“She was called Phillis, because that was the name of the ship that brought her, and Wheatley, which was the name of the merchant who bought her. She was born in Senegal. In Boston, the slave traders put her up for sale:
-she's seven years old! She will be a good mare!
She was felt, naked, by many hands.
At thirteen, she was already writing poems in a language that was not her own. No one believed that she was the author. At the age of twenty, Phillis was questioned by a court of eighteen enlightened men in robes and wigs.
She had to recite texts from Virgil and Milton and some messages from the Bible, and she also had to swear that the poems she had written were not plagiarized. From a chair, she gave her long examination, until the court accepted her:
THE FALL OF THE TEFLON DON? NIGERIA’S 2027 SHOWDOWN WITH TINUBU
No institution has been able to rein in Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He has evaded accountability at every turn with deliberate indifference. Like Teflon, nothing sticks to him. Not yet.
Each time he crossed a line, the system didn’t push back, it adjusted. The boundaries of legality, ethics, and public decency were redrawn to accommodate him. Every time an institution had the power to stop him, it chose instead to serve him. What should have been checks on his power became enablers of impunity.
I have painstakingly documented the twenty six most egregious examples of this pattern. Clear, disturbing instances where Tinubu got away with breaking the law, ignoring it, or twisting it to his advantage, and where those meant to hold him accountable chose silence, complicity, or active collaboration. Together, they form a portrait not just of a man, but of a captured state that bends for power, not principle.
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Given this pattern, there is little surprise in Tinubu’s behavior; he is acting exactly as expected. What’s more troubling is the response of many Nigerians, their willingness to excuse, ignore, or rationalize his behavior and record. Rather than demand accountability, they cling to the illusion that change will somehow arrive through hope alone, without resistance, accountability, or demand for justice.
This collective disillusionment has come at a steep cost. Nigerians, bruised, broken, and betrayed, have withdrawn, not out of approval but because they have been conditioned to believe that nothing will ever change. Tinubu has not merely survived scrutiny; he has neutralized it. He has not only ruled; he has rewritten the rules. And in the Nigeria he governs, impunity has become the only law that still functions.
As the nation edges closer to 2027, a more urgent question comes into view: will Nigerians finally see him for who he truly is and understand the scale of the damage his leadership has already inflicted? Will those who have endured the consequences of his reckless, self-serving policies find the courage to hold him accountable? Or will silence and resignation once again prevail?
The urgency of these questions is underscored by the past two years of his presidency, years marked by the rise of ethnocracy, where key positions in government are dominated by his ethnic kin, creating resentment and division. Layered on top are staggering levels of incompetence, frequent policy failures, entrenched corruption, widespread insecurity, creeping authoritarianism, growing hunger, and a collapse of public trust. These trends are not isolated missteps; they are dangerous patterns that, if left unchecked, could plunge the country further into deeper instability.
And the list of what he has gotten away with only keeps growing. Character flaws that would disqualify any serious contender in a country where integrity still counts. Scandals that would end political careers in any functioning democracy. Alleged crimes and election fraud that should provoke outrage and global condemnation. Policy fiascos that have deepened insecurity and despair. Abuses of power so blatant they no longer shock anyone. We will return to these in greater detail.
Despite all this, Tinubu grows more brazen by the day. As opportunistic politicians defect to his side, he becomes further emboldened, exposing just how corroded Nigeria’s political culture has become. Only in Nigeria could a man with his record of misrule, unexplained wealth, systemic abuse, and unresolved controversies not only become president but now, without irony, prepare to ask for another four years in 2027.
The consequences of elevating a shadowy, unaccountable figure to the presidency again are now impossible to ignore. Two years in, the naira has collapsed, inflation has soared, and poverty has worsened. According to health and humanitarian reports, more Nigerians are dying from hunger and disease than during Buhari’s tenure. The fuel subsidy was removed without any relief measures, plunging millions into further hardship. Insecurity continues to spread. Billions in borrowed funds have failed to revive the economy, leaving the country drowning in debt with nothing to show for it.
And yet, Tinubu remains untouched, shielded by loyalists, protected by money, and insulated by a system that rewards failure. His presidency has dragged the standard of leadership to unprecedented lows.
BURIED FOR 50 YEARS: BRITAIN’S SHAMEFUL ROLE IN THE BIAFRAN WAR
It is a good thing to be proud of one’s country, and I am – most of the time. But it would be impossible to scan the centuries of Britain’s history without coming across a few incidents that evoke not pride but shame. Among those I would list are the creation by British officialdom in South Africa of the concentration camp, to persecute the families of Boers. Add to that the Amritsar massacre of 1919 and the Hola camps set up and run during the struggle against Mau Mau.
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The northern and western regions of Nigeria were swept by a pogrom in which thousands of Igbo were slaughtered.
But there is one truly disgusting policy practised by our officialdom during the lifetime of anyone over 50, and one word will suffice: Biafra.
This referred to the civil war in Nigeria that ended 50 years ago this month. It stemmed from the decision of the people of the eastern region of that already riot-racked country to strike for independence as the Republic of Biafra. As I learned when I got there as a BBC correspondent, the Biafrans, mostly of the Igbo people, had their reasons.
The federal government in Lagos was a brutal military dictatorship that came to power in 1966 in a bloodbath. During and following that coup, the northern and western regions were swept by a pogrom in which thousands of resident Igbo were slaughtered. The federal government lifted not a finger to help. It was led by an affable British-educated colonel, Yakubu Gowon. But he was a puppet. The true rulers were a group of northern Nigerian colonels. The crisis deepened, and in early 1967 Eastern Nigeria, harbouring about 1.8 million refugees, sought restitution. A British-organised conference was held in Ghana and a concordat agreed. But Gowon, returning home, was flatly contradicted by the colonels, who tore up his terms and reneged on the lot. In April the Eastern Region formally seceded and on 7 July, the federal government declared war.
THE MEETING THAT STOLE A NATION: HOW THE ABANDONED PROPERTY ACT WAS BORN
Port Harcourt, Late 1975.
The Nigerian Civil War had ended five years earlier. The guns were silent. The Biafran flag was lowered. But for the Igbo people, the battle was far from over. The new war was no longer fought on the blood-soaked fields of Enugu or Nsukka. It was a quiet war, fought in offices, courtrooms, and government houses.
In a nondescript room inside the Rivers State Government House, a secret meeting convened behind closed doors. The ceiling fan hummed relentlessly as a group of men gathered around a heavy wooden table strewn with maps, legal documents, and property claims. They were about to forge a legal instrument that would devastate the Igbo people for generations.
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At the head of the table sat Navy Commander Alfred Diete-Spiff, then the young and ambitious Military Governor of Rivers State. With him were key figures who would shape one of Nigeria’s most painful post-war legacies:
Justice Ephraim Akpata, Chief Judge of Rivers State
Colonel Anthony Ukpo, liaison officer from the Supreme Military Council
Dr. Okoi Arikpo, federal advisor and Foreign Minister
A Yoruba constitutional lawyer from Lagos (name withheld for privacy) tasked with drafting the legal framework
Senior civil commissioners and property officials from Rivers and South Eastern States.
The Agenda That Shattered Lives
Their mission was clear but devastating:
1. Declare Igbo properties abandoned and seize them as state assets.
2. Create legal cover to prevent restitution claims.
3. Redistribute these properties to indigenous residents, military officers, and political cronies.
4. Avoid federal interference and silence Eastern political voices.
For those saying Tinubu designed and handed the template for Lagos, please read and digest.
From Lade Bonuola, founding editor of The Guardian Newspaper:
I have restrained myself from getting involved in this kind of controversy. This was why I made a strenuous effort from being drawn into the brickbat between Bayo Onanuga/Dele Alake on the one hand and Arise News on the other despite pressure on me to say something. “Oga, this is shameful, won’t you say something to guide us?” I resisted the pressure. The drive for political power in this clime has no respect for anything. Not for honor, nor anything with the tinge of sublimity! You will be hailed for calling black white and white, black, even on the platform of journalists who are not just observers but chroniclers of developments and events.
How can anybody say LASU was a glorified school? Oh, really?
The Metro line was stopped by the Buhari junta, not by NPN!
What NPN attempted to do was to stop the establishment of Lagos Radio and Television. The Shagari Administration sought to vest the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria with the power to establish and operate state radio stations. The Nigerian Television Authority was to set up at least one television station in each state of the Federation. They said states setting up radios and TV would amount to the proliferation of broadcast stations. They did not know the person they were dealing with—someone who for years was the President of IPI, the founder of the Nigeria Guild of Editors, the founder of Newspapers Proprietors Association, (NPAN); founder of NIJ, managing director/editor of the Nigerian Tribune, one who led the media in battles with the military as well as irresponsible civilian administrations. Jakande fought it and was victorious. His administration was therefore the first state government to own a TV station in Nigeria.
The functional primary schools he built to abolish the three-session system he inherited were recommended by UNESCO for developing countries.
When Gbolahan Mudasiru came, he started to upgrade them. And he did a lot. The Jakande schools were meant for a purpose, and they fulfilled such that pupil enrollment leaped from 90, 172 in 1979 to 136, 987 in 1983.
Secondary schools rose from 79 when Jakande took over from 1979 to 319 by July 1983. The student population was 59,584 by October 1979. By a year later, it had leaped to 107, 835 students.
The teachers were the highest paid in the nation with the right to car and housing loans like the state civil servants.
What hunters see in the forest is enough to make children of men without balls blind. An ethnographic study of hunters in a wild called Ìgbẹ Alágogo conducted by a scholar at the University of Ibadan, Ayo Adeduntan, gave birth to the narrative. Ọláníyì Ọládèj̣ọ Yáwóọ̣ré had gone hunting one day and came face to face with a deer breastfeeding her young. Stupefied by this weird sight, an unusual dizziness pounced upon the hunter. But "an animal is pursuing me" is a disgraceful song that must never be sung by a man born to hunt. Yáwóọ̣ré quickly picked himself up and fought back with a dose of potent Ọfọ (incantation), one of the priceless assets he inherited from his father: “The ladybird beetle does not suffer from sight impairment…"
Hunter dipped his hand into his cloak and brought out a phial, the content of which he then used to wipe his face. Now he can see! Now that he could see, he had very little difficulty making sumptuous meat of the deer. At home, hunter skinned his game and hung its hide to dry in the open. This is where the story starts to be sweet like a soup of deer meat.
The second day, a mysterious woman visited Yáwóọ̣ré and a conversation ensued. The mysterious woman then told the hunter: “I know you killed a deer. But you did because we wanted you to. Now, why do you show off with its skin? Why did you spread it out, pegged to the ground outside? You sure want to show the whole world that you it was that killed the animal. Were you the one who actually killed the animal or we gave it to you? Don’t you know spreading out the hide in the open that way is exposing our clothing to the mundane world?” Yawoore got the message. He made amends.
At the APC Renewed Hope Agenda Summit held at the State House last Thursday, Tinubu was Yáwóọ̣ré, the ostentatious hunter. The sniper had just killed a sacred deer with a marksman’s dexterity. Like the hunter, it was time for Tinubu to gloat. Trust our president, he was at his best turf. Armed with his ancient Cockney, the president, who had just killed an elephantine game, said “nothing (is) wrong with a one party state.” He asked his people to "wipe them clean." You would think he was talking about a bowl of pounded yam accompanied by a plate of ram meat.
I looked at his face. The whole world was like a colony of ants before the president. APC, he boasted, was “one party ruling and carrying on with the aspirations of Nigerians,” in what actually came in an incoherent waffle. “You don’t expect people to remain in a sinking ship without a life jacket. I am happy with what we have accomplished and expecting more people to come; that’s the game.”
IF YOU ARE A NIGERIAN, WAKE UP FROM YOUR SLEEP AND READ THIS DISTURBING PIECE WRITTEN BY:
While the Igbo, Yoruba, and Fulani continue to quarrel over political crumbs and tribal pride, a far more dangerous and silent conquest is taking place across Nigeria. It’s not waged with guns or tanks—but with pen strokes, bank loans, and real estate acquisitions. If nothing changes, in fifteen years, the real landlords of Nigeria may not be Nigerians—they’ll be Chinese.
Across the South-West, Chinese nationals are purchasing land at an alarming rate. In cities and towns, Chinese investors are sealing land deals with little to no resistance. The very soil our ancestors fought to defend is being traded in quiet transactions, buried in legal paperwork and political indifference. At this rate, the day is coming when our children will be forced to rent their futures from foreign landlords.
The Abuja-Kaduna railway gleams like a badge of progress, but few Nigerians know what lies beneath the steel and cement—a spider web of hidden loan agreements, sovereignty waivers, and debt traps. What was presented as development is looking more like a masterclass in quiet colonisation. China has made itself indispensable to Nigeria’s infrastructure: roads, railways, power plants, airport terminals—all courtesy of Chinese financing. But what are we mortgaging in return?
Investigations by The Streetjournal reveal alarming clauses tucked inside loan agreements—clauses that allow China to take over key national assets in the event of default. One such clause, signed under the Jonathan administration, practically waives Nigeria’s sovereign immunity. In other words, if we default, China has legal grounds to claim what it finances.
The major problem with our indebtedness to the Chinese government is that most of the loans collected on behalf of Nigerians ended up in private pockets. Let me stir your thoughts with a particular contract that was bid for at the NNPC during the tenure of a former Group Managing Director. I remember clearly that the company that won the contract proposed $1.4 billion, yet, surprisingly, the same contract was awarded to the second bidder, who proposed a lesser-quality solution. Even more shockingly, the contract was awarded at a cost of $2.9 billion. An additional $400,000 was paid as a consultancy fee to a non-existent consultant.
Most of the contracts awarded in Nigeria were given to companies operated by the directors and permanent secretaries in those same ministries. They opened many company offices all over Nigeria and awarded contracts to themselves by proxy.
These were loans borrowed in the name of Nigerian citizens from China. And we must repay them—both capital and interest—for the next 35 years. This is evil perpetrated by a few wicked public servants against their fellow citizens.