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President Bola Tinubu has edged Peter Obi by 1,067 responses, representing 1.55% points in the Oxford-Metro Analytics’ National Trust Poll ahead of the 2027 presidential election.

The Oxford-Metro poll, which closed on September 7, recorded 69,110 approved and unflagged responses in its final analytical dataset.

Tinubu polled 24,469 responses, representing 35.41 per cent of the total, while Obi received 23,402 responses, accounting for 33.86 per cent.

The figures placed Tinubu 1.55 percentage points ahead of Obi.

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar came third with 18,430 responses, representing 26.67 per cent of the total participation.

The poll’s regional breakdown, however, showed a different picture from the outcome of the 2023 presidential election, with Tinubu recording leads in 20 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

Obi and Atiku, meanwhile, recorded the highest number of responses in eight states each.

Tinubu’s strongest gains were recorded in parts of Northern Nigeria, where he led in Kaduna, Katsina and Gombe, states won by Atiku in the 2023 presidential election.

He also led in Kano, where New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) presidential candidate Rabiu Kwankwaso won the 2023 presidential election.

At the geopolitical zone level, Tinubu led in the South-West, North-West and North-Central, while Obi dominated the South-East and South-South. Atiku recorded his strongest showing in the North-East.

In the South-West, Tinubu polled 10,968 responses, representing 43.53 per cent of the zone’s total participation.

He also led in the North-West with 4,129 responses, accounting for 43.10 per cent, while his 6,370 responses in the North-Central represented 36.97 per cent of the zone’s participation.

Obi recorded his strongest regional performance in the South-East, where he secured 5,796 responses, representing 63.97 per cent.

He also led in the South-South with 2,389 responses, accounting for 41.48 per cent of the region’s total.

Atiku dominated the North-East with 1,235 responses, representing 55.46 per cent of participation in the zone.

Despite Tinubu’s wider geographical spread, the national figures showed a close contest between the three leading candidates.

Some state-level results also recorded narrow margins. In Kogi, for instance, Tinubu received 39 responses, compared with 38 for Atiku and 33 for Obi, out of 110 responses recorded.

In the FCT, Tinubu polled 5,599 responses against Obi’s 5,278, giving him a margin of 321 responses, while Atiku received 3,954.

Tinubu also led Obi in Rivers, where he received 975 responses against Obi’s 892, while Atiku polled 568.

Beyond the three leading contenders, Omoyele Sowore received 1,016 responses, followed by Seyi Makinde with 519 and former President Goodluck Jonathan with 284.

Anita Zugwai-Chukwu received 18 responses, Sandy Onor six, and Prince Kennedy Ahanotu two.

A total of 638 participants selected ‘I Do Not Trust Any Candidate Yet’, while 204 were undecided and 122 selected ‘Other Candidate’.

The poll also showed significant geographical concentration in participation, with Lagos and the FCT accounting for 54.44 per cent of all responses.

The final dataset contained 56 diaspora responses, which were excluded from the six domestic geopolitical-zone tallies.

They have been outlawed, but they have not disappeared. Across Lagos, scavengers still roam streets and communities at almost all hours, combing neighbourhoods for scraps, even as allegations of theft and vandalism increasingly trail their activities. Worried residents say their continued presence is giving them sleepless nights, while communities are resorting to their own security measures to keep them out. Dayo Ayeyemi and Francis Iwuchukwu report on the growing concerns over scavengers in Lagos and the apparent difficulty in enforcing the government’s ban.

In January 2025, members of the Lagos State House of Assembly resolved to curb manhole theft and the illegal activities of scavengers in the state.

The lawmakers made the resolution while debating a motion titled, ‘Motion to Curb the Activities of Scavengers and Manhole Theft in Lagos’, moved by Hon. Gbolahon Yishawu (Eti-Osa 2).

According to the lawmakers, if the menace of scavenging and manhole theft is not checked in the state, it could lead to an increase in accidents and blockage of drainage systems.

The House, therefore, called on the state governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, and the Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, to sanction scavengers and cart pushers in order to curb their nefarious activities.

The lawmakers also called on the state government to enforce all relevant environmental laws, stating that there were sufficient laws to curtail such illegal acts in the state.

Interestingly, events and developments within the city in the past few months regarding the activities of scavengers are making it increasingly imperative for the state government to act on the lawmakers’ resolution and save residents and public infrastructure from what some have described as a ‘disaster waiting to happen’.

Investigations by Saturday Tribune, for instance, revealed that scavengers have, of late, become increasingly daring. A common sight in the city, they parade and stroll through virtually every nook and cranny, looking for empty cans, disused iron rods and used PET bottles. It is generally believed that they collect these items for sale as scrap to those in the recycling business as a means of earning a livelihood.

But, of late, residents have become wary that the ranks of these seemingly ‘innocent’ scavengers are being infiltrated by criminal elements. Reports regarding the activities of some of them in the past few years show that they are increasingly taking advantage of unsuspecting residents and even compromising public infrastructure under the guise of scavenging.

Their searches have, of late, gone beyond empty cans, disused iron rods and PET bottles. Some allegedly steal residents’ belongings, especially when residents let down their guard, and also vandalise public facilities.

And tales of such incidents abound. For instance, no fewer than 1,800 manhole covers have reportedly been stolen along the Lagos section of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway between January and August 2026, while over 4,000 manholes were said to have been vandalised across various local government and local council development areas in the state.

Residents are not spared either.

‘There was a time one of the slabs, made of heavy steel, which we used to cover our culvert to enable us to drive into the compound, was picked by these guys,’ Hakeem, a resident of Olorunto in Oke Odo Local Council Development Area of the state, complained to Saturday Tribune.

According to him, residents only discovered that the item was missing long after it had been stolen since it was not the only slab there. He expressed shock that a slab that heavy could be stolen without anybody noticing.

For Segun Odunewu, the Public Relations Officer of Abesan Estate, residents of the estate are conscious of the nefarious activities of some of these people and have deployed strategies to check them.

According to him, while the estate authorities could not restrict anybody from entering the estate, the movement of such individuals could, however, be restricted within it.

‘Those people steal a lot. And what we have done is to divide the estate into sectors. That means while anybody, including the scavengers, can walk on the major roads within the estate, they are, however, not allowed to move into the zones, that is, go near the buildings where people reside. Such steps have become imperative because those people are capable of doing anything.

‘We’ve heard different reports about them, and we believe if they could damage government bridges all in the name of extracting iron rods, that means they are capable of doing anything,’ he stated.

Besides, he added, the estate had also put up banners at strategic locations, warning scavengers that they were unwanted guests within the estate.

The Chairman of Olorunto Landlords Association, Mr Matthew Ajala, also expressed concerns over the activities of the scavengers. According to him, the community had also placed banners outlawing the activities of such people on its streets.

‘They no longer come to our street and the entire community because every street has such a banner at its entrance and exit, and they have no choice but to obey. Sometimes, they make the mistake of entering the street and once we draw their attention to the banner, they take to their heels,’ he added.

While Mr Rasheed Okoya threw his weight behind the steps taken by the various communities to secure their domains from scavengers, he, however, expressed regret that the situation had degenerated to that level.

Rasheed, an electronics technician, stated that scavengers used to be his major means of disposing of unused items in his shop in the past.

‘Before things suddenly took this negative turn, they used to come to my place and help me clear the shop of disused radios, TV sets and other electronic accessories, and even pay a token to me for doing that. Unfortunately, the thieves among them have succeeded in shutting society’s door against the innocent ones,’ he added.

Disaster waiting to happen

Decrying the activities of scavengers and the vandalisation of bridge components, an expert in the nation’s built environment, Kunle Awobodu, urged the state government to be more proactive in preventing the destruction of public facilities by scavengers operating across the city.

He pointed out that bridge underpasses in Lagos were gradually being converted into rooms, with people living and paying rent there, citing the Opebi, Ikoyi and Yaba bridges.

He said: ‘For instance, we have a flurry of activities going on daily below the Opebi Link Bridge. People have turned the bridge underpass into rooms, and these rooms are controlled by street urchins.

‘Government has not been paying attention to those activities. During the regime of Fashola, he ensured every bridge underpass was beautified so as to prevent it from becoming a den of criminals because, then, most of those places were criminals’ hideouts. They were renting the bridge underpasses to people to sleep under the control of area boys.

‘Vandalism by scavengers is all over the place. Most of the aluminium rails on the Third Mainland Bridge have been stolen. They sold them as scraps. It’s a criminal issue that the police should be involved in,’ he added.

According to him, many of those bridge underpasses are being managed by ‘baales’. He, therefore, urged the government to factor the baales into the security architecture to enable them to monitor and guard the bridges against the activities of vandals.

Also speaking to Saturday Tribune on the issue, another expert, Engineer Oyenuga, noted that besides the financial loss, it was painful to see infrastructure on which Nigerians depend being vandalised.

He described the vandalisation of bridge support systems as a ‘disaster waiting to happen’.

‘If one of the pillars fails, it will transfer more loads to other pillars, which may be too heavy for them to carry, leading to total collapse,’ he said.

Apart from this, he said the collapse of a bridge would be a huge loss to the country, estimating that it could cost more than N6 billion to build a new structure if a bridge failed.

He called on the government to make public declarations about the health of bridges and other public infrastructure in the country so as to determine the extent to which some of those facilities had been compromised.

Existing laws sufficient to handle criminal acts – SAN

Giving a legal perspective to the issue, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chief Solo Akuma, argued that Nigeria does not require new legislation to address criminal activities allegedly perpetrated by some persons under the guise of scavenging.

According to the legal expert, existing criminal laws are sufficient to deal with offenders.

Speaking on how best to address the growing concerns surrounding scavenging, Chief Akuma noted that although many scavengers legitimately depend on the activity for their livelihood, a fraction of persons involved in the trade allegedly engage in theft, vandalism and the destruction of government and private property.

The senior lawyer declared that it was important to distinguish between legitimate scavengers who search dump sites for recyclable or valuable materials and criminal elements who allegedly exploit scavenging as a cover for unlawful activities.

Akuma said: ‘Some people have found scavenging as a means of livelihood, and there are those who are not criminals among them, who go to dump sites to search for anything valuable they can sell to make a living.’

However, the SAN expressed concern over what he described as a fraction of persons who allegedly abandon legitimate scavenging and instead break into people’s premises, damage public facilities and steal government or private property for resale.

Chief Akuma explained that existing provisions under the Criminal Code and Penal Code already provide legal mechanisms for prosecuting offences such as theft, burglary and destruction of property.

He contended that the major challenge was not the absence of adequate laws but the need for security agencies to be more proactive in preventing and responding to criminal activities.

The senior legal luminary maintained that effective intelligence gathering, surveillance and policing could help security agencies identify and arrest persons allegedly involved in criminal acts linked to scavenging before such activities become widespread.

According to Akuma: ‘If the security agencies are proactive, they’ll be able to arrest the criminals and then deal with them according to law.’

According to the SAN, failure by relevant authorities to act promptly could allow criminal elements operating under the guise of scavenging to continue their activities unchecked.

However, the senior lawyer called for improved monitoring and protection of government facilities and other public assets rather than the enactment of fresh legislation specifically targeted at scavengers.

‘The proper thing to do is not to crave new legislation but to call for proper monitoring of government and policing of government assets so that people will not interfere with them,’ he said.

Akuma maintained that anyone found destroying or damaging government property or the belongings of private citizens in the name of scavenging should be arrested, investigated and prosecuted in accordance with existing laws.

The lawyer stressed that while legitimate scavengers should not be automatically criminalised, those who engage in theft, vandalism or other criminal conduct must be held accountable.

When contacted, Director of Public Affairs of the Lagos State Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, Kunle Adeshina, disclosed that the activities of scavengers and cart pushers remained outlawed in the state.

The response followed a query by Saturday Tribune on the position of the ministry on scavengers and the number of culprits arrested so far following the recent vandalisation of the Festac-Alakija Bridge in Lagos.

He added that the decision to outlaw their activities in the state stemmed from concerns expressed by residents and the danger their activities pose to public infrastructure.

Soothing as the ministry’s assurance to the public may be, residents of the state are still concerned that the government’s directive in this regard is not being obeyed.

‘The development is giving us sleepless nights. We still see these people at any time of the day, even till the unholy hours of the night, despite their activities being outlawed. We are wary of the security implications of their actions for our well-being, and that is why we want the government to act decisively now,’ said a resident of Agbelekale, a community in Agbado Oke Odo Local Council Development Area of the state, who did not want his name in print for security reasons.

Nigerian Tribune’s Northern Bureau Chief, MUHAMMAD SABIU, engages the spokesperson of the Middle Belt Forum, Luka Binniyat, on security in the North, the coming elections, and why the forum is backing the Minister of Defence, General Christopher Musa (rtd), over his statement on Nasir El-Rufai. He also said it is the turn of the Middle Belt to produce the president in 2031.

For someone who is reading you for the first time, can you please introduce yourself?

Yes. My name is Luka Binniyat. I am from Zangon Kataf Local Government Area of Southern Kaduna, and I am the National Spokesman of the Middle Belt Forum. I am also the Joint Spokesman of the Southern and Middle Belt Leadership Forum.

You are from Kaduna, not from the North Central, yet you speak for the Middle Belt Forum. How did that come to be?

Let me try to define what the Middle Belt is so that Nigerians will not confuse the Middle Belt with the six states that make up the North-Central geopolitical zone. The Middle Belt is made up of all the ethnic nationalities, over 300 of them, that are not Hausa, Fulani, or Kanuri. It doesn’t matter whether they are Muslims or Christians. So, if you are from the 19 Northern states plus Abuja, and you are not Hausa, you are not Kanuri, or you are not Fulani, it invariably means that you fall under what we call the Middle Belt.

So, the Middle Belt Forum is the socio-political body that represents the interests of all these ethnic groups. The Middle Belt Forum was formed in 1954 because we were clamouring to be out of the arrangement of the defunct Northern Protectorate. We felt that the core North and we do not share the same values, do not share the same history, and do not share the same identity.

The feudal system that the colonialists arranged, which put us under their subjugation, was unacceptable to our founding fathers. So, the Middle Belt Forum was formed around that time in 1954.

On whether I came on board – since the present EXCO came on board: Yes. I was actually elected as the Kaduna State Chapter Chairman of the Middle Belt Forum in July 2024. The National Headquarters felt that I was very vibrant and that they didn’t have a spokesman who was getting visibility, so they brought me to join them as the National Spokesman of the forum.

What I can categorically say has been an achievement is that we have been able to bring to the conscience of Nigerians that the North is not actually monolithic, that the North actually has other ethnic nationalities that do not belong to the Arewa North, and that the Middle Belt itself cannot be limited to the North-Central geopolitical zone.

We try to enlighten people that the Middle Belt includes Southern Kebbi, Southern Kaduna – I’m the National Spokesman of the Middle Belt Forum and I’m from Southern Kaduna. The President of the Middle Belt Forum himself, Dr. Pogu Bitrus, is from Southern Borno; he is from Chibok, Chibok Local Government. So, the Middle Belt is bigger than the six states that make up the North-Central geopolitical zone. We are in Taraba, Adamawa, Gombe, even parts of Southern Yobe, Southern Bauchi, and the core six states of the North-Central – which includes, of course, Kwara, Kogi, Benue, Niger, and the rest – are all part of the Middle Belt.

So, we have tried to sensitise Nigerians that the real majority in the North are not even the Hausa-Fulani and Kanuri. No, there are so-called minorities – the people that have been branded as minorities, which is an abnormality. Because when it comes to the number of human beings, that is population, and land size, the 19 Northern states plus Abuja is about 732,000 square kilometres, and the Middle Belt region has over 500,000 square kilometres of that land.

We believe that in a free and fair census exercise, there is no way you will tell us that these people who cover this area are a minority. When you aggregate our numbers, we are actually a majority. I agree that if you separate us as individuals, we are all minorities, but if you put the people of the Middle Belt together, we are actually the majority in Northern Nigeria.

That is what we have been able to bring to the conscience of the people. Then, the Middle Belt Forum has also tried to intervene in some intra-ethnic clashes – in Taraba between the Tivs and the Jukuns, in Adamawa between the Jukuns and another tribe. We have tried to see how they can cease fire.

We have also tried to expose the oppression and the killings that have been affecting our people under this very bizarre state of insecurity, both by Boko Haram and by the so-called Fulani bandits. We have raised our voices very loudly.

Then, we have also been able to speak as one voice and vote as a bloc in the 2023 presidential election. That actually showed the Middle Belt went for Peter Obi, and we believe that the results were manipulated against him. So, the Middle Belt is coming out under this EXCO as a formidable bloc, and we are going to take a position very soon on the direction to go in the presidential election of 2027.

All right. The Middle Belt Forum recently seems to be backing the Minister of Defence, retired General Christopher Musa, over his recent allegations against the former governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai. Don’t you think that as a Federal Minister, he shouldn’t have made such a remark or statement?

In fact, we expected him to say even more than that, because what El-Rufai is being charged with now is a very small allegation compared to the weighty things that he did against humanity. So, we were even disappointed that the Minister could not say much more than he said about El-Rufai.

So, we stand by him, and we believe that if it was another party that had won the presidential election and the gubernatorial election in Kaduna State, El-Rufai would have since been brought to justice and charged for crimes against humanity.

So, what Christopher said is true. And Christopher was talking about ‘my people’-when he said ‘my people’, he was not talking particularly about the people of Southern Kaduna; he was talking about every resident of Kaduna State, because that is his state of origin. So, I know that he is not flippant; he is not a man that will just come out and say things that he cannot substantiate.

We are very excited that if El-Rufai’s family eventually goes to court, there will be a plethora of witnesses to affirm what the Minister has said. Being part of the government, I believe he also has a lot of evidence that he can bring to defend himself.

Okay, looking at the scenario as it is now in the southern part of the state, can we say that the people of Southern Kaduna are happy?

Yes. As an indigene of Kaduna State and a son of Southern Kaduna, I want to say with all sense of responsibility that the killings in Southern Kaduna have drastically reduced. What has not stopped is kidnapping, but the invasion of communities and the burning down of houses have drastically reduced, almost by 90%.

And then, the Governor himself is very restrained in his utterances – his utterances are those that bring unity, his actions are those that bring unity. He seems to have been able to assure the people of Southern Kaduna that he is a team player. He still has a lot of shortcomings that he can work on, but the violence has drastically reduced. What we are still insisting on is that the kidnapping that is still ongoing should be stopped, and those that are in the custody of the bandits should be rescued. But it is far, far better than when El-Rufai was in power.

All right, then. I want to ask you about the relationship with other blocs, like the Arewa Consultative Forum, Afenifere, and others. What is your relationship with them? Because, you see, ordinarily, I don’t think you can exist as an island. So, do you have any collaboration or any agreement with these other blocs – your forum, the Middle Belt Forum?

Yes, yes. In 2023, Afenifere, PANDEF, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, and the Middle Belt Forum took a unilateral decision that the presidency of Nigeria should be rotated to the South from 2023 to 2027. We stood by our position, and as the voting went, it affirmed that a Southerner was finally chosen. We are still maintaining that the presidency should still be retained in the South in 2027. We are still standing by that position up till now.

Now, the understanding that we have with these groups is that having supported them to produce a president for those eight years, if the presidency is eventually rotated to the North in 2031, it is a Middle Belt person that will become the presidential candidate of all the political parties.

We have started another round of talks, and we are mobilising credible candidates from the Middle Belt. It doesn’t matter whether he is a Muslim or a Christian – he could be a Nupe man, he could be an Alago man, he could be an Eggon person – we don’t care whether he is a Muslim or a Christian. But the presidency in 2031 must be returned to the Middle Belt, because we have never had an elected president, apart from Gowon who came to power through a coup. We have not produced an elected president, and given the statistics that I have given you about our size and our population, we think it is just fair and appropriate that a Middle Belter should take the presidency in 2031. That’s the agreement that we have with these other groups, and that’s the relationship that is keeping us together as a group of vulnerable people.

All right. Finally, what is it that I did not ask you? What do you want to say that I did not ask? I have given you this for free. What do you want to comment on?

Well, as a final word, I want to say that our biggest worry now consists of two things: the state of insecurity in Nigeria is becoming very worrisome. We want the Federal Government to tackle it head-on, and there is a small solution: we say the government should facilitate and supervise communities to be able to defend themselves by giving them light weapons that are approved by law.

If every community, for example, is able to have four AK-47s – every community – we believe that we are going to take care of this insecurity once and for all, and it can be done in a supervised manner. Or you give us these shotguns that use cartridges, plenty of them, we will be able to take care of these wicked people.

So, that is our worry now. We have hundreds, if not thousands, of people that are still in the captivity of both Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorist groups and the so-called bandits. So, we are very unhappy that our communities are subjected to this condition – not only our communities, even in the Southeast, there are still pockets of violence there, armed groups that have become lawless, you know…

Social Democratic Party (SDP) presidential campaign council has said its candidate, Prince Adewole Adebayo, will transform Nigeria within four years if elected in the 2027 general elections.

The Chief Communications Adviser to the Adewole Adebayo-Bugaje Presidential Campaign Council, Mark Adebayo, stated this on Saturday at a press conference in Abuja.

He said Adebayo’s ‘Farewell to Poverty and Insecurity’ blueprint contained measurable plans to address poverty, insecurity, unemployment, hunger, electricity, housing and infrastructure.

Mark said the campaign was offering Nigerians an alternative to what he described as the familiar political promises ahead of the 2027 elections.

He said the blueprint included a four-year roadmap covering security, energy, agriculture, housing, education, healthcare and other sectors.

According to him, an Adebayo administration would invest heavily in solar power, establish modular refineries across the states and introduce a national programme aimed at delivering at least three million affordable housing units within four years.

On security, he said the SDP candidate would establish a national anti-kidnapping and banditry command to coordinate intelligence, tactical operations, financial investigations and prosecution.

He also said agriculture would be repositioned as a key driver of economic recovery, with production strategies tailored to the comparative advantages of different regions.

The campaign adviser urged Nigerians to assess the presidential candidates based on their policy proposals and preparedness rather than political rallies and sentiments.

The campaign said Tinubu would not face Nigerians and the cameras in a presidential debate ahead of the 2027 election.

He alleged that, as in 2023, he would ‘run into hiding’ because he could not withstand the pressure of open scrutiny.

‘He has too many skeletons in his closet and can’t risk being publicly held accountable. There are too many questions that he cannot answer,’ he said.

He, however, said Adebayo was prepared to debate any presidential candidate at a moment’s notice on the economy, technology, agriculture, security, constitutionalism, aviation, education, international diplomacy, oil and gas, and personal integrity.

‘My principal, Adewole Adebayo is ready to debate any presidential candidate even at a moment’s notice in the areas of economy, technology, agriculture, security, constitutionalism, aviation, education, international diplomacy, oil and gas, personal integrity, and all debatables.

‘There are no no-go areas for my principal and he will defeat them all with his sophisticated intellect and native intelligence enriched over the years by global knowledge and addiction to research and reading.’

He also called on voters to participate actively in the 2027 elections and remain vigilant in protecting their votes.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has mourned the passing of elder statesman, renowned businessman, and former Governor of the old Gongola State, Bamanga Tukur, who died at age 90.

President Tinubu in a statement by Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President, Information and Strategy, described the passing of Tukur, the Tafidan Adamawa, as the end of a remarkable chapter in Nigeria’s political and economic history.

The President said Tukur was a towering figure whose distinguished career spanned public administration, governance, industry, politics and pan-African business leadership.

The late Tukur rose to national prominence as General Manager of the Nigerian Ports Authority from 1975 to 1982, where he helped modernise port operations and improve Nigeria’s maritime sector.

President Tinubu recalled Tukur’s colourful foray into politics during the Second Republic, which led to his election as Governor of the old Gongola State (now Adamawa and Taraba States) in 1983.

In his tribute, President Tinubu further described the deceased as ‘urbane, generous and deeply rooted in the values of integrity and service that the Adamawa Emirate and the nation hold dear. He was a man of big ideas and bold enterprise who believed in Nigeria’s limitless potential. Nigeria will sorely miss his wise counsel and fatherly guidance.’

‘The President extends his heartfelt condolences to the Tukur family, to the Fombina Emirate of Adamawa, the Government and people of Adamawa State, and to the entire political and business communities in Nigeria and across Africa.

‘He prays that Almighty Allah will forgive Alhaji Tukur’s shortcomings, grant his soul Aljannah Firdaus, and comfort all who mourn this irreparable loss.’

The deceased distinguished himself in the private sector as Chairman of BHI Holdings and the DADDO Group of Companies, conglomerates with interests in manufacturing, agriculture, logistics and trading, and served as Federal Minister of Industries under the administration of General Sani Abacha from 1993 to 1995.

On the continental stage, Alhaji Tukur was an eloquent champion of Africa’s economic renaissance. As Executive President of the African Business Roundtable and Chairman of the NEPAD Business Group, he was a relentless advocate for intra-African trade, private sector-led growth and sustainable development.

Tukur was the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from March 2012 to January 2014.

Barcelona sporting director Deco has explained why the club preferred Anthony Gordon to Marcus Rashford when strengthening their squad during the summer transfer window.

Rashford scored 14 goals in all competitions during his 12-month loan spell at Barcelona last season, helping the club win La Liga and the Copa del Rey.

Barcelona had an option to sign the Manchester United forward permanently for £30.3 million (35 million euros), but decided against extending his stay.

The 28-year-old subsequently returned to Old Trafford.

Rashford’s England team-mate Gordon and Manchester City midfielder Rodri were..

READ MORE: Why Barcelona preferred Gordon to Rashford – Deco – Sporting Tribune

Chairman of Ohaozara Local Government Area of Ebonyi, Osborn Nweze Umahi, has directed the 11 wards in the council area to submit five priority projects each for consideration in his administration’s action plan.

Umahi made the announcement during an expanded stakeholders’ meeting held at Osborn Hotel, according to People of Ebonyi.

He said the initiative was part of a new approach to leadership aimed at allowing communities to identify projects they consider most important to their development.

‘People are very happy and I have introduced a new style of leadership,’ Umahi said.

Under the arrangement, each ward is expected to identify five projects through its councillor, potentially producing 55 proposals across the local government area.

However, the council has yet to disclose the criteria that will be used to select the projects, the funding arrangements or when work on approved projects will commence.

The initiative is expected to give residents greater input into project selection by allowing communities to present their most pressing needs directly through their ward representatives.

The implementation of the plan will determine how effectively the identified priorities are translated into projects across the 11 wards.

A Ng’ombe woman has told the Chelstone Local Court that her husband declared ‘marriage is a scam’ after she confronted him over allegedly bathing with another woman while she was recovering from a caesarean operation at her mother’s home.

Stella Mwalubanga, 29, said her marital troubles escalated after she stopped working in 2022 following her pregnancy, with her husband, Elijah Mushayabanu, 32, allegedly becoming increasingly distant and apparently discovering a whole new philosophy of marriage: one in which his younger sister washed his boxers, rubbed his chest when it hurt and, according to Stella, received money for relish that would ordinarily have gone to the wife.

Stella dragged Elijah to the Chelstone Local Court seeking a divorce, saying the couple had developed serious misunderstandings and that their marriage had become less of a partnership and more of a daily episode of ‘Who can make this situation even stranger?’

She told the court that the couple married in 2021 and have three children, but that everything began changing after she became pregnant with their second child and stopped working.

According to Stella, the man who had once been a loving husband gradually became a man who spent nights away from home without explanations and showed little interest in her welfare, even after she underwent surgery to deliver their child.

She said that only a week after her operation, Elijah allegedly reminded her that the arrival of his younger sister meant she should not ‘behave like a boss’ and should continue doing household chores.

Stella said she later became seriously ill and asked whether her sister could come and help her recover, but Elijah allegedly rejected the idea because he did not like living with other people.

With her health deteriorating, Stella returned to her parents’ home to receive care.

Even then, she said, she continued going back to the matrimonial home to perform chores and wash her husband’s clothes, only to be told that he would wash his own clothes.

It appears, however, that ‘I’ll wash for myself’ did not necessarily mean Elijah had suddenly developed an independent laundry ethic.

Stella told the court that his younger sister later moved in and began receiving money from Elijah for household expenses instead of Stella.

She also alleged that Elijah told her that if she was too sick, she should return to her parents’ home, where she would not have to worry about household chores.

Then came the phrase that would apparently become the unofficial slogan of the collapsing marriage.

Stella said Elijah told her: ‘Marriage is a scam.’

She said he made the remark after she confronted him about allegedly bathing with another woman while she was staying at her parents’ home.

According to Stella, Elijah also told her that he was only in the marriage because he was married and that there was nothing he could do about it.

Adding insult to injury, Stella said Elijah never paid her hospital bills, leaving her mother and brother to help foot the medical expenses.

She said that after she returned to her parents’ home, Elijah never visited her, despite efforts by both families to intervene.

The families eventually sat the couple down, but Stella said the meeting produced little more than another question: whether she still wanted the marriage.

She said Elijah’s relatives gave her one month to decide.

Rather than immediately filing for divorce, Stella said she returned home and pleaded with her husband to preserve the marriage for the sake of their children.

Elijah, however, allegedly told her he had no say in the matter and directed her to his mother, who lives on a farm in Mpongwe, saying she had the final say.

There was, unfortunately, one small logistical problem.

Stella said Elijah did not give her transport money to travel to Mpongwe.

The reconciliation attempt then took an even more dramatic turn.

Stella told the court that when she returned to the matrimonial home, Elijah’s elder sister phoned her on the very first night and allegedly ordered her to leave, saying she did not want Stella to die in the house because of her illness and put Elijah in trouble.

The sister allegedly advised Stella to leave and find another man who would love her despite her sickness.

Then, Stella said, her husband asked his younger sister, who was 27, to rub his chest because it was hurting.

The younger sister allegedly did so in Stella’s presence.

By morning, Stella said, the same sister was washing Elijah’s boxers.

At that point, the matrimonial home had apparently become less of a marriage and more of a family-operated customer service centre.

Stella said she left the house and reported the matter to Elijah’s aunt, particularly the incident involving his sister rubbing his chest and washing his underwear.

A month later, she received another call from a neighbour.

According to Stella, the neighbour informed her that Elijah was allegedly bathing with another woman and regularly bringing different women into the home.

The neighbour allegedly told her that some of the women stayed for more than three days and that one woman was currently in the bathroom with Elijah.

Stella said she went to the house and saw enough to convince her that the situation was no longer one she wanted to negotiate.

She concluded that Elijah was ‘too old’ not to know what he was doing.

Elijah, for his part, did not exactly arrive in court carrying a suitcase full of reconciliation plans.

He told the court that he also wanted the marriage to end because the couple had never lived harmoniously and had gradually grown apart.

He said he was working and claimed that he had never paid bride price, although he had paid money towards pregnancy damages.

Elijah also rejected the suggestion that his nights away from home were necessarily evidence of marital mischief, saying he slept at work.

He complained that Stella was not punctual and that their child was frequently arriving late at school.

But his biggest grievance appeared to be an incident involving alcohol.

Elijah told the court that when their second child was only three months old, Stella allegedly left the house at about 02:00 hours to drink alcohol with her sister while he was asleep.

He said the baby later started crying, prompting him to discover that Stella was not home.

When he went outside, he allegedly saw her returning with bottles of alcohol.

Elijah said that incident caused him to completely lose interest in his wife.

The court, however, ultimately found itself facing a rather unexpected obstacle to the divorce proceedings.

In its judgment, the court held that it could not grant the divorce because there was no valid marriage between Stella and Elijah for the purposes of the proceedings.

The reason?

Bride price had not been paid.

So, after allegations involving hospital bills, late-night drinking, absent husbands, mysterious women, chest-rubbing sisters, freshly washed boxers and the declaration that ‘marriage is a scam’, the court’s final plot twist was that, legally speaking, the marriage itself had not properly entered the chat.

And just like that, what appeared to be a divorce case became a lesson in the importance of sorting out the paperwork before the arguments begin.

Shortly after President Bola Tinubu assumed office in 2023, Prof Wole Soyinka paid him a courtesy visit in Aso Rock. Many would remember that Prof. Soyinka said he, during the visit, humorously called the President, Olorikunkun. In Yoruba, olorikunkun means the stubborn, strong-headed, hard-nosed, never-say-die person, often imbued with unusual courage, one who never backs off from tough decisions or yields easily…

As it turned out, courage has been the singular attribute of President Tinubu that has attracted most of his supporters and admirers to him. Tinubu is famously remembered as member of NADECO, the group that took the physical and financial risk of taking on the annuller-regime of Abacha and wrestling it to the ground to secure democracy for Nigerians; somehow, his main political rivals today recoiled into comfortable shells offshore, waiting for the nuts of democracy to be pulled out of the fire for them.. Tinubu successfully withstood the attempt of the Obasanjo federal government to weaken Lagos State financially by starving it of its statutory allocations. Even when late President Buhari’s body language showed everyone that he would rather Tinubu did not succeed him as president and the cabal in Aso Rock at the time employed all devices to stop him, Tinubu refused to be thrown under the bus…and he prevailed.

By confronting enduring fundamental politico-economic problems that his predecessors fled from even when it was clear that the non-resolution of such issues was unsustainable for the country’s stability, the President validated his credentials as a courageous leader. Indeed, upon taking power on 29 May 2023, President Tinubu, as he revealed afterwards, said that he was emboldened to unveil his first major policy reform on his first day in the job, stoppage of fuel subsidy, because he was suddenly gripped by the spirit of courage as he delivered his inauguration address. Were the event of that historic day to be recorded in The Old Testament of The Bible, the scripture would probably have read something like ”.. And the people of the country chose for themselves a new ruler. On the day appointed for the feast and rejoicing to mark the beginning of his reign, a great multitude gathered in the centre of the chief city of the country… Then the new ruler was called upon to address his subjects throughout the vast expanse of land, mountains and water of the country. Suddenly, as he began to speak to the multitude, the spirit of courage descended upon him and he pronounced changes in the economic governance of the country, the like of which had not been witnessed before then..”.

Since taking power 39 months ago, Tinubu, on my score-card, has introduced four remarkable politico-economic reforms, namely, removal of fuel subsidy, unification of the foreign exchange rates of the national currency, reform of tax administration and electricity reform; the fifth reform, introduction of state policing, is still in the works and expected to be rolled out before the end of the President’s first term of office.

It takes courage to embark on such sweeping reforms; that courage is also what we call ”political will”. Reforms typically step on toes by breaching vested economic and financial interests, causing discomfort, even if temporary. These ”downsides” attract both honest and mischievous criticisms to the reformist leader and that’s why most leaders avoid undertaking economic and political reforms in spite of their long-term benefits to their nations. Only outstanding, strong-headed, ”stubborn” leaders confront such defining challenges. Nigeria, in 2023, produced one such leader in Bola Ahmed Tinubu. In the militaro-political sphere, for example, it took a Tinubu to start the redistribution of Nigeria’s military assets across the country’s geopolitical zones. Hitherto, this commonsensical step had seemed like a taboo! It was unlikely that an Atiku presidency would have seen the need for it and an Obi presidency would certainly have avoided it for fear of being misunderstood in some sections of the country.

Although it is clear that the intention behind each of these reforms is to recalibrate the national economy to make life more abundant for the citizenry in the medium to long term, the President has been most attacked for his decision to stop fuel subsidy; this is out of benign ignorance or outright mischief. While it is true that it is not the job of the opposition to sell the government’s policies to the people, it is not acceptable that the naivety of the public should be weaponised to mislead them into rejecting policies designed and implemented in their best interest. Even then, Team Tinubu would probably have adopted the same negationist posture as today’s political opponents were positions reversed between the two sides…

To be clear, no government would undertake a reform whose outcome was calculated to be medium-long term or permanent impoverishment of the population. A reform, like capital investment, needs not, and most often, does not produce instant (short-term) gains which accrue mostly in the medium to long term (from upwards of 5 years). However, the road to the medium-long term passes necessarily through the short-term. The short-term is the immediate post-reform period which demands to be deftly managed. Failure to manage this period strategically could leave the door open for opponents of a reform-inclined government to mischaracterise reform efforts as organised to punish the people with impossible living conditions. In truth, the Tinubu administration appeared to have faltered somewhat in managing its post-reform short-term but, luckily for the administration, as we’ve begun to see, it can still correct its lapses and errors.

For some strange reasons, the Tinubu administration did not communicate adequately with the people with respect to the imperative of the fuel and foreign exchange subsidy removals on the one hand and the salutary impacts of these headline reforms. It took the recent appearances of the Chairman of the Nigerian Revenue Service (NRS) and the Minister of Finance, respectively, to explain the workings and demonstrable gains of the two reforms to the Nigerian public!

It is straightforward to understand that fuel subsidy removal has produced positive effects by way of freeing up for alternative uses, funds hitherto burnt off on subsidisation of wasteful or avoidable consumption which are thereby eliminated or drastically reduced. Although subsidy is equivalent to ”cash gift” from the State (the Government), most Nigerians were unaware that the Government didn’t have the cash (the surplus) to do it but was borrowing to make ”cash gifts”! What reasonable, upright person does that? Gift what you don’t have?

It is presumed that the ultimate objective of any reform is to accrue socio-economic benefits to the greatest number of the citizens. Since the greatest number of the population is made up of the low-income and the poor classes, reform implementation must ensure that these classes of the citizenry are the priority and demonstrable beneficiaries of each reform. Such a focus is in the best interest of the reformist government itself because the two lowest social classes account for the overwhelming percentages of voters in most countries. A government that focuses policy attention on these classes cuts off oxygen supply to its electoral opponents. It’s often unclear why many political leaders discard this template, the same that made Chief Obafemi Awolowo a cult hero in the former Western Region of Nigeria to this day!

Debate as to whether the two headline reforms, removal of fuel subsidy and unification of foreign exchange rates have benefitted the greatest number of people, or anyone at all, is unabated. While the government proclaims that the reforms have positively impacted the lives of Nigerians, critics and opponents of the government argue that the reforms have impoverished (negatively impacted) the lives of the majority. The truth must lie between the two extremes.

The Federal Government (FG) showcases the favourable impacts of the removal of fuel and foreign exchange (FX) subsidies to include the increased flow of cash to the sub-national governments, making non-payment of salaries and pension allowances a thing of the past (this is a fact), the establishment (re-activation) of the student loan fund scheme (NELFUND) which today ensures that no Nigerian drops out of tertiary institutions for lack of funds (this is a fact, a huge burden taken off the heads of poor and low-income parents), facilitation of home-acquisition loans by civil servants (this is a fact that benefits all categories of workers), cash transfers to reported 9 million households, equivalent to assistance to around 40 million persons based on average household number of between 4 and 5 persons (this is a fact, albeit subject of controversy as to its efficiency and transparency), road infrastructure projects across the country (this is a fact, albeit subject of controversy as to whether what is urgently needed is what is being constructed). However, opponents of the administration claim that the country has been overtaken by deepening widespread poverty because food and transport costs, in particular, have risen sharply (this is not untrue). Just as it is legitimate for the government to overstate its achievements and overrate its performance, it is legitimate for opponents (who are by no means, enemies) of the government to downplay the government’s successes and discount its achievements to zero, where possible! It is up to the attentive citizens to find out the truth in-between the two positions.

It is interesting to observe that President Tinubu has been attacked most for the removal of fuel subsidy even though the stoppage of FX subsidy by adopting a unified, market-determined rate exerts comparable upward push on food and transport costs as does fuel subsidy removal. For instance, a leading opposition candidate is promising to restore fuel subsidy if voted to power but he refuses to promise restoration of foreign exchange rate subsidy. If the goal of restoring fuel subsidy is to bring down food, transport and other costs of living, why is the candidate not promising simply, to restore the Naira to its official pre-May 2023 value of N460.2/$, to ”crash” prices on his first day in office? How is the one (fuel subsidy) unacceptable but the other (FX subsidy) is acceptable to him? This is a proof that the policy reversal promised by that candidate is not credible because it is impossible to implement; in truth, restoration of fuel subsidy is tantamount to restoration of foreign exchange subsidy.

For those who have forgotten or were children or were not born as of 1982, it is useful to recall that, as of that year, one Naira bought $1.49 and one Naira bought 5 litres of petrol; yet, by 1983, there were cries of hunger in the land so much so that late Umaru Dikko, late President Shagari’s minister of transport and influential member of his party retorted that he had not seen anyone eating from the dustbin. Dikko was widely criticised for that remark. The pertinent question here is: if subsidised fuel and Naira-exchange prices were sole guarantees of cheap food and transportation on a sustainable basis, why did it not happen in 1983? Once you get your economics wrong, your politics must fall apart. This is the lesson few politicians are willing to learn or to accept…to their peril!

Whereas President Tinubu has been implementing the reforms that Nigeria truly needs, he seems, in my opinion, to have frittered away part of the praises he rightly deserves for his courage. This resulted from three main flaws: (1) wrong timing of subsidy-savings-funded new infrastructural projects (2) wrong choice of implementation templates for poverty alleviation and (3) omission or under-deployment of the right transmission mechanisms to deliver reform dividends.

Observers noted recently the new sense of urgency shown by the FG with regard to resolving the hardship faced by Nigerians in the matter of road transportation; in addition to high fares and fueling costs, travellers and motorists suffer painful gridlocks due to the extremely bad conditions of federal highways. Also, these are the same arteries by which food products from farming communities are moved to the urban consumption centres. How would food prices come down where what is produced cannot be easily transported to reach the markets? How do you reduce poverty when millions of productive hours are lost to traffic gridlocks and impassable highways? It was therefore an error on the part of the FG that reconstruction and expansion of the existing stock of federal roads were not top priority in the deployment of the savings accruing from fuel and FX price reforms. It was an error to choose superhighways when ”superlow-ways” (good highways) are what touch the lives of the people now! This is why the Tinubu administration is not being enthusiastically celebrated for starting the construction of two superhighways but berated for the failure to keep interstate highways in motorable condition for painlesss movement of goods and persons. Of course, the long-term strategic benefits of the coastal as well as the Badagry-Sokoto superhighways are undeniable; however, by rushing into these futuristic, money-guzzling projects while the economy was yet to stabilise fully, the Tinubu administration was spreading itself too thing on the ground. Commendably, the FG seems to have started to correct these lapses by ordering emergency repairs of the affected roads and recommitting to timely roll-out of CNG-powered vehicular transport solutions. Here, the opposition deserves to be praised for keeping the government on its toes even if its primary interest is to extract maximum electoral profit from the FG’s policy-implementation/policy errors.

Since the government is fully aware that the ”no-income” and low-income people are the most vulnerable to policy-reform shocks that are transmitted instantly through all sectors of the economy, these classes of people ought to have been the primary and immediate focus of the government; these classes also have the distinction of forming the bulk of the voting population. To free resources for priority social needs, it is advised that, to the extent that the contract terms allow for it, the execution of the superhighway projects should be paused for at least 180 days so that funds may be redeployed to country-wide reconstruction/upgrade of federal roads. This can only earn more support for the administration. In any case, the administration would do well to remember that if it put its own chances in jeopardy, a successor administration was not bound to execute those mega-projects at breakneck speeds.. Moreover, it is improbable that, even at the current tempo, those two projects would be completed before the end of President Tinubu’s second term in office, if he won reelection in 2027.

The conditional cash transfer scheme via which the Tinubu administration declares to have reached 9 million poor households

Is an untidy mechanism that President Tinubu should never adopted. Not only is the scheme prone to abuse, as reports have lately indicated, the fact of its selectivity and non-universality makes it arbitrary in application. Whereas 9 million households correspond to around 40 million persons, beneficiaries of the scheme hardly manifest themselves anywhere. Yet, the government reports that it has poured some N600 billion into the scheme already. No wonder the Tinubu administration has hardly earned any credit or favourable review in respect of the cash transfer scheme.

An effective pro-poor intervention programme should provide simultaneous overarching relief to the entire population of poor households without exception, in the most transparent manner such that no qualifying household could have been missed; in the market-place, prices are not set selectively for the rich and the poor not are households separated into poor and extremely poor.. The conditional cash transfer programme clearly fails the transparency test and it should be discontinued. In its place, the government should intensify the use of the wide range of fiscal instruments at its disposal. Take for instance, import-duty waiver.

In July 2024, the FG approved a 150-day duty-free window for four staples: maize, brown rice, wheat/flour, beans; duty-waiver is a subsidy that reflects in lower product shelf-price which directly benefits the consumer; it is an alternative type of subsidy that cannot be stolen or smuggled. That measure benefits all households simultaneously, particularly the poor households which mostly consume these items directly or as manufactured products (bread). The waiver regime should have been widened to additional items including milk, sugar, vegetable oil, fish, chicken, beef, medicines… and prolonged much further than 150 days, to upwards of 36 months. Since such waivers are not permanent, they cannot destroy local production which can equally receive non-cash incentives in various forms.

By using fiscal levers, the FG would have been able to re-route funds legally out of the federation account to benefit the people directly. It has been noted that most of the spendings by the state governments from their vastly increased monthly allocations hardly benefit their people, who in turn look up to the FG for palliatives. It is therefore unwise for the FG to accumulate funds in the federation account for states, which are fiscally autonomous in the use of resources, to fritter away on unnecessary projects, as President Tinubu himself observed recently, while their peoples suffer greatly. A commendable exception is the Ebonyi State government one of whose social support programmes is the payment of monthly stipends to all of its citizens aged over 60 years. That is an all-encompassing and transparent intervention. This is not to say that the states don’t need lots of money to meet the very numerous genuine and priority needs of their peoples: schools, health centres, markets, intra-state roads, social housing projects…

Another lever that President Tinubu ought to have used intensively is discriminatory VAT whereby goods and services consumed by the low-income and vulnerable class are VAT-exempted while the burden is transferred to non-essential and luxury goods; in this wise, soft-drinks, beverages, milk, sugar, vegetable oil and such-like should be VAT-free. This is analogous to the approach adopted by the administration to shift income-tax burden away from low-income earners to the high-income and rich classes. The rich have enormous capacity to absorb reform policy-shocks which the vulnerable class obviously does not have. For instance, a woman with a collection of luxury automobiles in her garage would not wail in the street if tomorrow, a litre of fuel sells for N2,000. It’s the poor man who owns no vehicle who would cry loudest to the embarrassment of the government. Ordinary commonsense dictates that policy-implementation measures should first focus on the transportation needs of the man and not on preserving the extra comfort of the woman, albeit legitimate. It is recommended that, going forward, President Tinubu should deploy all the constitutional means at his disposal to bring relief first and foremost to the less endowed class, but not by doling out cash to unverifiable clusters of beneficiaries.

Whereas it is undisputable that President Tinubu has displayed rare courage in his reform agenda, it is not clear why he has avoided some obvious, less politically-risky reform imperatives; two such reforms readily come to mind: (1) implementation of the Oronsaye report on the reform of the civil service and (2) low-profile presidency.

For a reform-oriented administration, the implementation of the Oronsaye report looks like a natural starting point. Yet, almost 4 years down the line, President Tinubu does not appears eager to implement the report. Clearly, that would have resulted in the downsizing of the federal civil service, freeing up resources to fund social safety nets and critical road, electricity and security infrastructure in the aftermath of the fuel and FX price reforms. A massive downsizing of the cost of running government, by, say, 50% (and you don’t need to sack any employees or appointees for that to happen), would have meant a saving of over N10 trillion in recurrent and statutory expenses if we used the 2026 budget estimates as an illustration.

The resultant saving from that reform alone could be smartly deployed to the reconstruction and expansion of federal roads, now in terrible conditions in several parts of the country, lowering the cost of food, medicines and other essential commodities, increased supply of subsidised agricultural inputs and mechanised services, counterpart provision (jointly, with each state government) of two meals daily for pupils and teachers of all public primary and secondary schools throughout the country for which the FG bears 60% and the State government 40%. Notice that the school-feeding programme would create thousands of jobs for suppliers of foodstuff, food vendors, catering hands and providers of ancillary services, all coming mostly from among the low-income, vulnerable classes, the most impacted by disruptive fiscal and monetary reforms; in addition, guaranteed off-takers are provided for food-crop farmers. It is programmes like this, generating extensive multiplier effects that deny opponents of the government of the ammunition they need to go on the offensive..Nothing, in my view, justifies President Tinubu’s hesitation or refusal to embrace and implement the Oronsaye report at the onset of his administration.

At the personal level, the President ought to have employed symbolic gestures to drive home his point about the urgency and inevitability of his reforms, which necessarily entail belt-tightening for everyone. Although Nigeria was financially bouyant during the Murtala-Obasanjo regime of 1975-1979, that military administration adopted what was then known as ”low profile”. This was symbolised by the fact of the head of state using a Peugeot 504 as official car. Yet, as many would remember, Nigeria enjoyed a lofty image and international prestige during that period. Once the citizens see proof of symbolic sacrifice by the leader, they are more easily persuaded to make even bigger sacrifices on their own part. Yes, we’ve now learnt that the President eats once a day and also treks to work. But, these facts are known only inside Aso Rock. What matters is what Nigerians outside the Villa perceive or observe directly.

To be clear, there’s nothing the President enjoys in office, today, that he could not afford prior to coming into office, except, perhaps, the Nigerian Air Force, his official aircraft. The whole point is about deploying empathy to power the people’s acceptance of tough socio-economic policies. Indeed, the combination of a lean federal government and an austere presidency is the joker presidential candidate Peter Obi is essentially banking upon in challenging President Tinubu for the job. To Obi’s credit, he has not disavowed any of the reforms initiated by the President, which every knowlegeable and honest person knows could not be avoided or delayed further. Apart from this joker and likely rearrangement of the infrastructural project-portfolio, to shift priority from superhighways and similar futuristic projects to the more immediate need of motorable federal highways, electric power and citizen security, it’s hard to see what else Obi or any of the other candidates could do differently to soothe Nigerians at this moment.

Ultimately, the true power of incumbency lies in the ability of the government to do now, for the people (to the extent that it’s a reasonable and feasible proposition as opposed to unrealistic, vote-baiting declarations like restoration of fuel subsidy), what the opposition can only aspire or promise to do if it gets elected. That power of incumbency is a tremendous advantage. Let President Tinubu use it to the fullest.

Nothing must discourage or scare the Olorikunkun from implementing the remaining reforms and social re-engineering that Nigeria needs to transit to a truly modern economy. He asked for this job, he got the job. He must get the job done to full accomplishment. This is his destiny and he must not run away from it.