In a speech that will be remembered for years to come, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu captivated global leaders at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) today, September 27, 2024. His address, rich with references to biblical history and modern-day geopolitics, left world leaders in awe as he artfully linked Israel’s ancient past to its present and future on the global stage.

Netanyahu’s speech was far more than a standard diplomatic address as it was an invitation to view Israel not just as a nation with contemporary challenges but as a civilization with a storied legacy. By drawing on ancient biblical references, he evoked powerful imagery that transcended politics and reached into the heart of Israel’s cultural and spiritual identity. The speech resonated on a deeply emotional level, not just for Israelis, but for people across the globe who see the Bible as a shared heritage.

With a commanding presence, Netanyahu began by referencing King David’s battles for Jerusalem, framing Israel’s current position in the Middle East as a continuation of biblical struggles. “Just as David faced Goliath with courage and faith, today Israel stands before great adversaries. But like David, we will prevail,” he declared, his voice ringing through the hall. The analogy drew a standing ovation from many in attendance, with several world leaders visibly moved by his words.

Netanyahu’s references to the Bible did not stop there. He invoked the prophetic wisdom of Isaiah and Ezekiel to discuss the turbulent dynamics of the Middle East and the constant threats Israel faces, particularly from Iran. “As the prophets warned of destruction, we are tasked with vigilance in our time,” he said, turning the attention of the assembly to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. His plea for the international community to unite against the Iranian threat was bolstered by this historical context, giving his words a timeless, almost sacred weight.

In an era of fleeting political sound bites, Netanyahu’s speech stood apart, rich with substance and history. His eloquent invocation of biblical scripture was not just rhetoric, it was a profound reminder that Israel’s story spans millennia, and that its survival has always been a matter of divine providence as much as human resilience.

Many in the room acknowledged after the speech that it was a moment destined to be remembered. Political analysts, diplomats, and scholars were quick to note that Netanyahu’s address could be a defining moment in both his career and in Israel’s diplomatic narrative at the UN. It was not just his words that stirred the assembly, it was the depth of his message.

Netanyahu’s ability to weave together ancient texts and modern concerns created an extraordinary impact. “This wasn’t just a speech, it was a moment in history,” said one European diplomat. “He reminded us all that Israel’s survival and its pursuit of peace are part of a much larger story, one that has been unfolding for thousands of years.”

The speech also marked a turning point in Netanyahu’s leadership style. Known for his hardline stance on security and diplomacy, today he showed a different side, a leader deeply in tune with the cultural and spiritual currents of his people. His speech at UNGA today will likely be studied for years as an example of how a leader can use history and tradition to reinforce national sovereignty and diplomacy.

World leaders, from the United States to the Middle East, were left with much to ponder after his address. Netanyahu’s remarks on the Abraham Accords were particularly striking. He described the agreements as not just political pacts, but as the fulfillment of ancient prophecies of peace between Israel and its neighbors. “These accords are the dawn of a new Middle East, one that embraces peace, mutual respect, and shared prosperity,” he said.

Netanyahu’s speech at the UNGA may well be remembered as a milestone in Israeli diplomacy. His skillful blending of biblical history with modern geopolitical realities gave the speech an enduring quality—one that world leaders will recall long after the assembly has concluded.

As the audience dispersed, the consensus was clear: this was a speech that transcended the usual political theater of the UNGA. Netanyahu’s message was a powerful reminder of Israel’s deep historical roots and its enduring commitment to peace and security. By invoking the wisdom of the Bible, he reached beyond the immediate political challenges, offering a timeless perspective on the nature of leadership, resilience, and survival.

Historians and diplomats alike agree that Netanyahu’s speech will go down in the annals of the UN as one of the most remarkable and memorable addresses ever delivered. By drawing on the rich tapestry of Israel’s biblical past, he gave the world a speech that was more than just words—it was a testament to Israel’s enduring strength, faith, and determination to secure its future in a turbulent world.

In the corridors of Nigerian politics, certain phrases have become so commonplace that they seem to lose their meaning over time. Among them, none stands out as more overused, and, some may argue, more hollow, than the oft-repeated declaration: “I can assure you.” This phrase, typically uttered by politicians in positions of power, has been wielded in moments of crisis, failure, or disappointment to pacify a weary populace. However, the constant repetition of this phrase has caused it to lose credibility and effectiveness over time.

When Nigerian political leaders declare “I can assure you,” it often signals a deflection rather than a resolution. For instance, during times of economic downturn, insecurity, or fuel scarcity, government officials are quick to “assure” citizens that better days are coming. However, these assurances are frequently followed by minimal action or tangible improvements. This reliance on rhetoric, instead of genuine reform or policy change, has led to growing skepticism among the public.

Consider the case of Nigeria’s power sector. For decades, successive administrations have promised to fix the country’s erratic electricity supply, with numerous ministers and heads of parastatals beginning their speeches with the same assurance. Yet, the national grid continues to collapse, and citizens are forced to rely on generators or solar power to survive.

Similarly, promises of job creation are repeatedly given as an assurance to Nigeria’s large youth population. In 2023, as unemployment figures skyrocketed and inflation hit record highs, politicians routinely used “I can assure you” to pacify the public, promising that job creation and economic recovery plans were in place. Yet, to date, the tangible benefits of these assurances remain largely invisible, with many Nigerians struggling under the weight of economic hardship.

To understand why this phrase has become a favorite among Nigerian politicians, one must consider the role of political optics. “I can assure you” serves as a verbal Band-Aid, designed to quickly soothe public unrest or discontent without addressing the root cause of the problem. It momentarily placates citizens who are waiting for solutions, buying time for leaders to either delay action or deflect responsibility.

This tactic has been especially prevalent in the aftermath of major national crises. Whether it’s the #EndSARS protests, high inflation rates, or the rising cost of fuel, “I can assure you” has been deployed as a way to temporarily cool tempers while tangible responses remain elusive.

For example, in 2020, during the heat of the #EndSARS protests, a movement that rocked the country and saw Nigerian youth taking to the streets to demand an end to police brutality, political leaders were quick to assure protesters that their demands would be met and that necessary reforms were underway. Yet, nearly four years later, the issues that sparked the protests remain unresolved, with many citizens questioning whether the assurances given were ever genuine.

One of the major issues with the overuse of “I can assure you” is that it diminishes accountability. If political leaders were judged on the assurances they have given, many would fail spectacularly. However, the phrase is so frequently used, and often forgotten by the time the next crisis hits, that no one is held responsible for unfulfilled promises.

For example, during election campaigns, politicians offer assurances on everything from job creation to infrastructure development. Once in office, however, the specifics of these assurances fade away, leaving the citizens with empty words and no real progress. This lack of follow-through is not unique to any political party but has become a culture across Nigeria’s political landscape.

In the build-up to the 2015 general elections, for instance, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) assured Nigerians that the issue of insurgency in the northeastern part of the country would be a thing of the past within a matter of months. President MuhammaduBuhari’s administration “assured” the nation that Boko Haram’s reign of terror would be swiftly ended. While some progress has been made, the insecurity crisis has since evolved into a broader range of threats, including banditry, kidnapping, and farmer-herder clashes, leaving many Nigerians feeling that the assurances were nothing more than campaign rhetoric.

Repeatedly hearing “I can assure you” from leaders who fail to deliver has nurtured a deep sense of cynicism among Nigerians. Citizens are increasingly less inclined to believe these words and more likely to demand action. The disconnect between what is assured and what is delivered has eroded trust in public institutions and political leadership.

This skepticism is evident in the public’s response to recent economic policies. When Nigeria’s leadership assured citizens that removing fuel subsidies would benefit them in the long run, the immediate result was skyrocketing prices and widespread hardship. While citizens were assured that the government had their best interests at heart, the realities on the ground told a different story.

The issue of fuel subsidy removal is a classic example of overused assurances. Time and again, citizens have been “assured” that the removal of subsidies is necessary for the growth and sustainability of the economy. Yet, when such policies are enacted, the burden of adjustment disproportionately falls on the masses, while politicians and those in power remain largely insulated from the harsh realities of inflation and rising costs of living. This gap between promise and outcome has left citizens disillusioned.

The phrase “I can assure you” is not only problematic because it is overused but also because it is often accepted without being challenged. The Nigerian media, which plays a crucial role in holding leaders accountable, has at times been complicit in amplifying these assurances without enough scrutiny.

However, in recent years, the rise of independent media and investigative journalism has put some pressure on political leaders to be more accountable. Civil society organizations and citizen journalists have also played a key role in questioning the assurances given by leaders, especially in the era of social media, where political statements are dissected and analyzed almost instantly.

Nigerian leaders must recognize that the era of placating citizens with empty assurances is fast coming to an end. The public is more informed, vocal, and impatient than ever before. Politicians can no longer rely on mere rhetoric to carry them through their terms in office. Instead, they must back their words with decisive actions, measurable progress, and transparent policies.

The overuse of “I can assure you” is not just an issue of political language but one of governance. If leaders cannot deliver on their promises, they should refrain from making them. Nigerians deserve leaders who take action, hold themselves accountable, and offer more than hollow reassurances.

In conclusion, “I can assure you” has become a tired phrase in Nigerian politics, one that represents more of what has gone wrong than what could go right. It’s time for a new lexicon of leadership, one that emphasizes action over words and results over rhetoric. Nigerians are waiting, and they will no longer be placated by promises. If Nigerian politicians want to regain the trust of the public, they must replace assurances with visible change, addressing the pressing issues of governance, insecurity, and economic hardship that plague the nation. The clock is ticking, and the people are watching.

Eight more young girls trafficked to Ghana have been rescued and brought back to Nigeria.

Chairman/CEO, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Hon Abike Dabiri-Erewa @⁨Abike Dabiri⁩ receiving the young ladies at the NiDCOM Annex Office in Lagos, thanked the First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, (CON) for her unwavering support in facilitating the return of the girls

She also acknowledged the significant role of Chief Callistus Elozieuwa, President, Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation (NIDO) Ghana Chapter, the Nigerian embassy in Ghana and the Interpol Units of Nigeria and Ghana.

According to the NiDCOM Boss, the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is committed to combating human trafficking and protecting the rights of Nigerian citizens both at home and in the Diaspora.

Furthermore, the Chairman/CEO, said the rescued girls have been handed over to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) to ensure that the girls have safe and comfortable accommodations pending their formal rehabilitation and reintegration with their families.

The rescued girls, aged between 15 and 22, hail from various states across Nigeria, including Ebonyi, Akwa-Ibom, Imo, Plateau, and Cross River, were lured to Ghana under false promises of employment but were forced into sexual exploitation.
She noted that there are still many more trafficked victims waiting to be rescued and thanked the Ghanaian security agencies for their co operation

Meanwhile, a 28-year-old Nigerian, Ms. Favour Ugwu, one of the traffickers, was arested and jailed for eight years in prison, by the court in Ghana on account of human trafficking.

Signed,
Gabriel Odu,
Media, Public Relations and Protocols Unit,
NiDCOM.

Nigeria will be 64 in a few days’ time. It has not all been sixty-four years of pain. No, it has not. Much optimism greeted the birth of the nation. Much bloodshed went into a civil war that was ostensibly fought in order to keep it together for the good of all its constituent units. But the nation has not come this far without some broken promises and dashed hopes. There are still broken promises and dashed hopes, as I write.

Yet here we are: In thrall, as they battle painful policy decisions of the moment, which may yet deliver long-term benefits. In thrall, but unbowed, angry but determined not to be totally disruptive, full of angst and yet convinced that we are on the path to authenticity. Nigerians are facing their worst daymares (not nightmares anymore) yet.

Against the background of the foregoing, there is the prospect, or threat, of a national protest on the very day the nation is to celebrate the 64^th anniversary of its flag independence. And, lest we forget, there is nothing wrong with protests or petitions in themselves; as part of the global democratic enterprise. They may take the form of written correspondence, verbalized and non-violent submissions, or physical displays of discontent; including street matches and generous showing of placards, on which are blazoned the matters of disagreement at the moment.

Thus, protests are legitimate means of social expression, so long as they are designed and structured around the desire citizens to bring up, and bring about, useful and positive, interventions in the society. And that is what makes it radically different from a riot. In the latter case, aggravated misconduct is the norm. This may have no higher social purpose in view, beyond the desire to plunder the polity and carry off anything of value that lay in the way of the rioters.

Most riots are characterized by deeds of madness. There are usually no clear collective goals, beyond the general and specific acts of vandalism that could acquire lives of their own if unchecked. Even when they are checked, riots are what they are: riots. Unstructured, socially self-defeating and sometimes driven by what can best be described as motiveless malignity.

The national protests of two months ago, which, presumably, is about to precipitate another one that has been in gestation, were no riots in most places. Some poor, jobless and hungry people took advantage of the situation to go on a stealing and looting spree. The northern part of the country was the most affected in this regard. This was no surprise to many, because that part of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has been under the weather of ungovernability for far too long.

But we need not do ourselves in because of the allegedly planned October 1 protests. We saw more than enough protests in 1993, after the annulment of the presidential elections. We also know of the Aba Women’s Riot and several others, on the strength of which some have averred that our nation got its independence and everything about it today as a result of one type of protest or the other.

As was said here some two months ago: “It was the long-drawn protests of our founding fathers, in written addresses, in several constitutional conferences and some other means, that eventually birthed an allegedly independent Nigerian in 1960. Just as sceptics had their doubts about the sincerity of the colonialists when they promised us independence, many reasonable Nigerians also doubted the sincerity of the military whenever a ruling junta announced plans to return the nation to civil rule”. And that was after all manner of subtle pressures and open protests.

It was said, further: “Even more sceptics looked on with grave misgivings at the protracted military rule, unconvinced that it was serious when it “threatened” to birth a democratically elected government. Twenty-five years later, and despite the apparent shortcomings, we are making progress; willy nilly if you will. And that progress has more elements of suffering, misgovernment, lack of intraparty cohesion and the absence of a memorable ideological focus from the political class.

Our progress is coming through bitter, mind boggling, morally disorienting and psychologically devastating lessons. The lessons are apparently unscripted, and the teachers are teaching away without Lesson Notes and conventional teaching certificates. And they are exacting and merciless – these teachers.

The names of the teachers include the following: (1) Dishonest politicians, (2) Broken promises, (3) The consequences of citizen gullibility, (4) The results of supporting the wrong candidates, (5) The progressive denudation of the capacities of our national defense and security forces, and (6) The increasing inability of the ruling elite to protect itself from its own depredations”.

As was further observed here, “President Obasanjo, coming in as the first to hoist the flag of democratic rule after the military, was a quasi-military-civilian president. He did his best to craft good policies and establish institutions that would aid good governance. Presidents Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari were the circumstantial by-products of a system of elite myopia that had prevailed in the land for over 50 years. They were not entirely responsible for the problems they inherited. Their parties, the PDP the APC, were, again, not entirely responsible for everything that went wrong with Nigeria under their watch.

The Nigerian State was taken hostage long ago. For over 50 years now, many powerful individuals and groups have succeeded in pushing personal and limited group interests into the front row of national consciousness; such that, today, 25 years into a now-unsettling experience with a fledgling democracy, we are not sure where we really are as a nation. Those whose interests are at variance with wider and deeper national interests have become the real enemies of Nigeria. They may well have actually constituted themselves into a team of highway men and women who waylay everything that could rescue Nigeria and consolidate our current democratic experiment.

Protests are coming and going, because our “25 years old democracy is being bombarded from all sides by (1) A fundamentally distorted eldership recruitment process, (2) Skewed values, (3) A largely dysfunctional educational system, (4) A flawed national psyche and (5) A youth bulge that is increasingly becoming the biggest unaddressed national crisis. With every passing day, these problems morph into new, and self-replicating, societal challenges”.

The havoc wrought on the soul and psyche of this nation by the Nzeogwu coup d’état of January 1966 also came up for mention here two months ago. Part of the submission then was the counter coup that came some six months after Nzeogwu’s unfortunate intervention embodied the worst forms of thoughtless, state-sanctioned misconduct with impunity. We are living with its aftermath today. The initial coup, and the subsequent ‘retaliatory’ one, banished the nation’s true leaders from the political and leadership playing field”. They lived in silent protest for over a decade.

“The ‘replacement generation’ for the founding fathers and leaders of Nigeria, whom they were grooming along ideological lines for the propagation of specific ideological norms, stagnated for 12 years, until 1979. Zik, Awo and Aminu Kano would since have given way to the likes of Tafawa Balewa, Michael Okpara, Bola Ige and others before 1979.

The backlog of two generations of leaders, who were left unfulfilled by the military interventions, did not exercise and fulfil their calling. The petulant idealism and uninformed exuberance of the groups of coup makers trampled upon traditional rulers, traditional values, and almost every other thing that was generally respected as instruments for social control”. So, it has all been series of voiced and unvoiced and unclear protests at every turn.

The many institutional, sociopolitical and axiological problems plaguing the nation today, and which have plagued it for over 50 years now, got all the fillip they needed from the actions and inactions of the past. We got a deluge of prematurely retired military officers within a span of 20 years, precisely because of the negative dynamics of coup making in Nigeria. Many such retired military personnel became frustrated and unfulfilled professionals because of the new character of the Nigerian state after the 1966 military coups. Without intending it, many of them ended up being pushed into areas they would never have contemplated. And their new trajectories naturally elicited protests”.

The point was also made here that: “Our nascent 25 years old democracy has thrown up leaders with sudden stupendous wealth from questionable sources. Their wealth has mostly impacted their immediate and extended families, of less than 15 persons, and a few friends. Their local communities, members of their religious congregations, most of their friends and even members of their extended families know how poor or rich they were a few years before they went into politics. The priests, traditional rulers and other supposed custodians of public conscience ask no questions”.

Before the next protest, let the aspiring protesters be clear about what they want, what lines of action they wish to take and what specific positive outcomes they hope to achieve thereby. The protests will not be accompanied by riots if they are well structured. The government should have made some mileage for itself in discussions and negotiations after the last protests. But, but has it? The issues raised back them seem to still be on the front burner.

Many protesters are driven by poverty and lack of survival skills. That is why the Federal Government should look hard at the hunger in the land, revisit the impact of the measures it has so far taken to address the problems and make some preemptive interventions while it can still do that before October 1.

The efforts of the government need to be better contextualized for wider citizens buy-in and understanding. Protesters must be aware that their protests can only be meaningful if, in protesting, they remain fully conscious of the fact that the nation must exist before they can continue to carry out any protest in it. The president’s cabinet has not performed in such a way that it can be said to have impressed anyone, including itself. some ministries have done a lot, but the ministers themselves are dumb about it.

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The efforts of the government need to be better contextualized for better understanding. Protesters must be aware that their protests can only be meaningful if, in protesting, they do not forget that the nation must remain in existence for them to carry out their protests successfully live to enjoy its “dividends”. The president’s cabinet has not performed in such a way that it can be said to have impressed anyone, including itself. Some ministries have done a lot, but the ministers are dumb about it. Mr. President, Biko, think more of capacity as you shoo out the non-performing ministers in your cabinet.

Several faithful readers of this column who have followed it from the mid-2000s in the Weekly Trust have asked me to spice up my columns with occasional commentaries on American politics and culture, which was the column’s dominant thematic preoccupation in its earliest incarnation.

This year’s presidential election offers an opportunity to do that. This week I want to explore a phenomenon called the “October Surprise” in American presidential elections about which I had written 16 years ago when Barack Obama and John McCain squared off.

An “October Surprise” is any dramatic last-minute event, typically in October but occasionally a little later than October, that swings the election to the disadvantage of a leading candidate. Such dramatic events are believed to have the potential to influence the outcome of the election by swaying public opinion or shifting the narrative around the candidates.

October surprises symbolize the unpredictable nature of the final stretch of the presidential campaign and the high stakes involved in influencing the electorate. 

Before talking about what this presidential election year’s October Surprise will be, I want to reference previous notable “October Surprises” and how they influenced the outcome of past elections.

The term “October Surprise" was coined during the 1980 presidential election between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter (the only president my state of Georgia has produced). A year before Election Day, radical Iranian students had invaded the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran, and held the Americans they found there hostage.

President Carter worked throughout the campaign to secure the release of the American hostages during which eight American servicemen were killed.

According to the Associated Press, “Critics say the Reagan team was so concerned that Carter would gain a boost by winning their release just before the election, that his campaign manager and others negotiated privately with the Iranians to ensure that did not happen.” This cost Carter the 1980 election.

But before October Surprise became entrenched in America’s political lexicon beginning in 1980, it happened eight years earlier. In 1972, according to American presidential historians, President Richard Nixon’s administration announced a potential breakthrough in the Vietnam peace talks, which bolstered Nixon’s re-election prospects. The war was a sticking point in the country.

During the 2000 presidential election, the October Surprise was a damning revelation that George W. Bush had been arrested for driving while he was drunk. It’s called DUI (i.e., driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs) here. It negatively impacted his image among voters, which probably caused him to lose the popular vote—and only narrowly win the Electoral College vote.

Bush became president only because of America’s strange, archaic, and convoluted system of electing presidents, which deprives voters of the opportunity to directly elect their presidents. He was declared president because he won the then battleground state of Florida by 537 votes out of nearly six million cast, which gave him the state’s Electoral College votes.

 In the final weeks of the 2004 election, all the major polls predicted that John Kerry would defeat Bush. He was a bumbling, incompetent president who was very unpopular. 

Then Osama bin Laden allegedly issued a videotape that criticized Bush and warned U.S. voters that "your security is in your own hands" in the election.

"It changed the entire dynamic of the last five days," Kerry told newsmen in 2008. "We saw it in the polling. There was no other intervening event. We saw the polls freeze and then we saw them drop a point, because all the security moms, it agitated people over 9/11."

There was also an October Surprise in the 2008 presidential election that nearly torpedoed Obama’s lead and punctured his campaign’s overweening confidence. On October 30, 2008, conservative British newspaper TimesOnline broke the news of Obama’s late father’s half-sister, identified as Zeituni Oyango, living in the United States illegally and that she first came to the U.S. on the invitation of Obama.

The woman was mentioned in Obama’s best-selling autobiography Dreams From My Father.

She was invited by Obama to the United States to witness his swearing-in as a U.S. senator. She returned to Kenya after Obama’s inauguration and came back again on her own. She applied for asylum, but her application was rejected and was ordered to be deported back to Kenya.

But she somehow escaped and had been living in the slums of Boston. The TimesOnline story initially did not gain traction in the United States until the Associated Press pounced on it and added a fresh dimension: that Obama’s aunt was not only here illegally but had contributed money to the Obama campaign, which violates America’s campaign laws, which stipulate that only U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents can contribute to political campaigns.

The news dramatized Obama’s “otherness” in more concrete ways than the McCain camp had tried vainly to do. Because AP’s reporting showed that the woman contributed up to $265 to the Obama campaign even though she was neither a U.S. citizen nor a lawful permanent resident, she helped to feed the Republican Party-inspired allegations that Obama’s unprecedented financial buoyancy was consequent on his receiving illegal donations from non-Americans.

What saved Obama was that Sarah Palin, McCain’s running mate, fell for a cheap prank by two well-known Canadian comedians by the names of Marc-Antoine Audette and Sebastien Trudel who go by the stage name “the Masked Avengers.”

They put a call through to Sarah Palin, which she picked. One of the comedians pretended to be then French president Nicholas Sarkosky. Palin believed him. And she went on for over 5 minutes discussing inane issues with the “ French president.” The conversation further betrayed her shallowness and ignorance of foreign policy issues.

This dominated the news cycle days before the election.  Sarah Palin’s inability to detect that she was being tricked even in the face of so many red flags during the conversation had the effect of canceling out the scandal of Obama’s aunt living illegally in the US and making illegal donations to Obama’s campaign. (Obama’s aunt later became a legal permanent resident in 2010 but died  four years later).

Finally, in the 2016 presidential election, FBI Director James Comey announced that a renewed investigation had been launched into Hillary Clinton’s email practices. This became a major talking point just 11 days before the election, which some argued influenced the final vote. Although she defeated Donald Trump by three million votes, America’s Electoral College system caused her to lose the presidency.

So what might be the October Surprise in this year’s presidential election? It’s hard to tell, particularly because Donald Trump is not a conventional candidate. He is the most morally flawed, most openly racist, and most explicitly psychologically damaged presidential candidate America has had in recent memory. Yet nothing seems to stick to him.

He once boasted that he could murder someone in broad daylight in the streets of New York and nothing would happen to him. He is what Americans call a “Teflon candidate.” Teflon is a substance used to cover the surface of cooking utensils, etc. in order to prevent extraneous substances from sticking to them).   

If any candidate should be fearful of an October Surprise, it should be Vice President Kamala Harris, whom polls favor to win both the popular vote and the Electoral College vote and make history as the first woman to be president of the United States. 

Had the attempt on Trump’s life taken place in October, that would have been the October Surprise that would hand him the presidency. Some people think it may happen again next month. 

Are Nigerians hungry because they’ve been drinking too much free beer and now the brewery is bankrupt? I ask because President Bola Ahmed Tinubu waxed rhetorical Thursday last week as he dissected the very bad hunger wracking his country and its more than 200 million people. “I understand we are hungry, but no free beer parlour anymore,” he said. Except the president is suggesting that we are a nation of drunkards, I am tempted to wonder what shred of meaning connects “hunger” and “beer” here.

What the president said was a rhetorical gaffe that deserves a rebuke. When a person says what he said and in the context he said it, the Yoruba would look at him and wonder why he is talking ìrù (tail) when we are talking irú (locust beans). What are we saying, what are they saying? We are begging for bread; they are belching beer. The old man saw liquid when his people cried solid. The president’s ‘learned’ supporters will insist that ‘beer’ is the president’s metaphorical substitute for ‘food’. That will be interesting. We’ve always suspected that metaphor serves as a ready refuge for the flawed – especially in the very slippery terrain of politics. But the Emilokan rationalists should remember to tell the president that a successful metaphor is one that is apt. When the vehicle and the topic cohere in semantic peace, we congratulate the metaphor birther for a successful delivery.

His preference for “beer parlour” where ‘food bank’ should be was a tragic subversion of aptness in metaphorical deployment. A mandatory credit pass in Literature is recommended for whoever would be president after this one. ‘Beer’ does not collocate with ‘hunger’.

The beer-parlour talk of the president may be one of his lasting contributions to language and the field of political rhetoric. You never can tell. He already, during the 2023 campaigns, dropped ‘balablu’ as one of his hit singles. Sometimes, what the enemy thinks is blemish ends up embellishing one’s memory. We call it èébú d’olá in Yoruba. William Archibald Spooner lived between July 1844 and August 1930. Between those years, he served as a clergyman, author and professor of ancient history, divinity and philosophy at the University of Oxford. He was described as “a well-liked, respected, genial, kindly, hospitable man” but blessed with “a head too large for his body.” Spooner was brilliant but was equally very absent-minded, and he got famous for it. He, in 1879, from the pulpit, famously gave out the first line of a popular hymn as “Kinkering Kongs their titles take” (instead of ‘Conquering Kings Their Titles Take’). And he did it, not intentionally.

When Spooner died, his obituary in the 1 September, 1930 edition of Manchester Guardian contains this passage: “All sorts of stories, probable and improbable, were invented… Of the well-worn ones, the best are those which made Spooner declare that he was leaving Oxford by ‘the town drain,’ that some unauthorised person was ‘occupewing his pie,’ that at a marriage it was ‘kistomary to cuss the bride,’ and that he was tired of addressing ‘beery wenches.’ Much better authenticated and not even a Spoonerism is his famous reply to a young lady who asked him if he liked bananas. He is said to have retorted, ‘I’m afraid I always wear the old-fashioned nightshirt.’”

That Guardian obituary was not only how Spooner was remembered. Because he said all he said, before he died, the English Language got enriched with one more permanent word – spoonerism. The word proceeded to get a barge of honour as a rhetorical device in literature – and a mention in neuro science.

Who knows, courtesy of our president, ‘beer’ may enter the English Dictionary as a synonym for ‘food’ just as the president’s social media enemies, irreverent children of anger, use ‘agbadoan’ as a collective name for his long-suffering fans. Agbado is the Yoruba name for corn. The president, before his election, recommended it as a solution to the hunger on the streets.

Now, more seriously, let us ask the president and his defenders: Can beer replace dinner? Or could it be that we are hungry because our leaders have been taking too much freebies from our liquor bank? Or could it be that our president has been too far removed from the caked reality of the scorched earth for him to know that the world is about to end courtesy of his apocalyptic policies? When the president said what he said and ended it with a demand for patience from the hungry, I heard a loud applause from his fawning followers. The president enjoyed that applause. How I wish he would read Shakespeare in ‘Pericles: Prince of Tyre’. The playwright says: “They do abuse the king that flatter him.” He says again that “kings should let their ears hear their faults.” Clapping when the leader spoke beer when food was needed was distressing; it numbs the soul. But you would ask who made up that adulating audience? Former principal officers of the National Assembly. They are plaintive ex-eagles desirous of new feathers for fresh flights and feasts. They are men who are ready to kneel lower than their knees. A high-five for what the president said shames all – especially the eight million plus who elected him last year.

The president also spoke about “free bowl” which he said hungry Nigerians “cannot just take”. Then he spoke about the closure of Nigeria’s “free beer parlour”. The tone, texture and context of Tinubu’s beer-and-bowl statement trivialized the people’s travails. Who will help Nigerians tell their president that their hunger is not for beer and the inebriation it offers? That the starvation cries in town are not a craving for free meal. That Nigerians do not seek, and are not demanding indebtedness to charity. All they seek are policies with a human face, a government that cares.

The town writhes in agony because government has lost its meaning. Every citizen has a personal reason for voting in elections. One of those reasons is what English philosopher, Bernard Bosanquet (1848-1923) explains as the hope by the citizen that the government would help him to become “what he has in him to be.” Not all who voted for Tinubu last year did so for party, tribe or money. Some genuinely thought he would make a positive difference in their lives. Now, everyone is stranded because the government crashed the car.

The country is in deep trouble. What is broken in our economy is brittle beer bottle, not calabash. It cannot be mended. It doesn’t look like the government is worried as we are about the present darkness. Where leaders do not care, we would be right to inquire what they have where a heart ought to be. If there is a heart there, then it must be made of something very hard. William Bascom wrote of the Yoruba concepts of the wicked and the hard-hearted: “A hard-hearted person is bad-tempered, easily offended, willful and stubborn, doing what he likes and paying no attention to what others say. When an ordinary person in anger would throw a small lump of dirt, a hard hearted person throws a large stone. Worse than the hard-hearted person is one who is ‘wicked’ (ìkà). A wicked person loves no one but himself; he advises others to sell things for less than he knows they are worth; he injures others and destroys their property without cause…” I agree. The wicked counts the number of stars he shoots down.

Last week, US vice president, Kamala Harris, told talk show host, Oprah Winfrey, that a leader’s real strength lies in “who he lifts up, not who he brings down.” She said the same, and much more, in another interview in April this year, long before she became the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate:

“We need a protector”, the interviewer told Kamala Harris.

And she replies:

“Yes. Sadly, over the last many years, there has been this kind of perverse approach to what strength looks like, which is to suggest that the measure of one’s strength is based on who you beat down instead of what we know that the true measure of your strength is based on who you lift up. You know, and if you ever want to measure, if you ever want some objective indication of your individual power, see what you can do to help other people, people in need. It could be some simple act, like just listening to how people are feeling and to sincerely, sincerely have some interest and concern about their well-being or their suffering. That’s what we want from leaders…That’s really what strength looks like and that’s the kind of strength that we want.”

That is the kind of strength Nigerians demand to see in their president. They do not desire a leader who sits somewhere far in the sky and speaks in tongues about hunger and patience; about beer, bowls and booze. A leader should not preen like a god while his people reel in pain.

We also read the president declaring last Friday that he was in government to work and not to make money. I read him and said great! A leader should take less and give more. “The less a man needs, the nearer he is to God who needs nothing,” said Socrates. But we read of our leaders’ stories of grasping and taking that leave us to wonder if some people’s needs have a limit.

About 50 years ago, Sakara music legend, Yusuf Olatunji, had cause to sing: “You said there is no food but your own children feed to satiation (E ní kò sí, kò sí, omo yín ńyó…).” Between the 1970s when the song was sung and now, what has changed is that things have grown worse. Our presidency is famed as the most powerful in the history of presidential democracy. It is also sadly, the most unfeeling. Ghanaian writer, Ayi Kwei Armah, asks: “Is it always true that it is impossible to have things strong and at the same time beautiful?” Our Federal Government is strong and powerful but so are wolves and lions in the jungle. We think our president should be king – or god – and we have him so invested. That should explain why a president says the wrong things and all palms turn zombie, clapping.

In a careless republic as ours, a president can easily become a virtual monarch, or even a god. We will soon be there – if we are not there already. It is possible some people have a shrine where they make offerings of kola and liquor to the Nigerian president. If they do, they would have several pages of history to guide them. One of them is in the West Africa magazine of March 3, 1945 which published a piece in celebration of the memory of an Alaafin who had just joined his ancestors. “The highest oath that an Oyo man could take was to swear by the head of the Alaafin,” the magazine wrote, and added that the people believed the late oba was divine. The oba himself thought himself so and he said so and acted so. How?

Eshugbayi Eleko was deposed as the Oba of Lagos in 1925 by the British. He was subsequently banished to Oyo town but he didn’t go quietly into the night; he went to court. During the ensuing celebrated case, evidence on some historical issues was needed in support of the deposed oba. It was to the Alaafin of Oyo that counsel to Oba Eshugbayi went.

The Alaafin was asked to swear before his evidence was taken.

Alaafin queried in anger:

“By whose name?”

“God’s name or by the name of your idol,” the lawyer told him.

“I myself am God!” the oba replied.

By calling himself god or God, the Alaafin of 1925 had not said what no one had ever said.  About 300 years earlier, King James I of England uttered something weighty about the king occupying a throne almost as powerful as God’s. King James told the English parliament on Wednesday, 21 March, 1609 that “kings sit upon God’s throne, but even by God himself they are called gods.” A king, he said, could make anyone “beggars or rich at his pleasure; restrain, or banish out of his presence…” And he used that power, and faced resistance – from the Catholic Church and from other churches. He fought and won. He enjoyed exercising that divine right, quashing opposition, bringing people up, casting people down. But his son, Charles I, who succeeded him didn’t have the grace he had. History says Charles was fought, defeated, arrested, tried by a parliamentary court and found guilty of charges which included devising “a wicked design to erect and uphold in himself an unlimited and tyrannical power to rule according to his will, and to overthrow the rights and liberties of the people”. At his execution at about 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 30 January, 1649, Charles insisted that he did no wrong, that the people were his subjects who should really have no “share in the government.” He stressed that “a subject and a sovereign are clean different things.” May God give Nigerians the sense to continue to have a share in their government.

The Lagos State Police Command has summoned four of its officers to account for their alleged involvement in the extortion of N1 million from some National Youth Service Corps members.

In a Twitter post shared late Thursday, a user tweeting as #YemieFash, identified as Olúyẹmí Fásípè, revealed the incident.

Fásípè stated that the corps members were threatened by the officers and later taken to the Kafaru Oluwole Tinubu House, Area C Police Command, where they were “robbed.”

He added that one of the corps members had failed to present a hard copy of his driver’s licence, which allegedly prompted the extortion.

In a video seen by PUNCH Online, the driver is shown presenting some vehicle documents to one of the officers, who asked, “What of your driver’s licence?” The driver responded, “I’m renewing it.”

The officer then requested the renewal papers, which the driver could not present in hard copy. Subsequently, a man dressed in plain clothes, not immediately identifiable as a police officer, was seen removing the vehicle’s number plate, after which an argument ensued.

The corps members were then led to the police station, during which an accompanying officer ordered them not to use their mobile phones, warning that they would be required to write statements at the station if they did.

One of the officers informed the corps members that it was an offence of “impersonation” to wear only the NYSC cap without the full uniform.

Fásípè’s tweet read: “Dear #BenHundeyin, your officers today in Surulere extorted one million naira from three corps members. They were threatened with firearms, kidnapped, and taken to the Kafaru Oluwole Tinubu House, Area C Police Command of the #LagosPoliceNG, where they were robbed. Their offence was not having a physical copy of a driver’s licence. This is evil!

“According to the victims, the officer in mufti is the one who collected the money (their boss).

“Ben, #BenHundeyin, here are the transaction receipts and a voice note of one of the victims explaining how the rogue officers extorted money from the three corps members.”

In response, the spokesperson for the state command, Benjamin Hundeyin, tweeting as #BenHundeyin, wrote on Friday: “The men have been summoned, and their trial has commenced. We urge the complainants to visit the Complaint Response Unit at the state headquarters to testify at the ongoing trial.”

The actions of the police officers have drawn widespread condemnation from netizens.

[Punch]

David Olaniyi Oyedepo, founder of the Living Faith Church Worldwide and Presiding Bishop of the Faith Tabernacle in Ota, Ogun state turns 70 years old today.  The name, David Oyedepo, registers differently in different people’s minds. To some, he is that controversial and flamboyant prosperity preacher with an array of vehicles, properties-home and abroad, and  multiple aircraft. To others, he is seen as a strong voice in Nigeria’s Christian charismatic movement. And to many, Oyedepo, a PhD holder in Human Development from Honolulu University, Hawaii, United States, is a revolutionist especially in Nigeria’s educational system where he championed the establishment of Covenant University, a leading educational institution in Nigeria and  Landmark University, in Omu Aran, where a new form of agricultural revolution is being rebirthed in Nigeria.

It is no longer news that Covenant University in barely two decades of existence is ranked above most federal and state universities in Nigeria. It was ranked the 7th best university in Sub-Saharan Africa during the first Times Higher Education Sub-Saharan Africa Rankings 2023. The university has consistently ranked among the best 800-1000 universities in the world between 2019 and 2024, according to Times Higher Education. His impact in the educational sector is not limited to universities alone as the church also runs a network of primary and secondary schools known as Kingdom Heritage Model School and Faith Academy not only in Nigeria but outside its shores.

Yet to many others, Oyedepo, who incidentally was born inside the church, although his father, Ibrahim, was a Muslim, but his mother, Dorcas, was a member of  the Holy Order of the Cherubim and Seraphim Movement Church (C&S), is that bold preacher that speaks to power without any iota of intimidation. He got lots of flaks from some quarters for his position on COVID-19 pandemic especially when authorities failed to reopen churches despite the re-opening of other institutions. But his continuous interventions led to the reopening of churches with regulations put in place to curb the spread of the deadly virus. His voice was also loud during the plan of the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari to introduce Ruga, a settlement scheme for the Fulani across Nigeria. He spoke against Boko Haram and openly prayed that God would give former President Goodluck Jonathan the heart of a lion to tackle the issue frontally during his administration.

While the above summations and much more could aptly describe Bishop David Oyedepo, those who really know the bishop will describe him as a consummate lover of God and an insatiable hunter for souls. Only real WINNERS – the moniker for members of the Living Faith Church worldwide, can tell you the extent of his love for God and how he drives them to win souls which according to him is the true proof of the believer’s love for God. He will tell you, “if you love God, you will love what he loves, God so loved the world that he gave his son. Prove your love for him by ensuring that you bring one soul to church next Sunday.’’

To show the extent of his passion for souls, he boldly announced that church members should not bother to give him any gift for his platinum celebration- all he wanted from them was just ‘one soul per person for Christ.’ “Don’t give me gifts, I don’t need them, don’t bother to give me cake, I don’t eat it. Give me souls. Make that your birthday gifts to me. That’s all I want from you,’’ he had announced.  To press this home, a week preceding his birthday was declared,  “A week of Sacrifice For Soul.’’ Trust him, he will always do what he asks the church members to do. So, in fulfilment of his own sacrifice for souls, he still went out a week to his birthday to haunt for souls for Christ and he got 177 souls according to his testimony shared on the pulpit. The bishop still goes on the streets of Ota and environ to haunt for souls for the  kingdom. He has his target for every year and he always delivers beyond target.  Thousands of souls in the church today are his direct converts and he nurtures them to remain in the faith as any would like to nurture a new believer. This is a total assignment aside his pastoral roles.

You may think his passion for souls is just an avenue to keep the church growing which ordinarily isn’t even a bad idea if you ask me, but the bishop has always been a consuming lover of God. Imagine this. As a teenager, in less than three months, he singlehandedly built a church in a village where he had gone to work, from the scratch to the finish. He practically led the villagers to Christ one by one. The villagers gave him a bush lamp as a gift and told him that the light he brought to them would shine across the world.  That is exactly what is happening now. The  light is shining across the world. The Living Faith Church has its network of churches in 147 countries across the continents. The church has 38,000 house fellowship centres in Lagos alone.

Although his ambition was to be a businessman supporting the works of God,  fate had another assignment for him. You don’t have to be close to the bishop to know that everything about God moves him. He demonstrates this in different ways. I can’t tell the number of churches the bishop and his family have built. Only him and his family would have the details but going by his testimonies, they must be in thousands. These churches are also not necessarily branches of the Living Faith Church- they could be for other denominations.  He is simply a violent kingdom promoter.

I have been a member of the Living Faith Church for over two decades now and I still wonder where outsiders get this impression that the only thing preached in Winners is prosperity message. Is Bishop David Oyedepo rich? The answer is a capital Yes. He was named as Nigeria’s wealthiest pastor by Forbes magazine in 2011 with over $150m but the bishop will dispute this figure and tell you that his wealth is underestimated. His point is that he is worth everything in God by redemption. In other words, such wealth is unquantifiable. Are Winners rich? The answer is  also in the affirmative. But does the bishop pursue prosperity? The answer is No. Every living Winner knows the scripture that rules the bishop’s life. It is in Mathew 6:33 which says “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all other things ( that men are dying to have) shall be added unto you.’’ I am not sure I have attended any service in  my last over 20 something years in Winners where this scripture is not quoted by the bishop.

And by extension, this has become the mantra of every “Winner.’’ It works like fire. Winners don’t pursue wealth. They simply obey the covenant of prosperity, obey scriptures and God pours His blessings in  unimaginable and  undeniable ways. Mind you, this wealth is not measured in monetary terms only, they are riches that are all encompassing. In Winners, it doesn’t matter what you do, you will prosper, albeit everyone at their own levels. That is basically the secret behind the wealth of Oyedepo and members of the church that are truly committed to his teachings and walk by them. I have seen and heard countless of testimonies from ordinary church members -testimonies of exploits that are not shared on the pulpit-people doing marvelously well in their chosen fields. The bishop describes such testimonies as though noiseless but undeniable.

The secrets of men are in their stories. The Bible says if you see a man  that is diligent in his work, he will stand  before kings, and not mere men. Bishop David Oyedepo is an epitome of diligence. It is impossible for a man as diligent as him not to be  wealthy even if he is a pure water seller. He  prepares for every service as if it is his first sermon. He works minimum of 16-18 hours daily. I once attended a vigil where the bishop flew in from outside the country and came straight to the pulpit to preach. He once laid hands on people from morning till evening standing on his feet for more than 10 hours.

The bishop is a workaholic if I’m permitted to use that word. He takes his assignment with every sense of commitment and seriousness. He quotes scriptures effortlessly. As editor of the Saturday Punch title, I once asked the bishop during an interview how he was able to do this. Was he cramming the scriptures, I wanted to know. To my dismay, he said, “I don’t read scriptures, I eat them.’’  For those who don’t know, the bishop does not go to bed until he reads certain chapters of scriptures. To him, he does this to cleanse any debris that might have entered him in the course of the day.

Such is the level of his diligence in taking care of himself as well as the congregants. Let me share this interesting story here. My family moved from our previous place of abode in Lagos to another area and we joined the Winners zonal centre in our new area as newcomers. Soon, we interacted with other members and my husband discovered that one of the pastors at the zone was unusually meticulous, organized and of course prosperous. We found out that the pastor, Mike Ewewie, was Bishop Oyedepo’s personal assistant for 17 years.  That is how contagious the bishop’s organizational prowess is. In the Living Faith Church, time is precious. Service starts by 6am. Nobody waits for anyone. And  that has been the order of the church since inception even when they were less than four members in church.

Bishop David Oyedepo is also  bold and audacious. The church planted 10,000 churches during the COVID-19 lockdown. At the beginning of the year, the bishop had announced that God told him that the church would plant 10,000 churches. When the lockdown came unexpectedly, one would have thought that it was impossible for this to happen again. But alas, the church planted 10,400 churches amid lockdown. “We do not do anything unless it is commanded, and  whatever He commands, He creates,’’  he always says. That also explains the movement of the church from town to a so-called wilderness now known as Canaan land. And not just that, it was responsible for the audacious declaration of building a 50,000 – seater auditorium within one year—the first of its kind in world history.

Today, Bishop David Oyedepo and by extension, the Living Faith Church is fulfilling prophecy. The things that were told of God and documented more than  40 years ago are seen coming to pass. It  is easy to refer to past prophecies  and confirm them  in the present. God spoke about  the 50,0000 -capacity auditorium,  ‘aircrafts,’ global connectivity and many other prophecies at the inception of the ministry. It is indeed gratifying seeing these prophecies fulfilled word for word.

The church has four aircraft and those who know how expensive it is to maintain an aircraft will tell you this is no cheap feat. For those who think the bishop flies around the world in jets, let me shock you.

The bishop has not stepped out of Nigeria—not even to Togo or Benin Republic which is very close to Ota—in the last five years. Why? God says so. It is impossible to share all I know about Bishop David Oyedepo. But let me say a little bit about his giving lifestyle. His family started giving scholarships to students in 1992. He doesn’t even know most beneficiaries of his scholarships. In 2016, he gave all first-class graduates of Covenant University scholarships to pursue their Master’s programme. My son was a beneficiary of that slot. We didn’t even Know. We had paid his tuition. We got our money refunded. Till date, he has a scholarship fund for the indigent and beneficiaries don’t have to be Winners’ members.

To the man whose ministry has been of immense blessing  not only to me and my family, but millions of others across the world – to the man who is an epitome of what it means to walk by faith, live by the word and demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit–to the man who has made the Bible as real as ever, teaching and leading by example, to the man, who I am ever proud to call a father in the Lord, and many more, this is wishing you a very happy platinum celebration. Your target is 120. You will live it in health, strength and grace if the Lord tarries in the name of Jesus.

Happy 70th  Birthday,  Bishop David Oyedepo. We love you.

Olabisi Deji-Folutile (PhD) is the publisher of Franktalknow.com and a director at AF24NEWS. Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Trust is an essential quality. It is a valuable non-commodity asset. It is the diviner of promise and fulfilment. A government that succeeds is one which holds sufficient public trust and exerts itself considerably to keep it by delivering on its promises.

Introducing the consumer credit scheme was one of the foremost pledges of President Bola Tinubu during the 2023 presidential campaigns. The President had said: “Corruption will be addressed when an individual does not need to have cash readily available to buy a vehicle, for instance, if there is a credit facility to finance it. Credit financing, in turn, will stimulate productivity and demand. We can, and we will. We will change the inefficiencies. We will drive Nigeria’s potential to delivery.”

Within a few months after assuming office, President Tinubu went to work in fidelity to his promise. In April 2024, the president approved the take-off of the Consumer Credit Scheme with the Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation (CREDICORP) as the institutional apparatus.

The reason for this is obvious. This segment of workers forms the core of the nation’s workforce and provides essential services. But the credit blanket will spread further to cover the majority of Nigerians in subsequent phases as the scheme was conceived by President Tinubu for all Nigerians.

According to data by CREDICORP, credit was provided for a slew of needs, such as the procurement of petrol alternatives (solar panels, CNG conversion, tricycles), home improvements, school fees and medical needs, as well as the purchase of household items.

The CREDICORP data also shows that over N1.5 billion has been disbursed to federal and state workers in the education sector; administrators in federal and state MDAs over N755 million; medical doctors in federal and state services over N600 million; police/paramilitary officers (police, civil defence, customs, immigration, and correctional service) over N367 million, and Nigerians in specialised services (judiciary, EFCC, ICPC, traffic authorities, environment) over N273 million.

Additionally, in the education sector, over 4,700 Nigerians are beneficiaries; in administration over 2,800; in health over 1,300; police/paramilitary over 1,260, and specialised services, over 750. More Nigerians are being enlisted as beneficiaries of this epochal scheme.

President Tinubu’s vision is to spread prosperity, create a robust credit system, strengthen the financial architecture, and empower Nigerians sustainably while removing the incentive for corruption.

In full apprehension of the concerns of citizens, the President Tinubu administration has sustained its interventions in critical sectors and directly in providing relief to vulnerable Nigerians. It is ratcheting up effort on social investment programmes to lift the most vulnerable population out of poverty. So far, additional payment has been made to about one million verified recipients under the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) programme.

President Tinubu has remained true to his pledges. He pledged to introduce the student loan scheme to remove financial impediments to higher education for Nigerians. Today, this pledge is an actuality.

The president affirmed public good and trust as his motivation when he met with the Forum of Former Presiding Officers of the National Assembly, led by former Senate President Ken Nnamani at the Presidential Villa, on September 20.

He said: “I did not 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 Tinubu is working for Nigerians.

Fredrick Nwabufo is the senior special assistant to the president on public engagement