Police State Or State Police?

By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

On 26 November 2025, Nigeria’s president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, announced in a statement personally signed by him that he had “decided to declare a nationwide security emergency” to be accompanied by some measures, including the recruitment by the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and the Armed Forces of 20,000 and 50,000 new personnel respectively.

In the fortnight preceding the announcement, a flurry of frightening terror incidents had created among populations and communities around the country a heightened state of fear. It also reinforced the perception of a normalization of insecurity and of the traumas associated with it.

Urban Legend And Durable Insecurity In South-East Nigeria

 By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

On July 17, 2012, Peter Obi, then Governor of Anambra State, swore in five new commissioners. One of them was Chike Okoli, whom he assigned to the Ministry of Science and Technology where he would serve as commissioner until the expiration of Mr. Obi’s governorship tenure in March 2014. Two months later, around May 21, 2014, Chike set out from the state capital in Awka to Nanka, his village in Orumba South Local Government Area (LGA) of the state. He never got there.

Somewhere in Agulu, not far from Nanka, Chike’s car was reportedly intercepted by men in a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV), who abducted him. Despite having much of their ransom demand of N16 million met, Chike has not been seen or heard from since then. It was widely reported at the time that Chike was “abducted by unknown gunmen.”

Why APGA Should Remain Eternally Grateful To Peter Obi

 By Ifeanyi Maduako

Recently, the national chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, Chief Victor Oye, was reportedly quoted in the media as saying that former Governor Peter Obi would never make progress again in politics unless he returned to APGA. 

*Obi

If the reports were anything to go by, he was apparently mocking Mr. Peter Obi following the outcome of the recently concluded Anambra governorship election in which his party’s candidate, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, was declared as the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. Chief Oye has the liberty to celebrate the victory of his party at the polls, but does Peter Obi deserve mockery and invective from APGA members?