Opinion

Farooq Kperogi : Neither Tinubu nor Atiku forged credentials with INEC

Published

3 years ago

October 14, 2023

Atiku Abubakar and Bola Ahmed Tinubu

Farooq Kperogi : Neither Tinubu nor Atiku forged credentials with INEC

The storm over the legitimacy of the credential President Bola Tinubu submitted to INEC has managed to rope in former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who instigated it in the first place. But available facts show that neither of them presented forged documents to INEC.

I go where the facts lead me. That means I could say the opposite of what I said earlier in light of new facts, a reason I advisedly used the expression “the best obtainable version of the truth” in last week’s column. I am not invested in any perspective. Tinubu is an unrelieved catastrophe as a president, but I’ll defend the facts even if they favor him.

Here are 7 facts I’ve found so far after reading and rereading all the facts related to this issue:

1. Tinubu attended and graduated from Chicago State University in 1979, was issued a diploma (or a certificate, to use the expression that’s familiar to Nigerians), which he collected (I erred when I thought the registrar said he didn’t; See number 3). Apparently, he lost the original diploma in 1979 and was issued a “replacement diploma dated 27 June 1979,” according to the BBC.

2. In the 1990s, he applied for and got a replacement diploma from CSU. Ostensibly, because it looks different from his 1979 diploma (since diplomas bear the signatures of the current president and look like the diplomas issued that year), he got a note from the CSU registrar in 1999 affirming that he indeed graduated from the school in 1979.

3. He lost the original copy of the 1990s replacement diploma (but has a photocopy of it) and, in the 2000s, applied for yet another replacement diploma, which the university issued, but which he didn’t collect. I mistook the registrar’s reference to this bit during the deposition as him saying that Tinubu did not collecting his 1979 diploma. My apologies.

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4. In 2022, Tinubu submitted a photocopy of the 1990s replacement diploma, along with the 1999 “To Whom It May Concern” note from the CSU Registrar, to INEC as the academic credential that qualifies him to run for president.

5. Opposition politicians saw it and said it wasn’t similar to diplomas CSU issued in 1979. So, they said it’s fake.

6. BBC’s Disinformation Team fact-checked the claim and found that it’s not fake. It appears fake only because it was reissued in 1998 and the university’s logo at the bottom of the diploma was chopped off during photocopying. The BBC says every other detail in the diploma is similar to the diplomas CSU issued or reissued in 1998.

7. The registrar disavowed the photocopied INEC diploma during deposition because of the absence of the logo of the university at the bottom of the diploma, but even he hinted that it “was possibly ‘cut off’ when it was photocopied.” So, it was actually a conditional disavowal.

The Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) attempted to impeach the credibility of the BBC fact check but failed.

The FIJ said, “Of particular interest was the expression, ‘with honors’, which appeared on the certificate Tinubu submitted to INEC. The presence of ‘with honours’ in Tinubu’s certificate is a tautology because the certificate goes on to read, ‘with all the rights, honours, and privileges partaining therto’.[sic]. None of the 1990s samples provided by CSU showed those words underneath the course of study, and this suggests that Tinubu’s certificate, which was supposedly obtained within the same timeframe, did not emanate from the school.”

That’s a problematic claim. “With all the rights, honors, and privileges pertaining thereto” is a fixed phrase that appears on all diplomas irrespective of their class. The addition of “with honors” isn’t a duplication because graduating with honors is an academic distinction that only a limited pool of students achieve, and some U.S. universities include it in diplomas in addition to the fixed phrase that appears on all diplomas.

In any case, Tinubu’s uncollected 2000s replacement diploma that the registrar showed during the deposition has both the fixed phrase AND “with honors.”

Similarly, the claim that the samples of replacement diplomas issued in the 1990s don’t have “with honors” is a weak argument because CSU only showed uncollected diplomas in its records, not a representative sample of every type and class of diplomas earned or re-issued that year. It could well be that the uncollected diplomas in CSU’s records didn’t achieve the distinction that entitles them to have “with honors” affixed to them.

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Typically, only between 20% and 30% of students graduate with honors in U.S. colleges and universities (except for Ivy League universities that have higher percentages), so it’s not a given that the uncollected diplomas in CSU’s records will be among the 20% to 30%.

FIJ also said, “Two, whoever created the controversial certificate in Tinubu’s possession copied the template of the 2000s without paying attention to timeframe variations. This is clear in one of the signatures on Tinubu’s certificate. The signature on the right is that of Zaldwaynaka “Z, the current President of CSU, who took office in 2018. A president who took office in 2018 could not have signed a certificate supposedly released in the 1990s.”

This claim seems made up because there is no “Zaldwaynaka Z” in the diploma Tinubu submitted to INEC. The photocopied CSU diploma Tinubu submitted to INEC and the samples of CSU diploma replacements from the 1990s are exactly the same except for the missing logo in Tinubu’s copy as a result of photocopying.

The registrar’s disavowal of the diploma doesn’t invalidate its authenticity because he merely said the photocopy that was shown to him didn’t look like diplomas from CSU because of the missing logo. People who have an emotional investment in the idea that Tinubu “forged” a diploma that he validly earned (which is ridiculously excessive legal literalism to begin with) leave out that context and make it seem as if the registrar’s words are an inviolable article of faith and not a conditional, context-dependent response to a specific question about a specific photocopied document that doesn’t reflect all the features of diplomas CSU issued in 1998 BECAUSE of photocopying.

This issue has demonstrated to me in starkly dramatic terms how partisan blinders can distort people’s perception of reality. When people so badly want something to be true, but it turns out to be untrue, they choose to hang on to the most absurd apophenic hallucinations (i.e., seeing predetermined patterns from a chaos of unrelated phenomena) they can invoke to validate their preconceptions. I’ve studied and taught this phenomenon for years but had never seen it manifest on a mass scale like this.

The only new thing that will change the conversation is a foolproof revelation that Tinubu didn’t meet graduation requirements and was issued a fraudulent transcript that said he did—after the fact—by dodgy university officials. That would establish the legal basis for forgery. Given what I am now reading about the school, I won’t be shocked if this happens. So, I think the answer to the puzzle isn’t on the surface; it’s beneath the surface. Only deep investigation can unearth it.

Finally, the CSU registrar never said, “forgery is a Nigerian thing.” Tinubu sent his lawyer to get copies of his academic records from CSU and requested that the school certify the documents before sending them to him.

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Atiku’s lawyer asked if CSU had ever certified documents it sent out, and the registrar said, “No, I believe this was made because it is more of a Nigerian thing.” So, the “Nigerian thing” he referred to was certifying school records for legal purposes, not forgery.

Atiku’s School Certificate
Tinubu’s minions, in their bid to get even with Atiku, dredged up Atiku’s post-secondary school appellative change and are attempting to pass it off as evidence of school certificate forgery against him. But here are the facts.

Atiku was known as Sadiq (or Siddiq—it doesn’t matter in Muslim northern Nigeria because “Sadiq” and “Siddiq” and all other spelling variants are interchangeable) Abubakar. He was named after Abu Bakr, Islam’s first caliph whom the prophet of Islam nicknamed as “al-Siddiq,” which means “the righteous.” So, in Muslim northern Nigeria, every Abubakar (our domestication of Abu Bakr) is a Siddiq and vice versa—just like every Umar is a Farooq and vice versa.

People have asked why Atiku was tautonymous, that is, having the same first and last name— if Siddiq and Abubakar are the same. Well, in the early days of education in Northern Nigeria, people concealed their father’s names in schools to protect them from abuse from classmates. Some used toponyms (i.e., names of places) as their family names (Aminu Kano, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Ahmadu Rabah—before he changed to Bello—are prominent examples).

A few, however, chose the tautonymous route. Among them is former president Muhammadu Buhari. He was named after prolific ninth-century Hadith compiler Muhammad al-Bukhari who was a native of the city of Bukhara in what is now Uzbekistan. Bukhari simply means native of the city of Bukhara. But in northern Nigeria every Buhari is a Muhammad. So, Muhammadu Buhari is effectively a tautonym.

Atiku probably also initially chose the tautonymous route. I don’t know how he came about the name Atiku, but it is the Nigerian domestication of the Arabic name Atiq, which means “ancient.” Some people say it means “freed.” Bangladeshis bear it as Atiqur and Arabs bear it as Atiqullah.

More than anything, though, he swore an affidavit in real time to legalize this change of name. The same can’t be said for Bola Tinubu whom we’ve learned was initially known as Lamidi Amoda Sangodele.

Farooq Kperogi : Neither Tinubu nor Atiku forged credentials with INEC

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

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Opinion

The Shettima danger for Tinubu, By Farooq Kperogi

Published

2 days ago

May 30, 2026

Trends Admin

The Shettima danger for Tinubu, By Farooq Kperogi

Sometime in January this year, a senior Lagos-Ibadan journalist called my attention to a news story in which President Tinubu’s Minister said with earnest certainty that dropping Vice President Kashim Shettima as Tinubu’s running mate would gravely imperil Tinubu’s reelection chances. He wanted to know what I thought about it.

I promised I would share my thoughts in a column the following week, but more urgent matters that needed my discursive interventions came up, and I didn’t get round to doing it. In the intervening months, several other people have echoed Musawa’s sentiments. As maneuvers for the 2027 election intensify, the question of Shettima’s place in Tinubu’s 2027 calculus keeps taking center stage.

To my knowledge, no one has sufficiently articulated the socio-historical, political, strategic, ethnographic and even emotive reasons for the choice of Shettima as Tinubu’s running mate, or why his replacement, especially with a northern Christian as is being rumored, would convulse the foundations of the Tinubu presidency.

I have pointed out in many past columns that in Nigeria’s emotional cartography, there are five broad ethnographic cocoons, which I like to sometimes call emotional maps, that have evolved independently and have broadly shaped voting and other kinds of national behavior.

There is the Northern Muslim Bloc that largely transcends northern ethnic boundaries, the Yoruba Bloc that mostly papers over religious differences, the Northern Christian Bloc that collapses ethnic and subregional borders, the Igbo Bloc that is self-explanatorily ethnically and religiously homogenous and the Southern Minority Bloc that encompasses a multiplicity of ethnicities that are neither Yoruba nor Igbo.

This emotional cartography isn’t intended to be a simplistic, self-sufficient and unnuanced mapping of diverse people into unproblematized boxes where there are no internal differences. It is intended only to show that, generically speaking, these broad collectivities tend to coalesce around the same affectional bonds in relation to national issues.

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In the politics of emotional affiliation to, or connection with, the center of power, feelings of group representation draw on these maps. For example, the appointment of General Christopher Gwabin Musa first as Chief of Defense Staff and later as Minister of Defense has been a source of recognizable representational nourishment for most northern Christians across ethnic and subregional divides, even though Musa is from Kaduna, which is supposed to be in the Northwest.

So, based on my mapping of the emotional contours of Nigeria’s ethnographic landscape, the Tinubu-Shettima ticket actually is not, strictly speaking, the Muslim-Muslim ticket people say or think it is. It is, in reality, a Yoruba-Muslim ticket. Here’s why.

Tinubu, like most Yoruba people, defines himself first and foremost as a Yoruba person before he is anything else. That was why, in his 2022 Abeokuta speech, he prefaced “Emi lo kan” with “Yoruba lo kan.” In other words, he derived the social, political and emotional basis for the legitimacy of his presidential aspiration from his Yoruba identity.

Islam is incidental, even expendable, to Tinubu’s identity. This was dramatized this week when the presidency had to debunk a bizarre rumor that Tinubu had converted to Christianity.

Shettima, on the other hand, can’t afford to define himself as Kanuri in the context of national politics. On the national stage, he is the symbolic representation of collective northern Muslims, although this does not erase his Kanuri and cosmopolitical credentials. In other words, Shettima is primarily a northern Muslim who provides the symbolic conduit through which Muslims in the North identify with the administration he is a part of.

Some, maybe even most, northern Muslims may disagree with the administration and even with Shettima himself. But that’s in the region of the head. In their hearts, however, it’s a different matter. It’s like having a mother you disagree with but whose presence you cherish nonetheless because her absence would create a crushing emptiness in you.

In fact, no northerner, whether Christian or Muslim, can stake his or her national political aspiration on an ethnic platform. They would usually choose a pan-northern platform or a religious justification for their aspirations, depending on the context.

It needs to be pointed out that I am not making any moral judgments here. Tinubu’s appeal to Yoruba nationalism is not inferior to northern politicians’ appeals to regional or religious solidarity. The differences merely reflect how differently we have evolved politically and emotionally.

Now, replacing Shettima with a northern Christian running mate is fair in view of what appears to be the systematic exclusion of northern Christians at the top since the return of democracy in 1999. However, even at the risk of being misunderstood, it needs to be pointed out that such a move would signal two things.

First, contrary to what many people are inclined to assume, it won’t be a Muslim-Christian ticket. It would be a Yoruba-Christian ticket. As I pointed out earlier, Tinubu’s self- and collective identity-definition is primarily Yoruba, and it’s the basis for his claim to the presidency. Until fairly recently, he didn’t even publicly identify with Islam and still stumbles when he tries to perform his secondary Muslim identity.

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Second, Tinubu has to contend with the altered demographic calculations for the 2027 election that the choice of a northern Christian running mate would present. In the 2023 election, most northern Christians voted for Peter Obi, with Benue State being the notable exception. In Benue, Tinubu rode on the coattails of the then wildly popular APC governorship candidate Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Iormem Alia to victory.

Since 63.6 percent of Tinubu’s 8,805,420 votes in 2023 came from the North, it is safe to assume that most of those votes came from the Northern Muslim Bloc. To get rid of the ethnographic, emotional symbol of such a bloc in your quest for a second term, you have to be able to compensate for the electoral loss such a move would most certainly provoke. That seems like a tall order.

True, northern Christians seem to have warmed up to the Tinubu administration, perhaps because the anxieties that activated their hostility haven’t materialized. In fact, in May 2025, as Tinubu prepared to travel to Rome for the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV, the presidency reportedly supplied THISDAY with data that showed 62 percent of Tinubu’s appointees were Christians.

Bayo Onanuga later echoed the same claim at the Vatican when he said he had read that 62 percent of the president’s cabinet members were Christians.

Tinubu’s handlers can point not only to presidency-supplied claims about Christian appointments but also to a trail of public statements by some northern Christian bodies and clerics who said, in varying degrees of intensity, that his appointments had softened, answered or “allayed” fears over the Muslim-Muslim ticket.

For example, Rev. Kelvin Pwajok of the Northern Christian Forum thanked Tinubu in September 2023 for appointing northern Christians such as George Akume and Christopher Musa to strategic positions. Dominic Alancha of All Christian Youths in Northern Nigeria said the group’s earlier reservations had been eased by Tinubu’s appointments. Rev. Yakubu Pam of Northern CAN said in January 2025 that Tinubu had shown reasonable inclusiveness.

Archbishop John Praise Daniel of the Northern Christian Religious Leaders’ Assembly said in October 2025 that Christians did not feel sidelined and that Tinubu’s appointments had allayed many fears. Rev. Amos Mohzo of COCIN also thanked Tinubu for supporting northern Christians through appointments such as Akume as SGF and Nentawe Yilwatda as APC national chairman. In May 2026, the Christian Northern Nigeria Progressive Forum backed Tinubu’s re-election and framed its support around inclusion, fairness and national stability.

By contrast, Muslim groups and clerics have complained that the Muslim-Muslim ticket has not translated into commensurate representation for Muslims in Tinubu’s appointments.

For example, the Supreme Council for Shari’ah in Nigeria said Muslims remained politically marginalized despite their support for the ticket, while Professor Mansur Ibrahim Sokoto argued that Tinubu won Muslim votes but had since sidelined Muslims and the North.

Yoruba Muslim bodies have made a more specific regional case. MURIC has repeatedly alleged that South-West Muslims have been shortchanged. It even described some appointments as “Christian-Christian” under a Muslim-Muslim presidency. The Concerned Yoruba Muslim Scholars in Nigeria said Yoruba Muslims had expected Tinubu’s presidency to redress their long-standing marginalization but have instead faced deeper exclusion. MUSWEN also said South-West Muslims are underrepresented in federal appointments relative to their demographic strength and intellectual weight.

In other words, dropping Shettima in favor of a Christian running mate would effectively create a perceptual “Christian-Christian” ticket in the North. Northern politicians like Musawa who have an intimate familiarity with the sociology of northern politics know that this would sound the death knell of Tinubu’s second term bid, especially in light of Peter Obi’s dominance in the Southeast, which will deprive Tinubu of bloc votes from the South.

This choice comes with an even more poignant existential implication. Historically, in moments of political trauma, northern elites tend to instrumentalize religion to rouse the masses to popular action. Should Tinubu somehow manage to “win” without a northern Muslim running mate, he could have an unprecedentedly convulsive Nigeria to preside over.

The Shettima danger for Tinubu, By Farooq Kperogi

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

Opinion

Don’t Label Oyo Kidnappers as ‘Islamic Jihadists’ – Saudi-Based Nigerian Scholar Warns

Published

1 week ago

May 23, 2026

Trends Admin

Saudi-based Nigerian Islamic scholar, Mallam Ibrahim Agunbiade

Don’t Label Oyo Kidnappers as ‘Islamic Jihadists’ – Saudi-Based Nigerian Scholar Warns

Says criminality remains criminality, warns against dangerous religious profiling

A Saudi-based Nigerian Islamic scholar, Mallam Ibrahim Agunbiade, has cautioned against the growing tendency to brand criminal gangs operating in Oyo State and other parts of the South-West as “Islamic jihadists,” warning that such narratives are misleading and capable of igniting dangerous religious tension.

In a statement issued on Sunday, Agunbiade, a Taalib (student) at Jami’ei, Islamic Propagation Rabwa in Saudi Arabia, expressed deep concern over the direction of public discourse surrounding insecurity in Oyo State, particularly following the recent abduction of pupils and teachers from three schools in the Oriire Local Government Area.

The scholar specifically referenced a programme on Splash FM 105.5 FM, “State of the Nation,” anchored by Edmund Obilo, where, according to him, repeated references were made to kidnappers and criminal gangs as “Islamic jihadists” allegedly bent on conquering the South-West and establishing dominance.

“Such sweeping and emotionally charged narratives may attract public attention, but they are not only misleading; they are also capable of creating dangerous religious tension in an already fragile society,” Agunbiade wrote.

He described the recent attacks in Oriire as “indeed tragic and condemnable,” adding that every responsible citizen must rise against such barbaric acts. However, he questioned the logic of automatically labelling criminal activities as religious missions.

“Since when did kidnapping schoolchildren become an Islamic mission? Since when did abducting innocent teachers and pupils become a religious obligation?” he asked.

“It is both irresponsible and intellectually dishonest to automatically label every violent criminal activity involving suspected Fulani bandits or kidnappers as ‘Islamic jihad.’ Criminality should remain criminality. Evil should be called evil without dragging religion into matters where religion itself clearly stands opposed to such actions.”

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Agunbiade pointed out what he described as a critical irony: many of the victims of these attacks are themselves Muslims. He noted that among the kidnapped pupils and affected families are Muslims whose lives have been shattered by the same criminals.

“So, how does one logically arrive at the conclusion that these kidnappers are fighting an ‘Islamic cause’ while terrorizing Muslim communities and targeting Muslim children?” he queried.

The scholar emphasised that Islam has never permitted the kidnapping of innocent people, attacks on schools, or the creation of fear and instability in society. He stressed that those who commit such crimes are enemies of humanity and enemies of peace, regardless of the language they speak or the religion they claim.

He further noted that respected Islamic bodies and leaders in Oyo State have openly condemned these criminal acts. He cited the Oyo State chapter of the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), which has issued statements condemning insecurity and calling for urgent government intervention. He also mentioned the Grand Imam of Oyo, Sheikh (Barrister) Bilal Husayn Akinola Akeugberu, as well as prominent Islamic organizations including MUSWEN, who have publicly expressed concern and called on authorities to intensify efforts toward rescuing victims and restoring peace.

“These are the voices that deserve amplification in our public discourse — voices of reason, peace, unity, and responsibility,” Agunbiade said.

He warned that when media narratives lean toward religious profiling instead of objective analysis, they risk inflaming ethnic and religious suspicion among citizens who have coexisted peacefully for decades.

“The role of the media in times of insecurity is not merely to sensationalize fear or promote divisive assumptions. Journalism carries a moral burden. Broadcasters and public commentators must exercise caution in their choice of words, especially in a multi-religious and multi-ethnic society like Nigeria. Words are powerful. A careless narrative repeated consistently can gradually poison public perception and sow seeds of hatred among innocent people,” he cautioned.

Agunbiade acknowledged the seriousness of insecurity in the South-West, noting that communities are under pressure, farmers are afraid, travellers are anxious, and parents are worried. However, he insisted that solving insecurity requires facts, intelligence gathering, effective policing, and sincere governance — not religious stereotyping.

“We must avoid turning a security crisis into a religious war narrative. Once criminality is wrongly framed as a battle between religions, the real perpetrators hide behind the confusion while innocent citizens suffer discrimination and hostility,” he said.

The scholar called on government at all levels to strengthen local security architecture, equip law enforcement agencies adequately, improve intelligence operations, and ensure that criminal elements are arrested and prosecuted. He also urged traditional rulers, community leaders, religious institutions, and civil society groups to work together in promoting vigilance and unity instead of suspicion and division.

“At this critical moment, Nigerians must refuse to allow fear to destroy the peaceful coexistence that binds communities together. Kidnappers are criminals, not representatives of any faith. Terrorists are enemies of humanity, not ambassadors of religion,” Agunbiade stated.

He concluded: “The fight before us is not Islam versus Christianity, nor North versus South. The real battle is between law-abiding citizens and criminal elements threatening the peace of society. Anything short of this understanding only deepens the crisis.”

Mallam Ibrahim Agunbiade is a Taalib (student) at Jami’ei, Islamic Propagation Rabwa, Saudi Arabia, and can be reached via agunbiadeib@gmail.com.

Don’t Label Oyo Kidnappers as ‘Islamic Jihadists’ – Saudi-Based Nigerian Scholar Warns

Opinion

IGP Disu: Inside the rotting walls of Zone II

Published

1 week ago

May 22, 2026

Trends Admin

IGP Disu: Inside the rotting walls of Zone II

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, May 22, 2026)

Except for its motto and morality, there is hardly anything wrong with the Nigeria Police Force. If burnished in the furnace of grammar, the statement, “Police is your friend,” which is the motto of the Nigeria Police, is wrong because ‘police’ is a plural noun, and so, cannot legally coexist with ‘is’, a singular tense. Therefore, to put the motto in the right grammatical drive, the statement should read, “The police are your friend(s).” Aside from the test of grammar, the motto also fails the test of authenticity because, as everyone knows, the Nigeria Police Force is friendless and loveless.

But this wasn’t the fate of the force some 40 years ago when I walked into the Okigwe police station, stranded and needing a place to lay my head for the night. Early in the day, before the second crow of cock, I had boarded ‘The Young Shall Grow’ bus from Lagos en route to Okigwe, the home of Imo State University, where I had just been admitted.

It was a mobileless era when a letter sent by post to a distant state travelled like a tortoise with arthritis, crawling for weeks or months before reaching its destination. As soon as I got my admission letter from JAMB, I headed eastwards, afraid of missing the registration window and ultimately forfeiting my admission. The Lagos Liaison Office of the school had no information because it was on recess. Quickly, I borrowed the wisdom in a Yoruba proverb that says: “Kí ojú má rí’bi, gbogbo ara ni ògun ẹ̀’. Translated: “For the eyes not to see evil, the whole of the body must be agile.” So, I hit Oshodi, boarded a bus, and moved agilely to Okigwe.

However, Nigeria happened on the road.

Head of Zone II, Assistant Inspector-General Moshood Jimoh

Due to mechanical delays and a poor road network, the bus didn’t reach Okigwe until late in the night when the whole town was in bed, except the dingy police station. Though I was a lad who had never travelled outside the south-west and spoke not a syllable of Igbo, I knew police stations across the country were a place of refuge and fortress. I knew the Nigerian police, in a good measure, embodied the spirit of service and protection.

Similarly, “To protect and to serve” is the spirit behind the motto of police departments across the United States. But somewhere along Nigeria’s broken national journey, the Nigeria Police Force lost its spirit, service, and protection.

The reasons for this monumental loss are clear to the blind eye. With a numerical strength of 371,800 officers and men, the police-to-citizen ratio in Nigeria is about one police officer to every 637 citizens, which falls short of the United Nations’ recommendation of one cop to 430 persons. To attain the UN benchmark, experts say the country’s police force must hit between 650,000 and 684,000. A force starved of funding, adequate welfare, modern technology, equity and fairness cannot produce saints in uniform.

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The officer on duty that night in Okigwe was courteous but pitiable. I introduced myself and showed him my admission letter. He wondered why someone would leave Lagos for Okigwe. “Uhmm! My brother, you can see di way we dey here o. NEPA don take light. If you fit manage for dat place till morning; day go soon break,” he pointed to a concrete slab that was about to be my king-size bed. But providence had a deal lined up for me. As I sat on the slab, contemplating how I was going to sleep, a man in mufti walked in, spoke with the policeman on duty, and went to rummage through a chest of drawers at the back of the counter. He was a policeman. On his way out, he stopped and shot a glance at the man on duty, asking with his eyes who I was. “The boy na student of IMSU. He no know say di school never resume, and na from Lagos im come. He wan sleep here till morning.”

The man in mufti spoke Igbo to me. I smiled and told him I didn’t understand Igbo.

“So, you bi Yoruba from Lagos?”

“Yes, sir.”

Ha!” Why you come suffer come dis far? Why you no stay for Lagos or Ibadan?”

“I have spent all my life in Lagos and wanted a change.”

“Hia! Mosquitoes go chop you finish for dis station o. If you no mind, you fit come and manage with me till morning. Day go soon break.”

Though I felt safe in the station, I couldn’t bring myself to reject the Good Samaritan’s offer. So, we both left the station in a pall of darkness and headed to his abode, which was a stone’s throw away. As we made our way through bush paths to his house, I asked if there was a watering hole where we could have some beer. “All of dem don close. Okigwe dy sleepy once university no dey session,” he said, and added, “You dey hungry? I no get food for house o,” smiling. I told him I was hungry. So, we went to a house where he knocked on the door, and a sleepy woman opened the door and sold us bread, moin-moin and soda, which I paid for. On the way to his house, I fished a packet of Consulate cigarettes out of my pocket, the policeman whistled in admiration and said, “You bi original Lagos boy!”

Darkness escorted us to his house, which looked like an abandoned poultry shed. “This is where I dey manage o,” he said in a welcome. The house was built with corrugated iron, with holes that let in the rays of the moon through cracks. He showed me his mattressless king-size bed. “I go sleep on the floor,” he said, “You fit sleep on the bed.” It was a large-hearted moment of benevolence, and I was deeply moved. I spread my clothes over the naked springs, lay down and pretended to sleep, peeping at the sky through the cracks in the roof, silently asking God if He could see what I was going through. I prayed silently that I may succeed in my academic journey in the land of the rising sun.

At dawn, he showed me his bathroom – if courtesy permits me to call it a bathroom. Four sticks rammed into the earth, wrapped with palm fronds, roofless and doorless. In that jacuzzi, the heavens watched your nakedness while passersby viewed your legs as your towel or wrapper served as a door. I took my bath with the brown water my benefactor provided and headed to the school to see things for myself, offering profuse thanks for the memorable accommodation.

That was the situation of the police force 40 years ago: poor, neglected, unpaid – yet still recognisably human. Today, the situation has not changed, the motto has not changed, but the morality and purpose of the force have changed drastically. Today, poverty remains, but humanity has fled. The bloodstream of the police has been infected. Police stations are no longer safe for the police and the citizens.

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I have encountered one thousand and one ugly police experiences bordering on corruption, impunity, wickedness and opportunism. I can’t mention all, but the sheer devilry behind police actions was shocking. One was when my uncle, Abel Odesola, was killed on the Ife-Ilesa Expressway by a drunk driver in an accident in 2005, and the police at Atakumosa police station demanded a bribe from my family before they could release his corpse. I refused to pay the bribe and got my uncle’s corpse out. Another was when a team of policemen arrested me in the Ajegunle area of Osogbo, took me to the station for standing up to their impunity. On the way to the station, they told the eldest among them to lie that I slapped him. Little did they know that I was recording all our exchanges on the way to the station. The Osun Commissioner of Police threatened to sack them, and I had to beg on their behalf.

Now, age has tempered my intolerance of police impunity. Today, I often resist the temptation to escalate police misconduct on the pages of newspapers because I understand the internal mechanics of the force. The recklessness of a corporal can stain the career of a commissioner. One scandal can trigger a chain reaction. So, I often let things slide.

This was exactly what happened two years ago when officers made unprofessional demands of me at the Zone II Command Headquarters of the NPF, Onikan. I declined to comply but let it slide. This was after I went upstairs and complained to one of their bosses. I knew if I went to the press with the unprofessional actions of the junior officers, the embarrassment would travel upwards.

Thunder struck the same spot early again this year when I took a case of fraud to the notorious Zone II Zonal Command Headquarters, Onikan. It took PUNCH authorities to call the IG’s office to complain about the actions of the officers of the zone before the case could even be listed for investigation. The immediate past leadership of the zone appeared disturbingly indifferent, maybe deliberately so, for some reasons best known to it.

In a petition I wrote to the command on December 11, 2025, I complained about a suspected fraudster named Wole, who fraudulently obtained $8,800 from me during the process of helping him to buy a 2014 Toyota 4Runner from the US. The criminal suspect had lied to me that he was working with Dangote Refineries and repeatedly assured me repayment was guaranteed. This was in 2022. When I realised the suspect had no job, I personally helped him secure job opportunities, including two banking jobs and an accounting position with a major newspaper in the country.

The suspect turned all the jobs down, citing flimsy excuses.

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That was when it finally dawned on me that the suspect was playing games. So, I gave him an eight-month deadline, warning that I would initiate legal actions if he failed to pay me by November 2025. When he failed to pay, I wrote a petition to Zone II, titled “Re: Fraudulent Obtainment of $8,88,” which was received and signed by the zone on December 11, 2025. Wole wrote an undertaking at the zone that he would pay me the equivalent of N500,000 in dollars every month. He only paid for January, February and March. Efforts to get the zone to reach Wole had been futile as excuses tumbled down from Onikan, with the investigating police officer, Mrs Priscilla Erroim, telling me that the suspect was not picking up her calls, while he cruised the streets in the silver-coloured Toyota 4Runner with number plate LSD 388 HS.

I had thought that when an officer goes on transfer, the cases they were handling would be transferred to another officer. More so, the suspect included his residential address in the undertaking. This was not the case with Zone II. The case was just left in limbo. At the commencement of the case, I had a very rough time with Erroim, who is a Chief Superintendent of Police, and her subordinate named Francis. But we later resolved the conflict between us.

When I could not make a headway with Erroim and Francis, I called the Zonal PRO, Mr Gbenga Afolayan, a deputy superintendent of police, who said the officers handling the case before they were transferred should tell me who they had handled the case to. Thus, the case ran into a cul-de-sac. But an Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mr Ojugbele, distinguished himself by making genuine efforts to intervene.

I had thought that the recent shake-up within the force by the Inspector General was yielding results when I texted the new Head of Zone II, Assistant Inspector-General Moshood Jimoh, who acknowledged my text and promised that the zone would look into the case. I was pleasantly shocked! “Here’s an AIG responding to a random citizen personally, while the former AIG in charge of the zone wouldn’t respond,” I thought to myself. The Nigeria Police Force is working!

I acknowledged Jimoh’s prompt response in my article published in THE PUNCH on Friday, May 15, 2026, titled, “IG’s deployments and the rebirth of Zone II.” The article was published under another article, “Adeleke: Crime cannot dethrone Apetu and enthrone Oluwo.”

How wrong was I! Little did I know that what appeared to attract Jimoh to respond to my texts was not duty, but the allure of my foreign telephone number. Or, how do I explain that calls and texts to him after I introduced myself and made the publication were ignored? It left me wondering what manner of service and protection the common man gets from the police force if a columnist with the most widely read newspaper in the country could be tossed up and down by officers?

As it happened to me two years ago at Zone II, Onikan, so it has happened to me again this year: officers deliberately erect obstacles before citizens, preparing the ground for exploitation. I’m sure the shake-up initiated within the force by the IG is part of ongoing reforms aimed at re-energising the force. But for men and officers of Zone II, Onikan, this reform is like water bouncing off a rock. The IG must break that rock; otherwise, his efforts would go down the drain.

There is no nobler honour than for men and women to put their lives on the line for the safety of their country. This is why I spare no effort in commending the nation’s security agencies whenever they do right. But when corruption takes the place of conscience, then the walls of police institutions begin to rot from within.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @Tunde_Odesola

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