Is it possible that some of the actions, and inactions, of the Governor of Borno State have helped within the last three years to breed some of the problems that led to his recent outburst and sense of alarm over the return of serious security challenges in the state? Was his approach to making the problems public the best, in the circumstances? Was his characterization of the comments of the Minister of Information and National Orientation, in reaction to the latter’s characterization of the issues a bit out of context. Should he have still gone further on the matter, after the Minister’s office gave further clarification on the actual intents of the message?

But that all the forgoing is not our main concern today.

On September 10, 2021, this column had an article titled, “Why Zulum Needs Help and Support”, wherein it was said: “Several media platforms have called out the Nigerian state on the negative security implications, and likely disruptive impact, of the ongoing surrendering and reintegration of repentant insurgents. The subsisting perception, and fear, is that we may be making a grievous mistake. I share this perception and fear”.

Reacting to the clear of possible questionable backlash from the strange carrying on at the time, I also said in that article that “I almost have no doubt that there may yet be a catastrophic fallout from what we a seeing today. But is it not also true that the Borno State governor once expressed optimism while receiving the repentant returnee. But it is also true that the possibility of a cataclysmic threat to social stability to Borno State, and the nation, may be embedded in this development”?

That article was written mainly in order to draw the attention of Governor Zulum to the type of good he was ordering from Ariaria Market. The idea was to warn him that the neat invoice paper will not show the colour and smell of the goods being penciled down for procurement. But he was apparently not paying attention, I suppose. Instead he doubled down on providing relief for refugees, projecting very elaborate efforts at bringing normalcy to trouble communities and settlements by spending on rehabilitation, provision of food and comfort, etc. He was cheerfully running massive expenditure headings on a demographic group that would, to all intents and purposes, produce nothing and contribute nothing to the economy of the state.

For good measure, the demographic group in question also possessed very poor social skills, whether religious or communal. They would become a burden, one way or another. And that it what have now turned out to be, three and a half years down the road.

Here is the caption of a BBC story arising from Governor Zulum’s recent outcry about the resurrection of unmanageable criminality and disruptive kidnapping industry: “Nigerian Governor warns of Boko Haram Comeback”. The question not raised, and therefore not reported upon, is “Are there actions by the state government, besides the challenges facing military and security authorities, that led to the comeback?”

Those who may be quick to ask: “How could any actions, or inactions, of the state government have helped create any of the problems on the ground at the moment?” Should consider the following. At the time governor Zulum was receiving repentant Boko Haram insurgents a few years ago, some of us were warning the state about the possible future challenges that might arise therefrom. At the time the Borno State, in collaboration with some agencies of government, was announcing successful deradicalization programmes, some of us were crying ‘foul’ and pointing out that it would all eventually lead to an unsustainable living environment in Borno State.

Today, the chickens are all coming home to roost.

When, as member of a team from the Centre for Crisis Communication, we organized a programme on for all military, security and paramilitary personnel in Borno State about ten years ago, the Shehu of Borno raised serious issues about what he called “the pretense that a confirmed serial murderer who even killed his neighbour’s parents will suddenly change after spending two weeks half-listening to some people in an overcrowded hall”. This was during our courtesy visit to his palace, where he received us with all the members of his traditional council.

He noted with dismay the undue attention being given to the perpetrators of heinous crimes, while their victims who need rehabilitation are neglected. “Who told you they have changed in any way?”, he quipped at some point during the visit. For him, the actions of government needed some input from the traditional institutions that could be the link for lasting peace

Regarding Zulum’s recent utterances, local regular and digital media had several disconcerting titles and reports, just like that of the BBC. The reports were all in reaction to two developments, namely (1) Zulum’s justified outcry about increasing insecurity in his state and (2) Zulum’s reaction to a statement by the Minister of Information and National Orientation on the matter of security challenges in Borno State. All things considered; Governor Zulum may well have been in the news in recent times in the way some of us would have loved for him not to be. 

Matters were not helped by the fact that the governor’s own personal utterances including, especially insinuations about the capacity of some principal officers of state at the federal level, were taken up by a few other people around him. These have been mostly strategically unhelpful media interventions, from the angle of effective problem management. As things stand now, Governor Zulum needs to review his understanding of some aspects of the security problems of his state. He should also recalibrate his utterances, especially in connection with the Boko Haram resurgence.

The emerging events about which he was raising both hell and dust took a long time in brewing. He can also be calmly described as having inadvertently contributed to the problems he is complaining about.

It is true that insurgents who put down their guns deserve both consideration and forgiveness; especially where they are seen to be truly repentant. But, and this is where the problem begins, who is the seer that was consulted to confirm the genuine repentance of those who surrendered? How was it possible that Borno state received repentant Insurgents by the thousands and yet no one in government got any information about the whereabouts of their leaders, and their strongholds, from these repentants?

The aforementioned article said: “Acceptance, forgiveness and reintegration must be part of a holistic, well-choreographed intervention template”. Concerning the expected benefits of pandering to surrendering insurgents, the article went on to ask: “But what if all we are likely to get out of this is organized Capital Consumption and the opening up of supply lines for relief materials? An unhealthy increase in expenditure and consumption, and the fanning of public ceremonies will not give Borno State any lasting results, or promote Wealth Creation. So, no one should open up massive and unsustainable expenditure headings and leave a mess for Zulum to deal with.

Can we say for sure, today, that anyone really knew why thousands of insurgents suddenly “repented”. Can we say why the rare epidemic of droves of repentants later declined?

The earlier referenced article also observed: “Did the same Boko Haram not once call for a ceasefire, during the tenure of Badeh as Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), only to use the period to re-arm and re-group before resuming its attacks? Can Borno State speak of peace when sections of a group that has been living for too long outside the bounds of civility and rationality surrender (possibly) because of hunger, death of munitions, loss of leadership, or leadership acrimony, or all of the above? Are law abiding citizens wrong if they express reservations about having their former feared predators in their midst? Are Nigerians wrong in wondering aloud what such persons still really believe and want in the depths of their hearts? It all raises questions about how even the genuinely repentant ones among them are to be properly integrated into civil society”.

Some of the allegedly deradicalized insurgents do not want to return to their former communities, because of the types of heinous crimes they committed before fleeing. Has Zulum ever asked himself what sort of integration could have possibly taken place such that a man who wiped out an entire family, or even several families in a community, returns to the same community? How was Zulum able to confirm the successful deradicalization of those he reintegrated into society? How was the success endeavour measured, and by which team of trauma psychology experts? Is it possible to create a fundamental mind shift for thousands of religiously, politically, culturally and socially disoriented people in a matter of days, or weeks?

How was it possible to quickly find resources to rehabilitate the New Brides, even as some of them were seen almost immediately returning to the forest after a few days, or weeks, of good feeding? So, were they now actually sent to infiltrate the society, towards executing a final onslaught, for a complete takeover?

It is true that the governor was being realistic when he called on all to see the need to “… choose between an endless war or to cautiously accept the surrendered terrorists which is really painful and difficult for anyone that has lost loved ones, difficult for all of us and even for the military whose colleagues have died and for volunteers.” What was his follow-through action, though.

Besides the fact that Borno State has been a refugee/insurgents funds absorption basket, the resource going into managing security can be better deployed. So, let Governo Zulum not get too excited, so that he does not end up shooting himself in the foot. Let him use his own records to trace the insurgents he has reintegrated over time, find out their current means of livelihood and what they do with their free time; including taking part in some form of worship. That would be a good way to begin to get a sense of the success or failure of his leadership in this particular regard.

QUOTE:

As things stand now, Governor Zulum needs to review his understanding of some aspects of the security problems of his state. He should also recalibrate his utterances, especially in connection with the Boko Haram resurgence.

Last week, in response to mounting, difficult-to-controvert, empirically impregnable accusations that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu disproportionately favors his Yoruba ethnic group in consequential federal appointments, the presidency circulated a list of Tinubu’s appointments to countermine the firmly fixed national narrative of Tinubu’s unexampled ethnocentrism but was compelled to withdraw it because it was embarrassingly error-ridden and factually inaccurate.

 Sunday Dare, the President’s Media Adviser on Media and Public Communication, tweeted on April 10 that the presidency had “noticed a number of errors in the list of appointments tweeted,” said they were “sorry,” and that they would “provide an updated list later.”

More than a week later, we haven’t seen the updated list that Dare promised, which will supposedly show that, in spite of incontestable evidence to the contrary, Tinubu’s appointments reflect fairness to the ethnic and regional complexities of Nigeria and that the Yoruba people don’t dominate appointments and control the commanding heights of the economy. 

Interestingly, while the presidency is still updating its list and eating humble pie, a more damning list of Tinubu’s appointments has emerged. It is longer and shows an even more indefensibly insidious, not to mention unexampled, ethnocentric capture of the major levers of government.

Again, while we are awaiting the updated list of Tinubu’s appointments that shows evidence of a fair distribution of federal appointments, the government chose to undermine itself and provide additional ideational ammunition for his critics who say he is beholden to advancing the unfair dominance of his ethnic group.

On April 16, the administration announced the formation of an eight-member committee to oversee preparations for the national census. Of the eight, five were Yoruba. In a country comprising over 500 ethnic groups, such a configuration reflects a troubling insensitivity to the symbolic and political weight of representation, especially in a matter as contentious and identity-laden as a national headcount.

The exclusion of the northeast, southeast, and south-south from the committee cannot be dismissed as oversight. Nor can the disproportionate Yoruba presence be defended as incidental. The demographic sensitivities surrounding census exercises in Nigeria are historically fraught. 

That the president’s team would assemble a committee so lopsided at such a politically volatile time betrays either a stunning lack of political judgment or a deeper confidence that no consequence will follow such overt ethno-regional privileging. Either way, the signal is unmistakable and deeply corrosive.

Equally emblematic was the decision to have the president’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila — a fellow Yoruba and an unelected official whose role has no constitutional standing — inaugurate the committee. This move, while procedurally permissible, was laden with semiotic overreach. 

The constitutionally designated deputy of the president, Vice President Kashim Shettima, a northerner, was bypassed despite being present in the country. The optics communicate the message of an informal inner circle displacing formal constitutional roles, with ethnicity as a defining axis of inclusion and exclusion.

 For an administration straining excessively hard to convince a skeptical nation that the evidence of ethnic bigotry in governance that stares them in the face isn't what they think it is, gestures like this do not merely raise questions; they answer them in ways that deepen cynicism and confirm suspicions.

I think honchos of the Tinubu administration shoot themselves in the foot and expose themselves to ridicule when they try to defend the administration’s Yoruba-centric favoritism because their rhetoric is often hysterically at variance with the evidence. 

They have two options. The first option is silence. There is more dignity in silence than lies, easily refutable lies. It’s better to be thought a fool, as the saying goes, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

 The second option is to be bold and point out that Tinubu is merely expanding the ethnocentric path that Buhari paved. In several previous columns where I railed against the Arewa-centric favoritism of Buhari’s appointments, I repeatedly warned that Buhari’s southern successor would expand on his bigotry and that defenders of Buhari’s favoritism who insulted me would have no moral pedestal to stand on when that happened.

That time has come. To be frank, I am enjoying seeing people who defended, explained away, or ignored Buhari’s favoritism (because they imagined that he would be in power for ever) squirming and complaining of Tinubu’s more expansive, unapologetic ethnic capture of the levers of government. 

When you initiate an action, you can’t determine the nature and contour of the reaction. Saying Buhari was less exclusionary than Tinubu is now is a weak charge. Buhari shouldn’t have started it, and the people who defended him or looked away should have known that this moment would come.

Of course, the people who benefit from or who defend Tinubu’s unabashed Yoruba-centrism should be aware that, like Buhari’s Arewa-centrism, it also has an expiration date, and that the successor to it may be worse than it. 

Defenders of the narrow-mindedness of the Tinubu regime should also be aware of other unintended consequences of their ethnic triumphalism. Just like Buhari has caused the Fulani (including poor, innocent ones) to be reviled all over Nigeria, everyday Yoruba people who also suffer the consequences of Tinubu’s economic policies, will be targets of transferred aggression. 

Like the Fulani, the Yoruba may become the objects of undeserved and unearned ethnic hate on account of the president’s inability to see beyond this ethnic enclave in appointments and symbolic actions.

It doesn’t matter that, like a Yoruba friend tells me each time this issue comes up, Tinubu’s outward Yoruba-centrism actually masks a more exclusionary Lagos-centrism. He says most of the Yoruba people Tinubu appoints to important positions have connections to Lagos. 

I don’t doubt him. In fact, in a January 24, 2024, column titled, “North and Tinubu’s Back-to-Lagos Moves,” I made that point. 

“With a few notable (and in some cases unavoidable) exceptions, Tinubu’s government is largely the re-enactment of his time as the governor of Lagos,” I wrote. “It is, for all practical purposes, an unabashed Lagos-centric Yorubacracy. To be fair, though, with the possible exception of Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, all civilian regimes since 1999 have been insular ethnocracies.”

I should also point out that in spite of appearances to the contrary, many well-informed, cosmopolitan Yoruba people are embarrassed by Tinubu’s unabashed favoritism toward Yoruba people at the expense of other ethnic groups. 

For example, when Tinubu was considering Bayo Ojulari as the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, it was a Yoruba man who is close to the Tinubu power orbit, who reached out to me, giving me the privilege to be the first person to break the news months before it was officially confirmed.

In my widely shared December 28, 2024, column titled, “Tinubu’s Buharization of the NNPC,” I wrote the following:

“Ironically, this column was inspired by a well-regarded Yoruba supporter of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who is worried, in fact embarrassed, by the optics of what he says is Tinubu’s relentless Yorubacentric take-over of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).

“His concern wasn’t just partisan discomfort; it was a profound unease about how this nepotistic approach undermines national cohesion.”

However, after I discovered that Ojulari is a northern Yoruba, not a Southwestern Yoruba as my source had thought, I wrote a follow-up column (see “NNPC and Fresh Perspectives on Ojulari’s Identity,” January 04, 2025) to clarify my position and to argue that it’s disingenuous to deny the northern identity of northern Yoruba people only when they benefit from the representational benefits of being northerners. 

As I have argued many times in the past, appointments are the symbolic conduits through which citizens relate to governments. That is why representational justice is crucial for a complex, multi-ethnic country like Nigeria.

However, since our national leaders have historically chosen to find comfort only in their ethnic and regional cocoons and to abandon the hard task of building bridges and integrating our disparate but entirely collapsible identities, we will continue to sink deeper and deeper into the low watermarks of exclusion and bitter divisions.

He was the lord of his manor. Whatever he said was law. His children feared him.  His wife trembled at his feet. He was a god in his private shrine and decreed that he be accorded the appropriate worship and sacrifice or he breathed fire from both nostrils. He ruled his home with an iron fist and he was feared more than respected, avoided not loved. For 33 straight years, his wife put up with his excesses. His children watched their mother endure her marriage. She wore a smile that eventually became a grimace but she soldiered on. Nobody was going to raise her children while she still had breath. She cried herself to sleep most nights, most of those nights were lonely ones anyway but she stayed the course. She bore it for her children.

Now at 59, she’s in Canada on her first ‘omugwo’ journey ( omugwo in Igbo or ojojo omo in Yoruba are terms for traditional after-birth care of new borns) to take care of her first grandchild. There were grunts and whispers about how she left ‘Daddy’ alone to fend for himself while she enjoyed all the fruits of the labour of the old man. But her version of the story revealed that ‘Daddy and Mummy’ stopped being a real couple a long time ago.

 ‘When our twins arrived, he said I had to quit my job so I could take care of them. They were a handful, so it was not difficult for me to agree. But even when they started school, he refused to let me go back to work. He had a repertoire of reasons why I could not or should not hold a nine-to-five job. I wouldn’t have minded but I eventually concluded that my husband simply wanted me to be dependent on him for every penny I needed. I needed his permission to use the car because he had to fuel it. I had to agree to his choice of school for the children because he was paying the fees. We rented apartments that suited him and eventually built our house in a rural area. I had no say in anything. I was unhappy for years. I did not want to raise my children without their father, so I stayed in there, sick both physically and emotionally. My husband lived a full life while I lived like a glorified maid. He travelled within and outside the country on business but I never left Nigeria until I became a grandmother. My son, Kehinde hauled me off to Canada. I was there for six straight months until the family doctor blackmailed me with my husband’s health, saying it could would worsen if he continued to eat junk food and stare at the wall and ceiling all day. I must confess that I didn’t miss him and totally enjoyed being away from under his thumb and bullying for those six months. I’m already looking forward to accompanying Taiwo’s wife to the US to have her baby. If I was fine with Daddy’s way of doing things for 33 years, he will be fine with me doing my grandma duties ’

Molayo’s abuse was physical. Her husband beat her regularly, even in front the children, sometimes with neighbours as spectators.

‘I thought the abuse would stop as we grew older but it didn’t and each time the children tried to defend me or correct him, he would threaten to lay a curse on them. I warned them to stay off his path of anger. After beating me, my children and I would go into my room and cry together as they massaged my arm or put cold compress on my swollen jaw. He would deny me of housekeeping allowance if I crossed him or refuse to talk to me for days for not waiting up for him if he got home late. And he kept many late nights, slept out many nights too. If I dared to ask him questions about his whereabouts, he either beat me or gave me the silent treatment. My marriage was harsh and hard. It also took a toll on my health eventually, for which my children blame their father. I made sure they never disrespected their father for as long as I could. But the day my first daughter gave birth was the day they moved me to her house. It was the perfect excuse to rescue me. I returned home after three months for about two weeks and I’m back in my daughter’s place. My medications are more effective now that I sleep better and nobody is bullying me.’

The seed for this piece was actually planted in August 2022. It was at a party and I found myself at the same table with four gentlemen who were worried at the rate at which wives were ‘abandoning’ their husbands to go and do grandma duties. They are all in their 50s and fairly comfortable financially.

‘It is becoming a fad. These women just wait for you to pay the hefty school fees in dollars and then they disappear for months to do that omugwo thing.’

‘Yeah, and you have to learn to eat fast food.’

‘And sleep alone.’

‘Maybe we should get new wives to bridge the gap.’

‘Nice idea, my guy. A young girl to warm you up on rainy nights when madam abandons you,’

Men, why do they think all problems can be solved by newer models and fuller bosoms?

I did my best to explain the logic of laying your bed the way you want it to feel when you lie on it.

You see, not all wives disappear for omugwo without a backward glance. Not all wives make irreversible transition from wives to grandmothers. Some women, and I know quite a few, just want to be wives and remain wives of their husbands all the days of their lives. They do not know how to be anything else. These are women who will be lost without their husbands. Their husbands are their lives because they are men loving and devoted. Yes, they feel blessed and privileged to live long enough to transit from wives to mothers and then grandmothers but this set of women never forget they started as wives, that the vows they took before God, men and tradition was as wives, before all other functions. I also admit that this group of wives are fast fading. But they are still here.

Now, don’t you go jumping to conclusions that those forever wives are obeying the Bible or the Koran. No, they are just responding to their environment, to their marriages. They are just providing the second palm with which to effect a clap.

I have friends, peers who will go and do their omugwo and be back in a jiffy. One month tops and they are back in the arms of their husbands. I also have friends who are just waiting for their first grandchildren to ‘pop’ and they will, like bat out of hell, disappear, relocate for at least six months. There it is, omugwo for many women is a legit escape from marriages and men they had been wanting to escape from for years. Omugwo is like a release, albeit a temporary one from the men they did not have the courage to leave for years. The situation is even made worse if the children see the arrival of their babies as opportunities ‘to free mummy from daddy for a while.’

My dear brothers, how are you preparing for your old age, those twilight years when the only real faithful friends you’d be able to rely on are your wives and children? Are you your wife’s friend or albatross? Do your children see their mother as your wife and partner or a slave to be rescued as soon as they can muster the requisite fund? Are you living as if there is no tomorrow? Your wife of 35 years should not feel and flee like a free bird just because you both have become grandparents. If she has been in London for the past five months, leaving your 72-year-old ass, pardon my French, in the care of a maid and gateman, you were not a good man. Period. If at 75, your children feel it is time to bail their mother out of your cell, who can you blame? A man who mismanaged his yesterday will pay the price tomorrow.

Programme: City Talks with Reuben Abati

Time: 12:00

Guest: Adedeji Oyenuga

Professor of Criminology LASU

Topic: Insecurity in Nigeria: A Nation Under Siege ? 

Date: April 19th, 2025

Join Zoom Meeting

https://zoom.us/j/92877141732?pwd=VEJWb29OL2VVekZUTHRpdWYxK0xxZz09

Meeting ID: 928 7714 1732

Passcode: 600206

In light of the viral video circulating the social media and news, showing some of our delegates interacting with some Nigerian Mobile Police officers (MOPOL) in Kaduna. We ’d like to take a moment to address the issue amicably.

The way and manner the video has been shared and interpreted has led to some serious misunderstandings. So, we want to be very clear:

No money was given to the officers on any demand or request, there was no bribe, no illegal exchange but on good faith appreciating their professionalism. What you see in the video was a friendly and open interaction — nothing was done in secret and nothing inappropriate happened.

It's a common Chinese tradition, where we come from, to show appreciation or kindness to people who are doing their jobs well — especially when they’ve been helpful or respectful. That was all what it was: a kind gesture, not a payoff or alleged bribe. 

We also want to say this very sincerely — we are sorry about how this played out.

If that moment was misunderstood or if it gave the wrong impression, we take full responsibility. That was never our intention.

The officers were professional throughout. They never asked for anything, and they certainly didn’t act in any improper way with us. We were only moved to appreciate them on how well they carried out their responsibilities and their reception.

Despite this experience, we remain committed to Nigeria.

This country has great potential, and we will continue encouraging more Chinese investors to come here — to build, to partner, and to contribute in positive ways.

We also want to encourage other investors like ourselves to take time to learn about Nigeria, its culture, its people, and how things work locally. Respect and understanding go a long way and there is beauty in diversity. We are from different continent,our ways are bound to be different but learning each other culture will go a long way in fostering a good relationship.

Thank you to everyone who reached out with concern or support. Let’s move forward with clearer understanding and mutual respect, while appealing that the good Nigerian people and government should tamper justice with mercy with this incident.

We humbly request for continued security operatives for the smooth sailing of our operations here in Nigeria as well as safety purposes.

We feel secured and at home with them around. Our sincere apologies once again.

– A Chinese National Featured in the Video

Several persons have lost their lives in another terrible accident that occurred on Karu Bridge, inward Karu Site, Abuja on Friday.

DAILY POST reporter, who witnessed the tragic incident, observed that it was caused by a truck laden with cement which failed its brakes while descending the Kugbo hill.

It was gathered that the truck, after crushing about several vehicles and their occupants, attempted to escape but was intercepted around Karu Roundabout by commercial motorcyclists.

The accident came barely a month after a similar fatal accident occurred on the same Karu Bridge in March, when a Dangote trailer powered by CNG lost its brakes, crashed into several vehicles and claimed multiple lives.

More details to follow…

Katsina State Governor, Dikko Radda on Friday approved the appointment of the State Deputy Governor, Faruk Jobe as the head of the delegation, the Amiru – al-Hajj, 2025.

Other members include the Speaker, State House of Assembly, Nasiru Yahaya, Commissioner for Religious Affairs, Ishaq Dabai, Alhaji Shafi’u Duwan, Shehu Daura and Justice Kofar-Bai.

Others are, Alhaji Lawal Bakori, Sheikh Aminu Usman, Sheikh Naziru Kofar-Baru, Barrister Umar Abubakar and Alhaji Aliyu Hussaini while the Governor’s office is to provide the secretary.

The appointment letters were signed by the Secretary to the Government of the State, Abdullahi Faskari and made available to newsmen on Friday spelt out the terms of reference for the state delegation to monitor and supervise all operational activities both at home and in the Holy Land so as to ensure a successful Hajj.

“The delegation was to also ensure the safety, welfare and wellbeing of the State intending pilgrims while in Nigeria and in Saudi Arabia.

“Other terms of reference included ensuring a hitch-free airlift and return journey of all the State pilgrims and performing any other functions as are necessary for the success of the exercise.

“The Hajj delegation is expected to submit a comprehensive report to the Governor on completion of the Hajj exercise”, the statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the SSG, Abdullahi Yar’adua said.

The press statement further disclosed that the delegation would soon be inaugurated by Radda.

Meanwhile, Radda wished the delegation, the State Pilgrims Welfare Board and the intending pilgrims Allah’s guidance throughout the Hajj operations.

[Punch]

Here comes another Good Friday and Easter. Familiar stories of the torment, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. Stubborn facts that have refused to lose their meaning, relevance and efficacy more than two millennia since the events occurred. Soon after Jesus defeated the powers of the grave, the heavy stone used to hedge him in and the soldiers on guard, the authorities became jittery about the outcomes of those unprecedented episodes, notably his rise. Everything was done to twist the narrative. Even today, attempts to either trivialise or deny it altogether haven’t stopped. Luckily, history remains a witness to the potency of that epic moment; a collector of an abiding illustration of the eternal triumph of good over evil.

Commemorating those distinctive happenings in Jerusalem, therefore, goes beyond the surface. People, particularly believers in Christ, do utilise this moment to revitalise their inner strength – a vital asset that can’t be taken for granted in these troubling times. For most Nigerians, life has not been the same especially since President Bola Tinubu announced the removal of petrol subsidy at his presidential inauguration nearly two years ago and followed it up with the floating of the currency. Those punches have knocked down majority of the people and the main things they’ve received in abundance are excuses, explanations and more excuses from the president and his lieutenants.

There is hardly any aspect of the nation’s essential social and economic indices and their accompanying figures that compares favourably with what had obtained under the previous administration(s). This becomes even more painful when weighed against the equally tough adversities experienced under President Muhammadu Buhari. The prospect of looking back at that period with nostalgia the way some people do now was unthinkable. But here we are.

President Tinubu has been a better public communicator than his predecessor, though. But months of continual pledging and exhortations to Nigerians to make the “necessary sacrifices” haven’t achieved real-time healing and any genuine hope for tomorrow. “I know how you feel”, a refrain in most of his speeches, hasn’t also succeeded in producing the desired atmosphere of empathy. I recommend that the statement be dropped from his future outings as it’s beginning to appear fake. One can actually argue that Tinubu can’t seriously understand the depth into which most of his fellow citizens have sunk. Living, for most of them, is now more traumatic than members of the ruling elite can contemplate. If they do, there’s virtually nothing to show that they care about the fate of their disadvantaged compatriots.

The fortunate and “hardworking” could easily dismiss this gloomy picture as extreme but the victims of the vicissitudes which test the very souls of men and women to their limits know the true current colour of survival. Hyper-inflation, a grossly diminished naira, scarce jobs, real concerns about multifaceted insecurity, growing loss of faith in the system, a political class that’s unwilling or incapable of exhibiting exemplary leadership, and a steady diminution of hope for tomorrow have all ganged up against the usually robust Nigerian spirit. But as I often readily concede, these negative energies are neither creations of this government nor originated by Buhari’s. Why our leaders are unable to translate their much-touted good intentions to practicable policies, programmes and projects for the benefit of all, however, further deepens the exasperation of the long-suffering masses.

The cross our nation has had to bear over time is opposition parties that are high on rhetoric only to mellow into underperformance and ineptitude as soon as they assume power. It’s easy to advise the citizenry to look inwards and not expect the government to do everything for them. I’m still searching for the list of the things governments at various levels do for the people. The country is saddled with an overburdened populace. Some have become emergency philosophers, others have succumbed to sinister forces like depression, and many have resigned to an uncertain fate. But how long will it take before the few surviving or thriving ones are overwhelmed by primary and collateral responsibilities?

Naturally, people are compelled to embrace some sort of soul-searching one way or the other in times of chaos and ennui. What better means than seeking solace or solutions from loftier heights. For Christians, these most significant days present an opportunity to look upwards too. My piece on this page during the holy week in 2022 titled, “Maximising This Passion Week”, validates the aphorism that the more things change, the more they remain the same.

It reads in part: “Jesus of Nazareth. The uniqueness of his person is, without doubt, superlative and incomparable. His public service lasted for just about three years, something that started at the age of 30. His only record of writing was when an angry mob brought a woman caught in adultery to him, threatening to stone her to death in fulfilment of the Law of Moses. He wrote on sand at a point but even the content was never captured. Yet, as many scholars have argued, Jesus has inspired more writings than any other person. And, what is more elevating than having a number of the world’s religions speak, usually reverentially, about one particular man in their own sacred books?”

He is in heaven now, according to the Bible. That effectively changed his physical address and placed him on a much higher pedestal. His immediate followers? We can, at least, identify with those men whose earthly sojourns were mostly truncated abruptly and brutally. The article continues: “As soon as he (Jesus) was arrested, the men he had worked and closely interacted with took off for the love of their own lives. That act of abandonment initially encouraged the Roman authorities and religious leaders to attempt to influence them into denying the authenticity of the resurrection of their master.

“In a turn of events and with the passage of time, however, the same disciples rediscovered their courage and voices and stood firm for what they believed, against the intimidating odds that were rapidly cropping up mainly from the political and religious hierarchies. A deep reflection on the lives, activities and end of those men, long after Jesus had departed, could set us, Nigerians, on the path of true loyalty to causes that have extra-mundane, more enduring values. Life, after all, has much more to do with convictions about ideals and the common good. The lead apostle, Peter, for instance, begged his tormentors who were about to crucify him to do so upside down since, he reasoned, he was not qualified to die in the same position as his boss.” That bravery in the face of danger was replicated by the rest disciples – human beings like us who refused to bend to the wiles and coercion of their persecutors. They demonstrated till they exited the planet that bliss wasn’t always sensuous.

They were probably preserved by the words of their lord who once told them that, “Except a corn of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. He who loves his life shall lose it; and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” Meaning, there’s no circumventing the path to lasting fulfilment and rewards.

So, pain as a prerequisite for gain is one truism that Nigerians must keep in view. Not as an empty admonition by politicians but an indispensable tool for resilience which usually pays off. A reliable armour against these testy times. An assurance against the external pressures that seek to strangle the divine drive within. And the staying ability to persevere against diverse hurdles while awaiting fruition.

Ekpe, PhD, is a member of THISDAY editorial board.