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OPINION: Fubara, Wike And Day I Broke Duck’s Eggs

Published

2 years ago

December 19, 2023

By Suyi Ayodele

Have you ever broken a duck’s eggs intentionally? The duck does not come after you for doing that. Its siblings, known in the esoteric language as àpapò eleye (the combined forces of birds) do that on its behalf. I learnt the lesson that it takes the intervention of the Almighty to survive the war of àpapò eleye so young in life. They are a very unrelenting lot, who wage a war of attrition, and equally fatal. May my enemies not incur their wrath!

The duck is a dull bird, so we think. It is slow in virtually everything it does; never in a hurry. But beyond its ‘dullness’, the duck possesses some powers that make the human race avoid it. For those who are knowledgeable enough in the belief of our forebears, the duck is not just a bird. It is the bird of the elders. We are in the festive season when millions of chickens are sent to their early graves all in the name of celebration. Check up on your neighbours this season and tell me how many homes are using ducks as delicacies in celebration of Christmas. If you find any, I will advise you to respect such a home in all your dealings. Or, if you have a friend who boils or fries duck’s eggs for breakfast, know that your friend is deeper than you know. In poultry keeping, avian farmers hardly rear ducks in commercial quantities, at least in my part of the world. Yet, ducks lay more eggs in multiples than the chickens. Is there something about this gentle bird that is beyond the ordinary?

Growing up in the village, we discovered that if a driver mistakenly ran over a duck or its ducklings, the driver would not just run off. He would stop, look for a currency note or a coin and stick it in the mouth of the dead bird. Why? I will tell you the reason in a while. But let us talk more about the peculiarities of the strange bird, the duck. In terms of the heaviness of feathers, duck feathers are longer and heavier than those of chickens. But in terms of flight, the two are not the same. Chickens merely flop around. Whatever swiftness the duck lacks in walking, it makes up for in flying. The duck flies without flapping its wings like most birds. Once it takes to flight, it releases its wings for the winds to take over. And it goes a long distance before it stops. But on the ground, the duck and its ducklings are majestic; never in a hurry, and never paying attention to human activities around them. Another thing about this strange bird is that it makes no effort in protecting its eggs or ducklings from harm. It allows you to do whatever you want to do with them while it looks on with an expressionless stance. Even the ravenous hawks avoid ducklings while looking for supper. What is it about the duck? What is the mystery surrounding this being? I learnt about that while I was just crawling out of my cradle.

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We were three young cousins in our innocence. We got new catapults from an older cousin whose baskets we assisted in hawking. He was the honest type, who delivered on his promises. The gifts of catapults from him were priceless, and pronto, we went a-hunting. Our targets were the lizards on the rough walls of the houses in the neighbourhood. We were at this lizards-hunting venture when we suddenly stumbled on a duck in hibernation. We disturbed its peace and it left the eggs and moved a distance away. Waoh! There were many eggs. Whatever came over us. We tried our marksmanship on the eggs, aiming at them, and breaking them in relish as the stones hit them with a sound that excited us. It became a competition. Then an old woman showed up. We took off in different directions like the naughty boys we were. She raised an alarm and the neighbours, including our mothers, gathered to see what we had done. We needed nobody to tell us that we were in trouble. So, we stayed off our homes for as long as we could.

Something, however, soon brought us back home. We crawled back when hunger set in, waiting for the worst to happen. I was expecting the worst from my unsparing mother. But nothing happened to us. No beating, no scolding, no reprimand of any kind. Strange! We were fed our normal rations and we went to sleep. The following morning, the three of us were summoned, and given different types of left-over foods and asked to go and feed the duck. Again, strangely enough; we met the duck on the same spot, where we broke its eggs, as if it was in hibernation. We fed it for days until the duck left the spot to continue its normal lifestyle. Soon, we saw it with several ducklings and we never troubled it again. Another strange occurrence was that the owner of the duck, an old irascible woman, never asked us why we did what we did. She carried on as if we never offended her!

Days later, I asked my mother why nobody scolded us and we were merely asked to feed the duck. She only warned me never to break the duck’s eggs again. “Only a bad child does that”, she retorted. I was not satisfied. I knew there was more to it than she said. Years later, while watching my late father, Baba Falade, on his divination mat, I got to know why one should not intentionally break the eggs of the duck. I will only recall the way he ended the Odu Ifa that day. It was a warning in the esoteric that rings bell in my ears till date. This is what Baba Falade said to his clients that day: “Honi bá fo eyin pepeye, li hi wa uja apapo eleye” – he who intentionally breaks the eggs of the duck is the one who looks for the trouble of the combined forces of the birds. You should know by now what the “birds” in the warning represent. If you don’t, how do I help your ignorance of the operations of our mothers; the real owners of the night! It is not for fun that they are not called: Òlamo níjà, gbemo níjà, sin omo de lé – he who settles her child’s fight, fights her child’s fight, and escorts her child back home!

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Governor Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers State is in a long battle with his benefactor, godfather, predecessor and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mr. Nyesom Wike. The masses will never get to know the root of the big men’s quarrel. What we all know is that this is a battle that will not end soon. In the coming days and weeks, a lot of interests will come to play, and the battle will be prolonged. While the battle lasts, the peace of Rivers State will suffer. The people of the state will suffer too. And finally, if care is not taken, the economy of the nation will suffer. Should that happen, Nigerians in their millions, will suffer untold economic hardship. This is because the raging battle is capable of crippling our economic mainstay, oil. Can Nigeria afford such? It is left for our new husband in Aso Rock, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and his inner court members to decide. I am very much interested in the Fubara-Wike tango. I can predict the end. I can also do a character identikit of the dramatis personae. In this ongoing crisis, Fubara is the duck, while Wike is like the adolescents, who intentionally broke the eggs of a duck years back. Unless Wike sheats his swords and feeds Fubara’s duck for days, he may suffer the warning seconded in Baba Falade’s divination. Should this crisis degenerate to the level that the duck’s siblings would have to weigh in, Wike would have the real apapo eleye to contend with.

Fubara has already set the stage for what is to come. When a trap setter uses an elephant as bait, every discerning mind should know the size of the game that will go down. Last week, before our very eyes, the Rivers State governor did the most unthinkable. As early as 5.00am, on Wednesday, December 13, 2023, the governor moved in with about six bulldozers, a sizeable number of security agents, and demolished the entire state House of Assembly structures. That is the bait for Wike. A governor who could wake up and render an entire arm of government useless is capable of anything. He did not stop there. Fubara moved just four members of the 31-member assembly to the Government House, where he presented the N800 billion state budget to them. The “Assembly” ‘passed’ the budget the same day. By the following day, December 14, Governor Fubara signed the 2024 Appropriation Bill into law. Recall the speed of the duck mentioned above. Is Wike getting the message? I wish he continues in this battle of no victory. I ask this with every sense of sincerity: who would have believed that a Fubara with his ‘innocent’ look would have the nerves to pull off the happenings in that state in the last one week? That, again, is the way of the duck. You can only take its ‘dullness’ for granted at your own risk!

Now, the duck’s siblings are already coming into the fray. The battle ground is getting frenzied. The war music I listened to in Gbelebu town penultimate week is playing in my head. I don’t know the lyrics of the war song. The interpretation of the song as given by my Ijaw friend of over three decades, Fidelis Soriwei, keeps ringing in my head. I pictured the frenzy of the atmosphere as the musician hit the cord. I visualised the excitement of the crowd, especially the womenfolk. Then Fidelis’ voice came hitting me. “What he is saying is that the children are crying as they are being prevented from joining the war boats and canoes. The elders are saying the children should go back because this war is not for them.” I asked why women, I mean mothers, should be happy that a war is about to break out. My interlocutor’s response was daring. “When it comes to war, there is no man or woman in the Ijaw nation.” Without sounding unnecessarily sanguine, I think I love that! If war exterminates without gender discrimination, the one to keep the people alive should also not be gender-sensitive. Ijaw women are already on the battlefield on the side of Fubara. They are being led by the 53-year-old Boma Goodhead, who represents the Asari-Toru Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives. The video of the grave allegation she levelled against Wike is all over the Internet. She is not alone.

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The Ijaw National Congress (INC) has also come into the fray. It is a case of one for all, all for one. Led by its President, Professor Benjamin Okaba, INC sees the Fubara-Wike tango beyond the ordinary. The Ijaw ethnic group is taking the battle to President Tinubu, who it accused of backing Wike against the governor. The group warned that having suffered marginalisation for too long despite being the golden goose that lays the golden eggs for the nation to live on, it would not fold its arms this time around. Should the crisis continue, INC said it could no longer guarantee the safety of the nation’s oil installations and facilities in the Niger Delta! “We are already angered that the government of President Bola Tinubu has marginalised the Ijaw people. In Delta State, where three persons were picked for a federal appointment, none are from the Ijaw nation….Meanwhile the Ijaw are the most economically viable in that state. We are noting all of this. But for him to keep quiet and allow Wike to misbehave shows that there is some tacit support. And we shall not take that. As we speak, our people are so angered; our people are so frustrated to the extent that we can no longer guarantee if things continue in this way, the safety of the oil installations in Ijaw land and our region….40 million Ijaw people are angered and aggrieved. And they are saying that a slap on Governor Fubara is a slap on the entire Ijaw nation. Any attempt to further close up our political space to remove Siminalayi Fubara from office is a call for fire.”

The simple interpretation of the INC warning is that a war will soon break out in Rivers State. Should that happen, the nation will suffer greatly. The Ijaw, in this impending war, will not fight conventionally. They will go for the soul of the nation. Unfortunately, Nigeria cannot afford any sabotage of its economy with the level of economic crisis the nation is passing through at the moment. Something must give. I don’t fully understand Wike’s worth in the President Tinubu government. I don’t know the level of damage Wike did to his own political party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), during the last election such that he occupies a prime position in the political calculation of President Tinubu. But I know one thing. When the chips are down, and the president is to make a choice between the economic prosperity of his government and Wike, he will go for the former. That will not make Tinubu an ingrate. The president will only be archetypal. After all, they say in politics and international relations, there are no permanent friends and enemies, but permanent interests. The coming days and weeks will be interesting. Wike has the window now to allow peace in Rivers State. He has fought many battles and won. How he intends to win the current war, I don’t know. He has everything to lose if President Tinubu decides to sacrifice him for the peace of the Niger Delta. No nation should take the INC’s warning lightly. In any case, they have done it before. And nothing can stop them from repeating the feat if that is their last card on the table. I can’t imagine Nigeria adding another avoidable Niger Delta crisis to the litany of woes confronting the nation because of an overbearing godfather. The matter is easier for President Tinubu to handle. He is the godfather of godfathers himself. So, it should not be difficult for him to take the call and avoid the looming battle of an àpapò eleye!!

Related Topics:#opinion Fubara Rivers Suyi Ayodele

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OPINION: Donald Trump’s Wildfire For The Bad Men!

Published

2 hours ago

November 10, 2025

Editor

By Tiny Erha

A fuzzy analyst on a social media platform called it the “roar of a cat-king that frightens the land-animals of the jungle”. Another onlooker also likened it to a rattlesnake that meander the market place, while in a full gathering, causing intense stampede. Yet, another called it “fire on the mountain top”. What a-gwan? – An American street jargon for “what is going on? – would question.

Behold, a stormy returnee-president of the Yankee’s nation, the United States of America (USA), Donald J. Trump, has scattered ‘the table’, an sobriquet by Nigerians for an angry man’s disruption of a wrong setup. In a premeditated recourse to action, Trump, the most powerful president from the God’s own country, had declared Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and one of its principal allies on the continent, a ‘Country of Particular Concern (CPC)’. The tempestuous man vowed to deploy American military forces to smoke out Muslim Jihads and other terrorists from the country’s north, if his confirmed-genocide on Christians wasn’t stopped.

CPC is a similar acronym for the Congress for Progressive Change, a political party once formed by Mohammadu Buhari, the country’s immediate-past president, who is mainly responsible for the lapses that earned Nigeria the CPC’s designation. ‘Country of Particular Concern’ (CPC), is a classification of the US Secretary of State on a country that causes severe violations of religious freedom, under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, as amended in 1999. America is said to be given the right by the UN to expedite disciplinary actions about the CPC.

The news of the CPC derisive classification and Trump’s razor-edge assertion of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Nigeria as a ‘disgraced country’, had spread fast like the Harmattan’s bushfires or the tinder wintry fires that roasts American country sides all-year-round. It is only a sane person who would be disturbed that the fire he set on a portion of the bush, in the flammable season, is the same that had spread far and wide, causing tangible destructions, in the shoddy manner Abuja had mismanaged its security.

China had threatened brimstones, thus encouraging Muslim extremists, who proclaim that Trump dare not undermine Nigeria’s sovereignty, with his ‘threat to invade’ the country. Isn’t it the same Asia country that Senator Adams Oshiomhole recently accused on the floor of the Senate, as instigating illegal mining operations in the country, backing by armed bandits that carry out kidnapping, ethnic and religious persecution, against the people? The Russians, not minding its bitterest war against its Ukraine neighbour, also warned Trump. Nevertheless, a Conservative Caucus and lawmaking body of Canada supported Trump’s decision.

Ezekiel Dachomo, the intrepid clergy from Plateau State, whose relentless advocacy puts his life on the terrorists’ cliff, with other activists, was the one who attracted Ted Cruz, a Republican Senator and a coterie of foreign humanists on the genocide matter, had chided the Christians Association of Nigeria (CAN) and Nigerian government, as playing the poker that resulted in the deaths, maiming, arsons and railroading of millions of Nigerians into IDP exiles. But Pastor Enoch Adeboye, leader of the mega Redeem Christian Church of God, had yanked aside his cassocks to advise an unsettled President Tinubu to play it soft, and not to be hoodwinked that China, Russia and the United Kingdom would come to his aid, should Trump make good his threat.

Adeboye pleaded for 90 days of grace, for Tinubu to flush out the multitudes of Boko Haram, ISIS, ISWAP and the Fulani militants that have laid a deadly siege for over a decade.

Although notable clergies from the mosque and church, alike; had towed the line of peace as Pastor Adeboye, a headstrong Ahmad Abubakar Gumi and the Deputy Senate President, Barau Jubrin, in a ‘bravado of guilt’, had told Trump to do his worst. Gumi is the outspoken bearer of Abyssinian long beard, who’s frequently accused of ‘a hand in the gloves’ with known terrorists and was allegedly repatriated from Saudi Arabia on terrorism claims.

And in what pundits regarded as shocking and an un-presidential, a former Head of State, Abdulsalami Abubakar, who is acclaimed to be an Ambassador of Peace, bluntly scolded that “Trump is trying to disintegrate Nigeria, with his comments that threaten our hard-won unity”. One would have thought that he and his fellow ex-head of state, Ibrahim Badamasi Banbagida (IBB), who couldn’t rescue their Niger State, from the terrorists’ stranglehold, are glad that Trump’s intervention would eventually rid their people of the menace. Obviously, General Abubakar would be in the swelling league of those who accuse Trump of persecuting the Muslim faith.

Why the claims of attempted violation of Nigeria’s sovereignty by Trump, , when the same country is complicit of the genocide on tens of thousands of souls; children, women, able-bodies and the aged that are butchered in cold blood? Does it truly merit to be called a sovereign state? Which sovereignty where a large section of its security outfit hobnob those who massacre the same ordinary people they sworn to protect? Can there be autonomy in a country where terrorists rule over some of the country’s un-governed spaces?

Yet, numerous organizations and credible voices across the northern religion and its political divides are united that President Trump couldn’t be faulted that Nigeria’s current president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu had been disinterested at stopping the excessive killings. Trump had reminded all that Tinubu and his associates in APC, once visited him in the White House in 2014, accusing the then government of President Goodluck Jonathan of committing same genocide against Christians, for which they sought his cooperation to remove Jonathan from office. Trump asserted that that visit was what prompted the CPC designation.

The “US strikes will make sense if they are directed at terrorist groups like Boko Haram, ISIS, and ISWAP, who have been killing both Muslims and Christians. Trump and the US will be hailed if this is the objective”. Intoned, Prof. Ishaq Akintola, Executive Director of the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) He chided CAN as having betrayed President Tinubu for failing to water down the Trump’s influence, he urged Muslim youths not to do anti-America and anti-Trump’s protests, as they used to do.

But, there is a growing concern and propaganda that Trump’s America is not to be trusted on their dealing with Nigeria on the CPC issue. They say Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Iraq are evident, where the US claimed to have gone in to root out those terrorists who caused troubles in there. They say the terrorists, instead, were empowered to take over power therein, fearing that Nigeria could be next. They narrate further that the defeat or humiliation of Nigeria by President Trump would spell doom for Africa, while regard Nigeria as the continent’s moral and diplomatic compass.

Believe it or not, the Trump’s encounter must’ve spurred President Tinubu and the security establishments into frenzy, where the terrorists and their backers are running for cover, not only for the renewed onslaughts against them by the Nigerian forces, but for a Donald Trump’s hostility.

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[OPINION] Trump: Kurunmi’s Lessons For Tinubu

Published

2 hours ago

November 10, 2025

Editor

By Festus Adedayo

Greek philosopher, Socrates, may be the most famous Western figure of his time to have swallowed the poisonous plant’s juice called hemlock. But, Africa, too had its. As he was sentenced to death in 399 BCE, Socrates was forced to drink this poisonous plant secretion which causes muscular paralysis, leading to respiratory failure. As he lay dying, having swallowed his own hemlock kept in a calabash bowl, the tragic life of Kurunmi, 19th century Yoruba military general and Yoruba race’s 10th Aare Ona Kakanfo, stands as a huge lesson for contemporary leaders. Though Kurunmi learned the lesson too late, its precepts are that, through decisions or indecision, leaders lead their people to avoidable bloodshed.

If irascible Donald Trump eventually attacks Nigeria as he has been roaring to do in the past one week or thereabout, Nigerians have their leaders of the 4th Republic to blame. If this happens, one historical narrative often deployed as a fitting recollection of such invasion is the story of Kurunmi, one of the governors of the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Atiba.

In the infamous Ijaiye war with Ibadan, Kurunmi lost all. His warlords’ stubborn insistence on crossing River Ose was one of the first steps to spell a monumental disaster for the Ijaiye warriors. They all perished inside the river. Kurunmi lost Iwawun which came to him as a chilling news. The generalissimo was contemptuous of Ibadan’s military might, having earlier defeated the people in the battle of Odogido. He derogatorily called Ibadan “bush goats” and “horses full of muscles, small in sense.” The BasorunOgunmola warriors had to fight to the last pint of their blood to reclaim their pride. In the process, they demonstrated to Kurunmi that they had huge sense and possessed sterner military prowess.

When the poison’s pang meandered through his entrails with deathly searing pain, Kurunmi cursed his remaining generals, Mosadiwin and Abogunrin. The curse would assume its potency, he pronounced, if they did not inter him immediately but allow “my body stay(s) here for the vultures of Ibadan to peck at… if my skull serves as drinking cup for Adelu.” His last words as he committed suicide, was, “When a leader of men has led his people to disaster, and what remains of his present life is but a shadow of his proud past, then it is time to be leader no more.”

The above earlier excerpts were the result of a literary, though fictional re-calibration of what was left of the true but tragic life of Kurunmi, one of Yorubaland’s most famous war generals. Written by Professor Ola Rotimi in his epic drama, Kurunmi, Rotimi also characterized Kurunmi as a great military leader and war general whose fatal ending came as a result of a leadership Achilles’ heel. It is, taking others for granted.

In the days of yore, in centuries that preceded the advent of colonial rule, vile comments against a people, the type of which was recently credited to American president, Donald Trump, were enough to provoke a war. Kurunmi said as much against the Ibadan and provoked their anger. “Bush goats” and “horses full of muscles, small in sense” were as villainous as “the now disgraced country” of Trump’s description of Nigeria. The disgrace isn’t that it was coming from the leader of another country; the disgrace is that Nigerian leaders are actually disgraceful. They are the proverbial self-advertizing ripe fruits of an orange tree who invite stones and wood-pummeling on the mother tree. From Olusegun Obasanjo, to Umaru Yar’Adua, Goodluck Jonathan, Muhammadu Buhari and now to Bola Tinubu, Nigerian leaders of the Fourth Republic have left their food plates unwashed and have invited Trump, the green fly, to feast on their failures.

When Boko Haram insurgency began under Modu Ali Sheriff as governor of Borno State, Obasanjo was in the saddle. While holding court in Maiduguri, on July 28, 2002, Mohammed Yusuf, founder of the dreaded Islamist organization and its spiritual leader, got surrounded by Nigerian military troops. They enveloped the sect members and arrested Yusuff two days after. Captured by the military in that expedition, Yusuf was taken to custody of the police where, for fear that he could name his sponsors in government, Yusuff was summarily executed outside of the police headquarters. Rather than decisively stamp his feet on this potentially viral cells of an affliction, President Obasanjo would rather order the rout of Odi and ZakiBiam.

I was one of the reporters who covered the blood-curdling news of the amputation of Jangebe, the first victim of the politicization of Islam, in Gusau, Zamfara State in 1999. On October 27 of that year, Ahmed Sani Yerima, as governor, dared Obasanjo and introduced the Sharia law. The eleven other states in northern Nigeria who parade majority Muslim populations, immediately followed suit, regardless of the stipulations of the Nigerian constitution which stated that Nigeria is not a religious state. Obasanjo had the renown of the warrior, Morilewa who Odolaye Aremu sang his panegyrics as “Òtagììrìp’egbèjeènìyàn” – one who, with the clinical sprint of a tiger, eliminates 140 people at a go.

In this instance, however, because he wanted to be politically correct and didn’t want to hurt the north, Obasanjo became too feeble to stop the north. There were vehement protests everywhere against the move, including riots, leading to several deaths. Yet, Obasanjo was too busy demolishing towns where policemen and soldiers got killed to bother about this stoked national fire.

Yes, since 1960, there had been calls for Northern Nigeria to return to the Sharia, which is a way of life of Muslims. Reference was made to its seamless practice in the Sokoto Caliphate and Kanem-Bornu empire before the British colonial rule of the 19th and 20th centuries. Yes, this empire prospered tremendously under Sharia and the people wanted a return to “the glory of former times”. Were southern Nigeria to seek a return to “the old glory” of the buoyant Oyo empire, it could also have advocated for this movement backwards to move forward. Moving backwards to the Oyo empire would have meant a wholesale reproduction of the draconian laws and the barbaric precepts of kings seizing women that caught their fancies, which were not in consonance with modernity. Beheading of opponents to the king’s command would also have come with the broth. However, since the introduction of the criminal Sharia laws into the penal laws of the 12 northern states in 2000, Northern Nigeria has remained backward, more existentially challenged ever, while its political leaders use Sharia as a draw-card for votes.

Boko Haram indeed sidled into Nigeria under the veil of Islam. Under Jonathan, who literally threw his hands up in surrender, and Buhari, whose amorphous anger against the Islamist group was undisguisable, the insurgents became such a hydra whose taming was a huge challenge.

Now, Nigeria has come to the valley of decision. An untrained child would receive cudgel training outside their father’s compound. Donald Trump has come with his disgraceful cudgel for Nigeria. As usual, Nigerians are hiding behind a finger. The almost 26 years of leadership hypocrisy, politicizing of faith, ineptitude, abetment of mass killings of Nigerians, all in the name of looking good in the sight of northern voters, have come full throttle. It reminds me of Peter Tosh, the iconoclast Jamaican reggae musician, warning, in his No Way track, that, “Nobody feel no way/It’s coming close to payday I say…/Everyman get paid a quota’s work this day/Can I plant peas and reap rice/Can I plant cocoa and reap yam/Can I plant turnip and reap tomato/Can I plant breadfruit and reap potato?”

Nigeria planted breadfruit over the past 26 years and desires to reap potato. The world endured the nuisance of our leaders for decades; it waited with bated breath to see whether renaissance would come from within. Now, a Sheriff for whom scruple, precis and diplomatese and the concept of national sovereignty are balderdash, is in the saddle. You may dislike the gruff of Trump as I do; in his CPC tag on Nigeria, you may see through a veil of seeking to please his American evangelicals and harvesting support at home, amid a shutdown of American government. However, you cannot denounce Trump’s statistics that brim with blood of our innocent compatriots. Their only crime was being Nigerians practicing their faith.

In my piece entitled Ted Cruz’s genocide, blasphemy and Ida the slave boy (October 26, 2025) I laid bare the crux of Ted Cruz’s matter. The world cannot stand successive Nigerian governments’ hypocrisy any longer. Citizens have resigned themselves to their fates in the hands of their oppressive leaders. In the north, faiths other than Islam cannot be practiced without fear. In the name of blasphemy, many have had their heads decapitated and burnt. In the words of Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Mathew Hassan-Kukah in Lagos on Friday, “If Nigeria does not kill the dragon of religious extremism, it will be only a matter of time before we become a larger Gaza.”

But, supremacists flourish like cedars of Lebanon here. The first thing to do is to face the fact that, the forefathers of insecurity in Nigeria – banditry, Fulani herdsmen, kidnapping etc – are Boko Haram and ISWAP. They kill, maim and destroy churches and mosques, in the name of a religion. Yes, we should agree that they are ill-informed and unrepresentative of what Islam, the religion of peace, truly stands for. But, with the genealogy of Boko Haram and ISWAP that we know, it will then be very disingenuous and hypocritical to claim that the killings in Nigeria’s northern states are in equal proportion of both Christian and Muslim adherents.

In the figures they gave of casualty of Boko Haram and ISWAP’s genocidal rout, Trump, Cruz and others spearheading this genocide claim on Nigerian Christians cannot be wrong. They may be wrong on the functionality that the grim statistics serve for them. If and when the Islamists strike, not only do they shout “Allahu Akbar,” a census of opinions of victims in northern Nigeria would reveal that their killings tilt more towards Christians and the Kafir Muslims who the insurgents see as no better than Christians.

I believe Tinubu can rout the Islamists. He stands at a tangential point to do this due to his syncretist background of being both Christian and Muslim, by birth and marriage. Trump’s irascibility is a wake-up call on Aso Rock. It is also a blessing to Nigeria. We don’t want America to storm Nigeria with her missiles. We want Trump to make Tinubu bend over backwards to smoke out those bloodsucking animals and their apologists off our land. Tinubu can do it if he blinds his eyes to the enticing pie of a second term re-election. To do this, he must heed the clarion call in the Ola Rotimi proverb which says that, “When an elder sees a mudskipper, he must not afterwards say it was a crocodile”.

Tinubu must call the mudskipper of Boko Haram sponsors their real names. He should begin by flushing out bloated vermin military generals who sell arms to Boko Haram and their allies in barracks who warehouse Intel reports for sale. Since we began voting trillions of Naira for fighting insurgency, military Generals and their civilian allies have stolen billions of our national patrimony yearly. I am sure America has their dossiers. She should smoke them out. America must then banish their feet from her precious soil where they love to move their blood-encrusted heists. It is in this that Trump can “attack fast, vicious, and sweet”. It will hit the insurgents hard, thereby bringing peace to the “cherished Christians”.

Lastly, I love a tweet on X last week credited to military General, Ibrahim Babangida. He wrote: “During our time in the Nigerian Military, we don’t (sic) negotiate with terrorists or offer any form of amnesty to radical groups. Those who pose(d) a significant threat (were) scheduled for court to see the judge, while those who pose(d) a much more dangerous (threat) are (sic) scheduled to see God.” It is high time the Tinubu government applied the same stratagem.

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Anambra Poll: CDD Releases Post-election Findings, Recommends improved INEC’s Operational Capacity

Published

7 hours ago

November 9, 2025

Editor

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD-West Africa), has released its post-election findings on the just concluded Anambra governorship election, recommending improvement in INEC’s operational capacity, prioritised voter education, issue-based campaigns, amongst others.

In a post-election press briefing held in Akwa on Sunday, the CDD said the “2025 Anambra election reveals that Nigeria’s electoral challenges are deeply linked to wider governance failures; weak institutions, elite dominance, economic hardship, insecurity, and lack of accountability continue to shape voter behaviour and electoral outcomes.”

In the post-election statement signed by Dr. Dauda Garuba, Director, CDD, and Professor Victor Adetula, Chair,
CDD-West Africa Election Analysis Centre, recommended that the “ongoing electoral reforms must target improving INEC’s operational capacity through timely funding, decentralised planning, and consistent communication.

“Such operational issues include logistics, mandatory real-time result publication via IReV, early voting for essential personnel and adequate personnel training.”

The CDD, while urging political parties to prioritise voter education and conduct issue-based campaigns, the organisation urged politicians to uphold internal democracy and adhere to transparent campaign financing.

“Elections cannot be treated as temporary security events. The government at all levels must develop a more sustainable security architecture that addresses root causes and provides year-round safety for residents.

“Only then can we safeguard electoral processes without relying on massive deployments that strain national resources and offer no long-term protection.”

The CDD, while decrying the prevalent of vote trading in the election, said conscious steps must be taken to discourage this “through deliberate efforts to deliver good governance while promoting civic education across all strata of society to discourage transactional politics.”

“The National Orientation Agency must take centre stage on this. Ongoing reforms of the electoral act must take into consideration the need to arrest and prosecute electoral offenders.”

The CDD said that “as the country prepares for the 2026 off-cycle elections and the 2027 general elections, these reforms must be prioritised.”

It added: “Nigeria’s democratic survival depends not just on voting but on the strength of the institutions and the governance practices that surround it.”