Tinubu, el-Rufai and the cobra

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, February 20, 2026)

If they were not venomous, snakes would probably garland the necks of the rich and the influential to delineate social class. With a body handwoven by its Creator, the snake is the most awesome creature, epitomising engineering fluidity among wildlife. Its fleeting mobility, intricate symmetry, stretchy sinews, delicate precision and frightening fatality define a brute created without hurry.

If the Creator, in His infinite creativity, had swapped the rabies of the dog for the venom of the snake, the faintest bark would have sent feet fleeing, sticks wielding, and alarum bells ringing. Armed with just rabies as a weapon, the snake would have been handpickable like snails after rainfall; slithering and spitting alone do not deter like venom strike. Meat and skin, snakes are attractive.

If its venom was exchanged for rabies, the snake would probably have been Man’s best friend, barking through a slit mouth and narrow throat, without a noise. Before closing production on the evening of the Sixth Day, God assessed His production line; behold all things were bright and beautiful. So, he rested on the Seventh Day.

But Man and snake are not friends; one strikes the head, the other strikes the heel. This eternal enmity results in deaths within both camps, with the human casualty dripping with grief, while snakedom is griefless – Ọ̀dájú lọmọ ejò.

On the last day of January 2026, fast-rising soprano singer, Ifunanya Nwangene, curled up in bed, enjoying a sleep in her Abuja apartment. Later, a cobra crawled into bed with her. Ifunanya probably felt the snake crawl over her arm, and she tried to move her arm away from the uninvited visitor. When the cobra sensed that the arm, which was inanimate a while ago, was slowly becoming animate, it panicked and lashed out, sinking its fangs into the songbird’s wrist. With that split-second strike, the cobra blew out Ifunanya’s candles.

In minutes, a numbing pain in the wrist woke the songster up. She saw the bite and the swelling. Frantic, she made a call to her father, uncle and friends. This must be a bad dream, Ifunanya thought. Wake up, wake up, girl! But the Nightingale was slipping away. Death has crept in right in the safety of her room.

Following Ifunanya’s death, the BBC, in a February 7, 2026, story headlined “A singer’s tragic death highlights Nigeria’s snakebite problem,” reveals the controversy that trailed Ifunanya’s death. In the report, Ifunanya’s father, Christopher Nwangene, accused the Federal Medical Centre, Jabi, Abuja, of unprofessional treatment and lacking antivenom when she was rushed to the hospital. But the hospital refuted the allegations in a clap back, insisting that it had enough antivenom in stock and that Ifunanya received good treatment. The Chief Medical Director of the FMC, Saad Ahmed, explained that Ifunanya arrived over two hours after the snakebite. Ahmed’s allegation, however, beggars belief and raises the question: why would Ifunanya’s uncle and friend separately go in search of antivenoms and, indeed, buy some, if the hospital had the antidote?

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A nationwide backlash left a populace lamenting the preventable loss of a special talent. Christopher said the hospital’s medical staff should not have removed the tourniquet tied to her wrist to limit the venom from spreading to other parts of her body when the hospital did not have enough antivenom. Though the use of a tourniquet is no longer advisable as treatment for snakebite because it can cause tissue damage and increase the risk of amputation, Ifunanya’s father insisted that it was better for her daughter to be amputated than to die.

In its characteristic fire brigade method, the Nigerian Senate, without setting a timeline, called on the Federal Ministry of Health and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control to ensure hospitals across the country were stocked with safe, effective and affordable antivenoms. The Senate’s hollow directive typifies the futility of an imam’s rumbling stomach when presented with a dish of pork.

The lack of direction and commitment in the Senate directive on antivenom explains the lackadaisical legislation the nation gets when issues involve the masses, while diligence and speed attend legislation on issues that directly benefit lawmakers like constituency projects, car purchase and accommodation. The energy and time deployed by the Senate leadership under High Chief Godswill Akpabio to fight the Soyoyo from Kogi State, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, encapsulates the NFA metaphor of my youth. In my secondary school days, unserious students were called NFA, an acronym for No Future Ambition. Can the Nigerian masses attest that their National Assembly yesterday, today or tomorrow truly has people-oriented ambition, except talk loudly, cackle heartily, defect, and look towards the Presidency for patronage?

The venom economy, when measured through anti-venom and venom-derived therapeutics, is a multi-billion-dollar, fast-growing global market with respectable profitability driven by healthcare demand, innovation, and rising global incidence of venomous encounters. Nigeria, with its multitude of youth unemployment should tap into the global-venom market, but its clueless political class will not ensure any life-changing policy to push unemployment back.

When he was Health Minister six years ago, a former Speaker of the Lagos House of Assembly, Dr Olorunnimbe Mamora, described as ‘epidemic proportions’, the 20,000 snakebites recorded annually in Nigeria. That was six years ago. Today, the Toxinological Society of Nigeria says snakebite cases in Nigeria annually have climbed up to 43,000, making the need to produce antivenoms locally a matter of national duty. The Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria estimates that the country spends about $12million yearly importing antivenoms. A vial of imported antivenom, according to the BBC,costs between N45,000 and N80,000, necessitating the need for local production, export and job creation. But in Mamora’s alarm lay an underlying potential for the country to partake in the multi-billion-dollar global venom market, which included participants like scorpions, spiders, wasps, ants, etc.

The BBC report states that Nigeria’s snakebite “epidemic proportions” is “compounded by a critical shortage of affordable antivenom, which needs to be stored in fridges – often impossible in areas with unreliable electricity”. However, herbal medicine produced locally by traditional medicine practitioners does not need refrigeration. A 2005 study, “Effect of Annona senegalensis rootbark extracts on (cobra) Naja nigricotlis venom in rats,” published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Ethnopharmacology, showed the relative effectiveness of the rootbark of African custard apple in treating cobra venom.

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While the nation grappled with insecurity, hunger and poverty, there came a rumble from outside Aso Rock. A little mallam, Nasir el-Rufai, sat on a huge pile of peddles, singing a Fulani song, pelting the roof of the Villa with his pebbles. Aso Rock panicked. The embers of a recent coup are still glowing. When a fly perches on the scrotal sack, caution becomes the first commandment.

I daresay the former Kaduna State governor was the most vocal vendor of the Bola Tinubu electoral commodity to the North when members of the Fulani hegemony were afraid to openly side with the presidential candidacy of Tinubu while President Muhammadu Buhari reigned. Short men and daring deeds.

When everyone was afraid of Buhari, El-Rufai showed dogmatic courage and stood by his belief. And Tinubu won. After Tinubu’s victory, el-Rufai danced to Kizz Daniel’s Buga song with Tinubu over dinner. While Tinubu was bugga-ing in owambe fashion, el-Rufai was waltzing to Buga in the Fulani stick-across-the-neck dance style. I watched the dance again today. Laugh catch me. Between Tinubu and el-Rufai, someone was scratching their nose with the head of a cobra.

Before or after the deceitful dance, Tinubu publicly begged el-Rufai to come and work in his administration, and el-Rufai said he would work on a part-time basis because he had some personal issues to attend to. When Tinubu was compiling his list of ministers, el-Rufai also submitted his cv, but his name was shockingly flagged by security agencies.

I do not know what the mallam did to offend Jagaban, but I guess the President is just uncomfortable with the personality of the former governor. He probably sees Nasir as a stormy petrel who would be uncontrollable if allowed into the cabinet. The moral question that bubbles up from the depth of virtueless politics, therefore, is: “Why enlist el-Rufai to fight your battle when you knew you were going to dump him?”

Well, Nigerian politics lacked virtue before, during, and after the days of el-Rufai as Kaduna governor. In the murky waters of politics, fish eats fish, dog eats dog, snake eats snake. Tinubu is eating today; he might be eaten tomorrow.

So, when you see El-Rufai vehemently criticise Tinubu, e get why. No bi because of God. When Tinubu abuses Abubakar Atiku, na cruise. When Peter Obi knack Tinubu apako, na content. If Atiku tear Tinubu, na paddy-paddy matter. Dem all sabi wetin dem dey do. Dem go fight, dem go settle.

Nigerians love sports, especially football. In Brazil, football employs 3.3 million people, generating about $2bn annually. In the 2023/2024 season, the Premier League generated $6.34billion. Nollywood and the Nigerian music world, without government initiative, have grown to international repute, generating millions of dollars.

So, instead of our elected politicians and public officials snaking from one party to another in almajeri fashion, there should be a concerted national effort geared towards providing the dividends of democracy to the masses. Perhaps they have forgotten what the dividends of democracy are, here they are: security, healthcare, education, employment, welfare, infrastructure, etc.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

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Tinubu, el-Rufai and the cobra