So, who wants Mr. Donald Trump, the former US president and front-runner for the November 5, 2024, presidential election, dead?
There are four (4) possible suspects.

The first is Iran, which recently declared it would exact revenge for the US-inflicted murder of its senior military commander in Iraq, Hassan Soleimani. Iran, which was sanctioned by the United States and Western European countries for her alleged support of terrorist organizations Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine, is highly motivated to stop former President Trump from returning to office as president in 2025.

During Trump's administration, billions of Iranian dollars were frozen in addition to other sanctions imposed on her for allegedly participating in covert activities aimed at developing and obtaining nuclear weapons.

However, under President Biden, the funds that were seized were released subject to Iran ceasing to build nuclear weapons and ceasing to finance terrorist groups globally, especially in the Middle East.

Iranians may be worried that their Torchorer-in-Chief is on course to retake the White House and carry on punishing them from where he left off in 2020, given the increasing likelihood that former President Trump will return to office in January 2025.
Experience has shown that Iran can be tenacious in its pursuit, so this is not an extreme supposition.
However, that nation has refuted any role in the Trump assassination attempt.

The second is Russia, which has been the US's fiercest adversary since the days of the Cold War till date. That nation could be held accountable for the ongoing conflict it is having with Ukraine, a former USSR territory that the US is leading NATO, the North American Treaty Organisation, to arm and finance to fight on Ukraine's behalf, a war that has claimed thousands of Russian lives. In the scenario outlined above, every prominent US citizen or official becomes a potential target for murder.

China ranks third on the suspect list with the second-biggest economy in the world, after the United States, which holds the top spot. China is the closest competitor to the United States and is projected to surpass it economically in 2050.

The fact that China is waging an unofficial war against Taiwan, a territory it claims to be Chinese but which the Taiwanese reject only serves to heighten mistrust of the country.
In the manner that tension hostilities between Russia and Ukraine, a former USSR republic, escalated into a full-scale war, if the tension between China and Taiwan, an ally of the US, were to escalate into a war, Taiwan would be relying on the US to provide her with protection.
So, targeting the likely next president of the US for assassination is not implausible.

The Democratic National Convention (DNC), the political party of President Joe Biden (who is Trump's primary opponent in the presidential contest), is the fourth suspect. Interestingly, this is the second time that Biden and Trump will face-off in a presidential contest in the last decade. The first was in 2019/2020, and the second will be in November 2024, (if Biden does not step down) when the winner will be elected to the White House.

When former President Trump’s supporters rejected President Biden as the presidential contest winner in 2020, they stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2020, setting off a disastrous chain of unpalatable and unsavory events.

As a result, former President Trump's allies and advisers, including his then strategist Mr . Steve Bannon and White House counsel Mr.Peter Navaro, have been imprisoned, and the Democratic-controlled Congress has impeached Mr. Trump. He was only spared from being fully impeached by the Republican-controlled Senate at that time.

The former president was also hit with an extraordinary number of criminal and civil court lawsuits, some of which have been rejected or are pending decision. He has been found guilty of one of the charges and is currently awaiting sentencing.

It seems more like a supernatural intervention than human ability and aptitude that President Trump has overcome all the legal and political roadblocks erected in his route to the White House—what he has rightly labeled a witch hunt of the hue associated with third-world countries where the practice of democracy is yet to attain maturity. The fact that Mr. Trump not only survived a COVID-19 infection in 2020 but also narrowly avoided an assassin's bullet on 13 July suggests that he has twice cheated death.

As a result of his dexterous navigation of the political path to the White House strewn with roadblocks that were intended to hurt his brand rather than help him, Mr. Trump's popularity has exploded, as shown by the most recent surveys showing him well ahead of his primary rival, President Trump and DNC in all the battleground states.

It is understandable why supporters of the man who appears to be unstoppable—Donald Trump—have come to the conclusion that his political opponents in the Democratic Party have become so desperate that they felt compelled to attempt his assassination. That is even though the man who attempted to assassinate him -Mathew Crooks is a registered Republican.
How amazing that after all their attempts to stop him from employing both legal and clandestine strategies/ tactics, Mr.Trump has remained the front-runner in the race to become president on January 20, 2025.

Indeed, presidential assassinations in the United States date back to 1865. In fact, it was especially popular in the 1960s. President John F. Kennedy was slain in November of 1963, to be exact. On March 30, 1981, there was also an attempt on President Ronald Reagan's life. Presidents Abraham Lincoln in 1865, James A. Garfield in July 1881, and William McKinley in September 1901 were assassinated before the attempt on Ronald Reagan’s life in 1981.
So, Donald Trump the 45th president, and Ronald Reagan 40th president share a common destiny of escaping assassin’s bullets.

It was not surprising that the first person to accuse the Democratic National Committee (DNC) of being behind the July 13 assassination attempt on Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump was Senator J.D. Vance, just moments after the attempt and before he was selected as the vice presidential candidate and running mate of the GOP presidential candidate.

Without equivocation or mincing words, Senator J.D Vance wrote on X formerly known as Twitter:

“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,”

And made the following conclusion “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”

Several other Republicans have echoed similar comments in public, notwithstanding the victim of the shooting. Mr Trump has been gracious in preaching togetherness and rejecting violence, just as his opponent, President Biden, has strongly opposed political violence while conceding that his bulls-eye statement about Trump was an exaggerated phrase that he should not have made.

The discussion of whether 81-year-old President Joe Biden had the capacity for a second term took on a life of its own following the scathing debate on June 27 between the 45th President of the United States of America, USA, Mr. Donald Trump, who President Biden succeeded in 2020 and is determined to reclaim the mandate that he lost to the incumbent about three and a half years ago. This is because the outgoing president was always correcting himself when he lost his line of thought during the debate.

But, unlike the 45th President of the United States, Mr. Trump, who is set to return to the White House as the 47th President in January, he is not bragging about his landslide victory over the 46th and incumbent President, Mr. Biden, in the first of their scheduled series of debates (another one is scheduled for September) before the November 5 presidential election. Instead, the typically no-holds-bared former president Trump let it blossom and become a hot-button issue about President Biden's flaws, particularly his age-related issues.

There is a consensus of opinion among the democrats, republicans, and indeed all Americans as well as television viewers around the world, that the 46th US president, Joe Biden, gave a dismal performance in the debate. As he struggled to put his thoughts together, some critics claimed he unintentionally revealed to the audience that aging has taken a toll on him. This was so obvious as he was muttering gibberish to the dismay, indignation, and discomfort of both his fellow Democrats and his opponents in the Republican Party, as well as politically neutral Americans.
It is no surprise that about 30 congressmen/ women have been calling for his stepping aside from the contest.
Somehow , it is reminiscent of the Watergate Scandal that resulted in the resignation Richard Nixon as president of the U
The awkward memory loss reminds politics watchers of the equally aged and former Senate majority leader (now minority leader), Mitch McConnell, who recently lost his train of thought in the middle of a speech, humiliating himself and other politicians when he practically went blank in the course of given a speech. People would probably prefer not to take a chance on witnessing President Biden's aging health deteriorate to the extent of McDonnell's.

After the debate, even President Biden's most ardent supporters began to question his ability to govern the US for an additional four years. As a result, a wave of Americans is currently demanding that President Biden give up on his goal of running for reelection at the age of 81.

The main arguments made against President Biden's reelection candidature are that his mental capacity is being questioned and that his faculties are purportedly in poor shape, as seen by the poor performance and result of the CNN-organised debate.

One of former President Trump’s staunchest opponents and a former White House staffer during Trump’s tenure, Alyssa Farah Griffin during the debate twitted“viewers of all political stripes and the consensus is Biden needs to be replaced,” and the debate is “worse than I believe most people imagined.”

Longtime GOP pollster Frank Luntz wrote on X that his focus group of undecided voters is “surprised and concerned about Biden’s voice,” adding “This doesn't bode well for questions about his health.”

CNN Chief National Correspondent, John King said: “Right now as we speak, there is a deep, a wide and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party,” adding that “It involves party strategists, it involves elected officials, and it involves fundraisers. And they’re having conversations about the president’s performance, which they think was dismal . . . some of those conversations include “‘should we go to the White House and ask the president to step aside?’”

The preceding harsh conclusions are only a handful of the criticisms that dominated media headlines during and soon following the June 27 discussion.

Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House of Representatives with significant influence in the DNC, reportedly recently spoke privately but bluntly to President Trump, telling him that polls show he cannot win the presidential race against GOP candidate Mr. Trump and that if President Biden remained in the race, he would destroy Democrats' chances of regaining control of the House of Representatives.

Senator Chuck Schumer and Congressman Adam Shiff, both firm supporters of President Biden, have allegedly joined the rising chorus of Democratic party leaders asking that Biden abandon his re-election bid.
It is a plea and demand that the besieged President Biden has resisted thus far, reminding his opponents that his potential replacement is not performing well in polls as well.

To make matters worse, the president has just succumbed to the COVID-19 virus and he is self-isolating instead of campaigning to save what is left of political life which Mr. Trump is about to bury.
Could that be a final sign, perhaps from divine forces or the so-called hand of God, to listen to the voice of the people, which is thought to be God's voice? (vox-populi-vox-Dei)

The truth is that the Democratic National Convention, or DNC, is in no less of a risky situation than when they insist that Joe Biden can not continue to be their presidential candidate and force him to withdraw, enabling Vice President Kamala Harris to run against the highly popular Republican nominee, Donald Trump, who is currently leading both Biden and Harris in the polls.
Remarkably, the presidential contest is just over 100 days away and the reality check is that opinion polls show that neither of the DNC candidates has an approval rating above 40%.
As of February 12, President Biden's rating was 38.9%, while Vice President Harris's rating was 37.5% as per the average of surveys conducted by FiveThirtyEight, a company that uses data and facts to enhance public awareness.

Two (2) years ago, I authored an article titled "The Donald Trump that Africans Do Not Know". That was after spending about a week getting to know him at his Palm Beach golf club and home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. In the story, I made the following observations:

“The first thing that springs forth from the mind of some Africans as soon as the 45th president of the United States of America, USA, Donald J Trump is mentioned is the impression that he does not like Africans, which is so untrue. And that wrong notion of President Trump disliking Africans stems from the fake news planted by his political opponents in the media and attributed to him such as Africa is a shit hole country.

Although the statement is flawed in a fundamental way, most people who believe and therefore are not enamored by President Trump have not bothered to critically identify and examine the flaw. That is the reason emotions seem to have clouded their judgment and why they have swallowed the falsehood hook line-and-sinker.

As we all know, Africa is a continent of 54 countries and not just one country.
So how could President Trump have made the comment attributed to him by his traducers: “Africa is a shit hole country”.

l then further made the following clarifications:

“Since most Africans failed to critically scrutinize the comment because they were eager to believe all the vile things that the so-called Never Trumps had to say, the flaw or illogicality of referring to Africa as a shit hole country, whereas it is indeed a continent, has unfortunately been lost on some of them.

“Those who are hell-bent on generating friction between Africans and the 45th president of the US had done a ‘good’ job as most people of black race have remained trapped in that mind-bending spell which l intend to dispel with this intervention.

“Hopefully, by debunking the myths about how Mr. Trump feels about Africans and what he had done to elevate Black Americans and those residing in the continent during his tenure as president of the US, there would be a rethinking and resetting of Africa/Trump relationship that would position the continent to benefit more from Mr. Trump’s presidency of the US, if he returns to the White House as he plans to in 2024.

“Not only because Nigeria has the largest population of black people on earth or by its being the biggest economy in Africa by GDP, but based on my personal experience as a Nigerian who has met President Trump one-on-one, I would like to use Nigeria as a reference point for assessing Trump-Africa relationship which is currently foggy owing to calculated misinformation.”

As if to confirm my favorable opinion of President Trump and inspire fellow Africans and Black Americans to feel the same way, surveys conducted recently have shown that, between 2016 and 2020, when President Trump was in office, the jobless rate for Black Americans fell dramatically.

The information supported my previous position that, if elected president, he would not emasculate Black people but rather provide them greater chances to realize the mythical American dream.
And it would seem that, two years ago, I was being prescient when I projected that he would win the 2024 presidential election, which he appears to be on course to do and become the 47th president in a little one hundred (100) days.

Naturally, not everyone shared my positive opinion of Mr. Trump, and they retaliated with criticism of my findings, which prompted me to write a follow-up article titled "The Donald Trump Magnus Onyibe Does Not Know," using their criticisms as the main talking point because the title was not originally mine but was instead created by a critic who forced me to present the following arguments:

“Perhaps, because a stereotypical opinion had long been formed about the 45th President of the US following several years of unmitigated public relations faux pax on the part of Mr Trump who never bothers to correct some misrepresentation of facts about him, my presentation of the persona of the former president of the US which is inconsistent with the mindset already shaped and propagated by a session of the Western media about Mr Trump generated a mixed bag of vile and vicious attacks as well as enlightening and encouraging comments. The anti-Trump sentiments expressed against the article and my further comments are the subject of this follow-up opinion piece.

“So basically, the purpose or raison detre for this further intervention is to shed more light on the areas of contention via the reproduction of the points of view of those that vehemently disagree with me on the need to engage with the 45th president of the US who is poised to be the 47th by contesting for the office next year when the incumbent president, Joe Biden’s first tenure would be over.

“As earlier stated, one particular critic made a case that l do not know Mr. Trump well enough to warrant my trying to market him to blacks in the US and Africans on the continent, simply because they have already formed the opinion that Mr. Trump is a racist and anti-Africa.”

It is my sincere hope that by now the doubters of former president Trump's divine mission to lead the United States and, in fact, the world, whom the evangelical community in the US saw in 2016, and who threw their weight behind him to win the presidency that year before he lost it in 2020 to president Biden, have been thoroughly weaned of their negative bias.
The fact that Mr. Trump twice cheated death—once by surviving a deadly COVID-19 infection during the pandemic that killed one million Americans and a second time by eluding an assassin's bullet during a campaign stomp in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13.
With President Biden now struck down by Covid-19 infection of which we wish him a speedy recovery, it is incredible that covid-19 that played a role in his ascendancy to the presidency of the US in 2020 is once more playing a critical role in his political future if it compels him to step down from seeking reelection.
For the time being, except if an apocalypse happens, former President Donald J. Trump appears to be on track to return to the White House after beating President Biden or replacement at the polls on November 5, all things being equal.


Magnus Onyibe, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst, author, democracy advocate, development strategist, an alumnus of Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA, and a former commissioner in Delta state government, sent this piece from Lagos, Nigeria.
To continue with this conversation and more, please visit www.magnum.ng

“The West prescribed the bitter medicine which Tinubu has been administering to us. The western press hailed Tinubu when he pronounced subsidy dead on May 29, 2023 and pushed the naira downhill. They described him as a star reformer, almost putting on him the messiah’s cassock. But the patient is now in a coma and they say something else about their lovely doctor and his competence. Read this: “In the nearly 15 months since Bola Tinubu became president, he has forced his 220 million fellow Nigerians to swallow some bitter medicine. He removed a generous fuel subsidy, one of the few benefits citizens receive from their inefficient and corrupt state. He allowed the country’s currency, the naira, to enter free fall, fuelling imported inflation and triggering the worst cost of living crisis in a generation.” It is difficult to believe that this statement you just read came from an editorial published last week by the Financial Times. That is a newspaper that hailed Tinubu last year when he withdrew subsidy on petrol and floated the naira. In an October 3, 2023 editorial, the newspaper said he “started well” and “with a bang” by removing “a costly fuel subsidy and in shifting towards a market-driven exchange rate which has sharply weakened a previously overvalued currency…” Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”

An old friend reviewed the ways of this government and said he thought Bola Tinubu should be afraid of the Greeks. “Yes, especially if they come with gifts,” I added to my friend’s warning. He smiled; I nodded. In that short conversation, we had just gone through the mythical Trojan War, the Greek story of a siege, a gift, a city and its destruction.

For ten years, the Greeks and the Trojans fought a war which you and I would describe today as senseless. A Trojan prince eloped with the wife of a Greek (Spartan) king and because of that, a decade-long war had to ensue and thousands had to die. David Bevington, Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago and world authority on Shakespeare, says the causes of the Trojan war were “the betrayal of love, the absence of heroism and the emptiness of honour.”

More than once, you’ve read and heard about ‘Greek Gift’. That expression is from that war of the stone walls of the city of Troy and a grueling Greek siege on the city for a full decade. Troy’s igneous walls won’t let the Greeks in for ten bad years, the besieging warrior king dropped his spears and shields; he changed his strategy and tactics. He went for guileful warmth to get what swords and fires couldn’t fetch him. The Greek built a giant wooden horse and donated it to the gates of Troy. The Greek king dropped the artful gift and then sailed his army’s ships out of sight.

The Trojans thought the Greek had gone back home in frustration. The Trojans took the horse as a gift of peace from their enemy. They thought wheeling it into their city and even worshipping it wouldn’t be a bad idea. A lone voice belonging to a priest warned the Trojan General and his troops against having anything to do with the horse gift from the Greeks: “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes (Fear the Greeks, even those bearing gifts).” The priest’s warning rang round the city. But the voice of caution was drowned in the Trojan ocean of a binge party. They said what is this one saying? They had defeated the Greeks who even left the horse as a gesture of peace. The ‘valiant’ Trojans wined, they dined and danced in a celebration of victory. Then they all went to sleep, blind drunk. One historian wrote that while they were in that state of stupid stupor, “a host of armed soldiers crept out from the belly of the horse and opened the city gates. Troy was overrun and destroyed and the ‘Trojan Horse’ became revered as one of the most successful military tactics ever.” The story is told in Homer’s Iliad; in Shakespeare’s ‘Troilus and Cressida’ and in Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘Troilus and Criseyde.’

Now, the Greeks are surrounding the Nigerian Troy. Some persons clapped or feigned sleep while Muhammadu Buhari’s regime raped town and gown, forest and flowers. They are now crying war and threatening to cross the Rubicon and confront Pompey. It is interesting. They are threatening a protest for early next month. “It is treason,” the government has warned. It has also told the dog handlers to put their canine on a leash. We hope they listen. We also hope the government shuts them up by doing good and draining its swamp of excessive wetland of mosquitoes.

The protest pledgers, like master wrestlers, even gave a definite date – August 1. We call it Ogun Àwítélè (Foretold War). There is a popular play of that title by Adebayo Faleti, late Yoruba playwright of excellence. A band of robbers write to a town of hunters that they are coming to rob and pillage the people and their palace. And the thieves truly come as promised. But how are they received? Well, the robbers fail, not because they are not worthy of their promise, but because their intended victims are not led by arrogance and ignorance. The community of hunters win because it is not commanded by chiefs who are deaf to reason and receptive to disruptive flattery.

The Nigeria we have today is a forest of the heartless – Igbó òdájú in Yoruba. In the last years of Goodluck Jonathan as president of Nigeria, he received many Greeks into his fold. And almost all of them came with one ‘gift’ or the other. A prominent politician (from the North) told one of my female friends: We will help him to make enemies. We will turn him against his true friends and turn the people against him. Nothing he works on will work. My friend reported that encounter to me and we agreed to watch as events unfolded. It turned out that the promise was delivered as promised. As I type this, I see Troy and its history repeating themselves.

I hope Tinubu takes ownership of himself at this moment and listens to his inner voice. I think his wife should get for him ‘Iwe Itan Ibadan’ published in 1911 by Oba I. B. Akinyele. It is a book of ambition, gallantry, treachery, bravery,
conspiracy, flattery, rebellion, private and public protests, justice and fairness, deposition, even, forced suicide. Tèmbèlèkun is the Yoruba word for mixtures of conspiracies and insurrections. There are more than a slew of it in the book. Reading it may help our man now that the jungle is maturing. But, why am I even writing this? Meddlesome interloper. A Lilliputian reporter telling the powerful how to use his limitless powers.

Some people advised President Muhammadu Buhari not to withdraw subsidy on petrol during the pendency of his presidency. They said if he did it, it would make him hugely unpopular. He sidestepped it. The same people are around his successor now telling him that today’s excessively expensive petrol can still sell for any amount per litre, and that nothing will happen if he endorses it. That is how you charge a child that is not yours – you send them on an errand with an order that they must come back home no matter how late. A child who would not get lost in the darkness of the way would take direct charge of his journey.

The West prescribed the bitter medicine which Tinubu has been administering to us. The western press hailed Tinubu when he pronounced subsidy dead on May 29, 2023 and pushed the naira downhill. They described him as a star reformer, almost putting on him the messiah’s cassock. But the patient is now in a coma and they say something else about their lovely doctor and his competence. Read this: “In the nearly 15 months since Bola Tinubu became president, he has forced his 220 million fellow Nigerians to swallow some bitter medicine. He removed a generous fuel subsidy, one of the few benefits citizens receive from their inefficient and corrupt state. He allowed the country’s currency, the naira, to enter free fall, fuelling imported inflation and triggering the worst cost of living crisis in a generation.” It is difficult to believe that this statement you just read came from an editorial published last week by the Financial Times. That is a newspaper that hailed Tinubu last year when he withdrew subsidy on petrol and floated the naira. In an October 3, 2023 editorial, the newspaper said he “started well” and “with a bang” by removing “a costly fuel subsidy and in shifting towards a market-driven exchange rate which has sharply weakened a previously overvalued currency…” Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.

Today’s lord of Abuja, just like his predecessors, loves Greeks and their graven gifts. Among the Greeks are the lawmakers housed in our federal capital. They enact any law that gives erection to their purse. Tinubu so much loves them because the gifts they give are what Caesar craved – imperator perpetuo. The losers, ultimately, are the lawmakers. Almost a century ago, Roger V. Shumate in his ‘A Reappraisal of State Legislatures’ published in January 1938 said the legislature was largely seen as a haven for “ward heelers, petty politicians and yokels”. He adds that the disquisition could even be worse with some people saying lawmakers “are more or less equally engaged in clowning and enacting laws designed to loot the public treasury or to favour some special interest at the expense of the common good.”

The battle for Abuja has always been intense because it is a Treasure Island. Read Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 classic adventure novel of that title; read the sequel, ‘Return to Treasure Island’ (1985) by John Goldsmith; read the sequel to the sequel – ‘Silver: Return to Treasure Island’ (2012) by Andrew Motion. Read all about the ugliness of the pirates in those stories. Read about mutiny, about murder, sword fights, about treachery and – blood-curdling romance. The island called Abuja will always be in turmoil as long as unearned treasures are there for pirates to pillage.

All these take us back to the urgent need to make Nigeria work as a federation. At independence, our constitution provided enough safeguards and guardrails against ambitious corrosion from an excessively opulent centre. John P. Mackintosh’s ‘Nigeria Since Independence’ (1964) says it well. He says the independence constitution provided “both the Federal Government and the regions with adequate independent sources of revenue. The central government was allocated most of the import and excise duties, corporation taxes, and death duties, while the regions had income tax, export duties on primary produce, import duties on tobacco and petrol, and a half of mineral royalties and rents. Some revenues had to be paid by the central government into a distributable pool and this was then allocated according to fixed proportions among the regions.”

Read the above again: The regions took half of mineral royalties and rents. Crude oil and gold and other precious stones are minerals. The regions took export duties on primary produce. Cocoa, cotton, groundnuts and palm oil are primary produce. These are what a centralised structure took away from the regions when it splintered them into states. The federal government bites more than its share of the Nigerian cake. Yet, it wants more.

The federal government keeps creating offices and duties for itself because it has careless, excess funds in its kitty. The creation of a livestock ministry is one of such errant actions. The bill on federal agency for local government election is another. We don’t know what else is yet on their to-do list on how to undo this federation. At independence, the centre knew its limits and rarely went beyond its bounds. On the powers of the constituent units, Mackintosh recalls that the constitution provided as follows: “The Federal Government was charged with foreign affairs, defence, external borrowing, the currency, capital issues, customs and excise, control of the exchange rate, shipping, railways, trunk A roads, posts and telegraphs, and aviation. There was a concurrent list, the main items being industrial development, labour conditions and relations, water, power, and higher education, while the regions were left all residual powers. Of these, the most important were health, education, agriculture, public works, and secondary roads, so that the regions could engage in their own economic development.” That was the constitution the British gave us.

A leader is as good (and bad) as his advisers are. Look at how the planners of Abuja designed the axle of power there. There is in there the three-arms zone: The lawmaker, the law giver and the law breaker. The principalities of Nigeria lie right there – with all the puns embedded. Collectively they are leading us into a situation almost like Ruben Östlund’s ‘Triangle of Sadness’ – a 2022 comedy drama in which a couple “sails on a lavish cruise ship” led by a drunk captain. And, as a reviewer says “what seems glamorous at first comes to a horrific end, with survivors battling for life on a barren island.”

Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, CFR, has one straightforward advice for members of his team in the Anambra state executive council (ANSEC): “Be that one man”. The essence of this is to aim for excellence in any role they find themselves. All drivers of the ministries, departments and agencies of government ought to be at the top of their games and must never be found wanting.

Governor Soludo gave the charge after the highly successful presentation of the book, The Power of One Man: How the Soludo-Engineered Consolidation Transformed Nigerian Banks to Global Players, written by Ray Echebiri.

Soludo was that one man who had the courage of his conviction to bring about the 2004 banking revolution in Nigeria with the support of his principal at that time, President Olusegun Obasanjo.

History was made by Soludo on both fronts as an economic adviser and CBN governor. He put to work his charge from the very beginning – to be that one man! And against the unimaginable manner of threats to his safety, he eventually succeeded in transforming the system for good. So when he recently called on his team to be “that one man” he did so out of personal experience — that it is only with that level of commitment by all, that Anambra state can become the liveable and prosperous homeland we yearn for.

As Chinua Achebe, after whom Governor Soludo renamed the Anambra Airport, wrote in his famous classic, The Trouble with Nigeria, “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which is the hallmark of true leadership.”

Ray Echebiri, in his preface to the book, “The Power of One Man points to the significance of leadership recruitment, and the need to get it right in Nigeria. It is a sturdy allusion that if we can have other Nigerians transform the maritime industry, manufacturing industry, insurance industry, capital market, health sector, education sector, the oil and gas industry, etc. just the way Soludo did the banking industry, Nigeria will become the country of our dream, a land flowing with the proverbial milk and honey.”

Let’s recast our minds back in time to understand that the banking revolution that has come to be hailed as the “Soludo Shuffle” was not a piece of cake. It took utmost courage and derring-do for the struggling 89 banks then existing in Nigeria to be reduced to 25 global banking institutions competing on the world stage.

Before the coming of Soludo, Nigerian banks had been the laughing stock of comedians who joked about how Nigerians were reduced to carrying mats to sleep in banks because of delays. The inimitable comic actor, Lomaji Ugorji of “Icheoku” fame, was fond of asking “Where is my tally number?” as a mockery of the numbers then assigned to banks’ customers.

It’s indeed noteworthy that barely one month after then-President Obasanjo appointed Soludo as CBN governor in June 2004, the daring man who was destined to be that one man of change met the Bankers Committee and promptly released a 13-point agenda designed to turn around the country’s financial sector.

Before consolidation, all of the banks in existence in Nigeria put together could not match one South African bank. Through the efforts of Soludo, Nigerian banks were able to go global. The banks opened up offshore branches, thus becoming truly global players in the financial world. New York, Paris, London, and sundry capitals of African countries now count Nigerian banks and bankers among the top players.

Soludo’s revolution came at a personal price as he reveals: “At a personal level, undertaking the banking revolution in Nigeria came with 19 written threats to me and my family, including physical attacks.” He was forced to relocate his family abroad when the threats became unbearable. But his late father was not so lucky. The old man was abducted, beaten and left for dead. He survived but lost one eye to the brutal encounter.

Having demonstrated what a determined man can achieve, one can then imagine what a team of men can do. And that is the context of Soludo’s charge to his commissioners and heads of agencies.

To be that one man, or woman, therefore, it is necessary to heed Azu Ishiekwene, the book reviewer’s advice: “…to succeed and succeed outstandingly, one must be prepared to blow against the wind.”

Nwosu is the commissioner for information in Anambra state.

Minders of Ahmed Usman Ododo, the governor of the confluence state of Kogi, flung him into the public square of opprobrium and derision last May. Ododo by the way was the auditor general in charge of local government under Bello. The orchestra of sycophants he inherited from his benefactor and predecessor, Yahaya Bello, eager to ingratiate themselves with him articulated a ‘First 100 Days In Office’ programme for him. These included Ododo having to name his specific achievements within his preliminary months on the saddle. Ododo’s meeting with Nuhu Ribadu, the National Security Adviser, (NSA); a civic reception organised in his honour in Okene, his hometown, and his participation in a meeting of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) in Abuja, were listed as his notable achievements.

Within the period, Ododo alongside his colleagues from Ondo and Taraba states, Lucky Aiyedatiwa and Kefas Agbo, had a meeting with the minister for agriculture and food security, Abubakar Kyari. This perfunctory obligation was also recorded as one of his feats within his first 100 days.

Days and weeks thereafter, Ododo was a cadaver for analysts and public scholars, scandalised by the newcomer governor’s ludicrous yet proudly publicised report card. Many people from Kogi became the butt of jokes by those who believed the state was capable of better quality brand ambassadors. Ododo’s case was not helped by the fact of the circumstances of his emergence as governor and successor to Yahaya Bello. The latter’s hellish and brutish, eight-year sojourn in Lugard House, Lokoja is best forgotten.

Ododo emerged courtesy of a benefactor who visited so much malevolence and meanness on the polity. This credential easily blighted his candidature and acceptability. Bello’s current travails in the hands of the nation’s foremost anti-graft agency which has made a scurrying fugitive of the man who patented himself the “white lion” during his virtual monarchy, is largely construed as karma come to justice. A successor installed by such a character must of necessity share his DNA, was the understandably popular belief.

I have, in the course of duty over the decades, encountered and engaged robustly with all but two military and civilian governors of Kogi state since the inception of the state. From the foundation military administrator in 1991, Colonel Danladi Zakari, through Abubakar Audu, (the departed pioneer civilian governor of the state) who appointed me director of information and public affairs in 1992, I was intertwined with the evolution of the state. Paul Omeruo, also an army colonel who succeeded Audu in 1993, appointed me his chief press secretary in 1995. He passed me on to Bzigu Afakirya, (of blessed memory), his successor in 1996. I didn’t get to meet Augustine Aniebo who replaced Afakirya in 1998. I also had varying degrees of latter-day relationships with Audu who returned as democratically elected governor in 1999, and his successors Ibrahim Idris and Idris Wada.

I had a fleeting encounter with Bello back in 2017 while I pursued state assistance for the young family of my colleague, brother and friend, Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo, who tragically passed earlier that year. Bello was inaccessible to the two-man delegation empanelled by the board of trustees of the Adinoyi-Ojo Onukaba Endowment Fund, to follow up with him on possible state assistance for our fallen compatriot’s family. Maxwell Gidado, SAN, OON, professor of law and my good self constituted that team. My chance meeting with Bello in Lokoja, in mid-2017, was at an event organised by the Kogi state chapter of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, (NUJ) which invited me. I graced the high table with Bello at the event and he promised to get his chief of staff to fix a meeting on the subject. He never did. That was my first ever, and only encounter with him.

Beyond glimpses of him on television and in photographs of media reportage on him, I’ve never set my eyes on Ododo. He doesn’t know me either. Except if he’s been following my work as a media practitioner, who comes from his state. Ododo may yet surprise many, however, judging from his much-spoken-about humanistic performance thus far. He may be gradually trying to carve an identity for himself, despite the backstage encumbrances of his erstwhile boss. Ododo, we are hearing, is humble, unassuming and sensitive. He is said to have prioritised workers’ welfare thus far. They tell you he began by paying a markedly improved 80% of salaries compared to his benefactor who undermined his constituents with unbelievably mendicant sums. Ododo now, however, is said to pay 100% emoluments to his constituents. Kogi state remains a “civil service” entity. It is nowhere near your Lagos, Ogun, Rivers, Delta, Oyo, which are blessed with sundry producing and manufacturing concerns which impact their domestic economies. The local economy of Kogi state is powered by the spending capacity of civil servants. Whatever impacts the wallets of bureaucrats therefore takes a heavy toll on their capacities to patronise the open markets, shops and pharmacies.

Kogi state was notorious for state-induced violence and insecurity under Ododo’s former principal. Political top shots were alleged to have cultivated and sustained “private armies.” The streets were ruled by substances, machetes and automatic weapons. These combined to scare indigenes of the state and indeed risk taking investors from the state. It is suggested that the air in Kogi state these days is more temperate. Ododo was reportedly on the front foot when some miscreants terrorised student communities in Adankolo, Bassa, Crusher and Felele districts of the state capital in March. Three suspects were arrested and have since been arraigned in court. Ododo equally made vociferous appeals to the nation’s topmost security commands when students of the state-owned Confluence University of Science and Technology, (CUSTECH), were abducted weeks ago.

Helicopter-backed special detachments were swiftly deployed to comb the forests and thickets of Kogi, including the state’s abutments with Kwara and Ekiti states. Kogi state, by the way, is bordered by nine states in the North Central, South West, South East and South-South zones. Not forgetting its close proximity to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). This geographical reality therefore makes the state susceptible to infiltration from different entry points. Working with ground troops, local hunters and vigilantes on the recent operation, some kidnapped victims were rescued and some of their ransom-seeking abductors were summarily apprehended. That episode is said to have sent a clear message to criminal venturers that Kogi state is a forbidden zone for mischief. It also rekindled the belief of the people that the incumbent leadership in the state can protect its own after all.

The Ododo dispensation has also embarked on an ambitious infrastructural renewal effort at the local level. Internal roads in major communities in the state are at various levels of completion. These include roads in Egbe, (Yagba West); Aiyetoro-Gbedde, (Ijumu); Mopa (Mopamuro); Felele-Agbaja (Lokoja LGA); Oguma (Bassa LGA); Idah, (Idah LGA); Abejukolo, (Omala LGA) and Anyigba (Dekina LGA). Instructively, this first list of communities which will benefit from a gradual community rebuild programme precludes any community in Ododo’s homestead in Kogi Central. Internally generated revenue (IGR) in the state, recently posted a remarkable leap towards a monthly average of ₦2 billion. For a state like Kogi, this means a lot. This upward ascent of the state’s IGR may be a result of increasing transparency in the revenue collection process, just maybe.

About 200 tractors, we hear, are being recalled by the Kogi state government for rehabilitation. This is just as the Ododo administration is reported to be tapering towards the prioritisation of agriculture. The government is launching a “Wet Season Agricultural Intervention Programme” to this effect towards ensuring food security. The agenda also involves making agriculture attractive to the teeming youth population as against the subsisting craze for “political involvement.” Farm locations have been identified in 76 communities, in the 21 local government areas in the state. The government intends to prepare 7,000 hectares of land for farming in the first instance. This may seem a far cry from the one million hectares which Umaru Bago, the Niger state governor, has prepared in his state. But every journey, the old saying reminds us, begins with the very first step. Farmers will be provided with free seeds and chemicals towards the actualisation of this project. Three crops, cassava, maize and rice, are being emphasised in the experimental endeavour.

At harvest, the state government hopes to buy back the produce, concede 60% of the earnings to the farmers and take the smaller 40%, as an incentive to ambivalent farmers. If Ododo is thinking and acting in the directions we have identified above, he could be said to have set about on the right course. Kogi state has lost substantial segments of its nearly 33 years of existence to laggards and loafers in the name of helmsmen. He needs to do much more though to rekindle the faith of his constituents in the committed sensitivity and service of his era to have their backs round the clock, round the calendar. History is ever in the firm grips of the neck of the pen, as an evergreen assessor and unforgettable retainer of institutional memory. Kogi state must awaken from perpetual sedation. And now is the time.

Olusunle, PhD, is a Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors (FANA).