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OPINION: Ramadan, Lent And A Trickster State

Published

7 months ago

February 23, 2026

By Lasisi Olagunju

Ours is a country where piety and perfidy share a table — where, as William Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.” The Christian Lent is on as I write; Muslims are on with the Ramadan fast. Both seasons stand in spiritual symmetry. Ramadan calls the faithful to discipline: no food, no water, no sex, no smoke, no slander. The fasting mouth must not gossip; the fasting tongue must not wound; the fingers of the fasting must not kill. Yet in our republic, leaders fast by day and poison the nation by night. They do so and soothe their consciences. They act as though they stand above law and religion. And they truly are.

Northern Nigeria’s sharia enforcers, Hisbah, arrested nine people in Kano last week for not fasting. It is an annual ritual. The arrested are the poor — anonymous, expendable. In that city, the moral police are everywhere. They patrol the markets, cafés are searched, bodies inspected for piety. Yet, iniquity reigns undisturbed in the gilded palaces of those who commissioned the Hisbah to enforce morals.

“We have arrested them and they are with us where we are going to be teaching them the importance of fasting, how to pray, read the Quran and become better Muslims,” Hisbah’s deputy Commander -General, Mujahid Aminudeen, told the BBC. He said the nine were made up of seven males and two females, and accused them of feigning ignorance that Ramadan had begun. The report said the arrested were still in detention as of Friday.

The trickster state polices the stomach and ignores the soul. Kano is the national headquarters of millions of street children wandering in search of hope. Northern Nigeria’s collapse of order radiates outward in kidnapping, banditry and mass murder. The North is the reason every Nigerian is unsafe. Yet the North’s moral police and their enablers find no urgency in restraining those who kill and maim during Ramadan – and those who sponsor them.

What they sell is not what they eat. In March 2000, Bello Jangebe had his right wrist cut off in Zamfara for stealing a cow. Politicians who stretched sharia beyond the civil in recent decades have EFCC cases for stealing states, people, peace, and destinies—but they are not tried in sharia courts where limbs are lost. Their cases are in courts where white thread and black thread do not contrast. The system is rigged against the poor.

A northern Nigerian sheikh is in the news for urging bandits to “pause” kidnapping “because of the month of Ramadan.” An influencer from the Muslim North watched the video and wondered if morality had become seasonal. He asked the sheikh whether his statement meant that “once Ramadan ends, kidnapping becomes acceptable again.”

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I have searched in vain for any sign that the moral police or other authorities of Nigeria, in the North, have confronted the aberrant scholar. But they are quick to recite the Qur’an to the poor who eat in daylight during Ramadan. When will they recite Surah Al-Ma’idah to Bello Turji and his bandit brothers killing the young and the old across the country? The Surah declares: “Whoever kills a soul… it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves one, it is as if he has saved all mankind” (Qur’an 5:32).

The Hisbah proclaims its duty to teach good Muslim conduct. Yet an authentic Hadith, recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, preserves the Prophet’s definition of a Muslim. Narrated by Abu Hurairah, The Messenger of Allah [SAW] said: “The Muslim is the one from whose tongue and hand the people are safe, and the believer is the one from whom the people’s lives and wealth are safe.” When are northern Nigeria’s moral policemen going to teach this to the mass murderers of Kebbi, Kwara and Zamfara?

When a state enforces fasting but cannot guarantee safety, it has abdicated its first covenant with God and man.

In unremitting mass murders during Ramadan; in the contrived crises in the polity; in legislative voice votes that smother audible majorities; in hurried passing and signing of electoral laws; in the brazen boast that future election results will be written in bedrooms and handed to the electoral umpire at midnight, we see a fasting nation reconciled with sin, and rehearsing its own collapse.

Scholars remind us that fasting at the very beginning of man prepared rulers for sacred responsibility. In ‘Fasting and Modernization’, Joseph Tamney draws on figures like A. M. Hocart and Jan Wagtendonk to show that ancient kings fasted before coronation; they called it symbolic death before moral rebirth. In some Yoruba cultures, the oba-designate does not eat on his way to Ipebi, his place of orientation rites. Hocart wrote in his ‘Initiation’ in the journal, Folklore, of December 31, 1924 that kingship aspirants fit themselves for duty by fasting in seclusion. In those days of piety, fasting was consecration, a discipline aligning private conscience with public duty.

Today, fasting has become a reluctant routine, a spectacle. Ours is a post-religious age. We mistake paralysis for presence; oversight operates as obstruction, even as deliberate confusion. Every act of state, long before this Lent and Ramadan, already bore the colour of class and politics. That we fast now has changed nothing.

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Very religious Nigeria increasingly resembles a trickster state. Esu is the Yoruba trickster deity. In our politics, Esu routinely walks in “through the gutter… when people are on guard against his coming through the gate.” While you guard elections, party congresses and legislative debates, power slips through violence, through procedural gutters and sewage of technicalities, through voice votes and opaque manoeuvres.

Esu’s oríkì, heard through a page of Abiola Irele’s ‘The African Scholar’ (1991), tells us exactly who the trickster is and how he works on a heedless nation:

“Esu sleeps in the house

But the house is too small for him;

Esu sleeps on the front yard

But the yard is too constricting for him;

Esu sleeps in the palm-nut shell

Now he has enough room to stretch at large.”

Read the praise name beyond the ambivalence. The disruptor does not shrink to fit the space; it is the space that shrinks to reveal his measure. Boundless in confined places, he needs only a palm-nut shell to stretch at large. And when a nation makes itself small through deceit and injustice, disruption finds in its narrowness all the room it requires.

The restless trickster does more than ambivalent disruption. Many thanks to Joan Wescott and Peter Morton-Williams, two white persons who translated other lines of the oríkì in June 1962 for me to use freely now with my own infusions: Esu is the god who comes on horseback through the gutter of the house when people are guarding against his coming through the gate. He is the man with sixteen hundred clubs. When he sees two people quarrel, he brings out a rod so that one could beat the other to death. He stands at the pounded yam seller’s stall, not to buy but to shoo away real customers. He sits at the pounded corn seller’s and, again, does not buy. Esu works on his chosen to their ruin. But one whom Esu is working on will not know it…

A nation can be acted upon by Esu while believing itself sovereign. “One whom Esu is working on won’t know it.” A trickster state survives on cunning and on citizens who refuse to recognise when they are being worked upon. The tragedy is not the trickster manipulating the nation; it is the pretence that we are unaware of it.

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Yet we are a very religious nation. We bind the devil and stone al-Shayṭān, but we are governed by paradox. Leaders abstain from bread and water, yet feast on moral rot and public betrayal. They advertise denial of earthly pleasures, even as they dump political and economic toxic waste into our collective backyard.

Fasting is supposed to discipline appetite, impeach injustice and enthrone fairness in leadership. But from the north to the south, the pyramid of justice and peace is inverted in Nigeria. Yet, we are fasting, Christians and Muslims. We pray in ostentatious pursuit of piety and penitence, but our deeds betray what we are.

We started fasting last week. Inside the chambers of the Senate and the House of Representatives, lawmakers, Christians and Muslims, sat side by side, abstaining from food and drink, in fasting and penitence. Yet when the clause of a bill mandating electronic transmission of election results was put to vote, a loud “Aye” was struck down as “Nay,” and a fasting majority rejoiced.

What fast or religion legitimizes iniquity in high places? In Christianity, Lent is both an act of penance and prayer by abstinence. Read David Lambert’s ‘Fasting as a Penitential Rite.’ In Islam, Ramadan teaches self-discipline and moral responsibility. Yet in northern Nigeria, we see religious hypocrisy writ large: a state that enforces fasting on the poor while tolerating murder, banditry, and theft by the powerful. Rituals are performed, prayers recited, bodies restrained, but hands that maim, steal, and oppress remain free.

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Fasting is for moral and spiritual transformation; it is not social posturing or hierarchical display. In both Islam and Christianity, it is not theatre. The Qur’an declares: “Believers! Fasting is enjoined upon you, as it was enjoined upon those before you, that you become God-fearing.” The Bible asks: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to lose the bonds of wickedness… to undo the heavy burdens?” (Isaiah 58:6).

A nation does not rise on ritual; it rises on righteousness. If abstinence is purification, let it cleanse everyone who is dirty – and we all are. Otherwise, we are left with the spectacle of men who conquer hunger but not hubris; men who fast by day while feasting on sin by night.

This holy period should call the human mind to justice and to peace where there is war. But the deceitful state does not settle disputes; it stokes them. Esu is man of 1,600 clubs who brings out for the quarrelers a wooden rod. The cunning authority does not end quarrels; it cultivates them. In its court, conflict becomes curated theatre; ethnic and religious identities are wielded as a murderous rod. The regime alternates between referee and combatant. Think Rivers. Think Kano and its stalemated emirship. Think our politics and the crises within the parties. Think.

Nigeria need not remain enchanted by the trickster. The charge in the oríkì of Esu is instructive: “All in our house pay heed to the trickster.” Vigilance must move from ritual to righteousness. If fasting is purification, let it cleanse the conduct of the high and the low. If it is self-restraint, let it restrain power. A nation does not stand on spectacle; it stands on justice, on gates guarded against the subtle seepage through the gutter, against visible and masked trickster intruders. Forces of iniquity act as though they stand above law and religion — and our silence crowns them. Enough.

News

IELTS Speaking: How Nigerian Candidates Can Improve Their Band Score

Published

4 hours ago

September 25, 2026

Editor

For most Nigerian candidates applying to study, work or migrate abroad, the IELTS Speaking test is the single most nerve-wracking 11 to 14 minutes of the entire exam.

Unlike Listening or Reading, there is no answer sheet to fall back on, and the pressure of speaking directly to a trained examiner can make it easy to freeze or, just as damagingly, over-prepare until you sound robotic.

The good news is that the test is graded against four public, named criteria, rather than a vague impression of how confident you sounded. Understanding exactly what each criterion rewards can therefore be one of the fastest ways to improve your band score.

Understand what the examiner is listening for

Every Speaking test is scored equally across four categories: Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation, each worth 25 percent of the final band.

Fluency and Coherence measures whether you can keep talking without excessive hesitation, and whether your ideas connect logically rather than jumping around.

Lexical Resource measures the range and precision of your vocabulary, including whether you can paraphrase a question instead of repeating the examiner’s own words back at them.

Grammatical range and accuracy looks at how varied and accurate your sentence structures are, from simple statements to more complex clauses using words like although, because, or if.

Pronunciation covers clarity, stress, and intonation, not whether you sound like a native speaker from a particular country.

This last point matters enormously for Nigerian candidates specifically: a Nigerian accent does not lower your score. IELTS examiners are trained to assess intelligibility, not accent neutrality, and both the British Council and IELTS Australia explicitly confirm that speaking with an accent is not penalised as long as your pronunciation is clear enough to be understood without strain.

What actually costs marks is mumbling, running words together so meaning is lost, or shifting stress patterns so unpredictably that the examiner has to work to follow you. Focus your practice on clarity, not on erasing an accent that was never the problem.

Never memorise answers

One of the biggest mistakes candidates can make in the Speaking test is relying on a memorised response, particularly in Part 2, the two-minute monologue based on a task card.

Examiners listen to many candidates and are trained to recognise rehearsed language, whether it is a pre-written answer or a generic template adapted to whatever topic appears.

A scripted answer can sound stiff, contain unnaturally advanced vocabulary that does not match the rest of the candidate’s speech, or ignore the specific details of the task card in favour of prepared content.

When an examiner detects this, it can affect your Fluency and Coherence score because genuine coherence comes from responding directly to what was asked, rather than delivering a monologue prepared in advance.

The solution is not to avoid preparation. Instead, prepare a structure rather than memorising sentences.

For Part 2, practise a flexible structure that covers the setup, specific details, a turning point or reflection, and what you think about the subject now. Then fill that structure with fresh details based on the topic you receive on test day.

This gives you the organisation examiners reward without the unnatural delivery of a memorised script.

Use natural fillers and steady pace, not dramatic slowdown

It is perfectly acceptable to pause briefly to think. Natural fillers such as “That’s an interesting question” or “Let me think about that” can give you time to organise a more complex response without necessarily costing you marks.

Used sparingly, such phrases can sound like normal discourse markers rather than signs of weakness.

However, dramatically slowing down your speech to avoid mistakes is not a good strategy.

Multiple examiner-facing sources emphasise that speaking too slowly can be just as problematic as speaking too quickly. Fluency and Coherence partly involve how naturally your language flows, and an overly cautious pace can make your speech sound unnatural or uncertain.

The target is a steady, natural pace — similar to how you would explain something to a friend. You do not need to race through your answers, but you also should not deliberately stretch every sentence.

If you genuinely do not understand a question, do not guess or pretend you do. Politely asking the examiner to repeat or rephrase the question is explicitly stated by the British Council to have no effect on your score.

That is safer than answering a question you did not understand, because an irrelevant or confused response can affect your coherence more than a brief request for clarification.

Use idioms only when they actually fit

Rare or idiomatic vocabulary can contribute to a strong Lexical Resource score, as the official descriptors reward the natural use of less common and idiomatic vocabulary.

The key word, however, is naturally.

Using an idiom simply because you memorised it from a study list can work against you if it does not fit the context, is mispronounced or sounds rehearsed.

An expression that is forced into an answer can make your speech sound unnatural and may suggest that you are relying on memorised language rather than demonstrating genuine vocabulary range.

One or two well-placed idiomatic expressions used correctly and naturally can therefore be more useful than filling your answers with several memorised phrases.

If you are not confident about an expression or it does not come to you naturally, use a clear, simple sentence instead. A natural response is preferable to a complicated phrase that is confused, forced or mispronounced.

FAQs

Does a strong Nigerian accent negatively impact an applicant’s final IELTS speaking score?

No. Examiners assess pronunciation for clarity and intelligibility, not for how closely you sound like a native speaker of a specific variety of English. A Nigerian accent is not penalised as long as your speech is clear enough to be easily understood; unclear articulation or unpredictable stress patterns are what actually cost marks, regardless of accent.

What should a candidate do if they completely misunderstand the examiner’s question?

Ask the examiner to repeat or rephrase it. This is explicitly permitted and, according to the British Council, does not affect your score. Guessing at an answer to a question you didn’t understand is far riskier, since it can produce an off-topic or confused response that damages your Coherence score.

How does using rare idioms correctly boost the Lexical Resource score in the IELTS exam?

Correctly used idiomatic language demonstrates the range and flexibility that the official Band 7 and above descriptors specifically call for, which can meaningfully lift a Lexical Resource score. The key word is correctly: a forced, mispronounced, or contextually awkward idiom has the opposite effect, since examiners are trained to notice when an expression sounds rehearsed or doesn’t fit the sentence around it.
(TRIBUNE)

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Group Commends COREN For Training Engineers In Engineering Failure, Forensic Investigation In Nigeria

Published

7 hours ago

September 25, 2026

Editor

Foundation for the Development of Shira Community (FODESCO) in Shira Local Government Area of Bauchi state has commended the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) for conducting a pioneer training on Engineering Failure and Forensic Investigation (EFFI) for 50 licensed engineering practitioners across the country.

Engr. Shehu Wakili, the Chairman of the Foundation made the commendation in an interview with newsmen on Friday.

According to him, the training which was conducted by COREN in collaboration with the Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI) and the Chartered Institute of Forensic and Certified Fraud Investigators of Nigeria (CIFCFIN), was to equip engineers and professionals from academia, industry, and government MDAs with practical skills to investigate infrastructure failures and prevent recurring building collapses.

He added that the training was also to build a pool of trained specialists who could investigate building collapses and other engineering failures, determine their root causes, and recommend measures to prevent recurrence, saying that the trainees would form part of a register of trained and certified forensic engineering investigators.

He further lauded COREN for the subsequent induction of its member, Engr. Abdullahi Muhammad MNSE, who among the 50 participants, hails from Bauchi state as a Chartered Engineering Forensic and Failure Investigator (CEFFI), certified by CIFCFIN.

“FODESCO is proud of him and wishes him well in all his endeavours”, he prayed.

Wakili, also the Chairman, Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Bauchi state chapter, revealed that the training covered failure analysis, forensic investigation methodologies, risk assessment, and professional reporting.

“This initiative supports broader efforts by COREN and the National Assembly to enforce stricter building codes, identify quackery, and ensure accountability across the construction sector,” he said.

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NBS: Lagos, Rivers, Enugu Top List As States Generated N5.15trn In 2025

Published

8 hours ago

September 25, 2026

Editor

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has disclosed that 36 states and the FCT generated a total of ₦5.15 trillion in 2025, indicating a growth rate of 40.93 percent from ₦3.65 trillion recorded in 2024.

NBS stated on Thursday citing the Nigeria Revenue Service ( NRS) as source of its information that Lagos emerged top on the list of states with the highest revenue generation in the sum of ₦1.77 trillion.

“Followed by Rivers state ₦428.42 billion and Enugu with IGR record of ₦406.77 billion in the period referenced.”

The. Bureau said Yobe, Ebonyi and Sokoto states reported the least revenues with ₦16.01 billion, ₦17.18 billion and ₦20.48 billion, respectively.

According to NBS, Pay As You Earn (PAYE) was the most tax revenue recorded during the period, valued at ₦2.64 trillion, representing 69.51 percent of the total tax revenue collected, while capital gains tax was the least with ₦12.40 billion while the share of total tax revenue to total IGR was 73.64 percent nationally.

“Other states and their share of IGR are FCT – N356.34 billion, Ogun – N252.36 billion, Delta – N202.49 billion, Edo – N132.21 billion, Oyo – N103.25 billion and Kano – N102.26 billion.

“Ten other states in lowest category of IGR include Yobe – N16.01 billion, Ebonyi – N17.18 billion, Sokoto – N20.48 billion, Taraba – N28.16 billion ; Benue – N29.57 billion, Zamfara – N30.07 billion, Kebbi – N31.23 billion, Nasarawa – N32.57 billion, Adamawa – N33.76 billion andcBorno – N36.36 billion “.

NBS noted that the states generated their most and least revenue from taxes and other government sources. “PAYE was the dominant revenue source nationally, generating N2.64 trillion and accounting for 69.51% of total tax revenue for the year.

“Other sources included direct assessment, road taxes, stamp duties, withholding taxes and capital gains tax, which was the smallest contributor at N12.40 billion,” the Bureau stated.