ideas can outlive their creators and that the truest measure of intellectual work lies not in personal recognition but in the enduring life of ideas.
The second is Edward Said’s vision of the intellectual as one who engages society’s most pressing questions with independence, integrity, and moral courage.
The third is Antonio Gramsci’s conception of the organic intellectual, which helped me see journalism as far more than the reporting of events. It reframed journalism for me as an intellectual vocation—one that interprets reality, organises knowledge, frames public understanding, and contributes to society’s accumulated stock of learning.
Together, these three influences have shaped my conception of journalism not merely as a profession, but as an intellectual vocation and a means of creating knowledge that can outlive its creator.

If, through the development of four original constructs—The Insecurity Triad, the Trinity of Sovereignty Decay, the Decoupling Sovereignty Index, and now the Sundiata Post Model—I have made a meaningful contribution in that tradition, I am content to leave the judgment to history and to those who engage with these ideas in the years ahead.

This series is concluded.

Trust is sacred. Stay seasoned.

•Dr Max Nwabueze Amuchie is an African scholar-practitioner and framework builder whose original intellectual work spans insecurity, sovereignty, institutional development, and journalism as knowledge production. His frameworks include the Insecurity Triad, the Trinity of Sovereignty Decay, the Decoupling Sovereignty Index, and the Sundiata Post Model. He is the CEO & Theorist-In-Chief of Sundiata Post, Lead Researcher at the Sundiata Post Intelligence Unit (SPIU), and an Expert Member and Peer Reviewer in Behavioural and Social Sciences at ScienceOpen.

The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.

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APC leaders are falling over one another to own Ademola Adeleke’s victory — the same people who, barely 24 hours earlier, fired missiles to bring down his plane. They now say he had all along been their preferred candidate. Since when did the hawk and the chicken become playmates? Ẹyẹ ń bá ẹyẹ ṣeré, ẹyẹ ń tu ìyẹ́ ẹyẹ. One bird claims to be playing with another while quietly plucking its feathers. How warmly should the saved, fresh from the gallows, embrace the executioner whose rope just failed?

Tuesday last week, at the Arise News TV/Nigerian Tribune Town Hall meeting for candidates in the Osun State governorship election, I asked Governor Ademola Adeleke if he was not scared of contesting against the APC — a party with more than 30 governors, the presidency and virtually everything that comes with federal power. His response was vintage political boast: “You don’t know me o. I am a bulldozer. They are not calling me Action Jackson for nothing.” He promised to level the APC and its awesome structures. 

On Saturday, the people of Osun State climbed onto Action Jackson’s bulldozer. Together, they levelled the field and much of what the APC had erected on it. The bull was dazed. 

Adeleke and his people made it against all odds because they understood the practical instruction in the Yoruba saying: Ọ̀pá kan ò p’ejò (one stick does not kill a snake). With more than one club, they killed the snakes of invasive power. They borrowed pages from the classic underdog playbook: shifted the battlefield, endured the blows, disrupted the enemy’s calculations, and like Scipio before Hannibal’s elephants, they learnt that terrifying weapons lose their terror once you discover how to unsettle them.

Sir Rex Niven, in ‘The War of Nigerian Unity’, described what he called the Abagana miracle: a formidable Nigerian military convoy of men, machines and munitions suddenly brought to ruin by an underdog on March 31, 1968. In Osun, what ordinarily should happen when enormous political and military machinery confronts a smaller force did not happen. Ancient Chinese military strategists had expressions for such improbable victories of the weak: yi lie sheng you (using the inferior to defeat the superior); and yi ruo sheng qiang (using the weak to defeat the strong).

Machiavelli has two political animals in his zoo: the lion and the fox. One is blessed with the strength for decisive action; the other with the guile for shrewd manoeuvring. Battles may be won by the lion’s strength; the long game of politics requires the fox’s cunning. In the Osun election, the victorious knew the referee belonged to their opponent, they flooded the field with lights of every colour until even a biased referee could no longer see well enough to help his side.

The victor particularly benefitted from Field Marshall Idi Amin’s advice to boxers: “the only chance to defeat the referee who is against you is to win by knockout. Don’t try to win on points—you will be cheated. Knock out your opponent, so the referee has no choice.” Saturday was a knockout; the umpire dithered, then surrendered. Would INEC have given victory to Accord at the weekend if Adeleke had relied on winning on points? The lesson there for anyone planning to contest against the APC next year is: since you suspect the referee, do not leave your victory to the referee’s arithmetic, start training with Iron Mike Tyson; only a knockout will defeat your opponent.

Saturday’s election in Osun State, and the way it went, demonstrated in clear terms the limit of federal power. The whole of the Nigerian security agencies emptied themselves into Osun State. The whole of over thirty state governments and their governors and their money poured into the state. The awesomeness of the presidency hid behind its index finger and feigned sleep while the Osun operation was underway. Yet, at the end of the day, nothing happened that gave the invading forces cause to clink glasses. They came with power, numbers and money. They left with defeat.

“They cannot win who start with threats” (Avianus). Indeed, pressure has a way of empowering the very resistance it is deployed to overcome. Read Aesop’s ‘The North Wind and the Sun’ and how spectacularly the howling wind lost to the blazing sun. Nigeria’s politics and politicians invested so much dread in the power called federal. Osun has taught some hard lessons. Even Adeleke learnt his own: you do not have to pawn yourself to the king before you can survive. 

What we saw in Osun State was a practical definition of people power. Democracy, to the ancient Greeks, meant political power “wielded actively and collectively by the demos” – the people. Political scientist and classicist, Josiah Ober of Stanford University, writing on public speech and the power of the people, argues that democratic Athens demonstrated how the collective power of the people could check elite political domination. The “power of the people”, he says, was not a disguise for government by an elite. On Saturday, Osun supplied its own footnote to ancient Athens. Other states should learn from Osun.

The contest was a real rumble in the jungle. The APC fought really hard with everything and reluctantly lost. The Accord won because it had a determined people backing it with grit, resolve and audacity. When a dog has people behind it, it will kill monkey for supper.

In 2009, Chinese political scientist, Yang Shaohua, wrote ‘How Can Weak Powers Win?’ He asked an enduring question in the study of conflict: how does the weak sometimes defeat the strong, and why does superior power sometimes fail against an inferior adversary? “The history of war can be characterized as the strong defeating the weak, and the many defeating the few,” Shaohua wrote. Yet the history of war is also repeatedly interrupted by reversals of that supposedly natural order. Its records are regularly updated with new Davids bringing down new Goliaths. We witnessed one on Saturday in Osun State.

Read Also: From Village WhatsApp to Federal Prosecution: How a community dispute became a national criminal case

Every politician knows that politics sometimes behaves like war. Democracy exists to ensure that it does not become one. The election may have come and gone but the wounds it inflicted will not go in a term.

People died; limbs got lost. Democracy as we knew it got wounded. A few days ago, we were horrified at iron scavengers hacking at pillars of bridges in Lagos. I watched Osun from a close distance and saw democracy at the mercy of merchants of power eating into the values that make democracy democracy. And like the bridge destroyers, the political invaders were not bothered that the structure from which they were extracting goods is needed to carry everybody across the rivers of tomorrow.

That is the frightening thing about the kill-or-lose politics that has consumed our democracy. An election is supposed to renew democracy. The murderous campaigns that dovetailed into Saturday in Osun State cannibalised it.

Now, going forward, ignorant us may imagine that the only issue for determination is who won that election. But it is not the only issue. There is a larger question: what is now left of the bridge after the war?

“Everybody who created democracies understood that they were fragile systems, which is why they put checks and balances in place.” Journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Anne Applebaum, unconsciously had our broken system in mind when she uttered those words last month. The “checks and balances” are the pillars that hold the structure. They were assaulted and assailed by scavengers incrementally in the just concluded election.

Democracy was invented and repeatedly strengthened because humanity needed a way of crossing the gulf between competing interests without settling the argument by violence. The tragedy now is that scavengers are hacking at its pillars and stealing the steel that keeps the bridge standing.

What are those pillars? My teacher said the rule of law is one. The neutrality of state institutions is another. The freedom of citizens to choose without fear is another. Peaceful competition, tolerance of opposition and acceptance that today’s loser may become tomorrow’s winner are reinforcing rods buried deep inside those pillars. Remove enough of them and the bridge may continue standing only for a while. That apparent solidity is deceptive. I know you would call me a scare monger, that this Nigerian bridge is solid and sound, no matter what we may have done to it, “nothing do am.” That is how the Romans felt with their democracy until they lost it to the Caesars; the Athenians held same belief to the sorrow of their democratic freedom. They lost it. This democracy is close to midnight. A bridge does not have to collapse immediately after its steel is stolen for the vandalism to be fatal.

And this is where Osun should worry us. Politicians of all sides did not mind vandalising the institutions that give democracy meaning. All they wanted was victory.

Saturday taught Adeleke how to survive the fist of power. Defying all odds, he won with 511,067 votes against the 444,815 polled by APC’s Bola Oyebamiji. The winner has pledged allegiance to the godfather of the loser. Adeleke said on Sunday in his victory speech: “President Bola Tinubu is a son of Osun State and I hereby reaffirm my earlier endorsement of him for a second term in the 2027 presidential election.” The days ahead may teach Adeleke that the handshake of power sometimes requires even greater vigilance than the war he just fought and won.

We may have more surprises ahead. How will it feel if victorious David is asked to enlist in Goliath’s army? APC lost to Accord on Saturday. I will not be shocked if APC now pointedly demands an alliance with Accord and Adeleke for the 2027 contest for all posts. Indeed, President Bola Tinubu, whose forces were defeated on Saturday, reportedly called Adeleke when his victory was certain, before he was officially named winner. Was that call just a congratulatory call or was it strategic reconnaissance? The president certainly has his eyes on harvesting his conqueror as a useful vassal.

There is an old political lesson underneath this: when the stronger man cannot defeat the weaker man, wile may suggest that he makes the weaker man’s victory useful to him.

It will happen, and when it does, how will the relationship end? Adeleke and his people have an old story of Nabis of Sparta versus Rome to learn from. History says Nabis had been aligned with Philip V of Macedonia, but during the Second Macedonian War, the Romans, under Titus Quinctius Flamininus, made an alliance with Nabis because they needed his assistance against Philip. Nabis agreed and shifted sides; they had a nice time. The Yoruba say all adulterous relationships end in a fight. When Rome needed Nabis, Rome called him a king, and accepted him as an ally; when the need had passed, Rome called him a tyrant and turned against him. The Roman historian, Livy (59 BC to AD 17), preserves the substance of Nabis’s taunt: “I am the same man with whom you entered into alliance; then you called me king, now you call me tyrant.” Rome demonstrated here, as it did repeatedly, that it did not have to destroy every opponent. Sometimes the more profitable conquest came after the fighting stopped. The message for last Saturday’s victor is that yesterday’s enemy will treat him as today’s indispensable ally; that does not protect you from being treated tomorrow as an enemy once your usefulness expires.

They should also read the history of Pyrrhus and the Romans. Pyrrhus defeated Rome at Heraclea. After that victory, he sent his extraordinarily persuasive envoy, Cineas, to negotiate peace with Rome. History says Rome refused. Pyrrhus would later defeat the Romans again at Asculum, although at such enormous cost that his name gave history (and English) the expression ‘Pyrrhic victory.’ This should serve those in Osun who may intend to dash their victory to the party that slammed the door on their hand of friendship before the war.

However, while we celebrate this victory, we need some silent moments of reflection. With every election come winners and losers. Losing an election can feel like losing a war. In that moment of defeat, you lose more than the trophy. In his ‘After Defeat’, S. Clinton Hinote writes that in defeat, we lose “the confidence of our friends and the respect of our foes.” Those who lost in Osun on Saturday will tell you that this theory and the theorist are right.

Political scientists will tell you that losers in politics are of two types. Kenneth A. Shepsle lists them as “out-of-power politicians and in-power politicians with distinctly out-of-favour ideas.” Saturday’s election had them; tomorrow’s will have them too. Democracy would be dead if politics were all about winning. Fortunately, neither victory nor defeat is final. Human experience teaches us that much. For those who lost, there is always a tomorrow if they are prepared to change, rethink and rebuild. The winner, too, must manage victory in such a way that today’s gain does not become tomorrow’s loss.

There are lessons from economics here. E. C. Capen and his colleagues gave us the “winner’s curse”; Charles A. Holt and Roger Sherman wrote about the “loser’s curse.” Both insights from the marketplace are useful in understanding politics and its swings of fortune. There can be a curse in winning badly and another in losing without learning. Looking back at the Osun battle, I would tell the winner that the machine required to win a political war is not necessarily the instrument with which one should govern after victory. Action Jackson drove his bulldozer through Saturday with remarkable success. His harder assignment is to know where to park it and what to do with the cleared field. May God help him.

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By Ike Augustine, Esq.

The death of a loved one is one of the most painful experiences anyone can endure. It becomes even more devastating when there are legitimate questions as to whether the death could have been prevented through greater care, diligence and professional responsibility.

I therefore heartily sympathise with my dear brother and friend, Justice U. John, over the tragic death of his wife, reportedly arising from human error. No family should have to endure the pain of losing a loved one in circumstances where serious questions concerning preventability, professional conduct and the standard of care remain unanswered.

His experience has also compelled me to reflect on my own family’s encounter with the Nigerian healthcare system—a traumatic and life-threatening experience which, by the grace of God, did not end in the loss of my wife.

A Personal Experience That Should Concern Us All

My wife’s ordeal began on 28 March 2025, when she attended her antenatal appointment at the then Federal Medical Centre, Owerri, now Federal University Teaching Hospital, Owerri. She was booked for an emergency Caesarean Section because of pre-eclampsia.

We had encountered a similar situation during the birth of our first child in 2022. On that occasion, my wife had initially been booked for a Caesarean Section and preparations were made accordingly. However, the medical team succeeded in stabilising her blood pressure. She was subsequently induced and, by God’s grace, delivered safely through spontaneous vaginal delivery.

Because of that previous experience, we remained hopeful that her blood pressure could once again be stabilised.

Unfortunately, the situation was different this time. Her blood pressure continued to rise at an alarming rate, leaving us with no reasonable option other than to proceed with the Caesarean Section in the early hours of 29 March 2025.

Two pints of blood had already been made available at about 1:00 a.m. in anticipation of the procedure.

The doctor on duty who eventually performed the surgery reportedly expressed reluctance because his duty period was coming to an end. From our family’s perspective, the circumstances surrounding the procedure caused us considerable concern.

Following the surgery, my wife’s blood count dropped significantly, suggesting substantial blood loss. Yet, despite the blood that had been made available before the operation, she was not transfused at that point.

After several days, her blood count improved somewhat, and we were eventually discharged.

We thought the ordeal was over.

It was not.

When the Complication Became Life-Threatening

Some days after her discharge, my wife developed serious complications. Following further medical examinations, she was diagnosed with fibrinous ascites suggestive of haemoperitoneum and peritonitis.

Her condition became so serious that an urgent major surgical procedure was considered necessary.

I was required to sign a high-risk consent form. I was informed, in substance, that the procedure carried significant risks, including the possibility of death and the removal of her womb, among other serious consequences.

At that moment, I wept inwardly.

But I prayed.

I prayed fervently that God would spare my wife.

By God’s grace and mercy, she survived.

I remain profoundly grateful.

However, the experience left me with questions that extend beyond my family. They are questions about the state of healthcare delivery in Nigeria, professional accountability, patients’ rights and the protection available to victims of suspected medical negligence.

Medical Negligence Is Not Merely a Medical Issue

Medical negligence should not automatically be assumed whenever a patient suffers an adverse outcome.

At the same time, neither should every adverse medical outcome be dismissed as an unavoidable complication.

Medicine is not an exact science. Doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals often work under difficult circumstances and must make decisions in situations involving uncertainty, urgency and significant risk. Complications can occur even where appropriate professional care has been provided.

The important question, therefore, is not simply whether a patient suffered an adverse outcome.

The critical questions are: Was the applicable standard of care met? Was there a departure from that standard? And did such departure cause or materially contribute to the injury or death?

Where a healthcare professional or institution fails to exercise the degree of care, skill and diligence reasonably expected of a competent professional, and that failure causes injury, disability or death, the circumstances deserve serious and independent investigation.

The public must be able to distinguish between an unavoidable medical complication and an avoidable injury resulting from negligence, incompetence, recklessness or failure to comply with appropriate professional standards.

That distinction is critical.

Allegations of medical negligence should therefore neither be ignored nor determined by public sentiment. They should be subjected to appropriate professional, administrative and judicial processes, with fairness to both the patient and the healthcare professional involved.

The Vulnerability of Patients

A patient entering a hospital is ordinarily in a vulnerable position.

The patient may not understand the medical terminology being used, may not know what medication is being administered and may not fully understand the risks associated with a procedure. In many circumstances, the patient is simply unable to determine whether a particular treatment has been properly administered.

This creates a relationship of enormous trust between healthcare professionals and their patients.

That trust must not be abused.

Patients are entitled to expect competent, timely and responsible medical care. They are entitled to appropriate information concerning their condition and available treatment options. They are entitled to dignity, proper attention and appropriate documentation of their treatment.

Where something goes wrong, patients and their families should be able to ask questions and seek answers.

The Problem of Accountability

One of the major challenges confronting our healthcare system is the difficulty victims may encounter when attempting to obtain accountability.

Families who lose loved ones in hospitals are often overwhelmed by grief. Many do not know what went wrong. Some may struggle to obtain medical records or independent medical opinions.

Others cannot afford legal representation or the cost of obtaining expert medical evidence.

Some victims simply accept the outcome as “God’s will”, even where there may be legitimate questions concerning the standard of care provided.

Faith and accountability are not mutually exclusive.

We can thank God for what cannot be changed while still demanding accountability for what could have been prevented.

Accountability should not be viewed as an attack on healthcare professionals. Rather, it should be understood as an essential component of improving healthcare delivery and protecting future patients.

Protecting Victims of Suspected Medical Negligence

Victims of suspected medical negligence require meaningful institutional and legal support.

First, there must be effective and accessible mechanisms for investigating complaints against healthcare professionals and healthcare institutions.

Regulatory bodies should not wait until allegations become matters of public controversy before taking appropriate action. Relevant professional regulatory and disciplinary institutions—including the Medical and Dental Practitioners Disciplinary Committee, the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria and appropriate hospital management authorities—must effectively perform their statutory and professional responsibilities.

Where professional misconduct or negligence is established after due process, appropriate disciplinary measures should follow.

Secondly, patients and their authorised representatives should have meaningful access to relevant medical records and information concerning their treatment, subject to applicable legal and professional requirements.

A patient cannot effectively investigate or challenge suspected negligent treatment where the evidence necessary to understand what happened is inaccessible.

Thirdly, victims should have access to affordable legal assistance.

Many victims of medical negligence are ordinary Nigerians who lack the financial capacity to pursue complex litigation. There is therefore a compelling case for greater involvement by the legal profession, civil society organisations, human-rights groups and public-interest litigation initiatives in assisting deserving victims.

Hospitals Must Develop a Culture of Transparency

Hospitals should not automatically become defensive whenever a patient or family raises a complaint.

A serious complaint should trigger an objective and professional investigation.

Where an adverse event occurs, the institution should ask:

• What happened?
• Why did it happen?
• Who was responsible?
• Could the injury or death have been prevented?
• Were established protocols followed?
• Did systemic weaknesses contribute to the outcome?
• What measures can prevent a recurrence?

A culture of concealment is dangerous.

A culture of accountability saves lives.

Every serious adverse medical event should provide an opportunity to improve institutional systems, staff training, emergency-response procedures, documentation and patient safety.

The Welfare of Health Workers Matters Too

Demanding accountability does not mean ignoring the difficult conditions under which many Nigerian healthcare professionals work.

Doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers deserve decent remuneration, adequate staffing, functional equipment, safe working environments and continuous professional development.

An exhausted doctor working in an understaffed hospital without essential equipment may also be operating within a system that contributes to medical errors.

Accountability must therefore operate at both individual and institutional levels.

Where negligence results from an individual’s failure to exercise reasonable professional care, the individual should be held accountable in accordance with the law.

Where systemic failures contributed to the harm, the institution and relevant authorities must equally answer legitimate questions.

We should not create a system in which individual healthcare workers become convenient scapegoats for institutional failures.

Victims Must Know Their Rights

There is an urgent need for massive public sensitisation concerning patients’ rights.

Many Nigerians do not know that they can ask questions about the treatment they receive in a hospital. They may not understand the importance of obtaining relevant medical records, preserving receipts and other documents, documenting symptoms and treatment, seeking appropriate independent medical opinions and consulting lawyers where serious injury or death occurs.

Patients should be educated about their rights.

Families should know that when a loved one dies or suffers serious injury in circumstances suggesting possible negligence, they do not necessarily have to remain silent.

They should be able to seek an explanation.

They should be able to request an investigation.

They should be able to approach the appropriate professional regulatory body.

And, where appropriate, they should be able to pursue civil, professional or other remedies available under Nigerian law.

We Must Move Beyond Compensation

The conversation about medical negligence should not be limited to monetary compensation.

Compensation may assist a victim or family in dealing with the financial consequences of an injury or death, but it cannot restore a life that has been lost.

The greater objective should be prevention.

If a patient dies because an emergency was not attended to promptly, the system must ask why.

If a patient suffers complications because essential medical equipment was unavailable, the system must ask why.

If a patient suffers injury because a professional failed to exercise reasonable care, the system must ask why.

And when the answer is established, corrective action must follow.

Accountability Also Protects Doctors

Interestingly, effective accountability can also protect responsible healthcare professionals.

A transparent system makes it easier to distinguish genuine medical negligence from unavoidable complications, unreasonable expectations or allegations unsupported by evidence.

Healthcare professionals should therefore not fear legitimate complaint mechanisms.

A properly constituted and independent investigation can vindicate a professional who acted appropriately just as it can expose one who failed in his or her professional duty.

The ultimate beneficiary is the patient and, by extension, the entire healthcare system.

A Call for Reform

Nigeria urgently needs a stronger patient-safety and medical-accountability culture.

Among other measures, there should be:

• Accessible and independent complaint mechanisms in hospitals and healthcare institutions.
• Prompt investigation of serious allegations of medical negligence.
• Effective enforcement of professional standards by relevant regulatory and disciplinary bodies.
• Improved access to medical records for patients and their authorised representatives, subject to applicable law.
• Greater public awareness of patients’ rights and available remedies.
• Legal assistance for indigent victims of serious medical negligence.
• Improved hospital infrastructure, staffing and emergency-response systems.
• Mandatory institutional review of serious adverse medical events to identify failures and prevent recurrence.
• Stronger collaboration among lawyers, medical professionals, regulators and civil society organisations in promoting patient safety.
• Appropriate sanctions where negligence or professional misconduct is established, while ensuring that every accused professional receives fair hearing and due process.

Conclusion: Patients Deserve Care, Victims Deserve Justice

My wife’s survival was, for my family, a miracle for which I will forever remain grateful.

But gratitude should not silence legitimate questions.

My experience has reinforced my belief that we must build a healthcare system in which patients are not merely recipients of treatment but are recognised as human beings whose dignity, safety and rights deserve protection.

We must support our doctors and nurses.

We must demand better welfare for health workers.

But we must equally demand professional responsibility.

We must appreciate the difficult work healthcare professionals perform while insisting that avoidable negligence should never become normalised.

When something goes wrong, victims should not be abandoned.

When an allegation is made, it should be investigated.

When wrongdoing is established, appropriate sanctions should follow.

And when systemic weaknesses are discovered, they must be corrected.

The death of Justice U. John’s wife and my own family’s traumatic experience are painful reminders that behind every medical negligence case is a human being—a mother, father, wife, husband, child or loved one.

The fight against medical negligence is therefore not a fight against doctors.

It is a fight for safer healthcare, professional integrity, accountability and the protection of human life.

As a society, we must never become so accustomed to preventable tragedies that we begin to regard them as ordinary.

Patients deserve care.
Victims deserve justice.
Healthcare professionals deserve support.
And the system owes everyone accountability.

Ike Augustine, Esq.
Legal Practitioner & Human Rights Advocate

By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

Of the many vocations known to humanity, few are as rooted in macho masculinity as the military and the law. In tales of both war and law, the advances recorded by women over the past century have been nothing short of remarkable.

In 1970, Pakistan’s ruler was a four-star army general who had fought in World War II. His opposite number in India was a woman whose main claim to the position initially was that she was her father’s daughter.

Yahya Khan was the fifth Commander-In-Chief of Pakistan’s army when public protests forced then military ruler, General Ayoub Khan (no relation), to abdicate suddenly in March 1969. As Ayoub Khan’s inheritor, Yahya Khan assumed office as Pakistan’s third president.

Across the border in India, Prime Minister, Indra Gandhi, had been in office for a little over three years, since being installed in that office on 24 January 1966. She had succeeded Lal Bahadur Shastri who died suddenly on 11 January 1966, one day after signing the peace treaty to end the first Indo-Pakistan War. Mrs. Gandhi’s father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was India’s founding Prime Minister until his death on 27 May, 1964.

Both countries were part of the British Raj until separated by an ill-considered partition in the middle of August 1947. The Partition divided the territory into three parts and two countries. Both East and West Pakistan were part of one country. East Pakistan, formerly known as West Bengal “was separated from West Pakistan by almost 1,000 miles of Indian territory.”

The two Pakistans had extraordinarily little in common other than one faith. The colonial settlement vastly favoured West Pakistan over the East. West Pakistan controlled political power, produced all the rulers since independence, and had an estimated 95% of the officer corps of the military.

In December 1970, Yahya Khan organized an election to transition the country to elective government. The Awami League of Bengali leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, emerged the clear winner with 169 seats all won in East Pakistan. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party was a distant second with 90 seats all won in West Pakistan. The Pakistan Muslim League won a mere 10 seats spread across both halves of the country.

It would have been the first time that the east would produce the first leader of post-colonial Pakistan, but Yahya Khan declined to install the winners. Instead, he proclaimed Martial Law and, in March 1971, launched Operation Searchlight, a military action to crush the Awami League and wipe out Bengali nationalism.

As refugees flocked from the unfolding atrocity into India’s state of West Bengal, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi realized she could not be neutral. As Pakistan inched closer to opening a new front with India in its operations in the east, the macho soldier in Yahya Khan eventually found an outlet. On 25 November 1971, he exploded: “If that woman thinks she will cow me, I refuse to take it. If she wants a war, I’ll fight it.”

Prime Minister Gandhi’s riposte was damning: “That woman!”, I am not concerned with the remark….” “That Woman” – the moniker by which PM Indira Gandhi became widely known – eventually  defeated General Khan and Pakistan in December 1971. In doing so, she freed East Pakistan from the yolk of the Partition and yielded the independent country known as Bangladesh.

Like soldiers, the vocation of the law for long did not have a place for “that woman”. Female pioneers in the law were liable to suffer both scorn and rejection.

When the US Supreme Court upheld the decision of Illinois State to deny women the license to practice law in 1873, it formulated its reasoning in words that Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s president 150 years later, would have been proud of: “The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator.”

41 years later, the Court of Appeal pretty much upheld the same principle in excluding Gwyneth Bebb, a female graduate of Oxford University, from being licensed as a Solicitor in England.

On the back of developments such as these, the entitlement of male professional privilege claimed that “there are no ladies at the Bar.” Like Pakistan’s General Yahya Khan, they lacked the power to see the future.

England produced Eliza Orme as its first female law graduate in 1888, the same year in which Nigeria enrolled Christopher Sapara Williams as its first lawyer.

Yet, it was only after the end of World War 1, on Christmas Eve in 1919, that Helena Normanton became the first woman to enter an Inn of Court (Middle Temple) for training to become a barrister. Three years later, in 1922, England enrolled its first female barrister and its first female solicitor respectively.

In 1929, Stella Jane Thomas was admitted to the Middle Temple to begin her professional training as a barrister, having graduated with a degree in law from Oxford University. In May 1933, she was admitted to the Bar in England, becoming the first woman from both Nigeria and West Africa to attain that feat.

Two and a half years later, in October 1935, she became the first woman to enroll at the Bar of Sierra Leone. The following month, she also became the first woman on Nigeria’s roll of lawyers. In 1943, as Stella Jane Marke, she was appointed a Magistrate, becoming Nigeria’s first female judicial officer. She retired as a Chief Magistrate in 1971.

Two years earlier, on 13 November 1969, Modupe Omo-Eboh, the eighth female lawyer produced by Nigeria, also became the country’s first female judge. It would take another 43 years before the country produced its first female Chief Justice in Aloma Mariam Mukhtar.

But resilient glass ceilings remained at the Bar.

In 1976, John Atom-Kpera, military governor of the newly created Anambra State, appointed Victoria Uzoamaka Onejeme the first female Attorney-General in the country.

16 years later, Mrs. Priscilla Kuye became the first female president of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, succeeding to the vacancy created when the incumbent president, Clement Akpamgbo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), resigned to assume the office of Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.

This year, three of the most durable glass ceilings have yielded.

First, in January 2026, Dr. Olugbemisola Odusote became the first female Director-General of the Nigerian Law School.

Second, four weeks ago, on 19 July, Oyinkan Badejo-Okusanya was elected president of the NBA. She is the first woman to be declared president-elect of the association.

Then, last Sunday, the country lost it senior-most lawyer. A former Attorney-General of Lagos State, Bandele Alfred Kasunmu, transitioned from law professor to a much sought after advocate. At the time of his death at 92, Professor Kasunmu had been at the Inner Bar for 46 years.

With his death, the baton of the senior-most lawyer in the country now falls on Mrs. Folake Solanke. Admitted to the Nigerian Bar in 1962, Mrs. Solanke became a SAN in 1981. She is currently the most senior living holder of that rank.

Of all the attainments in the Nigerian legal profession, this is possibly the most improbable to attain. It requires both distinction and the luck of the Providential draw. The fact that this mantle now falls on a woman is proof positive that, at long last, it is no longer just a man’s bar. The men and women belong in it equally and that women in law are not merely professional cross-dressers or “men in skirts” as it used to be said.

By some coincidence, in this year, five of the most important positions in law and justice in Nigeria are now held by women – Chief Justice of Nigeria; the President of the Court of Appeal; the leader of the Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria; Director-General of the Law School; and President of the NBA.

This could not have been possible without a succession of female pioneers over generations. Obviously, these landmark attainments are not without their own burdens. The women have not arrived here merely to replicate the errors of elite male entitlement. The obligation to continue to raise the bars of both capability and opportunity can only be enhanced – not diminished – by their achievements.

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

The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.

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Richard Odusanya

“President Bola Tinubu is not Nigeria’s biggest problem. The institutions are.” — Femi Kuti, Good News Naija Podcast, August 2026

“We keep changing drivers but the car is faulty. That is why we keep crashing.” — Omoyele Sowore, 2024-2025

Afrobeat legend Femi Kuti and activist Omoyele Sowore have made the same diagnosis from different rooms: Nigeria’s crisis is not about one man. It is about broken institutions.

Speaking this August on the Good News Naija Podcast, Femi Kuti referenced the EFCC and its pioneer chairman Nuhu Ribadu to argue that Nigeria’s political elite operate across party lines in the same networks. When accountability institutions fail, he said, they only create room for the cycle to repeat.

Sowore has echoed this for years. From 2024 to 2025 he argued that changing presidents without fixing the system is like changing drivers in a faulty car. The result will always be the same crash.

Beyond Personalities

For decades, Nigeria has changed presidents, governors, and chairmen. Yet public trust has not improved. The reason is simple: elections do not reform institutions. 

When anti-corruption bodies, the judiciary, and regulatory agencies are weak or compromised, new faces simply inherit the same broken machinery.  

That is why the results remain unchanged no matter who wins.

The Real Cost: Loss of Faith

Both men warned that the greater danger is not only corruption, but despair.  

When young Nigerians stop believing the system can be fair, they make one of two choices: they leave, or they disengage.

“Japa” is therefore not only about better pay. It is about hopelessness. Apathy is not laziness. It is the conclusion that nothing will change.

No nation can thrive when its brightest minds no longer believe in its future.

The Path Forward

Femi Kuti and Yele Sowore’s alignment shows a growing consensus: Nigeria needs institutional reform more than it needs another personality to blame.

That means three things. First, independence for the judiciary so judgments are based on law, not power. Second, real autonomy for anti-graft agencies so investigations cut across party lines. Third, consequences that are consistent, so impunity is no longer the default.

Until institutions work regardless of who is in power, Nigeria will keep running in circles.

Two different voices. One diagnosis. The work of rebuilding must now follow.

Richard Odusanya is an Essayist and Architect of Dialogue.  He writes on Governance, Justice, and National Rebuilding in Nigeria.

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