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OPINION: In Defence Of Nepotism [Monday Lines]

By Lasisi Olagunju
Wahala no dey finish for Nigeria. Because President Bola Tinubu appointed an acting Chief of Army Staff last week, my northern friend sent me a WhatsApp message from Zaria: “It comes as a surprise as Oduduwa takes over the lead agencies of the critical safety sector: Army (military), Police (security), DSS (Intelligence), EFCC (anti-corruption).”
My friend was talking fairness. I heard him and remembered the quaint saying about equity and clean hands. So, I replied him: “Can you name those who served in those four positions under Buhari and where they came from?”
John Milton, legendary blind poet of seventeenth century England, said something about truth and falsehood grappling. Truth, the stronger, will always put the weaker to the worse. My friend thought he had the facts on his side, and so, he answered me: “Buhari picked those security chiefs across the north east, north west and north central…”
That was a half-truth, and I’ve heard it said many times that a half-truth will always mean a half-lie. And a half-lie is a lie nicely dressed. I asked my friend: “When you people met in Kaduna earlier on Monday and took a position on VAT, rejecting Tinubu’s tax reform bills, did you meet as three zones? No. You met as one North, one region. Those appointments made by Buhari were for that one North.” As I typed that response, I remembered that ‘One North, One Destiny, One People, Irrespective of Religion, Rank or Tribe’ was the motto of the Northern People’s Congress (NPC), the North’s ruling party at independence. NPC may be long dead, but the North has dutifully kept its flame glowing. We still feel the spirit in every inter-regional discourse.
My friend argued more forcefully. He spoke as a northerner. I responded as a Yoruba man, not as a southerner, because there is nothing so called. I told him he was obviously not speaking for the other two zones in the South. I asked him if the North wanted the Chief of Army Staff position to go to the Igbo of the South-East. His response was that there was a time under Buhari when he campaigned for that arrangement. I asked him to speak for time present, not time past. “Would you want a South-East/South-South person to be Chief of Army Staff or Inspector-General of Police?” My friend did not reply me. He did not answer that question. I asked how he would feel if the positions go to the North today. He replied me with silence.
Finally, my friend quipped: “Personally, I pray for Tinubu to succeed but he doesn’t need to be nepotistic like Buhari, the disaster.”
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Has Tinubu been unduly favoring the Yoruba in his appointments? Personal aides, yes. Security appointments, no. A list of 22 security appointees was circulated online at the weekend. Fifteen of them are from the North, five from the South-West, one from the South-East, one from the South-South. If anyone would complain of inadequate representation here, it should be the South-East/South-South corridor.
Sixty-four years after independence, Nigeria has remained a very delicate union of bickering partners. Despite several state creation exercises, the division along the original three regional lines has remained very strong. Today, the three arms of Nigeria’s armed forces have their chiefs chosen from the West (Army; East (Navy); North (Airforce). This would be fair enough except we are saying that one service chief is bigger than the others.
Army, SSS, Police, EFCC. For his complaint, why would my friend pick just four out of the 22 identified positions? Read my friend again. He described the four as “critical safety sector.” Buhari set the precedent by filling those posts with northerners; Tinubu has also filled them with westerners. If the East produces a president tomorrow, he will most possibly fill them with his regional brothers. But why?
Adebayo Faleti, late Yoruba playwright and culture scholar, wrote in his 1968 short story ‘Ogun Awitele’ (Foretold War) that war does not kill the coward; it also does not kill the fearless. The one who gets killed by war is the one who is careless (ogun kì í pa ojo; ogun kì í pa akin; aláìfòrànpòràn ni ogun npa). My playwright says war kills the careless. I will use the experience of Buhari’s predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, to discuss this. When Jonathan became president, he, like most of his predecessors, was very careful not to rupture the tenuous tendons of whatever we had as a country. But Jonathan overdid it. He apparently wanted to be another national hero and proceeded to make many strategic appointments which undid him. Jonathan’s 2015 election time Inspector-General of Police was a gentleman from the north. When it mattered most, the falcon refused to hear the falconer. The super cop did not just see his kinsman, Muhammadu Buhari, to victory, he publicly followed him to collect his Certificate of Return from INEC in April 2015. The gentleman officer abandoned his defeated Commander-in-Chief. Blood is thicker than water. The policeman came out three years later to celebrate what he did. He declared that the police under him forced Jonathan to concede victory to Buhari. Hearing him in an August 2018 interview gives reasons for appreciating the true meaning of blood and water and what made one thicker than the other. The former IGP said: “We forced those who lost elections to accept the results. The Nigeria Police forced those who lost elections to accept the outcome. It was the action of the police that made them to have a change of mind and accept the results. The heroes of that election should have been the police…I attended the presentation of certificate to the president-elect…”
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Nigeria was deflowered in 2015. The hymen of innocence, once lost is lost forever. If the police were strategic in determining election winners, what wise president would then hand its rein to ‘outsiders’? Jonathan’s successor, Buhari, learnt from the Ijaw man’s fatal error. He inherited Solomon Arase from Edo State as IGP, kept him for one year and as the stakes were getting high, he quickly took the position ‘home’ and gave it to Ibrahim Kutigi from Niger State. From then on till he left in 2023, the baton passed from one northern state to another. Was Buhari being street-wise to have kept the Inspector-General’s position in his regional pocket for seven out of his eight years in power? If Buhari was not wrong that time, should we expect Tinubu to do today what Jonathan did which burnt his nimble fingers day before yesterday?
Jonathan’s ‘harakiri’ in politics started long before that appointment. He did several things which no one had ever done before. It was therefore not a surprise that his eyes saw what no one ever saw before. The Ijaw man made Fulani man, Attahiru Jega, INEC chairman in an election in which his main opponent was a Fulani. The man was praised by his nemesis and he enjoyed it. As the West African Pilot of 2 April, 1964 warned in an editorial: “The road to ruin is often smooth. Those who travel it pay the fare.” Three years after he was dusted and ousted, Jonathan wrote in his ‘My Transition Hours’ (page 75): “For some inexplicable reasons, the INEC had been able to achieve near 100% distribution of Permanent Voter Cards in the North, including the North-East which was under siege with the Boko Haram insurgency, but it (INEC) failed to record similar level of distribution in the South which was relatively more peaceful.” Because Buhari was no Jonathan, when it was time for him to replace Jega in November 2015, the Fulani man from Katsina went for a Fulani man from Bauchi. After eight years of uncommon tutorial from Muhammadu Buhari on how to (mis)manage a people’s diversity, it is not possible for any subsequent president (from the south) to do bobo nice again – especially with appointments strategic to their personal and political survival. A new INEC chairman is due for appointment in November next year (2025). Watch out for Tinubu. He will not be a Jonathan.
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Key security appointments have become an armour for the president of Nigeria. The lesson taught by history is that a leader, while cuddling his neighbour, must never allow kin-blood to be diluted with water of whatever colour.
The politics of appointment into the head of the army started soon after independence. How did the government of Tafawa Balewa handle it? Sidi H. Ali, author of ‘Power of Powers: A biography of Alhaji Muhammadu Ribadu’, Nigeria’s first minister of defence, wrote about the intense ethnic maneuverings and bitterness that attended the appointment of the country’s very first indigenous head of the army when the last expatriate, Major General Christopher Welby-Evarard, left in February 1965. “The four possible candidates were all brigadiers at the time. They were Ironsi, Ademulegun, Ogundipe and Maimalari. Ironsi was the most senior of all…After all the bickering, Ribadu came out to announce the appointment of Ironsi as the commanding officer of the Nigerian Army. This, of course, was received with mixed feelings…” (page 18). If Balewa were to come back from the dead today and is asked to pick his army chief, would he still go for Ironsi? Among the four gentlemen officers of 1964, who do you think Balewa’s choice would be?
Balewa is not coming back but his democratic successor was Shehu Shagari who came in 1979 and had Lt.-General Alani Akinrinade as his Chief of Army Staff. Shagari soon replaced the Yoruba man with his kinsman, Gibson Jalo. Jonathan inherited a chief of army staff, Abdulrahman Dambazau, from his late boss, Umaru Yar’Adua. He couldn’t sleep until he picked someone from his area, Azubuike Ihejirika, to man that goal post.
Every elected Nigerian leader since the end of the first republic knows why crab does not sleep. What it stays awake doing is 24/7 recce for the safety of its head. Its eyes should be its binoculars – and they are. Even Olusegun Obasanjo as civilian president did not deny himself that wisdom, although he was very nuanced about it. He had three Inspectors-General of Police and all three were from his western region. His DG SSS from 1999 to 2007 was Colonel Kayode Are, his Abeokuta kinsman. For the army, Obasanjo, a southern Christian, in eight years, had four gentlemen as his Chief of Army Staff. He started in 1999 with Victor Malu, a Christian from the North; then he moved south and picked Alexander Ogomudia, a southern minority. After two years, two months, Obasanjo took the position back to the North. But he did not give it to those who might use it to injure him. He picked Martin Luther Agwai, a southern Kaduna minority Christian. Three years down that road, he went south again and picked Andrew Owoye Azazi, another southern minority. It was clear that he was deliberate about what he did. He was wide awake, mixing his nationalist broth with condiments of small nepotism here, a little of altruism there. The Obasanjo experience ended almost twenty years ago. This is the age of reason, apology to Thomas Paine. The gloves are off.
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But, I think the people who are reading north and south into today’s appointments had better shine their eyes and see where the real danger is. The fish gets rotten from the head – and it is always progressive. Under Buhari, the president’s wife ran the alternate presidency while a regional cabal revved up the old engine of the man we elected. Today, we are not sure whether it is the man we elected or the wife or the son (with their business friends) that is at the top. After this set, we may have grafted on the trunk of our democracy a hereditary oligo-monarchy.
And we cannot say a president should not have a family – and friends. Wither the way then? Igbó rèé, òna rèé (the bush is here, the road is here). Where should we face?
The founding fathers of the United States feared what we see now. In her review of Adam Bellow’s ‘In Praise of Nepotism: A Natural History’, Joanne B. Ciulla says “nepotism was very much on the minds of America’s founding fathers. The last thing they wanted in their new country was hereditary rule.” She writes further (and this is interesting) that “one of the many qualities that made George Washington attractive as the first president was the fact that he did not have any children (who would share his powers or even seek to succeed him). When John Adams ran against Thomas Jefferson, his detractors feared that, because Adams had a son, he might try to start a dynasty.” Indeed, in that election dubbed ‘Revolution of 1800’, Jefferson, who did not have a son, defeated incumbent President John Adams.
But that cautious beginning notwithstanding, America has evolved to mint its own brand of ‘safe’ nepotism. Ciulla writes: “Let’s cut to the 2000 presidential election in the U.S. It pitted a son of a president against the son of a senator. When George W. Bush won, he appointed Michael Powell, son of Colin Powell, to be chairman of the FEC; Elaine Cho, wife of Senator Mitch McConnell, to be Secretary of Labor; and Eugene Scalia, son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, to be the chief labor attorney. In addition to these appointments, Bush made the Vice President’s daughter, Elizabeth Cheney, deputy assistant secretary of state, and her husband chief counsel for the Office of Management and Budget. At the request of Senator Strom Thrumond (and to the dismay of some people), Bush gave Thurmond’s twenty-eight-year-old son the job of U.S. Attorney for South Carolina.” The American system, from the above, draws a line between “bad nepotism and good nepotism.” Ciulla says the US now defines nepotism “not as hiring a relative but as hiring an incompetent relative…”
That is in the US. Here in Nigeria, competence is discounted. The concern is more on the history and the geography of the hired and the motive of the appointing authority.
In all these nepotism matters, the peace of the country and the happiness of the people are the casualties. Every hour spent by the leader ignoring competence but checking the bloodline or the ethnicity of the man for the next post is the hour just before darkness. And, if the nepotist succeeds in burying his long heel in this sand, it is bye bye to peace and amity. As Olusegun Obasanjo said in 2019 at the height of Buhari’s glass ceiling-bursting nepotism: “If you cannot trust me, why should I trust you?…The person who is our leader now is saying he cannot allow another ethnic group to work with him because he cannot trust them. If he cannot trust my tribe or your tribe, of what benefit is he? And he is saying my tribe and yours should come and vote for him. He can ask for our votes, but he cannot trust us to work in good positions. Life is give and take.”
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BRC Sympathises With Edo NSCDC, Family, On Painful Death Of Commandant

Benin Recreation Club 1933 (BRC) has sympathised with Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Edo State Command, over the painful demise of the state commandant, Agun Gbenga Joseph.
In a statement issued by the club’s Public Relations Officer, Mr. Edoko Wilson Edoko, president of the club, Mr. Osayi Courage Osamuyi, described the death of commandant Gbenga as shocking and a painful loss to the security community and the state at large.
“The late Commandant’s death is indeed shocking and a painful loss. He was jovial, very accommodating, and an initiative-driven individual,” Mr. Osayi stated.
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“I recall our Club’s visit to his office, where I led members of my Executive Committee to meet with him. We discussed areas of collaboration between Benin Recreation Club and the NSCDC, Edo State Command”, he said.
Osayi further urged the bereaved family and the NSCDC to draw strength from the late Commandant’s legacy of service, professionalism, and dedication to duty.
He prayed that God grants them the fortitude to bear the irreplaceable loss.
Recall that the Commandant reportedly slumped and died on Thursday, 2nd October 2025, while delivering a goodwill message at an event organised by the International Association of World Peace Advocates held at the Bishop Kelly Pastoral Centre in Benin City.
News
House To Probe $20bn Shortfall In Oil Firms’ Cleanup Funds

The House of Representatives launched an investigation on Thursday into the compliance level of oil and gas companies with decommissioning and abandonment regulations in Nigeria’s petroleum industry.
This comes against the backdrop of concerns over a staggering $20 billion compliance gap and spikes in environmental, fiscal, and social risks associated with outdated infrastructure.
This followed the presentation of a motion of urgent public importance by the Chairman, House Committee on Political Parties Matters, Mr Zakaria Nyampa, at Thursday’s plenary.
Speaking on the significance of the motion, the Adamawa lawmaker said, “Across oil-producing countries, operators are required to set aside funds during the productive phase of their assets to cover the future costs of dismantling, site remediation, and restoration.
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“This principle is clearly enshrined in Nigeria’s Petroleum Industry Act 2021 and the NUPRC/NMDPRA Decommissioning and Abandonment Regulations of 2022, yet compliance remains alarmingly poor.”
He argued that Sections 232 and 233 of the PIA mandate licensees and lessees to “Establish decommissioning programmes, maintain dedicated escrow accounts, obtain regulatory approvals, and pay penalties for non-compliance.
“Unfortunately, most operators in the upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors are flouting these provisions. In some cases, International Oil Companies have divested from assets in the Niger Delta without adequate D and A funding, effectively transferring future environmental and financial liabilities to the government and host communities.”
In his words, over 90 per cent of operators have failed to meet their mandatory D&A funding obligations, while regulatory agencies, particularly the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, have not shown the necessary enforcement commitment.
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“We are witnessing a dangerous regulatory gap. The regulators must be held accountable for ensuring that every operator complies fully with decommissioning laws. Otherwise, Nigerians, especially host communities, will bear the brunt of environmental disasters,” he added.
He added that the cost of decommissioning in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry is estimated between $500,000 and $1m per well, and up to $50 million per field, with total liabilities projected at $10bn to $15bn in the upstream sector alone.
“Less than 20 percent of operators have established properly funded escrow accounts. The total amount contributed so far is below $1bn, leaving a massive shortfall and compliance gap of about $15bn to $20bn across the industry,” he expressed.
Nyampa raised the alarm that the midstream and downstream sectors face huge risks, with decaying refineries, depots, gas plants, and pipeline infrastructure constituting potential remediation liabilities of up to $5bn.
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“If urgent action is not taken, Nigeria risks widespread environmental degradation, oil spills, toxic contamination, and safety hazards such as fires, gas leaks, and explosions, particularly in already vulnerable host communities.”
Following the adoption of his motion, the House resolved to set up an ad hoc committee to investigate the level of compliance with decommissioning and abandonment provisions as spelt out in the PIA.
When constituted, the Committee is expected to invite relevant regulatory agencies and oil companies, scrutinise their D and A escrow accounts, and report back to the House within twelve weeks for further legislative action.
News
Tinubu Approves National Honours For 959 Nigerians

President Bola Tinubu on Thursday approved the conferment of 959 national honours and endorsed reforms to strengthen the funding framework for the Nigeria Police Force.
This came as he presided over marathon meetings of the National Council of State and the Police Council at the State House, Abuja.
Addressing State House correspondents after the meetings, the Permanent Secretary of the Cabinet Affairs Office, Dr Emanso Umobong, said the President approved the report of the National Honours Award Committee for 2024 and 2025, as well as special awards that were earlier bestowed by the President from January 2025 to date.
According to Umobong, the current honours committee, reconstituted in August 2021 and chaired by Justice Sidi Bage, screened over 5,000 applications before recommending 824 recipients for the 2024/2025 National Honours and 135 special awardees, totalling 959 honourees.
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“The award of titles of honour and decorations of dignitaries is a yearly event at which the President honours deserving nationals and non-nationals who have distinguished themselves in the service of the nation and humanity,” she said.
Umobong added, “After diligent screening and selection by the committee, a total of 824 successful applicants were recommended for the 2024/2025 National Honours and 135 special awards by the President, bringing it to a total of 959 awardees.”
She noted that President Tinubu, in the spirit of inclusive national recognition, had already honoured several distinguished Nigerians and friends of Nigeria in the past year, including Bill Gates for contributions to public health, Uncle Sam Pemu for journalism, and the Super Falcons and D’Tigress for excellence in sports.
Others include the Ogoni Nine and Ogoni Four, honoured posthumously for environmental activism, and Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the outgoing INEC Chairman, recognised for service to Nigeria’s democratic process.
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The updated list of awardees, Umobong said, would be published soon.
Following the Council of State session, President Tinubu chaired the Nigeria Police Council, where members approved major reforms to the Nigeria Police Trust Fund.
In his first-ever briefing to journalists since assuming office in August 2023, Minister of Police Affairs, Ibrahim Geidam, said the Council ratified proposals to repeal and re-enact the 2019 Police Trust Fund Establishment Act to remove its six-year limit and transform it into a permanent agency.
“The sunset clause of six years in the current Act limits the lifespan of the Nigerian Police Trust Fund and impedes long-term planning, thereby constraining sustainable police reform.
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“We also prayed that the Council approve the repeal and re-enactment of the Nigerian Police Transparency Establishment Act 2025 in order to remove the sunset clause and transition it into an agency,” Geidam said.
He explained that the Council further approved an upward review of the Police Trust Fund’s allocation from 0.5 per cent to 1 per cent of the Federation Account, as well as a directive to the Attorney-General of the Federation to incorporate all resolutions into an executive bill for submission to the National Assembly.
Established in 2019, the NPTF was designed to bridge funding gaps in policing by supporting training, welfare, technology acquisition, and logistics. However, its limited tenure and budget constraints have long hindered sustainable reforms.
“All these prayers have been approved without any omission,” Geidam confirmed, adding, “The Council also directed that the Honourable Attorney-General and Minister of Justice input all the approvals of the Council in the proposed Executive Bill.”
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