• Shuns Osun governor, party chiefs during visit
• Aregbesola’s, Adeleke’s alliance heads for the rocks
• Fresh confusion over proposed PDP NEC meeting
• Atiku, Obi, El-Rufai, Amaechi, others meet today
• Obi: I’ll run on Labour Party’s platform in 2027

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar  appears to have drawn the battle line with state governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) , and officials of the party who are opposed to his bid to enter into coalition with other political parties against the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Despite Atiku’s insistence on a coalition, believing it is the only way the APC can be defeated in 2027, the PDP has stoutly rejected the move.

The PDP says it is strong enough to wrest power from the APC and that all it needs to do is to put its house in order.

In this regard, it set up a reconciliation committee headed by a former President of the Senate, Dr Bukola Saraki.

On Friday, Atiku was in Osun State where he shunned the state governor ,Senator Ademola Adeleke and the  state executives of the  party.

Officials  of the PDP yesterday interpreted the action of the ex – Vice President as a declaration of hostility.

“He has drawn the battle line because our governors are not with him in his move to forge a coalition and then run for president as usual,” a source in the PDP national secretariat told our correspondent yesterday.

The former vice president and his allies in the coalition talks are due to meet in Abuja today for more discussion on the way forward.

Top on the meeting’s agenda  is the platform they intend to use for the 2027 election.

Presidential candidate of  the Labour Party in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, who is widely speculated  as Atiku’s possible running mate in 2027 said yesterday that he still looks forward to contesting the election on the platform of LP,  which means he is unlikely to go along with the coalition.

Political sources said yesterday that Gov.Adeleke may have incurred Atiku’s wrath on account of  his (governor’s) stand on the coalition being promoted for  the former VP’s 2027 presidential bid.

Atiku had gone to  the state for the coronation of the new Owa of Ijesaland, HRH Adesuyi Haastrup.

He also  refused to meet with the Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Sunday Bisi and other members in the state.

Instead he  paid a courtesy call on ex-Governor Rauf Aregbesola, who is his new coalition ally.

According to findings,  Atiku’s cold attitude shocked Adeleke and PDP members in the state.

It was gathered that the ex-VP was unimpressed by lack of a firm commitment to his 2027 ambition by the governor and as a result, decided to draw the battle line early in the day with him.

Political observers in the state believe Atiku might have miscalculated because apart from being a sitting governor,  Adeleke’s popularity is at its peak in the state while Aregbesola’s influence is dwindling.

A senior government official, who spoke in confidence with our correspondent, said: “the ex-VP shocked the governor and PDP members by not notifying the state government of his visit. He did not pay a courtesy call on the governor and there was no notice to the state chapter of PDP of his coming.

“It is convenient for him to call his shuttle a private visit but as the former VP, he is under our care.

“It is a slight to shun the governor and visit Aregbesola in Ilesha. The message is clear to all. He has something up his sleeves.”

Asked what might have accounted for Atiku’s attitude,  the source said: “Maybe he is acting on body language or intuition to reach conclusions on Governor Adeleke who is amiable and amenable. I think for an experienced politician like Atiku, it is too early to arrive at any conclusion. He has a presumption that the governor has a mindset for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2027.

“The second reason which is definitive is that Atiku is desperate for a new coalition and he knows that Governor Adeleke might not leave the PDP. Not coming to the governor was a message that he was done with the PDP.

“But Aregbesola cannot win Osun State for him in 2027. We wish Atiku good luck. His attitude has earned him more disdain than anything in Osun. It was a misstep.”

Atiku’s behaviour toward Adeleke was the subject of political discussion in many parts of the state all through Friday and yesterday. 

Atiku’s spokesman, Paul Ibe was yet to respond to questions sent to his WhatsApp line.

A PDP source said he wasn’t  surprised that  there is a political misunderstanding between the President and Governor Adeleke.

The source added: “As a matter of fact,  when Sen. Isiaka Adeleke died, President Tinubu wanted Governor Ademola Adeleke to succeed his brother but Aregbesola refused. Adeleke  was denied the ticket because of his closeness to the then President of the Senate  Dr. Bukola Saraki. He left APC for PDP and won the senatorial ticket.

“When the President asked why Governor Ademola Adeleke was refused APC senatorial ticket, the powers-  that-  be in Osun then  said he might contest for the  governorship. Asiwaju then asked ‘why not?’ Everything has come to pass, ” he said.

Unknown to many, a cold war has been brewing between  Adeleke and Aregbesola over their performances in office.

In the last few weeks,  Adeleke and Aregbesola have taunted each other at public functions in what appeared a sign of frosty relationship.

At a Rotary District  Conference in Ede, Osun State, Aregbesola,  who was the guest speaker,  spent quality time to reel out his achievements. He spoke of  how he transformed Osun State.

But  Adeleke, who came midway into Aregbesola’s lecture was ‘unsettled ‘  by what his predecessor said.

When it was his turn, Adeleke, who took style to say he was building on Aregbesola’s achievements, said the era of half salary was gone; he has not borrowed a dime; the Debt Management Office (DMO)  has confirmed that the  state  has cleared 40% of inherited debt since he  came into office.

He also said that he has completed a 14-kilometre dual carriageway in Ilesha and established University of Ilesha with 70 courses accredited.

“It is a matter of time before we end the alliance with Aregbesola, ” a PDP source added.

At a meeting  last month , PDP governors ruled out coalition with other parties for the 2027 presidential election.

The governors said the PDP was strong enough to oust the APC from power but welcomed any party that may want to join it.

Adeleke was at the meeting.

Atiku is nonetheless forging ahead with his bid to enter into coalition with interested parties.

 Last week, he and his coalition partners announced that they would use the ADP, instead of the SDP they had earlier announced, as the vehicle to realise their 2027 dream.

Atiku, others  push ahead with coalition despite PDP’s stance

 It was gathered yesterday that members of  the Atiku-led coalition will meet in Abuja today to perfect their plan ahead of 2027.

Some of those expected at the meeting are the immediate past governor of Kaduna State,Mallam Nasir El Rufai,former Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi and former Osun State governor Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola.

It was gathered that the group is banking on the support of the likes of the League of Northern Democrats (LND) which said last week that it was mobilising intensely across the north while considering the   options of registering a new opposition political party or fusing into an existing one.

It said in a communiqué that it would support the National Opposition Coalition Group chaired by Sen. President David Mark in “driving the transitional politics towards the 2027 general elections.”

I’ll contest on Labour Party’s platform, says Obi

Obi,in a video interaction with his supporters yesterday said he would contest the 2027 election on the platform of the LP.

 “I will still continue to run in the Labour Party. I’m a member of the Labour Party,” he said in response to  a question by one of his supporters.

He blamed the federal government for the crises in the PDP and LP,saying: “What is happening in the Labour Party and the PDP is caused by the government, quote me anywhere.

“We had a problem in our party before, in the past; Yar’Adua was the President. I went to him then; he called the INEC chairman (Prof. Maurice Iwu) and told him ‘I don’t want any problem in any party. We were forced to fix it.

“But today, in all the parties, there are problems; these are deliberate problems caused by the system. These are some of the things I want to clean up if I have the opportunity.

“Parties will function very well because you can’t have a system working without a strong opposition.”

No coalition yet, we are discussing how to move Nigeria forward, says Obidients’ National Coordinator

 National Coordinator of the Obidients Movement, Dr. Yunusa Tanko said there was no agreement in place yet on whether the group should join a  coalition of political parties ahead of the 2027 general election. 

Tanko told The Nation by  telephone that what is currently going on is discussion among respected Nigerians who are concerned about the way the country’s democracy is going.

He said ” It is just a group of persons who have tremendous respect for each talking about how to move the country forward.

“They are concerned about what is happening in our country and the way our democracy is going. They are concerned about reforming our electoral system to avoid what is going on right now when people are decamping anyhow.

Maybe if we had done this before now, people would  not be decamping the way they are doing now, taking the mandate of one party to another. It’s like having a football match and in the middle of the game, you jump from your team to the other because they are winning. If we allow that to continue, you won’t have anybody left in the opposing team to complete the game.”

Fresh confusion over PDP NEC meeting

A letter written  yesterday in the name of the embattled national secretary of the PDP,Samuel Anyanwu,has sparked confusion over the party’s much rescheduled National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting.

Daboikiabo  Warmate, spokesman to Anayanwu said in the letter that the NEC meeting scheduled for Tuesday, May 27, 2025 had been put on hold owing to what he called constitutional breaches.

He claimed that  a purported letter illegally signed by the Deputy National Secretary, Setonji Koshoedo inviting party members to the meeting was in violation of the party’s constitution which authorized the substantive National Secretary, Senator Samuel Anyanwu to act in that line of duty.

According to the statement, the national Secretary of PDP, Most Distinguished Senator Samuel Nnaemeka Anyanwu, is neither aware  nor directed the Deputy National Secretary to issue such notice, therefore remains a nullity.

“We therefore, urge and advise all state chairmen and esteemed members of NEC of our great party to disregard, any of such notice of invitation that does not emanate from the National Secretary himself, the Most Distinguished Senator Samuel Nnaemeka Anyanwu till further notice”

While relying on the provision of the constitution of PDP, he  said, “It is expedient to emphasize that, following section 36 (1)b, of the PDP constitution as amended in 2017, it is one of the core responsibilities/functions of the National Secretary and not the Deputy National Secretary to issue notice of NWC, NEC, CAUCUS and CONVENTION.”

“And all extant and relevant laws in the PDP constitution as amended in 2017, and the supreme court judgement, points to the fact that, Most Distinguished Senator Samuel Nnaemeka Anyanwu, as always, remains the National Secretary of PDP and in due time will issue the notice.”

He told  party leaders, members, and critical stakeholders that the meeting would not take place  as scheduled until issues affecting the party were resolved.

Northern leaders endorse Tinubu for 2027, back reforms in security, economy, governance

 The Northern Bridge Builders Forum, a coalition of respected leaders from the 19 northern states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), yesterday threw  its weight behind President Bola Tinubu’s administration and endorsed him for a second term in 2027. 

The forum commended his sweeping reforms in security, the economy, local government autonomy, and national unity.

 Speaking during a press conference at the Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja, the Convener of the forum, Senator Joel Danlami Ikenya, said the group, made up of eminent personalities from the three northern geopolitical zones, gathered to evaluate the impact of federal government policies on the region and the nation since President Tinubu assumed office on May 29, 2023.

 According to Senator Ikenya, who was flanked by his members, the Northern Bridge Builders Forum resolved to support the President’s reform agenda while also proposing key recommendations to address rising security concerns and economic pressures in the region.

 The forum acknowledged the administration’s strategic focus on national security, particularly in the northern states plagued by insurgents, bandits, and other criminal groups. 

It hailed the proposed establishment of Armed Forest Guards, now before the National Assembly, as a commendable move to combat insecurity in forested areas.

 However, the forum raised the  alarm over renewed deadly attacks in states like Borno, Zamfara, Benue, Plateau, Katsina, Sokoto, and Niger, warning that groups such as Boko Haram, ISWAP, and other criminal gangs appear to have regrouped and rearmed.

 “The resurgence of violence in our communities is alarming. The wanton destruction of lives, farms, and properties reinforces fears that terrorist groups are once again gaining ground,” Ikenya said. 

The forum praised President Tinubu’s economic reforms, describing them as bold and necessary.

 While acknowledging the hardship that followed the removal of fuel subsidy, they said the increased monthly allocations to states and repayment of Nigeria’s IMF debts were signs of economic progress.

They also lauded the President for stabilising the currency and attracting foreign investments, referencing praise from the British High Commissioner as evidence of growing international confidence in Nigeria’s economy.

“Though the economic reforms have caused some short-term pain, we believe they lay the foundation for a more prosperous and stable Nigeria.

One of the key highlights of the forum’s deliberations was support for the implementation of local government autonomy. 

They hailed the Tinubu administration’s efforts, especially its successful legal battles at the Supreme Court to uphold the constitutional rights of local governments to financial independence.

The forum urged state governors to comply fully with the implementation, which they said would fast-track grassroots development and bring governance closer to the people.

The Northern Bridge Builders Forum applauded the President’s inclusive leadership style and efforts in promoting national cohesion across ethnic and religious lines.

 They described Tinubu’s approach as tolerant and dialogue-driven, citing the appointments of Vice President Kashim Shettima and SGF George Akume as symbols of northern inclusion in national leadership.

“The North is well represented and has confidence in the team Mr. President has assembled,” Senator Ikenya added.

In their final communiqué, the forum urged Nigerians to be patient and continue supporting the Tinubu administration’s reform agenda. 

They resolved to consolidate and sustain recent security gains, particularly in the North; urge the National Assembly to expedite the passage of the Armed Forest Guards Bill; provide timely farming inputs to improve food productivity; and introduce short-term economic relief measures to cushion the current hardship.

The forum publicly endorsed President Tinubu for a second term, citing his “visionary leadership and courage in initiating necessary reforms.”

“In view of the efforts so far, the Northern Bridge Builders Forum unequivocally endorses Mr. President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR, for a second term in 2027 to continue the good works he is doing,” Ikenya declared.

[pThe Nation]

Marte, the headquarters of the eponymous Local Government Area (LGA) on the western floodplains of the Lake Chad in Borno State, north-east Nigeria, has been a site of lingering contest between Nigerian troops on the one hand and Islamist insurgents of Boko Haram on the other for over one decade. At 3,154 km2, Marte LGA is just a little under the size of all of Lagos state. 

For a while between 2014 and 2015, Boko Haram reportedly bivouacked in Marte on its way to its more permanent operational headquarters in the Sambissa Forest. For much of 2015, control of the town exchanged hands in succession between the Nigerian Army and Boko Haram. Around May 2015, Boko Haram reportedly took back the city from the Nigerian troops who had held it for three months from February of the same year. 

For the most part, Nigeria has controlled Marte thereafter with the exception of a brief duration in 2021, when the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) temporarily visited havoc upon a military base in Marte. 

All that appears to have changed recently. Around Monday, 12 May 2025, Islamist insurgents reportedly attacked the Forward Operating Base of the 153rd Task Force Battalion in Marte, resulting in considerable carnage. Sources familiar with the early morning attack reported that “over 10 soldiers were killed and hundreds of personnel deserted. The (terrorists) burnt down armoured tanks and made away with arms and ammunition.” The beleaguered governor of Borno State, Babagana Zulum, has been left appealing to his ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to ensure that Marte does not fall back into the hands of Boko Haram and its allies.

In the same week that they attacked Marte, the insurgents also attacked the 3rd Battalion base in Rann, in Kala Balge district, killing at least five soldiers and leaving at least four others reportedly injured. The intensity and scope of the attacks by Boko Haram in Borno State in the past six months led the state governor to raise an alarm last April, suggesting that the country was “losing ground” in the fight against Islamist terror. 

National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, a retired assistant inspector-general of the Nigeria Police Force, who has run for and is credibly rumoured to retain ambitions for another tilt at the presidency, ostensibly failed to get the governor’s memorandum. Addressing the National Summit, so-called, of the APC, the NSA claimed to have killed 13,543 Boko Haram elements in the first two years of the administration and recovered over 11,000 arms from them. He notably did not mention the haul of arms the insurgents have been busy harvesting from Nigerian military formations. Over the same period, he claimed, “124,408 Boko Haram fighters and their families” also surrendered.

It is unfortunate that the ruling party has chosen to make national security a party political matter. It is even more tragic that the wannabe political opposition has allowed them to get away with it. The result is a vacuum of leadership in the security sector filled and fed with an atrocious body count of Nigerian casualties whose death and suffering barely register on the priorities of the people supposed to protect the country, its people and communities. 

The central problem is a failure of strategy. To understand this, it is necessary to explain that the presidency is many jobs in one. A president is – among other things – party leader, chief marketer of the country, head of government, and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Every one of these roles of the president can be delegated except the last. As commander-in-chief, the president sets the security strategy. 

For over 50 years, Nigeria’s national security strategy docked onto the neighbourhood of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). There was good reason for that. The country’s northern boundaries feed into the southern rim of the Sahel. With Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger to its north as founding members of ECOWAS, the country could count solidly on friendly neighbours as buffers against the historical brutalities of Sahelian violence. 

This understanding was at the heart of the transformation of the ECOWAS from an economic integration arrangement envisioned at its foundation in 1975 into a collective security arrangement in 1981. For much of the period since then, this arrangement held together. 

However, following the military coup in Niger Republic in July 2023, the country lost its marbles and decided to bite its nose in order to spite its sovereign face. On behalf of ECOWAS, President Tinubu committed the blunder of threatening to invade another member of the ECOWAS collective security arrangement. He alone knows what he was thinking.

The hubris of President Tinubu’s handling of the coup crisis in Nigeria is inexplicable. With a landmass of over 1.267 million km2, Niger Republic constituted about 22% of the 5.8 million km2  of the landmass of ECOWAS. The idea of an invasion of the country in order to militarily restore the ousted administration of President Mohamed Bazoum was always worse than bluster; it was plainly unviable.

In invoking war against Niger on behalf of ECOWAS, President Tinubu managed in one stroke to violate the prohibition against the use of force in international law; create the impression that Nigeria’s Sahelian neighbours did not matter; and suggest that France was a more important factor to Nigeria’s neighbourhood strategy than its immediate neighbours.

That much should have been evident to the people who thought up the idea. But the damage was beyond a resort to fantastic bluster, where hard-nosed rationality was needed. The costs have been prohibitive and rising; and the result has been devastating. 

In September 2023, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger created their own collective security arrangement and orbited off into the realm of Russia’s mercenary diplomacy. Since then, the consequences for Nigeria have been stark. In the period since September 2023, and despite the fantasies of NSA Nuhu Ribadu, Nigeria’s internal security situation has disintegrated into mayhem. 

In the north-west states of Sokoto and Kebbi, a new terror group, Lakurawa, has taken root. South of Kebbi, in Kwara State, another new terror group, Mahmuda, runs murderously rampant. To the east of Kwara in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, vast swathes of territory and communities in Benue, Nasarawa, and Plateau states are being emptied in intense attacks credited to so-called “foreign herdsmen.”

The politicians are reluctant to acknowledge what is obvious and the soldiers have been trained not to say that their commander-in-chief has left them in an insecurity pickle. But that is exactly what President Tinubu has done with the way he has brought about the transformation of ECOWAS from an integrated security arrangement for the region into a rump of an association of Atlantic West African States (AAWAS). 

The evidence is everywhere in the rising casualty count, which NSA Nuhu Ribadu will not acknowledge. According to monitoring coalition, Nigeria Mourns, 4,416 people were killed in atrocities in Nigeria in 2023. In 2024, President Tinubu’s first full year in office, the number rose 21.2% to 5,353, including 308 security personnel. 88.5% of these killings occurred in Northern Nigeria. Another 5,171 were abducted. 

Behind these numbers are people, families, communities, traumas that both Nuhu Ribadu and the ruling APC will not allow Nigerians to see, hear, acknowledge or mourn. They are the experiences of loss and indignity that the dissolute wannabes in the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) cannot bring themselves to ask the APC to account for or acknowledge. 

On 28 May, the civic Coalition Nigeria Mourns invites all Nigerians wherever they may be to spare a thought for all these victims and their loved ones in a National Day of Mourning (NDoM) “to rage, resist, and demand action from the government” in memory of all who have been killed or violated. A more responsible government would not have waited for a group of unarmed, unelected citizens to remind them.

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has released the results of its resit examination for candidates affected by its 2025 UTME technical error.

The results from JAMB’s original 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination were released on May 9.

An analysis showed that more than 78 per cent of candidates scored less than 200 points out of the 400 maximum points obtainable.

JAMB undertook a review in response to public protests and uncovered a major “technical error”.

On May 14, Ishaq Oloyede, JAMB registrar, said that the results of 379,997 candidates across 157 centres were affected.

He cited faulty server updates that prevented candidate responses from being uploaded during the first three days of the exam.

Oloyede said the problem, which was caused by one of its technical service providers, went undetected before the results were released.

JAMB conducted a resit exam for those affected in Lagos and the south-east, starting from May 16 and extending beyond May 19.

The results of that resit were released on Sunday, May 25, after extensive stakeholder consultation.

Of the 336,845 candidates scheduled for the resit, JAMB said 21,082 were absent.

The board said performance analysis remains consistent with those from the past twelve years of UTME.

More to follow…

[The Cable]

UNTIL the metamorphosis of Governor Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) last month, the latter never saw anything good and reassuring in his almost two years in office. The governor, his former party, PDP, and the APC were at daggers drawn practically over any policy or action the Oborevwori government took.

The APC took joy in pounding him from all corners.

Bombardment

 The APC’s Publicity Secretary, Valentine Onojeghuo, expressed disappointment over what his party described as the deteriorating state of infrastructure, governance, and social welfare in the state in a statement early this year.

The party noted that the state, under Oborevwori’s leadership, had witnessed a dramatic stalling of key projects, failure to deliver on crucial promises, and a general lack of the expected vision for sustainable progress despite receiving a mind-boggling federal allocation.

The statement read in part, “Deltans have been left in despair as their hopes for a better future continue to fade and now look like a distant mirage.

“The Delta APC notes that one of the key areas of concern includes infrastructure decay. “Presently, the state’s roads, especially in rural areas, are in deplorable condition as promises of road reconstruction and maintenance remain unfulfilled, leaving residents to contend with the daily struggle of impassable roads that hinder economic activities and the mobility of citizens.

“Furthermore, the education sector is in crisis as the educational institutions in the state are grappling with outdated facilities and a lack of support.

“The failure of the administration of Governor Oborevwori to invest adequately in schools and teachers is pushing the education sector into further decline, robbing our children of the quality education they rightly deserve.

“The health sector suffers from abject neglect; despite numerous promises to improve healthcare, our hospitals and clinics continue to suffer from inadequate staffing, poor facilities, and a lack of essential drugs and equipment.

“The lives of ordinary Deltans are now at risk, yet the Oborevwori administration has shown little or no interest in prioritizing this fundamental area.

“It is becoming clear to the people of Delta State that grand promises made by Governor Oborevwori during the campaigns are now gone with the wind, as so far, there has been little to show for them. 

“From job creation to improving security, the current administration has failed to live up to its commitments, leaving many wondering if there was nothing more than empty rhetoric.

April 30, also said, “We wish to categorically state that with his entry into the APC, Governor Sheriff Oborevwori assumes the position of the leader of the party in Delta State. This position is not subject to debate or contention.”

Referencing the Vice President Kashim Shettima’s remarks at the defection ceremony as affirmation of the governor’s new status, which, it said, was “authoritative, binding and final,” he said, “Delta APC finds it strange, arrogant and reprehensible for any individual to continue to arrogate or to parade himself as the leader of the Party in Delta State in clear opposition to the present reality.

“Anyone who seeks to undermine this position… will face severe sanctions from the party”.

‘It was all propaganda’

Speaking to Sunday Vanguard, a former Publicity Secretary of the PDP in Delta State, Chief Sunday Apah, said the development showed “all that they (APC) were doing was propaganda to score popularity.

Apah went on: “They were aware that the scorecard of Governor Oborevwori is huge; it is something that nobody can contend with.

“You see, since the defection, they have all been singing a new tune, which is that Governor Oborevwori is a good man, he is the best governor. We knew that what they were doing was just propaganda.”

Criticisms made Oborevwori do more –Ahon, CPS

 Chief Press Secretary to Oborevwori, Sir Festus Ahon, however, noted, “There is no permanent friend, no permanent enemy in politics. What is permanent is interest. 

“Today, we are one in one political family under the platform of the APC, led by His Excellency, Rt. Hon Sheriff Oborevwori, the Governor of Delta State.

“We are united because we want to build enduring legacies for our people. We want our people to feel the impact of democracy.

 ”Our decision to align with the government at the centre under the platform of the APC was for the collective interest of our people.

 ”While they criticized us in the past, we did not take offence. “We saw such criticism as a call for us to look inwards and improve on what we were doing for Deltans.

“We were not dissuaded by the criticisms, rather, we were strengthened by the criticisms because we are determined to govern and bring the dividends of democracy to the doorstep of every Deltan.

 ”So, today, we are in one political family, devoid of tendencies or faction, and we expect that more dividends will come to our people. We will build enduring legacy projects for our people”. 

[Vanguard]

Blood-thirsty jackasses are on the prowl in the digital forest of the world wide web. They prey on the gullibility of their captive audience. Nothing sells like bad news, and that is what they have aplenty. Through the instrumentality of various apps otherwise designed for positively creative ends, they bend reality or create something attuned to their depravity to spread fear, horror, hate, and, ultimately set the stage for massacre or ethnic cleansing.

Flashback

It is a trend that started about one decade ago but gained primacy around 2018 when the Nigerian police highlighted a case in which incendiary images on Facebook fuelled more than a dozen killings in Plateau State. That part of the country had been on the boil for several months with horrendous killings of farmers and rural folk by marauding bands of militias, some of whom were suspected to be foreigners. Ethnic profiling of the Fulani tribe was rife.

In the midst of the grisly sacking of villages and the attendant loss of lives, some e-jackasses saw an opportunity to escalate things by posting fake photographs of imaginary victims butchered by imaginary Fulani warriors. One picture showed a baby with open machete wounds across his head and jaw. Another showed a man’s skull hacked open. There were pictures of huts burnt to the ground. Other graphic posts showed bloodied corpses dumped in mass graves, and children murdered in their beds.

The e-jackasses who posted the images claimed that there was a massacre underway in the Gashish district of Plateau State in which Fulani Muslims were killing thousands of Christians from the state’s Berom ethnic group. The truth is that there was actually an attack which claimed many Berom lives in that area but the photographs posted on Facebook had nothing to do with that particular incident.

According to the BBC Africa Eye, “Some of the most incendiary images circulating at the time had nothing to do with the violence in Gashish. The image of the baby, which was shared with a call for God to “wipe out the entire generation of the killers of this innocent child”, had first appeared on Facebook months earlier. The video in which the man’s head was cut open did not even come from Nigeria, it was recorded in Congo-Brazzaville nearly a thousand miles away, in 2012.

So, what the e-jackasses preyed on was the power of outrage. The aim was to shock the consumers of their fib to such an extent as to become part of an unthinking mob. It was bad enough that some children were killed in the Plateau crisis, but the sense of abominable savagery was heightened when a fake photograph of babies divided into halves with the use of a meat cleaver was shared to millions of Facebook users.

If you didn’t bother to trace the source of the photos, you’d think that they were of the plateau killings. And whereas the extra-legal killing of any human being is condemnable, the deliberate inflammation of passion with the use of fake graphics to activate a mob is totally reprehensible.

Since then, there has been a discernible pattern of revving up tension by internet jackals who dispense journalistic carrion in the name of “Breaking News”. The more horrific the photos, the greater the mileage made by the posts— and the wider the net of victims both of the garbage posts and the ensuing inter-tribal and inter-religious mayhem.

Imaginary Victim

Only recently, a tendentious piece of fake news trended massively on social media alleging that one 22-year-old Zainab Muhammadu who had recently converted to Christianity had been arrested by the Muslim establishment and was due to be tried under the Islamic Sharia law. The combustible story generated nationwide indignation, particularly in the southern parts. Against the background of historic contestations between the two major religious groups, public commentators warned against the opening of another war front that could compound the country’s security situation.

An online news medium had quoted ‘family sources’ as saying that Zainab’s crime was converting to Christianity. According to the report, Zainab’s journey of faith started when she met one Pastor Samuel, a National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member posted to her area. However, when the authorities discovered her change to Christianity, they ordered her arrest.

According to the story, the trial was to be held the following Friday. Many legal experts and human rights advocates decried the development as a gross violation of a Nigerian citizen’s constitutional right to religious freedom.

One of the religious groups that lapped up the story is the Christian Rights Agenda (CRA) which promptly issued a statement fin which it called on President Bola Tinubu to immediately intervene to save the supposed victim. The body noted that, “In most states of the Northwest and Northeast, government officials, including emirs, engage in massive forceful conversion of Christians, especially women, young and underaged girls, but here they are now trying to murder Miss Mohammed who willingly converted to Christianity.”

The organisation also drew attention to the incidence of terrorism and banditry and how the twin evils had led to the forceful conversion of Christian girls to Islam by the terrorists. They reminded the nation of the well known case of Leah Sharibu who is still being held by the terrorists for refusing to renounce her faith.

Some other Christians also rose in defence of their faith, reminding the nation of the case of Deborah Samuel who was alleged by some of her schoolmates to have committed blasphemy against Islam and was stoned to death and then incinerated in plain sight. Her suspected killers were arrested and charged with bailable offences following which they were eventually acquitted for lack of diligent prosecution.

Bomb Defused

The Zamfara State government was mindful of the time bomb in its hands and moved fast to douse the tension by declaring that the Zainab story was false. The government said it had checked with all relevant authorities and security agencies to verify the authenticity of the story and also confirmed with the Grand Khadi of the Zamfara Sharia Court of Appeal regarding any similar cases. There was no such case before any Shari’a court in Zamfara State.

Sulaiman Idris, the spokesman for Governor Dauda Lawal, said the wide dissemination of the fabricated story exemplified yellow journalism. He urged the relevant security agencies to investigate the source of the “misguided story” which, in his view, was designed “to create significant religious tension” in Zamfara State.

It turned out that the photograph used to illustrate the imaginary victim of religious intolerance was that of an American citizen who lives in Texas, Ms Aliaa Reeves, who has probably never heard of Zamfara State all her life and is certainly not on trial in the state. Her photograph was simply pinched from a social media site and used to illustrate the imaginary victim.

So, if the situation ballooned into an inter-faith conflagration with the usual killings, arson, displacement and human misery, it would all have been in pursuit of a lie!

Why do we do these terrible things to ourselves?

It is time that e-jackasses in news outlets and the social media who enjoy their grisly chortle at the expense of our collective rest of mind, stepped back to rethink their pastime. It’s easy to start a bushfire but when the wind takes over, it may consume the pyromaniac too.

The politics of 2027 is now fully upon us and has even become the only game in town. It is what explains the sustained surge in open and disguised political activities right from the beginning of 2025. It is the driving force behind the moves and the counter-moves by the leading political actors. It is, simultaneously, the aminating spirit behind the feverish quest for an opposition coalition and the unceasing wave of defections to and hasty endorsements within the ruling party.

The 2027 electioneering period has been brought forward, informally and regrettably, by more than a year. Politicking, the all-consuming passion of Nigerian politicians and the always excitable segments of the populace, has crowded out all else. And even this far out, the line has been drawn: all things being equal, the next presidential race is likely to be between President Bola Tinubu, verbally anointed on Thursday as the sole presidential aspirant of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and whoever emerges as the candidate of whatever party is adopted as the unified opposition platform for the next general election. A further caveat is appropriate here: things are not always equal in politics—almost always, there is an X factor, some dramatic twist.  

Nevertheless, it appears we are set for another tantalising electoral contest. It may end up as a battle royale or as an anti-climax. As expected, leaders of the two groups are convinced they have a clear path to victory. But it has been demonstrated time and again that politics is anything but a science. In politics, anything is possible, especially when there is substantial amount of time and complex dynamics at play. There is a possibility that the opposition, if they get and keep their act together, might muster an upset, as we witnessed in the 2015 presidential election. There is also a possibility that the incumbent, if it sustains its totalising momentum, may manage not just to limp over the line but to completely steamroll the opposition.

There is also a possibility that either of the parties may win or lose not solely on the basis of its own acumen but on account of what the opposing party does or does not do. Even when you control for the usual games that most of our politicians play to different extent, Party A may win simply because Party B refuses to rise to the occasion. At this fuzzy but exciting point of the race, nothing is guaranteed. Our electoral history has shown, even if to different degrees of statistical significance, that an incumbent and a coalition candidate can win or lose. So, those getting over themselves about a predictable outcome based on the current state of play need to calm down a bit. The only certainty, now and eventually, is that only one winner will emerge. Both (or all) camps cannot win.

The consensus among the clear-eyed members of the opposition camp is that President Tinubu is vulnerable but formidable. They are right on both counts. The degree may vary, but every Nigerian president who has stood for re-election since we embraced the presidential system in 1979 has been vulnerable. President Shehu Shagari was in 1983; President Olusegun Obasanjo was in 2003; President Goodluck Jonathan was in 2015; and President Muhammadu Buhari was in 2019. The reason is simple: elections are usually a referendum on the incumbent and most incumbents struggle in their first terms.

But Tinubu’s vulnerability is in a special class: he got elected in the first instance with a low margin (36.61% of the votes comparable only to Shagari’s 33.77% in 1979); Tinubu is widely perceived to have alienated the key actors and the zones that helped him to secure the needed numbers in 2023; and Tinubu’s signature reforms have unleashed the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades. His vulnerability differs in that it touches the vast majority of Nigerians where it matters most: in their pockets and their stomachs.

But the opposition is also right in seeing Tinubu as a formidable proposition—he is even more formidable now than when they first encountered him as a candidate in 2023. All incumbent presidents should be seen as formidable, until they are not. Incumbency confers many unearned advantages especially through untrammelled access to state resources and assets. This is more so in developing countries where almost everything revolves around the state and especially in a place like Nigeria where the central philosophy of politics is patronage. Tinubu, the first machine-politician to occupy the presidency, will definitely not be shy in pressing state apparatuses and the power of patronage to his advantage.

This is why the move for a coalition of parties and personalities makes eminent sense. To stand any chance against a vulnerable but formidable Tinubu, the leading opposition parties would need to band together. And from all indications, the African Democratic Congress (ADC), not the Social Democratic Party (SDP), is the favoured vehicle. Agreeing to a united platform on time is also good for the opposition. This was the path taken in 2012/2013 by APC, the only opposition coalition to have caused an upset in our presidential history. ADC hopes to be the next APC. Maybe. Maybe not.

Forming a coalition does not necessarily guarantee victory. Opposition parties have always tried to come together to enhance their electoral chances against the dominant, favoured or ruling party. They do this under different arrangements, mostly through alliances and mass migrations but sometimes through mergers. The arrangements sometimes hold but most times do not. The only time we didn’t see the move for a coalition of opposition parties was at a time when there was no need for such: during the stillborn Third Republic when the military decreed two political parties.

At the dawn of the current republic in 1999, the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and the All People’s Party (APP) worked out a quaint arrangement to pose a credible challenge to the favoured Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Chief Olu Falae, AD’s candidate, flew the flag of APP and had Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi of APP as running mate. Two parties banded against one, but the alliance still fell short. In the presidential poll, PDP secured victory in 27 states plus FCT, leaving the AD-APP alliance with only nine states (though the two parties had won the governorship elections in 14 states earlier—eight by APP and six by AD). So, while having a coalition is a necessary first step when up against a formidable candidate, it is neither enough nor the end goal. The end goal is having a winning coalition.

(As a quick aside, what we are witnessing is a potential battle of coalitions on both sides—the opposition banding together and the ruling party enhancing its size by swallowing the opposition. In this my coalition-is-bigger-than-yours face-off, both sides are angling and hoping for a winning coalition. There are those who contend that the election will be decided by the people not the politicians. True. But what this hopeful contention misses is that there is a reason our politicians put a lot of store on political structures: they are, until tested and overturned, the surest path to assembling a winning coalition.)

The opposition parties have some hurdles to scale to turn their emerging coalition into a winning coalition. The first hurdle is ensuring that the coalition does not fracture. It is an open secret that at least two of those holding the talks are priming to run for presidency: Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Mr. Peter Obi. Will either of them stay in the coalition if he does not or stand a chance of emerging or if he does not emerge as the presidential flagbearer? If whoever loses out opts to run on the platform of another party, then we are back to a three-way horserace which is likely to advantage the incumbent.

It has been mooted that the two could run together in the coalition party, as they did in 2019, with Atiku as the candidate and Obi as the running mate. This is an interesting proposition, underlaid with two assumptions. One, that Obi has an incentive to run as someone’s running mate. And two, that if he agrees to subsuming his interest in running at the top of the ticket, both personalities would retain the votes they secured separately in the 2023 presidential polls. Politics, Nigerian politics, does not necessarily yield to such neat arithmetic. This may be the definition of a non sequitur: assuming that all the northerners who voted for Atiku in 2023 (in heed of the your-own-is-your-own slogan) and the other northerners who currently believe their zones have been sidelined will all line up behind him to do just one term or that the bloc votes that Obi received as the candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in 2023 will be transferred to a ticket on which he is a running mate. But then in politics nothing is impossible.    

The next hurdle for the coalition will be how it handles the unwritten agreement about the rotation of power between the north and the south. In this wise, the coalition’s best shot will be to present a southerner who can do only one term so that the south can complete its two terms and the presidency returns to the north in the next electoral cycle. One approach will be to zone the presidency of the coalition to the south and ensure that the eventual candidate signs a public undertaking. But this is not likely to work, as it will always be difficult to stop an incumbent president from seeking for re-election. The other option is to go for a southerner who can serve only four years because he is term-barred. That naturally leads to President Jonathan. Though Jonathan has been speaking in proverbs lately, but it is doubtful that he has the stomach to take on an incumbent.

The last hurdle for the coalition will be selling itself creditably. It is not enough to assume that Nigerians all want Tinubu out or that they would vote for anyone but the incumbent. It is also not enough to assume that having all those who ran against Tinubu in 2023 in the same tent would automatically translate to an aggregation of the opposition votes of 2023 in 2027. Elections, our elections, do not lend themselves to such neat or automatic aggregation.  Equally, it is not enough to think the only way Tinubu can win is to steal or buy the votes.

They have to make a compelling case about what they stand for, not just who they stand against. That case would not be made by just railing against the incumbent or threatening regional veto or going on ad nauseum about the supposed death of democracy or the danger of a one-party state. Neither will that case be made by claiming a faux sainthood or by coming across as just a coalition of the disgruntled and the displaced who want to use Nigerians to exact a revenge for them. They need to differentiate themselves by showing that they have an alternative vision of politics, that they are offering a different approach to governance and they are likely to do things remarkably differently in the same circumstances. And the task of differentiation will be harder if the hardship in the land begins to ease. There might be a sizeable number of Nigerians ready to give Tinubu another chance or just be willing to wait out another four years instead of betting on another person.

These are not insurmountable hurdles. More than what the incumbent does, how the opposition handles these hurdles will go a long way to determine whether a second upset is probable or a coronation is inevitable. This doesn’t mean Tinubu is a passive player or that he would surrender all the cards to the opposition. It also does not mean that Tinubu is home and dry, even with all the showy endorsements and the cards stacked against the opposition. He has a lot of work to do to stand a credible chance himself. Incumbency, as he will know by now, is not all advantages. It is equally a burden. He has more work to do than welcoming or seducing migrants from the other parties. He still has plenty work to do in the plenty time remaining. But the opposition is in a position to make it easier or harder for him. At this moment, the ball is with the opposition but in its half of the pitch. It can keep the ball, be overpowered to lose it or gift it. We will keep a close eye on this prematurely flagged-off game.

Instead of dissipating energy on how to turn Nigeria into a one-party state, politicians have been told to focus attention on arresting the worsening poverty among Nigerians.

They were also advised to put their energy into containing the security challenges and other problems confronting the country.

These admonitions came from senior lawyers and political scholars who weighed in on the concern about Nigeria becoming a one-party state, noting that as much as it’s not illegal, such a scenario was not feasible.

They argued that the peculiarities and nature of our political class will make a one-party system untenable, adding that the Constitution guarantees freedom of association.

In exclusive interviews with LEADERSHIP Sunday, they, however, expressed concern about the quality of politics in Nigeria, adding that idealism, which ought to drive the political system, is dead.

They blamed the leadership of the National Assembly for condoning the level of defections witnessed at the legislature.

Leaders of opposition parties in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) had accused the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of causing rifts within their folds in order to make Nigeria a one-party state.

This accusation followed mass defections from opposition parties into the ruling APC, largely on the grounds of internal rifts in their previous platforms.

Some media reports indicate that no fewer than 300 opposition figures had dumped the PDP and other platforms for the APC since 2023.

While most of the political migrations have taken place in the federal and state legislature, the collapse of PDP structures into APC in Delta State, led by Governor Sheriff Oborevwori, is the highest profile defection yet.

Akwa Ibom State Governor Umo Eno is expected to join the APC soon, and speculations of more high-profile defections to the ruling party are rife.

However, the APC national chairman, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje’s recent favourable disposition to a one-party state arrangement has earned him some criticism.

President Bola Tinubu, at a recent party event, said one party system was not suitable for a democracy; but in another breath he said more defectors were welcome to the ruling party, arguing that the freedom of association was guaranteed in the constitution.
Nigeria currently runs a multi-party system with 18 registered political parties.

One-Party State Legal But Difficult To Achieve – SANs, Others

Prominent Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Dr. Ahmed Raji, has said the possibility of Nigeria becoming a one-party state is not illegal but may be difficult to achieve.

Raji and other lawyers, who spoke with LEADERSHIP Sunday, said freedom of association for every citizen is guaranteed in the Constitution.

According to them, it is highly welcome if a one-party state brings development to the country.
Raji explained that if someone does not find anything attractive at a party, he is free to move to another one.

He said, “The freedom of association is a key fundamental right recognised under the 1999 constitution. If it is the desire of all Nigerians to be in one party in exercise of their right to associate, so be it.

“It is legal, and in cases where there is only one candidate contesting for a position, the constitution has prescribed a required threshold. Therefore, the scenario is legal and within the contemplation of the Constitution. But is it feasible in our circumstances?

“It may be a bit difficult to achieve in a country like ours having regards to her peculiarities and nature of our political class.

“People have the freedom of association. They can move to another party, if they don’t have anything attractive in other parties.

“The 1999 Constitution already anticipated it. Where you have one candidate, there is a number of votes you must get to be declared winner. It is within the right of the people to associate with any political party of their choice.”

Another senior advocate, Abdul Balogun, who agreed with Raji that Nigeria’s becoming a one-party state may be difficult to achieve, said the political elite should focus on addressing the abject poverty in the land.

“We can’t be talking about the country becoming a one-party state because there is no strong and credible opposition in place.

“Nigerians are crying and dying of hunger, the politicians are not bothered because all they care about is the country becoming a one-party state.”

Similarly, another lawyer, Barrister Oghenovo Otemu, said a one-party state is welcome if it brings about development in the country.

While he noted that defections by politicians do not make the country a one-party state, he said, “Nigeria is not practising a one-party state and even if we are practising a one-party state, it’s not a big deal. China is a one-party state.

“There are people who are in APC who are defecting to other parties. There are people who are in PDP who are also defecting to other parties, so the country is not being turned into a one-party state.”

He blamed Senate President Godswill Akpabio, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Tajudeen Abbas and the leaderships of state assemblies for allowing defected lawmakers to remain in the National Assembly.

He said it was the duty of the leadership of federal and state assemblies to declare the seats of defected lawmakers vacant to fast-track the cases against the defectors in court.

“The way the law is couched, when a lawmaker defects, it is the duty of the Senate President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Speaker, State House of Assembly to declare the seats of such lawmakers vacant.

“Most of the defections are being made to the political party of the presiding officers responsible for declaring the seats vacant.

“If I’m defecting to your side in the National Assembly, for example, I don’t expect you to declare my seat vacant. It will not be politically correct to do so for the presiding officers.”

One-party State Would Require Legislation – Saliu

Meanwhile, the president of the Nigeria Political Scientists Association (NPSA), Prof. Hassan Saliu, has allayed the fear of Nigerians about the country drifting into a one-party state.
He said that a one-party state is a legal attainment, noting that there is no law in place yet to say every Nigerian should belong to the APC.

“If you recall in the past, when we had one-party state in Tanzania and all these places, they came through the legal process. And now there is no law before the National Assembly to say everybody must be in APC. But rather, we are seeing a tendency where one party is increasingly becoming dominant,” Saliu added.

Saliu said the politicians were defecting mainly for personal gains.

“The idealism behind politics, which is for development, is no longer fashionable in Nigeria. Every politician you see looks at his pocket. So, and since every business you put your money into, you expect some profits, therefore politicians keep on dancing around in order to satisfy their personal gain. There is no ideology propelling political activity in Nigeria.

Is there any difference between APC and PDP, or any difference between Labour Party and SDP? In terms of ideology, they seem to look alike.

“I was just reading a post where a member was saying that under the Second Republic, people knew what UPN stood for: free education and free health. NPN stood for housing for all and stuff like that. But now we don’t seem to have any of such tendencies. What you see is that a man can become a PDP man in the evening but tomorrow morning he’s in APC. There is no conversion process,” he said.

Nigeria too sophisticated for one-party rule – Pearse

Former lecturer at the University of Lagos and renowned public affairs analyst Dr Adetokunbo Pearse has described Nigeria’s political system as too sophisticated and dynamic for a one-party system.

The political scientist told LEADERSHIP Sunday that, ‘’All the pronouncements and the shenanigans and the tricks being played by President Bola Tinubu is intended to lead to one-party state; that is what he wants. However, the PDP is a formidable political party[L1] ; that it is not equal to APC does not mean the party is not strong.

‘’If you look at the National Assembly spread, the party has about 40 per cent and APC has about 58 per cent. In the House of Reps where APC has about 198 members, PDP has 108 members; unfortunately, Labour party has only 28 members and New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) has one or two members, that is why people think APC is so dominant.”

He said while APC is a strong political party right now, PDP is a very close second and Labour Party a distant third.

Pearse added that while PDP governors and elected members are joining APC, its members are not.

He cited a recent video where former Delta State governor, Senator Patrick Okowa, was booed by his people for joining the APC.

‘’They told Okowa they were not going with him, and they are going to stay in the PDP, and told him if he wants to join APC he should go alone. Some governors and individuals are going to APC, it does not mean members of the PDP are going into APC, let’s get that straight.”

He further said the coalition will also cause defections into their fold when they evolve into a political party.

‘’We can never have a one-party system; this is a very dynamic country, with a lot of people, a lot of contacts, nationally, internationally, a lot of intelligentsia. 2027 is a different ball game.”

He noted that a one-party system will lead to outright dictatorship and “a monopoly, where you don’t have a voice to voice your opinion.”

‘’In every direction it kills the country, that is why we don’t want it. Don’t forget this is a multi-ethnic, multi religious, multi-cultural nation of people. For us to have one party, it is going to lead to disaster,” he said.

One-party system fear not real – Dr Tavershima

Weighing in on the subject, a lecturer in the department of political science, Federal University of Kashere, Gombe State, Dr Terna Vincent Tavershima, has stated that the fear of one-party rule is not real.

He said it’s a creation of people who are not comfortable with the movement of political stalwarts from their parties to the major parties.

“We practise a multi-party system in this country and the constitution guarantees everybody the freedom of association and freedom of expression. To that extent, people are allowed to pitch tents with political parties that they feel will guarantee their interests at a material time. The fear of a one-party state is not tenable in Nigeria,” he said.

According to him, for a one-party rule to manifest, it has to be the only registered party like in China, where only one party was formally registered and recognised by the law of a country.

“What people are doing now is defecting to the APC to secure a second term in office, in the case of the governors, senators and House of Representatives members, who feel threatened that they might not get the ticket of their political parties that are housing them for now.”

Ruling party should brace for challenges – Dr Okeke

A political science lecturer at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, Dr Christian Okeke, also agreed that a one-party state is not feasible in such a complex and heterogeneous entity as Nigeria.

He, however, said there is nothing extraordinary in the present polity that the country has not passed through before.

“My belief is that the next general election will be shaped ultimately and remarkably by several factors that will give the ruling party some sleepless nights regardless of any mass exodus into it.

“To that extent, the goodwill it seems to be enjoying at the moment is something that it should not rejoice over but reflect upon.”

He nonetheless said the most important factor needed in deciding who wins or loses in 2027 is the electoral commission’s neutrality.

“The National Assembly must step in with stringent laws that criminalise electoral offences and guarantee the desired future for our elections. The commission must be forced to become a credible umpire,” Okeke said.

2027 politics has killed governance – Dr Garuba

Political scientist, Dr Dauda Garuba, considers the mass defections as the beginning of some of the dynamics towards the 2027 general election.

Garuba, who is also the director, Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD, West Africa), however said he was concerned that the politics of 2027 started too early and had relegated governance to the background.

“For me, this is the very earliest time since the return of democracy that people started talking of a second term just after one year. Even as I talk, it’s not up to two years of the present administration. I am worried about it due to the fact that governance is not on the table anymore, let alone the citizens in whose interest governance should work,” he said.

Saraki’s reconciliation team races to halt PDP’s bleeding

Meanwhile, the reconciliation committee led by former Senate President Abubakar Bukola Saraki is racing against time to stop the haemorrhaging of PDP members. This comes as the party prepares for the much anticipated National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting on Tuesday.

Saraki team met with Enugu State Governor Peter Mbah on Friday.

The Saraki committee was set up at an expanded meeting of PDP governors, their predecessors, and the party leadership to reconcile clashing interests over the national secretary position so that the party’s much-elusive National Executive Committee (NEC) could hold next Tuesday.

The deputy national secretary, Setonji was asked to act as national secretary, pending the resolution of the matter.

The South East zone had threatened to dump the party if its nominee for the contentious national secretary position was not accepted by the party.

The threat followed insinuations that the Saraki committee had backed the return of Senator Samuel Anyanwu as PDP national secretary, while he was rejected by the PDP leaders in the South East.

Last week, the PDP South East caucus resubmitted Hon Sunday Ude-Okoye’s name for the position, which was zoned to the region.

It was learnt that Saraki’s visit to Governor Mbah was to assuage the concern of South East leaders that the committee had already taken a position which favours Anyanwu’s return.

However, a party source confided in LEADERSHIP Sunday that the intervention of Saraki’s team “might be instrumental to the holding of NEC but not ultimately resolving the large crisis of confidence within the party which revolves around zoning, the next leadership of party, and the expulsion of anti-party elements within its fold.”

Meanwhile, Anyanwu, who enjoys the backing of a bloc loyal to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister, Nyesom Wike, has insisted he remains the PDP national secretary.

LEADERSHIP Sunday learnt that some of his supporters are gearing up to storm the NEC meeting venue, Wadata Plaza, to protest for Anyanwu to be recognised as national secretary.

I’m Not APC Proxy – Damagum

Meanwhile, the acting national chairman of the PDP, Ambassador Iliya Damagum, has dismissed allegations that he is an APC stooge.

Earlier in the year, critics alleged that Damagum secretly met with President Tinubu in London, framing a spin that he failed to address the internal crisis within PDP, which led to its weakened state as a leading opposition ahead of 2027.

But in an interview with BBC Hausa Service aired on Saturday and monitored by our correspondent in Bauchi, Damagum said, “I will never forgive those accusing me of working for APC. I never held a meeting with President Tinubu.”

He emphasised his unflinching loyalty and commitment to the PDP.

“I joined PDP in 1999. I have never defected to any political party since then. If I want to join the APC, I would have done that during Buhari’s tenure but I didn’t,” he insisted.

Commenting on the allegation that his close cordial relationship with FCT minister, Nyesom Wike, reflects his incompetence to lead the party, Damagum said, “They know and have interacted with Wike before I do.”

“My only crime is that I refused to allow his opponents within the party to antagonise him.”

The acting national chairman expressed concern over the rate of defection from the PDP, insisting that the party leadership is working to mend the divisions within its ranks and halt more members from dumping the party.

The Nigerian National Assembly, NASS, has passed for second reading, a bill which seeks to compel registered voters to compulsory cast their votes during elections. The goal of the bill is to bring to an end, low voter turn-out in Nigerian elections. The posture on its face value appears valid because of the total 93.47 million registered voters, in the country, only 24.9 million persons voted in the last presidential and National Assembly elections- a figure which represents a meagre 26.72 percent voter turnout, the lowest since the return to democracy in 1999. It is however interesting to note that our law makers think that coercion rather than voter education is a better approach to the subject. But then, they have made no effort to persuade anyone on it.

I disagree with the legislators because they should have started by convening a public hearing onthe factors that are dissuading voters from participating in voting day events. To move straight to making a law to compel citizens to vote which contradicts the constitutional provisions on freedom of speech, movement and association suggests that our law makers think they can make just any law no matter how obnoxious meaning that they only represent themselves and not the people. Before reviewing the arguments already canvassed by lawyers against the move, I am convinced that the issue at stake is not justabout law.Without any law 34.74 percent of voters participated in the 2019 elections. Why did it drop to 26.72 percent in 2023? Can law alone account it?

Those who claim to represent the people ought to know the basic grievances of the same people without much ado. It is therefore unfortunate that the current legislators think that our people are so docile that as the imperialist did during colonial rule, the average black man needs to be whipped to submission. There are Nigerians who are yet to get their voters card since 2015. If each legislator had gone to INEC to know his constituents who have any such constraint and assisted them to overcome it, such voters would not only have become ambassadors of the need to vote, the action would have reflected what it takes to appropriately represent a people. The same is true of voters whose cards had worn out that have to go through a mountain of administrative bureaucracy to regain a clean card.

Perhaps, the most important administrative issue with our elections is the so-calledlow voter turnout. The real problem everyone is pretending not to see is the existence of a bloated register. In the 70s some experts suggested that the total number of registered voters in Nigeria is less than half of the announced figure. On November 5, 2018, INEC said it had removed over 300,000 names from its voter register. Then, in 2022, INEC chair, Yakubu Mahmood said”nearly 45 per cent of completed registrations nationwide were invalid, rising to as high as 60 per cent or more in some states, and that this infraction happened in all the states of the federation.”This revelation speaks for itself.

With such a figure is it possible for elections not to have a low turn-out against the backdrop of a bloated register? What has INEC done to the call by Auwal Musa Rafsanjani the Chairman, Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) that officials found wanting in the registration of underage persons be sanctioned? If our legislators are truly desirous of resolving the problems of low turn-out, it should have been more concerned with strengthening INEC’sposition on the need to make a law for the establishment of elections offences tribunal that would deter all types of election malpractices. That is the way forward rather than the decision to make a law that compels everyone to vote. To make matters worse, no effort has been made to create a convenient environment for voting. For example, many voters still have to walk long distances to their voting centresto vote.

The role which political leaders have continued to play in fabricating bloated voters register for the nation is most unfortunate. What they do is to target non-existent figures and work towards them. In 2019, in the Northwest alone, women and youth leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) rose from their meeting to strategize on how to deliver victory to the party in the zone, saying that, they will mobilize 15 million votes for the then President Muhammadu Buhari during the 2019 elections. In 2015, President Goodluck Jonathan’s admirers and ministers went from one stadium to another in different parts of the country counting the number of votes their members would cast. In both cases, the estimated figures of votes were higher than the number of voters in the INEC register. Why will we not have low voter turn out when the bench mark is fictitious? 

If we leave the issue of logic to law, there are more dissenting and articulate voices. First, is the Nigerian Bar Association which has come out forcefully against the proposed bill seeking to amend the Electoral Act 2022 to make voting compulsory for all eligible Nigerians. In a strongly-worded statement, NBA President Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN, described the bill which prescribes fines of up to N100.000 or jail terms for citizens who fail to vote as “an unconstitutional affront to civil liberties”warning that the move violates constitutional freedoms and undermines democracy.According to Osigwe democracy is not sustained by coercion, rather it “thrives on consent, participation, and trust. The moment citizens are forced to vote under the threat of imprisonment, the entire essence of free and fair elections collapses.”

On his part, human rights activist, Femi Falana SAN argued that the proposed amendment was “an unnecessary and dangerous distraction” from the real challenges facing Nigeria’s democracy. Falana argues that compulsory voting is not enough adding that criminalizing voter abstention violates fundamental human rights and misdiagnoses the problem of electoral apathy. He therefore called on the law makers to desist from fixing democracy by criminalizing dissent or forcing participation through fear of punishment. What the lawyers have said makes a lot of sense because if the real issue of voter apathy is to be pursued, government needs to examine why people are not voting.Instead of penalizing non-voters, government should address the root causes of voter apathy, including electoral violence, vote-buying, and weak electoral institutions.

We must begin from the basics of mass mobilization which indicates that citizen engagement must be inspired. It can’t be forced. The revamped National Orientation Agency NOA which has an office in every local government area should be commissioned to deploy its weekly mood of the nation report towards the identification of issues raised by the people on what voting means to them. NOA being an agency mandated to deal with citizen engagement should then proceed to design relevant strategies for value reorientation to tackle observed complaints. When it comes to electoral violence, NOA should get the buy-in of the law enforcement agencies on how the people can be enlightened on new approaches to the subject.

The question of the autonomy of the election management board is a major one. For some time now, it has become an open secret that the ruling party nominates its members to serve at the Independent National Electoral Commission as election managers especially resident electoral commissioners. Apart from the fact that it is illogical for a member of the competing teams in a game to serve as referee, it also offends our constitution which states that INEC officials must not have been involved in partisanship. Why those appointing their party members cannot see the futility of the act is shocking. During its days in power, the Peoples Democratic Party PDP did same but listened to public opinion and recalled such politicians from office. APC does not seem to be persuaded on that.

The controversial bill which is the subject of today’s article is particularly significant because it is sponsored by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen. It is important to appeal to him as a leader not to allow himself to be remembered as one who introduced coercive laws into Nigeria’s democracy. With his strong academic background as the first doctorate degree holder to be elected to the office of Speaker, he has every opportunity to write his name in gold; a feat that cannot be achieved if he remains associated with authoritarianism. There is no better time than now to bow to public opinion and drop the detestable compulsory voting law in a country where democracy is yet to be institutionalized. 

“Telling the truth and accepting the truth has been our major problem in Nigeria. Some people will never tell you the truth when you are in power; and honestly, many of us in power also do not want to hear the truth” – Professor Babagana Zulum, Governor of Borno State, 2021.

Insecurity has been politicised for too long for our own good.

Borno was under the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, when Boko Haram first intruded on our national life. So, the Yar’Adua/Jonathan governments treated it with kid gloves until the kidnap of all the girls in a school in Chibok opened our eyes, as well as those of the world, to the extent of the problem.

The problem has remained intractable till today.

The change from PDP to the All Progressives Congress, APC, in 2015, has actually made the situation worse for everyone in Nigeria.

Buhari relied more on denial, falsehood and propaganda rather than any serious effort to check the menace.

His spokesmen frequently informed us about how Boko Haram had been decimated – invariably contrary to the evidence.

The situation with official reports has not improved much even now.

Meanwhile, it is becoming increasingly clear that insecurity, at least in Borno State, is a lot worse than what Nigerians had been led to believe.

A few reports will help.

‘Boko Haram raids 2 military formations in Borno, kills 5 soldiers, injures 6.’

‘Soldiers flee after Boko Haram raid on Borno base…’

‘How B/Haram killed 90 farmers in Borno in 5 months’ – Recent reports, May, 2025.

There was an attack on May 12, 2025, on the 153 Task Force Battalion in Marte LGA.

During that engagement, insurgents killed and captured Nigerian soldiers, looted the armoury and destroyed what they could not carry away.

Earlier in May, an attack on the 27 Task Force Brigade, located at Buni Yadi, also led to the killing of soldiers and destruction of military assets.

In what might appear like an alliance of forces, Boko Haram and ISWAP forces have been reported by survivors of carrying out joint attacks.

From all indications, it would appear that the area around Lake Chad had been effectively captured by insurgents who have blown up bridges and planted explosives on highways to prevent the Nigerian Army from mounting any counter-offensive at the moment.

ARMY’S RESPONSE NOT REASSURING

“We have no choice but to contain insecurity, but, if we don’t, at some point, we may not have a country to live in” – Chief of Army Staff, General Oluyede.

Apart from stating the obvious, the COAS had made an earlier revelation in which he talked about “fire from the Sahel region [which] will consume Nigeria – if urgent steps are not taken.” Who will or should take the urgent steps was left unsaid.

For that matter, the steps need to be taken were not also mentioned.

But, the Defence Headquarters had declared that the mayhem in Plateau and Benue states are being perpetrated by foreign Fulani herdsmen.

The Minister of Defence, Mohammed Badaru, had been deflecting widespread perception that insurgents now possess superior fire power than Nigerian forces – in a clear demonstration that those who hold the keys to our ultimate survival don’t want to hear the truth. Several retired officers have pointed out the technological gap.

“We are living in a world of high tech warfare”, said one of them while implying that the Nigerian forces might be lagging behind insurgents – irrespective of whether they are foreigners or home-grown.

One concerning matter that the FG, the armed forces, the National Security Adviser and the National Assembly had ignored is the fate of the 300, 000, or was it 30,000, repentant Boko Haram killers Governor Zulum unilaterally returned to their homes – or so he claimed.

GOV ZULUM CONNECTION IN NEW ASSAULT ON BORNO

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions” – Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Cistercian Abbot in the 12th century. Because Zulum might not want to hear the truth, this article is directed at the officers and entities which can hold him responsible for the total breakdown of security which has occurred in Borno State. The governor has, in the recent past, announced the release of 300,000 (or 30,000) “repentant” Boko Haram terrorists as one of his outstanding achievements in office in the last six years.

Nobody in Nigerian history has ever admitted to undermining the security of the entire nation to that extent before; and, remarkably, neither President Buhari nor President Tinubu had ever addressed the issues raised by this terrifying admission.

Zulum should have been stopped before he had done the damage now unfolding.

From information available to me, he is not a professor on any subject relating to warfare, armed forces strategic studies, insurgents or treatment of captured enemy soldiers or those who surrendered.

Obviously, he had never heard that deception is part of war – symbolised by The Trojan Horse.

He certainly has not read that “every time you negotiate with a terrorist, you become their accomplice” (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p 244). Perhaps, if he had asked somebody to conduct the slightest research on terror and appeasement, he might have come across a statement by one of the greatest terrorists in history, Adolf Hitler, 1899-1945, who declared, “You don’t fight terror with appeasement; you fight terror with terror.”  

If Zulum had read all those statements, and considered them, he would not have embarked on his mission to unilaterally proclaim 300, 000 (or 30, 000) hardened killers “repentant” – for several reasons.

A battalion consists of up to 1, 000 soldiers.

So, Zulum, in effect, released 300 (or 30) battalions of battle-tested and battle-hardened soldiers into the community; without the slightest assurance that they would not regroup; become informants to their colleagues still in active service; and, above all, actively undermine the efforts of security forces – including vigilantes and military intelligence staff in mufti.

Even if only 15, 000 of those ill-advisedly released by Zulum became turn coats, that still means that 15 battalions of the most dangerous people on earth have been unleashed, not only on Borno State, but on Nigeria as a whole.

Is there any wonder why Borno and adjourning states are on fire?

Zulum calls for fasting to end insecurity – VANGUARD, May 18, 2025

Readers of Sunday VANGUARD, last week, might have read the report on page 5, about Governor Zulum asking for prayers to end insecurity in Borno State in particular and Nigeria in general.

The report would have qualified to receive the Joke of the Year award – if it was not tragic and cynical.

Over 180 million Nigerians, including millions in Borno State, are already starving and badly malnourished, so much so that Nigeria now holds the title for malnourished children in Africa – ahead of war torn Sudan.

Are those walking skeletons and corpses supposed to fast also in order to end the insecurity started and promoted by bigwigs who have weaponised religion for private gain? Why not simply ask them to commit mass suicide like lemmings? 

More to the point, how many of the elite will fast; and what will be the penalty if they don’t?

Where is the proof that fasting will end insecurity?

Where has it ever brought it to an end – when 30 or 300 battalions of hardened criminals have been let loose by the state’s Chief Security Officer?

The call is akin to a man who set his father’s house in the desert on fire and who then asked the community to fast and pray for rain!!! As Queen Victoria would say after listening to some court jesters, “We are not amused.” 

CONSEQUENCES OF ZULUM’S AMNESTY

“Wisdom in people consists in the anticipation of consequences” – Norman Cousins, 1915-1990.

Having helped Boko Haram to plant battalions in every community in Borno State, Professor Zulum, intelligent but not wise, had a message for the FG. ‘Zulum begs FG not to allow Marte fall’ – (VANGUARD, May19, 2025).

One simple question which Zulum must answer is this: What would he expect the repentant Boko Haram hoodlums released to Marte do now that their former colleagues have invaded the place?

Certainly, they would find it difficult not to rejoin them – especially when reports indicate that some soldiers have deserted their duty posts in Marte.

And, they will rejoin with latest information about the security infrastructure mounted to protect the place.

WAY FORWARD – ADVICE TO FG

“Sometimes taking a step backwards might be the best way forward”. 

That was the observation of a US military commander during the Second World War.

President Tinubu, the National Security Adviser, Chiefs of Staff of Army and Air Force, the Inspector General of Police and the Director-General, DSS, should invite Zulum and ask him to do two things.

One, produce the list of the people he granted unilateral amnesty.

Two, locate them; so everybody can verify if they remain repentant.

Chances are, more than half of them would have vanished.

What are they doing now?

Many are probably back in Boko Haram ranks.