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OPINION: Rivers, Where Is My Own 5,000 Dollars For Sallah?

Published

1 year ago

March 25, 2025

By Suyi Ayodele

Democracy is sweet, especially when jeun soke is the doctrinal philosophy that undergirds it. Read this: “The chairman of the House Committee on FCT, Mukhata Aliyu Betara, has clarified to me that he only shared $5,000 to each member of his committee as ‘Sallah Gesture’ not an inducement to support emergency rule in Rivers State. According to him, he maintains the tradition-like Santa Claus – every year. As we say in Hausa, nothing but hind leg.”

The credit of the above quote goes to Jaafar Jaafar. Jafaar Jaafar, the founder and publisher of Daily Nigeria, you will recall, broke the news about the Abdullahi Ganduje dollar bribe story, when the current All Progressive Congress (APC) National Chairman was the governor of Kano State.

At the official rate of N1,600 to a dollar, $5,000 equals N8 million. If we agree that this is just for one committee, how many other committees have distributed their own dollars? How many more will distribute? How much is the Speaker of the House of Representatives giving from his throne to his subject colleagues?

And if Reps in a committee get $5,000 each for ‘Sallah Gesture’, how much did their counterparts in the Senate get? Or what is the volume of ‘prayers’ sent to their mailboxes? They should talk too. Where is my own share? Where is yours? Or is equitable sharing of benefits no longer the meaning of democracy?

The dollar they are sharing is not fiction. What you have above are the results of last week’s state of emergency declared by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Rivers State. The declaration was on Tuesday. The Senate and the House of Representatives endorsed the proclamation on Thursday. Thereafter, rumours broke out that the legislators were bribed to do so. The denial by one of the representatives, Betera, is what Jaafar Jaafar published as quoted above.

Let us, for the purpose of this discourse, take it that Betera shared $5,000 each to his committee members for ‘Sallah’, may we ask the ‘honourable’ Reps member which ‘Sallah’ was in celebration in the middle of March 2025? Can we also ask him why his witch cried at night and the precious baby of the family died in the morning? Again, how and where did he get an average of N8 million to give to his committee members as ‘Sallah Gesture’?

While settling that, can we ask ourselves this: Do we have a validly declared state of emergency in Rivers State? Or do we have a legally appointed administrator in the oil-rich state? I do not think so. And I am not alone in this regard.

Former governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, now represents Sokoto South Senatorial District in the Senate. Before becoming the governor of Sokoto State, Tambuwal was Speaker of the House of Representatives. He understands the workings of the National Assembly. He does not believe that President Tinubu’s state of emergency in Rivers State meets the requirements of the constitution. The Senate, Tambuwal lamented, did not meet the two-thirds majority to approve Tinubu’s proclamation of state of emergency.

His argument is valid. Tambuwal stressed that Section 305 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) mandates that two-thirds of all senate members must endorse the proclamation before it can become effective. The Senate is made up of 109 members. Elementary arithmetic gives two-third of 109 as 73 members. Senate president Godswill Akpabio knows that. The sensible thing to do to get a clear two-third majority is to do head count. Nay, Akpabio would not do that. Rather, the Senate President subjected the exercise to a ‘voice vote’ and then hit the gravel, declaring “the yea have it!” Think of perfidy, think of Akpabio’s voice vote. His counterpart in the House of representatives did the same thing. What followed was the $5,000 ‘Sallah’ gift to committee members in the House! Allahu akbar. God is great!

Tambuwal is not alone in his condemnation of the impropriety of the Tinubu’s state of emergency. Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan also spoke against the action. Jonathan warned Nigeria of the danger ahead with the way the other two arms of government, the legislature and the judiciary, have become appendages of the executive! Unfortunately, this is exactly what Tinubu needs to turn into a full-blown terror! Will he get it? I answer in the affirmative and I make no bones about that!

Jonathan spoke from experience because he also declared a state of emergency in more than four states in the past. On December 31, 2011, he declared a state of emergency in Plateau, Borno, Niger and Yobe States. That was his response to the activities of Boko Haram in those states. But he sacked no governor, he disbanded no legislature!

Again, on May 14, 2013, Jonathan declared a state of emergency in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe States because of the level of insecurity in those states. All he said was that the military would “take all necessary actions to “put an end to the impunity of insurgents and terrorists” in the affected states. Incidentally, the same Tinubu of today was the one who came after Jonathan to argue that the President then had no powers to declare a state of emergency!

In the hands of President Tinubu, democracy is dead! This sounds waspish, right? I concur! It can’t be otherwise. We have gotten to that stage that we just must call Tinubu who he is – just as our sister, Ushie Rita Ugamaye, the Lagos serving corps member called him: ‘a terrible president!’

Indeed, Tinubu is more than being a ‘terrible President’. His dictator, a tyrant without equallity, at least since the beginning of this political dispensation. He would make the Owu retired General, Olusegun Obasanjo, to go green with envy. Not even the tooth-picking General Muhammadu Buhari, was this passionate about power and its coercive properties in his eight years of presidential enjoyment!

Since President Tinubu declared a state of emergency in Rivers State and got the like-putty-in-your-hands Godswill Akpabio-led National Assembly to endorse the same, I have devoted most of the week reading the literature of tyranny and dictatorship. Tinubu’s ways fit in, perfectly, to every portraiture of dictators in sight.

I can’t vouch for Tinubu’s appreciation of literature. But I suspect that a few of his aides do. I used to have on my bookshelf, a copy of Augusto Roa Basto’s novel, titled ‘I, the Supreme’ (Yo el Supremo). The 1974 novel was translated from its original Spanish to English by Helen Lane in 1986.

‘I, the Supreme’ falls under the dictator novel genre of Latin American Literature which challenges the roles of dictators in that clime. The synopsis of the novel, a fiction, is about the imaginary Paraguayan dictator, José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, simply “Dr. Francia.” He is so powerful that he declares: “I don’t write history. I make it. I can remake it as I please, adjusting, stressing, enriching its meaning and truth.” Dr Francia makes the declaration because he believes that he is above all power, history and any other institution of State of his epoch.

Nothing mirrors Nigeria’s Tinubu of 2025 more than the protagonist of that novel! Tinubu, last week, practically rewrote the letters, the spirit and intendments of section 305 of the 199 Constitution (as amended).

The Nigerian president has no power whatsoever to suspend an elected official; we all know, not even a councillor of a ward! But like Francia, who has the power to ‘adjust, stress, enrich’ the ‘meaning and truth’ of our constitution, the president did not just suspend Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his deputy, Ngozi Odu, he added the legislature to boot and cleaned off the fluid of his rape with the appointment of a sole administrator. Only ‘the Supreme’ has such powers!

There are other novels in that genre (dictator novel). One of them is The Feast of the Goat (Spanish: La Fiesta del Chivo, 2000), by the Mario Vargas Liosa, the Nobel Prize in Literature Laureate from Peru. There is yet another one, ‘D The Autumn of the Patriarch’ (El otoño del patriarca, 1975), by Gabriel García Márquez, which the reviewer describes as a “poem on the solitude of power…” I read their synopsis. They fit here.

I also read the reviews of Gabriel García Márquez’s The General in His Labyrinth (El general en su laberinto, 1989),; Enrique Lafourcade’s King Ahab’s Feast (La Fiesta del rey Acab, 1959); Jorge Zalamea, El gran Burundún Burundá ha Muerto (“The Great Burundún Burundá is Dead”, 1951), and of course, Miguel Ángel Asturias’s El Señor Presidente 1(946), which the review says: “…was inspired by the 1898–1920 presidency of Manuel Estrada Cabrera for his title character,…and “explores the nature of political dictatorship and its effects on society, and is an overtly political novel in which Asturias denounces Latin American dictators.” In all these, Tinubu can easily replace all the reprehensible characters in the novels!

Beyond the above characterisation, President Tinubu, has, in the last 22 months, exhibited all the ingredients of dictatorship if we all agree with the assertion that “Dictatorships are often characterised by some of the following: suspension of elections and civil liberties; proclamation of a state of emergency; rule by decree; repression of political opponents; not abiding by the procedures of the rule of law; and the existence of a cult of personality centered on the leader. Dictatorships are often one-party or dominant-party states.” See Papaioannou, Kostadis; vanZanden, Jan Luiten (2015) “The Dictator Effect: How long years in office affect economic development”, Journal of Institutional Economics. 11 (1): 111–139.

Tinubu needed just a fight between Governor Fubara and his overbearing godfather, Nyesom Wike, to go for the jugular of Rivers State. The irony is that the la-di-da Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Wike, who is at the centre of it all, retains his position in Tinubu’s cabinet! Which is easier to do; call Wike to order as the appointing authority, or to send an elected governor, his deputy and the entire legislature packing?

President Tinubu is an old Yoruba man. It will be impudent of me to ask if he is familiar with the Yoruba concept of Àgbà òsìkà as embedded in the Yoruba jurisprudential system. Àgbà òsìkà is that elderly man or woman who shamelessly demonstrates partiality when the society expects fairness.

In Lawrence O. Bamikole’s “Agba (elder) as arbitrator: A Yoruba socio-political model for conflict resolution”, published in the Journal of Law and Conflict Resolution Vol. 1(3), pp. 060-067, August 2009, the author says: “The concept of Àgbàlagbà transcends mere chronological age; it encompasses a revered status earned through a lifetime of learning, service, and leadership within the community. Àgbàlagbà is a title of honor bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated exemplary character, integrity, and knowledge…” Does Tinubu’s identikit fit into this definition of Àgbàlagbà given his latest shenanigan in Rivers State?

That this democracy will die in the hands of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not a curse, it is the stark reality staring us in the face now. Those who borrowed the torn robe of a democrat and decked Tinubu in it may have to give us a new definition of a that word. With the effete National Assembly and the lickspittle Godswill Akpabio as the Senate President, Tinubu can declare a state of emergency in any state, or all states of the Federation and he would have the nod of the legislators. The judiciary will not also come to the rescue with the way the Supreme Court set the table for Tinubu to have a free meal in Rivers State!

The most unfortunate of the crisis is the justification by the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN). Fagbemi is not just a senior lawyer. He is equally a prince of Ijagbo, Kwara State. He has seen both modern and traditional jurisprudence. But today, in a democracy, Fagbemi, SAN, is warning other state governors of similar fate should any of them dare Emperor Tinubu! I don’t know how proud those who taught Fagbemi law in the Law Faculty and the Nigerian Law School, are of the learned silk! With an AGF like Lateef Fagbemi, does Tinubu need any further prompt to transform to his congenital robe of a dictator! Pity our fatherland!

Nigeria is on the path to political perdition. Its democracy is threatened beyond imagination. The cord can snap anytime. This is the time for Nigerians to speak out, loudly and forcefully! We have a dirty hand at the helm of our affairs. President Tinubu and members of his household don’t see what we see; they don’t suffer what afflicts us.

This is why while we see pain, agony, hunger and poverty, Seyi Tinubu sees his father as the best president ever! If a child does not resemble the sòkòtò (trousers-father), he must resemble the kíjìpà (wrapper-mother). The most unfortunate thing about Seyi and his Adamawa verbiage is that both his sòkòtò and kíjìpà are of terrible linen. That is what the NYSC lady, Ushie Rita Ugamaye, saw and gave the right appellation to Tinubu; ‘terrible President.’

If you find this piece snarky, pardon my state of mind; I am scared, sincerely worried.

With the ferocious way Tinubu has raped this democracy in Rivers State, breaking the hymen, dislocating the waist and tearing the bedspread beyond repairs, If he got away with it, Tinubu’s dangling phallus will not spare the innocence of Osun State, his next target, or may be even his Lagos, for the optics. He will find other silly excuses to execute the same in other states considered too critical to his 2027 re-election bid but which are not playing ball. That is the way of dictators. The flight to the next polls promises bad weather. Fasten your seat belt, turbulence ahead.

News

Xenophobic Attacks: Oshiomhole Tells FG To Retaliate Against South African Companies In Nigeria

Published

6 hours ago

May 5, 2026

Editor

Senator Adams Oshiomhole has called on the Federal Government to retaliate against South African businesses operating in Nigeria following the recent attacks on Nigerians in South Africa.

Speaking during plenary on Tuesday, Oshiomhole said the Federal Government should consider revoking the working license of South African owned companies such as MTN and DSTV.

He argued that Nigeria must respond firmly to what he described as persistent hostility against its citizens.

“I am not going to shed tears. If you hit me, I hit you. I think it is appropriate in diplomacy. It is an economic struggle,” Oshiomhole said.

He argued that while some South Africans accuse Nigerians of taking their jobs, Nigerians should return home and take over employment opportunities created by major South African companies operating in the country, including MTN and DSTV.

“When we hit back, the President of South Africa will not only talk but will also go on his knees to recognise that Nigeria cannot be intimidated.

“We will not condone any life being lost. If a crime has been committed under the South African law they have the right to bring any such person to justice, but to kill our people as if we are helpless, we will not allow that,” Oshiomhole added.

DAILY POST reports that several Nigerians in South Africa have reportedly been attacked, and their businesses destroyed, in ongoing xenophobic attacks in the country.

News

IGP Orders Officers Display Name Tag On Uniform, Gives Update On State Police

Published

6 hours ago

May 5, 2026

Editor

The Inspector General of Police, IGP, Tunji Disu, has ordered all police personnel to always have their name tags on their uniforms for easy identification.

Disu disclosed that only police personnel who are undercover are exempted from displaying their name tags.

Speaking on Tuesday, Disu said: “All police officers should have their name tags. All of us on the high table have our names apart from the undercover among us so if you look at all the Commissioners of Police we have our name tags, so it’s not our standard.

News

Court Orders SERAP To Pay DSS Operatives N100m For Defamation

Published

11 hours ago

May 5, 2026

Editor

The High Court of the Federal Capital Territory has ordered a non-governmental organization, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, to pay N100 million as damaged to two operatives of the Department of the State Services, DSS, for unjustly defaming them in some publications.

The court also ordered SERAP to tender public apologies to the defamed officers,
Sarah John and Gabriel Ogundele, in two national newspapers, two television stations and its website.

Besides, the organization was also ordered to pay the two operatives N1 million as cost of litigation and 10 percent post-judgment interest annually on the judgment sum until it’s fully liquidated.

Justice Yusuf Halilu of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory gave the order on Tuesday while delivering judgment in a N5.5 billion defamation suit instituted against SERAP by the DSS operatives.

The judge found SERAP liable for unjustly defaming the two DSS operatives with allegations that they unlawfully invaded its Abuja office, harassed and intimidated its staff, in September 2024.

In the offending publication on its website and Twitter handle, SERAP alleged that the two operatives unlawfully invaded and occupied its office with sinister motives.

The judge held that the publication was in bad taste especially from an organization established to promote transparency and accountability, as nothing in the publication was found to be truthful.

The DSS staff had listed SERAP as 1st defendant in the suit marked CV/4547/2024. SERAP’s Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, was listed as the 2nd defendant.

In the suit, the claimants – Sarah John and Gabriel Ogundele – accused the two defendants of making false claims that they invaded SERAP’s Abuja office on September 9, 2024..

Counsel to the DSS, Oluwagbemileke Samuel Kehinde, had while adopting his final address in the mater urged the judge to grant all the reliefs sought by his client in the interest of justice.

He admitted that although the names of the two claimants were not mentioned in the defamation materials, they had however established substantial circumstances that they are the ones referred to in the published defamation article by SERAP on its website.

The counsel submitted that all ingredients of defamation have been clearly established and the offending publication referred to the two officials of the secret police.

However, SERAP, through its counsel, Victoria Bassey from Tayo Oyetibo, SAN, law firm, asked the court to dismiss the suit on the ground that the two claimants did not establish that they were the ones referred to in the alleged defamation materials.

She said that SERAP used “DSS officials” in the alleged offending publication, adding that the two claimants must establish that they are the ones referred to before their case can succeed.

Similar arguments were canvassed by Oluwatosin Adefioye who stood for the second defendant, adding that there was no dispute in the September 9, 2024 operation of DSS in SERAP’s office.

He said that since SERAP in the publication did not name any particular person, the claimants must plead special circumstances that they were the ones referred to as the DSS officials.

Besides, he said that there is no organization by name Department of State Services in law, hence, DSS cannot claim being defamed adding that the only entity known to law is National Security Agency.

The claimants had in the suit stated that the alleged false claim by SERAP has negatively impacted on their reputation.

The DSS also stated, in the statement of claim, that, in line with the agency’s practice of engaging with officials of non-governmental organisations operating in the FCT to establish a relationship with their new leadership, it directed the two officials – John and Ogunleye – to visit SERAP’s office and invite them for a familiarization meeting.

The claimants added that in carrying out the directive, John and Ogunleye paid a friendly visit to SERAP’s office at 18 Bamako Street, Wuse Zone 1, Abuja on September 9 and met with one Ruth, who upon being informed about the purpose of the visit, claimed that none of SERAP’s management staff was in the country and advised that a formal letter of invitation be written by the DSS.

John and Ogundele, who claimed that their interactions with Ruth were recorded, said before they immediately exited SERAP’s office, Ruth promised to inform her organisation’s management about the visit and volunteered a phone number – 08160537202.

They said it was surprising that, shortly after their visit, SERAP posted on its X (Twitter) handle – @SERAPNigeria – that officers of the DSS are presently unlawfully occupying its office.

The claimant added, “On the same day, the defendants also published a statement on SERAP’s website, which was widely reported by several media outfits, falsely alleging that some officers from the DSS, described as “a tall, large, dark-skinned woman” and “a slim, dark skinned man,” invaded their Abuja office and interrogated the staff of the first defendant (SERAP).

John and Ogundele stated that “due to the false statements published by the defendants, the DSS has been ridiculed and criticised by international agencies such as the Amnesty International and prominent members of the Nigerian society, such as Femi Falana (SAN)”.

“Due to the false statements published by the defendants, members of the public and the international community formed the opinion that the Federal Government is using the DSS to harass the defendants.”

They added that the defendants’ statements caused harm to their reputation because the staff and management of the DSS have formed the opinion that the claimants did not follow orders and carried out an unsanctioned operation and are therefore, incompetent and unprofessional.

The claimants therefore prayed the court for the following reliefs: “An order directing the defendants to tender an apology to the claimants via the first defendant’s (SERAP’s) website, X (twitter) handle, two national daily newspapers (Punch and Vanguard) and two national news television stations (Arise Television and Channels Television) for falsely accusing the claimants of unlawfully invading the first defendant’s office and interrogating the first defendant’s staff.

“An order directing the defendants to pay the claimants the sum of N5 billion as damages for the libellous statements published about the claimants.

“Interest on the sum of N5b at the rate of 10 percent per annum from the date of judgment until the judgment sum is realised or liquidated.

“An order directing the defendants to pay the claimants the sum of N50 million as costs of this action.”