It was almost impossible not to be infected by the joy writ large on the face of the One-party state Villa-fawning group this past week. It was akin to winning a tombola. The Mauritanian-Nigerian ex-spokesperson for the Arewa Elders Forum and until of recent, Special Adviser on Political Matters to the President, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, would not allow these elated countrymen the benefit of a hard-earned Saturnalia. Momentarily, he made sitting comfy on a stool a punishing exercise for the group. As he tendered his letter of resignation from government, fire billowed from Baba-Ahmed’s mouth like Sango, the Yoruba god of fire. In a  viral video interview, the Mauritanian – beg your pardon – the Nigerian, reached for his ancient Arewa pouch and brought out an insinuation of the North’s oft-mesmerizing demographic talisman.

If the North’s foe in Aso Rock Villa was gloating about a power of incumbency, he should remember that the North is a behemoth that anyone could ignore only at their peril, he reminded the president, until of recent his boss. “No politician can become president without northern support, making the region’s stance crucial to any aspirant’s success,” he warned, garnishing it with the usual obstinate northern threat, “If they plan to rig the election, they should be careful. It won’t be good for Nigeria.” As if the north had always been a saint when it comes to rigging. How come this same north closed its eyes when the ruinous Muhammadu Buhari almost ran Nigeria aground in eight years?

In a recent piece I did, I warned that, in the headship of today’s Nigeria, Nigerians had never met the kind of political wiles and deadly political machinations that are in the hands of the current occupiers of Aso Rock. Citing evergreen Yoruba Juju music superstar, King Sunny Ade’s imperishable line, “We m’ẹni o kò, Paddy…” I told the Nigerian world that by the time the current Taskmaster is done with us, we would be worn thin. So, last week, an ignited political bomb exploded. Governor of Delta State, Sheriff Oborevwori and his EFCC-harangued predecessor, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) vice presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, Ifeanyi Okowa, shamelessly decamped from the PDP to the All Progressives Congress (APC). An equally shameless Akwa-Ibom State governor gave indication that he would stay within the PDP and rock its boat. Both moves were replicas of same act some 2000 years ago by that notorious man who asked for 30 pieces of silver to betray our Lord Jesus Christ. Political watchers say this political Iscariotism is a tip of the iceberg. More opposition party governors, they said, many of whom are first-termers, are having their buttocks placed on scalding-hot pressure cooker in the bid to make them leave their parties for the president’s. Chief among these, they say, are governors of Kano, Osun, Plateau, Rivers, Taraba, Akwa Ibom and Zamfara states.

The gleeful repertoire of conquest narratives from the presidency and the Villa fawning group fill the stratosphere.The glee was so thick you could cut a handful and swallow it. The defection fever threw National Chairman of the APC, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, into a spasm. Reminiscent of Vincent Ogbulafor’s punctilious proclamation some years ago who, in his moment of uncontrollable drunkenness with the intoxicating wine of power, said the PDP would rule Nigeria for 50 years, Ganduje, last Thursday, traveled same inglorious route. He surveyed the political horizon and was so titillated by what he saw that he announced that APC’s 2027 project was a done deal. Thumping his chest like one who had just won a jackpot, the party chair, who is still embroiled in allegation of fraud while governor of Kano State, assured that more defections of governors from the opposition parties were afoot. His infelicitous boast came while he formally received defectors from the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Kano state chapter.

In Nigeria today, the man whose wily stratagem is known to have incubated these defections is being garlanded with epithets. Like maggots brimming round decaying meat, the salutes to his wiles are so aeonic that they qualify to rival the biblical “This is the voice of a god, not of a man!” Students of the bible will remember that  the crowd at Judea made that remark in response to Herod Agrippa 1’s considered superlatives. The epithets showered on the man who is considered to have broken the spinal cord of Nigeria’s opposition in such magisterial manner range from, “the enigmatic Master Strategist has struck again!”, to “The man who pocketed Lagos State in the last 25 years has added Nigeria to his state-pocketing craft.”

For the Yoruba, their naughty son with amoeba-shaped buttocks, who deserves their waist-beads and not an outsider – an “at’ohunrinwa” – the celebration is even more infectious. From their proverbs pouch, the Yoruba pulled out an ancient saying to justify and enable the perceived routing political craftiness of their son. To them, the rout is a perfect reply to the Mauritanian boaster. So, they say, “as it is on the day set for cultivation of a large farmland that the urgency to own a sharp cutlass becomes imperative, so is it gladsome to have a belligerent child when there is a declaration of war” (Ọjọ́ a ba pa’juba l’aa níran àdá, ọjọ ogun bá lè làá níran ọmọ líle). Only the man who is ensuring that opposition governors decamp to the APC can vanquish their centuries-old northern political foes who, at every drop of a hat, flaunt nebulous demographics as political weapon in electoral contest. The North’s snake has met its waterloo in its bid to swallow the Yoruba shrew.

For me, however, an eerie feeling of foreboding has since last week enveloped my reading of the projected epidemic of decamping opposition politicians.  My mind immediately dashed down to eponymous Yoruba thespian, Alagba Adebayo Faleti and his sagely takes on Pyrrhic celebrations, the type that Aso Rock and its fawners are currently taking to the bank. With songs, sang in the cadences of an elderly’s, Faleti drilled down the surface of today’s clanking of champagne glass and saw a melancholic tomorrow. His cameo role in Saworoide, a satiric brainchild film of unarguably one of Nigeria’s most talented cinematographers, Tunde Kelani, provided Faleti an opportunity to penetrate this dense outer surface. Acting the role of Baba  Opalaba, (a piercing broken bottle) an elderly palace staff, Faleti deployed music as tool to foretell, reprimand and correct. While the chiefs became a combine of evil, fascinated about immediate riches in a new king, and plotting against the tomorrow of the people, Baba Opalaba warned, singing, “Yes, they are unaware of their action’s repercussion/Tomorrow, they will” (Kò í ye wón, yíò yé wọn l’ọla ).

In another of his warnings, Faleti deployed a proverb to foretell doom: “The wretched wearing torn clothes dances like a king at nocturne, as if unaware that daybreak is nigh (Alakisa n jo l’oru/Bo pe, ile a mo l’ola). If only the Aso Rock/APC celebratory crew was aware of the wiles of their Mephistopheles, they would see what happened last week and what is projected to happen, as moments to, like biblical Israelites did when there was doom, decorate themselves in ashes and soberly mourn what lies ahead. The doom is also popularized by the song of Yoruba Sakara music great, Yusuff Olatunji. He sang of a hawk playing with the pigeon and the pigeon is filled with excitement, unbeknown to it that death lurks in the horizon (Asa nb’ẹyẹlé ṣeré, ẹyẹlé nyọ, ẹyẹlé nfi’ ikú ṣeré ). Is this celebratory gang aware that it is cultivating a fertile ground for Mephistopheles to reign in Nigeria, for the nourishment of a one-party state, with all its attendant evils? One feels like telling this lot celebrating inanity what Hamlet told Ophelia: “Get thee to a nunnery and stop breeding fools into the world.”

Naomi Mitchinson’s “One Party Rule In Africa” The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs  (2008) gives an intellectual foretaste of this hawk/pigeon mutual excitement. So also did Peter Anyang Nyong’o, in his “Africa: The failure of one-party rule,” Journal of Democracy, Volume 3, Number 1, January 1992. Nyong’o particularly saw doom ahead for the people in what is being cobbled together by the APC. According to him, while it was good news that the peoples of Africa are awakening from years of slumber under authoritarian rule and taking their future in their own hands. The bad news, he said, is that, regimes which enjoy absolute power over “terrorized natives” are sprouting in Africa. These are regimes which, in reluctance to allow themselves to be liquidated out of office and let go of power, “are doing all they can to hold back the rising democratic tide.”

One-party state regimes emerged in Africa during the decolonization period. They thereafter began to spread, with many of them adopting it as a means of consolidating power and, in their claim, promoting national unity.

In its manifestations, one-party state is indeed the holding back of Africa’s democratic tide. Margaret Monyani of the University of Witwaterstrand once defined it as a political framework “where a one/single political party forms and runs the government.” This can happen in two ways: “the activities of the opposition may be completely outlawed such that even the opposition leaders are not allowed to participate in elections” or “the chances of the opposition to clinch power are thwarted by the unfavourable legal framework that is in place… in some cases, a dominant political party that is in power only allows other less dominant parties who are allied to it to exist, while completely outlawing the opposition parties.”

While the establishment of a one-party state in Tanzania and Kenya was done through the parliament, making the formation of another party illegal, in some other countries where the one-party state structure was adopted, it is the voluntary dissolution of the political parties that makes it a one-party state. In this, the leaders and supporters of the parties are absorbed into the one-party state structure. In the words of Peter Wanyande, writing with the title, “Democracy and the One-party state: The African experience” (1987), published in the book, Democratic Theory and Practice in Africa (Y. O. Oyugi and A. Gitonga eds.), this structure of one party-rule makes such countries de jure one-party state, rather than de-facto.

Our African nationalist forefathers sold this system of governance to Africa as holding hope. Kenya, Ghana, Zamabia, Mali, Senegal, Burkina-Fasso and Tanzania were some of the countries that first adopted the one-party system. Among others, the nationalists’ justification for a one-party state was that it is the only form of governance native to Africa while multi-partyism was an alien construct. According to them, a one-party state promotes national unity and in it, national efforts would be solely directed toward nation building, rather than on fruitless politicking. Similarly, they reasoned, in the words of Nyong’o, whatever differences that might emerge among the people of a single political party “could be freely settled… for democracy would be practiced and human rights respected.” Tanzania’s former president, the Walimu, Julius Nyerere, was one of the early proponents of one-party regime. While foisting one-party rule on Tanzania in 1965, Nyerere lauded it thus: “where there is one-party state and that party is identified with the nation as a whole, the foundations of democracy are firmer than they can ever be (in a situation where) you have two or more parties each representing only a section of the community.”

Kenya under successive one-party governments, not long after, degenerated into authoritarianism. The economic development which the likes of Jomo Kenyatta and Arap Moi envisaged became a mirage. Kenyatta’s Kenya African National Union (KANU) fused with the main opposition party and became one single party. In 1964, Kenyatta then led the legislature to write into the constitution the office of the president with him as the leader.  Not long after, this one-party state morphed into a bud of corruption, disregard for merit and a system where loyalty to the Fuhrer was rewarded. Those who did not pledge full loyalty to the party and the president were hounded.

Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, which began the one-party system in 1964, became a dictatorial and authoritarian government. It repressed voices of dissent under the facade of maintaining unity. Nkrumah fatally wounded multi-party system of government by labeling it as divisive and thus not fit for the newly independent African states. What was needed, he said, was a unified energy and enthusiasm to move Africa forward. These African countries practicing one-party state system then ended up choosing socialism as a system of governance. In Tanzania, its own one-party state was the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), a political party which was in power from the inception of the country’s independence in 1961. This same fusing happened in Burkina-Faso following the election of President Yaméogo in 1959. Opposition leaders fused together shortly after the 1959 election with Yaméogo proclaiming a ban on any other political parties, thus making his Union of Voltaic Democrats (UDV- RDA) to become the country’s one-party state.

One unique feature of the one-party states in all the above-named countries is that, as butterflies are attracted to nectar, those states always attracted military putsches. One by one, all the one-party system countries were dismantled by violent military takeovers. This is due to resistance and rebellion against their authoritarian rules.

So, for the celebrating  Villa-fawning group that is shuffling its feet in acrobatic dance to the Bata drum as the group careens Nigeria towards a one-party state, the above examples are my own re-calibration of another of Baba Opalanba’s song. The sage sang: “The bird doesn’t just perch on the patio, it has ears and hears.” He rendered this thus, “Ọrọ l’ẹyẹ gbọ, ẹyẹ o dédé bà l’òrùlé o, ọrọ l’ẹyẹ ngbọ o”.

For us as a collective, this gale of defection is more than a political chess-game. It is ominous. For those who know, it has high flavour of despotism, which is a by-word for the Fuhrer’s brand of politicking. Many one-party states’ helmsmen eventually morph into life presidents of the Gnasingbe Eyadema hue. While many see a mild, Cockney English accent-flavoured-speaking Villa boss, beyond this veneer is a totalitarian for whom “No” can never be an answer. Many of the first-term governors are currently being held on tenterhooks, their second term used as bait by Aso Rock. A case is a governor whose godfather was manifesting traits of dissent. Suspecting that the governor might go the way of his godfather, Aso Rock immediately began to sponsor a SWAGA Lord as countervailing force to run against him in the soon-to-be-held gubernatorial election. A few days ago, both the governor and his godfather addressed a press conference announcing their support for Aso Rock 2027!

There is the tendency for anyone to see an impending one-party state in Nigeria as too remote. There is also the tendency to say, all that is foul is fair in politics. Or that, others before the current occupiers of the Villa did worse. In the allegory of the hawk and the pigeon, it was only when the pigeon landed inside the hawk’s abdomen, with its entrails as gourmet meal, that the warning made sense.

Dr Mike Adenuga Jnr. is like the proverbial elephant whose revelation to different persons is according to their perception of him. To thousands of people who feed off his ingenuity as a business magnate, he is their life-saving force. To the philanthropic world for which he is a phenomenon, he is their sustaining breath. Ad nauseam, Nigerians have spoken about him as a manifestation of the beauty of a national as a business anchor who would have empathy of his people. To the rest of Nigerians whose knowledge of him is the Globacom communication empire, his entrepreneurial wizardry is a stuff for legends.

But, who exactly is Mike Adenuga? Yes, I am aware that, to the business world, he is the octopus magnate whose boardroom acumen is a tale that is told across continents. Having never met him, what arrests me most are stories of his humility in the midst of his humongous wealth. More exciting to hear are the lessons of his humble beginnings.

As the story is told of how he rose by dint of hard work, a can-do spirit of the Barack Obama kind, I am still pursuit of understanding who he is. Yes, though aware that he is unique, I have heard his riches pursuit from the beginning, especially his persuasion, from the very beginning, that his place was not that of a small-timer but as one of the foremost men to impact his world. I am also aware that Adenuga’s unexampled life evokes lessons of the limitless border of the human spirit.

But, who is Mike Adenuga? I read a recent testimonial to his philanthropy where he rebuked a benefactor of his for showing gratitude. He struck me as an enigma whose life is an unusual curve from the maddening crowd of benefactors. During his 70th birthday, I also read a gale of shows of gratitude from across the world to a man whose life was wrapped around giving. I am knowledgeable enough to know that such characters are far between in a world of survival of the fittest. The glean of the Adenugas of this world I have is that, if you want to asphyxiate them, stop their earthly assignment of philanthropy. On the reverse, a crop of other humans exists whose earthly brief is to do evil. If there is indeed rewards for the two earthly assignments, it would be glad to see them both take the fruits of their calls.

As he turns 72 on Tuesday, I continue to marvel at the sort of man who does good unseen and loathes being thanked by the benefactor. The Holy Writ talks about a cheerful giver who is God’s friend. The totality of what the world says about Adenuga is that he is an embodiment of that scripture. He is God’s friend.

This page was somewhat prophetic last week when we discussed the topic, ‘Nigeria’s opposition, letting democracy down’. With the benefit of hindsight and in view of the massive blows that landed on the cheeks of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Labour Party (LP) and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) in the middle of last week, I am pressed to take a fresh position. Rather than heap all the blames of poor democratic culture on the opposition figures, I can now see that the political party system that we operate should take the lion share.

As you are aware, the PDP experienced one of its heaviest hemorrhages of the Fourth Republic last Wednesday, when the entire structure of the party in Delta State called it quits with the party, as they defected to the ruling party All Progressives Congress (APC).  A sixth-term member of the House of Representatives, from Osun State, Hon. Wole Oke also announced his resignation from the PDP. Feelers from his camp indicate that he is on his way to the APC, while days before the Delta and Osun drama, the governor of Akwa-Ibom State, Pastor Ume Eno had openly announced his decision to back President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the 2027 election, same way the embattled Rivers State Governor, Sim Fubara, had in a statement to the people of the state asked them to continue to support the administration of President Bola Tinubu.

As the week ended, the PDP was practically left with empty shells as it was certainly returning to the its state in 2014, when seven of its governors took up arms against their own government, formed what they called the new PDP, with four of them eventually teaming up with the legacy parties that formed the APC. Losing the long standing South-South stronghold is a big blow to the PDP.  But the cloud gathering around the PDP this time appears thicker and probably more ominous than the 2014 situation.  That is despite the assurances from the Acting National Chairman, Iliya Damagum and the President of the 8th Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki. When we heard Dr. Saraki declare that there was cause for alarm and that the leaders would rebuild the PDP, I got some mixed feelings because I know that it is beyond the optimism of the former Senate President. How many of his compatriots in the party are ready to build a formidable structure that can withstand the test of time?

The danger for the PDP this time seems to be looming large. In 2014, the party was in Aso Rock, with President Goodluck Jonathan as the Commander-in-Chief. This time, the party has the APC to contend with. The new ruling party is unlike Jonathan, who would say that the enormity of presidential power was too much to be deployed on either the citizens, or the opposition.

Several reasons have been adduced to the fall of the PDP from power in Delta State, 26 years after and its imminent fall from some other South-South states. Some PDP leaders want to blame alleged coercion from the APC at the centre, while others have claimed that PDP’s structures were being “harassed”, others have alluded to the push by President Tinubu to solidify his hold on Southern Nigeria ahead of the 2027 battle against a perceived resolute North. Whichever side of the argument you want to belong, it is better to avoid the simplistic conclusion. If anyone would complain about harassment, you may wish to ask whether Tinubu himself did not face serious harassments from former President Olusegun Obasanjo between 2002 and 2007. How did he survive and why did he not buckle under the presidential jackboot?  Why was his experience not turned into a case study by the current opposition? If Tinubu had thrown in the towel under the excuse of being “harassed”, will he become the leader of the APC and eventually the President of Nigeria in 2023? But the excuse of Southern solidarity looks plausible.

While the fullness of the reasons that informed the defection of Hon. Wole Oke and the Delta PDP caucus are yet to come into the open, what one can see in the whole scenario is a failure of party leadership.  Former ranking Senator James Manager alluded to that when he spoke on the defection. According to Manager: “I have been with the PDP from the very beginning, so this is a very emotional moment for me. But when a ship is sinking, you don’t stay onboard out of sentiment. We had extensive consultations and today marks the climax of those discussions. What we have now is a collective and unanimous decision to chart a new course.”

He added: “You have just been told about some of the things that have been happening in the PDP Delta State. Some consultations have been going on and the climax of these consultations is what you are seeing today. We have discussed and have disagreed to agree, and it is a unanimous agreement. I am the pioneer state chairman of the PDP. But you cannot be in a boat that is already capsising because I am a riverine man.

“Looking at issues the way they are, we have come to the inevitable conclusion to do something else. It is a collective decision for so many reasons. Few days ago, there was a resolution taken by the PDP Governors Forum at Ibadan. Almost all the governors were there, and they resolved that they are not going into a coalition with any other party.

“But as disadvantaged as the PDP is now with 11 governors, how do you go into a contest with an incumbent president? You think you can win? That resolution killed the spirit of so many PDP members. We lost election in 2015 because of 0a merger which even included splinter groups from the PDP. There are also other reasons. “Today Senator Anyanwu is the National Secretary of the party; tomorrow it is another person. The party must be positioned to go into an election to win. So, it is becoming very funny. The PDP is truly in trouble.”  Without even going into the excuse of the change in taste of the PDP palm wine provided by Charles Aniagwu, Commissioner for Works in Delta State, what Senator Manager said is enough to know that the PDP is indeed in trouble. Whoever wants to blame Tinubu for the development in Delta needs only to read the lines by Manager. Lawyers would describe this PDP scenario as a prima facie case.

From inception, the PDP looked like an overfed spoiled brat, who got into position of authority with little or no effort. What usually evolves in such a situation is unmitigated misconduct and gross incapacity to hold the fringes together. Maybe President Olusegun Obasanjo tried to pull it in one direction and made it a behemoth between 1999 and 2007 when it controlled 27 state governors and a clear two-thirds majority in the Senate, especially between 2003 and 2007.  After Obasanjo, the party continued to self-destruct, with internal squabbles, rather than opposition’s machinations its undoing. Between 2010 and 2011, some chieftains of the party were spewing fire over the perceived shortchanging of the North by the decision of President Goodluck Jonathan to contest the 2011 elections. To them, Jonathan should have only completed the remainder of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s tenure such that he would allow the North to do eight years in power in line with PDP’s zoning pattern which recognised a North/South arrangement. That agitation laid the foundation for the party’s disintegration, eventually leading to the 2014 defections and Jonathan’s ouster in 2015. Prior to that time, no opposition was strong enough to confront the PDP.

Apart from internal squabbles, the party also started planting the fruits it is harvesting right now since 2003, when it allowed incumbent governors enormous powers to control party structures and determine candidates for Senate and House of Representatives seats as well as members of the state Houses of Assembly and then their successors. With badly conducted elections across most of the states, the governors were able to retire themselves into the Senate and plant their lackeys in the Government Houses in the states. Most of the time, they supplanted party structures and sentiments to impose successors, thus weakening the party and rubbishing party supremacy. Within a short time, real time politicians or let me say politicians of the old school were replaced with businessmen in politics and then vote buying became the order of elections. Even in the South-West, where the people rejected PDP’s moneybags in the 1999 elections, to vote for Alliance for Democracy (AD) leaders as a sign of reverence to politicians who stood by the late MKO Abiola in the June 12 struggle, the tide has since changed with dibo k’o se obe (vote and get a pot of soup) becoming the new singsong on election days.

When a political followership is based on nothing other than power grab and that situation is further worsened by a complete absence of structured funding patterns, the party is doomed.  The NPN, UPN and other parties of the Second Republic had funding patterns that aided the preservation of party structures. Senator Femi Okurounmu once told me he served as UPN’s administrative secretary in Gongola axis. He was a paid staff of the party.  Where a party is at the mercy of governors or the president, its future can only remain at the mercy of the wind. Since 1999, the PDP has failed to find a sustainable funding system.  The same for all the registered parties of this era. Where a state has no governor, the responsibility for picking the bills is rested on a magnanimous governor nearby. Party dues are hardly collected and where members pay, that confers no advantage on them. I once saw the example of a hardworking former commissioner who had spent all his time in office attracting dividends to his community and was asked to contest the House of Representatives seat of the constituency. Though everyone recognised he worked hard for the community, that, however, did not stop the people from collecting d’ibo k’o se obe money from a man they later dubbed Yahoo, Yahoo on election day. The sad aspect is that the so-called ‘Yahoo man’ completely abandoned the constituency after he was sworn in.

So, it is easy for those who are desperate for power to conveniently hang in there or pump in money at the last minute, grab power and run with it. Rather than blame Tinubu’s politics for the myriads of defections, we may have to look at the severity of other issues. If nobody would stick out his neck to build political parties the way our Second Republic leaders did, we can as well conclude that this Republic has not seen the last of jeun soke politics.

Waiting for an African Pope” by my brother, Azu Ishiekwene, made an interesting reading. Azu’s immense fecundity, as usual, his flawless prose, and free-flowing minting and weaving of words will always be a delight any day. “Waiting for an African Pope” ended while I was still enjoying it! Did Azu argue or canvass for an African pope at this point in time? Not really, in my own opinion, although he gave reasons that can support or justify the choice of one. Since the late Pope Francis was the first Jesuit and cardinal from the Americas (born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to be specific) “to rise to the top of the papacy”, this, posits Azu, “raises hopes that the next one may come from Africa or Asia”. Another cogent reason given by Azu is that Africa “is the largest growing region for the Catholic Church, with about 20 percent of the church’s 1.4 billion population”, thus giving hope that we may not be far away from seeing “the first Black pope in modern history”. What that means is that there had been Black popes in the past, but that was a long, long time ago, in the 5th century or the Roman-era Africa. The office of the Pope had since been dominated by three European countries – Italy, Germany, and France – giving the impression (my own interpretation, please!) that this may be another form of (religion) colonialism or imperialism! According to Google, “there have been 266 popes throughout history, of whom 4 in 5 were from Italy.”

In this Digital Age and Free World, an office as important as that of the Catholic pope should also be democratised. God, being no respecter of persons and the Holy Spirit also not discriminating among tribes and tongues, what is good for the Caucausians should also be good for the Asians and Africans. Azu also argues that since the deceased pope pitched his tent with the poor, championing a lot of reforms that deliberately made advocacy for the poor a legacy, there is no better way to protect, preserve, advance, and concretise that legacy than to choose the next pope from among the poorest of the poor. This is debatable, though, because a man’s ideology, more than his place of origin or the colour of his skin, is likely to determine where he pitches his tent between the haves and have-nots. Azu, however, highlights a drawback of the African Catholic church – it is a poor church. Says Azu: “The African church may have the fastest-growing flock, but it is also the begging bowl. In a world where money is the bicycle of the gospel, the African church is the largest recipient of many forms of financial aid.” These days, though, the gospel no longer thrives on bicycles but on custom-built supersonic jets, especially where Nigeria’s Pentecostals are concerned!

 Other obstacles listed by Azu include that African cardinals have faced less scrutiny compared with their other colleagues; and then there is the politics of the conclave (where popes are chosen). Since man is intrinsically a political animal, there is politics everywhere you find human beings. And where there is politics, a lot of factors – subjective and objective – come into play. The colour of one’s skin, the region where a candidate comes from, and his ideology will certainly come into play. How many of the cardinals who fought the deceased pope tooth and nail over his reforms, especially his fight against corruption, incompetence and conservatism, will want to see a continuation of the same policies?

 In the end, will a Black pope emerge after the white-coloured smoke funnels from the top of Sistine Chapel, signalling that a choice has been made? Again, why is it a white-coloured smoke that signals success while a black-coloured smoke signals that no decision has been arrived at? Azu does not think a Black pope will emerge because, according to him, the road to change is usually long! And he is right! Jamaican reggae artiste Jimmy Cliff says the road is not only long but also hard. But isn’t 16 centuries a long and hard enough wait for Africa – except, here again, it is a wait for Godot? “The odds, this time, favour yet another Italian pope”, concludes Azu. Each time prophets, pastors, and preachers take such a risk as Azu’s or soccer buffs predict who wins in a football match and fail, I shudder at the perils of making predictions!

 As if Catholic Rev. Father Oluoma Chinenye John had also read Azu, he was quoted as saying that getting an African pope was not something Catholics in Africa were clamouring for. Did he say it was not desirable? No! He only wanted whoever emerges to have been so chosen by God, arguing that getting an African (simply because he is an African – my own addition, please!) to succeed the deceased pope will make no difference.

His exact words: “We are not praying for an African pope. We are praying for a good and holy pope who will shepherd the people. He can be an African, American, European or Asian… Una don hear, ba? All those agitating and clamouring for an African to be the next pope, you miss the point completely. Popes are not chosen on racial sentiments. Even if an African becomes the next pope, it will not give Africans any advantage over others and vice-versa”. Poking fun at Nigeria, he noted that there is nothing like “emilokan” or “it is my turn” in the selection of a pope! Father Oluoma is a person I respect so much for his candour. I always love to listen to him as he makes very serious statements in a light-hearted manner. Another such fellow is Professor PLO Lumumba.

 But this time around, I want to disagree with Father Oluoma while agreeing with Azu. Whatever criteria are applied to choose the next pope – by God or human beings – nothing should stop an African from making the mark. Why should Blacks always fall behind Whites in the pecking order in all things and at all times, even in things that pertain unto religion, which is touted as our forte in Africa? When will Africa “come of age”, to quote the assassinated Nigerian Head of State, Gen. Murtala Muhammed?  

 That said, the life of Pope Francis should be a challenge to church leaders worldwide. Can the following report about the pope be true? He should have been buried yesterday (Saturday). It goes thus: “Some reports indicate that Pope Francis died leaving only 100 dollars. Yes, a hundred dollars. Less than 90 euros. No house. No bank account. No investment in his name. And yet, he was the head of the Catholic Church. A post that could have earned him about €340,000 a year. But he refused that money. Every year. Since 2013. Why? Because he was a Jesuit, and the Jesuits take a vow of poverty.

 “Rather than living in the luxurious Vatican apartments like his predecessors, he chose to move into the Casa Santa Marta, a simple, modest residence. No gilding. No personal servants. Just a bed, a desk, and his faith. He wore his old worn-out black shoes, refusing traditional red moccasins. He moved in a small Ford Focus while other religious leaders were driving in limousines. He ate with the Vatican employees, not in a private dining room. He simply dressed, without special adornment, just his white outfit and an iron cross. An invisible wealth…

“While some cling to their property… Pope Francis has chosen to own nothing to offer everything. No millions. No complex wills. Just 100 dollars… and a powerful message: ‘It’s not what you own that matters. That’s what you are. What you do for others.’ The world is shocked… but inspired. At a time when wealth often becomes an ultimate goal, Pope Francis leaves an eternal trace without ever having sought to enrich himself. He did not bequeath any material fortune. He left a moral fortune. A lesson in humility. A vision of service.

“He wasn’t a luxury Pope! He was a Pope of The Heart. A man who has proved that to live simply is to reign differently. What about you? What will you leave behind? Money? Things? Or a real inspiration?”

 It is difficult not to notice the difference between the religion-preneurs here and the true followers of Jesus Christ as depicted by Pope Francis. Yet, the Bible says in St. Luke 12: 15:  “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.” Matthew 6: 19 -21 says: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

 For a moment, please pause and Google “The 10 top richest pastors in Nigeria” and marvel! Tell me, where are folks taking all the riches? Heaven or hell? What with so much poverty – grinding poverty, multi-dimensional poverty – in the midst of their congregation? Why can’t they divest themselves of their stinking riches and give to the poor, like Jesus Christ admonished the rich, young man in Matthew 19: 21-24? Building state-of-the-art cathedrals is not a substitute for taking care of the poor.                        

 Pope Francis is dead – by the time you are reading this (on Sunday), he would have been buried the day before (on Saturday). He would have taken nothing with him – only his soul went with him. I counsel our church-preneurs to listen to Tracy Chapman’s “All that you have is your soul.” Permit me to take just a few lines from it: “Oh my mama told me/Because she say she learned the hard way/Say she want to spare the children/She say don’t give or sell your soul away/Because all that you have is your soul/Don’t be tempted by the shiny apple/Don’t you eat of a bitter fruit/Hunger only for a taste of justice/Hunger only for a word of truth/Because all that you have is your soul/ Why was I such a young fool/Thought I’d made history/…Thought I’d made something that could be mine forever/Found out the hard way one can’t possess another/And all that you have is your soul…”

Can anyone, from his or her grave, beat God’s words in Psalm 39:6? Or nullify Mark 8: 34 -38?

 Fare thee well, Pope Francis! The thoughts of your patron saint, the Italian Saint Francis of Assisi (Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone: 1181 – 3 October, 1226), have also had a profound influence on my worldview.   

Barrister Elizabeth Arinde, Head of the Legal Department, Oke-Ero Local Government Area of Kwara State has allegedly been kidnapped, DAILY POST reports.

She was reportedly kidnapped alongside the Director of Personnel Management of the local government on Friday.

Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ilorin branch, S.M. Kosemani, who confirmed the development, said they were abducted while travelling from Oke-Ero to Ilorin.

“We are deeply concerned to inform you that Barrister Elizabeth Arinde, Head of the Legal Department at Oke Ero Local Government, has been kidnapped.

“According to reports, she was abducted alongside the DPM of the Local Government on Friday, April 25, 2025, while traveling from Oke Ero LGA to Ilorin.

“We will provide further updates as more information becomes available.

“Please share this information widely to aid in her rescue and pray for her release alive,” the NBA branch chairman added in a text message which has gone viral.

Attempt to reach the spokesperson of the state police command SP Adetoun Ejire-Adeyemi in Ilorin on Saturday, on the development proved abortive.

[DailyPost]

• Seizes 57 AK 47, six pump action, ammunition

Amajor in the British Army (name withheld) and his accomplices have been arrested by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) in connection with the smuggling into the country of over 50 AK 47 rifles, six pump-action shotguns and over 3,000 rounds of ammunition, The Nation has learnt.

It was gathered that the suspects were picked up in Lagos and Asaba, Delta State Capital.

The Nation gathered that the British army officer, who is of Itsekiri descent, allegedly procured the weapons at the behest of one Collins.

Multiple sources in the agency confirmed over the weekend that the prime suspect, a Major in the British Army, and several of his associates connected with the illegal arms supply have been detained.

The British army officer was reportedly intercepted in Lagos as he attempted to cross Nigeria’s border en route to the United Kingdom, while his associates were apprehended in Asaba.

A source said: ‘’An Itsekiri serving in the British Army is alleged to have procured weapons and ammunition at the behest of one Collins to instigate unrest in Warri.

“During a covert exchange near Asaba in Delta State, operatives from the DSS Delta Command apprehended the arms supplier and several associates, seizing over 50 AK-47 rifles, six pump-action shotguns, and more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition.

‘’Shortly thereafter, DSS agents in Lagos intercepted the British Major  as he tried to cross Nigeria’s border en route to the United Kingdom.

“All suspects are now in DSS custody. The DSS will carry out a full and transparent investigation and hold anyone found plotting tribal conflicts to account.’’

The Nation gathered that the arms were procured by those allegedly opposed to the delineation of wards and polling units in the Warri Federal Constituency.

A traditional ruler is also being discreetly investigated in connection with the matter, it was learnt.

The Independent National Electoral Commission had earlier presented the report on the delineation of wards and polling units in the Warri Federal Constituency to the Ijaw, Itsekiri and Urhobo ethnic nationalities.

The INEC chairman’s representative, State Resident Electoral Commissioner Etekamba Umoren, at the presentation held in Asaba, the Delta State capital, said that the fresh ward and polling unit delineation fieldwork was prompted by the Supreme Court judgment of December 22, 2022, which ordered it to conduct the exercise.

Copies of the delineation report were received by Chief Victor Okumagba, Dr. Andrew Igban and Dr Joe Bisina on behalf of the Urhobo, Itsekiri and Ijaw ethnic nationalities, respectively.

In his address during the meeting, the INEC chairman noted that the meeting was the fifth engagement with the stakeholders since the apex court verdict, which mandated the Commission to carry out the exercise in the three local government areas in the Warri federal constituency.

He urged the stakeholders to study the report and respond to it appropriately, as the commission was ready to adopt the report as a working document in line with the Supreme Court directive.

However, the planned delineation has stoked tension in the state, with some groups and stakeholders opposed to the exercise.

Recently, scores of Ijaw youths marched to the INEC headquarters in Abuja in support of the exercise.

Drawn from the Gbaramatu, Egbema, Diebiri and Isaba communities, they said the INEC delineation exercise was fair and in line with the Supreme Court judgment.

They commended INEC for what they called a transparent process, which they said marked the end of years of political marginalisation of the Ijaw people in the constituency.

It will be recalled also that following the unveiling of the report, the Itsekiri Leaders of Thought (ILoT), at a press briefing in Asaba, Delta State capital, denounced the proposed delineation of wards and polling units by INEC, adding that if the proposed delineation is implemented, it will mark the end of Itsekiri nation politically.

The group’s scribe, Sir Amorighoye Mene, said the Itsekiri ethnic nationality will seek legal redress, describing INEC’s actions as anti-Itsekiri.

Reacting, Itsekiri Leaders of Thought (ILoT) said the discovery, if true, has nothing to do with the proposed delineation exercise.

Its scribe, Sir Amorighoye Mene, who spoke in a telephone interview said: “I can tell you that if this discovery is true, it has nothing to do with the proposed delineation.

“More so, we have met with the National Security Adviser who has assured that government is seriously looking into the matter. So on our own part, there is no anxiety.

“Even our youths, who on the spur of the moment took over some oil facilities, have all been asked to withdraw and they have indeed withdrawn.

“Peace has returned. We are not preparing for any confrontation or struggle, certainly not under President Ahmed Tinubu’s administration.

“The President has assured that his administration will address the injustice that has been perpetrated against the Itsekiri nation.

“We keep urging our people to remain peaceful. I repeat, the discovery of arms has nothing to do with the delineation.

“It has not come to that.”

[TheNation]

•Parties allege inducements, blackmail amid defection gale

•How Tinubu turned tide against opponents

There are strong indications that recent political moves by President Bola Tinubu are responsible for the defections of top opposition figures to the ruling All Progressives Congress.

Sunday PUNCH noted that the APC and the President, who had been on the defensive against criticisms from the opposition and anti-Tinubu coalition groups, might have turned the tables around.

However, while some sources and opposition figures claimed that the President deployed inducements and blackmail, his supporters said he provided good leadership, which made the party attractive to outsiders.

Masterstroke or mischief?

Feelers from the APC identified Governors Umo Eno (Akwa Ibom), Peter Mbah (Enugu), Aba Yusuf (Kano) and suspended Governor, Siminalayi Fubara (Rivers), as four new converts expected to join the party in the coming weeks.

“It is not a rumour. It is happening; those four governors – Eno, Mbah, Yusuf and Fubara — are on their way to joining the APC,” a source said.

Multiple sources at the ruling party secretariat in Abuja equally confirmed the development to Sunday PUNCH.

This comes barely three days after the defections of Delta State Governor, Sheriff Oborevwori; his predecessor, Ifeanyi Okowa, and all members of the PDP in the state.

Their change of allegiance was announced last Wednesday by Senator James Manager, shortly after a meeting that lasted over six hours at the Government House in Asaba.

Another source, however, didn’t rule out mischief and blackmail in the arrangement.

He cited President Tinubu’s covert meeting with Fubara in London as one of such.

The meeting, confirmed by an online media platform, The Africa Report, was held at the insistence of the embattled governor, who was suspended from office after a declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers.

Sunday PUNCH could not confirm the details of the meeting, as presidential aides contacted said they were not part of the President’s latest trip.

A top source said, “It was at that meeting that we believed Fubara must have been coaxed into considering the idea of defection as part of the arrangement to return his mandate. We also have reasons to suspect that Governor Eno’s potential move to the APC is linked to his predecessor and godfather’s alleged corruption case with the EFCC.

“Kano’s case is already a done deal as Tinubu has started reconciling Ganduje and Kwankwaso. In the coming days, the news of Abba Yusuf’s defection will be made public because he will officially move to the APC with his mentor. We all know Kano is too big a state for Tinubu to ignore politically.”

Also, a chieftain of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, Buba Galadima, claimed that a federal lawmaker under his party said President Tinubu gave him a N95bn ecological fund project.

He said, “At least if I don’t know anything, I know a serving lawmaker who declared that he was given N95bn, which is not in the budget, for an ecological project.”

Reacting, the National Secretary of the APC, Senator Ajibola Basiru, denied allegations of inducement and blackmail.

He said, “How can we induce a governor to come and join our political party? There is no factual basis for those allegations. It is in the figment of their imagination and possibly a product of hallucination. The truth is that even before decamping, if they check online, they will realise Governor Sherif has, on several occasions, shown his preference for Tinubu’s presidency.

“He has never hidden his admiration. So, when the stakeholders met, they felt that rather than just supporting Asiwaju in 2027, they should join his party so they could work together. Less than two weeks ago, we were in Agbor when the chairman of NDDC and the Delta Unity Group defected to the APC.

“The only senator of the PDP in Delta, Senator Ned Nwoko, also defected to the APC. So, anybody watching the development knows that it was only a matter of time before the leadership of that place moved. I hope you also know that former Governor James Ibori is a friend of Asiwaju, and they have been collaborating since Tinubu became president. So, would he not want his party to join up with Asiwaju Tinubu?”

Opposition in disarray

The PDP, Labour Party, and NNPP are currently grappling with internal crises compounded by defections to the APC, which has left their parties in disarray.

According to some politicians, the crises are being sponsored to weaken the opposition ahead of 2027.

The immediate past governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, had on March 11 alleged that the crises faced by opposition parties were being sponsored by “the government of the day.”

El-Rufai said the litigation, divisions, and factionalisation across opposition parties were all contrived by the ruling party to destabilise them.

PDP: A house divided

The PDP, the largest opposition party in the country, has been embroiled in controversies since the 2023 elections.

Sunday PUNCH noted that the crisis, largely between the camps of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has significantly weakened the party.

Wike, who worked against the PDP in the 2023 presidential election, has declared support for Tinubu’s 2027 bid.

Delta State Governor Oborevwori, his predecessor, Okowa, and many key members of the PDP also dumped the party for the APC last Wednesday.

Similarly, a member of the House of Representatives, Oluwole Oke, resigned from the PDP and joined the APC the same day.

Oke’s defection brings the number of opposition members in the National Assembly who had dumped their parties for the APC to 17 since the inauguration of the 10th Assembly.

On Saturday, members of the Rivers State caucus in the National Assembly declared support for Tinubu’s second term.

Commenting on the defections, a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, said the defectors, especially the governors, were afraid that Tinubu might move against their elections.

He told Sunday PUNCH, “All of them are scared of Tinubu. They are afraid of what he will do to them, especially when he has the judiciary in his pocket. But we in the coalition don’t care about that.”

LP: One party, three chairmen

The Labour Party is also riddled with a leadership crisis, resulting in factionalisation and defections.

Currently, three individuals are laying claim to the leadership of the party.

Embattled National Chairman, Julius Abure; former Minister of Finance, Senator Nenadi Usman, leading a caretaker committee; and Lamidi Apapa are all claiming leadership of the party.

Amid the crisis, the LP lost key members to the APC.

They are Senator Ezenwa Onyewuchi (Imo East Senatorial District), Esosa Iyawe (Oredo Federal Constituency, Edo State), Chinedu Okere (Owerri Municipal/Owerri North/Owerri West Federal Constituency), Mathew Donatus (Kaura Federal Constituency, Kaduna State), and Akiba Bassey (Calabar Municipal/Odukpani Federal Constituency, Cross River State).

NNPP: An undecided party

President Tinubu and the APC are said to be making moves to win over the NNPP leader and former Kano State Governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso.

Our correspondents gathered that Kwankwaso and many NNPP leaders might join the ruling party.

The National Publicity Secretary of the NNPP, Ladipo Johnson, in an exclusive interview with one of our correspondents, confirmed that the party was considering its political options.

He said, “There are three cards on the table: either we remain in the NNPP and continue with those who joined us all the way, or we form some sort of coalition with Atiku and others, or we form an alliance with the ruling party. I am not saying any of these is the case now, but these are the three basic options that could happen.”

Meanwhile, the party has been losing some of its prominent members to the APC.

No fewer than four federal lawmakers of the NNPP, including Senator Kawu Sumaila (Kano South Senatorial District), Yusuf Galambi (Gwaram Federal Constituency, Jigawa State), Mohammed Isimbabi (Toto/Gadabuke Constituency, Nasarawa State), Musa Ibrahim (Doma South Constituency, Nasarawa State), and Kabiru Rurum (Rano/Bunkure/Kibiya Federal Constituency, Kano State), along with ex-Speaker of the Kano State House of Assembly, Sha’aban Sharada, have joined the APC.

The CPC bloc

Members of the defunct Congress for Progress Change, largely made up of loyalists of former President Muhammadu Buhari, were reported to have planned to dump the APC for another party.

However, weeks after the defection plan, a faction of the bloc, led by former Nasarawa State Governor, Senator Tanko Al-Makura, declared support for Tinubu, announcing that he and others on his side were not leaving the APC.

A recent report indicated that a leaked memo revealed that Al-Makura was being considered for the APC national chairmanship in exchange for helping to convince other CPC members to remain in the party.

Tinubu made party attractive —Presidency

Aides to the president attributed the influx into the APC fold to the president’s leadership, which they said stabilised the party.

They argued that the defections showed that the ruling party had become the safest political shelter ahead of 2027.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, on Saturday, said, “He is not masterminding anybody to leave their party. He has made the party attractive to others who are willing to join. What he has done is to make the right decisions, even though tough, some of them painfully initially.

“A beautiful woman will always attract suitors. So, if you have made your house good, people whose houses are tattered and whose houses have no roof will naturally come to you, where they can get shelter.

“If people say they want to come and take shelter, we won’t chase them away, and that is politics. In politics, you add to your number. You don’t remove your number. Politics is about getting more people on your side, not sending people away from your side.”

A second presidency source, who did not want to be identified, blamed the defections on the collapse of PDP cohesion, arguing there were no inducements from the Aso Rock Villa.

“The opposition is in tatters. They have no semblance of organisation, and for any politician, what he cares about is how to win his election, how to remain relevant, how to be in the scheme of things. I don’t think the President has met with any of them privately,” the aide said.

A third source recalled Tinubu’s 16 years leading the opposition, urging the opposition to fix their parties to forestall further defections.

“People should not forget that the President himself was the leader of the opposition for 16 years. He remained the only surviving governor of his party, Alliance for Democracy.

“He stayed there, strengthening the party, and he galvanised the opposition to form what is today the APC and made it so strong that they could unseat a ruling party. They defeated the sitting president, which was unprecedented in Nigerian history.

“So, if those who say they want to take power from him cannot organise themselves, do you blame him for that?” the source said.

[Punch]

On Easter Sunday, I watched the expectant crowd at St Peter’s Square break into a spontaneous applause as Pope Francis’ head appeared on the most recognisable balcony in the world, the papal balcony. It was from that same loggia that the former Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was introduced to the world on March 13, 2013, as the Catholic Church’s 266th pope, with the name Francis I, an appellation he took after Saint Francis of Assisi, a 13th-century mystic who renounced his wealth and devoted his life to the poor.

At the Easter celebration, he looked gaunt and pensive, like somebody who had an important mission to accomplish and was determined to pull it through.

Easter Demise

For a man known for his toothpaste smile, convivial mien and charismatic carriage, it was clear that the recent bout of bilateral pneumonia had challenged him greatly. But he was determined to do his duty of delivering his Easter message to the world. “Brothers and sisters, Happy Easter!” he said, his voice marginally above a whisper. He then ceded the task of reading his Easter message to Archbishop Diego Ravelli.

In his message, he reminded the world about the true meaning of Christ’s resurrection and related it to the challenges of the materialistic, violence-prone contemporary world.

“We were not made for death but for life. Easter is the celebration of life! God created us for life and wants the human family to rise again!” In his eyes, every life is precious!

“What a great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day in the many conflicts raging in different parts of our world!” he lamented.

“I would like us to renew our hope that peace is possible!”, said Pope Francis. He prayed for peace in the Middle East, particularly for the cessation of bombings in Gaza, for the release of Israeli hostages, the Christian communities in Lebanon and Syria; Yemen; Ukraine; the South Caucasus; and Balkans; and parts of Africa, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Sudan and South Sudan.

Then, to everyone’s surprise, he descended down to St Peter’s Square, where he was driven around in an open-top popemobile to greet and bless the cheering crowds. “Viva Papa!” they hailed respectfully.

And his earthly job was done. On Easter Monday, Cardinal Kevin Farrell broke the news to a shocked world:

“Dearest brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis. At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father…”

Many Firsts

Pope Francis was the first Jesuit priest and the first Latin American to become pope. He was the first pope in 600 years to take over from a living predecessor who resigned due to old age. He was also the first pope to preside over the funeral of his predecessor (Benedict XVI). He was the first pope to reject the palatial papal quarters, opting instead to live in a simple apartment with a bed and reading table. (Remember, as Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he did not stay in the bishop’s palace but in an apartment. He preferred using public transport to a chauffeured limousine and liked cooking his own meals).

He also shunned some of the accoutrements of the office – like the crimson shoes always worn by his predecessors, preferring his black shoes. When he was healthier, he carried his own bag, which scandalised many people. He made his own phone calls, some of them to widows, rape victims, prisoners and other troubled or marginalised souls. He was the first pope to wash and kiss the feet of prisoners during Holy Week ceremonies. He ate with the staff at the apartment block where he resided and shunned any form of salary. According to Economic Times, popes are traditionally entitled to a salary of about $32,000 per month. Sources revealed that Francis had about $100 in his bank account at the time of death.

Francis was the first pope to ‘seek forgiveness’ for child sexual abuse over the Church’s dark past. He subsequently updated the Catholic Church’s criminal code by adding details on punishing sexual abuse crimes of minors by priests, among other measures.

He was never ashamed of apologising for the sins of others.

Many Battles

Francis was an advocate of universal brotherhood. He counselled world leaders to build bridges, not walls. In 2016, with Europe’s migration crisis at a peak, Pope Francis flew to the Greek island of Lesbos and returned to Rome with three families of asylum-seeking Syrian Muslims.

He was also committed to inter-faith reconciliation, kissing the Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow in a historic February 2016 encounter, and making a joint call for freedom of belief with leading Sunni cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb in 2019. He helped facilitate a historic rapprochement between the United States and Cuba, and encouraged the peace process in Colombia.

Climate Appeal

Experts credited Pope Francis with having influenced the landmark 2015 Paris Climate Accords with his “Laudato Si” encyclical, an appeal for action on climate change that was grounded in science.

Controversies

One of the bitterest controversies that raged during Francis’ papacy was his seeming ‘over-leniency’ on transgressors. In a world where hypocrisy has been honed to a fine art even among clerics and self-acclaimed righteous adherents, the expectation from a pope was that he would breathe down melting sulphur and infernal inferno on sinners. That was why, very much in the fashion of the hypocrites who took an adulteress to Jesus asking that she be stoned to death as the law commanded, the modern day judgemental horde presented the case of homosexuals to the pope: Should they be ostracised, stoned to death or dealt with in some other ruthless manner?

Pope Francis answered: “Who am I to judge?” (Remember, Jesus had told the accusers of the adulteress, “Whoever is sinless among you, let him cast the first stone!”)

The pope’s explanation was that he, too, was a sinner who had only benefitted from God’s infinite mercy and that he would therefore recommend mercy and love as the best reactions towards those who had strayed.

“God is in every person’s life…  Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else – God is in this person’s life…”, he preached.

In many respects, his life was consequential. No wonder his funeral brought the best of the Latin and Eastern traditions together.

While his demise engendered an endless funeral train round the continents with scores of world leaders, friends and foes alike, communists and capitalists, mystics and atheists, queuing to honour him with their presence, at least one of his socio-political antagonists couldn’t overcome their ancient pettiness.

A message on Israel’s verified X account that read “Rest in Peace, Pope Francis. May his memory be a blessing” was taken down hours after it was posted last Monday. Hebrew media reported that Israeli diplomatic missions around the world were ordered to delete any similar messages and not to sign condolence books in Vatican embassies. President Herzog (bless him), posted a message of condolence, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said nothing as at the time this piece was being put to bed.

I am convinced that History, the inexorable judge, will echo the adulatory chant of the mourners who thronged St Peter’s Square after the pope’s demise: “Papa Francesco è stato qui” (Pope Francis Was Here!)

Indeed, he was – and what a remarkable man!

Nigeria’s political landscape never ceases to astonish and amaze. In addition to our habitually surprising electoral outcomes, our politicians are dramatists of immense creativity. They have an uncanny ability to literally convert things into their opposites and still retain public attention and ignite curiosity and sustain interest. They have just as a group staged a successful mass psychological coup against the electorate.  Nearly all our normal political expectations have been altered.

Barely two years into the tenure of the Tinubu presidency, the politicians have dramatically altered the nation’s political agenda and expectations. First, instead of holding themselves to account on the unfulfilled promises of the 2023 elections, the politicians have positioned the 2027 election as the central political concern of the moment. Forget the hunger, the unemployment, the rampaging inflation and the epidemic of insecurity and daily deaths in droves. The exchange rate of the Naira is not as important as who gets to appoint the next CBN Governor. Face 2027 and the prospect of a Tinubu second term.

Secondly, the politicians have positioned the prospect of an opposition coalition political grouping as the biggest political challenge in the horizon. Ignore the many incompetent ministers and corrupt officials of the incumbent administration. The problem of the moment is the collective of Atiku Abubakar, El-Rufai, Peter Obi, Kayode Fayemi, Datti-Ahmed, Rotimi Amaechi etc. In the perspective of the incumbent administration, these political gadflies are the ‘enemies’ of the moment. In their own right, the coalition opposition elements are complicit in diverting attention from the current challenges and focusing instead on the 2027 contest and their own chances of toppling Tinubu and the APC.

Thirdly, the opposition political figures are being driven to a wall where they just have to struggle for dear life. Their parties are on fire with internal contradictions and subversive plots sponsored by the ruling party. So, they have to strive to save their individual political lives in addition to salvaging the remnants of their embattled parties.

In addition, the politicians, especially the one in the ruling APC, want us to start juggling as to which parties stand a better chance of ousting Mr. Tinubu and his gang from Aso Villa. A faction of them have already declared Mr. Tinubu re-elected! In this regard, they have invented a new political pastime which we better call serial ‘party slaughter”.  The object is to ‘kill’ as many of the opposing parties that have electoral prospects as possible. In this regard, the APC has converted the embattled Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) into a virtual political killing field of sorts. The casualties are piling up by the day.

Mr. Wike and his fellow warmongers in the employ of the ruling APC are compiling the casualty figures and reporting back to headquarters where the generalissimo is nodding in satisfaction. A smaller squad of trouble makers in the ruling APC is engaged with the Labour Party and the possibility of an SDP gathering point for the prospective opposition coalition.

But by far the greatest political drama and diversion of the moment is the increasing gale of defections and decampments from opposition parties, especially the PDP, to the ruling APC. It is like a season of mass migrations from all parties to the ruling party.

A jungle metaphor is the most apt at this moment.  A forest of larger wild creature swallowing and chewing up smaller ones best describes recent happenings in Nigeria’s political space. In a gale of defections and decampments, major politicians from other parties have been trooping into the ruling APC in a series of decampments that are best described as insane.

In just one day, the migration took a quantum leap.

The Delta State governor Sheriff Oborevwori and his immediate predecessor both announced a dramatic decampment to the APC from the PDP. This particular defection is multiply significant. A sitting governor elected on the platform of a rival part changes his platform midway through his tenure. Similarly, a former governor who was the vice presidential candidate of the major opposition party also defected to the ruling party that he had opposed only in the last election. More importantly, these two defections came along with the defection of all the chairmen of local governments in the state which is considered a strategic state from point of view of national resources.

In addition, it is rumoured that Kwankwaso and the governor of Kano State are set to decamp to the APC from NNPP.

Similarly, Kano North Senator Kawu has decamped from the NNPP to the APC. In the same vein, Labour Party Senator Imasuen of Edo State is said to be getting set to decamp from the LP to the APC. News reports from across the country indicate that a total of 216 PDP and NNPP members in Jigawa state have decamped to the APC. From the Southwest, House of Representatives member Oluwole Oke has also decamped from PDP to the APC.

Once the trend has been activated, the likelihood that it would continue is clear and present. It is a trend that has been intensified by the weaponization of poverty and hardship by the policies of the Tinubu government.  Most Nigerians have been driven to a solid wall of want and hardship. The perception is prevalent that only those who join the ruling party stand a chance of surviving the pervasive hardship. Forget about party ideology and beliefs. This is the hour of crass survival.

Ordinarily, it is an implicit assumption of democracy that individuals are free to change their beliefs and party affiliations subject to the relevant rules. The right and liberty to freely associate or change affiliation is a democratic right.  We can question an unusual velocity of exodus of partisans in any direction within the party spectrum. We can also raise larger issues that touch on the general trend of membership in the nation’s political party architecture.

For instance, there is something that is quite troubling in the recent wave of migrations and decampments into the APC. At a time when the state of the nation is sorry and sordid, it is inconceivable that political leaders and notable citizens should be trooping into the very party that is squarely responsible for running the nation aground. There is a consensus among most ordinary honest Nigerians that the APC government under Mr. Tinubu has been an unmitigated disaster.

Ordinarily, when parties are in power, they strive to a record of governance and performance that would at least make them a tolerable option in the next election. A bad party is usually punished by a denial of the mandate in the next election. A party that scores so abysmally in all areas of governance and whose leadership has the worst job approval rating in recent history has no business canvassing for increased membership let alone attracting an obvious drove of new members. In fact, such a party should be avoided like a plague so that it does not infect the electorate with a contagion of negativity.

What we are witnessing is therefore an obvious reversal of normal political expectation and behavior. This trend is of course a reaffirmation of the transactional essence of Nigerian politics. For most Nigerians, the political party is a machinery for the distribution of resources through pork and patronage. People want to be part of where the power is and where the patronage is being dispensed and shared.  In the run up to the 2027 race, therefore, politicians are jockeying for vantage positions in the political party they consider the most viable electoral platform.

If this trend continues, we are heading for a situation in which the majority of active politicians will converge in the APC as a virtual “one party” republic. The most obvious target of the migrations is of course the PDP, the erstwhile major opposition party. The party has in recent times been the venue of the destabilization machinations of the Tinubu political machinery headed by Mr. Wike, Minister of the FCT who apparently has a mandate to destabilize and cannibalize the major opposition party to the advantage of the APC.

The gale of migrations into the APC ordinarily makes the task of an opposition coalition much easier and a more attractive proposition for the next two years. The exits define the enemy. The rate of departures delineates the line and rules of engagement in the looming 2027 confrontation. Depending on the strategic acuity of the opposition coalition, a fat ugly APC would be the easiest political balloon to deflate. It could also become a behemoth that is all pervasive and difficult to overwhelm.

The current massing in the APC also hints at the possible ideological outlines of the 2027confrontation. The APC will carry on as a signpost “progressive” party. But its new membership and configuration make it anything but progressive in essence and outlook. It poses a challenge for the coalition of real progressives that have been rumored to be working towards a new party. From the names that have been touted as leaders of the new coalition – El-Rufai, Amaechi, Fayemi, Obi, – a real progressive social democratic movement seems to be in the offing. That is the desirable direction that is required to brand the APC in its right coloration as a decadent and corrupt ultra reactionary collection of conservative rejects. A party that hoists Tinubu, Akpabio, Ganduje, Umahi and Matawalle as its mascots surely knows where it belongs on the scale of credible political gatherings.

Irrespective of the parties from which the politicians are migrating from, they are all members of the same party. Their backgrounds are the same. Their outlook on issues is the same. Their interests are the same. Their orientations are the same.

The opposition parties are mostly torn by crises and instability. In that process, they are reinforcing the notion that our system has no credible opposition. The so-called opposition parties lack internal integrity or self-defining identities to justify their independent existence in a multiparty democracy. In this atmosphere, only the APC wears the appearance of cohesiveness.

Even then, the present cohesive appearance of the APC owes only to one factor: it is the party in power and has the monopoly of control of power, patronage and pork. Outside that circumstantial exigency, the APC is as splintered as the rest. It is even more incoherent than the others in terms of ideas and a track record of governance and definable legacy.

Effectively, then, we are in a practical one party situation. There is the ruling party and literally no opposition parties properly defined. Intrinsically, there is no difference between all the major parties in contention in our democracy. There are no ideological or value differences among our parties. They are all acronyms, colourful flags and emblems with little intrinsic ideological meaning. They may have different acronyms but a united by a common blood stream of prodigal values.

Our parties are populated by the same caliber of Nigerian politicians drawn from a uniform national elite pool of unemployed college graduates, failed “charge and bail” lawyers, unsuccessful venturers and other jobless middle-aged hustlers, etc. This is why it is ever so easy for people to migrate from one party to the other with ease. No ideology. No core beliefs. No values. No commitment to any form of service to the people. No vision for the nation. Mostly a keen eye for financial returns wherever it may be found. Nigeria has earned a distinction of being the only country in which an individual can have breakfast in one party and end up with dinner in a totally different party without any qualms.

Going by the present trend, the ruling APC could swallow up most of the membership of the other parties and suffer no indigestion. But whether most Nigerians can inhabit the same political household up to the 2027 election is a huge uncertainty. For the APC to retain power in 2027 if Nigeria remains in this desperate disrepair, it will require more than a drove of “follow follow” membership.  For the ruling party to lose power, an opposition coalition must meet the broad majority of Nigerians in the places where they feel the pain most.