Do We Deserve Bad Leadership?

 By Donu Kogbara

On Tuesday night, I appeared on Charles Aniagolu’s Arise TV show, alongside Dele Farotimi and Professor Jibrin Ibrahim.

We had been invited to discuss my view that most of today’s Nigerians deserve bad leadership because they don’t protest significantly when they are subjected to endless injustices and governance deficits.

Nigeria can and should be a great giant of Africa, thriving capital of the black world, source of pride for our Diaspora brethren and example of what black people can achieve if they do things properly.

But we are held back by corrupt, uncaring, cynical, inept politicians and civil servants at the federal, state and local government levels. And I don’t know why we do not rebel more and rebel vigorously.

Fubara: A Governor In Chains!

 By Emmanuel Aziken

The recent return to Port Harcourt of Governor Siminalayi Fubara, and the quiet stealing away of the sole administrator, Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas (rtd), are two poignant dents on the nation’s democracy. How the country progresses from here will undoubtedly define the character of the democracy Nigeria practises.

*Fubara and Wike 

Remarkably, some have praised President Bola Tinubu for not extending the suspension of the governor and the democratic structures in Rivers State beyond the six months he had initially proclaimed. Many opposition voices, however, insist that the president erred in the first instance by unilaterally removing an elected governor from office.

Addressing Ethnic Profiling And Tribal Tensions In Nigeria

 By Klistivivi Ogunlana

On July 27, 2024, a popular X (formerly Twitter) user, @Lagospedia, tweeted a disturbing message. The user claimed the upcoming #EndBadGovernance protest, scheduled for 1 to 10 August 2024, was an Igbo-led attack on Lagos State. As a result, @Lagospedia demanded that all Igbos in Lagos and other southwestern states vacate the region within 30 days.

This is not the first time such a threat has been made. In 2017, the Arewa Youth leaders also issued a 90-day ultimatum for Igbos to leave northern Nigeria. These ultimatums violate the constitutional provisions that guarantee Nigerians’ rights to move freely and reside in any part of the country. If these actions continue, ethnic tensions could escalate into large-scale violence, forced displacements, and encourage genocide. 

Tinubu De-Markets Nigeria With His Penchant For Overseas Travels

 By Olu Fasan

Earlier this week, President Bola Tinubu’s spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, announced that the president had cut short his two-week vacation in France and returned to Nigeria “to resume official duties”. Given that Onanuga previously described the president’s trip to France as a “working” holiday, one must wonder why Tinubu stopped working remotely from France.

*Tinubu

Truth be told, President Tinubu was wrong to embark on that trip in the first place. Whatever forced him to truncate his stay in France already existed before he left this country: Nigeria was in a dire strait; insecurity was overly uncontrollable, acute poverty and hunger were dehumanising ordinary Nigerians, and the government was rudderless and bumbling. By choosing to travel abroad under those dreadful circumstances, Tinubu behaved like Nero who fiddled while Rome burned!

Serial Defections: How Would Atiku Be Remembered In Nigerian Politics?

 By Olu Fasan

Recently, on July 14, Atiku Abubakar, a former vice-president, announced his latest defection from a political party. It was his fifth since 1999 when Nigeria returned to civil rule. In 2006, while still vice-president under the administration of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku defected to Action Congress, AC. In 2007, he returned to PDP, only to decamp to the All Progressives Congress, APC, in 2014.

*Atiku

Three years later, in 2017, Atiku defected from APC and returned to PDP. Now, in 2025, he has defected from PDP to the African Democratic Congress, ADC, under which he is assembling a coalition to face the APC and its flagbearer, President Bola Tinubu, in the 2027 presidential election, which, seemingly, he’s keen to contest. That would be Atiku’s seventh attempt at the presidency, aged 80! Outside politics, Atiku is known for many things. He is a proud family man, a successful businessman, and a holder of a major traditional title, the Waziri of Adamawa.

Trial Of Minors: When A Dissenter Criminalises Dissent

By Adekunle Adekoya

For some time now, the detention and arraignment of under-age protesters by the Police dominated conversations at home and abroad.

In August, a nationwide protest against the harsh economic policies preferred by the federal administration led by President Bola Tinubu began, tagged #EndBadGovernance. Largely driven by social media conversations, organisers sought to mobilise the populace to register their displeasure with the way things have turned and are still turning for them. So, August 1-10 was billed as protest days. Before the day, government machinery went into overdrive, with massive resources committed to ensuring that the protests did not hold.

Nigeria Where It No Longer Pays To Work!

 By Dele Sobowale

“How can productivity work in a place where you have ten people clustering an office, no electricity, trek to about 11-storey building. Labour punches the button to work no matter what.”     

– Dr Tommy Okon, Trade Union Congress, TUC

Dr Okon has captured only a fraction of the miseries of millions of “employed” Nigerians. Before reaching the office to start climbing the stairs, he/she might have trekked up to eight kilometres from home to get there. In reality, the relationship between employers and employees in Nigeria today is much closer to the seventeenth century slave and slave owner arrangement. After going through the hazards, including no breakfast everyday, he might still not get paid at the end of the month. Nigerian workers, at all levels in many organizations, now constitute the largest group of involuntary philanthropists in the world now.

As Mr. President cools off in London…

 By Casmir Igbokwe

Soon after President Bola Tinubu made a futile attempt to raise the hope of Nigerians in his Independence Day broadcast on October 1, 2024, he jetted out to London on a ‘two-week vacation’. A statement by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, indicated that it’s a working vacation and a retreat to reflect on his administration’s economic reforms. Really!

*Tinubu

Nigerians are used to governance by deceit. Not a few citizens doubted this story about vacationing to reflect on economic reforms. They wondered why the President should travel to London to do that simple task. Are the air conditioners in Aso Villa not cooling his brain well enough? Well, we have to believe because we have no choice. If you protest, security agents could arrest you and slam terrorism charges against you.

Fellow Nigerians, Forget Govts, Fend For Yourselves!

 By Dele Sobowale

I didn’t come to look for money and exploit the situation; I came to work. I asked for the votes, and Nigerians gave them to me” – President Bola Tinubu, September 20, 2024.

Small correction is needed before getting to the heart of the matter. Nigerians gave candidate Tinubu 33 per cent of their votes; 67 per cent did not want him. INEC and the judiciary finished the job for him. Furthermore, no President has ever confessed that he was looking for money. But, why are they always far richer after than before going into office? To the best of my knowledge, Tinubu had no AIRBUS 320, even Tokunbo, before he became President. That costs a lot of money! One of the best attributes of great leaders is leadership by example

Only The Dead Protest In Nigeria

 By Kenechukwu Obiezu

Protests may be no pills for the dying, but in Nigeria, they pilfer the dead, or at least, their dainties.

On August 1, Nigeria erupted in protests. The protests which pinched many states of the country hard, some harder than others, were over bread, but quickly bared deep-lying issues, braiding together knots of anger and despair over the state of the country.

As Politicians In Power Lie And Cheat

 By Adekunle Adekoya

“Politics is the only profession where you can lie, cheat, and steal, and still be respected.” — Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Today, I am helplessly wallowing in self-pity and pity for my fellow compatriots as I ponder the state of affairs in our dear country. We don’t have another country, do we? Why are our politicians hell-bent on destroying this country as they pursue self-interest instead of the common good? 

Bayo Onanuga’s Slimy Mud-Bath

 By Ochereome Nnanna

For his own purposes, President Bola Tinubu had delayed the appointment of Bayo Onanuga as one of his spokesmen. Ajuri Ngelale, broadcast journalist and Ogoni chief, was presented to give Tinubu’s media office a handsome, though unsmiling face.

*Peter Obi 

Many commentators were relieved that elements like Bayo Onanuga, Dele Alake and Festus Keyamo would not be brought to irritate the nerves of decent Nigerians with their tawdry, noisy and cheap propaganda antics which we saw during the campaigns for the 2023 general elections in Tinubu’s camp. This feeling was further reinforced when Alake was posted to the Solid Minerals Ministry and Keyamo taken to Aviation.

Nigerians May Soon Pay Air Levy!

 By Casmir Igbokwe

Last week, when I wrote that this government lacks a human face, I never knew that more harsh policies were in the offing. If not that President Bola Tinubu is a Muslim, I would have thought that his other name is Zaccheus. The biblical short man called Zaccheus was a tax collector, deeply hated by the people. Although the first name of the executive chairman of our Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) is Zaccheus, he is innocent of the recent taxes the Federal Government imposed on Nigerians. 

*Tinubu

The most recent one is called cybersecurity levy. According to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), all money deposit banks, mobile money operators and payment service providers will soon begin to deduct 0.5 per cent on electronic transactions in line with Section 44 (2)(a) of the Cybercrimes (Amendment) Act, 2024. The levy is to be remitted to the National Cybersecurity Fund (NCF) administered by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA). 

Electricity Tariff Hike: Civilised Nations Don’t Pauperise Their Citizens

 By Olu Fasan

A nation is civilised not because of its aesthetic, its beautiful architecture. Rather, a nation is civilised because of how it treats its citizens, because of the duration and quality of life of its citizens. That’s why social security or safety net for the poor is a badge of the heathy society. However, Nigeria creates billionaires but eviscerates the middle classes and makes everyone else poorer without meaningful state support. 

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo once bragged that he created many billionaires while in government. “My aim when I was in government was to create 50 billionaires,” Obasanjo said. “Unfortunately, I failed. I created only 25.” But how? Well, he banned imports of certain products, allowing some manufacturers to enjoy a protected domestic market and rake in billions; he granted waivers of import tariffs to favoured people, who imported large shipments of consumer products, such as rice, tariff-free and sold them expensively, thereby becoming billionaires; and he gave oil blocs to a select few, turning them into billionaires. It’s crony capitalism, a rentier state. Capitalism is rigged to favour a small elite.

Not So, Mr. President, Nigeria Must First Love Her Citizens!

 By Banji Ojewale

The security and welfare of the people (of Nigeria) shall be the primary purpose of government— The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria

*Tinubu

In 1976, the military regime of Olusegun Obasanjo sought to stir the patriotic instincts of our young citizens by decreeing the National Pledge into our lives. It must be recited in all Nigerian schools, the junta said. The general’s martial mind given to governing by fiat and force led him through only one route to patriotism: a mental enslavement of the boys and girls through feeding on the pledge would lead, willy-nilly, to their loyalty to the state and its agents and agencies. If they voiced it out many times over the years, their impressionable minds would give way to deeds of loyalty and love for the land, even if they were under an oppressive, objectionable and off-putting government.

Why Tinubu’s Policy Adventures Will Fail

 By Charles Onunaiju

President Bola Tinubu and his administration bask in the euphoria that they have taken some “tough” and “courageous” measures that would deliver prosperity to Nigerians in the future. The coordinating minister of the economy, Mr Wale Edun, recently stated that despite public uproar at the harshness of the measures and their devastating impact on the lives of Nigerians, along with the more frightening dimension of security meltdown, the administration has been receiving accolades at several international forums, including the World Bank, IMF, and the G20 meetings.

*Tinubu

However, it is not because the measures are tough, courageous, and may have attracted accolades from outside that they may fail to produce any result close to prosperity, but because they are extraneous and largely disconnected from the existential reality of the current condition of the country. The choice of the word “measures” to denote government response is deliberate, even as it is widely called policy.

What Tinubu Must Do To Avert Food Riots In Nigeria

 By Steve Onyeiwu

AS the saying goes, a hungry man is an angry man. He is also a restive and dangerous man. Nigerians are already very angry and weary about the country’s severe economic challenges; the lack of inclusivity in economic development; the high unemployment rate; extreme poverty; infrastructural decay, pervasive insecurity, and a bleak economic future. For many Nigerians, a persistent and steep increase in food prices would be the last straw that jolts them into violent food riots. 

Prof Onyeiwu 

President Bola Tinubu understands the severity of the problem when he declared a state of emergency on food security in July 2023, and the formation of a Presidential Task Force on food insecurity early this month. It would be recalled that Acting President Yemi Osinbajo also set up a similar task force in February 2017. But long-term solutions require much more than the mere setting up of a task force. Nigerians are sick and tired of task forces, special committees, advisory councils, high-level summits, council of experts, technical committees, extraordinary body of thinkers, leaders of thought, etc. They want action and impactful results, not admonitions, regurgitated solutions, and empty promises.

Hunters As Missing Link In Nigeria’s Security Architecture

 By Bonaventure Melah

Until Nigeria takes necessary and bold steps to commission a special security agency that is dedicated and committed to fighting crimes and criminalities that are planned and executed within and around forests, all efforts by the government towards ending heinous crimes like banditry, cattle rustling, kidnapping and others, would continue to be a mirage.

Today, Nigeria has the Police which fights and prevents crimes within cities and rural communities, the Nigeria Army which was created to protect the nation from external aggression and insurrection, the Navy to fight crimes within the nation’s territorial waters as well the Air Force to defend our air space while the NSCDC oversee national assets and work to stop pipeline, public electricity and other forms of vandalism and related crimes.

Tinubu’s Unhappy 8 Months In Office

 By Dan Onwukwe

Can the news get any uglier for President Bola Tinubu than it is already? It’s not yet half-time, but as Tinubu, wherever he is in Paris, France right now, he may be pondering anxiously where his government has taken Nigerians in just eight months of his presidency, an office he so desperately wanted, and got in most unquestionable fashion. He must also be thinking how much harder it is being the President of Nigeria.

*Tinubu

Truth is, there’s big trouble everywhere. Even in Abuja, his official residence, insecurity has squeezed everyone to a corner. Kidnappers are daily on the prowl, taking their victims at ease, and demanding  hefty ransom. First Lady, Remi Tinubu had recently suggested intense, fervent prayers as the answer to the problem of terrorism in the land.

Nigerians Counting On Tinubu To Fix Economy

 By Kekemeke Gboloibai

Quite frankly, the telltale scars of general delusions caused by the volatility in the economy in 2023 earnestly need a presidential healing balm to give soothing relief to the many Nigerians whose means of livelihood have disappeared with the times, their self-worth undervalued,  and their manliness of mind continually eviscerated. Thankfully, help may be on the way as President Bola Tinubu, in his New Year address to Nigerians, said he feels the pulse and the groaning of Nigerians across the country.

*Tinubu

Regrettably, the average Nigerian cannot meet his family’s expectations as current food and general inflation rates hit an all-time high of 33.93 per cent and 28.92 per cent respectively.