Opinion

2027: Tinubu and the snake

Published

1 month ago

June 13, 2025

Trends Admin

Tunde Odesola

2027: Tinubu and the snake

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, June 13, 2025)

To the Westerner, land is one of the four factors of production, riding in the same vehicle with labour, capital and entrepreneurship. In the terminology of modern economics, land is a variable. A variable is inconsistent, like Nigerian politicians. Land is also a utility, like the Nigerian masses, used and dumped. Land is a means of profit. Prophets profit in Nigeria sinfully. Land is an asset…A broader definition adds technology and human capital to the four basic factors.

In Africa, land holds a spiritual significance beyond its role as a factor of production. Land’s ancient name is Earth. Land is the endless embroidered mat of brown and red soils, lying face-up to her celestial twin, Heaven, who gazes back with sun and moon for eyes.

Unlike Heaven’s big eyes, the sun and the moon, which watch over humans, every step taken by man on land ticks on the conscience of time. Land is ferocious karma. It never forgets. While Heaven symbolises the eyes that watch all human deeds, land is the judge that rewards benevolence and punishes malevolence. This is why the Yoruba revere land in these words, “Ilè ògéré, a fi oko yeri, alapo ika ti o n gbe ika mi, says Ifa scholar and Araba of Osogbo, Chief Ifayemi Elebuibon. Expatiating, Elebuibon states that ogere is a divine trap; a quicksand that caves in under the feet of evildoers, swallowing them up.

After creation, Man and every creature live in their respective habitats within the garden. Biblical and Quranic accounts say God made Man lord over all other creatures, urging him to multiply and subdue the earth. However, Prof. Wande Abimbola, Awise Agbaye, says that foreign religion believers are applying God’s injunction wrongly, noting that African religions, including Ifa worship, provide room for the mutual coexistence of all creatures. He explains that Western civilisation, aided by science and technology, has gravely polluted the earth.

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The former vice chancellor of the Obafemi Awolowo University expounds, “Humans, animals, insects and trees should coexist. If we can’t coexist with nature, we will perish. There are 700 million vehicles worldwide, and there are 350 million of them in the US alone. If you sum up the acreage of roads in the US, it’s more than the size of New Jersey. We have intruded on nature, disrupted ecosystem balance, and killed countless organisms under the soil through construction.

“The injunctions by foreign religions, urging people to go into the world and subdue and multiply, are probably responsible for our wastefulness and population explosion. Where are the trees in Ibadan, Ikeja, Port Harcourt and Zaria? If we see an insect, we kill it. If we see a snake, we kill it.”

But, how did the snake get its venom? Wait, I’ll tell you. Creation stories snake through cultures, shedding skins of meaning from culture to culture. In the Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – the snake got its venom on Creation Day, before sneaking up on Man Adam and Woman Eve, to trick them out of Eden. Thereafter, the snake became cursed and haunted.

In African cosmology, however, the snake is not the Devil. Neither is it Satan who morphed into a serpent in Eden. The snake is not exiled from Paradise; it is a bona fide creature in creation, possessing the most beautiful skin of all, a shapely head and bespectacled eyes.

How did the snake get its venom? Elebuibon uncoils the tale, “In time past, the snake was called ‘okun ile’ – earthly rope, because it was used for tying objects like firewood. People carrying firewood from the bush dump their firewood on the ground at home, smashing the snake, crushing its spine,” Elebuibon explains.

“Then the snake consulted a babalawo named ‘Òkàn Wéré Wéré’, who divinated an Ifa verse, Òkànràn Òsá, for him. Snake was told to make a sacrifice of needles and worship his head. When Snake did as instructed, he became envenomed,” Elebuibon concludes. Man knows better now.

The life of the snake is not only a pot of venom and fangs. Globally, the snake kills far fewer people than the mosquito and war. According to BBC Wildlife Magazine, the snake ranks among the 10 deadliest animals to humans, including the hippopotamus, elephant, saltwater crocodile, ascaris roundworm, scorpion, assassin bug, freshwater snail, Man, and mosquito.

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Indeed, Man should be grateful to the snake because it preys to protect balance in the ecosystem. Though its venom kills a very few, it saves millions who suffer from cancer, hypertension, blood disorders, etc via the medicines made from it. A paper titled, “Therapeutic potential of snake venom in cancer therapy: Current Perspectives,” published by the National Library of Science, USA, says, “Some substances found in the snake venom present a great potential as anti-tumour agents. In this review, we presented the main results of recent years of research involving the active compounds of snake venom that have anticancer activity.” The snake is not all about coiling and slithering, though scientists and engineers model robotic movement after its muscular geometry.

The Idemili community of Anambra State comprises two local government councils called Idemili North and Idemili South. In Idemili, pythons are not cursed; they are consecrated. They slither around freely into homes on silent feet; never bruised, nor battered.

The Awise Agbaye says some Yoruba communities worship pythons in the olden days because they believed that the founder of a community, upon death, turned into a python in the afterlife, where he sits on a stool to welcome members of his clan who attained old age before dying.

Many African folklore songs extol the python. One of such songs is ‘Terena’, by Dele Ojo. Another is ‘Sirinkusi’, which belongs in Yoruba oral history. The theme of both songs includes love and respect, with a young man trying to prove his prowess to a love-struck lady.

In ‘Terena’, the young man tells the lady not to call him ‘Awe’, that is, ‘Mister’, but ‘Aba’, which is ‘Father’. The lady refuses and the young man takes her on a journey where he respectively turns into a python, tiger and water, but the lady doesn’t budge. It was when he turned into fire that she eventually called him father.

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I will call President Bola Ahmed Tinubu father. I will call him a python, too. With the way he has traversed Nigeria’s political terrain since 1999, no other politician qualifies to be called the Father and Python of Nigerian politics. Tinubu, it was, who wrestled to the ground the Federal Government headed by General Muhammadu Buhari, to emerge President against all odds.

Tinubu is the wiliest politician in the history of Nigeria. And I fear for him, lest the trap set by the tortoise entraps the tortoise. I remember, the level-headed Tafawa Balewa faced opposition, the sage, Obafemi Awolowo, faced opposition, and the charismatic Zik of Africa faced opposition.

General Ibrahim Babangida, aka Maradona, was booted out of power. Though MKO Abiola rode on the back of popular support in 1993, he still faced opposition. And, before he died like a brief candle, General Ole, Sani Abacha, coerced Nigerians to support his self-perpetuation. Every Nigerian sang the name of Abacha. Those who didn’t sing fled the town before dawn.

Clearly, I remember, ‘Third Term’ agenda burnt the fingers of the hypocrite farmer in Ota after democracy returned to the country, even as the herdsman General fled to Katsina to enjoy his bounty in peace, two years ago.

Father Tinubu, the way everyone is falling to the anointing in Abuja is foreboding. I don’t know what will give, but something seems out of place and ready to give. Tinubu is the current father of Nigerian politics. I pray he lives longer than the ancient python. I wish he would stop deploying his massive muscles against opposition voices and his sons in Lagos, Rivers and elsewhere.

Though politicians cling to power when the nation gasps, the snake sheds its skin when it outgrows it. Though the snake strikes to protect its terrain, the politician steals to destroy his terrain. I pray Tinubu was the hissing snake that strikes corruption to death, and not the politician that kisses to steal.

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

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2027: Tinubu and the snake

Opinion

Problem of paying peanuts to professors, By Farooq Kperogi

Published

4 days ago

July 12, 2025

Trends Admin

Problem of paying peanuts to professors, By Farooq Kperogi

The last few days have witnessed intense social media debates among the Nigerian chattering classes about the unacceptably miserable remuneration of university teachers. The debates were stirred by two incidents.

The first was the widely shared story of one Professor Nasir Hassan-Wagini in Katsina, who sells tomatoes and soup ingredients in a rural open market to supplement his income from university teaching.

The second was the directive from the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to its branches to commence a no-work-no-pay strike action in protest against the delayed payment of their June salaries, which have been rendered worthless by the hyperinflationary inferno currently engulfing Nigeria.

Some people argue that scholars worth their salt should never listlessly give in to the humiliation of receiving take-home pays that don’t take them home (with apologies to the Professor Attahiru Jega-led ASUU, which popularized this inventive phrase in the 1990s) and should instead find alternative means to supplement the starvation wages the government gives them.

Others, however, contend that asking university teachers to leave the system or use their expertise to explore different income streams misses the point about the wretched state of university education in Nigeria, which directly affects the future (and even the present) of the country. The view holds that the problem is more structural and systematic than individual.

If all dissatisfied public university lecturers were to resign their jobs or devote more attention to “side hustles” to complement the miserly wages they receive, there would be no university education to speak of. In fact, it would amount to cowardly avoidance and tacit exculpation of the government from its responsibility to fund education to secure the country’s future since no one debates the direct relationship between well-funded higher education systems and national growth.

It was French-British businessman James Goldsmith who popularized the expression, “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.” Poor remuneration repels the best and attracts the worst. Every responsible and progressive government invested in the future of its people knows this.

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Yes, there are many metaphoric monkeys teaching in Nigerian universities because poor pay has lowered the bar and allowed mediocrity to thrive. However, some of Nigeria’s best and brightest minds still teach and research in public universities in spite of the poor pay. When smart people are paid peanuts, they either stop performing effectively or leave the system altogether.

The truth is that the current compensation of university teachers in Nigeria is simply untenable. No Nigerian professor earns more than 750,000 naira per month, equivalent to about $500. A December 12, 2021, Daily Trust fact-check found that “Nigerian academics are indeed earning below their peers in the continent.” That is an abject embarrassment.

University teaching should provide a comfortable middle-class lifestyle, but no Nigerian university teacher, including senior professors, can afford such a life with current salaries, especially considering the unprecedented inflation triggered by fuel subsidy removal and naira devaluation.

On Tuesday, Minister of Education Tunji Alausa bragged about fending off the planned ASUU strike protesting delayed salaries. “Our children are the heartbeat of the nation, and their uninterrupted education is non-negotiable,” he said.

However, the minister didn’t address the elephant in the room. The relative stability in public universities is a stability of the graveyard. University teachers haven’t downed tools because they are exhausted from previous strikes that produced no results, yet they remain as disillusioned as ever. Many lecturers cannot afford transportation to campus after paying their children’s school fees, and those entirely dependent on their salaries face daily financial humiliations.

Now, most young people with sharp scholarly and pedagogical talents avoid academia. It used to be that although people knew university teachers weren’t rich, they were respected for their learning and because they could afford basic middle-class conveniences. Instead of celebrating forced, unnatural, and unsustainable “stability,” the education minister should focus on improving university teachers’ quality of life and research and teaching infrastructure.

Interestingly, I am writing this column from Japan, where I have been vacationing for the last nine days. Japan’s public universities have significantly contributed to the nation’s spectacular economic growth historically and in modern times.

Public universities here are major engines of research and development (R&D). They drive innovation in science and technology, conduct nearly 50 percent of Japan’s basic research, and increasingly collaborate with industry to translate knowledge into practical innovations.

I visited two public universities here and found that Japanese public universities have become innovation hubs. They house technology licensing offices, incubate startups, and produce patents and spin-off companies that contribute to new industries.

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Japan’s “economic miracle” in the 1960s and beyond was fueled by capital and technology importation and by a steady supply of engineers, scientists, managers, and professionals trained at universities. Empirical studies of growth accounting found that improvements in labor quality (that is, education level) substantially contributed to Japan’s GDP growth over the past century.

Japanese universities did not become innovation hubs by accident. They achieved this by adequately funding universities, ensuring teachers were happy, and encouraging mass enrollment in higher education.

University teachers in Japan are well compensated. According to WorldSalaries.com, remuneration for Japanese university teachers is about twice the overall national average income and on par with senior corporate managers. In fact, engineers in prestigious industries, such as the auto and tech sectors, which are the engines of Japan’s prosperity, on average, earn significantly less than professors.

In Japan’s labor market, the university lecturer is a high-status, well-paid profession, surpassed only by top executives in the private sector. Because of this, Japanese universities attract the very best.

Every society that is desirous of progress should pamper its best and brightest so they can gestate, germinate, and grow rarefied ideas that can advance the country.

In a private exchange on Wednesday, Professor Toyin Falola, the Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas, emphasized the critical importance of having a societal surplus to sustain what he called an “idle class.”

This “idle class” comprises individuals whose primary function is the creation, contemplation, and cultivation of ideas. This concept is essential in understanding the role and value of university lecturers and researchers in Nigeria.

The characterization of scholars as “idle” arises from a superficial perception of productivity. Unlike immediate commercial or industrial outputs, scholarly work often lacks immediate tangible results. Ideas and innovations require extended periods of gestation, contemplation, iterative refinement, and rigorous critique before manifesting into practical solutions or breakthroughs that visibly drive societal progress.

Historically, societies that invested in intellectual surplus, such as ancient Greece, medieval Islamic caliphates, and Renaissance Europe, experienced significant cultural, scientific, and economic advancement. These civilizations explicitly recognized the necessity of supporting thinkers, philosophers, and scientists who appeared outwardly “idle,” yet whose intellectual labor provided foundational insights that drove sustained growth and development.

In contemporary Nigeria, adequately funding university teachers and researchers is pivotal. Providing financial stability, institutional support, and intellectual freedom necessary for scholarly pursuits cultivates an environment for transformative innovations.

Paying scholars well (and, of course, insisting on accountability) acknowledges the long-term societal value of intellectual labor. Nigeria’s path forward (economically, socially, technologically, and culturally) hinges significantly on its capacity to sustain this “idle class,” whose quiet contemplation today shapes tomorrow’s innovations.

If President Bola Ahmed Tinubu genuinely wants to leave a lasting legacy, he must prioritize rebuilding Nigeria’s public university system by creating the conditions necessary to attract and retain the nation’s brightest minds. That means paying university teachers a livable wage, investing in their professional dignity, and resourcing institutions to become engines of innovation and progress. Anything less is a betrayal of the country’s future.

Problem of paying peanuts to professors, By Farooq Kperogi

Farooq Kperogi is renowned Nigerian columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism.

Opinion

BAT rejects Trump’s amazing offer

Published

5 days ago

July 11, 2025

Trends Admin

Tunde Odesola

BAT rejects Trump’s amazing offer

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, July 11, 2025)

The presidential convoy spread out on the Third Mainland Bridge like a cloud of bats on seasonal migration. Sirens screamed. Lights flashed. The convoy of vehicles unfolds like the hail of light produced when the welder’s electrode kisses a metal, shraaaah! shraaaah! E plenty like iná wédà to fóká síbè.

As an insect enthusiast with particular love for beekeeping (cockroaches and bedbugs not included, please), I know that bees, ants and wasps have no kings, but queens, who guard-bees protect with their lives. However, termites have kings and queens, both of whom soldier termites protect with their last blood.

Be they bees, ants, wasps or termites, I love watching the life of cooperation, protection, order and hard work among insects. I love their guards’ provision of security for all and sundry, unlike the guards in this presidential convoy, whose only duty is the protection of the President, his family and bootlickers.

Measuring 11.8 kilometres, the Third Mainland Bridge, a massive masterpiece of concrete and steel work stretching over the Lagos Lagoon, was started in 1975 by the General Yakubu Gowon military administration, and continued by General Murtala Mohammed’s six-month government, before President Shehu Shagari stepped into the picture and did his bit. However, it was General Ibrahim Babangida who took credit for the bridge construction because he ensured its completion in 1990.

If the charismatic Babangida didn’t annul the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by Chief MKO Abiola, he almost certainly would have been preferred by Nigerians to shed his military khaki for the agbada of politics, instead of the less gifted and dour General Muhammadu Buhari, who later got the presidency on fake promises.

Regrettably, Babangida apparently lost political goodwill, honour, peace of mind and two terms of civilian presidency to the June 12 annulment. Little did Nigerians know that the official name of the Third Mainland Bridge is Ibrahim Babangida Bridge, but nobody remembers that; people only remember the abortion of June 12. The things men do, live with them.

It was on this Ibrahim Babangida Bridge that the presidential convoy set out en route to the airport. Jesu! Not even the president of the richest and most powerful nation on earth, Donald Trump, has such a long motorcade. From my vantage point, I counted the number of vehicles in the convoy. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40…Ha! Kilode? Is the president japaing? Probably to make counting difficult, the outriders zigzagged and crisscrossed. So, I stopped at 40-something.

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But in the middle of the armoured pack, I saw three Rolls-Royce Phantoms, three Cadillac Escalades, three Mercedes-Benzes, three Cybertrucks and three state-of-the-art buses. None of the cars in the convoy was assembled in Nigeria, despite the government’s avowed propaganda about patronising Made-in-Nigeria goods; not even the wash towels used for cleaning the vehicles were made in Nigeria, nor the foot mats.

Everywhere was on lockdown: air, land and sea – forcing the sun to hide behind the clouds, and birds vacated the air while the poor man’s movement was put on hold by those he voted for. Only the convoy moved. I yawned inside a Lagos BRT vehicle, wondering why the big men’s movement should stop the movement of citizens on the opposite side of the bridge.

This was when the window of one of the three buses opened, and I glimpsed Nigeria’s most recognisable cap, with its trademark chain symbol, the chain of oppression.

“Haa! Bàba Bàbá ni o! Olowo Eko ni ooo!” a youngster hawking alcoholic drinks and bottled water in traffic shrieked. “It’s the BAT, King BAT, the Lord of Lagos!” a hawker of plantain chips screamed, jumping, “I saw him! I saw him! Baba smiled and waved at me! Baba waved at me! The Asiwaju of the Universe waved at me!” A cripple, who begs in traffic, hissed and shook his head, “Una dey praise those who chain una? Ok o, make una kontiniu, una never see anything.”

The heat in the BRT was stifling, and sweat poured from skin pores. Thoughts of Nigeria flooded my mind. Since I was born and now that I am getting old, I have never seen Nigeria changeth (for good).

Inside the armoured bus, seated at the feet of the Lord of Lagos were members of his innermost circle – Noisome Winke, IdanFemi Gbabiamila, Baba Chief AdeBC, Jide-Olu, and Natasha coveter, Chief Dogswill Akpabi.

In the fleeting moment when the Lord of Lagos let down his window, I saw his gaze travel beyond the hailing roadside traders, resting on the 13-storey Senate Building of the University of Lagos, across the lagoon. I saw desire lit up in his eyes. “My name will suit the university more than its current name. What is UNILAG? Why not UNIBAT?

Winke, the ultimate bootlicker and mind reader, will not miss the opportunity to massage the ego of the Lord of Lagos. Though he cleared his throat, the frog in it would not keep silent. “Jide-Olu, don’t you think you should name UNILAG and this world’s best bridge after our personal Lord and Saviour?” Jide-Olu smiled, “No, Winke. UNILAG and the Third Mainland Bridge do not belong to the state. They belong to the centre, which is headed by our Lord and Saviour.”

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Sounding more like a masquerader battling stomach upset during a market show, Winke said, “Uhmm, it doesn’t matter, you can start the call from your end – that our leader deserves the university to be renamed after him. Or does he not?” Jide-Olu, “Why not, if not? In fact, I suggest we should call on the National Assembly to name all federal universities and polytechnics after our leader. That way, the nation will save money.”

Lord of Lagos: What do you think about these suggestions, Natasha, oh sorry, I mean, Akpabi?

Akpabi: (Smiles like a child eating ice cream, his special Ibibio accent booming loud and clear) Ha, you are our òká o. And, as our òká, iris not too much if we name Nigeria after you, I swear. Nigerians cannot reyect it. On Monday, the yoint session will rook at how we are going to do it, so that the opposition and Nigeria Rabour Congress will not begin their wahala.”

Lord of Lagos: Baba AdeBC, what do you think?

Baba AdeBC: Well, it’s not a bad idea for Nigeria to show gratefulness to her messiah and defender. I think it’s a good idea. (Baba AdeBC beams his trademark smile, which is as lifeless as the beach foam left behind on the shore by the roaring ocean)

Idanfemi: Your Excellency, you have a phone call from the US President, sir.

Lord of Lagos: Oh, connect me, Idanfemi.

Trump: How’re you doing, BAT?

Lord of Lagos: I’m doing great, Donald. Thank you. How’re you and your wonderful family?

Trump: We’re fine, and thanks for asking. Hey BAT, can I pick your brain real quick?

Lord of Lagos: Ha! No oooo; leave my brain alone o. Please, don’t pick it. My brain is old already. Ma se erekere iwo arakunrin yi. When you know you need Nigerian brains, why did you restrict your visa to three-month single entry? If you want millions of Nigerian brains, you open your borders for 24 hours and see.

Trump: No, you’re getting me wrong. I don’t mean to pick your brain literally, I mean to ask for your knowledge and advice on some issues.

Lord of Lagos: Oh, I see. Fear don catch me. I don’t want anything to touch this my political brain o.

Trump: Exactly what I’m saying! That your political brain is what I want to pick. I just saw your convoy on CNN! How do you afford such a large convoy and retinue of sycophants?

Lord of Lagos: That’s not for me to worry. The state takes care of that.

Trump: OMG! You mean the state bears the brunt of all that drain on taxpayers’ money? Are you kidding me!? I think it’s better to be president of your shithole than be president of America, seriously.

Lord of Lagos: You have come with this shithole thing again, Donald? You’re not serious.

Trump: Can you believe that as president, I pay for the food my family and I eat, I pay for drinks and clothes. I pay for private parties when I host them, I pay for gifts when I buy them for foreign dignitaries, I cover my vacation accommodations, and I pay for private events hosted outside the White House. Additionally, I pay for general household items like toilet paper, toothpaste, and garbage bags. Do you know that Bill Clinton incurred $16 million in debt for legal and personal investigation fees, which he paid over time?

Lord of Lagos: (Bursts into laughter) And you say you’re prezdent? Hahahahah! You’re prezdent indeed. Hahahaha! Yes, you’re the most powerful prezdent on earth, but are you the most indulged? Certainly, no! You’re just an administrative paper prezdent, I’m the ultimate ruler.

Trump: I wish we could trade places.

Lord of Lagos: Ha, trade places ke? No ooo! Let me be prezdent of this shithole, you continue to be prezdent of your superpower country. Stay with your democracy. I’ll stay with my empire. I don’t want to be Prezdent of America. I don’t wan die in prison, please.

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @Tunde_Odesola

BAT rejects Trump’s amazing offer

Opinion

ADC coalition vs. APC: Fresh faces or familiar failures? By Farooq Kperogi

Published

2 weeks ago

July 5, 2025

Trends Admin

Farooq Kperogi

ADC coalition vs. APC: Fresh faces or familiar failures? By Farooq Kperogi

The Nigerian political space and preparations for the 2027 general elections have been electrified with the high-decibel announcement of the migration of major opposition politicians to the African Democratic Congress (ADC). Sure, the ADC is a shiny new bottle holding old wine, yet it appears to be the only party that stands a chance to effectively challenge or dislodge the APC.

The Peoples Democratic Party, which is supposed to be the main opposition party, is in the firm grip of Federal Capital Territory Minister Nyesom Wike. He finances and controls it and would never allow it to pose a threat to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s reelection in 2027.

The Labour Party is in disarray and enervated by what seems like irresolvable internal fissures. The previously inconsequential Social Democratic Party, which burst forth from obscurity to national prominence after former Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai defected to it and encouraged opposition politicians to consider it a new political home, suddenly became inhospitable for fleeing APC political refugees.

In a widely shared April 26, 2025, column titled “In 2027, Tinubu Won’t Win; The Opposition Will Lose,” I noted that, “Northern opposition politicians like Nasir El-Rufai also don’t seem to realize that the Social Democratic Party (SDP) they have embraced as the vehicle to displace Tinubu is, in fact, Tinubu’s spare car.” Despite initial skepticism, they eventually realized this truth.

So, there is no question that the opposition had no credible platform from which to launch a challenge to Tinubu. Until now, it had seemed as though Tinubu’s path to victory in 2027 was unchallenged. An Atiku-Obi or Obi-Atiku ticket, if managed adroitly, would be a fierce, forceful political tsunami.

While the convergence of opposition politicians in the ADC has enlivened the playing field, strengthened the vibrancy of our electoral politics, and forestalled what had appeared like an inexorable march to a de facto one-party democracy, several people have questioned the quality and antecedents of the people who constitute the core of the group.

However pollyannaish you might choose to be, it is difficult not to be amused that Abubakar Malami, Buhari’s minister of justice who was (allegedly ) notorious for unrestrained Igbophobia as an official policy, who rechristened “Abacha loot” as “Abacha asset,” and who was mired in unspeakably stratospheric corruption and abuse of power only a few years ago, is one of the arrowheads of the opposition.

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How about Nasir El-Rufai who is the mascot for toxic, unabashed Christophobia in northern Nigeria, a purveyor of noxious ethno-regional intolerance? Does his opportunistic opposition to Tinubu, legitimate as it is, erase his troubling past, which he is likely to repeat in the future should he have another chance?

Rotimi Amaechi assaulted the sensibilities of Nigerians as Buhari’s minister of transportation for eight years, and Babachir Lawal of grass-cutting corruption infamy is another mover of the ADC. But somehow, we are supposed to believe that these are revolutionary or born-again politicians who will be different from the current cast of characters who are making living hell for the majority of Nigerians.

There is, however, a fair counter-argument. While the ADC contains people whose immediate past history evokes horror and revulsion, it also has people who are reasonably smart and forward-thinking.

Since a political party isn’t an association of saints or of people who are unblemished by moral or ethical stains, it’s unfair to dismiss a political party because of one’s disapproval of the past actions of a few people in it.

In any case, the APC, which is the alternative, isn’t different. For every previously heartless and corrupt ADC politician, there are countless more APC politicians who are worse. So, it is defensible to dismiss the moral judgment on some of the people who are marketing the ADC.

I am politically unaffiliated and have always been. I am not saying this to assert any moral superiority. A politically unaffiliated person isn’t superior to a politically partisan person. It’s just a choice.

Nonetheless, from my unaffiliated political lenses, the emergence of ADC is great only to the extent that it has introduced some intra-class competition within Nigerian ruling class circles. The APC can no longer take for granted its dominance of the Nigerian political space. Virile, transaction-oriented opposition will cause it to sit up and work to earn the trust of the people instead of taking them for granted, as it has for the past two years.

Beyond that, though, the APC and the ADC are mere platforms for the same ruling class that has dominated Nigeria since 1999. From 1999 until 2015, they congregated in the PDP. Those who couldn’t get a spot in the PDP became the “opposition.”

From 2015 until now, the same ruling elites moved to the APC. In fact, as I pointed out in previous columns, up to 90 percent (perhaps more) of former PDP national chairmen are now in the APC.

For instance, Abdullahi Adamu, the APC chairman before Abdullahi Ganduje, is a previous two-term PDP governor of Nasarawa State who also served as Secretary of PDP’s Board of Trustees.

Should the ADC succeed in displacing the APC in 2027, most of the people in the APC today would be in the ADC. Perpetual “crosstitution” (as South Africans call defection, which is a delicious blend of “crossing” and “prostitution,” implying that elected officials who switch political parties are political prostitutes) is the only permanent thing in Nigerian politics.

“Opposition politicians,” for the most part, are usually no more than politicians who are excluded from the ruling party for any number of reasons, none of which has the remotest association with principles or ideology.

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To take the ADC seriously, I need evidence of clear policy distinctions from the APC. Specifically, I will evaluate the ADC on three critical issues.

First, what is the position of the party on petrol subsidies? This is important because many of the major players in the ADC coalition have articulated positions on petrol subsidies that are indistinguishable from what Tinubu’s APC is implementing now. I have written countless columns on this and won’t bore the reader by repeating it.

What I do know, however, is that energy independence is a core constituent of the ingredients that are necessary for national growth and development. Access to affordable fuel is the engine of industrialization. All developed countries or countries on the path to development have some form of energy subsidies for their citizens and businesses.

If the ADC wants to continue with the policy of subsidy removal, which has wreaked havoc on the economy and hollowed out the middle class, I will leave it to Nigerians to decide whether jumping from the torment of the frying pan to the incineration of the fire makes a difference.

The second policy I will judge the ADC on is its position on the devaluation of the naira. All the major movers of the ADC have expressed positions on the devaluation of the naira that are consistent with what Tinubu is doing now.

Well, the English say the proof of the pudding is in the eating. That is, the true worth of something can only be determined by actual practice or outcomes, rather than by its appearance or theoretical claims.

We have all seen what happens to people and the economy when you gut subsidies and devalue the national currency. Of course, previous columns of mine have predicted exactly what is happening now. Voters will do well to insist that ADC says exactly what its policy is regarding currency devaluation.

Finally, what would the ADC do differently with regard to electricity generation and distribution? Will it uphold the current economic apartheid in electricity consumption, as I characterized it in my May 18, 2024, column?

Many other issues exist, of course, but in my estimation, these are foundational questions that will determine if the APC and the ADC are truly different parties or if they are merely different containers of the same hell.

Ultimately, if voters are merely seduced by the allure of different faces in government without demanding substantively different policies, they will inevitably perpetuate the familiar cycle of failures that makes each subsequent president appear worse than their predecessors.

Without genuine policy change, Nigerians might soon find themselves missing Tinubu after 2027, just as many now unexpectedly find themselves missing Muhammadu Buhari, once regarded as Nigeria’s worst president.