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OPINION: Awolowo And The North’s Latest Warning [Monday Lines]

Published

6 months ago

May 5, 2025

By Lasisi Olagunju

When vultures surround you, stay awake so that you do not die stupid death. Whether you are in business or you are in politics or you are anything of value, stay alive and stay alert. People shave people’s heads in their absence. In 1938, Britain was rumoured to have toyed with the idea of donating Nigeria to Germany as one of its several offerings of appeasement to Hitler. I read of the “strong rumour” in Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s first book, ‘Path to Nigerian Freedom’, published in 1947 – page 38.

Hitler, two years earlier (September 11, 1936), insisted on “Germany’s right to colonies.” Nine months before Hitler’s insistence, his minister of propaganda, Goebbels, served a notice that “the time will come when we must demand colonies from the world.” In June 1938, Mary E. Townsend published her ‘The German Colonies and the Third Reich.’ She cited two successive editions of the London Times of October 1936 which reported that Hitler had “gained concessions in Africa.”

The German cup, as it turned out, passed from Nigeria. The rumoured offer to Hitler was eventually not consummated but the mere thought of it tells how ‘valued’ our country and its people were in the heart of those who possessed it. But it is needless to run from fate. You put destiny in a sheath, it destroys the sheath; you put it in a scabbard, it ruins the scabbard. If Nigeria missed being possessed by Germany’s Hitler in 1938, the country’s subsequent history of abduction and rape up to this moment is proof that our fathers were right with their theory of inevitability of fate. A snake swallowing its tail, and swallowing it hard is Nigeria. It is a pool of water-snakes feasting on hapless fishes.

On Friday this week, it will be 38 years since Chief Awolowo died. Two months before he died on 9 May, 1987, Awo spoke rather cryptically of his “continuing to serve even after death.” Almost 40 years after his transition, his views of Nigeria, his analyses of the systemic problems of the country and his solutions to them have remained the main issues of discussion.

Awolowo’s ‘Path to Nigerian Freedom’ has proved a worthy carrier of its title. But the path it shows has remained not taken. The late Pius Adesanmi once, at an Awolowo Foundation event, questioned the choice we make as a country. He spoke on what he called “Igbo ree; Ona ree (the bush is here; the path is here).” The choice was – and is – for us to make. We’ve consistently chosen the bush.

I read the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF)’s boast of last week that the North had the muscle and the number to choose the next president for the other parts of the country. It reminded us that: “The North has 19 out of the 36 states. We also have the FCT as a veritable component. We have a majority in the Senate, the House of Representatives, the National Economic Council as well as the Council of State. The North occupies close to 75 percent of Nigeria’s land area and about 60 percent of the population. An area that is this big and this strong can never be subdued by any opponent…For the moment, it will suffice to say that Northern Nigeria is watching and auditing the actions of the elected and appointed officials, especially at the federal level.”

Northern leaders always flaunt their population and land mass to intimidate the South. Assets when not harnessed to profitability become liabilities. We say here that vulture may be a large bird, but what it feeds on is rotten flesh. The elephant in its ponderous majesty is as clumsy as they come. Àwòdì tí ń gbé adìẹ lọ́sàn-án ò sanra tó igún. I wonder why it did not occur to the ACF that kites that snatch chicks in broad daylight do not have vulture’s large frame. It is not by size.

Everything the ACF said was a threat directed at President Bola Tinubu on his second term ambition. Of course, the Tinubu pigeon got the full import of the incantations from the Northern raptor. He rushed to Katsina on Friday – two days after the warning shot was fired. He was there for two days, he even slept there. Tinubu should clap for himself. Did Buhari sleep one night anywhere in Southern Nigeria in his eight years? The visit was Tinubu’s appeasement offering to Hitler to avoid a ‘world war’. Let us hope the aggrieved are pacified now.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: A Nation Of Defectors [Monday Lines]

Unlike what our teachers taught us, sovereignty is no longer the supreme will of the state; its locus is with any set of human beings “sufficiently strong to compel obedience” to their whims. The North self-assuredly thinks it is the Nigerian sovereign. It said so through the ACF and the president got the message.

The North thought Goodluck Jonathan was its problem; it got its traditional enemies in Benue and Plateau and the West to join it in removing Jonathan. The North thought having a northern president would solve its existential problems. It brought in Muhammadu Buhari. Under Buhari, the North’s problems multiplied in geometric proportions. It thought a Muslim Muslim ticket was what it needed to be safe and feed well. It brought in a ‘Muslim’ government in May 2023. Less than two years into the tenure of that government of faith, the North is grunting and grumbling very loudly; it shouts marginalization. A million change of government won’t help the north. It must help itself.

The ACF also expressed concern over insecurity in the North. It said the security challenges in the North were worsening by the day. It then called on the federal government to act swiftly “before it becomes too late.” I will be happy and dance if I find out that it is not already too late.

By now, it should be clear to the wise that the problem of the North is not, strictly, Bola Tinubu and his ways. The problem wasn’t Jonathan; neither was it Buhari. The problem of the North is the North – its bad ways. Why would a region not have problems of mass poverty when it spurns mass education of its mass children, youths who own tomorrow? Mass procreation plus mass illiteracy must equal mass misery. It is simple arithmetic. Why will there not be blistering insecurity where mass poverty reigns? If you turn your back to where the world faces, you won’t see what the world sees. How will a president relate with a people that take offence when asked to position their eyes towards the future? The best rules the rest in that country called Saudi Arabia. The elite there have used education to elevate their country and their faith. China’s huge population is a huge economic blessing to it. But, the key to northern Nigeria is in the hands of a band of clerics and dark elites who exploit their people’s unquestioning faith in their region and religion, warts and all.

I read a beautiful piece on Saturday from a gentleman from the North, Idris Muhammed Abdullahi. He wanted a deliverer for northern Nigeria. Like the ACF and its leaders, Abdullahi didn’t write for Nigeria; his interest was the North. He lamented the decay and disappointment that rules his region. He cited the establishment of the Northwest Development Commission (NWDC). He said it was supposed to mark a turning point in the development of the region. “What then happened?” he asked and added that: “One man handpicked all its executives. The commission has now become a personal ATM, hemorrhaging funds meant for schools, irrigation, rural roads, and youth empowerment. It has transformed from a symbol of hope into yet another playground for elite looting.”

What the gentleman wrote of the North is true of everywhere in the country. And it is historical. Nigeria is an elite PoS – or the soup pot of the powerful. How each of our people reacts to it has also historically made the difference. Wrong, when accommodated, festers. Chief Awolowo said it in a more elegant and profound way 46 years ago. He told ‘Africa’ magazine in April 1979 that “since independence, our governments have been a matter of a few holding the cow for the strongest and most cunning to milk. Under the circumstances, everybody runs over everybody to make good at the expense of others.”

The most popular page in Awo’s ‘Path to Nigerian Freedom’ is page 47. That is where you find the famous quote: “Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical expression.” Seventy-seven years after that book was published, to be called Nigerian has remained “merely a distinctive appellation” distinguishing “those who live within the boundaries of Nigeria from those who do not.” Each constituent part of the country has held tight to its gene. When we talk or act, it is for where each of us comes from. Read the ACF statement again. It speaks about ‘us’ and ‘them’ and boasts of assets without discussing the liabilities.

The groups in the South think the North a pampered, pompous parasite. Think of why Max Siollun, author of ‘What Britain Did to Nigeria’, described Nigeria as “just a page in a colonial accounting ledger” and why the British officially took the 1914 amalgamation to be a marriage between a poor, hapless husband and a helpless “southern lady of means.”

Check the tone of the ACF complaints; the challenges of governance have been reduced to a North versus South battle. Now, I ask: For how long shall we remain so “tightly fragmented” and have our growth stunted?

In the 1947 book above, Chief Awolowo observed that the various nations that make up Nigeria cannot progress and prosper together unless they are properly organized in a federation. “The languages differ…Their cultural backgrounds and social outlooks differ widely; and their indigenous political institutions have little in common. Their present stages of development vary.” It is in that book that you read how, 77 years ago, the ethnic groups in the South readily embraced Western civilisation while “the extremely conservative” Hausas and Fulanis took “very reluctantly to Western civilization.” As it was in 1947, so it is in 2025. If thrown up a hundred years from now, the northern hand fan will land side down.

A copius quote from Chief Awolowo here: “All these incompatibilities among the various peoples in the country militate against unification. For one thing, they are bound to slow down progress in certain sections, and on the other hand they tend to engender unfriendly feelings among the diverse elements thus forced together.” Chief Awolowo warned that “incompatibilities such as we have enumerated are barriers which cannot be overcome by glossing over them, They are real, not imaginary obstacles. Those who place these groups under the same constitution ignore them at their peril – more so, as it appears that these incompatibilities tend to grow in size as those concerned become more educated and civilized.”

If you can find time to read the book, check what the author wrote while citing the Welsh and the Scottish peoples’ experiences and agitation for self-rule. Check his words on other positive examples and the reason some of us say we are postponing the evil day if we think elite looting facilitated by a unitarised Nigeria will ever bring peace and plenty. Listen to Chief Awolowo: “For upwards of seven hundred years, the Irish people struggled to, and eventually did break away from England in spite of the fact that the latter did everything possible to give the former equal status within the British Constitution.” When you read him, you discover that, indeed, two of the three other examples he cited, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, have already unravelled as he predicted; the third, the Dutch-speaking Flemings of Belgium, despite several constitutional interventions, still demand degrees of autonomy. Some of them, in fact, have not stopped chanting “Let My People Go.”

So, what is the solution?

The solution is knowing that there is no regeneration in spring water flowing towards the desert. Tell the North, tell the South. “Whatever would direct itself after the setting sun, an ashen death lies in wait for it” (Ayi Kwei Armah). Chief Awolowo pointed at the empirical facts of history which he said “are enough to guide us.” He posited that it had been shown beyond all doubts “that the best constitution for… diverse peoples is a federal constitution.” He pointed at the Constitution of Switzerland, which he said “is acclaimed to be the best and the most democratic in the world since it gives complete autonomy to every racial group within the framework.”

In a truly federal Nigeria, there won’t be allegations of Muhammadu Buhari regime marginalising the South; neither will there be a Bola Tinubu government suffering the stigma of being a Yoruba government. A weak centre will be too unattractive to attract do-or-die politics; neither will it serve as a fetter holding down any part that wants to run. It will serve any one content with crawling to continue to crawl – as we compulsorily do today.

But can we take a redemptive bend? The wise would say we are too far gone to retrace our steps. “No spring changes the desert. The desert remains” – that, again, is from Armah. Creating a workable system – a system that works – is what we have refused to come up with. We know what it is and how it will serve us, but we just won’t go for it. For us, the bush is the way.

News

Why We Expanded Presidential Amnesty Scholarship Scheme — Otuaro

Published

4 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

Otuaro (middle) in a group photograph with the PAP foreign scholarship students in the United Kingdom after an interactive session in London on Saturday, 25 October, 2025.

The Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Dr Dennis Otuaro, has expressed his unwavering commitment to ensuring that more indigent students and communities of the Niger Delta benefit from the PAP scholarship scheme.

He stated this while explaining what informed his decision to expand the scheme and increase formal education opportunities for poor students, and to build a huge manpower base in the region.

A statement issued by Mr Igoniko Oduma, Special Assistant on Media to the PAP boss said Otuaro spoke during an interactive session in London on Saturday with the beneficiaries of the scholarship initiative deployed for undergraduate and post-graduate programmes in universities across the United Kingdom.

The engagement, which was at the instance of the PAP boss, provided an opportunity for the Office and the scholarship students to discuss issues pertaining to their welfare and challenges with a view to addressing them.

Otuaro said that while in-country scholarship deployment was 3800 in the 2024/2025 academic year, the figure increased to 3900 in the 2025/2026 and foreign scholarships were about 200.

He attributed the increase in deployment to the massive support of President Bola Tinubu and the Office of the National Security Adviser.

Otuaro stressed that he was greatly encouraged by the President and the NSA, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, and that he knows how impressed both of them are concerning the PAP initiatives, which align with the Renewed Hope Agenda.

He reiterated his call on the students to justify the huge investment in their education by the Federal Government by studying hard to make good grades.

He also urged them to conduct themselves and be responsible ambassadors of Nigeria while in the U.K, stressing that “you will be adding value to your families and communities when you complete your programmes successfully.”

The PAP helmsman said, “We want the scholarship programme to impact more students and communities in the Niger Delta. That’s why we have expanded it and increased formal education opportunities.

“We want you to take this opportunity very seriously so that the government, too, will be encouraged. I know how much support His Excellency, President Bola Tinubu GCFR, gives to the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

“Mr President and the National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, are very impressed with what we are doing. On your behalf I would like to, once again , thank His Excellency and the NSA for giving you this life-changing opportunity. We are confident that Mr President and the NSA will continue to support us.

“The knowledge you are receiving in your institutions today is to enable you plan yourself and prepare for the future. Whatever knowledge you gain cannot be taken from you.

“So as PAP scholarship students, we expect responsible and good behaviour from you. Government is investing heavily in you and you have the obligation to justify the investment. Be agents of change and avoid acts of mischief while in the U.K.”

News

OPINION: A ‘Crazy’ African Nation, Where Citizens Eat And Drink Football

Published

6 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

By Tony Erha

It was in October, a semi-summer-month and twilight of the year that ushers in the chilling and extreme winter. A nonagenarian woman gave me a friendly smile that revealed cheeky dimples. As I bowed respectfully to her ripened age, she offered a leathery hand for a handshake, which I received warmly, returning her infectious smile. For a youth who prays for longevity shouldn’t deprive the elderly of the walking stick. I had helped her, carrying a furred handbag to our seats on a night-long intercity bus, from Istanbul to Ankara, in Turkey, the Balkan nation, where we stopped over, in year 2004.

She spoke Turkish rapidly, whilst I retorted in a passable and incoherent Turkish language that ‘I don’t speak the official language of the only country of the world that is located on two continents; Europe and Asia. “You American?” She asked in English. It was obvious that my jeans, necklace and a fez cap that I upturned, in the manner of the Yankees, might have portrayed me as one. “No. I am a Nigerian”, I said, dragging the words. “You Nee-jay-rian!” she exclaimed, whilst I nodded confidently. Then she was elated; “Okocha Jay-Jay!” She spoke to others in the bus that clapped and hailed. I wondered why a 91 years-old-woman, was so passionate about football and one of its heroes, as if she was a youth.

At her request, an old video of a football match showed the mesmerising display of Austin ‘Jay Jay’ Okocha, viewed on a television set affixed to the bus. There were instantaneous excitement and catcalls each time Okocha, the great football ‘talisman’ from Nigeria, did his ball flips and dribble-runs that displaced his opponents, earning him one of the few (if not the greatest) football entertainers in football’s history. It was as if the video tape, recorded in his notable plays in Besiktas, a Turkish club side, was a live match. So great was Okocha’s global fame that the old woman relived again; “Jay Jay Okocha is a dangerous footballer, who’s full of tricks on the field of play. The only trick he didn’t do with the ball from his bag of football artistry was to play on top the swimming pool”. In Mustafa Ataturk’s nation, footballers of Nigeria’s decent had and still make their soccer very eventful.

Victor Osimhen, the leggy playmaker and striker with a dye-hair like the white mushroom head, who recently renewed his contract with Galatasaray, a Turkish top team, is also a Nigerian, who has received the applause in the peninsula country and across the globe like Jay Jay Okocha. Candidly, Oshimen, the goal mechine, who is a tonic to the Turks and football fans across the world, also does the unimaginative with the round leather, but certainly not with the same fascinating skills of Jay Jay! But the Turkish fans are readily tilted to football fanaticism.

Victor Osimhen

If it’s ‘fanatic-fans’ in Turkish football, it’s certainly ‘supporters hooliganism’ in the United Kingdom (UK), where association soccer (football) was founded in 1863, with similar kicking games played in Greece, China and Rome since 2,000 years. In UK, football is played with fanfares, pool betting and media vuvuzela. English soccer is a gainful entertainment industry raking in huge gate fees from plays, promotions, television and media razzmatazz, which is often imitated in Nigeria, with passions and ‘occult’ following. So worrisome was the ‘social hype and lawlessness’ youths and others attach to English soccer that security operatives have constant migraine fighting soccer addiction and frequent street brawls.

Jay Jay Okocha, Nwankwo Kanu, Dan Amokachi, Taribo West and other Nigerian stars, that once dominated and currently rule other foreign clubs, opened the floodlight of extremist football following into the country. Once upon a time, the then Prince Charles (now the king of England), was spotted (with young boys) playing the game, inside the Buckingham Palace, all wearing jersey number ’10’ with Jay Jay Okocha’s name inscribed). That the number-one-global-royalty adored soccer by wearing the jersey of a footballer from a third-world African nation, somewhat illustrates that which is often said about soccer being more than a mere sport. ‘Football Tripper’, a British online news porter, describes soccer as “oxygen” to numerous men and women. In Brazil, the South American nation, there is a deity called “Soccer”, as well as it’s a vivacious Reggae, a unique music genre in Jamaica.

Still, it is food and sups in Nigeria. In this Africa’s most populous nation, with plentiful viewing centres and liquor spots, there are live television football tournaments and soccer video games, with consumable food, alcoholics, carbonated drinks and some ‘unlawful substances’ that are at the behest of business owners and ‘intoxicated’ fans.

In what soccer dramatics came to know as ‘the Dammam Miracle’, viewing centres, beer parlours and restaurants were instantly sold out in the country, in 1989, after ‘footbocrazy’ Nigerians, stormed the streets in prolonged wild celebrations. For the Nigerian U-20 football team, at the FIFA World Youth Championship, held in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, came back from a four-goal deficit to level up and defeat the Russian counterpart, making the Nigerian team the first to come back from a semi-final to win a FIFA tournament. Soccer, indeed, is a crazy sport in Nigeria. Once upon a time, a man had shattered the screen of his expensive television, because Austin Jay Jay Okocha, his favourite star, had lost a penalty in a continental match!

It’s said that football, especially when the Nigerian national teams of men and woman play, tends to unite Nigerians than other national blights that turn them apart. Now, the current national fanaticism is for the Victor Osimhen-inspired Super Eagles, to qualify for the 2026 World Cup gala, even though it has to go the extra obstacles of playing more legs, whereas the team had frittered the early opportunities to qualify.

And sensing that most Nigerians care less of the economic woes that plagued them, but for the football fad, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the nation’s President, would cash-in to feed their ago awarding huge cash to high profile football tournaments and wins, like he recently accorded the Super Falcons, the female national team, for achieving a similitude of the Dammam miracle, to bring home a coveted African Cup of Nations (AFCON) trophy!

News

Ex-soldiers Fume Over Lifetime Benefits For Sacked Service Chiefs

Published

10 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

The sacked Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, and two other service chiefs, Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Hasan Abubakar, and Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla, are set to receive generous retirement benefits.

The benefits include bulletproof vehicles, domestic aides, and lifetime medical care.

Their exit follows President Bola Tinubu’s appointment of new service chiefs on Friday.

General Olufemi Oluyede has been named the new Chief of Defence Staff, while Major-General W. Shaibu takes over as Chief of Army Staff.

Air Vice Marshal Sunday Kelvin Aneke becomes the new Chief of Air Staff, and Rear Admiral I. Abbas the Chief of Naval Staff. The Chief of Defence Intelligence, Major-General E.A.P. Undiendeye, retains his position.

The President’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Communication, Sunday Dare, said in a statement on Friday that the removal of the service chiefs was in furtherance of the Federal Government’s ongoing efforts to strengthen Nigeria’s national security architecture.

According to the Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service for Officers and Enlisted Personnel in the Nigerian Armed Forces, signed by President Tinubu on December 14, 2024, the service chiefs are entitled to substantial retirement packages upon disengagement.

The document stipulates that each retiring service chief will receive a bulletproof SUV or an equivalent vehicle, to be maintained and replaced every four years by the military.

They are also entitled to a Peugeot 508 or an equivalent backup vehicle.

Beyond the vehicles, the package includes five domestic aides — two service cooks, two stewards, and one civilian gardener — along with an aide-de-camp or security officer, and a personal assistant or special assistant.

They will also retain three service drivers, a service orderly, and a standard guard unit comprising nine soldiers.

The benefits extend to free medical treatment both in Nigeria and abroad, as well as the retention of personal firearms to be retrieved upon their demise.

However, while officers of lieutenant-general rank and equivalents are entitled to international and local medical care worth up to $20,000 annually, the benefits for the service chiefs, though not stated in the document, are believed to be considerably higher.

The HTCOS reads, “Retirement benefits for CDS and Service Chiefs: The following benefits shall be applicable: one bulletproof SUV or equivalent vehicle to be maintained by the Service and to be replaced every four years. One Peugeot 508 or equivalent backup vehicle.

‘’Retention of all military uniforms and accoutrement to be worn for appropriate ceremonies; five domestic aides (two service cooks, two stewards, and one civilian gardener); one Aide-de-Camp/security officer; one Special Assistant (Lt/Capt or equivalents) or one Personal Assistant (Warrant Officer or equivalents); standard guard (nine soldiers).

“Three service drivers; one service orderly; escorts (to be provided by appropriate military units/formation as the need arises); retention of personal firearms (on his demise, the personal firearm(s) shall be retrieved by the relevant service); and free medical cover in Nigeria and abroad.”

However, the policy specifies that such entitlements apply only if the retired officers have not accepted any other appointment funded from public resources — except when such an appointment is made by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

In such cases, the officers, according to the document, will only receive allowances commensurate with the new role rather than a full salary.

Retired soldiers protest lavish perks

Reacting, some retired soldiers decried what they described as the luxurious benefits and entitlements reserved for service chiefs and senior military officers.

They lamented that junior personnel continued to suffer neglect and unpaid entitlements despite years of service to the nation.

The retired officers expressed frustration over the disparity in welfare and treatment between senior and junior ranks within the military.

One of the leaders of the discharged soldiers demanding their owed entitlements, Sgt. Zaki Williams, expressed frustration over the entitlements reserved for the service chiefs.

Speaking in an emotional tone, Williams, who claimed to be speaking for more than 700 soldiers in his group, said many retired non-commissioned officers had been abandoned despite dedicating their lives to defending the country.

He said, “I don’t really understand how our people in Nigeria do things. The people at the top always do things to favour only themselves. They don’t care about the poor or the junior ones who sacrificed everything.”

The retired sergeant recalled that government officials had made several promises to improve their welfare, but none had been fulfilled.

“Since the day they made those promises to us, we went back home and didn’t hear anything again. Everything just ended there. We’ve been waiting till now, but nothing has happened,” he added.

Williams said the situation had left many of his colleagues demoralised and divided over whether to continue pressing for their entitlements.

“Some of us said we should protest again, but others refused. We told them that day that we were not going for another protest. If the government wants to help us, they should help us. If not, we’re done,” he said.

He also accused senior military officers of frustrating efforts by the defence ministry to address the concerns of retired personnel.

According to Williams, life after service has been extremely difficult for most of them who retired voluntarily or were discharged without compensation.

“How can someone retire after years of service and still not get their entitlement? Many of us can’t even build a house. The senior officers have houses, cars, and everything good, but the rest of us have nothing,” he said.

He added that the little compensation given to some was not enough to rebuild their lives.

“If they give you N2m today, what can you really start with it in this country? You have children, family, and responsibilities, yet you can’t even afford a plot of land,” he said.

Expressing disappointment, he said most junior officers had lost faith in the system.

“We’ve handed everything over to God,” he said quietly. “We’ve cried and done our best. They promised us, but in the end, it’s still zero. We haven’t seen anything. That’s why many of us are now silent.”

Another retired soldier, Abdul Isiak, lamented that promises made to retired personnel had remained unfulfilled, leaving many struggling to survive.

He said, “All you said they would give to them would be done promptly, and they are more than what we need to sustain our lives. This is very unfair. We have suffered a lot, and they’re yet to give us our entitlements after leaving the service. What is our offence? Is it because we are junior officers?”

The former sergeant said the senior officers continued to enjoy generous retirement packages while lower ranks were denied their due benefits.

“We are preparing for another protest for them to pay us. This is very bad,” he said.

(PUNCH)