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The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) has reaffirmed its commitment to strengthening integrity, transparency, accountability and ethical conduct in the discharge of its constitutional responsibilities.

The Chairman of the Commission, Dr Mohammed Bello Shehu, stated this at the opening of a five-day sensitisation and capacity-building workshop organised by the Anti-Corruption and Transparency Unit (ACTU) for newly recruited officers at the Commission’s headquarters and state offices in the North-West geopolitical zone.

The programme is aimed at strengthening ethical conduct and promoting accountability among staff of the Commission.

Speaking through the Federal Commissioner representing Kwara State and Provost of ACTU in the Commission, Hon. Ismail Muhammed Agaka, Shehu appreciated the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) for its continued partnership with RMAFC in strengthening integrity, accountability and transparency in the public service.

According to a statement by Maryam Umar Yusuf, the Chairman noted that the constitutional responsibilities entrusted to RMAFC placed the Commission at the centre of Nigeria’s fiscal governance and required not only competence and diligence but also an uncompromising commitment to integrity.

He said public trust was earned when public officers discharged their duties honestly, transparently and responsibly in the overall interest of the public.

Shehu emphasised that the fight against corruption was not the responsibility of ACTU or ICPC alone, but a personal and institutional responsibility shared by every public officer entrusted with public resources, official responsibilities and the affairs of government.

‘Every decision we take, every public resource we handle and every official process we undertake must withstand the tests of legality, accountability, fairness and transparency.’

He posited that corruption did not begin only with the taking of bribes or diversion of public funds, but could also manifest through abuse of office, conflict of interest, favouritism, manipulation of official processes and deliberate disregard for established rules and procedures.

Shehu therefore charged officers to develop a culture in which integrity was not merely preached but consistently demonstrated through their daily conduct, professional decisions and interactions with members of the public.

He urged participants to take full advantage of the five-day programme by deepening their knowledge, engaging actively with resource persons and translating the lessons learnt into improved professional conduct and service delivery in their respective offices.

‘As officers of the Commission, we must be above reproach. Let integrity guide our decisions, accountability define our actions, and service to the Nation remain our overriding commitment,’ he said.

The RMAFC chairman further advised participants to regard the workshop as an important foundation for their professional careers and encouraged them to demonstrate humility, mutual respect and professionalism in their dealings with colleagues and members of the public.

In his welcome address, the Chairman of ACTU in the Commission, Dr Idris Musa, also emphasised the need for every public servant to recognise the fight against corruption as a collective responsibility.

Musa urged participants to ensure that their decisions and actions were consistently guided by integrity and accountability in the interest of the nation.

He cautioned officers against practices capable of undermining public confidence in government institutions, including abuse of office, conflict of interest, favouritism, manipulation of official processes and deliberate disregard for established rules and procedures.

The ACTU chairman called on participants to uphold transparency and accountability in the handling of public resources and execution of official responsibilities, stressing that the conduct of public officers must continually justify the confidence and trust reposed in them by Nigerians.

In her remarks, the ICPC representative at the occasion, Dr Anike Adeshina, an Assistant Director of Public Education, said the sensitisation workshop was part of the broader anti-corruption drive of the Federal Government.

She said the programme was designed, among other objectives, to induct new staff into a culture of ethical and responsible public service.

Adeshina added that the workshop sought to strengthen participants’ understanding of the importance of conducting government business in accordance with established laws, regulations, procedures and ethical standards.

She explained that participants were expected to develop a deeper appreciation of the need to promote and protect integrity within the workplace while actively rejecting practices that contradicted the ethics of the public service.

She commended the RMAFC chairman for organising the workshop.

The Federal Government has disclosed that about 60,000 women have accessed emergency healthcare services in the last three years through interventions designed to remove financial barriers to maternal care.

Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, disclosed this at a high-level dialogue on the mid-term review of Nigeria’s health sector reforms, where government officials, civil society organisations, development partners and other stakeholders assessed progress and challenges in the sector.

Pate said the intervention was particularly targeted at women who might otherwise be unable to afford emergency healthcare during pregnancy and childbirth.

‘60,000 women in three years, imagine without that provision, how many women,’ he said.

The minister called on state governments and other stakeholders to mobilise additional resources to sustain and expand the intervention, stressing that the Federal Government alone could not resolve the challenges facing Nigeria’s health system.

Pate said the government was also strengthening primary healthcare through investments in infrastructure, medical equipment, essential commodities and human resources.

He said more than 4,000 primary healthcare facilities were being strengthened in collaboration with state and local governments, while the annual intake of health professionals had increased from about 5,000 to 10,800.

‘We need to get them, equip them, with commodities, medical equipment, all of those things that we need,’ he said.

According to him, the reforms were part of efforts to rebuild a health system weakened by years of inadequate investment, noting that reversing the decay and establishing a sustainable path to recovery would take time.

‘It takes time to build, first of all, to stop the decay and to have a path and to rebuild,’ Pate said.

He urged civil society organisations and other stakeholders to complement criticism of government policies with practical recommendations that could improve healthcare delivery.

‘We don’t have the perfection… But if we do, give us solutions. Not complain, but give us solutions,’ he said.

Chair and Co-convener of the Nigeria UHC Forum, Chief (Mrs) Moji Makanjuola, said the mid-term review provided an opportunity for non-state actors to assess the country’s health transformation alongside policymakers and health agencies.

Makanjuola said the dialogue would enable stakeholders to identify successful interventions, address implementation gaps and strengthen accountability based on evidence.

‘This dialogue offers a unique opportunity to appraise Nigeria’s health transformation journey, create a pathway to institutionalize what works, learn from what doesn’t, and do things differently where necessary,’ she said.

She identified the media as a critical link between health policymakers and citizens, saying effective reporting was necessary to help Nigerians understand reforms and demand accountability.

‘The media serves as an important bridge between policy and the people, translating complex health policies and reforms into information that citizens can understand, interrogate and act upon,’ Makanjuola said.

She disclosed that the Nigeria UHC Forum would intensify advocacy ahead of the 2027 elections to secure stronger political commitments to healthcare.

‘Health investment is primarily a political decision, and that’s why we strive to put health on the political front burner,’ she said.

Also speaking, CSO/HSRC Chairperson, Muhammad Mustapha, called for a shift in the assessment of health reforms from government spending and infrastructure projects to actual services reaching Nigerians.

Mustapha said the effectiveness of health financing should be measured by resources reaching frontline facilities and the services delivered with them.

‘Health financing should therefore be judged not only by what is allocated, but by what reaches the frontline and what services those resources purchase,’ he said.

He urged the government to make the functionality of primary healthcare centres a key benchmark for evaluating the reforms, rather than focusing primarily on the number of facilities renovated.

‘The next phase should move from counting facilities renovated to measuring facilities that are consistently functional and delivering quality services,’ Mustapha said.

He also advocated stronger Ward Development Committees and increased community participation in health governance.

‘Communities cannot effectively hold facilities accountable for resources they do not own,’ he said.

The UNFPA Representative in Nigeria, Ms. Muriel Mafico, described the ongoing reforms as bold and courageous but stressed that transforming the health sector required collective action.

She called for stronger partnerships among government institutions, development partners, civil society organisations and other stakeholders.

Troops of the Joint Task Force, Operation HADIN KAI (OPHK), have recorded further operational successes with the surrender of a Boko Haram/Islamic State West Africa Province (BH/ISWAP) terrorist and the arrest of six suspected members of a kidnapping syndicate in separate operations in Borno and Adamawa states.

This was contained in a statement made available to Defence Correspondents in Abuja on Monday by the Acting Military Information Officer of the Joint Task Force, Captain Mohammed Goni.

According to the statement, troops of 29 Task Force Brigade, operating under Sector 2 OPHK, in conjunction with Forest Guards, received a repentant BH/ISWAP terrorist at Borgozo in Benisheikh Local Government Area of Borno State on September 13, 2026.

It explained that preliminary investigation revealed that the terrorist had escaped from a terrorist enclave with the intention of abandoning terrorism.

The statement said items recovered from him included one AK-47 rifle, 14 rounds of 7.62mm Special ammunition, four magazines, one improvised explosive device (IED), one magazine pouch and a bicycle.

It added that the surrendered terrorist was in military custody undergoing further investigation and profiling in accordance with extant procedures.

In a related development, troops of Sector 4 OPHK, acting on credible human intelligence about the activities of a suspected kidnapping syndicate operating around Soktu Hill in Song Local Government Area of Adamawa State, mobilised and raided the identified hideout.

The operation led to the arrest of three suspected members of the syndicate and the recovery of one Dane gun.

The statement said further investigation and subsequent covert operations led to the arrest of three additional suspects, bringing the total number of arrested members of the syndicate to six.

According to the statement, preliminary investigation revealed that the syndicate had been operating within the Soktu, Dumne and Maigero general areas of Song Local Government Area.

It added that the suspects reportedly admitted involvement in the abduction of several victims for ransom and other violent crimes within the area.

The suspects remained in military custody for further investigation and appropriate legal action, it stated.

The statement explained that the operations underscored the sustained pressure being mounted by troops of Operation HADIN KAI against terrorists and other criminal elements across the Joint Operations Area.

It reaffirmed that the Theatre Command remained committed to sustaining offensive operations, denying terrorists and other criminal elements freedom of action, creating a safer environment for law-abiding citizens and enabling socioeconomic activities to thrive.

Is Nasir El-Rufai’s problem because he is a Muslim? Even he would say it is not so. There was this statement from the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) issued in the middle of last week. The NSCIA said it had initially regarded the El Rufai matter as a ‘standard judicial process’ but now suspects an ‘underlying religious bias.’

The NSCIA statement came on the heels of a withering anti-El-Rufai interview granted a television station by the Minister of Defence, General Christopher Musa. Musa is from Southern Kaduna and is a Christian. Unfortunately for the optics of the moment, the judge handling El-Rufai’s corruption case is also from Southern Kaduna and is also a Christian. That coincidence may be politically combustible, but should it be evidence of ‘religious bias’? I think the coincidence should not, by itself, turn El-Rufai’s legal and political troubles into a Christian-versus-Muslim affair.

The truth is El-Rufai fought too many battles, ignoring both the laws of war and the virtue of knowing who to fight, how and when not to fight. So, I say his problem is politics implicated in a complex web of other factors.

In 2023, while in power and fighting Muhammadu Buhari for Bola Tinubu, El-Rufai reportedly declared that there were ‘no elders in the North’ and that he and other governors would ‘decide the direction of Northerners.’ And they did, electing Tinubu. But by 2024, ditched by the new power, the man who ‘sabi talk’ had gained enough insight to admit the existence of elders whom he now said would help him send Tinubu ‘back to Lagos.’ Did the North acquire elders within a year?

The ancient Indian political thinker, Kautilya, might have served El-Rufai well had he made the sage his oracle. In the Arthashastra, Kautilya sets out cold-blooded principles of power and power relations. I paraphrase him: If you are weaker, make peace; if stronger, wage war; if neither side can defeat the other, remain neutral; and if too weak to defend yourself, seek protection.

How many days has Nasir El-Rufai spent in custody? Exactly 212 calendar days. In the early moments of his detention, he enjoyed two days of compassionate release to mourn and bury his 96-year-old mother. A subtraction of those two days brings his active total time spent in custody to 210 days.

He is still there facing a rash of charges: corruption, wiretapping, et cetera, et cetera. If his jailors keep him until September 22, 2026, the next adjourned date of one of the cases, his net total time behind bars will be 216 days.

Yet, the ex-governor’s alleged offences are all bailable, and he has indeed been granted bail. But the conditions attached to that bail are as long and winding as the Pan-American Highway, the world’s longest motorable road.

The most lethal of the conditions is that El-Rufai must present a surety who must be a Grade Level 17 federal civil servant, who must own a house in Maitama or Asokoro, Abuja, and must effectively put that property behind the bail. Buildings in Maitama and Asokoro are the preserve of billionaires and the seriously wealthy. Where will a civil servant earning less than ?10 million a year say he found the money to build or buy a house in either of those locations? A civil servant who would do that risked landing themselves in greater trouble over unexplained, perhaps unexplainable, wealth. The prospective surety will get cooked in a paradox: the very property that qualifies him to stand surety could invite questions about how a civil servant acquired it.

Lawyers are familiar with the maxim: ‘To impose excessive bail is to refuse it in disguise.’ Was this what the NSCIA had in mind? It certainly explains how a man who has technically been granted bail may remain in custody until God Himself bails him.

El-Rufai’s problem is àf?w?´fà, trouble brought home by one’s own hands. Around this time last year, El-Rufai went on Channels Television and served notice on the country and on our government that he and his allies were out to rout President Bola Tinubu in the 2027 election. He was definite about it. But has El-Rufai ever seen a swordsman threaten an executioner with a sword and live to tell the tale?

A key principle of war is: never tip off the enemy. Sun Tzu teaches that ‘all warfare is based on deception’; the successful commander conceals his intentions while forcing the enemy to reveal his. There is also Niccolo Machiavelli who makes concealment, calculation and the management of appearances essential instruments of political survival. In war and in politics, you do not announce your battle plan to the man you intend to defeat. You leave him guessing. El-Rufai did the opposite: he made a boast of victory and gave the enemy two clear years to prepare for him.

Machiavelli would say the former governor fell into the trap of careless openness. The Kaduna man said too much in August last year. Hear him: ‘If you want to engage in self-delusion, you are free to do so. I will not tell you how we are going to win, but I tell you very clearly, the worst-case scenario in the 2027 elections is that no winner will emerge in the first round.

‘We may have to go for a runoff, and Bola Tinubu will not be on the ballot for the runoff, because he will, at best, be third in the election. He has no pathway to win. I have done the maths, I have done the analysis; he cannot, he will, at best, be third.

‘But he can deceive himself; he may think, oh, you know, I have money, because they have taken all the money in the country, I have INEC, I have the police, I have the army. It’s like those who say Tinubu has never lost an election. That can be contested, but it’s okay. He’s a political strategist, he’s this, he’s that. Wait!’

Napoleon Bonaparte is famously credited with the counsel that you should never interrupt an enemy while he is making a mistake. El-Rufai did not merely become Tinubu’s political enemy; he served notice of battle. Napoleon’s enemies sometimes did that – to their sorrow and ruin. Prussia sent him an ultimatum in 1806 and soon discovered the cost at Jena and Auerstedt. The truly savvy delivers an ultimatum when the army is ready and the guns are loaded. El-Rufai announced his 2027 war almost two years before the battlefield opened.

El-Rufai would not have said those things if he had read Niccolò Machiavelli’s prescriptions on prudence and pre-emption. ‘No proceeding is better than that which you have concealed from the enemy until the time you have executed it.’

If the stormy petrel of Northern Nigerian politics remains in custody until the first anniversary of his capture, his game will have escaped the hunter. The election will have come and gone without him. The man who announced that he would hunt Tinubu out of power in 2027 would have spent the entire hunting season behind bars, his gun unfired, his quarry beyond reach.

There is always a problem with boasts and audacious notices of attack: they warn the game, stiffen its defences and surrender the advantage of surprise. In war, as in politics, a hunter who announces his coming may discover that his prey has spent the notice period setting traps for the hunter himself.

Some fifty-something years ago, my mother told me of an old man who, decades earlier, used to boast that he could burgle any house and nothing would happen. The boaster was a fearsome man of medicine with a talk-and-do reputation. So, the standard response the burglar always got was an affirmation of his prowess in banditry: ‘B?´?` ni, o lè kó o’ (Yes, you can rob the house). The community was helpless and its tormentor knew it and enjoyed it.

Every person born Yoruba remembers the contracted proverb: Ogun àwít?l? (a war foretold)? The chief robber’s constant boast was classic Ogun Àwítélè, only the master warrior waged it. The helpless people of the district eventually found a solution to the terror of the invincible.

How?

The man lost because the whole town cooked for his big belly and ruptured his small and big intestines. He thought prowess in gutting one household was a licence to invade another.

El-Rufai was a key commander in the war that defeated Goodluck Jonathan in 2015. The man boasts that, even before Jonathan, he had seen the back of Umaru Yar’Adua. After Jonathan, it was his bugle that rallied the North for Bola Tinubu and helped defeat Muhammadu Buhari’s insular succession plan. If you have all these medals, as El-Rufai does, you are likely to see yourself wearing the armour of invincibility.

But there is always a day of loss. That is why the wise counsel the powerful to be prudent. One Yoruba proverb illustrates this rather well: Ak’?`p? Ìbàdàn kó má k?´ ti Ògbóm?`??´ (let the Ibadan palm-tapper keep away from the Ogbomoso palm). And what if he does not? A lot could happen, because not every palm is available to every accomplished tapper: Gbogbo ?`p? kó ni onígbà n gùn (it is not every palm tree that a palm-tapper climbs).

Twenty-one years ago, I interviewed the late celebrated writer and dramatist, Chief Adebayo Faleti, in the course of a biography I was working on. He told me where he wrote one of his works:

‘I wrote my book, ‘Wón Rò Pé Wèrè Ni’, in Okuku, present Osun State.’ The book’s title means ‘They Thought She was Mad’. W?´n Rò Pé Wèrè Ni is the story of a man of means whose vain quest for victory over a rival at all costs ultimately ruins him. One day, determined to win a cash-spraying competition at a social party, the big man asked the lead drummer of his town how much his drum cost. ‘Two pounds,’ the drummer replied. The big man promptly handed him fifty pounds and ordered him to beat the drum until it burst.

That day, in his desperation to win, the man of wealth parted with three hundred pounds. When he exhausted his cash, he turned to his adornments. He spent his agbádá, he spent his wristwatch, and he spent even his shoes. At the end, the entertainers went home rejoicing with their windfall, while the triumphant big man walked home barefoot, stripped of his ?`wù ?tù, his agbádá or, if you like, call it Babariga. The big man won the contest, but victory had stripped him bare. He never recovered.

Now, I remember that I should have asked Baba Faleti where he wrote his other works, particularly his popular novel, Ogun Àwítélè (Foretold War). I would have found it particularly apt today if his answer had been somewhere in Northern Nigeria, especially Abuja.

In Fálétí’s ‘Ogun Àwít?l?’ the peace of a town is shattered when Àjàní, leader of a notoriously daring gang of armed robbers, sends the Baálè a letter announcing that he and his men are coming to attack and plunder the community. He gives the date and asks the Baale to inform his hunters. In vain all the hunters’ efforts will be, the letter boasts. Àjàní’s other name is Ajíbóògùn??`r?` (he who wakes up to converse with charms and amulets). The robber’s letter is worth reading a million times by all who are threatened by men of power.

Àjàní thought his advertised prowess was sufficient guarantee of victory. Rather than surrender to fear, however, the Baálè summons the chief hunter, the Olúóde, who rallies Ìkólàbà, his second-in-command, and the town’s hunters and warriors. The community pools its resources, gathers weapons and charms, makes sacrifices to Ògún and consults Ifá, which reveals the actual day and time the attack will come.

Thus forewarned, the town prepares for battle. When Àjàní and his gang eventually descend on the community in force, expecting their reputation and firepower to overwhelm it, they meet a people ready to defend their lives, families and property. The marauders’ presumption of universal prowess fails the test of reality. A fierce battle follows. The robbers are decisively defeated, and the powerful Àjàní is exiled from life by a very junior hunter. The town’s victory is total.

Faleti’s story dramatises the wisdom of the proverb: Ogun àwítélè kì í pa ar? tó bá gb?´n (a foretold war does not kill a wise cripple).

But Faleti’s story says something extra. Àjàní’s error was not that he had no prowess; it was that he mistook the potency of what he had for omnipotence. He had won before, frightened people before, subdued communities before; plundered without consequences before. He therefore assumed that the next community was merely another address awaiting his arrival.

That is where my other two proverbs sit at dinner with El-Rufai’s 2027 election boast. The Kaduna palm-tapper should have known where his territory ended and where the Bourdillon palm plantation began. Ak?`p? òkè kó mó k? t’ìsàl?`: the upland palm-tapper should not tap the palms of the lowlands. And even within his own plantation, experience should teach the accomplished tapper some discretion: Gbogbo ?`p? kó ni onígbà n gùn. Not every palm tree is for tapping. Sometimes, some battles strip a General bare.

Now, let me ask again: Is El-Rufai’s problem that he is a Muslim? I do not think so. Is it because he is a northerner? Again, no. Is it politics, or is it purely a legal issue? I insist it is politics; it is a political problem that has chosen to run on legal fuel. I want to tell the NSCIA that religion cannot give the man the warmth he needs in this harmattan. What he needs now is a very thick cloth woven from the threads of real politics.

An old warning pops up here for all of us: Never dig the pit of politics too deep. This is a warning with a long pedigree in the literature of power. Read Robert Greene; read Niccolò Machiavelli; read Sun Tzu; read Kautilya; read Thomas Hobbes; read Friedrich Nietzsche. Across more than two millennia, these writers interrogate power from different directions: its acquisition, exercise, preservation, psychology and loss.