News

OPINION: Ifa’s Message For Our President

Published

11 months ago

August 13, 2024

By Suyi Ayodele

At the very beginning of time when the deities lived among human beings, Òrúnmìlà, the father of Divination, occupied a prominent space. He attracted many people to himself, friends and foes alike. He assisted many people to achieve their ambitions. Òrúnmìlà was instrumental to many becoming wealthy. He made nobles of not a few. He crowned and assisted in dethroning kings. He was powerful, influential and generous. But he has hubris. He was always ruthless whenever he saw any obstacle to his ambition.

A time came when Òrúnmìlà wanted to take the highest title among the deities. Of course, many rose in his support; those who wanted to repay his past good deeds. Likewise, some others who had felt cheated or ill-treated by Òrúnmìlà, also lined up against him. To these people, it was payback time. Two Òrúnmìlà’s partners in divination were ferocious in their opposition to Òrúnmìlà’s aspiration. What went wrong between them, only the gods could tell. But Òtúrúpòn and Òkàràn swore that Òrúnmìlà would not attain the position he sought. While Òkàràn was ready to shift ground if certain conditions were met, Òtúrúpòn was so determined, and nothing would persuade him to be soft on his erstwhile friend. The duo approached Èsù (the trickster deity) to assist them in their mission against the great diviner. Èsù kept them in his shrine, waiting to see what Òrúnmìlà would do.

At his wits end, Òrúnmìlà summoned his diviners to find a solution. Ifa revealed to Òrúnmìlà that his two enemies were waiting in ambush for him at the shrine of Èsù. Òpèlè equally told him that it was only Èsù that could save him and get him to the position he so desired. Sacrifices were prescribed. Among them was that Òrúnmìlà must carry 700 empty gourds and 4,000 cowry shells to the shrine of Èsù. How would one man carry those items at once? Ifa simply asked Òrúnmìlà to make the poor in the town to be happy. He was asked to attend to the needs of the masses reasonably.

For seven days, Òrúnmìlà took care of the needy. He fed them, divined for them pro bono, attended to every of their needs and asked the king to initiate policies that would make life bearable for the poor. The people were happy. On the eighth day, Òrúnmìlà brought out the sacrificial items and began to carry them. The people who came to thank him for the way he had treated them in the past one week saw his struggles with the items. They offered to assist Òrúnmìlà. The masses shared the items among themselves and Òrúnmìlà led the way to the shrine of Èsù, otherwise known as Elégbáa.

The noise from the items as the empty gourds and cowry shells knocked one another was terrifying. The noise produced a music, which according to the Odù, says: A ó pa Òtúrúpòn/A ó kan Òkàràn lésè (We with kill Òtúrúpòn. We will break the legs of Òkàràn). On hearing the music, which was just coincidental, the duo thought that it was a battle cry, and took to flight. Òrúnmìlà and his party arrived at the shrine, offered the items to Èsù. He was instantly proclaimed the head of all deities. Òrúnmìlà defeated his enemies without shooting a single arrow. The masses who made up his team were his strength. When a dog has the people behind it, even the monkey on a high tree becomes a meal!

Today is barely three days after the Annual Convention of my church, The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), with the theme, “Heaven”, ended. For those my fellow heaven-bound brothers and sisters, who may be wondering why I chose the path of divination early this New Year in the RCCG, I refer you to my new position in the cabinet of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as Senior Special Adviser, Culture and Tradition (See “Dangote Refinery: Blind man and his yam scrapers”, published on July 30, 2024). It is in pursuant of that new office that I offer this ‘advice’ free of charge! But like the deity, Olúa, in my town is wont to say: I wish Tinubu not to accede to my divination so that at the fullness of time, he would say the Oracle warned!

The year 2027 is going to be a decisive year for Nigeria, Nigerians, and particularly for President Tinubu. It is the year that Tinubu will be seeking to be the head of all principalities and powers in the corridors of power as the ‘number one citizen’ of Nigeria. Tinubu will seek his second term in office, no doubt. Many will support him, just as many will be up in arms against him. The battle will be fierce, mean and bloody. The opposition camps will give all it takes for the president not to realise his second term ambition. President Tinubu should have no doubt in his mind that the Òtúrúpòns and Òkàràns of the nation’s political firmament will assemble all arsenals at their disposals to see the end of his political career. We will be on the fringes to observe events and lend our voices here and there, and from time to time, by God’s grace. However, the battle will rage most fiercely, in Tinubu’s camp. What should the president do? We shall come to that.

But first, let us establish this fact. With the way the #EndBadGovernance ‘protest’ was prosecuted and ended in the North, it is clear, even to the blind, that the Òtúrúpòns and Òkàràns of the North have parted ways with Tinubu’s Òrúnmìlà. What happened between President Tinubu and his old friends and allies from the North is left at the imagination of the deities as it happened in the divination above. The North, we all have come to realise, did not ‘protest’ hunger, inflation and the general pains in the land during the August1-10, 2024 EndBadGovernance ‘protest’. What ails the North most in the last 15 months of President Tinubu’s administration is the loss of power to the South.

The folks up the Niger River have not been able to reconcile themselves with the fact that they are no longer in charge. They find the prospect of a Tinubu second term too difficult to bear. So, when the opportunity came for them to ‘protest’ hunger, the North sent their youths to do it peculiarly. That region is ready to do anything, ready to give anything and ready to allow anything, for power to return to it. The prospect of a military intervention is a welcome development! They openly canvassed it! Sad! But it is understandable, anyway. When a region has no other business apart from the government, the loss of power, no matter how temporarl, can never be palatable.

During the build-up to the 2023 general election that produced the Tinubu presidency, many of us warned Tinubu then that it was fatal for the dog to make the tiger its best man. Such a relationship comes with a huge price. But when a man sets his eyes on the throne of his forebears, it is useless to caution him to tread softly. In the course of realising his ambition, everything, no matter how deadly, got a warm embrace from Tinubu. While one is tempted to salute his dexterity at executing all his political battles, one cannot but shrug at the tendency of Tinubu to throw caution to the winds. He befriended his most arch enemies. One of them was Nasir El-Rufai, the immediate past governor of Kaduna State. The public insults El-Rufai heaped on Tinubu prior to the 2023 race paled into insignificance as the same diminutive governor became the arrowhead of Tinubu’s campaign. That is what our politics is all about; no clear-cut ideology.

In power, Tinubu has made so many concessions to his ‘friends’ in the North. He has done everything he could to pacify them. With numerous appointments, to even creating a full ministry for the cows of the North, President Tinubu has demonstrated that he is a man ready to give in anything for his own personal comfort and ambition. But despite what he has done for the North, the same people came out during the EndBadGovernance ‘protest’ to show that they are implacable. The only thing that will pacify the North is a return of power to the zone. If you are wondering why the North behaved the way it did during the ‘protest’, you need to know the fable of the insatiable bird called Àlúkèrè. Here is the story.

Children, especially those from the countryside, love to play with birds. Growing up then, our parents caught birds for us to play with. We tied a tiny thread on the legs of the birds and made them take flight, while we pulled them back. It was fun. On our own too, as children, we set traps for birds and whenever we caught any, we brought it home to the elders. But there is this tiny bird that we were never allowed to keep and play with. The bird is very easy to catch because it finds it difficult to take its eyes off the baiting grains in our traps. But despite catching many of them, we were asked to release them back into the wild without hesitation. Àlúkèrè is never a domesticated bird. It ruins every home it is kept in. Its needs cannot be satisfied. No matter what the keeper does to make it happy, Àlúkèrè keeps singing that its life is better off in its own home where it is the lord. Incidentally, Àlúkèrè lives in lack, want and deprivation in the wild. The same reason it keeps wandering into traps, seeking food. But take it home to feed it good rations, it keeps singing:

Ebi á pa Àlúkèrè Ku/Hunger will kill Àlúkèrè

Response: Àlúkèrè

Kó bá sulé honi/ If one were to be in his own house

Response: Àlúkèrè

Honi a dáná a jeun/One will cook and eat

Response: Àlúkèrè

Honi adúgbà some mu/One will once in a while drink water

That is exactly the North Tinubu has been trying to pacify all because of 2027. President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan did the same. Rather than establish a Ministry of Cows for the North, Jonathan established nomadic schools for the ambulant pastoralist populace of the North. But that did not pacify them. They ensured he was practically chased out of power! Anything short of power is nothing for the region. It doesn’t matter the huge difference between the number of years the North has been in power and the alarming backwardness of the region, the zone still wants power and nothing more. Those children on the streets during the ‘protest’ are products of the wickedness of the elite class up there! That should get any rational mind worried. And this is why nobody up there appears to appreciate Tinubu’s rapprochement with the North! Come 2027, the North will queue behind any northerner that stands against Tinubu at the election. The only bragging right they have is the population. That itself is a ruse! In all this, Tinubu can change the narrative. He can do something that will make 2027 an easy ride. What do I think President Tinubu should do?

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Supper For Nigeria’s Àkébàjé

I refer the president back to Ifa’s counsel to Òrúnmìlà in the above divination. Nigerians, I have come to realise, don’t really bother about who rules them as long as life is more abundant. We demonstrate that in sports. Nobody cares if our National Team is populated by the Okechuckwus of this world or by the descendants of Ahmed Musa, or the offspring of Segun Odegbami. All they want is the gold medal!

So, if I were President Tinubu, I would, like Òrúnmìlà did, make food available for the masses by ensuring that farmers are no more molested by herders and bandits. I would ensure that Nigerians can travel on the highways without any fear of being kidnapped. As the president, I would take a look at the power sector and ask questions as to why the Power Generating Companies (GENCOs) generate so much but the Transmission Companies (TMs) could not transmit the megawatts generated for the Distribution Companies (DISCOs) to sell to the populace. I would address the issue of over-bloated cost of governance by cutting down on the number of political appointees and stem other profligacies. I would also not forget to look at the NNPC and its moribund refineries and do a decisive surgical operation there. In all the juicy pies where my family members, cronies and I have our hands, I will become more transparent and be above board. If indeed I were him, I would devote more time to good governance and leave politics for a while. I take a bet, if President Tinubu makes the welfare of the people the cornerstone of his administration today, when 2027 comes and the Òtúrúpòns and Òkàràns all gather, the masses will carry his sacrificial items to the shrine of Èsù with the battle cry: A ó pa Òtúrúpòn/a ó kan Òkàràn lésè (We with kill Òtúrúpón. We will break the leg of Òkàràn)! May the president hear and understand what the Oracle says!

News

NCAA Grounds Rano Air Aircraft After Mid-flight Engine Failure

Published

3 hours ago

June 30, 2025

Editor

The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has grounded a Rano Air aircraft with registration number 5N-BZY following an in-flight engine failure during a flight from Kano to Sokoto.

In a statement released on Monday, the NCAA confirmed that the flight made an emergency air return after the crew reported the incident to the Air Traffic Control.

Passengers and crew were thrown into panic after smoke was observed in both the cabin and the flight deck mid-air.

According to the Directorate of Airworthiness, led by Victor Foyea, oxygen masks were deployed and standard safety procedures were immediately activated to facilitate a safe landing.

“The Rano aircraft 5N-BZY experienced a failure on its engine 1. Smoke was noticed in the cabin and flight deck. Oxygen masks were donned. The appropriate safety protocols were initiated on the ground for landing. Smoke dissipated. The pilot safely landed the aircraft without incident,” the NCAA stated.

The regulatory authority confirmed that no immediate casualties or injuries were recorded, and the aircraft landed safely at the Kano airport where emergency services had been placed on standby.

As a precautionary measure, the NCAA ordered the grounding of the aircraft pending a thorough investigation into the cause of the malfunction.

The aircraft was also scheduled to operate a Sokoto-bound flight, which has since been cancelled.

As of the time of reporting, the aircraft remains grounded, with engineers working on diagnostics and repairs.

The NCAA reiterated its commitment to passenger safety and emphasized that precautionary measures, including flight cancellations, are necessary whenever there is a hint of mechanical irregularity.

“Even more advanced countries experience air incidents. But in Nigeria, flights are grounded or cancelled at the slightest indication of safety concerns. Safety remains our top priority,” the statement added.

News

JUST IN: Court Grants Natasha Bail On Self-recognition

Published

7 hours ago

June 30, 2025

Editor

The Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday granted the suspended Senator representing Kogi Central Senatorial District, Natasha Akpoti-Udauaghan bail on self-recognition.

Akpoti-Udauaghan was arraigned on a six-count charge bordering on alleged cybercrime.

After the charges were read to her, she pleaded not guilty to all.

The senator allegedly made false and damaging statements against Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Kogi State’s former governor, Yahaya Bello.

According to the charge, Akpoti-Udauaghan was alleged to have said, “Akpabio told Yahaya Bello… that he should make sure that killing me does not happen in Abuja, it should be done in Kogi, so it will seem as if it is the people that killed me.”

Days later, during an appearance on Channels TV’s Politics Today, she reiterated the allegations, asserting: “It was part of the meeting, the discussions that Akpabio had with Yahaya Bello that night… to eliminate me.”

The Federal Government stated that these statements, widely disseminated through digital platforms, were knowingly false and intended to incite unrest.

The FG further contended that the remarks violate “Section 24(2)(c)” of the Cybercrimes Act, which criminalises the intentional spread of false information to damage reputations or provoke public disorder.

While applying for bail, Akpoti-Udauaghan’s legal team, led by Professor Roland Otaru (SAN), requested that she be granted bail on self-recognition being a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and a senior member of the bar.

He added that there is no counter-affidavit from the prosecution, challenging the bail application.

Justice Mohammed Umar proceeded to grant the request of the defence counsel and granted the senator bail on self-recognition.

The court adjourned until September 22, for the commencement of trial.

News

OPINION: For Ganduje And Kabiyesi

Published

8 hours ago

June 30, 2025

Editor

By Lasisi Olagunju

Useful Abdullahi Ganduje kissed the canvas on Friday. Many more will go his way. His fall was the wish of his maker, the king: cold, calculating, ruthless.

Ganduje said he resigned as APC National Chairman to take care of his failing health. APC governors, deities that they are, assisted him with a different reason. They held a meeting in Benin at the weekend and said the man’s exit aligned with internal reforms and ongoing efforts to strengthen their party. “His Excellency, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje’s resignation is in tandem with the party’s continued evolution,” the governors said. How could someone’s sickness be part of a party’s reforms?

If the voice of an elder does not sprout yams that are good for pounding, it will sprout yams good for planting (Ohùn àgbà, bí kò ta isu gígún, á ta èèbù). The president is the elder here; nothing he utters or orders goes unheeded. We have since learnt that Ganduje had to go because the president needed a clearer view of the future. The president is busy weeding the field and mounting the stakes to the applause of the indentured. The whole country is behind the one who hires and fires; like the old lion, all walks lead into his tent.

The stage President Bola Tinubu is today was the stage Zulu king, Emperor Shaka, was at the peak of his glory. From 1816 to 1828, from River Pongola to the Tugela River, Shaka conquered this enemy and defeated that foe. In deft, strategic moves, he allied with all rivals around, massed for himself a vast empire of 200km-wide area, north of the present-day city of Durban, South Africa. He built an empire of marvel that has been difficult for history to ignore. Shaka moved from king to emperor; he dominated, ruled, developed and plundered as he wished. Then, one day, God said “enough!” The man suffered the final loss, but his reign left ugly scars.

Emperor Shaka did no wrong no matter how gross the things he did were. Everything he did was right and was worthy of his people’s applause, and the people applauded him. Even when the emperor treated and called his subjects dogs in their presence, the subjects clapped and said they were blessed. In 1824, Shaka was visited by Henry Franics Fynn, an Englishman on official duty. A fascinating exchange, which ensued between them, was carefully kept in a diary by the white man:

Shaka: “I hear you have come from umGeorge, is it so ? Is he as great a king as I am?”

Fynn: “Yes; King George is one of the greatest kings in the world.”

Shaka: “I am very angry with you.” (He said while putting on a severe countenance). “I shall send a messenger to umGeorge and request him to kill you. He sent you to me, he did not send you to give medicine to my dogs.”

All present immediately applauded what Shaka had said. (They were the ones he called dogs, and they knew).

Shaka: “Why did you give my dogs medicine?” (in allusion to the woman I was said to have brought back to life after death).

Fynn: “It is a practice of our country to help those who are in need, if able to do so.”

Shaka: “Are you then the doctor of dogs? You were sent here to be my doctor.”

Fynn: “I am not a doctor and not considered by my countrymen to be one.”

Shaka: “Have you medicine by you?”

Fynn: “Yes.”

Shaka: “Then cure me, or I will have you sent to umGeorge to have you killed.”

Fynn: “What is the matter with you ?”

Shaka: “That is your business to find out.”

Fynn: “Stand up and let me see your person.”

Shaka: “Why should I stand up?”

Fynn: “That I may see if I can find out what ails you.”

(Source: Stuart and Malcolm, ‘Diary of Fynn, 83-5’, in ‘Tshaka and the British traders, 1824-1828’ by Felix N. C. Okoye, 1972).

If Shaka were Yoruba, he would be worshipped as Kabiyesi, an emperor, the one no one queries. “To be truly imperial, one must have an empire to govern.” Harold Larrabee wrote that in his review of Arthur Schlesinger’s ‘The Imperial Presidency.’ Larrabee was right. I add to what he said: To have an empire, you must fight and conquer all enemies, and “eat up” friendly neighbours. Shaka did that in Zululand. That is the point our ‘democracy’ is at present in Nigeria. Kabiyesi has removed all gloves, he is on a strategic offensive, building a pan-Nigeria empire.

Dutifully daily, Tinubu signs appointments, he instigates rebellion in enemy camps and inspires defections; he whispers resignations. His Imperial Majesty does unimaginable things and gets away with them with uncommon success. Yet we say Nigeria will defeat him in 2027. From the first shot in 1999, the man was clear what he wanted to do with the farm put in his hand. He has since grown strong to become a master of confounding abstraction: positioning, counter-positioning. Sometimes he fights in calculated silence. You remember that saying about the dude whose soup plate is a buffet of lamb and ram parts; the man who eats his pounded yam with relish, mounts his horse in daytime and his woman at night. Yet they say we should ignore him because he is not well. Who is not well? What he does is not a definition of insanity. That is not stupidity; it is cold steeze. His sneeze is a chill jitter. To defeat him, you need extra, extra work – and a surfeit of ‘sense’.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: Òkòlò, Our President’s Mad Lover

Let us examine this: Rauf Aregbesola plays his politics with plenty, plenty songs of battle (orin ote). Sometimes he sings the songs and his fans dance; some other time, you see his followers take the lead while he follows with electrifying dance steps. Such a lively politician. There is a particular song from his talking drummers that I hold to: “Ení máa bá e s’òsèlú o, á ní sense t’ó pé…(anyone who wants to engage you in politics must have very good, adequate sense).” I take that song as not an ordinary blab of the bard. I take it to heart as both a warning and a war cry. ‘Sense’ in that song should be read as wile and guile varnished with mountains of money and might. Every politician from Lagos School of Politics lives by that song and is certificated in its foundational philosophy. Yet, all of them, including Rauf Aregbesola, are mere students. The school principal is Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the pilot of our imperial presidency.

The Sage of Chelsea, Thomas Carlyle (4 December 1795 – 5 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. Thomas Carlyle saw the world of politics as a chess board with “councillors of state sitting, plotting, and playing their high chess-game, whereof the pawns are men.” Tinubu, today, plays out that allegory with chilling clarity. In just two years of his imperial presidency, he has recreated the political arena, rebuilding it from what it should be, a place of ideals to a chessboard where every defection is a ‘rook’ captured, every resignation a ‘bishop’ displaced, and every silence from the Villa a move made under the cover of strategy.

Almost all reports that announced the exit of Dr Ganduje as the national chairman of the APC said he was forced to quit by the president. I have no problem with Ganduje leaving the buffet table for another to hop there and eat. Literally, there is no issue in the use and flush of the expendable. What I find intriguing is the normality and the ease with which the ‘democratic’ system opens its door for imperial presidential invasion while we all shout “Hail Caesar”!

Chess is an Indian invention, imported into the Middle East, and exported to Europe by the Arabs. In ‘Chessmen and Chess’ by Charles Wilkinson published in May, 1943, we read of Masudi, a tenth-century Arab writer, who tells us of the various uses of the chessboard, especially “how it served for studying the strategy of war…” It is on the chessboard that you meet the ‘king’ dominated by the stately ‘queen’. “If there is trouble on the board” look for the sly old fox called ‘bishop’. There is also the most eccentric ‘knight’ “who loves a bloody fight”; and then the ‘rook’ who “will beat the ‘bishop’ any time.” There is also there the weak, expendable pawn. I am not a chess player, never played the game. I read all those in ‘Chess Pieces’ authored by David Solway. I found it good for my meditation.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:[OPINION] Sick Nation Debate: APC Vs ADC

If I am allowed to bring chess into political commentary, I would set Nigeria down as a board, take the forced resignation of Ganduje, the wave of defections into the APC, and steady-handed President Bola Tinubu as the master chess player behind it all. The man plays chess, not dice; he does not place his hope on luck. What he plays is a game of precision, deep foresight, and ruthless elegance. That is unmistakable chess. With some other blocs, Tinubu created the APC years ago. The party started as a company of many directors. Now, the man is possessing it wholly. He is fast becoming the sole inheritor of not just the party, but the Nigerian state and its blessings. With his ingenuity, he is excising competition, those who may not be happy that he is recreating the party and the country in his own image.

If you don’t play chess as I don’t, watch those who do, or ask them for directions. Ganduje’s fall was a perfect act of the master moving a knight to expose a king. There are many more movements to make, going forward. Check this president’s records since Lagos; his skill at neutralising kings before they rise is topnotch and legendary. And he has not started. The man is just showing us the faint head of the bird in his pocket.

Elephant’s hide that confounds the cobbler (awo erin tíí dààmú onísònà). That is what Tinubu has become. He plants corn of trouble (àgbàdo òràn) in his neighbour’s garden; he sits back and watches if they will dare harvest the corn. When a PDP governor defects to the president’s party today, a senator yesterday, and a whole state House of Assembly follows tomorrow, we all know these for what they are. The defections are not patriotic or spontaneous acts of conviction; neither are they movements of love for the god they worship. The deity also has no feelings for them. They are what chess players would dub precise recruitments for battle; pawns, bishops, and sometimes whole castles brought to the side of the reigning monarch. If you like, keep murmuring or shouting betrayal. That is your headache. My chess teacher tells me all this is Tinubu repositioning the board ahead of 2027, removing weak links and replacing them with loyal sentinels. The APC governors said almost the same thing in their communique on Saturday: The ill health that sacked their chairman is the health of their party.

It would have been excellent if half of the energy and brilliance we see in all these political actions and movements are seen in the management of the affairs of our country. We don’t see the captain maximally at work; he is, instead, busy playing politics with everything. The nation tanks; businesses, big and small, reel in pains, and the people suffer not lightly. Over 130 million Nigerians still live in extreme, multidimensional poverty. Bandits lock fingers with terrorists and are on the prowl, unrestrained, unrestrainable. Yet, all we see is politics being played with one-hundred percent of attention and resources. Democracy has failed here.

Social Democratic Party (SDP) presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Adebayo Adewole, in a recent comment scored Tinubu A1 in politics and F9 in governance. “That is a problem because the A1 in politics only means that he knows the political class very well; he knows what moves and motivates them as well as how to recruit them. He sometimes retrenches them, retires them and reengages them because he knows what they want. But I wish he knew what the Nigerian people want, which are basic services, economic stability and security. If he cannot save lives in Benue, Plateau and many parts of the country, then he has failed.” Adewole stressed and added that the only skill Tinubu has in the management of the economy “is the economisation of truth, which basically is what they do rather than manage the economy.”

Well, I won’t comment on the failure score which the SDP man gave the president – because I want to be safe. But A1 in politics I also score the grandmaster of Nigeria. I salute him.

Thomas Henry Huxley, prominent 19th-century biologist and agnostic, once described the world as a chessboard governed by hidden rules and unseen players. Well, what we have happening before our very eyes in Nigeria is not a game of hidden rules and unseen players. They do not play with masks here. The players on all sides are known and very well too. Huxley said the player on the other side “never overlooks a mistake or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance.” The president is the player on the other side. He has rewritten the rules; his fingers are seen probing every hole. He does not bend and break the rules: the rules bow, bend and break before His Imperial Majesty. And he does not care if the whole world says he is wrong. He must win every game.

On Friday, it was with heavy heart that the house of Ganduje saw their master leave the APC board. The once-useful ‘bishop’ was yanked off the board for the master’s greater control and sweeter win. The Kano man, like all expendable pawns, is out, but the game continues. And the real player is still seated, still calculating, moving the pieces. He is Tinubu, cold blooded like Emperor Shaka, the eagle, watching, calculating while his enemies counter-calculate. The grimmer the play, the more pleasurable to watch. That is where the good news is for watchers like me, and for popcorn makers. The board is resetting for 2027. Be attentive. I am.