News From Nigeria
OUR RELIGIOUS ALBATROSS BY DR AUSTIN ORETTE
If we aspire to be a multi-religious and multi-ethnic society, we have to remove religion from the centrality of our politics. We must decentralize governance.
We have too many religious holidays and none of the religions is indigenous. Religion should have no place in our public lives.
The minds of our people have been seriously poisoned and corroded by religion. If we want to change our situation, we have to change the way we think. How can we think when the minds of the majority of our people have been corroded by religion?
What is happening in Nigeria is akin to mass psychosis. How do we extricate our nation from this? I am tempted to say let us pray. There goes my brain. Religion short circuits any thought process and leads to arrested development. What is the point of thinking when God is in charge? This leads to fatalism that is prevalent in Nigeria.
The present way and verve which Nigeria embraces religion is destructive to a society that is struggling to render service to its people in a pluralistic society. If Religion is such a good thing, the benefits will have been everywhere by now and the colonizers will never give it to us for free.
In order to create docility, they forced the Chinese to consume the real opium which was medicinal in China at that time. The Chinese leaders saw the harm it was doing to the people and they picked up arms. This led to the Opium wars that led to the loss of Hong Kong and Macao.
Africa had no opium and the colonizers discovered religion could be more addictive than opium and they cultivated it as it was cheaper than the real opium.
Docility has always been the endpoint of slavery and colonialism. Nigerians are more docile and self-destructive than any group of people I know. They worship and nurture those who steal and vandalize their commonwealth and without a blink lynch a person who steals a loaf of bread to ward off starvation. This level of cognitive dissonance is only seen amongst drug addicts.
When I hear of foreign aid, I squirm at the thought of adding foreign priests and pastors to these orgies of abuse of Africans.
The most religious geographies in Nigeria are the most violent and destructive to the body politics of Nigeria. Religion is not about love. It is about power. Since rulers around the world adopted religion to fortify their legitimacy, religion has always been a tool of power.
Every religion started with the founder having some private revelation. These revelations were not corroborated by a third party or done in the glare of the public. Someone said he saw God and we believed him. The king believed him and the king adopted the religion and the king became God and no one can criticize the king because the king is God.
In the prescientific world of yore, anything could be a miracle. Most early religious people directed their ire at the rulers. The wily rulers simply adopted the religion and usurped God’s power. The conundrum I continue to find is that none of the so-called founders actually set out to start a religion. These religions started many years after they were dead.
Moses criticized pharaoh and Jesus condemned the High Priests who were working in tandem with the Roman government in the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people.
In today’s world, the Pope who is preaching Jesus will be on the side of Rome. Mohammad was not loved by the rulers of his time. Early prophets told the truth. Nathan told David about his lust. Nigerian prophets of today would collect their tithes and personally get rid of Uriah.
Why should the king bother with such little people like Uriah? Every great prophet was anti-establishment. The prophets of today, especially in Nigeria are the establishment. Whatever they say is not of God but from their selfish desires to covet what belongs to others. This is why religion is at the root of all corruption in Nigeria.
For Nigeria to be whole, we must excise religion from all our public interaction. Those who want sharia should find another country.
Nigeria is an African Country. It has no relationship with Saudi Arabia. Any organization that condones the killing of Nigerians like those being ministered to by the likes of Gumi should be outlawed.
Our aspiration is to run a country with objective scientific principles that are objective and verifiable. Any religious gobbledygook must be rejected.
Religion has not developed in any country in the world. The poorest nations in the World are overwhelmingly religious. In Bangladesh, the average religious holiday is about 2 weeks.
The two regions that have religious extremism in Nigeria are the North and the South-East. If there is goodness in religion, we will see it in these regions.
What do we see? In the South East, we see violence, kidnappings, ritual killings and fake manufacturing of drinks and drugs that the good Christians there produced for their neighbors.
Every morning in Aba, Onitsha and the environs, the good Christians wake up early to prepare a poison that will be unknowingly consumed by their neighbors for a fee. Did Jesus teach that? In the North, violence, human trafficking, child abuse, child marriages and religious killings, raping and kidnappings that numbs the mind. This is what religion breeds.
Every Friday morning in Kano, Kaduna and Sokoto, the “good” Muslims lay their praying mats on the road oblivious to traffic and start praying. The road is blocked and others cannot engage in their activities of daily living. At the end, they rise up and sacrifice Deborah Samson to their Allah. Any person who challenges this barbaric behavior is subjected to vigilante justice. Is this what Mohammed taught them? Jesus actually referred to this kind of people as the Pharisees. Why do I have to know you are praying? Why is it necessary to obstruct my movement because you are praying? This is nothing but an exercise of power.
Religion is the devil but the priest has been able to convince their gullible and ignorant followers that the opposite is true. Most of the religionists in Nigeria will say they love God but will not blink as they kill their fellow man in the name of God.
From what is happening in Nigeria, it will be difficult for any of these religious gooks to convince me that they are not working for the devil. At times like this, I am beginning to think of Tom Payne, my Idol. If God is capable of these atrocities, then the devil has nothing else to do. The devil should join the Church or mosque and do what the devil does best: Destruction.
What I try to emphasize in my writing is that at this time in our history, we have to learn to live together as black people. If we aspire to become the hope of the Black World, we must learn to have allegiance to each other. It is difficult to do so now because the colonizers left their Trojan horses of religion which we have fashioned into Molotov cocktails to haul at each other every now and then.
We must learn to love each other. We don’t have to like each other but we can develop the capacity to evolve a society where our laws prevent us from hurting each other. The religions that are creating these divisions are imported and are tools the colonizer used to make us pliant for servitude.
We need to learn how to remove these barriers that were created by those who came into our land for conquest. This needs the art of diplomacy and time. We have to understand we need each other to survive. Things will change when we start seeing ourselves in each other.
Europe lived through a period where they were intolerant of each other and the continent is gradually resuming some semblance of civility towards each other. The world war was actually intertribal and religious wars. Kosovo is still almost a war zone with animosities but life is getting better.
This is where I fault the proponents of Biafra. The quickness in which they want to resolve issues with violence or war is akin to people who have no experience with the devastation war brings. They are quick to issue ultimatums and engage in kinetic actions that will rally an opponent against them. This bellicosity and lack of diplomacy is due to the fact their societies never engaged in many wars as a nation, where serious thought is given to the consequences of losing. They made this mistake in the Nigerian civil war and they are at it again.
The Oyo Empire was one of the bloodiest empires in West Africa. The fall of the Oyo Empire led to the wholesale enslavement of the Yoruba people. The Yoruba people are the largest enslaved tribe in Africa. From Brazil to Suriname Cuba, the Yoruba language and religion are the norm. This devastation had an effect on the Oyo Empire and they learned from it.
This is the reason why the Yoruba people are very diplomatic about thorny issues. They have been accused of being tricky. They learned a lot from their history and a Yoruba man will never beat his chest to a man who has an AK 47 pointing to his chest. If a Yoruba man decides to go to war, I will not have many questions to ask before I join because I know he has deliberated about everything and he has no other choice and I know he will win because he also understands the opposition.
When Nnamdi Kanu threatens a Buhari who is a President, Kanu assumes that Buhari is an idiot because of Igbo man’s arrogance and limited education. Where is Kanu today? Buhari could have eliminated Kanu in Nairobi if that was his mission. His mission was to arrest and prosecute him. Notwithstanding his theatrics, Nnamdi should thank Buhari for not murdering him in Nairobi or through a calculated plane crash. He should learn that a good leader is not a blood thirsty vagabond who issues orders to kill people at will. He should respect our courts and follow the due process of trial.
Those who are asking America to invade Nigeria have the same infantile thinking. They think Trump will drop the bombs, the Muslims will disappear and they will have their Biafra and everything is over. This naivety led to the colossal failure of Ojukwu and the Igbos still call him the people general.
Please turn the page. It is titled the “Day After “ For some reasons, the Biafrans don’t know that their book of dreams has a next page. Ojukwu forgot that page too. “After Biafra lost, they blamed everyone but themselves. The people who rejected the advice of Nnamdi Azikiwe, a seasoned statesman for the bellicosity of a renegade now tell us it was other people’s fault.
Warriors don’t brag about battles. They don’t even show us their scars. They leave that for amateurs who have never seen widows and orphans. Hitler tried it the second time and the results were the same and more devastating. It is not necessary to repeat a class if all lessons are learned.
My submission is that we should learn diplomacy. The making of a nation requires this. Those who negotiate on behalf of their people should always avoid the temptation to think their adversary is an idiot.
America has not given us creative leaders lately. They have become used to antiseptic wars. Donald Trump coming to Africa to save Christian sounds like a 419 proposition for the racist religious right of America. He doesn’t need to spend much effort to destroy Nigeria or kill those causing the problem.
Let’s be more creative. He should tell Nigeria he is dropping 20 billion dollars in Lokoja for Christians and Muslims to share equally. He should then sit and wait. All the Muslims and Christians will arrive with their swords and AK 47. There will be a holy war as each side tries to claim this loot. The only ones who will be left alive are Nigerians who didn’t believe the story and those who have not been converted or sent away by their priests because they are not real Muslims or Christians. The Catholics will ask for confessions before any one is allowed to join the broil. By morning, America can walk in and take the rare earths and minerals without firing a shot . They can collect their money from the pockets of all the dead Christians and Muslims who were engaged in a jihad.
Where are the good Christians in Nigeria? They have been raptured. Where are the Muslims? They are in paradise with their 72 virgins. Religion has always been a lie, a big lie. Religion is an intoxicant invented by men of power. This intoxicant is the greatest purveyor of violence and cruelty in our world. The exceptions don’t make the rules. Prove me wrong.
What is so holy about a war that God has to take sides? If America defeats Nigeria tomorrow, does it mean America was right and God was on their side? No, they have better intelligence and technology. God wasn’t the referee.
DR AUSTIN ORETTE WRITES FROM HOUSTON, TEXAS
UNEASY NEIGHBOURS AND THE BIAFRA DIALOGUE PART 4 BY DR AUSTIN ORETTE
“Everyone should be called to account. Let us go door to door to ask about what we did here. If the father is gone, let us ask the sons about the sins of their fathers “Anonymous
As I research into this series of uneasy neighbors, I am astounded by what Nigerians have glossed over in order to appease the Biafrans. Private Citizens showed their fidelity by giving the Igbo people back the rent they collected from the houses they left. There is nowhere in the world where a rebel faction of a nation has been thoroughly reintegrated and rehabilitated like we have done for the Igbo people who returned from Biafra.
Nigeria gave assistance to the Igbo people. Nigeria reinstated all the Biafra soldiers who fought against the Nigeria side and paid them arrears of three years. This means while they were fighting against Nigeria, we were bankrolling their insurgency. This means Nigeria actually paid the Biafran soldiers who invaded, killed and destroyed properties in the Midwest Region. They were officially reinstated and their salaries and pensions paid.
Did Nigeria consider any payment to the family of those that were killed and maimed by the unjustified invasion of the Midwest Region by the Biafrans? What did we do to warrant the invasion and occupation of the Midwest region that led to the Biafra invasion? What did we do to the invasion that caused a lot of destruction and loss of lives and properties? All the civil servants in the East were paid their arrears. No person who organized this revolt was punished because Nigeria wanted to hold up to the spirit of No victor, no vanquished.
The Midwest understood this as the price they have to pay for Nigeria’s unity. No one compensated us and we were left to bury our own dead. We did not ask for war. Biafra brought war to our doorstep and we bled and no one helped us to tend to our wounded and we buried our dead alone.
If you ask the Igbo about their rapid re-entry, they will tell you that it is due to their hard work and Igbo ingenuity. If the opposite happened or they experienced a setback, they will say the Nigerian system is rigged against the Igbo man.
I am yet to come across any Igbo who shows gratitude for the opportunity of renewal and revaluation that Nigeria gave them. They are angry when they succeed and when they lose, they look for someone to blame. They always tell us the Nigerian factor was designed to stop the Igbo man.
Nigerians are patient people. I am beginning to see that the patience of Nigerians is running out as they are finding out that the Igbo people lack calibration of hubris and they are no longer tolerating the bully tactics of the Igbo people. Nigeria does not belong to them. They can go to Biafra and bellyache but I worry about the geography.
Great America never extended this kind of olive branch to the south that initiated and lost the American civil war. It took America about a hundred years to elect a president from the South in the name of LB. Johnson. His election was accidental after the assassination of JFK. The officers of the Confederacy were made to sign an oath of allegiance before their citizenship could be restored.
Robert Lee who was the President of the confederacy could not restore his citizenship before he died. The reason was that he misplaced his documents for the oath of allegiance and could not find the papers before he fell sick. He died in October 1870. His citizenship was restored posthumously by President Gerald Ford in 1975, almost a hundred years after he died.
What about the breakaway region of Chechnya in Russia? Did the Russians get into appeasement politics with that breakaway Republic? The answer is no. Thirty years after the genocide in Rwanda, the authors of the Rwanda genocide of 1994 are still being prosecuted. Can any Hutu person justify the genocide and start a movement for genocide?
This show of civility by Nigerians to Igbo has been misconstrued by them as signs of weakness. Instead of nurturing good neighborliness, we have inadvertently turned them into bullies in the Nigerian landscape.
Nnamdi Kanu by his actions is telling us we were wrong for the war that was started by his Igbo brother. This is the action of a bully. Nothing can placate a bully. As a Nigerian, I refuse to be bullied. Enough is enough. Gradually, he is rewriting the story of the Nigerian civil war where the Nigerian is the villain and the Igbo people are innocent victims. Ojukwu is his hero. The Igbo telling us we hate them is a psychological projection of the hate they have for Nigeria and the good people of this great country. They have no sense of history. The lack of any punishment makes the Igbo people think that the declaration of Biafra is a trivial issue.
Nothing was asked of the Igbo people after the war. They came back into Nigeria as if nothing happened and they have handed revisionist history to their children who want to carry out the same scenarios because nothing happened to the likes of Ojukwu. Is our sovereignty a joke? No person’s compass should point to Biafra when he is making his billions in Nigeria.
Nigeria elected an Igbo to the vice presidency in the person of Dr Alex Ekwueme in 1979, just ten years after the Nigerian civil war. Four years later, the leader of the rebellion was pardoned and immediately ran for the senate. If he was not defeated by his own people, he would have become a senator in a country he was dismembering less than 15 years prior. Nothing was asked of him. He never spent a day in jail. A writer spent more than three years in jail, but the architect of the blood bath paraded Nigeria as a hero. This is abnormal and the Igbo people think that this abnormal situation warrants the concept of abnormal citizenship by having double allegiance, one to Biafra and another to Nigeria.
His main antagonist in his campaign was Chief Christian Cukwuma Onoh, a renowned Enugu lawyer. He promised to bury Ojukwu because he knew where all the skeletons were buried. There is nothing greater that can stand between two antagonists than a beautiful woman. Bianca Ojukwu is CC Onoh’s daughter. Both men buried the hatchet and Bianca Ojukwu is a celebrated Nigerian ambassador today. She has represented Nigeria very well.
The Igbo people were re-assimilated so quickly that we all heaved a sigh of relief that we as a people, we are healing and we are on the move with our usual aches and pains. Nothing was asked of them. No one asked them about rededication of their allegiance to Nigeria. This is why they think their crime against Nigeria is trivial. Due to lack of strict entry rules such as Nigeria citizenship, the Biafrans have taken Nigerians’ generosity as weakness and folly. They will not let the wounds of war heal. They are always picking at the scab. They took advantage of the Biafran propaganda machine that was not dismantled after the war. Gradually, subterranean complaints of marginalization were being murmured. We were under the military and there was strife everywhere.
Just after four years of that civilian dispensation, the civilian government was overthrown and we were back to square one, listening to guttural orders from semi illiterate soldiers whose only claim to fame is the ability to shoot a gun. Nigerians recoiled back into their dark room to witness another decade of military misrule. When the Nation reverted back to representative democracy, we had another military general with no clue at the helm. We did not know we had a constitution. He wanted a third term and made any one who opposed disappear. People like Okadigbo were victims. Okadigbo dared to challenge Mr. Obasanjo for killing anything that moves in the village of Odi in the Niger Delta. An Igbo man shed tears for those of us in the Niger Delta who have always borne the brutality of Caesar’s whip and oppression.
What happened to the Okadigbos of Igbo land ? Our agitation continued and Yar’Adua became president. For the first time, someone looked into the plight of our communities in the Niger Delta and started a process that will rehabilitate the youths and curb the environmental degradation. There was amnesty and the youth laid down their arms to participate in finding solutions to the perennial neglect of the Niger Delta. I thought my nation would eventually heal if dialogue is pursued and adhoc military solutions are jettisoned. I can say there is progress in the Niger Delta today but we have a long way to go. Unfortunately Mr YarAdua died and Jonathan became the inheritor of the throne. He paid attention to the amnesty but since it wasn’t his original design, a lot of funds were frittered away. The administration of Goodluck Jonathan was different in one regard. About 75 % of the cabinet of Goodluck Jonathan was Igbo people. They were eminently qualified and he was good to the South-East. They even renamed him Azikiwe. At this time, we thought our neighbors were our brothers. There was no agitation for Biafra and there was no revisionist history of Biafra. There was an individual running a Biafra money raising stint at the time. His grift was paying off very well and he had no need to increase his amplitude and become confrontational as he was making enough for his keep. Then Buhari came and suddenly those of us in the Niger Delta became the frontal states that prevented Biafra.
We have seen signs of this before but the kaleidoscopic mirage of the Sani Abacha years did not give us the room to analyze the insults that were poured on Ken Saro Wiwa . We thought we all agreed to “no victor, no vanquished “. An individual who was pardoned for heading a rebellion openly derided the relatives of Ken Saro Wiwa that they made their bed and they should lay on it. This was a bridge too far and the hate is real. From then on, there was a catalogue of scenarios in which new proponents of Biafra started using our position during the war as a barometer of their cooperation with us. If there is a pipeline fire accident that incinerates a village in the Niger Delta, there is schadenfreude in Biafra.
During the brutal years of Abacha when everyone west of Niger was in danger, the proponents of Biafra were ensconced in Abacha’s regime. It was the best time for them. There was no Biafra agitation and no one envied them of their new fame and opportunity to be Abacha’s court jesters. They made a lot of money from their gig. Old ties and military camaraderie brought Ojukwu to the front and center of policy making. This is the time a lot of people like Peter Obi made their money by running Abacha’s errands. Most people west of Niger have gone into exile due to the June 12 agitation. We had Radio Kudirat. Tinubu, Wole Soyinka, Pa Enahoro and a host of prominent politicians were in exile and were actively looking for solutions to the Nigerian military usurpation of power. Tinubu was one of the financiers who used his money to finance the struggle against military dictatorship in Nigeria. Kudirat died, Abacha died, Abiola and host other prominent politicians in Nigeria were assassinated. Rewane was murdered. Attempts were made on Alex Ibru’s life. He was seriously wounded. This was Nigeria at that time where an ex-rebel who was pardoned used his old military ties to settle scores with Ken Saro Wiwa. When the Ogoni people complained about this, the Igbo people told them it was Abacha who murdered Ken Saro Wiwa and they should complain to Abacha. Pontius Pilate may have signed the death warrant but the high priests can never wash away the stains.
Buhari became president and the cry for Biafra became more ferocious. Nnamdi Kanu ascended the helm and he needed to crank up the decibel and he did. He poured his vitriol on those neighbors who did not support Biafra. He reorganized and made money beyond his wildest dreams. He started a brigade of people de-marketing Nigeria in the Western countries. According to him, nothing good can come out of Nigeria. The more vitriol he made against Nigeria, the more money he made. His outrageous claims against Nigeria and neighboring minorities became monumental. Nigeria became a zoo. The people of Niger Delta who did not support Biafra secession caught the brunt of his eyes. More money poured in and nothing could exceed the bounds of decency. Sooner than later, his revisionist history became the substantive history of the Biafra secession. Nigerians became villains that perpetrated genocide against the innocent people who were minding their business. They became very successful and Nigerians in their jealous rage rounded them up for genocide. He roused up the Igbo youths, who were unborn then, and they became filled with anger and resentment and they enlisted in his Biafran army which is terrorizing the East today. He turned every political disagreement to the hatred of the Igbo people. Wary Nigerians did know how to reply to this new threat because they have forgotten the history that brought us to our present Palouse position, where we have become pariahs everywhere. There was no push back. Before we knew it, Nnamdi Kanu had raised an army that punishes anyone in Igbo land who will say anything contrary to his phantom stories. He formed Biafra chapters all over the World. He actually told his followers to influence the politics of world powers. He told his people to donate and vote for the racist president of America, Donald Trump. The M15 and Mossad started aping up their activities in Nigeria. Suddenly Israel originally denied that the Igbo people are not the lost tribe of Israel tried to reverse their tune in order to use these Biafrans as their foot hold in Nigeria and Africa when they were denied admission to the AU. He created more unrest in the South East. He was arrested. The rest of the story is still unfolding. Throughout his activities, his main theme is that the Igbo man is oppressed in Nigeria. There was no singular Igbo leader that opposed his ridiculous assertions. Even Senators from the South East started quoting him. When you ask them why they think the Igbo man is oppressed, they will tell you, it is because no Igbo man has been made president. If this were not true, it would be laughable. Prominent Igbo politicians will mount the rostrum and say that only Igbo people can unite Nigeria. What arrant nonsense. These are people who could not unite with their minority neighbours for common values of coexistence telling us they have the elixir of unity. When was the last time you saw an Igbo people unite with anyone who is not Igbo? Wherever they are, there is no peace? They tell us Nigerians who are wary of them are Igbophobic. Are South Africans Igbophobic? Are Ghanaians Igbophobic? What about the American in Dallas who threw out an Igbo organization from his hotel and perpetually banned them from doing business with his hotel? Is the man Igbophobic? For three years, the hotel has hosted them. There is no year where those meetings didn’t end without a fight and the police called. He had had enough and told them never again. Not all money is good money. You be the judge.
My nation Nigeria is gradually succumbing to the emotional blackmail of the Igbo people by making them think that there is a scenario where their uncouth behavior can force us to make an Igbo man the president. The only scenario I can see for any Igbo to be president is to be a patriotic Nigerian.
Are the South-East patriotic Nigerians? Anyone who will agitate for the unconditional release of Nnamdi Kanu is not a patriotic Nigerian. His loyalty is to Biafra and is not qualified to be president of Nigeria. No one who aspires to lead Nigeria should have double loyalty. In the last election, almost 99% of the Igbos voted for Obi. This means they voted because of one criterion only. Obi is Igbo. That is all they needed to know, nothing more, nothing less. An Igbo leader will mount a rostrum and tell us that only Ndigbo can unite Nigeria. Can you imagine if a Yoruba or Fulani man mounts the podium and says only a Yoruba or Fulani person can rule Nigeria. When Tinubu said it was my turn, they wanted to crucify him. Tinubu did not say it was the turn of Yoruba. He said it was his turn considering what he has achieved, sacrificed and his personal preparation for the office he is seeking. The Igbo people will go gaga. They have no history of peaceful coexistence with any one, even with themselves.
I am an Isoko man. Can I say I am being deprived because an Isoko man has not become the president of Nigeria? Why do Igbo people think the Presidency is a right of any particular ethnic group? This is what we are fighting, to disabuse the Fulani people of this arrogant thought process .The presidency is a privilege accorded a few people in any federation. The last time an Igbo was president; the Igbo people overthrew that government and threw the country into a state of confusion, consternation and war.
It took America almost a hundred years to get to a civil war. The Igbo people pushed Nigeria into civil war in less than six years after independence. At the rate the Biafra agitators are going, we may end up with another war before Nigeria’s one hundred years of independence. It is very unhealthy for any group of people to have this view of leadership. This is the reason why Nigeria should be restructured. If the Igbo people think this way, this gives them the angst and impetus to disorganize our polity. No one should succumb to this kind of ethnic chauvinism and emotional blackmail.
We should restructure Nigeria. This should be our priority. The Igbo people are going to continue to be unruly neighbors since they have misinformed their people about the history that brought Nigeria to this precipice. Their actions are beginning to tear at the seams of civilized conduct. They want to resolve every misunderstanding with subterfuge that tears down the glue of fellowship.
The Niger Delta is very capable of being on our own. No one should blackmail us into surrendering leadership to those whose actions have betrayed the very nation they want to lead. This is very confusing. Nigerians are no fools. We cannot surrender the leadership of Nigeria to any group of people who are ambivalent about their citizenship of this great country. I want these agitations to stop so we can continue the work of nation building which is being made very difficult by these hostile neighbors called Biafra. I don’t want a war. Sooner or later, we may be forced to push Biafra out. You cannot be Biafran and aspire to lead Nigeria in any capacity. This emotional blackmail and revisionist history must stop. No group of people has the right to predicate their Nigerian citizenship to the president being a member of their tribe. We must punish people who commit treason against Nigeria. The failure to punish Ojukwu and other leaders of the Biafran Rebellion is what has given the impetus to people like Nnamdi Kanu to imitate Ojukwu and carry out another rebellion. Lack of enforcement of our laws shows we are not serious with our sovereignty.
Let us restructure Nigeria as a matter of urgency so that those who want to exit the federation like the Igbo people can leave. Our building of a nation must go beyond infantile tantrums.
Take the case of the Republic of Texas. Texas gained independence from Mexico in 1836. It was a country of its own until 1845 when it joined the Union as the 28th state of the United States. Due to its peculiar history, Texas is actually run like a country and a lot of Texans have nostalgia for their old country. They have their anthems and their coins and other memorabilia they are very proud of. The annual budget of Texas is about 340 billion. They have their own flag and they have a bicameral legislature which comprises a Senate and a House of Representatives. Due to this wealth, a lot of Texas feels it will be better to secede from the US instead of remaining in the union and continue subsidizing nonproductive states. This is their running joke until 1995 when Mr. McLaren with his separatist group declared the Republic of Texas in 1995 , in Rural west Texas and started collecting Taxes and extorting the citizens in those areas.
Just like Nnamdi was doing in Igbo land. Mr. McLaren and his accomplice were arrested and tried. They were sentenced to 99 years in jail without parole. This is how serious other societies deal with the subject of treason. There are no tribal people going to plead on behalf of McLaren. Those pleading leniency for Nnamdi Kanu because of his tribal affiliations have violated the sacred duty of a citizen. They have no loyalty to Nigeria. This is how I see the Biafran Agitation. For the people agitating for another country to think they can at the same time run for the highest office in Nigeria is beyond pardon. Give them their Biafra and they can all go to Biafra and become president. We are Nigerians.
DR AUSTIN ORETTE WRITES FROM HOUSTON, TEXAS
IGBO, THORNY SITUATIONS AND ARROGANCE AS STATE FLAG BY DR AUSTIN ORETTE
Two sets of people settled in the Anambra-Imo River Basin. The dominant empire in the region at that time was the Benin Empire whose influence spread from present day Edo state to Republic of Benin in the West and Onitsha in the East.
The Nris were the first group of Igbo people that moved into the Imo River Basin. They are known to be highly spiritual and were involved in mathematics and astronomy. It is reported they are from the Nile valley civilization. They were peaceful.
Later on, the Aros arrived and invaded the Region. The Aros were warlike and had no time for finesse of royal courts. Their ethics were situational. They are described as coming from Northern Benin. This could mean castaway from the Benin kingdom and others from the Tiv area of present-day Nigeria. They were mainly involved in catching slaves for the Portuguese in the Niger Delta area. They conquered Nris and sold a lot of them to the Portuguese. They had no official rule of conduct. Their incessant incursion into the Benin Empire on behalf of the Portuguese led to the Benin Empire invading them twice. They created a lot of havoc in the present-day Niger Delta because they played the role of slave catchers for the Portuguese. Their activities and other internal factors led to the weakness of the Benin kingdom that was exploited by the British for colonization.
From the aforesaid, our great grandparents never had any cordial relations with Igbo because any dealings with the Aros led to enslavement. In Isoko language, the name for a slave is Origbo. This means someone who has been captured by the Igbo people.
A lot of the tribes in the Niger Delta have this history when they talk of their relationship with Igbo. So, it is very confusing when an Igbo person says Isoko is Igbo. We have history. Our people got along very well with Nris. As times moved on, we could not differentiate those Aros who occupied the Anambra basin and the Nris who occupied Mbaise and other parts of Imo State today. Our great grandparents believed that all the atrocities in Igboland today are caused by the remnants of the Aros who have no respect for civilized conduct. This is as far as they could define the essential Igbo person of today.
With the risk of running afoul of historical folklore, most of the scholars in Igboland tend to be from the Imo axis. Those who tend to go into politics and non-intellectual pursuits tend to be from the Anambra basin. This is a subject that should need further studies.
If we assume that the majority of those who participate in politics and business are not Nris, then you can see that the Igbo people have achieved more in scholarship than in politics. So, it can be seen that a lot of decisions that have resulted in shortchanging Igbo people were made without scholarly input.
From the outside, you will wonder why people who credit themselves with so much wisdom always choose the worst options in times of crisis. The scenario is that there is a crisis, and the loudest person gets his way and disaster ensues. At the end, the Igbo people blame the onlooker for the bad outcome. Due to the lack of options, their politics is insular and excommunicates anyone with a contrary view. They find it difficult to work with others who are not Igbo because of their siege mentality. This has led to the retardation of their politics and business ventures.
The present cry for Biafra is actually a symptom of a disorganized polity. I have never seen a situation where a businessman will fight to decrease his market size. That is what Igbo people are doing when they orchestrate Biafra. They are willing to leave a market of 200 million people to ensconce themselves in a market of about forty million people. The corollary is when Joseph Kennedy tried to tolerate Hitler. He lost favor with the American people. To be fair to him, he was thinking like a businessman. He felt Hitler will see reason and as such there should not be war so businesses can go on and let the diplomats straighten the rough edges. That is the way most businessmen tend to think. They don’t want to rock the boat, because violence is not good for business.
When this corollary is applied to the Igbo people, they fall short. They always ask for war before negotiations. This should be the opposite because when you lose a war, you no longer have leverage. This is Nnamdi Kanu’s story and a lot of Igbo people are willing to hook their wagon to his fate. There is no day that goes without someone on YouTube tying the fortunes of the Igbo people to that of Nnamdi Kanu. We have seen this movie before and the Igbo people are rewriting the sequel which makes them the villains and us the victims.
Can Nnamdi Kanu win an election in Igboland? The answer is No. Why are they making him a martyr? It is possible they need someone as a unifying factor. For someone to be a unifying factor, his story must be sympathetic to people outside the group. It is a failure to seek collaboration with others that always make Igbo politics difficult. The few times I have seen Nnamdi Kanu in court did not endear him to me. He was imperious and abusive towards his lawyers. His actions in court made me question the sanity of those who take instruction from him as a leader.
Before anyone will say he is being persecuted, they should also know that Mr Orkah who was vandalizing pipelines in Niger Delta is serving his jail term in South Africa. No one in Niger delta or Ijaw land considers him a martyr. We understand he broke the law and he was tried and convicted. The only thing we can do is render help to him and rehabilitate him when he is released. This is what is expected.
Instead of doing this, the Igbo people will make him a cause to celebrate. This is the problem. We have been here before and it led us to a civil war. The civil war could have been avoided. The actors like Nnamdi were young and thought that war was a predictable event. If negotiations had continued, those who caused the pogrom could have been brought to justice and those affected could have been massively compensated. Those who were in charge then thought they knew it all and also were being goaded by emotional subterfuge of the aggrieved. No one challenged those who were beating the drums of war. The first salvo was Nnamdi telling us he is going to Abuja with a million Biafra and he will return to Igboland with the head of Buhari. This amateur is making enlightened citizens in Igboland to grovel before him and have become emotionally suffused.
They should remember that this sequel will play out to their disadvantage if they don’t manage it well. I say this to make history come to life.
The Nigeria of today is the creation of the Igbo people. They drew the first blood. All other actions that ensued were a reaction to the initial injury. It was Ojukwu who arrested Isaac Boro for seceding. Why was Niger Delta secession not good and Biafra secession good?
We must calibrate our hubris. A perusal of the history we share should give us the humility to engage each other to unravel thorny situations that are created by those who use arrogance as a state flag.
DR AUSTIN ORETTE WRITES FROM HOUSTON TEXAS
UNEASY NEIGHBOURS AND THE BIAFRA DIALOGUES BY DR AUSTIN ORETTE
Lately, there have been eruption of kings and kingdoms of the Igbo people all over Nigeria and other parts of the world. If these occurrences were not being normalized, they will be easy to ignore.
Some months ago, I wrote that the two tribes militating against Nigeria progress are the Fulani and the Igbo. From the surface, they look different but their core ideology is the same.
I wrote a five part essay on how the Fulani people achieved their dominance of Nigeria. They used Religion. They are colonizers and they only want to be Nigerians if they are in charge.
The Igbo people only want to be in Nigeria if they are in charge. The South-East people want to achieve the same thing by using commerce and psychological warfare. Where the Fulani people are quiet, the Igbo people are haughty. You can hear their steps many miles away. The Fulani people are austere while the Igbo people are opposite. They tell you they are the best and without them Nigeria cannot move on. They will engage in de-marketing campaigns to prove their point.
Nnamdi Kanu started by declaring Nigeria a zoo. His acolytes took his campaign against Nigeria to a higher level where they will make fictitious gory films about Nigeria. They pumped negative news about Nigeria into the blogosphere. Most of the negative stories against Nigeria overseas are a well oil propaganda machine by the Biafrans. Nigeria is bad because the Igbo people are not in charge. While the Fulani will plot a comeback, the Igbo would settle for blackmail that they are being marginalized. They will not make any effort to collaborate with others to contest for power. They think power will be surrendered to them by blackmail and harassment of their irregular forces under the control of Nnamdi Kanu.
The recent proliferation of kingship in Igbo land, Nigerian and overseas is part of this agenda. They will cry victim and the world will come to their support. This behavior has confirmed the fact that the Igbo people have no respect for the rights of their hosts.
From Dallas to Lagos and China to Pakistan, they want to set up a kingdom and undermine their host. If this were not a threat to innocent Nigerians, it would not be a thing. This behavior has made many folks to distant themselves from Nigerians as they cannot tell who is who. These kingdoms have been associated with a high level of predation. This elephant in the room is too big to ignore. All politics, they say ends at the water’s edge. This means that whatever division we have at home should stay at home as we cross the seas as Nigerians to foreign lands. In this way, we subsume our local identity for the national identity. Igbo people have refused to do since the end of the civil war. Igbo nationalism became the norm after the civil war. Nigerians have been reluctant to push back because we don’t want anything to remind us of the bitter past. This lack of push back is a mistake that has led the proponents of Biafra to preach the rightness of their cause. Any attempt to tell the real history of the conflict is met with revisionist history where every Nigerian becomes a villain and cannot muster any argument to challenge the aggressiveness and unwarranted provocation of the Igbo. They have managed to spread lies and innuendo to obfuscate the reasons for our present discontent. The generation of Igbo people who were alive during Biafra handed lies to their children who now look at Nigeria with anger and bitterness. Their most popular lie is that all Igbo people were stripped of their wealth, genocide was committed against them and they were given twenty pounds at the end of the civil war. With that twenty pounds in their pocket, they used the Igbo ingenuity to create massive wealth in a Nigeria that hates and discriminates against them.
This HORATIO Algiers story is something only children will believe. This is the story the Igbo people believe. Since these children grew up, there was no counter narrative of the Nigerian civil war. Nigerian children consumed this history and they also became uninformed and they have been unwittingly made villains in this macabre dance. This is the history that made people like Nnamdi Kanu. This revisionist history is what they use as propaganda against the Nigerian state. This is the source of their righteous indignation against the Nigerian state. They started preaching Biafra with the authority of ignorance. Due to this ignorance, a lot of Nigerians did not know how to react to these new proponents of Biafra who have gradually adopted psychological warfare tactics. Any attempt to correct any lies by these groups is labeled Igbophobia. In order not to be cast with this label, a lot of opinion leaders ceded the discussion to this uninformed Nnamdi generation of Igbo people who started running wild in Igbo land. By the time the authorities knew what was happening, Nnamdi Kanu had a full-fledged army and a Biafran passport for his followers. He started declaring holidays and punishing anyone in Igbo land who opened their shops or violated their criminal directives.
This was the failure of the government of Nigeria to secure the peace at the end of the Nigerian civil war. If the leaders of the Biafran rebellion had been punished, a matter of reason will not be toyed with by anyone who knew of the damage that war did to Nigeria.
Nnamdi Kanu was placed under house arrest but he escaped back to London where he resumed his position as the Commander in Chief of the Biafran Army. He gave orders and they were carried out in Igboland. His activities became far reaching that those elected to govern became his subordinates in Igbo land. This is why you don’t see any prominent Igbo person who can vociferously challenge Nnamdi Kanu’s rebellion. The naive and uninformed Igbo people have made him their messiah and they have been donating generously to set up this Biafran state.
He was arrested for the second time in Kenya and brought to Nigeria for trial. Unfortunately for our nation, we don’t know how to compartmentalize crimes. The trial of Nnamdi Kanu should have been a criminal trial that should not take so much time or attention of Mr. President.
This is Nigeria where a criminal was made a martyr due to unnecessary political intervention. Instead of being tried and sentenced, we now cede decisions to the political arena. This is wrong. An unrepentant criminal will repeat his crime. His deputy was arrested and convicted in Finland within six months. The Finish people care about justice, they did not care about being labeled Igbophobia. Justice was dispensed. From the court proceedings, the criminality involved in these Biafran activities could not be denied. Sam Ekpa was convicted.
Where are the Igbo people who are opposed to this criminality? Why are they so quiet? They cannot talk because Nnamdi Kanu controls the foot soldiers that dispense justice without mercy in Igboland. Nnamdi is the product of Nigerians lackadaisical attitudes towards nationhood. This is what happens when a Nation refuses to punish those who try to dismember it. Surreptitiously groups like that of Nnamdi Kanu have been undermining Nigeria. They have used psychological tactics of labeling any opposition as Igbophobia. Well-meaning Nigerians have succumbed to this emotional blackmail. This has led to the paralysis of analysis of the struggles of the average Igboman in Igboland. The insecurity that the Biafrans created is what has led to the emptying of Igboland as people are fleeing from the South-East geo-political zone due to insecurity.
The more people flee, the more they aggregate in some locales. It is okay to settle in new places. That is the story of man. What I find disturbing about these new Igbo settlers is their propensity to set up the Igbo kingdom anywhere they go. We have never seen this kind of Igbo nationalism at this level. What is happening in Igboland? There was no monarchy or central governing system in Igbo history. Why the rush to become kings in other peoples land? Why do Igbo people think it is okay for them to set up their kingdom in another man’s kingdom? An action like this is considered an act of war in some climes. To be a king, you have to conquer the territory. Two kings cannot rule one domain? These actions have not been challenged in Nigeria and a lot of Igbo people think they can take this behavior overseas. It is obvious they were not prepared for the fireworks that come with such proclamation. This confirms that the Igbo people had no monarchy in their history? If they did, they would understand that there is a lot of bloodletting on the way to royalty.
In the past, I said Igbo complained most about tribalism. My observation is that Igbo are the most tribalistic people in Nigeria. It is this tribal propensity that makes them want to set up a tribal hegemony anywhere they find themselves.
Why is it necessary to tell an Isoko man that his ancestors are Igbo when all the historical facts are contrary? Why is it necessary to tell an Ikwere man that he is denying his Igbo ancestry? It is rude for an Igboman to tell an Isoko or Itsekiri that their lineage is from Igboland. This is a direct assault on the history of these people. The claims by Igbo are becoming so absurd that they stress credulity.
Recently an Igbo man on YouTube said they were in Ile Ife before the Yoruba people arrived. How can you expect Yoruba people to take you seriously with these kinds of outlandish proclamations? So many unsubstantiated and outlandish remarks have been made by Igbo scholars that we don’t know what to believe anymore. The Igbo people claim they are the lost tribe of Israel. There is no DNA evidence in this regard. The farthest East their DNA went is the Bantu tribes of the Congo. The people in the Horn of Africa have direct lineage to Palestine. They don’t use that as a bragging right.
From the above, I am beginning to see that the Igbo people are still in the tribal stage of development where tribal identity is paramount for survival. Most of the other tribes in Nigeria came from empires and have shed the tribal cocoon that is necessary to form a nation. So it is easier for them to adapt to their new realities.
The Igbo people are still at a stage where they are trying to form a nation from their disparate tribes. This process was interrupted by the colonialists. It is possible the Benin Empire could have conquered and annexed Igbo land if the British did not invade the empire. Forming a country is a union of Nations. The Benin Empire, the Oyo Empire and the Kanem Bornu Empire, Mali Empire and others were the nations within the Nigerian space. The Igbo people were just a group of disparate tribes that have not become a nation at the arrival of the colonialists. The present struggles are the attempts by people to hold on to an identity in a changing world. This is the atavism we see today. If the Igbo people succeed in having their Biafra, they will still negotiate these intricacies in order to form a united Biafra. These painful negotiations require patience and diplomacy. These are the kind of experiences they need instead of using bellicosity as a tool of diplomacy.
DR AUSTIN ORETTE WRITES FROM HOUSTON, TEXAS
FG, NLC ON WARPATH OVER NATIONAL THEATRE UNVEILING
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Monday vowed to deplore every lawful tool at its disposal, including full mobilization, protests, and industrial action to return staff to the rehabilitated National Theatre and restore dignified working conditions.
‘’The NLC wishes to let you know that this is not just about physical working conditions but about our workers dignity, rights and the preservation of Nigeria’s cultural heritage’’.
The NLC also demanded a public and transparent resolution of the crisis.
‘’Following the recent global media coverage of this matter, the Federal Government appointed a new Board Chairman, Mr. Disun Holloway, presumably to address longstanding issues. Regrettably, over three months after his appointment, he has yet to engage directly with staff or address their welfare. Rather, his tenure has been marked by secrecy, exclusion, and complete disregard for the plight of workers, who are left to operate in open-air conditions- literally- under trees. He enters and exits the premises through the back door, conducts closed door meetings with the General Manager/ CEO of the National Theatre, (Mrs. Tola Akerele), Central Bank Officials and members of The Banker’s Committee while excluding the most affected stakeholders, the staff’’.
In a letter to the Honourable Minister of Labour and Employment, the union urged the Federal Government to initiate open, inclusive stakeholders’ engagement regarding the use and administration of the National Theatre.
‘’I write to formally remind you of our earlier correspondence dated 21st May 2025 on the deeply degrading and unacceptable working conditions under which staff of the National Theatre, Lagos, have been forced to operate for an extended period. It is surprising that after 4 months of receipt of our correspondence, nothing has been done to improve workers welfare and working conditions’’.
The letter signed by NLC Chairman, Lagos State, Comrade Funmi Agnes Sessi called for transparency in the management of the facility, protection of jobs and keeping the commitment made by former Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who assured no job losses post-rehabilitation.
‘’The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) stands with the workers of the National Theatre in defending the future of the iconic edifice’’.
Titled: ‘’Deplorable working conditions at the National Theatre’’ the union said despite deep frustrations, the staff demonstrated commendable restraint and pursued due process, including: notification of the Office of the Governor of Lagos State via official correspondence, reaching out to the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity, informing the Inspector General of Police and Lagos State Commissioner of Police, engaging with the Ministry of Arts, Culture, Tourism, and Creative Economy and contacting the Central Bank of Nigeria
‘’Our efforts have yielded no tangible improvements, and the General Manager/CEO of the National Theatre remains either unwilling or unable to act’’.
The statement emphasized legal violations.
‘’The NLC wishes to remind you that the ongoing situation constitutes a clear violation of both international and national labour standards, including ILO Convention No. 190 and Nigeria Labour Act, Section 17.
“Every worker has the right to a safe and suitable working environment once they have presented themselves for duty.”
According to NLC, The National Theatre is a National Symbol and taxpayer-funded monument, not the private property of individuals or corporations.
‘’We will not allow it to be quietly handed over under the guise of Corporate Social Responsibility or any other veiled privatization tactics’’.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
FG, NLC on warpath over National Theatre
15th September, 2025
The Honourable Minister,
Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment
2nd Floor Federal Secretariat Complex,
Phase 1, Shehu Shagari Way,
FCT, Abuja.
RE: DEPLORABLE WORKING CONDITIONS AT THE NATIONAL THEATRE
I write to formally remind you of our earlier correspondence dated 21st May 2025 on the deeply degrading and unacceptable working conditions under which staff of the National Theatre, Lagos, have been forced to operate for an extended period.
It is surprising that after 4 months of receipt of our correspondence, nothing has been done to improve workers welfare and working conditions.
Following the recent global media coverage of this matter, the Federal Government appointed a new Board Chairman, Mr. Disun Holloway, presumably to address these longstanding issues.
Regrettably, over three (3) months after his appointment, he has yet to engage directly with staff or address our welfare rather, his tenure has been marked by secrecy, exclusion, and complete disregard for the plight of workers, who are left to operate in open-air conditions- literally- under trees.
He enters and exits the premises through the back door, conducts closed door meetings with the General Manager/ CEO of the National Theatre, (Mrs Tola Akerele), Central Bank Officials and members of The Banker’s Committee while excluding the most affected stakeholders- the staff.
OUR PATIENCE HAS LIMITS
Despite deep frustrations, the staff has demonstrated commendable restraint and pursued due process, including:
All of the above efforts have yielded no tangible improvements, and the General Manager/CEO of the National Theatre remains either unwilling or unable to act.
LEGAL VIOLATIONS
The NLC wishes to remind you that the ongoing situation constitutes a clear violation of both international and national labour standards, including: ILO Convention No. 190
Nigeria Labour Act, Section 17, which states:
“Every worker has the right to a safe and suitable working environment once they have presented themselves for duty.”
These rights have been consistently and grossly violated.
THE NATIONAL THEATRE: A MONUMENT FOR THE PEOPLE
The National Theatre is a National Symbol and taxpayer-funded monument, not the private property of individuals or corporations.
We will not allow it to be quietly handed over under the guise of Corporate Social Responsibility or any other veiled privatization tactics.
OUR DEMANDS
We are left with no choice but to issue a 14-day ultimatum to the Federal Government to:
1 immediately return staff to the rehabilitated National Theatre and restore dignified working conditions.
3 Ensure transparency in the management of the facility.
OUR RESOLVE
The NLC wishes to let you know that this is not just about physical working conditions but about our workers dignity, rights and the preservation of Nigeria’s cultural heritage.
We are prepared to deplore every lawful tool at our disposal, including full mobilization, protests, and industrial action.
The NLC Demands a public and transparent resolution of this crisis, and Stands with the workers of the National Theatre in defending the future of the iconic edifice.
Enough is Enough.
Comrade Funmi Agnes Sessi
NLC Chairman, Lagos State
CC:
HONOURABLE MINISTER, MINISTRY OF ARTS, CULTURE & CREATIVE ECONOMY
DIRECTOR, TRADE UNION SERVICES & INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS.
THE GOVERNOR, CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA.
COMMISSIONER OF POLICE, LAGOS STATE.
GM/CEO NATIONAL THEATRE
NEC NATIONAL ABUJA.
AUCPTRE
RATTAWU
The Alliance for Good Governance (AGG), a non-governmental organization has appealed to President Bola Tinubu to look into the issue of backlog of non- payment of Rations and Gas Contractors dues by the Nigeria Correctional Service (NCos).
The organization cited the high cost of foodstuffs such as Beans, Rice and Garri as a major factor exacerbating the problem adding that the situation has severe implication for the livelihoods of the contractors and the inmates and the overall economy.
The group said outstanding dues that the NCos owes contractors was over #5.6 billion for food supplied to inmates across the country adding that the non –payment of contractor’s dues puts the welfare of over 75,000 inmates at risk potentially that could lead to starvation and other health issues.
The NGO in a statement made available to newsmen signed by Chris Sanwo and Jude Nwokolo, group Coordinator and Secretary respectively revealed that this nonpayment can lead to abandonment of the feeding of the inmate, job losses to those under the employment of these contractors and in turn lead to increase in poverty, which the statement noted with melancholy that the Tinubu administration in seriously making concerted to address through several programme under the Renewed Hope Agenda.
The group recalled that the Federal Government recently increased the daily feeding allowances for inmates from #750 to #1,125 aiming to improve their nutritional welfare for which the group said is a good development, however with this development the Rations and Gas Contractors are yet to be paid for October, November and December 2023 while some are yet to be paid for the food and Gas supplied for August 2024 and some still have outstanding payment.
‘’We urge President to take swift action to address this issue ensuring that contractors receive their payment they deserve for their work. We also call on the Committee on Interior at the National Assembly to investigate this matter and provide oversight to prevent similar situations in the future’’.
‘’Many contractors have borrowed money from financial institutions with interest rates to supply food to inmates and the non- payment of their dues is causing them significant financial hardship’’.
The group called on the National Assembly to investigate this matter and provide oversight to prevent similar situations in the future
It also urged President to take swift action, intervene in the situation and ensure prompt payment of outstanding dues to Ration and Gas Contractors.
‘’This will alleviate the suffering of inmates and the contractors alike, and ensure the continued provision of essential services to the correctional facilities stressing this challenge may undermines investor confidence and slows economic and exacerbate fiscal policies’’, the group said.
THE PROBLEM WITH NIGERIA BY DR AUSTIN ORETTE
Is President Bola Tinubu the cause of Nigeria’s problem? Some time ago, I wrote that I did not endorse Tinubu because he will reduce the misery index of Nigeria. I did not endorse him because he will stop corruption and other ills that plague the Nation. I did not endorse him because he is a saint. The only reason i supported him was that of all the candidates, he was the only one with the sagacity to push Nigeria from the status quo of mediocrity.
So far so good, I am not disappointed. He is doing so well. He has ruffled the feathers of the imposters who assumed that Nigeria belongs to them.
The Tax Bill is our ticket to restructuring. I have always believed that the federation cannot progress unless those who believe in unitarism are excommunicated from the bus of progress. They will call Tinubu many names, but he will go down as the author of New Nigeria. We will all be equal in this federation.
I want to live in a country where there is fiscal justice. I want to be certain that the tax that comes from my boozing is not used to sponsor hajj for those who will destroy the establishment of those who sell beer. There is the case of the oil. I am from the Niger Delta. We need 60 percent of the oil and no Sheik from outside the region should tell us what to do. We don’t tell them how to pray. Why are the ports in Niger Delta not operational? We had Koko Port, Warri Port and Burutu Port. We were a country.
My people are tired of applying for visa to clear goods in Lagos. We are tired of staying in a place that has so much federal money thrown at it but cannot manage to come up with sensible urban and housing policy.
A visit there is a journey of chaos. What are the senators doing? Can they work harder and give the Niger Delta the Dangote Deal? Dangote is in Nigeria with his own refinery and ports. What is next for him? With the way things are going, he might end up with his own currency. Who says monopoly doesn’t pay?
Nasir El-Rufai has been popping up lately, threatening the president with electoral misfortune. Can you imagine the effrontery? He became a governor with Amajiri votes and he did nothing for them. These people think they own Nigeria. Where was he when Buhari filled every position with his and his wife’s relatives?
Restructuring means you spend and manage what you produce. It is the law of the farm. You reap what you sow and don’t raise your livestock in another man’s garden without any compensation. There is Mr. Peter Obi who thinks the road to the presidency is through educating the Almajiris. If it didn’t work for Goodluck Jonathan, why do you think it will work for him? El-Rufai is no fool. He has the Amajiri votes locked up. The solution is to ship the Almajiris to my village. We have highly motivated mothers who will adopt them and turn them into lawyers, engineers, doctors and respectable members of our society. The amajiris are orphans with living parents who don’t care. We can care for them in my village. With 60 % derivation, the sky is our limit. After they come of age and have become very educated, we will send them to the North to recolonize the North.
We need home grown colonizers in the North. They will bring progress faster to the North than the Fulani who are in a race to return to the 7th century.
Now they will accuse me of asking them to turn their hearts away from the gods of Saudi Arabia to the gods of my village. Who knows, some of them might become educated Imams and not hypocrites who hide Ogogoro in their prayer kettle and underage girls, under their agbada. They will not be hypocrites. This will bridge the gap in the distribution of graduates during NYSC.
Peter Obi should address this. Why should states that have so many Almajiris and no graduates have more NYSC graduates serving than states that are producing graduates? We must correct this Dangote equation. Obi should learn from Tinubu. You don’t placate bullies. We are on the way to a new Nigeria, the end of serfdom. The cacophony all over the place is beginning to be louder than Biafra. The halls of academia have just been opened in Southern Zaria and El-Rufai is apoplectic. He cannot even comprehend that Nigeria can grow beyond one school of aviation. He is inviting Nnamdi Kanu to Dinner and wants to review Nnamdi’s notes. These are interesting times to be alive in my dear country, Nigeria.
We will end up with a federal government that does not baby sit any region. We must have a government that does not rob Peter to pay Paul. No region should become bloated and lazy with excess fat. Those who are addicted to that feeding bottle should be weaned. That is true federalism and equality. Are the Fulani and Biafrans against this? They are five and six. Don’t let their recriminations fool you. They have one agenda. They are one and the same side of a bad coin.
DR AUSTIN ORETTE WRITES FROM HOUSTON, TEXAS
CHAOS IN GOVERNMENT AGENCIES, ABUSE OF CITIZENS AND PRODUCTIVITY BY DR AUSTIN ORETTE
This is not an endorsement of any leader in Nigeria. I have observed that Nigerians have formed a subculture of always complaining as a means of coping with the realities. My observation is that the blaming of leaders is a veritable past time in the country. I am beginning to see these complaints as a quarrel amongst accomplices. They robbed a bank, and the leader of the gang drove off with the loot in their getaway car and left them stranded. They cannot call the police, so they are left with the infighting which they consider as protest.
They start plotting who will hold the key in the next operation. The plot to be the driver in the next robbery is the cacophony we are witnessing daily. They put the blame on the leadership and exempt themselves from the rot within. In this confusion, they blame the wrong people for their woes.
Most of the people complaining don’t know the role of their governors, senators and local government chairmen. As soon as anything goes astray, they call Tinubu. This ignorance has allowed the governors and LGA chairman to operate under the radar.
What has Tinubu got to do with a house fire in Lagos or kaduna? The governors and the state assembly and local government chairmen are those responsible for policy implementation at the local level. This ignorance is costing the nation a lot.
Some of these critics don’t even know the kind of government we are running. They still think we are in the military regime. The president and the senate have not done anything to enlighten the people. Some of their actions like suspending governors and senators by fiat have given the impression that we are still in a military dictatorship.
Every Nigerian wants good leadership, but none wants to aspire to be good citizens. All the negative things perpetrated are done by regular people in Nigeria. These are the people who complain everyday about hardship in Nigeria. These people are those who show extreme wickedness when they are given a little opportunity to intercede in the affairs of their local communities.
Any encounter with these folks will lead you to the field of tears. They could be market women, police, Customs or regular soldiers; they become gods in their little domain. In this domain, they are very dictatorial, callous and imperious and exercise power with vehemence in their various jurisdictions. They make sure they inflict pain on you during any interaction.
From the trader selling fake goods at exorbitant prices to the policemen at the checkpoint, the rule is to dish out as much pain as possible. There is no sense of brotherhood. There is no sense of “we are in this together, let us help each other “.
Dishing out pain is the culture. You must pay before being served even when you have paid. This is the ugliness that hides behind these excessive criticisms of leaders. Anytime a Nigerian comes in contact with a government agent, it is time to be punished. There is no agency in Nigeria where those employed there don’t make the abuse of the citizens the metric of their productivity. Trying to get a driver’s license, you must jump through hoops, trying to get a passport is almost as bad as trying to obtain a visa to another country. In most cases, the visa ordeal is friendlier and there are no inducements involved. Trying to clear goods from a Lagos port is like squeezing through the eye of the needle. There are no rules and regulations, just chaos and cruelty that numbs the mind.
A lot of people choose to walk away from the abuse of the Customs and other various governments and their agents leaving their goods behind. Flying into Lagos airport is the worst ordeal. Every government agency is there including the touts from Iddo Park. They are trying to tell you they are there to hurt you. There is no cordial welcome.
There is nowhere in Nigeria the citizen does not try to erect his own obstacles. A visit to any government office to collect a document to verify you are still alive will lead to your death. You must pay before you die. This is Nigeria; don’t ask for a death certificate if you cannot afford to die. This is very sad.
Do we need many checkpoints with menacing police touting Ak47s on our roads? Are we at war? Why so many checkpoints? What is the relationship between checkpoints and crimes? Why are Nigerians criminalized and humiliated daily by agencies that are supposed to serve them?
The ordeal of being a citizen in Nigeria can drive one into a mental institution. Nigerians are resilient and quietly watch their country being turned into one huge mental asylum. The madness has become cultural. At the end, the extortionists get together and blame the leaders who are the product of their thievery. This is the problem. People who have no sense of good citizenship are crying daily for good leadership. You cannot get one without the other because if they meet, they will not recognize each other. Let’s learn to recognize that the microcosm must be organized to care for each other in order to harmoniously evolve a macrocosm that is habitable.
Imagine that police don’t harass and shake down farmers bringing food to markets. Imagine that the employees at the poultry company don’t steal all the eggs and poison the chickens. This may lower the price of food and prevent the decay of food due to loss of time at checkpoints. This will lead to full employment and reduction of inflation. Let us learn to care, maybe one day we can have someone who cares to assume leadership. Then we can be proud to say: that is one of us. The ratio of the naira to the dollar is not a measure of the Nigerian economy. It is a measure of the lack of productivity of the Nigerian. Nigerians produce nothing and they expect everything.
Let us start by producing harmony. Blaming the leaders is a subterfuge that subtracts leadership from the people. How many unemployed people are willing to do an honest job, when given the opportunity? Do these people have the ethical compass that reflects honesty and dedication to their employer?
I am pushed to be equivocal here because of my observations. The employer may stumble into that employee who will steal all the eggs and poison the chickens and the business is bankrupt. There is no penalty for the offender and he moves to reenact the scenario in another organization. Should we blame Tinubu for this? An enterprise cannot grow in a sea of perfidy. Leadership is always a reflection of the consciousness of the people. Bad people can only produce bad leaders. Good people, good leaders. You cannot have one without the other.
Let us begin the process of removing the logs in our eyes. This is the only way we can have the vision to point to a better path for our country. This new road will lead us to love ourselves and our neighbors. Our self-hatred is what is manifesting as hatred and cruelty to others. We find it easy to destroy and humiliate and extort others because we are miserable due to lack of self-esteem and self-love. No legislation can make us love ourselves. We must learn how to fight these battles within. We must evolve a system to isolate those who violate community standards, ethics and morality.
Dr Austin Orette writes from Houston Texas
OKPE UNION DISOWNS DELTA ADVISORY COUNCIL MEMBER, EX-PDP STATE SECRETARY, OTHERS
The oldest registered ethnic union in Nigeria, Okpe Union, on Wednesday disowned the 1st Deputy President General of the Urhobo Progress Union and former Secretary of the Delta State Chapter of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Isaac Itebu , member of Delta State Advisory and Peace Building Council, Chief Robert Onome, Immediate Past President General of Amuokpe District of Okpe Kingdom who was Secretary of the Sapele Local Government Chapter of the People’s Democratic Party, Mr. Harrison Ekeleme and the President of the Okpe Youths Progressive Association, Mr. Moses Odiete.
‘’In their Press Conference/Statement, they purported to speak for the Okpe people of Delta State and announced that enough is enough, Okpe is Urhobo. It is important to outline that none of the organizers, signatories and attendees of the said Press Conference in Orerokpe is qualified to speak on behalf of the Okpe people and ethnic nationality of Delta State’’.
The union in a statement in Warri titled ‘’The fraudulent press statement of Isaac Itebu, Robert Onome, et al, the impostors who presented the Okpe ethnic nationality as Urhobo, on the 30th of July 2025 described the activities of Itebu, Onome and others as a treasonable act against the Okpe Nation.
The statement signed by Engr. Francis O. Redemi, 1st Deputy President General, Okpe Union (Worldwide), Mr. Omamurhomu Ayaruja, 2nd Deputy President General, Okpe Union (Worldwide) Dr. Lucky Akpere, 3rd Deputy President General, Okpe Union (Worldwide), Mr. Bernard Adibor, 4th Deputy President General, Okpe Union (Worldwide), Barrister Kingsley Akpederin, General Secretary, Okpe Union (Worldwide) and Barrister. Victor Oruno, National Publicity Secretary, Okpe Union (Worldwide) said Itebu cannot speak on behalf of the Okpe Ethnic Nationality.
‘’Chief Isaac Itebu who opted to contest for the position of 1stDeputy President General of the Urhobo Progress Union (UPU) perhaps on his being partly Urhobo, is not a member of any of the branches of the Okpe Union and does not hold any position in the Okpe Union. He, as 1st Deputy President General of the UPU, a different Ethnic Union, cannot speak on behalf of the Okpe Ethnic Nationality’’.
The representatives of the National Executive Council of the Okpe Union (Worldwide) ably led by Prof. Igho Natufe, President General of the Okpe Union (Worldwide) called Chief Robert Onome an anathema in the Okpe Nation, stressing his incapability of representing any part of it, talks more of speaking on behalf of her,
‘’Chief Robert Onome who was elected on the 19th of November, 2016 as the President General of the Okpe Union for a four year tenure which elapsed in November, 2020, it is preposterous for him to allow himself to be sponsored to parade himself as President General of the Okpe Union, nearly five years after his tenure had expired and when he never re-contested. The Residue of Tenure Ruling from the Delta State High Court, Orerokpe for him for a maximum of 47 Days from 14th of March 2025, expired on the 30th of April, 2025. He reported to the same court and deposed to an Affidavit he signed on the 21st day of May 2025 for Contempt against the legitimate leadership of the Okpe Union for the purpose of enabling him to continue parading himself, but the court threw away his contempt application. In the Affidavit, he had complained to the court that he has made several attempts to call NEC Meeting and General Assembly of the Okpe Union but all to no avail. He shamelessly by that, revealed to the world, that majority of the Executive members of the Okpe Union under him between 2016 and 2020 had moved on and joined the leadership of Prof. Igho Natufe by re-contesting in the last election of the National Executive Council, which held on the 15th of May, 2025, after the General Secretary summoned the General Assembly of the union in accordance with its Constitution. Also on how illegitimate the claims of Chief Robert Onome are, on the 30th of April, 2024, the Federal High Court, Abuja (Suit No.FHC/ABJ/CS/395/2022) had ordered the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to withdraw and or expunge from its records all trustees appointed by the Illegal Interim EXCO of the Okpe Union, including the Chief Robert Onome and others, as fraudulently smuggled in. The Okpe People’s Forum (OPF)*, a body registered by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) which the Chief Robert Onome was a registered member, announced his suspension from the organization through a circular dated the 3rd of August, 2025 after the report that he signed a Press Statement that Okpe was Urhobo’’.
The union decried misrepresentation, fraud and blind loyalty of some political hustlers in the state.
‘’Mr. Harrison Ekeleme who purportedly signed on behalf of the leadership of the 13 Districts of Okpe Kingdom, we dare say that this is one of the most fraudulent political acts in Nigeria of recent. Mr. Ekeleme had completed his tenure as President General of Amuokpe District of Sapele Local Government Area and handed over to his elected successor, Hon. Eruteyan Ohiambe on the 6th of April, 2025.* He, Mr. Harrison Ekeleme during his tenure which ended on the 6th of April, 2025, paraded himself as the Chairman of the Forum of Presidents General of the 13 Okpe Kingdom Districts apparently for political showmanship. _*How logical is it, for anyone to accept it that the same person who had handed over to his successor nearly four months ago, would still parade himself as the Chairman of an arranged Forum of Presidents General of the 13 Districts of Okpe Kingdom? Is that not misrepresentation and fraud taken too far just for the sake of politics and blind loyalty to political hustlers?’’
The statement hinted that majority of members of the Okpe Youths Council have been up in arms against Moses Odiete since the unfortunate incidence.
‘’The fourth signatory of the treasonable document is Mr. Moses Odiete, the President of the Okpe Youths Council. Suffice to say that after surviving temporary removal a few months after his inauguration, his act of bowing to political jobbers to sign the fraudulent Press Statement has now thrown the Okpe Youths Council into turmoil as the vast majority of members of the body have been up in arms against him since the unfortunate incidence. We hope the OYC is able to weather the storm from it’’.
Madam Grace E. Dinna, National Women Coordinator, Okpe Union (Worldwide), Comrade. Mary O. Pender, National Youths Coordinator, Okpe Union (Worldwide) and Comrade David Ajuja, National Secretary, Okpe Union Youths Worldwide) also signed the statement.
The Okpe Union is the oldest registered Ethnic Union in Nigeria, having been established in 1930 and registered on the 13th of December 1934 under the Land (Perpetual Succession) Ordinance No. 32 of 1924. It is the umbrella Socio-cultural Organization of the indigenes of Sapele and Okpe Local Government Areas of Delta State.