The autobiography of former self-styled “President” Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida has already been parsed for its self-serving mendacity, moral spinelessness, maddening insensitivity, self-glorification, and cowardly posthumous smears of dead colleagues.

 I won’t revisit those points here. As someone who has a scholarly interest in—and is actually working on a book on—the rhetoric of collective identity construction in Nigeria, I was drawn to IBB’s self-definition of his identity in his autobiography.

It was Gimba Kakanda, SA to the Vice President and former newspaper columnist, who first quickened my appetite about this in his February 19 Facebook update.

 Kakanda had read an advance copy of IBB’s autobiography and wrote this intriguing summation of it: “It’s a journey that begins with his origins, as the son of a Gbagyi woman, and leads up to the June 12 questions—the answers to which you’ll have to read to discover for yourself.”

In a February 15, 2020, column titled "True Ethnic Origins of Nigeria’s Past Presidents and Heads of State,” I had observed that “IBB’s ethnic identity is surprisingly a magnet for controversy and speculation. He has been called Gbagyi (whom Hausa people call Gwari), Nupe, and even Yoruba from Ogbomoso or Osogbo. But he told journalists and his biographers at different times that his immediate ancestors were Hausas from Kano who migrated to what is now Niger State.”

I was curious if IBB admitted that his maternal filiation was Gbagyi (or Gwari). He actually did. But while he is very specific about his maternal line of descent, he was vague about the ethnic identity of his paternal ancestry.

This is how he describes his paternal ancestry, beginning from his grandfather: “Snippets of details I heard suggested that earlier on, he was a bit of a wanderer, migrating from Sokoto to Kano and Kontagora and settling in Wushishi.”

Contrast this with the specificity with which he describes his maternal heritage: “Apparently, [my grandfather] met his future wife, a young Gwari girl called Halima, in Wushishi, and since his future parents-in-law would only allow him to marry daughter if he agreed to make his home in Wushishi, he readily complied with their condition before settling down in Wushishi and marrying his pretty wife, Halima.”

In yet another description of his Gwari maternal descent, he is informatively direct and specific: “But before he left, my father met and married a beautiful light-skinned Gwari girl, Inna Aishatu, who would become my mother.”

His paternal grandmother was a pretty Gwari woman, and his own mother was a “beautiful light-skinned Gwari girl.” Why did he have a need to call attention to their pulchritude and complexion?

Why did he withhold such details about his grandfather and his father? Sokoto, which he says is the apparent root of his paternal ancestry, was populated by both the Fulani and the Hausa in the “later part of the 19th century” when his grandfather left it for Kano and later Wushishi.

 Although interethnic marriage between the Hausa and the Fulani began to intensify at this time, people still identified their heritage through their fathers. Ethnic identities or labels weren’t hyphenated. Was his father Hausa or Fulani?

Did he, perhaps, obliquely answer that question by gratuitously calling attention to the light skin of his Gwari mother in order to let it be known that his own light complexion is inherited from his mother since the Fulani are stereotypically light-skinned?

Well, IBB told a biographer that his great grandfather hailed from the village of Kumuria [Kumurya?] in Kano State from where he went to Sokoto. But in his autobiography, he only mentions his grandfather migrating from Sokoto to Kano and later to Wushishi. Is this intentional, strategic paternal ancestral ambiguity?

We see evidence of identitarian anxieties in IBB’s life after he left his Niger cultural cocoon. Up until age 23 when he returned from India as a Second Lieutenant, his name was Ibrahim Badamasi, Badamasi being his father’s first name.

“However,” he writes, “before I settled down to work at the First Brigade, a particular incident led me to add ‘Babangida’ to my name. During official engagements that led to my deployment to Kaduna, officers who confused the Yoruba name, Gbadamosi, with my last name, ‘Badamasi,’ repeatedly asked me whether I was Yoruba. That question had come up a few times during my enlisting interview for the military. Since that question persisted (and since I knew I wasn’t Yoruba!), I decided to take on my father’s other name as my last name.”

Three things jumped out at me after reading this part of the book. First, I find it intriguing that he had no hesitation telling us about his mother’s and paternal grandmother’s ethnic identity and even disclaiming a Yoruba identity that he knew would constrain him but chose to conceal his paternal ethnic identity.

Second, IBB didn’t mention Babangida as his father’s other name when the reader first encounters him in the book. He identifies his father as Muhammad Badamasi, not Babangida Badamasi. Maybe this oversight is attributable to sloppy (ghost) writing.

Third, Gbadamosi is not, strictly speaking, a Yoruba name. It’s the Yoruba domestication of Badamasi, which is understood to be a Muslim name in Nigeria. Many people in northwest Nigeria, where he says his paternal roots sprouted from, bear the name.

When I wrote about unusual Muslim names in Nigeria that don’t seem to have any links with the rest of the Muslim world, among which is “Badamasi,” readers who are familiar with the etymology of Badamasi told me that the name (which was probably originally some variant of Badmasi) belongs to an Arabic poet whose book advanced students in traditional Arabic schools,  called makarantun soro in Hausa land, study.

The book, a Sufi poem, is used as a resource for Arabic vocabulary lessons. Over time, it became popularly known as Badamasi, named after its author.

I haven’t found any scholarly corroboration for the claim that Badamasi is the name of an Arab poet, but there is a late nineteenth-century Ilorin Muslim scholar and poet by the name of Badamasi whose poems are often utilized to enhance Arabic vocabulary and are a staple in the curriculum of traditional Islamic schools. But it’s not clear if he is the original bearer of the name.

Badamasi was Yorubized to Gbadamosi and later anglicized to Badmus in Yoruba land.

Curiously, Muslim names, which should transcend, even neutralize, ethnicity, at least on the surface, can become the carriers of the weight of ethnicity in Nigeria. There are notions of “Yoruba Muslim names” not just because of their peculiar Yoruba domestication but because of their higher than usual frequency among Yoruba Muslims.

For example, many northern Muslims and Yoruba Muslims have concluded, without a shred of evidence, that House of Representatives Speaker Tajudeen Abbas is a Zaria man of Yoruba ancestry because “Tajudeen” occurs more frequently among Yoruba Muslims than it does among Hausa-speaking Muslims.

But Tajudeen Abbas is a Zaria prince. A Yoruba editor friend of mine pushed back when I said the Speaker was at least paternally Fulani by asking which Fulani or Hausa man I knew who bore the name Tajudeen.

 I mentioned Tajudeen Dantata. I then asked if he thought the Dantata family was Yoruba because they named one of their progenies Tajudeen. That ended the conversation.

Dr. Raji Bello, a Fulani man from Yola, also talks about how he is often mistaken for a Yoruba man because people assume that Raji is an exclusively Yoruba Muslim name even though it’s a Muslim name commonly born by South Asian and West African Muslims.

Dr. Bello resisted the type of urge that IBB succumbed to. He once said he was advised by an elder in Zaria to change his name to Rabiu. But he was named after one of his ancestors, a prominent nineteenth-century Muslim scholar in what is now Adamawa by the name of Modibbo Raji.

Finally, IBB described his father as a “messenger/interpreter” in the colonial district office but didn’t say what he interpreted. Since he had no Western education and didn’t speak English, did he translate Gbagyi, his mother’s language, to Hausa or vice versa?

Well, I am not done reading the book. 

Awards come in various shapes and hues in Nigeria. Some are rightly earned, some are bargained, while others are thrust on recipients as appreciative gestures. This Saturday, Lagos will thunder with applause as the SUN Publishing Limited crowns Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo, CFR, “Governor of the Year”, a well-earned laurel carved from his meritorious performance. The SUN editors, sleuths with sharp eyes, scoured Anambra and found undeniable evidence: over 420 km of roads paved, flyovers like the one in Ekwulobia hugging the sky, 68 km of federal highways dualised, all without a borrowed penny. Awka’s Government House, a 34-year mirage, now becomes a reality; water gushes in Onitsha, Nnewi, and Awka, a lifeline reborn.

The SUN’s hawk eyes caught more: Okpoko, once Nigeria’s grimmest slum, now dubbed “New Haven” with 15 km of roads, lights, a hospital, is a gem rising from decadence. Urban regeneration electrifies Onitsha and Awka, while fiscal discipline, Anambra’s top-five BudgIT ranking, pairs with ambition.

Governor Soludo’s 50-Year Plan and the People's manifesto are beyond a whisper; it is a roar, turning lean resources into lavish triumphs. His refusal to borrow, despite a N100 billion green light, is a gauntlet thrown at waste. The editors saw a state reborn, and they nodded: this man deserves the crown.

But Governor Soludo is no stranger to recognition. As CBN Governor, he stacked $63 billion in reserves and earned triple “Best Central Bank Governor” titles from Financial Times and Euromoney. Six Nigerian papers sang “Man of the Year” in 2006; a CFR honour followed. With 152 awards trailing him, he is a comet of acclaim. Now, Anambra chants “The Solution Is Here,” and Saturday's award ceremony proves it: a tribute to a leader who has made infrastructure a war cry.

This weekend, as Lagos lifts Governor Soludo high in the limelight of rousing applause, Nigeria will see what Anambra already knows: the Solution mantra is a master sculptor’s tool chiseling Anambra into a masterpiece. The SUN garland is neither charity nor flattery; it is a merited recognition of good governance delivered excellently.

The wife of the Senate President of Nigeria, Mrs. Unoma Godswill Akpabio, has filed multiple lawsuits at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, against Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan. The suits allege a breach of fundamental rights and defamation stemming from statements made by the senator on the Senate floor and during a televised interview on Arise News.

In the fundamental rights suit (Suit No: CV/814/25), brought under Section 34(1)(a) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and Article 4 & 5 of The African Charter on Human And Peoples Rights (Ratification And Enforcement Act) Cap. A9, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004, Mrs. Akpabio seeks:

1. A DECLARATIONthat the allegations made by the Respondent on the floor of the Senate on the 20th of February 2025 and subsequent scandalous and salacious allegations Arise News TV by the Respondent, constitute a flagrant violation of the fundamental rights of the Applicant guaranteed under Section 34(1) (A) of The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (As Amended), Article 4 & 5 of The African Charter on Human And Peoples Rights (Ratification And Enforcement Act) Cap. A9, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004, and Section 14 of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act, 2015.
2. AN ORDER OF PERPETUAL INJUNCTIONrestraining the Respondent from making further inciteful, scandalous, and spiteful statements that have caused the Applicant and her children emotional and psychological abuse and living under constant threat and fear of their lives.
3. AN ORDER OF PERPETUAL INJUNCTIONrestraining the Respondent, whether by themselves, their agents, privies, or howsoever from further inciteful, scandalous, and spiteful statements that have caused the Applicant and her children emotional and psychological abuse and living under constant threat and fear of their lives or in any other manner infringing on their fundamental rights.
4. AN ORDERawarding the sum of N250,000,000,000.00 (Two Hundred and Fifty Billion Naira only) as exemplary, punitive, aggravated and general damages against the Respondent for her infringement of the fundamental rights of the Applicant alongside.
5. Such further or other Orders as this Honourable Court may deem fit to make in the circumstance.

Additionally, in a separate defamation lawsuit (Suit No: CV/816/25), Mrs. Akpabio seeks:

1. A DECLARATION that the Defendant’s act of claiming on national television, that the Claimant’s husband, who is the President of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria made sexual advances at her, without any proof of same, has damaged the reputation of the Claimant and indeed her entire family, bringing them into disrepute and opprobrium.
2. AN ORDER OF THIS HONOURABLE COURTmandating the Defendant to issue a formal written retraction of the defamatory words and tender an unconditional apology to the Claimant and her family, to be published in 2 (two) nationally-read newspapers to wit: The Guardian and This Day Newspapers.
3. AN ORDER OF THIS HONOURABLE COURT compelling the Defendant to pay to the Claimant the sum of ₦1,000,000,000.00 (One Billion Naira only) as punitive and exemplary damages for the ruinous effect of the Defendant’s defamatory words on the Claimant’s family’s reputation.
4. AN ORDER OF PERPETUAL INJUNCTION restraining the Defendant from further uttering any defamatory words or causing to be uttered or spread, any defamatory words against the reputation of the Claimant’s family.
5. ANY FURTHER OR ANCILLARY ORDER or other Orders as this Honourable Court may deem fit to make in the circumstance.

The Katsina State Government under Governor Dikko Umar Radda has announced the closure of all schools in the state for the Ramadan fast.

Naija News reports that all primary, secondary and tertiary institutions in the state were affected by the announcement.

In a statement, the Katsina Hisbah Board, on Thursday, warned private schools in the state against contravening the government’s order.

Hisbah’s Commander-General said that private lessons are not allowed to be held during the Ramadan fast.

“In accordance with Katsina State Government’s directive, all private schools are required to close for the Ramadan period to allow pupils to fully observe the holy month. The directives include extra lesson please.

“The Hisbah Board urges all school proprietors to strictly comply with this directive. Non-compliance will not be tolerated.

“May Allah accept our fast and grant us His blessings,” it read.

Naija News reported that Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State also closed all schools in the state for the Ramadan fast.

According to the State’s Ministry of Education Information Officer, Jalaludeen Maina, the school closure was to allow students to focus on the Ramadan fast.

“Yes, we are closing all our schools and this is included in our 2024-2025 approved calendar for the academic session that our students are not going to do the Ramadan fasting while in school.

“The five-week holiday is for Ramadan fasting and immediately after the fasting, they will resume and continue with their academics.”

[NaijaNews]

Former lawmaker, Shehu Sani has described as unfortunate the issue between Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan.

Sani said it is unfortunate the issue has become about “bed”.

The statement comes after Akpoti-Uduaghan accused Akpabio of sexual harassment.

The Kogi born senator made the allegation on Friday while fielding questions on Arise Television Morning Show programme.

Akpoti-Uduaghan alleged that Akpabio blocked her motions from being heard on the floor of the red chamber because she rejected his advances.

However, Akpabio denied the allegation through his media consultant, Kenny Okulogbo.

Reacting to the development, Sani, in a post on his X handle on Friday called for caution and restraint.

“It’s unfortunate that the Senate issue was simply about seat and now about bed. Need for caution and restraint,” Sani said.

[DailyPost]

The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Olanipekun Olukoyede, disclosed that he turned down offers of about N500m from various individuals during his mother’s funeral in 2019.

Olukoyede spoke at the 38th Anti-Corruption Situation Room in Abuja on Thursday with the theme: Ethics, Integrity, Corruption Risk Assessments and Anti-Corruption at National and Sub-National levels: Sustaining the fight against corruption in Nigeria.

The programme was organised by the Human and Environmental Development Agenda Resource Centre, Kano State Public Complaint and Anti-Corruption Commission, ICPC, and EFCC with the support of the MacArthur Foundation.

Olukoyede explained that the substantial gifts, which included cheques and drafts, were sent to him by ministers, permanent secretaries, directors, and other high-ranking officials.

At the time, Olukoyede was serving as the Secretary of the EFCC.

He recounted that upon his return to his family home in Ekiti State, where the funeral took place, he discovered numerous cheques in a carton.

After reviewing the cheques, which amounted to nearly N500m, he decided to return them.

The EFCC chairman narrated, “I lost my mother in the year 2019 (in Ekiti State). We went for the funeral. I was the secretary of the EFCC then. People came. So I went to my place a day before the funeral service. By the time I got to my small compound, which I built several years ago before I joined the EFCC, I saw about 17 cows in my compound, including pregnant ones.

“When I got home, my gate man presented a box (carton) to me and inside it, I saw so many cheques and drafts from ministers, permanent secretaries, directors, DGs of agencies, etc.

“And so, I went in and showed it to my wife. She said, ‘Praise God’. I said, ‘Praise God for what?’ By the time we put all the cheques together, it counted close to N500m.”

Reflecting on the situation, Olukoyede expressed concern about the potential consequences if he had deposited the cheques into his account, particularly given his role in investigating the individuals who had sent them.

He explained that had the cheques been found in his bank account, it could have been used against him during investigations and cast doubt on his integrity.

He emphasised the importance of maintaining ethical conduct and transparency, especially in his position at the EFCC.

“I did the burial in September 2019. By July 2020, I was under investigation. Now, assuming all those cheques were paid into my account as traditional gifts and some of the MDAs that we were investigating in the EFCC, some of their directors and their DGs and their ministers sent cheques to me.

“Ordiarily, I mean for burial, some gave me one million, N20m and all of that. Even though that would not have influenced my decision if I was in a position to determine what would happen to their investigations, how would I have explained before a panel that they saw cheques paid into my account?

“So, assuming they found those cheques paid into my account, would it have been a good defence for me to say it was my mother’s burial when they were looking for me to roast? For me, that is what you call integrity. When you go beyond a level of expectation.”

Olukoyede also shared an example of rejecting bids from family members for auctioneering services during his tenure as EFCC Secretary.

He explained how both his brother-in-law, an international auctioneer, and his elder brother sought to participate in a government auction of forfeited assets. Despite the personal connections, Olukoyede insisted on adhering to conflict-of-interest rules, rejecting their applications.

He said, “My chairman then, we agreed that we should select a committee. So, we selected an assets forfeiture committee of about six directors, including myself as the chairman of the committee and a few other staff.

“We advertised for auctioneers. So, they applied. We were able to shortlist about 11 of them. My brother-in-law happens to be an international auctioneer. He applied. His application came to me. I saw it and I shredded it. So, my PA who knew him, called him and told him what I did, and for six months, he did not talk to me. So we did the auction.

“One of my elder brothers called me. ‘I heard you are doing an auction. I needed a truck for my business. I said, ‘Sir, go and read what we published.’ Conflict of interest. No staff of EFCC or immediate members of the family is allowed. He said no, they would use another name. I knew they could do that. I told him that I was not interested.

“After about eight months down the line, they set up a panel to investigate activities of the EFCC. My chairman and I were placed on suspension. They began to investigate what we did in the office. They investigated the particular auction I did in Port Harcourt. Now, assuming they found the name of my brother-in-law as one of the auctioneers. What would have been the result? Probably I may be in jail by now,” Olukoyede said.

[Punch]

President Bola Tinubu has signed the 2025 Appropriation Bill of ₦54.99 trillion into law.

The signing ceremony took place on Friday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, in the presence of the leadership of the National Assembly and other senior government officials.

The budget was passed by both chambers of the National Assembly on Thursday, February 13, after lawmakers increased it from the initial ₦49.7 trillion submitted by the President.

The 2025 Appropriation Act represents a 99.96% increase from the 2024 budget of ₦27.5 trillion.

2025 Budget breakdown:

Total Expenditure: ₦54.99 trillion

Statutory Transfers: ₦3.65 trillion

Recurrent (Non-Debt) Expenditure: ₦13.64 trillion

Capital Expenditure: ₦23.96 trillion

Debt Servicing: ₦14.32 trillion

Deficit-to-GDP Ratio: 1.52%

This budget marks a significant fiscal expansion, with increased allocations for capital projects and debt servicing.

[Vanguard]

If governance is a game, the skilled, brilliant ones know how to score goals that win the hearts of the people. Yet, true game-changers don’t play games. Today, Ndi Anambra has a worthy game-changer in Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo, CFR, who has turned Anambra into a rocket blazing skyward, and he has done it in just two and a half years. With wallets thinner than a razor’s edge, he has avoided needless borrowing. Yet, over 739km of roads now slash across the state, 420km commissioned, gleaming with fresh asphalt, stonebased and cement stabilization. Flyovers rise like phoenixes, and the Zero Pothole crusade has banished ruts to memory. This is what good governance can engender; it is a revolution, debt-free and defiant.

Education is his holy grail. Governor Soludo has hired 8,115 teachers in an unprecedented manner in Nigeria, made public schools free, and spiked enrolment by 18.7%. Out-of-school kids? Down to a national low of 2.9%, with smart schools sprouting like digital oaks. Health is on the rise, too: five new hospitals, 326 upgraded health centres glowing with solar power, 1,000 medical professionals enlisted, and free antenatal care delivering zero maternal deaths. Anambra is now second only to Lagos in under-five survival.

Youth are Governor Soludo’s wildfire. The One Youth, Two Skills programme has produced 5,000 entrepreneurs, seed cash in hand, while 8,700 more train. The Solution Innovation District churns out 20,000 tech warriors, earning Anambra “Best State in Digital Technology” cheers. Security? Eight LGAs once choked by gunmen breathe free, and the newly launched ‘Agunechemba’ security offensive has driven kidnappers, ritual dealers, and cultists out of town Onitsha’s touts are now ghosts, with traders thriving free. Palm and coconut seedlings, 2 million to 130,000 households, revive an agro-empire, aiming to lift 500,000 families from poverty’s grip.

Fiscal wizardry seals the deal. BudgIT ranks Anambra tops in prudence, number one in southern ease of doing business, all without a borrowed kobo. His five-pillar agenda plan, security, infrastructure, human capital, governance, environment, isn’t a dream; it is a juggernaut, outpacing 33 years of state history. Water flows in cities again, a befitting Government House stands after 34 years jinx, and the Solution Fun City promises West Africa’s grandest entertainment world.

So, Governor Soludo is not here to play games but to change the game of governance for good. Anambra is now a massive construction site, a classroom, a clinic, a tech hub, and more, all at once. The man who once stacked $63 billion in reserves now stacks victories; proving lean times bow to bold minds. This is a legacy in overdrive, a governor who has turned scarcity into a supernova of progress. Indeed, the Solution is Here!

Remember the last time you went on vacation? After locking the door and heading toward your car, you likely turned back abruptly to ensure the lock was secure before continuing your journey.

Financial markets, led by a range of human emotions, exhibit similar behaviors. After a convincing move beyond a long-held resistance, assets typically return to confirm the validity of the breakout. That serves as a test of the strength of the former resistance-turned-support, following which bigger rallies unfold.

The "breakout and retest play" phenomenon is well-known across asset classes. Bitcoin's (BTC) ongoing sell-off might be just that – a healthy retest of the breakout point or the former resistance-turned-support of $73,757 breached in November.

In other words, the downward momentum could run out of steam at or closer to these levels, potentially setting the stage for a bigger run higher.

BTC has dropped over 15% to under $80,000 this month, exposing the former resistance-turned-support at $73,757. Prices broke above that level in early November, ending months-long consolidation after pro-crypto Donald Trump won the U.S. Presidential election.

The tendency of markets to retrace or revisit the breakout point before staging more enormous rallies has its roots in the behavioral aspects of investing.

People are generally risk averse when it comes to securing gains. So, when facing profits, traders quickly book those instead of allowing the winning trade to run wild. The so-called prospect theory explains why post-breakout rallies abruptly run out of steam, often leading to a retest of the breakout point. BTC holders have been taking profits around the $100K mark since December.

Now, as prices turn lower and near the breakout point, in this case, $73,757, market participants who missed the initial rally jump in, ensuring the level holds. The resulting bounce from the former resistance-turned-support draws in more and more buyers, potentially yielding a bigger rally.

That's precisely what happened in the third quarter of 2023 and August-September 2020.

On both occasions, the breakout and retest produced bigger rallies to new record highs. Traders, however, need to note that a failed retest or a lack of a meaningful bounce indicates underlying weakness that can evolve into a full blown downtrend.

Over the years, I have seen numerous examples of retests of breakouts/breakdowns leading to bigger moves in traditional markets.

Consider the yield on the 10-year Japanese government bond. It triggered a double-bottom breakout in January 2024 and revisited the breakout level multiple times before rising to multi-year highs.

The AUD/USD pair dived out of a major support trendline in December, hinting at a deeper slide. The pair bounced to the trendline resistance early this month only to see sharp losses this week.

[CoinDesk]