Opinion

A coup trial without precedent, By Farooq Kperogi

Published

5 months ago

April 25, 2026

Kperogi is a renowned columnist and United States-based professor of journalism.

Farooq Kperogi

A coup trial without precedent, By Farooq Kperogi

I came of age in Nigeria during absolutist, totalitarian military regimes and was shaped by the anti-military rhetoric and activism that surrounded me.

Although democracy hasn’t lived up to its promises, which has fueled what I consider misguided and amnesiac nostalgia for military rule, I would rather we fix our badly deformed civilian system through trial and protest than return to the dark days of brutal military monocracy.

That is why news of an alleged abortive coup plot last year unsettled me, particularly because many of those implicated are northern Muslims. In a country riven by deep primordial fissures, I doubt we can recover from the northern-led overthrow of a civilian government headed by a southerner.

The Defence Headquarters initially denied it. It described reports of a coup attempt as not just “false and misleading,” “entirely false,” and “malicious” but as deliberately fabricated to “cause unnecessary tension and distrust among the populace.”

The Director of Defence Information, Brigadier General Tukur Gusau, said what Sahara Reporters described as a coup was merely “indiscipline and breach of service regulations” by 16 officers who felt stymied by “perceived career stagnation caused by repeated failure in promotion examinations, among other issues.”

But news platforms such as Sahara Reporters, Premium Times, and Daily Trust quoted unnamed sources in the upper echelons of the military and the Tinubu administration who insisted the Defence Headquarters was being economical with the truth and that there had indeed been a real attempt to overthrow the government.

The confidence with which these reports were presented, despite the anonymity of the sources, led me to write my November 1, 2025, column titled “The Coup That Dare Not Speak Its Name,” in which I argued that the government owed the public transparency about what had happened.

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I wrote: “Secrecy accelerates suspicion. Nigeria’s citizens have matured politically; they can process national challenges without descending into chaos. Shielding the public from reality infantilizes the electorate and breeds cynicism.”

On January 26 this year, the Defence Headquarters, which had earlier dismissed the reports as “false and misleading,” made a dramatic reversal and acknowledged that there had indeed been a plan to violently overturn the Tinubu government. It also said the implicated officers would face military tribunals.

After multiple peaceful protests by the wives and relatives of the accused, formal charges were eventually filed. Six suspects, including a retired major general and a serving police inspector, were charged with terrorism and treason. In a 13-count charge sheet, the federal government alleged that they “conspired with one another to levy war against the state to overawe the president of the Federal Republic.”

Although respected analysts such as Chidi Odinkalu have questioned the plausibility of the evidence cited in media reports to substantiate the alleged coup, I do not have sufficient information to independently assess the credibility of the claim.

What is not in dispute, however, is that what we are witnessing is uncharted territory. Since Nigeria’s independence, there is no clear record of military officers being tried for an alleged coup attempt under a civilian administration.

The closest parallel is the 2004 episode during the Obasanjo presidency, when the government announced that it had uncovered and foiled a coup plot. The Guardian quoted presidential spokeswoman Remi Oyo as saying that Hamza al-Mustapha, then in prison in Lagos, was suspected of involvement.

From what I recall, that episode produced neither a formal court-martial proceeding nor a full civilian trial. Instead, scores of senior and mid-level officers were detained, questioned and then retired or dismissed. What is unfolding now is therefore without precedent.

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This is why the intervention of respected human rights lawyer Femi Falana deserves careful attention. In an April 23 statement, he called for the immediate suspension of the government’s secret court-martial of 36 soldiers accused of plotting a coup. He described the proceedings as unconstitutional, illegal and a violation of due process.

Falana argued that trying the soldiers behind closed doors undermines transparency and the right to a fair hearing, especially in light of the gravity of the charges against them. His central legal contention is that offences such as treason and terrorism fall within the jurisdiction of civilian courts, not military tribunals, even when the accused are soldiers.

He warned that subjecting some suspects to court martial while others implicated in the same alleged plot face civilian prosecution creates a two-track system of justice that affronts the principle of equality before the law.

He urged the Attorney-General to halt the military proceedings, transfer the case to the Federal High Court, and ensure that all suspects are tried openly and uniformly under civilian law.

Falana’s argument raises a deeper question that goes beyond this case. What does it mean to be governed by law in a democracy that still carries the institutional reflexes of military rule? A state that derives its legitimacy from and is bound by the constitution cannot choose opacity when transparency is inconvenient, nor can it apply different standards of justice to people accused of the same crime.

If the government is confident in the strength of its case, in the unimpeachability of its evidence against the accused, it should have no fear of public scrutiny. I know there is legitimate argument to be made about the risk of inspiring copycats if the trial is open, but coups are not crimes of imitation like bank robberies. They require coordination, access to arms, insider networks, and timing. Those conditions are not created by watching a public trial. If they exist, secrecy will not eliminate them.

Second, secrecy is more likely to breed suspicion than prevent instability. When the state hides proceedings, it invites rumors, conspiracy theories, and loss of trust, which can be more destabilizing than any supposed copycat risk.

Third, transparency is a deterrent. A public, evidence-based trial exposes the consequences of plotting against the state and demonstrates that institutions can respond lawfully. That is more likely to discourage would-be conspirators than embolden them.

Fourth, courts already have tools to protect genuinely sensitive information. Specific details can be redacted or heard in camera without turning the entire process into a secret proceeding.

But there is also a broader political risk. In a country with a long and traumatic history of coups, secrecy around allegations of military insurrection heightens suspicion. When the government first denied the existence of a coup and later admitted it, it created a credibility gap that only openness can close. Conducting trials behind closed doors only deepens that gap and invites speculation about what is being concealed.

If the accused are guilty, a transparent trial will expose their culpability and reinforce the legitimacy of the state. If they are not, secrecy will have compounded injustice. Either way, opacity serves no one except those who benefit from weakening public trust in institutions.

If the suspects are found guilty through a fair, transparent and evidence-based process, they should face the full consequences of their actions. I would never defend any attempt to seize power through violence. But guilt must be established beyond all shadows of doubt. It is not enough to allege; the government must prove its case in the open.

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

A coup trial without precedent, By Farooq Kperogi

Opinion

2027: Tinubu May Get Less Than 10% of Northern Votes — Ard

Published

5 minutes ago

September 7, 2026

Hamdalat Bisiriyu

President Bola Tinubu could suffer a dramatic collapse in his Northern support in the 2027 presidential election, securing less than 10 per cent of votes from the region if the poll is free and credible, Convener of the League of Northern Democrats and key promoter of the All-Democratic Alliance (ADA), Dr Umar Ardo, has predicted.

Ardo made the prediction on Monday in an interview on Frontline, a current affairs programme on Eagle 102.5 FM, Ilese-Ijebu, Ogun State, arguing that the outcome would largely reflect how Northern voters assess the Tinubu administration’s performance.

He identified insecurity, worsening poverty, economic hardship and the rising cost of living as major issues likely to influence voting decisions in the region.

According to him, the persistent insecurity affecting communities, farmers, traders and businesses remains one of the administration’s biggest challenges.

“You can solve the issue of insecurity and insurgency in one year,” he said, insisting that the Federal Government could significantly reduce the crisis with the right strategy and sufficient political will.

Ardo also faulted the administration’s economic reforms, particularly the removal of fuel subsidy, questioning whether ordinary Nigerians had experienced corresponding benefits.

“Subsidy removal, is it a benefit?” he asked, arguing that the reforms had eroded purchasing power and made basic necessities increasingly unaffordable.

He said the impact had been particularly severe in Northern Nigeria, where a large proportion of the population is economically vulnerable.

“The economic reform has pushed from the state of poverty to destitution,” he said.

The political commentator also raised concerns about political representation under the Tinubu administration, arguing that the composition of government could shape public perception of its commitment to different regions.

Ardo said Northern voters should not be assumed to be permanently aligned with the voting pattern recorded in 2023, stressing that prevailing economic and security conditions would determine their choices in 2027.

“If a free, fair and credible election is conducted in Nigeria, Tinubu can’t get 10 percent of the Northern part,” he declared.

His prediction puts the spotlight on the opposition’s capacity to exploit any erosion of Tinubu’s Northern support, with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and other opposition figures potentially positioned to benefit from any major electoral realignment.

Opinion

Beyond the Ballot: Shaping a Bar That Works for All

Published

1 week ago

August 30, 2026

Trends Admin

Beyond the Ballot: Shaping a Bar That Works for All

By Asiwaju Kunle Kalejaye, SAN

The inaugural address of Mrs. Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, SAN, titled “From the Call to the Cause,” marks a historic turning point for the legal community as she officially assumes office as the 33rd President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) as she wa sworn in by her predecessor, Afam Osigwe, SAN, at the High Court complex in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Her leadership, the hiccup of her emergence notwithstanding, represents a historic milestone as the first woman elected to the NBA presidency through a competitive, though highly disputed, national ballot. Her address presents a powerful vision for a “bolder Bar” that actively confronts internal fractures, deep professional disconnects, and economic vulnerabilities. Central to her message is the core understanding that an association tasked with safeguarding judicial independence and speaking truth to power cannot effectively fulfill its national mandate if it remains internally fragmented. By focusing on the professional survival of young lawyers and vowing to act decisively against public misconduct, Badejo-Okusanya highlights an urgent reality: institutional strength requires collective solidarity and institutional determination. Fostering lasting unity within the NBA under this administration demands a deliberate shift from performative governance to deeply institutionalized, structural changes that build bridges across classes, factions, generations, and geographical divides.

To bring the NBA together, the new administration must incorporate proactive mechanisms for post-election reconciliation directly into its governance framework. The leadership must deliberately distance itself from divisive rhetoric and provocative nuances. The competitive nature of Bar elections often leaves behind lingering bitter factions that can stunt long-term cooperation and slow down progressive policies. By building an “olive branch” initiative that integrates runner-up contestants and their core campaign stakeholders into strategic national committees, the leadership can transform former rivals into active co-creators of the Bar’s future. Indeed this strategy which I dubbed the Abraham Lincoln strategy remains an eternal clincher.

Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election and famously appointed his chief Republican nomination rivals to key cabinet positions. Lincoln believed the country faced extreme peril during the crisis leading into the Civil War l. He wanted the most capable and influential leaders in his administration regardless of past personal competition. He valued robust debate over agreement, using differing viewpoints to make better decisions. This inclusivity must simultaneously bridge the widening economic and generational gap between senior practitioners and younger advocates. Enforcing standardized minimum remuneration and welfare requirements across all local branches will help reduce the economic alienation felt by younger members. To make this sustainable, the administration should establish joint mentorship hubs where senior legal practitioners collaborate with tech-savvy young lawyers on modern areas of practice, such as artificial intelligence, data privacy, and digital commerce, turning a generational divide into a symbiotic avenue for mutual professional empowerment.

True unity also requires restoring civil digital discourse through a comprehensive Digital Ethics Enforcement framework, fulfilling the President’s explicit warning against the breakdown of professional etiquette on social media. The profession has lost some vast mileage due to the digital posture of some members. To achieve this, the NBA can look to established global precedents where foreign bar associations have successfully navigated the complexities of digital misconduct. For instance, the American Bar Association (ABA) successfully integrated technological expectations into its framework via the Ethics 20/20 Commission, explicitly modifying its Model Rules of Professional Conduct such as Rules 1.6 and 8.4 to govern online confidentiality, misleading public statements, and deceptive digital behaviour. Similarly, the Law Society of England and Wales updated its practice note and compliance frameworks to penalize offensive online remarks, reinforcing that comments made by a lawyer in a personal capacity can still be actively disciplined as professional misconduct if public trust is damaged. By adopting a similar structure, the NBA can expand its own Rules of Professional Conduct into a clear code for online behaviour, utilizing its network of regional Ethics and Disciplinary Committees to monitor digital spaces and safely review flagged misconduct via secure portals.

Backing this framework with public disciplinary actions and a tiered system of sanctions will allow the NBA to decisively penalize cyberbullying, transitioning professional disputes into mediated internal forums rather than chaotic public platforms. This digital accountability should be reinforced by introducing mandatory continuing legal education (CLE) modules in digital etiquette, ensuring that practitioners maintain technological and behavioral competence.

Immediately, the NBA must dismantle the persistent perception that it is a “Lagos-Abuja centric” organization. Actively decentralizing national activities, rotating National Executive Council (NEC) meetings across various geopolitical zones, and providing direct financial and technical resources to smaller, rural branches will make every lawyer feel valued regardless of geography. Ultimately, by integrating these targeted, practical strategies and internationally proven ethical standards into the foundational ideals of her inaugural address, the administration can successfully unite its members and establish a cohesive, resilient front capable of defending the rule of law across Nigeria.

The new administration must pursue a deliberate policy towards attracting many docile members back into its fold.
If the new administration must know, the opaque electoral processes that had dogged the association in recent history has adversely affected the morale of a significant number but silent members of the Association. Chief Yomi Alliyu graphically stated the disturbing position when he posited in an opinion piece that: “The NBA has been hijacked by political lawyers to the disaffection of real practitioners of law. “Elections from 2016 or so vide e-voting had been manipulated to favour members of this class.”

The new administration must therefore consciously pursue reconciliatory steps that rein in all members. As at now, the silent class war must end for NBA to achieve its full potential.

I was sorely tempted to headline this peice: Nigerian Bar Association: the road to Kigali. I refrained because I still saw a silver lining which this new administration can latch on to save the NBA from itself!

The “road to Kigali” serves as a grim warning about the risk of total institutional fracture, polarization, and potential irrelevance. If proactive steps are not taken to unify and reform the body, it faces the danger of fracturing into competing, ethnicized, or regionalized professional factions, effectively ending the era of a single, unified voice for the Nigerian Bar.

The 1992 Port Harcourt Conference Crisis, was a definitive moment that brought the NBA to the brink of permanent destruction. Today, unless we play the ostrich, the cries of war are abroad but the present leadership could etch their names in gold if the NBA is consciously, deliberately and clinically steered from self implosion. Their job is cut out for them.Failure to seize the moment may end up placing us all on the road to Kigali.

Asiwaju Kunle Kalejaye SAN
Eagle102.5 FM Ilese-Ijebu

Opinion

Why Atiku’s subsidy gambit rattles Tinubu, By Farooq Kperogi

Published

2 weeks ago

August 22, 2026

Trends Admin

Farooq Kperogi

Why Atiku’s subsidy gambit rattles Tinubu, By Farooq Kperogi

Atiku Abubakar may finally have discovered the issue that can draw political blood from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. And I am enjoying seeing the president and his inner circle squirm in discomfort like cats stranded on a hot zinc roof.

On Thursday, barely a day after official campaigns began for the 2027 presidential election, Atiku pledged to restore petrol subsidies if Nigerians elect him president. That pledge, more than anything he has done lately to dislodge Tinubu, is the clearest signal yet that he is prepared to wrest power from the president.

Before now, Atiku expended money, time and energy excavating Tinubu’s past, much of which Nigerians already know. Tinubu’s 1993 civil forfeiture of $460,000 to the US government in a case that grew out of a heroin-trafficking investigation has been public knowledge for years. It was Sahara Reporters that first reported it on September 15, 2008. Fresh FBI or DEA papers are unlikely to suddenly alter electoral attitudes.

The Chicago State University expedition was even less politically useful. Tinubu genuinely attended and graduated from CSU in 1979. Caleb Westberg, the university’s registrar, said so under oath. He agreed that the photocopy Tinubu submitted to INEC did not look like the 1979 samples shown to him, but CSU’s diploma templates changed over the years and the BBC found that Tinubu’s copy resembled replacement diplomas from the 1990s. Westberg also said the missing portion of the university logo could have been cut off during photocopying because American diplomas are unusually large and aren’t intended to be photocopied.

In America, diplomas are largely ceremonial documents that people frame and hang on walls. Transcripts are the official records routinely used to verify attendance and graduation. Atiku’s legal expedition ironically helped establish that Tinubu has a CSU transcript and graduated with honors.

The BBC Global Disinformation Team found no evidence for the claim that Tinubu forged the CSU diploma he submitted to INEC. The report, in fact, won “Fact-Check of the Year by a Working Journalist” at the 2024 African Fact-Checking Awards in Accra. In other words, Atiku spent enormous political energy helping to settle a question whose answer was electorally barren.

Tinubu understood this and mostly ignored the attacks. More importantly, Atiku offered little policy distance from Tinubu on the economic question that has tormented Nigerians since May 2023. He had promised during the last election to remove petrol subsidies within his first 100 days in office. On the most consequential economic policy of the Tinubu presidency, Atiku was traveling on the same ideological road.

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That changed this week. Atiku asked the question millions of Nigerians have been asking: where is the money supposedly saved from subsidy removal? He then promised a new subsidy structure that would privilege locally refined petrol, give qualifying Nigerian refineries crude at preferential prices, impose a fixed annual spending ceiling, trace subsidized crude to actual domestic production and punish diversion. His formulation is that “the subsidy will follow the barrel.”

That is a more serious proposal than the Presidency’s caricature of it. And Tinubu suddenly found his voice. He personally dismissed Atiku’s pledge as a demonstration of “serious ignorance” of governance and the economy. Atiku’s previous assaults on Tinubu’s character produced studied presidential indifference. But his challenge to the economic orthodoxy that has pauperized Nigerians produced presidential irritation. That means he struck a raw nerve.

If Atiku’s proposal demonstrates ignorance, what does Tinubu’s policy demonstrate? Any honest person knows the answer: cruelty. Between ignorance and cruelty, which is more benign? You be the judge.

The anti-subsidy theology that Tinubu and his neoliberal choristers recite has always rested on a false premise. Subsidy simply means government assistance. Every functional society subsidizes something its people need for survival and economic productivity. Governments subsidize food, agriculture, housing, healthcare, transportation or energy according to the peculiarities of their societies.

For Nigeria, petrol occupies a uniquely central place because it doubles as an infrastructural substitute. People buy petrol because public electricity is unreliable. Small businesses generate their own power. Goods move mostly by road. Workers commute in vehicles powered by fuel. Farmers, artisans, traders and manufacturers absorb fuel costs and pass them on through prices.

A petrol subsidy therefore travels through the economy. Its removal travels through the economy too, only in the opposite direction. It raises transportation costs, production costs, food prices and the cost of nearly everything that depends on movement or power.

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I warned about this exactly one month before Tinubu was inaugurated. In my April 29, 2023 column titled “Six Agenda Items for Tinubu’s Success,” I warned that any policy that caused an arbitrary and unbearable increase in petrol prices without a corresponding improvement in incomes and living conditions would sink Tinubu. That warning was elementary commonsense.

The subsidy removal has since wreaked havoc on the economy, deepened poverty, killed businesses, murdered hope, hollowed out the middle class and democratized misery. Reuters now describes the aftermath of Tinubu’s reforms as the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation. Nearly 80 percent of Nigerians in a recent voter tracker said the country was headed in the wrong direction.

The government’s answer is always the same sterile, tired, intentionally dishonest incantation: temporary pains will yield permanent gains. But we have heard that sermon before.

Ibrahim Babangida’s Structural Adjustment Program came with the same vocabulary of sacrifice, deregulation, currency devaluation, subsidy withdrawal and deferred prosperity. Nigerians were told to endure pain today for abundance tomorrow. By the time Babangida left in 1993, manufacturing had been battered, purchasing power had collapsed and social misery had spread. The promised gains vanished into the ether.

Only living people can enjoy future gains. A government that starves people in installments cannot redeem itself with a hypothetical prosperity scheduled for an undefined tomorrow.

Tinubu’s most frequently advertised dividend of subsidy removal is that states now receive more money and can pay salaries and pensions. That is useful to salary earners, pensioners and the relatives who depend on them. Every Nigerian with a functioning brain cell knows that formal salary and pension earners constitute only a small fraction of Nigeria’s population. The wellbeing of state treasuries is a poor substitute for the wellbeing of the vast majority of citizens.

What kind of economic triumph makes governors more solvent while making citizens poorer? Government has improved the liquidity of public treasuries by draining the liquidity of household economies.

Atiku has finally opened a policy flank that Tinubu cannot wave away with moral insults, ethnic mobilization or tales of macroeconomic “reform.”

Nonetheless, Atiku’s conversion deserves scrutiny. He promised in 2023 to remove the same subsidy he now wants to restore in a redesigned form. I disagreed with him then. A politician who changes his mind after observing the destructive consequences of a policy can reasonably plead that evidence changed his assumptions. Nigerians also have abundant reasons to distrust politicians who discover compassion during campaigns.

They campaign in poetry and govern in prose. Tinubu, after all, told Nigerians during the 2023 campaign that if he failed to give them electricity and returned for a second term, they should not vote for him, although he inserted an escape clause about giving “adequate reasons” for failure. Muhammadu Buhari promised a paradise of security, prosperity and integrity before power exposed the hollowness of his promises.

Atiku therefore has work to do. He must keep explaining the cost of his subsidy plan, its funding source, its legal path under the Petroleum Industry Act, its anti-corruption safeguards and the mechanisms that will ensure cheaper energy reaches households and industries. He should put these commitments in language that can be measured and used against him if he wins.

In spite of my well-justified distrust of the promises of politicians, including Atiku who supervised a ruinous privation program when he was vice president, I can’t help but concede that this is the first truly useful political argument of the 2027 campaign.

Policy contrast is finally replacing pointless and unproductive character assassination. Nigerians already know that Tinubu has a morally complicated past, but they live every day with something more immediate: the extortionate price of food, transport, electricity, medicine and survival.

Atiku has finally moved the contest from Tinubu’s old files in America to Nigerian kitchens, markets, factories and motor parks. That is where Tinubu is most vulnerable. Tinubu can survive old scandals, but the mass hunger his “reforms” have created is a more formidable opponent than impotent darts thrown at his character.