By Suyi Ayodele

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.” William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 3)

Nigeria has shifted from incurring debt as an instrument of policy to embracing it as a condition of survival. It is a dangerous evolution—made worse when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appears to regard debt not as leprosy, but as ornament.

Greek philosopher, Plutarch (before AD50-after 120), wrote a piece titled: “That We Ought Not to Borrow.” What the old Greek philosopher said in the piece, published in Vol. X of the Loeb Classical Library edition of the Moralia, 1936 (Pg. 315-339), shows that borrowing is worse than leprosy in all ramifications. Plutarch’s piece summarises the Greeks’ attitude to borrowing.

Incidentally, every arguement he posted in the material aligns with the African’s philosophy of a borrower ending up a broke person. Our elders, right from the beginning of time, say: Àì l’ówó l’ówó kìí jé ká ní owó l’ówó (being broke makes one to be more broke).

They say this because the broke man goes a-borrowing and ends up using the little he has to service his debts thus ending up without money. A man without money is a sad man. That confirms the age-long axiom of he who goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing.

President Tinubu, on Tuesday last week, at an engagement with all the movers and shakers of events from Plateau State, said to those critical about the rate of borrowing by his administration that “borrowing is not leprosy.” He added that whenever the occasion arose for him to borrow, he would not hesitate to do so.

Maybe we should allow Tinubu to speak: “If we have to borrow money, we will, because borrowing is not leprosy; we just have to work hard to be able to repay it.” To the President, going by these uttered words, what matters is the ability to pay. And to pay back the countless debts incurred by his administration, Nigeria and Nigerians must work hard.

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It is not what Tinubu said that worries me. My concern is the metaphor he deployed – “leprosy”. That is the worst of all contagious diseases. Anyone who contracts leprosy is usually isolated. Leprosaria, in ancient days, were built in the deep forest. This is why it is said that: A kìí kó ilé adétè sí ìgboro; inú igbó ni adétè ńgbé (no one builds the house of a leper in the city; lepers live in the forest).

The idea of the forest in this ancient saying itself depicts graphic metaphors of a pariah, isolation, and of an individual who lives with ultimate shame. So, when our President deployed that metaphor, its meaning goes beyond the theatrical message his audience thought they heard and clapped for. What Tinubu told his audience is that Nigeria had not borrowed to that level when it would become an isolated nation, a leprous entity that nobody would dare touch with a 10-feet pole! We may soon get there, anyway! Back to ancient Greek.

Ancient Greek philosophy never supports borrowing. Rather, it considers borrowing, which usually comes with heavy interest, as another form of servitude. The borrower, in the Greek mindset, is not just a slave to the lender; he is equally considered a weakling and one with the base of all moral values. Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient philosophers believed that a borrower, especially a reckless one, is an ‘unnatural and socially corrosive” individual. Any borrowing that imposes heavy interest on the borrower, they said, is ‘predatory.’ (See: “Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens,” by Paul Millett, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2022).

This is the summary of Plutarch’s work, where he argues that taking loans comes with its own degree of disgrace and leads to “a voluntary loss of freedom and a sign of folly.” A simple review of Plutarch’s essay says: “That We Ought Not to Borrow” (Greek: De vitando aere alieno) is a famous essay….that argues against debt, describing it as a form of slavery to lenders that causes stress and ruins financial freedom. Plutarch advises avoiding loans, whether rich or poor, arguing it is either unnecessary or impossible to repay.”

In an October 5, 2021, piece on this page with the title: “Buhari and the chronic debtor-wife of Osin”, I expressed worry at the rate at which the administration of General Muhammad Buhari was taking loans. I warned that Nigerians would be left in pain and sorrow at the end of the day. The introductory paragraph of the said article is worth repeating here:

“Permit me to call this Buhari regime Onígbèsè Aya Osin (The chronic debtor-wife of Osin). Osin is the Yoruba deity of royalty. According to the legend, Osin married a shameless woman who owed virtually everyone in the community. In our tradition, once a person’s behaviour is off the mark of our acceptable mores, norms and traditions, we give such a person a descriptive name. This wife’s reputation followed her everywhere she went. ‘Onigbese’ is the Yoruba word for chronic debtor; ‘Aya’ is wife. Her cognomen is an exercise in character portrayal. She is known as Onigbese Aya Osin, who buys pangolin without paying, and buys porcupine on credit. She sees the woman hawking a hedgehog; she runs after her empty-handed. She uses the money from antelope to pay for deer. Yet, she fries neither for her husband nor cooks for her concubine. Her first child is sold into slavery to service her debts; her lastborn is pawned off for her indebtedness. When she talks, she accuses her husband of not covering her shame whereas, she neither informs the husband nor takes permission from him before buying bush meat on credit.”

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Whatever we saw in the Buhari administration that informed the above has since paled into insignificance in the administration of Tinubu. This government borrows with reckless abandon! That is troubling. And unlike Buhari, who was decent about it, the current set of Onígbèsè in the Aso Rock Villa adds arrogance to the charade. This is why, when he had nothing more to tell us all, Tinubu said that our level of indebtedness had not reached the leprosy stage where no nation would want to touch us.

Whatever Tinubu said during the encounter, his spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, further amplified. In his criticism of the borrowing spree of this government, Peter Obi, the 2023 Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, said that “Borrowing is not only leprosy, but a killer cancer when it is borrowed for consumption and not production as it is in Nigeria today.” He further lamented the nation’s “Debt that is not tied to measurable economic value; debt that does not translate into jobs, growth, or improved living standards for the Nigerian people.”

Onanuga, responding to Obi, said that the opposition politician was “bringing up the same old arguments again with your sensationalist approach.” Like his master, Onanuga stressed that “…Every sovereign nation borrows money, and as President Tinubu correctly pointed out, borrowing is not a disease. If you really want to know, the government has been taking loans to pay for important infrastructure projects, not to spend on everyday things. The fact that we are getting money and have lenders who are willing to lend shows that our country is trustworthy and able to pay back the money.”

I read Onanuga’s position, and I wondered if ‘silence is no longer golden’, as we were told, especially when one does not have something intelligent to say! How can borrowing become an ornament that a government should wear like a medal, the way Onanuga deodorised it? So, if every nation of the world wants to lend us money, we should take all the loans with reckless abandon, the way the government, the ‘old activist’, is defending does? And, if we may ask: what are the “important infrastructure projects” Onanuga is talking about?

Do they include the $2.7 billion borrowed from the World Bank by this administration in 2023, part of which is the $700 million loan taken for adolescent girls’ secondary education that we have nothing to show for except the daily kidnapping of our school boys and girls up North? Or the preposterous $750 million loan for power sector recovery, only for the Aso Rock Villa to detach itself from the National Grid?

Can we also ask Onanuga if his “important infrastructure projects” for which this government took a World Bank loan of $4.25 billion in 2024, include the $1.57 billion loan to strengthen human capital, improve health for women and children, and build climate resilience, without anything to show for it? What about the $357 million, $57 million, and $86 million loans for rural road access and agricultural marketing projects, in a country where bandits, herdsmen and terrorists don’t allow farmers to go to their farms?

Is the 2025 World Bank loan of $2.695 billion, part of which $500 million was said to have been for education under the HOPE Education loan, or the $253 million and $247 million for NG-CARES, also part of Onanuga’s “important infrastructure projects?” What sort of awkward reasoning governs this nation?

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Can someone please help tell those in power and their defenders that figures don’t lie! According to the Debt Management Office (DMO), Nigeria’s total public debt in 2015 was approximately N12.12 trillion to N12.6 trillion ($63–$64 billion). Various independent reports confirmed that figure, which is said to include both domestic and external debt stocks, representing the total liability at the time the administration of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan ended in May 2015.

But by December 31, 2023, according to the DMO, the nation’s total public debt was N97.34 trillion (US$108.23 billion). Again, the figure includes the external and domestic debt of the Federal Government, the 36 state governments, and the Federal Capital Territory.

Fast forward to the three-year-old administration of President Tinubu, Nigeria’s total public debt is projected to exceed N159 trillion (approx. $110 billion, “driven by a N68.32 trillion budget that relies heavily on borrowing. The government has allocated roughly ₦15.81 trillion for debt servicing (interest and fees) in 2026 alone, highlighting a severe debt service burden on the economy.”

Pray, what do you call a disease that makes a government spend over 80% of its revenue to service debt, if not ACUTE LEPROSY? What can be more cancerous than a government which borrows to satisfy the President’s fantasies at the expense of good living conditions for the citizenry? How do you describe a government which goes a-borrowing to finance its own budgets if not a leprous and cancerous government?

And since Onanuga has deliberately chosen not to understand why the government he defends has “lenders who are willing to lend” as he posted in response to Obi, I suggest, and very strongly too, that he takes a simple tutorial in Plutarch, who posits that “…the Persians regard lying as the second among wrong-doings and being in debt as the first; for lying is often practiced by debtors; but money-lenders lie more than debtors and cheat in their ledgers, when they write that they give so-and‑so much to so-and‑so, though they really give less…” This is why Onanuga and his ilk will be eternally wrong in their celebration of “lenders who are willing to lend.”

The Greek philosopher adds in the piece that, while he had “not declared war against the money-lenders”, he must point it out “to those who are ready to become borrowers how much disgrace and servility there is in the practice and that borrowing is an act of extreme folly and weakness.”

In concluding the piece, “That We Ought Not to Borrow”, Plutarch cautions thus: “Have you money? Do not borrow because you are not in need. Have you no money? Do not borrow, for you will not be able to pay….therefore in your own case do not heap up upon poverty, which has many attendant evils, the perplexities which arise from borrowing and owing, and do not deprive poverty of the only advantage which it possesses over wealth, namely freedom from care; since by doing so you will incur the derision of the proverb: I am unable to carry the goat, put the ox then upon me.” May the cosmos give us the grace to learn from ancient wisdom!

By Lasisi Olagunju

In a democracy, victory won through real elections brings enduring legitimacy. ‘On Your Mandate We Shall Stand’ was composed and sung for Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola because he submitted his ambition to a competitive process: he had a competent opponent, votes were cast, counted, and he won. The song, its defiance, and resilience followed that mandate because it was legitimate.

Those who chant similar slogans today may find themselves clutching empty matchboxes tomorrow if they continue to sidestep competitive elections. A democratic seat secured through elite manipulation and backroom agreement cannot command enduring popular support, especially when those same elites decide to take it back.

Nigeria today stands in the grip of what is called consensus politics; choosing candidates without the ‘trouble’ of voting. We are even scheming to elect a president next year without the inconvenience of election. Good luck to all of us.

At the Battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066, the Norman king, William the Conqueror, defeated King Harold II and went on to become King of England. Historians note that the victory set off sweeping changes across the British Isles. They say by force of arms, William took the crown and went on to remake the Church, the palace, and the culture of England. They say he did more than change the English crown; his victory remade the English language through a deep infusion of Norman/Latin forms. The consequence is that more than 60 percent of English words now carry Latin parentage.

One such word is ‘consensus’, from the Latin ‘consentīre’—“to feel together”,

“to agree,” “to be in harmony,” “to concur.”

The rains started beating that word a long time ago. Language historians note that words which experienced long migration often shed their original sense of shared feeling and acquire more instrumental meanings. So it is with ‘consensus’ in today’s political usage.

Somewhere along its long journey from Latin to modern political speech, ‘consensus’ lost its warmth. The distortion of the word and its meaning is no longer abstract. In our usage today, ‘consensus’ no longer suggests a meeting of minds; it often signals a decision already made; an outcome proclaimed from above and affirmed below. A word that once implied a genuine convergence of minds now describes an order from the throne, delivered through courtiers.

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The parties—especially the ruling APC—have stretched and inverted the meaning of the word. In APC’s political dictionary, “consensus” increasingly reads as the will of the president, not the outcome of deliberation.

As we had it in Sani Abacha’s transition programme, we think any of today’s living parties that make it limping to the ballot in January 2027 should reach an ‘agreement’ and adopt one person as the consensus presidential candidate. That is how rich our imaginative thoughts are and how limitless our capacity for distortion of values is.

Within both party and polity, the president now embodies what Aristide R. Zolberg calls “the chief executive who is also the supreme legislator (the chief elector), and the ultimate arbiter of conflict.” Because the president is what he has always been, photo ops are staged as proof of order, while his name, cast as the final authority in the APC’s doctrine of “consensus”, is invoked to sanctify outcomes.

The APC set its neighbour’s hut on fire and rejoiced; now the blaze has caught its own roof. Across the states, the refrain is the same: the abuse of ‘consensus,’ with the president inserted into the process as decider-in-chief.

Oyo State offers a very sharp illustration. Some APC leaders, on Friday, announced Senator Sharafadeen Alli as the party’s “consensus” governorship candidate, invoking the president’s name. Within hours, former minister, Adebayo Adelabu, pushed back, also invoking the same presidency, and declaring that he remained in the race as the president’s “son”. When two rival claims lean on the same authority, what is presented as consensus begins to look like a contest of endorsements, not agreement.

Our fathers say the medicine must match the disease. Bí àrùn búburú bá wòlú, oògùn búburú la fi ńwò ó (When the affliction is severe, the remedy cannot be gentle). That may explain why the rhetoric of resistance has turned harsh. One does not need a keen ear to catch the crudity in what now issues from Oyo APC bigwigs. It is a stream of curses and abuse, imprecations without restraint. And one must ask: why?

Beyond Oyo, across Nigeria, north to south, we hear cries of plots to impose “consensus” candidates. How do you use the words ‘imposition’ and ‘consensus’ in the same sentence? Imposition comes from above; the other grows from below. ‘Imposition’ is force without consent. ‘Consensus’ is agreement without force. The two opposites appearing as companions presents a contradiction, and politics is autological, a self-defining oxymoron. You will likely agree with my linguistic choice if you believe the popular (but etymologically false joke) that “politics” comes from ‘poly’ (many) and ‘tics’ (blood-sucking parasites).

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In Nasarawa, former Inspector-General of Police and APC governorship aspirant, Mohammed Adamu Abubakar, rejected any move towards “consensus,” insisting that only a direct primary could confer legitimacy. To him and others in the race, what is being dressed up as consensus is little more than unilateralism in softer language.

In Ondo, there are subdued objections to what the party may decide on Ondo South senatorial ticket. Aspirants for the Ondo East/Ondo West federal constituency have raised similar alarms, accusing party leaders of plotting to impose a candidate under the convenient cover of consensus. Their warning is simple: once choice is managed from above, internal democracy is already compromised.

In Yobe State, Senator Ibrahim Mohammed Bomai, Kashim Musa Tumsah, and Usman Alkali Baba—three APC governorship aspirants—have rejected the party’s endorsement of former Secretary to the State Government, Alhaji Baba Malam Wali, as its “consensus” candidate for the 2027 election.

Bomai’s choice of words is telling. He described the “consensus” imposition as an affront to democratic principles. He warned against the steady replacement of popular choice with elite arrangement. No individual, he argued, regardless of past office or political influence, has the authority to determine the leadership of millions behind closed doors. Leadership, he insisted, must emerge through a process that is free, fair, and transparent—not one brokered in the name of “consensus.” Quoting him directly, he said: “We categorically reject this attempt to subvert due process. We reject the culture of imposition. We reject any scheme that undermines fairness, equity, and the democratic rights of our people.” Those words give voice to what dissatisfied but muted APC leaders and members in Kwara, Ogun and beyond are saying in uneasy, even fearful, silence.

Lagos, for now, appears to be the exception. The emergence of Dr Obafemi Hamzat as the APC governorship candidate quietly followed a process that bore the marks of consultation rather than imposition. Hamzat combines the fine qualities of a gentleman with humble erudition. In a field without a formidable opposition, his path to final victory looks smooth. Congratulations may therefore be in order.

Choice of candidates by consensus is good, cheap and safe if it comes with clean hands. Going far back into our beginning, we find that real consensus is not alien to the African political tradition. Ghanaian philosopher Kwasi Wiredu (1931 – 2022), in his reflections on ‘Democracy and Consensus in African Traditional Politics’, argues that decision-making in pre-colonial African societies was anchored in discussion and agreement rather than imposition.

He draws, for instance, on the words of Zambia’s founding father, Kenneth Kaunda, who observed that “in our original societies, we operated by consensus. An issue was talked out in solemn conclave until such time as agreement could be achieved.” Similarly, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, in 1961, noted that “the African concept of democracy is similar to that of the ancient Greeks, from whose language the word ‘democracy’ originated. To the Greeks, democracy meant simply “government by discussion among equals.” The people discussed, and when they reached an agreement, the result was a “people’s decision.” In African society, he said, the traditional method of conducting affairs is “by free discussion… the elders sit under the big trees and talk until they agree.”

Our politics has refused to benefit from that past of refined due process. There is no “people” in today’s decisions. And we expect today’s “consensus” arrangement to yield good governance. No. It will not. It can only produce a system that answers to kings, kingmakers, and the capos who guard their power.

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When a ruling party actively promotes “consensus” after weakening the opposition, it risks sliding toward a very bad form of authoritarianism. It also strips even its own members of the power to choose their candidates. As Kwasi Wiredu observed, both Kenneth Kaunda and Julius Nyerere defended systems that claimed consensus but, in practice, narrowed choice.

The Yoruba, watching what has become of this democracy in the hands of its custodians, would say: when a wise man cooks yams in a mad fashion, the discerning take theirs with sticks. That is àbọ̀ ọ̀rọ̀—half a word—and for the wise, it is enough.

What passes for consensus in Nigeria today therefore demands closer scrutiny. When outcomes are settled before conversations begin, when dissent is managed rather than engaged, and when unanimity is announced rather than negotiated, consensus ceases to be the product of dialogue; it becomes instead an instrument of control.

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” In politics, as William Shakespeare suggests, opposites often blur; good and evil do not always stand apart; they, in fact, reinforce each other. Bernard Crick, in ‘In Defence of Politics’ (1962), reminds us that politics thrives on contradiction, that it is “a creative compromise… a diverse unity.”

All dictionaries insist that “consensus” and ‘coercion’ are not the same. Our politicians, however, behave as though they are—indeed, as though one can be made to pass for the other. Once coercion learns to speak the language of consensus, it no longer needs to persuade; it only needs to declare. And declarations are fast, sweet and cheap.

But there are consequences.

Someone said “every cheap choice is a lost chance at joy.” The quest for easy victory is behind the current ‘consensus’ frenzy. But it may be the death of this democracy.

In Yoruba, some proverbs come as stories. Take this: “All the animals in the forest assembled and decided to make ìkokò (hyena) their asípa (secretary). Ikoko was happy to hear the news, but a short while later he burst into tears. Asked what the matter was, he replied that he was sad because he realised that perhaps they (his electors) might revisit the matter and reverse themselves.”

Professor Oyekan Owomoyela, from whom I got the proverb, explains what it says: “even in times of good fortune one should be mindful of the possibility of reversal.”

The moral is that those who donate victory cheaply through agreement can agree again to whimsically annul the victory without consequences.

A former Rivers State Commissioner for Works, Alabo Dakorinama George Kelly, has been endorsed by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, as his preferred candidate for the Rivers State governorship.

George is expected to contest the seat under the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), signaling a crucial political move ahead of the 2027 general elections.

Sources told DAILY POST that Wike settled for George after a closed-door meeting with key political stakeholders in Port Harcourt on Monday. The meeting reportedly reviewed the political situation in the state and strategies for consolidating influence ahead of the next election cycle.

At the meeting were ex-militant leaders, including Asari Dokubo and Ateke Tom.

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According to source, their attendance underscored the high-level consultations that preceded the endorsement.

George, a seasoned political figure in Rivers State, previously served as Commissioner for Works and is considered a loyalist within Wike’s political structure.

The source who witnessed the meeting said the development was part of efforts to maintain Wike’s political dominance in the state despite his current role at the federal level.

This comes against the backdrop of a protracted political crisis in Rivers State, driven by a bitter power struggle between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his estranged political godfather, Nyesom Wike.

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Since assuming office, Fubara has gradually distanced himself from Wike’s influence, leading to deep divisions within the state’s political structure, including the State House of Assembly and local government leadership.

The rift has triggered a series of political confrontations, alignments, and realignments, with both camps battling for control of the party machinery and governance structures in the state.

Efforts by President Bola Tinubu to broker peace between the two camps have so far yielded limited results, as tensions continue to simmer.

According to the source, “Wike’s endorsement of George is a strategic move to reassert control and shape the political future of Rivers State ahead of 2027,” he said.

As of press time, there has been no official confirmation on the latest endorsement.