Dear Aare Afe Babalola SAN, I hope this meets you in the right condition because even though God has granted you grace of wealth and health, you are on a delicate level and must be managed.

🧵 You are highly blessed to have chosen a profession that made you such a great person. With over 6 decades of practice, 37 of it as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, the Guinness Books must create a record for longevity of professional calling with distinction. It is not only long but positively eventful. You have made lawyers and senior advocates, judges and Justices and attorneys- general including the present Attorney- General of the Federation.

Contrary to assertions by some so-called experts who have been prattling all week that Dele Farotimi wrote what he could not logically substantiate in his book Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System, this was a pre-meditated confrontation. Having depleted the legal means to get justice, he wrote to re-litigate the case in the court of public opinion. He seems calculatedly driven by the Yoruba proverb that says no one dies at the same spot they uttered blasphemy. In the time between your speaking and being punished, much can happen to change social dynamics. From the potpourri of events in the past week, Farotimi got what he wanted. One cannot say the same for Afe Babalola who, by now, would have realised that giving a traducer what they want is not the most prudent battle move. My reading is that Farotimi knew Babalola’s peculiar weakness and worked it to advantage. I will get to that momentarily.

🧵 The blowback from this case is another instance that hopefully teaches our elites to rein in their tendency to exploit the warped Nigerian justice system that allows criminal defamation as a legal recourse. Criminal defamation might be legal, but it is unjust. It is a law that exists to regulate the differentials of power and access, one of the many ways rich people further privatise public resources. Since lawmakers are too compromised to expunge the law and law enforcers incapable of the reflexivity that will enlighten them on the stupidity of using state resources to fight an individual over another’s integrity, the best we can do for now is pressure the entitled “big man” not to take that path. In a criminal case, the prosecutor investigates to convict. The Nigerian police, perennially short of resources, spares no expense when sent to prosecute criminal defamation on behalf of another narcissist. Why should the state do that on behalf of an ordinary individual? Babalola, especially, is a man of ample resources, who can afford to fight for his reputation on his own dime.

In the Matter of Dele Farotimi before the Star Chamber

Paul Anyebe was a judge of the High Court of Benue State in north-central Nigeria who had a young son with sticky fingers and a sense of adventure. It was his role as a dad that endangered his job as a judge.

One night around 1983, Anyebe caught his son attempting to steal from his bedroom. In response, Anyebe pulled his gun in an effort to scare the boy. The gun went off, discharging a bullet which hit and seriously injured the boy. The Attorney-General of Benue State decided to prosecute Paul Anyebe for attempted murder. The Penal Code applicable in Benue State at the time had ample provisions for the crime of attempted murder.

The Attorney-General also added a charge of illegal possession of firearms, a federal offence. Unlike the crime of attempted murder, which was a state crime in Benue State, all firearms offences are federal. The Attorney-General of Benue was well within his powers to prosecute for attempted murder but only the Attorney-General of the Federation could prosecute or authorize prosecution for federal offences.
🧵 At the conclusion of the trial, the High Court of Benue State discharged Paul Anyebe on the charge of attempted murder, a state offence, but convicted him on the charge of illegal possession of firearms (a federal offence) for which it sentenced him to three years in prison. The Court of Appeal reduced this sentence to six months in prison or a fine of one hundred Naira. Following this decision and while his appeal was yet to be heard by the Supreme Court, Paul Anyebe was dismissed as a judge.

When the Supreme Court decided Anyebe’s appeal in January 1986, Dahunsi Olugbemi Coker, a Justice of the court, summed up the issue for decision in one sentence: “The short point is whether a State Attorney-General can prosecute an offence created by an Act of the National Assembly.” To this question, the court unanimously responded in the negative. They nullified Anyebe’s trial and ordered the fine paid – one hundred Naira – refunded to him. The Court of Appeal ordered his reinstatement with full benefits.

The Banker and the Maiden: A True Story of Passion and Pain
A true life story 🧵

By the time you are done reading this piece you would have read in a beautiful story style, the case of MISS CHINYE A.M. EZEANAH V. ALHAJI MAHMOUD I. ATTA (2004) 7 NWLR (Pt. 873)468).

“When my love swears that she is made of truth,I do believe her, though I know she lies,That she might think me some untutor’d youth, Unskillful in the world’s false forgeries”-

William Shakespeare, The Passionate Pilgrim When the Banker met the Maiden in the early 1990s, it was love at first sight, at least on the part of the banker. Mahmoud Attah was the Banker. Chinye Ezeanah was the Maiden. Attah was however not just an ordinary banker. He was a super banker. In fact, he was the chairman of one of the biggest banks in Nigeria at the time.

Chinye was as beautiful as she was elegant. She was described by one of the witnesses as ‘fine and charming’. Theirs was a story described by the Supreme Court as a story of so much love and so much pain. But at the time, neither Attah nor Chinye knew that what started as love at first sight would end up in court as a landmark case.

It was not exactly clear when they met. The chairman claimed they met in 1991. Chinye claimed it was in 1993. According to her, it was at her younger sister’s boyfriend’s house that they met and it was in January 1993. The chairman saw the beautiful lady who was ‘fine and charming’ and became besotted. He asked her to be his girlfriend. Chinye refused on that day. The chairman however refused to take no for an answer.

They went on as father and daughter. The chairman became the guardian. The maiden became his ward. With time, Chinye agreed to become his girlfriend. Attah must have been elated. He lavished love and money on the object of his affection. He rented an apartment for her in Maitama, Abuja. At the time when telephone was the exclusive preserve of the rich and a status symbol, the apartment had an installed telephone, courtesy of Alhaji Attah.

A Journey to Agnostic Theism: Seeking God Amid Confusing Evidence

God isn’t a phantom, nor can He be fully fathomed.

If you ask Richard Swinburne, the British philosopher who has devoted his career to pondering the divine, he would say—with scarcely a pause—that it is far more probable that God exists than not. His compatriot, physicist Stephen Unwin, in his book The Probability of God, even ventures an audacious Bayesian estimate of 67% for the likelihood of God’s existence. Yet their fellow countryman, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, counters this with a starkly different view: in The God Delusion, he rhetorically places the probability as low as 2%. Christopher Hitchens, another British thinker, spent his life passionately arguing along similar skeptical lines.

A thread 🧵 These contrasting positions reveal a decision-theoretic dilemma akin to a cosmic Prisoner’s Dilemma: should we embrace the common belief in God in pursuit of everlasting bliss, or seek skeptical autonomy (freedom to reason independently) and risk eternal damnation? Blaise Pascal, the 17th-century mathematician and philosopher, articulated this tension masterfully in his famous Wager, contending that belief in God is the safest gamble: it offers infinite gain if God truly exists and only finite loss if He does not; while disbelief risks infinite loss or, at best, offers finite gain.

The polarized perspectives on God highlight a profound tension between belief and doubt—between faith and reason—that has intensified in contemporary times due to the advance of science and modernization. This dichotomy has led to increasing secularization in affluent parts of the world, juxtaposed with the persistence and even intensification of religiosity and desecularization elsewhere. Agnostic theism seeks to navigate this tension by affirming the possibility of God’s existence while acknowledging the inscrutability of the divine.

As a layperson (a cradle Christian and fervent adherent in my youth) who has long pondered this matter, particularly to clarify the basis for my Christian faith, I find myself increasingly attracted to—or, at least, curious about—this philosophical position. It maintains a firm belief in God while recognizing ambiguity about His attributes and role in nature. On balance, I believe accessible evidence points strongly toward a transcendent reality and a Supreme Being we call God (my Igbo name—see byline—asserts this very claim). Yet, while affirming this belief, I cannot presume a high level of certainty about the true nature of God, His intentions, or methods—or whether these are accessible to human cognition. Consequently, I have become increasingly uncomfortable with religious dogma, preferring to show intellectual humility in my belief as I revel in—and try to unravel—the wonder of existence. I embrace science as a glimpse into the divine order but recognize its limits in addressing ultimate metaphysical questions.

Apparently, Reuben Abati's run-in with accusations of Igbophobia did not start today. Here is a January 2002 right of reply on Reuben's article published in the Guardian Newspaper titled "Obasanjo, Secession and the Secessionists", written by veteran journalist Josh Arinze who escaped Abacha's repression of journalists in the aftermath of the Gwadebe fathom coup, and took political asylum in the United States in 1995.
Enjoy the thread. 🧵 Dear Reuben,
You know who I am, so I’ll cut out the niceties and go straight to the point. I tend to stick to civility, however controversial the issue. But since small
minds have trouble understanding the language of
enlightened discourse, I will make an exception and try to speak to you in a language you can understand.

I’m aware that The (Lagos) Guardian has been on the
Web for a while.  I follow events in Nigeria very closely, but I don’t usually read your column.  There are two reasons for that.  One: the few articles of yours I’ve read in the past were rather heavy on polemics, and offered very little by way of clear-headed analysis.
Two: your prose is quite pedestrian, although I’m sure your friends and relatives wouldn’t tell you that. 

Pardon me for hurting your feelings, Reuben, but you’re not exactly the 1960s generation’s equivalent of Ray Ekpu or Dan Agbese.  And with so many excellent works to read and so little time, I pay very little
attention to second-rate columnists.

However, on December 23, I got an e-mail about a
write-up of yours that appeared in that day’s edition
of The Guardian. If you were craving attention with
that hatchet job you put together, you sure found it, boy. Congratulations.

And Americans Went Out to Vote, Vexed, and Flexed for Historic Change

Donald Trump's impending return to the U.S. presidency promises potentially profound conservative reversals in domestic and foreign policy. However, the inexorable logic of history suggests a progressive trajectory in the long run.

Chain Post⛓️ In March 1933, after a meeting with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.―a distinguished jurist and recently retired justice of the US Supreme Court, then 92―famously quipped that the newly inaugurated president was “a second-class intellect with a first-class temperament.” This observation pointed to the new president’s unique mix of charisma, resilience, and optimism, even if not of a cerebral bent—traits that had won over the American public at a particularly difficult time.

If I were to adapt Holmes’s observation and apply it to Donald Trump, I might say he possesses a second-rate intellect, with great cunning and a canny political instinct. It’s _how_ he was able to win 51% of the popular vote and significant projected share of electoral votes (301) in the 5 November 2024 presidential election; and is now poised to return to power despite the upheavals of his first tenure and a post-presidency marked a myriad of legal issues, controversies, and divisiveness.

Is Tinubu settling scores?

Tinubu has become an unabashed chauvinist. It’s a hard watch. It doesn’t bode well for national unity. Tinubu’s critical appointments have become the most lopsided in the history of this country.

A Chain Post ⛓️ A Yoruba is the police Inspector General. A Yoruba is the EFCC Chairman. A Yoruba is the Head of the DSS. A Yoruba is the Attorney General. A Yoruba is the Chief Justice of the Federation. And Tinubu, a Yoruba, is the President and overseer of all instruments of coercion. The entire criminal justice system is in the hands of one ethnic group.

Chuks Iloegbunam tells General Gowon that only the truth shall make Nigeria free
…Faith, without good works, is dead

Dear General Yakubu Gowon.

You spoke to the Daily Trust on Saturday, October 19, 2024. The rare interview, conducted by Andrew Agbese and Isiaka Wakili, marked your 90th birthday anniversary.

In it, you celebrated revisionism and claimed things that were not backed by evidence. This open letter is to point out and correct your horrendous amputations of contemporary Nigerian history. It is a necessary exercise because, as your Christian faith commands and as your fellow Christians profess, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32.

Your interviewers asked this question: “You are committed to Nigeria’s unity; how did you take it when the civil war broke out?” You gave a long-winded answer that portrayed you as an all-time champion of national unity. But, if you remember that as Head of State, you said in your maiden nationwide broadcast on Monday, August 1, 1966, that there was no basis for Nigerian unity, your self-description as a permanent apostle of national unity stands out as perverse. This is another claim of yours: “My duty and profession at that time demanded to make sure that we kept the country together. And that was how it happened.”

Sir, with the most profound respect, that was not exactly how it happened. In that historic broadcast of yours, you were going to declare a Republic of Northern Nigeria. In it, you said inter alia: “As a result of the recent events and of previous ones, I have come to strongly believe that we cannot continue in this wise, as the basis for trust and confidence in our unitary system of government has been unable to stand the test of time. I have already remarked on the issue in question. Suffice it to say that putting all considerations to the test, political, economic as well as social, the basis of unity is not there…”

A thread. 🧵 Because you had discounted the basis of national unity, your declaration of the Republic of Northern Nigeria was to follow as a matter of course. But America and Britain stayed your hand. Various manufactured and deodorised versions of your broadcast have for decades been flying all over the place. But they cannot obscure the adamantine truth. The BBC transcript of your broadcast is reproduced in A. H. M. Kirk-Greene’s Crisis and Conflict in Nigeria: A Documentary Sourcebook 1966-1970, Oxford University Press, London; 1971. For a tiny fee, anyone can pick up a voice recording of the broadcast from the BBC Monitoring Service. Similarly, the denials of your intention to declare secession are in vain. Suzanne Cronje, the South African socialist writer, and historian had quoted Professor Eni Njoku, a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos, and Sir Louis Mbanefo, a former member of the Nigerian Bench and the World Court at The Hague, as telling her what they had heard from Sir Francis Cumming-Bruce, the British High Commissioner in Lagos, to wit that he had dissuaded you from sundering Nigeria. (See Suzanne Cronje, The World and Nigeria: The Diplomatic History of the Biafran War, 1957-1970, Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1972; page17.

The recent rejection of Sunday Adeyemo’s, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, petition by the UK government has highlighted the reckless and ill-informed nature of his agitation for the Yoruba Nation. The UK's firm stance, refusing to lend its support to a cause that meddles with the sovereignty of Nigeria, should serve as a clear signal that Igboho’s self-proclaimed leadership of this movement is not only misguided but also unworthy of serious international attention. What is most concerning about the entire situation is not just the predictable rejection by the UK, but the fact that a figure like Igboho—a self-styled freedom fighter with no formal education or understanding of governance—has been able to rise to such prominence. This speaks volumes about the failures within certain sectors of the Nigerian society that allow individuals like Igboho, a political thug, to spearhead movements of such a serious nature.

In just over a year, those who claimed President Bola Tinubu was a pro-democracy activist with the powers of a master economic strategist have all faded into oblivion. There is neither democracy nor economic relief in sight. All we have now are hirelings either digging up excuses to explain policy failures or trying to buy more time for the man who “built Lagos” to perfect his plan to capture the Nigerian state and turn it into a private estate.

A thread 🧵 Reality has set in for both friends and foes of the Tinubu presidency. But let's cut the president some slack: The real Tinubu has always been in plain sight. A few chose to believe the fictional Tinubu, a creation of well paid spin doctors. The rest were silenced by a dubious electoral victory and a curious judicial verdict. This president is doing exactly what he is hard wired to do. I will explain.

These are very weighty allegations against GTCO Plc and their MD/CEO Segun Agbaje. I hope they come forward and clear the air on it soon. GICN raises allegations of unsolicited account opening, data breach, fake profit declaration against GTB

A group known as the Global Integrity Crusade Network (GICN), has raised allegations of unsolicited account openings for individuals, and has ran foul of data breaches and fake profit declaration against Guaranty Trust Bank, a commercial retailing bank has been indicted.

According to GICN, the allegations were deduced from report of a private investigation into the bank’s activities which revealed corrupt practices that runs counter to the Central Bank Bank of Nigeria’s operational guidelines.

Edward Omaga, Esq. President, Global Integrity Crusade Network (GICN), who made the disclosure on Friday at a press conference in Abuja said “the bank was said to have been involved in the alleged unscrupulous, unethical and criminal activities without recourse to corporate governance standard which forbade any form of manipulation or surreptitious reasons.”

Ben Bruce has a trade. The minute Jonathan left office and all, he went to face his business and uses his left eye to look at politics.

When Peter Obi “lost”, he has since gone to do his business, and I hope, gearing for a fresh challenge

This explains one of the photos and why some people will jump from the gut of a pig to that of a human like tapeworm.

Parasites need new hosts.

They cannot survive on their own, outside a host for long. When you go abroad and think your first degree is everything, as Omokri has done, if you do not learn a profession, eg IT, medicine, law, engineering, or join the crowd and be a nurse, you will end up with a 16 dollars an hour job, while the person who learns Xray tech for one or two years will be on 30 dollars an hour

Ben Bruce has his business

Peter Obi has his business

Reno tried being a pastor, failed. Still struggles with his legal stay in the US (A matter we will one day talk about fully, called “show your US passport” day) and honestly is too proud to be a front desk attendant, which is what his first degree, without additional skill learnt, may get him here.
He could be a manager at Walmart too, a very honorable job

Not every man can take the disappointment and humiliation from NIgeria wives imported to America. Wives killers on rampage in the US

An Epidemic: Nigerian Men Killing Their Nurse Wives In America "Yes, I have killed the woman that messed up my life; the woman that has destroyed me. I am at Shalom West. My name is David, and I am all yours.” Those were David Ochola’s words during his 911 (U.S. Emergency Number) call to authorities after shooting dead, his 28 years old wife, Priscilla Ochola, in Hennepin, Minnesota.
A Chain Post ⛓️ The 50-years old, husband was tired of being “disrespected” by his wife, a Registered Nurse (RN) whom he had brought from Nigeria and sponsored through nursing school only to have her make much more than him in salary - a situation which led to Mrs. Ochola “coming and going as she chose without regard for her husband.”
The couple had two children – four years old boy and a three year old girl.

The Scam in the Pricing of Gasoline

MKO Abiola of blessed memory was asked by a journalist if he could contemplate increasing the price of petrol if he becomes the president of Nigerian. Abiola laughed and answered as follows:
"You know I am a chartered accountant. If anybody confronts me with the idea that fuel price should be increased, the first question I will ask is, how much does it cost to produce a litre of petrol, minding the other derivatives from crude? Abiola concluded that we might be producing a litre of petrol at zero cost, taking into consideration the other derivatives from crude oil. For a price to be established, you must know your cost of production or procurement, then do a plus and minus to arrive at your profit margin. From all the discussion and writeups that I have seen, nobody has been able to ask the vital question when it comes to petrol pricing as posed by MKO Abiola to the journalist. The conclusion one can make is that our leaders do not have the interest of the people when it comes to issues that have to do with the living standards of the people. They would rather prefer to see the people continue to suffer. So even the issue of petrol subsidy is a scam. How can you be subsidising a product that you produce or procure at zero cost?

Recent Oil Deals: What Nigerians Don’t Know
OPL 245, Tinubu/Oando, ENI(Agip)

A Chain Post ⛓️ Also, how do you explain that barely few months from the announced acquisition of all Agip’s onshore assets by Tinubu’s Oando, the federal government is coming out to announce to us that all contentious issues around OPL 245, Nigeria’s most lucrative deep offshore oil acreage has been resolved and lease handed back to Eni(Agip) in a contrived alliance with the Anglo-Dutch Shell?

Undoubtedly, the political matrimony between President Bola Tinubu and Northern Nigeria is at Talaq stage. Talaq is the Islamic unilateral repudiation of a marital union. There are no sobs, no wails. No dabbing of the face with a handkerchief. But, the dusts provoked by the matrimonial dislocation hang notoriously in the sky. Even bystanders miles away can see them. The marriage is only 15 months old but the couple’s patience for each other is rope-thin. As our elders say, right in the presence of the kolanut seller, irreverent worms slide inside his pods. A matrimony celebrated with pomp and ceremony is now a chaotic market row. The gluttonous cat has eaten the poisonous meat of a toad. A post on X late last week even claimed that “Northerners have (begun) Al-Qunut prayers against Tinubu…Al-Qunut prayers (are) done…to eliminate evil.” There is a litany of allegations hung on the neck of the seismic marriage. It ranges from prostitution, abandonment, betrayal to battery. While the world sees the palm fronds, (mariwo) the egungun of the matrimony would seem to have been long gone.

Clash of Class and Ethnicity in Regional Responses to the Hardship Protest in Nigeria

The ongoing hardship protest in Nigeria may be squelched by strident rebuke and heavy-handed coercion, but there’s a deeper dynamic in it that bodes ill for the country.

A chain post ⛓️ After weeks of it being whispered and days of its disrupted execution, the 2024 hunger protest in Nigeria (hashtagged #EndBadGovernance) is winding down to a whimper.

Compared to the Kenyan protest (hashtagged #RejectFinanceBill2024) which erupted earlier in June and eventually forced President William Ruto to reject his legislature’s controversial finance bill, the Nigerian affair – some might argue – has yielded little except carnage, deaths, arrests, and a roiling of the republic. The fissures and pressures that provoked the protest persist, but the brutal response of the Nigerian regime makes clear that it isn’t going to give ground, despite pious pretenses about its disposition to dialogue.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should count himself lucky. What he feared most has happened to him. What his predecessors in office could not do, he has done effortlessly. What others before him, including him, had used in the past to deceive Nigerians, while campaigning, but would never do when they got to the office, God has made it happen for Tinubu, seamlessly! Nobody can use it for political sloganeering anymore. Nigeria is 'restructured' without anyone calling for a roundtable discussion. Nature abhors vacuum. The cosmic has taken care of our desires. We can no longer live under the pretence of Nigeria being one. The August 1, 2024 'nationwide protest’ that is no protest, has taken care of that for us. I have never believed in the 'protest'. I have never believed that it would achieve anything. But I have been proved wrong! The 'protest' has brought to the fore the uniqueness of the three regions that constitute Nigeria.

They did what locusts do to farms. They spared almost nothing. They ate road slabs, pilfered roofs and stole ceilings. They attacked and looted at least one mosque – and at least one church. They hammered concrete slabs and squeezed out of them iron rods for sale. Well-paved roads suffered their anger because the beauty of the asphalt offended them. In a library, they stole dustbins and spared books. Trash is valuable, book is worthless. They attacked public and private buildings; they looted doors, wrenched windows off their hinges and stole installed tiles. They are the perfect proof of what the unbuilt child will ultimately do to well-built structures. The sickest, scariest part of the world is our North. In his inaugural address on January 20, 1961, American president, John F. Kennedy, issued a warning which talks directly to today’s Nigeria, particularly the North. He said: “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich”. The out-of-school children in our North are in multiples of millions; they are the death of Nigeria and its elite. Their hunger unleashed a maelstrom of destruction on every part of that region last week, forcing the various states there to declare 24-hour curfews. The round-the-clock curfews remained active at the weekend but the rampaging genies stayed stubbornly out of the bottle. Some of the protesters were said to be with Russian flags on Saturday in Kano. What do they really want?

Babafemi Ojudu (CON), distinguished senator, veteran journalist, ex- presidential adviser, and one of the last standing disciples of Chief Obafemi Awolowo breaks his silence and speaks to Nigerians

A short chain ⛓️ “We must complain. Yes, plain, blunt complaints, (peaceful) ceaseless agitation, unfailing exposure of dishonesty and wrong—this is the ancient, unerring way to liberty, and we must follow it.”

— W.E.B. Du Bois