President Bola Tinubu’s government has reaffirmed its commitment to combat corruption, revitalize the economy, enhance national unity, bolster the judiciary’s independence and ensure free and fair elections in Nigeria.

Naija News reports that Vice President Kashim Shettima made this statement at the national conference on Monday in Abuja, which focused on reinforcing democracy in Nigeria.

The conference, titled ‘Strengthening Nigeria’s Democracy: Pathways to Good Governance and Political Integrity,’ was organized by the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development.

Represented by his Special Adviser on political matters, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, Shettima acknowledged that while democracy may not be flawless, it remains the most effective form of governance when compared to others.

Shettima urged Nigerians to rally behind the All Progressives Congress (APC) government during this difficult yet ultimately fulfilling journey, emphasizing that the Bola Tinubu government is deeply invested in the quality of the democratic framework.

“We will listen and adjust where necessary, and we will account for our stewardship in all matters our challenging democratic systems demand.

“I am convinced that Nigeria shall rise again, answer to its full potential and lead the way to a future that has learnt lessons from a difficult past into a world in which our country will be a key player, and our young will be active champions of a democratic system because it speaks to them.

“It has been said many times that democracy is an imperfect system, yet superior to all others.

“We will continue to seek to provide evidence of the values of the democratic systems by, among others, fixing major weaknesses of our economy, securing our communities, fighting corruption, supporting free and fair elections, strengthening the independence of the judiciary and improving national cohesion,” he said.

[NaijaNews]

The FCT Police Command says preliminary investigations have revealed that the abductors of family members in Chikakore community in Bwari area council, were unknown men who disguised as vigilantes wielding machetes and sticks.

Daily Trust had reported that a man, his wife and their son were abducted in the early hours of Monday.

A statement by the command spokeswoman, SP Adeh Josephine, said the suspects deceived the man into opening his house gate, after which they abducted him alongside three of his family members.

She said a neighbour, who attempted to intervene, sustained injuries during the attack and was rushed to Kubwa General Hospital for treatment.

She said the FCT Police Command received a distress call at about 1:00:am regarding a case of abduction and assault in the Chikakore community, adding that police operatives were swiftly deployed to the scene.

“Preliminary investigations revealed that seven unknown men, disguised as vigilante members and armed with machetes and sticks, attacked the residence of the victim. The suspects deceived him the victim into opening his gate, after which they abducted him and three members of his family. A neighbour who attempted to intervene sustained injuries during the attack and was promptly rushed to Kubwa General Hospital for medical attention,” she said.

She, however, said that the police command had commenced a comprehensive search and rescue operation, aimed at rescuing the abducted victims safely and apprehending the perpetrators.

The command urged residents of the Chikakore community and the general public to remain calm and vigilant, calling on members of the public with useful information that could assist in the rescue of the victims to promptly report to the police.

She said the FCT Police Command can be reached via its emergency lines: 08032003913, 08061581938, 07057337653, and 08028940883.

[DailyTrust]

Former President Muhammadu Buhari has opened up about his health since leaving office on May 29, 2023.

Buhari said his health has improved, adding that he looks better since leaving office in 2023.

While in office as President, Buhari was plagued by illness which led to him being flown abroad for medical attention.

He handed over to Bola Tinubu after serving his two terms as President.

Speaking at an All Progressives Congress, APC, stakeholders’ meeting at the Katsina State Government House, Buhari suggested that the complexities of being the President of Nigeria affected his health.

“Those outside the corridors of power do not understand the complexities and difficulties facing Nigeria.

“My health has improved since leaving office. People who visited me told me I look better than before.”

[DailyPost]

Actress and producer Mary Njoku and netizens have criticized 2baba’s decision to divorce his wife, Annie Idibia.

Njoku expressed her concerns on Instagram, stating that 2baba’s actions would humiliate Annie, who has already made tough choices for the family.

Njoku’s reaction is not isolated, as many fans and friends of Annie have questioned 2baba’s decision.

She wrote: “Bro, Annie has a family o, your sisters-in-law are many, and we’ve stayed quiet out of respect for her tough choices.

“But since you’ve decided to humiliate her at her lowest, no wahala. It’s your choice, just make sure she’s healthy and ok.

“Because when the time comes, we’ll have plenty of questions for you.”

Netizens reactions: One Bayo Otedola on X wrote: “We all know 2face to be a very quiet and private person about his marriage and for him to come online to make such statement about his marriage means he’s seen enough. I wish the guy all the love and support he needs at this time. All the best 2baba”

Oku_yungx wrote: “It is really difficult to see a grown man speak up honestly. 2face needs all the support he can get this period.  He looks worn out just like Pep Guardiola.  Gentlemen, stay praying for 2baba and his family.”

The Amazon wrote: “This whole 2baba and Annie saga is just a description of how men always put themselves first! Men are very selfish with their life choices, they use their head not heart to act, unlike women, always emotional about everything and put men first before themselves”.

Big Love wrote: “The way 2face embarrasses Annie is just too much! Disgracing the woman who stood by him when he had nothing, giving him her life. Even if the whole world is against her, 2baba should know better. He’s always finding a way to disgrace her when people are against her. Her first love is you, 2baba. She sees you as her best friend and husband! She doesn’t have anyone else but you. You’re the one she trusts and leans on. It’s heartbreaking for Annie. I hope all of you won’t kill her because of your madness and hate for this innocent girl. She’s been nothing but loyal and deserves better than all this negativity”.

The legendary singer announced his plans to divorce Annie on Sunday, which sparked widespread criticism.

[TheNation]

Anambra State Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo in a Trumpian manner, made several fallacious and specious statements at the December 2024 dedication of a new church building in Onitsha. For example, the press quoted him as saying: “Since the inception of my administration, we have declared war on criminals, their shrines, priests and burnt down their idols.”   

In this claim, he tries to present non-Christians and non-Muslims as the criminals in the state. This is a fallacy. Criminals including elites looting our common patrimony, cut across all religions. In fact, many    criminals who claim adherence to foreign religions, use the proceeds of their crime to go on pilgrimages.When he talked about declaring war    on “their shrines” Soludo exhibits his    severe limitation of the English language.

The Oxford Dictionary explains that a shrine is: “a place regarded as holy because of its associations with a divinity or a sacred person or relic, marked by a building or other construction.” So, the building he went to open in Onitsha, is nothing but a shrine.

Then he mentioned priests; but it is not traditional religion alone that has priests, all major religions I know including Christianity which he claims to practice, also have priests. Soludo proudly proclaims that he has: “ burnt down their idols.” An idol is an image or representation of the Almighty. The fact that churches have the images of the cross, Jesus or    Mary, does not mean those are what Christians worship, it simply means that they are images or some representation or symbol.   

So, if Soludo has been involved in burning idols, then he is publicly confessing to criminality and deserves to be tried and imprisoned once he ceases to be governor and   loses his immunity. He wails that: “”Idolatry is the fastest growing religion in the state.”    As I explained earlier, traditional religion adherents, at least in Nigeria, do not worship idols; these are mere representations.   

Rather, they believe in God, and this has been so for thousands of years before Christianity.    So, it was not foreigners    who taught    Africans about God.    Thousands of years before Abraham was reportedly called from Ur of the Chaldees, the Yorubas knew God as Olorun or Olodumare, the Hausas call him Ubangiji while the Igbos call him Chineke, Olisa or Chukwu, which is the governor’s middle name.    

In any case, how can it be a state      matter that a particular religion is allegedly winning more adherents? How does such concern put food on the table of the Anambra people? How does it lead to the provision of more schools, hospitals, houses or jobs? Is Governor Soludo in reality such a jobless man? In addressing imaginary enemies, Soludo said:  “They can come with whatever they want to but with the Bible in our right hand, we shall prevail.” Wrong! What the Governor as the chief security officer of Anambra State    needs to wield in his right hand is not the Bible, but the law, and in his left hand, the sword of justice. He was not elected into office as a priest, but to govern in accordance with the constitution.

Soludo in a self-righteous manner proclaimed on the rooftops: “We must not take it for granted. Pope Francis preaches ecumenism. I just don’t preach it, I try to live it out.”    Such claims of piety, cut no ice. Religion is an issue between a person and God and, only God knows who truly worships him.    Jesus Christ had settled such matters thousands of years ago when he was quoted in Mathew 7: 21-23 as saying: “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” What is expected of Soludo as a Governor is not to shout around about ecumenism, but to promote the unity of    all Nigerians irrespective of religion, ethnic nationality, regionalism and political affiliation.

Soludo at the ceremony, proclaimed    Anambra    a Christian State.    This, like most Soludo talks and programmes, is empty talk. Was this a proclamation of the State Assembly, or the product of a referendum? This false claim is an impeachable offence as it is a blatant violation of the constitution. Section 10 states in simple English: “The Government of the Federation or State shall not adopt any religion as State religion.” If Soludo were a man of honour, based on this his patently false claim, should have  resigned and returned to his profession of economic speculation and preaching the discredited gospel of the Western Structural Adjustment Programme, SAP which ruined most African countries including Nigeria.

This Soludo declaration which is part of the strategy of causing confusion and disunity amongst the Nigeria people, is an old discredited one. This dates back to colonial times when the colonialists championed the divisive politics and slogan of ‘Muslim North’ in reference to Northern Nigeria which in reality, was, and remains, a multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-cultural society.    The British colonialists were so vicious, and that in order to sponsor religious divide in Northern Nigeria, it consciously excluded Christians from being admitted into Katsina College, the only school in the 1920s providing high school education in the North. 

Some years ago, some state Governors imposed Sharia based on claims that the states they ruled were Muslim States. Those governors succeeded so well that when the extremist fruits they planted sprouted into Boko Haram and bandits, even they themselves cannot comfortably live    in their states. They became muffled choristers of religious de-radicalization in Northern Nigeria. Today, there is a similar retrogressive movement in Western Nigeria. There are now traditional rulers who want to ban    traditional religion in favour    of their own private religion. There are also those who are obviously profiting from a campaign to introduce Sharia in the area. When such campaigns bear fruits as they did in the North, such characters will flee the land.

Promotion of religious extremism continues in various forms. For instance, while Jesus Christ fasted for forty days, a leading Nigerian church, obviously in order to get ahead of its rivals,    has in 2025 decreed 100 days of fasting. Apart from the health of the adherents who are engaged in these marathon fast, what sense does it make to get a people to fast for 100 of the 355    days in a year?    So while serious countries like the United States and China will be at work, producing, some Nigerians will be spending about one third of a year fasting and praying.

We need to call to order, people misusing religion for divisive politics and private gains; violating the secular provisions of the constitution and generally, luring Nigerians into lethargy when they should be productive. 

“An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man”- Emerson, 1803-1882, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ p 105

“Every great enterprise starts off with enthusiasm for an exalted aim; and ends up bogged down in petty politics” – Charles Peguy, 1873-1914, VBQ p 49

The Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria, AMCON, is one of those institutions created in Nigeria with all the enthusiasm in the world to solve a critical problem, like its counterparts elsewhere globally; which not only failed woefully, but made the situation worse. AMCON, like a few of the consolidated banks licenced by Professor Soludo, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, in 2006, was handed to individuals who cast their shadows on the organisations they led as Chief Executive Officer, CEO.

“Haste makes waste.”

AMCON should never have been necessary. It was the lasting monument to the failure of Soludo’s bank consolidation policy which reduced the number of banks operating in Nigeria in 2005 from 73 to 25 in 2006. Banks were ordered to increase capitalisation to N25 billion or merge or close shop – all within seven months. At the time of the announcement, only three banks were within touching distance of N25 billion – First Bank, Union Bank and UBA. Most of the rest were so far off that it was obvious to objective observers that Soludo, not a banker and lacking banking experience, had jumped headfirst into consolidation only as an academic concept.

 The decision which was unveiled in Lagos was attended by bankers, financial experts and media. I was there 20 years ago. I recollect quite vividly, Mr Atedo Peterside, during the question and answer period, making two points. While agreeing with Soludo about the need for bigger and stronger banks in Nigeria, he pleaded for timeline extension to enable the banking sector to get prepared for the new regime. Second, he argued that a banking sector consisting of only “megabanks” was not a healthy situation. Instead, he urged the CBN to consider categorising banks into three groups – national/international, regional and local – each group operating with its own share capital requirements. All the suggestions were rejected. In fact, every alternative idea was turned down.

 I wrote nothing less than six articles on these pages predicting the eventual collapse of some of the “megabanks” which emerged from the banking consolidation programme. For instance, when in 2008, the global banking crisis started in the US and Europe, Soludo assured Nigerians that our banking sector was “insulated” from contagion by the global crisis. I disagreed. By then, evidence available to me had already proved beyond reasonable doubt that we could no longer put our money – in any form – in the banks and “go to sleep with two eyes closed”; as Soludo promised us in 2005.

 In August 2008, I published an article on this page urging our readers to dump their bank shares. It was obvious to me that a major banking crash was coming.  From information available to me (and I don’t know why they were unknown to CBN, there was clear evidence that at least eight of the banks were being steadily and mindlessly looted by their directors – especially Managing Directors. Furthermore, there was a great deal of mutual contagion. Friends and relatives of the directors of one bank accumulated non-performing loans in other cooperating banks. At the time my article was written, which was indirectly rebutted by CBN, First Bank shares were selling for over N50 per share; Intercontinental, N35 per share and Oceanic Bank about N28 per share and still going up. I sold all my shares except a few against the advice of my stockbroker. By December 2008, bank shares were in a free fall. Till today, no bank has come close to the August 2008 price; millions of Nigerians who borrowed to purchase bank shares were ruined for life.

How and why AMCON was created

“The evil that men do lives after them….” William Shakespeare, 1564-1616.

Every big lie eventually has an expiry date. Soludo’s illusion about creating a stronger banking sector was inevitably exposed by facts which could no longer be denied. It became inescapably clear that the banks had been publishing falsified Annual Accounts and Reports; declaring fictitious revenue and profits; paying unearned dividends (mostly to the major shareholders) until 2008. By 2009, the CBN was forced to admit, however reluctantly, that the dream had become a nightmare.

 The AMCON Act which was passed into law by the National Assembly, NASS in 2010 was the final admission by the CBN that banking consolidation has failed. Without it, all the banks approved for operations by Soludo in 2006 would have been swept away by their own recklessness and fraudulent practices. Every country had to introduce one form of the rescue plan or another; but, the Nigerian AMCON Act was based on the models adopted in Ireland and Malaysia. The banks were allowed to dump their toxic or non-performing loans on the federal government under stated conditions; but, on the understanding that the loans will eventually be repaid. It is to AMCON’s everlasting shame that all the other national institutions established for this purpose had folded up because the loans had been repaid; while Nigeria remains the only nation which is still grappling with the consequences of the banking crisis of 2008.

 The Act has been amended twice since its inception, but, the payback has not improved significantly. Several reasons account for this. The Nigerian law left too many loopholes for lawyers to exploit. Some of the more powerful lawmakers in Abuja were/are among the largest loan delinquents. Influential Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SANs, colluding with complaisant Justices in courts have frustrated all the efforts aimed at loan recovery. But, lately, we are finding out that whereas borrowers were assisted in other countries to restructure and repay the loans, AMCON might actually be the stumbling block in some cases.

Today, Intercontinental and Oceanic have faded into history; along with other banks – Skye, BankPH etc. But, the liquidated banks and virtually all the survivors from the tsunami which swept others away still left about N4 trillion loans outstanding almost fifteen years after. AMCON has been mostly responsible. For four years under Jonathan and eight years, under President Buhari, AMCON has been sabotaging the intentions of those who established the institution without being called to order by the FG which condoned every wrong-doing as long as the perpetrators were in the corridors of power. For the sake of those who might think that this is an intervention in support of any party now in dispute with AMCON, permit me to refer to two, out of four articles, published on this page which call into question the integrity of its Directors as well as its spokespersons.

 Right now, a former Managing Director/CEO of AMCON has been charged to court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, for fraudulently mismanaging the assets of one of the companies handed to the corporation. He had accomplices. That, obviously, was not the intention of the framers of the AMCON Act. The institution was supposed to try to manage the affairs of the companies whose toxic debts were handed to it professionally….

To be continued

Betty Otimenyin on Monday assumed duty as the first female Commissioner of Police in Edo State.

Ms Otimenyin arrived at the headquarters of the Police Command in Edo, some minutes before 10 am, where she inspected the guard mounted in her honour.

The commissioner of police, who is the 49th to be deployed to the state, was received by senior officers of the command.

Otimenyin replaced Umoru Ozigi, who retired from the service on Saturday, after attaining the mandatory retirement age of 60.

In a short interview with newsmen, the police chief, who also hailed from Edo, said she would do a lot to reduce the rate of crime in the South-South state.

“I will do a lot of things until the crime level comes down.

“We will also look at extortion (among the men and officers) of the command. The Inspector-General of Police frowns at it,” she said.

According to her, the command will be tougher on violence against women and children.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Otimenyin enlisted into the Nigeria Police Force as a Cadet Assistant of Police (ASP) in 1992.

Before her redeployment to Edo, she had served in various commands including Force Intelligence Department (FID) as Commissioner of Police, Administration.

NAN

There are usually multiple categories of diasporic citizens. Three are, however, easier to identify. The first are those who express love for their origin, are concerned about its well-being, and directly or indirectly participate in peace, stability, and progress matters. The second group is those indifferent, perhaps because they have integrated into the host society, hardly imagining returning, and are only concerned with looking forward to their place of residence. The third are those who have also successfully integrated and resent their origin. British Conservative Party leader, Mrs. Kemi Badenoch is an obvious example. She has consistently pilloried Nigeria, her original country, using extreme words, running against the traditional diplomatic practice of respect for peoples and sovereignties. It is also against a traditional British culture of decorum and reverence for the other.

She is not, however, the first to be unkind to origin. Russian Alexander Pushkin reportedly had a maternal African ancestry, but the poet and his family hate to be associated with that heritage. US Ralph Ellison also did not fancy his African lineage, just as his compatriot, Langston Hughes, once preferred the status of a Mexican immigrant to an African connection. Haiti’s Jean-Jacques Dessalines preferred the Western Culture far more than his African extraction. Legendary author, psychiatrist, and nationalist writer Franz Fanon once thought the French culture deserved prioritisation above that of his Martinique, Caribbean source. How about the legendary singer, Micheal Jackson? Part of the controversies he courted was the alteration of his sheath to distance himself from Blackness.

Badenoch is, therefore, simply enlisting her name on this list further to the constant contestation, construction, and communication of diasporic identities. These identities are repetitively in flux, mutating over time across spaces and in paces determined by individual citizens or circumstances. These circumstances are often liminal, one of being neither here nor there, described by Paul Gilroy as “double consciousness” Sitting in the middle, the first category of citizens is graceful, looking backwards with regrets and deliberately concerned about improving origin through remittances, advocacy, and transference of knowledge, considering the new exposures they would have learned.

From this liminal, threshold, or transitory space, the indifferent citizens keep cool in the comfort of relative stability, hardly looking backwards or forward like the famed Greek Idol, Janus. Badenoch’s class of diasporic citizens would have integrated, are now resentful of origin, and are open about it. Nevertheless, the challenge for them is the mathematics of history and biology. This mathematics is stubborn, organic, and hardly alterable. They are reflected in the changelessness of their roots and routes, their phenotype and preliminary associations, which are irreconstructible.

Provocative as their tirades on origin might be, they often should not be blamed, even though the temptation to do so is high. First, the average citizen living in the distance and resenting origin is hardly a migrant. They are not those who moved to look towards economic benefits, hoping to leverage the relative prosperity in the host society and then return to improved living with proceeds from abroad.

Those who usually resent their origin are often diasporic, involving the more settled community of people in a different society, as opposed to those resettling for temporary reasons, primarily economic, with less sense of integration. Many diasporic citizens, therefore, suffer from a complex sense of belonging, including the implausibility of return and/or the overt or covert challenges of integration despite portrayals to the contrary. Resentment becomes a mechanism for coping, maintaining emotional stability, and enhancing sustainability. Feeling absent from origin and undergoing subtle exclusion from the host society (which might be open depending on the system’s disposition to multiculturalism), some individuals consciously or unconsciously evolved mechanisms to deal with the stress of reductive recognitions, which patriots or nationalists in origin might consider offensive.

Second, diasporic citizens are constantly in a crisis of identity, a transformative process trending over interactions with different cultures, possibly leading to the pressure to stick to the one at hand at the expense of the one before. Third is misplaced guilt through the frustration of watching origin’s continuous incompatibility with the host society and the slew of disappointing actions of leaders, now resulting in outright, outward bitterness. Fourth, resentment is arguably helpful in managing the strain, stress, and trauma of dislocation, as well as the continuous negative portrayal of origin on the global stage, given the quest of some affected citizens for emotional and psychological restitution.

Fifth is the question of pride and prestige, leading resenting citizens to think they should not be associated with a past dominated by narratives of oppression and a disillusioning present, where anxiety fills the imagination of the future.  There could be many more reasons, like the quest for personal growth, where the citizens think associating with origin will be an obstacle; limited help from origin, making them think it is of no value and should not be honoured in any way; and of course, the question of choice, an individuated inclination to create own pathway.

Whatever the cause, and as painful as their actions might be, Governments worldwide have adopted a slew of methods to manage resentment. Resentments are, therefore, not to be resolved through aggression or confrontation. Granted that private citizens or civil society members have the liberty to respond how they want, governments should be elevated in their response, if at all.

Seeking engagement, reassurance of love towards engendering belonging, given the diasporic state of longing, and direct measures at resolving criticisms are often more helpful. If possible, diasporic citizens are to be courted for being dislocated in the first instance and for not being classed as expatriates, investors, foreign partners, and discoverers like the many Westerners populating and sometimes exploiting nations of the South. Nigerian government thought rightly in the direction of benefiting from them, setting up the Nigerian in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), but the poorly funded organisation, with disjointed office space, mainly surviving because of the charisma of its present chairman, Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, can hardly compare with the feats of the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs-an opposite number.

We have also seen reconciliation with diasporic citizens in Chile, South Korea, Ireland, and Rwanda, while the Philippines has been directly concerned about their welfare. Kenya is interested in growing their voting rights, while Ghana rekindled their imaginations with the Year of Return in 2019. The Israeli law of Return is more compelling, exemplifying their status as a classical diaspora. At the same time, Ethiopia has worked on its diasporas through investment initiatives, in addition to the example of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which emphasises reintegration and healing. Italy was once generous with its citizenship to several generations of absent citizens, just as South Korea, Mexico, and Senegal have been concerted to woo diasporas.

Governments have also been known to identify outstanding diasporic citizens for one-on-one consultation, given their substantial influence. While the achievements of these few could make them outspokenly critical, governments would instead tow the diplomatic part as the bigger party in a presumed duel. Granted that Nigeria has, through NIDCOM, registered some presence, more is still to be done, now that Badenoch is still knocking on the nation’s past if to negotiate her present path, further to the hyper-activity of the diasporic being and becoming.

Adeniyi, a professor of diasporic communication, is the Dean of the School of Postgraduate Studies at Baze University in Abuja.

DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) platform, has overtaken OpenAI’s ChatGPT as the most downloaded free application on the Apple store in the United States.

DeepSeek is an AI search platform that leverages deep learning algorithms and natural language processing (NLP) to deliver highly relevant, intent-driven results.

The platform was launched in 2023 with two versions: DeepSeek-R1, a standard model, and DeepSeek-R1-Zero, which features unsupervised fine-tuning for superior reasoning capabilities.

According to Reuters, the AI application recently surpassed ChatGPT to become the most downloaded free application in the US.

The feat comes amid US restrictions on the export of advanced chips to China.

Despite the limitations, the app’s researchers claim to have trained their latest model on Nvidia’s H800 chips.

The training process reportedly costs about $6 million, a fraction of the usual expenses for developing advanced AI systems.

On January 20, DeepSeek shared its performance comparison with OpenAI on X.

DeepSeek’s rapid rise has sparked conversations about a reevaluation of the global AI power structure.

Some have lauded its affordability and robust performance, predicting it would challenge the status quo; while others view its open-source philosophy as a disruptive force with long-term implications.

[TheCable]