Opinion
Aregbesola, political treachery and the Ijebu-Jesa sermon
Chinua Achebe’s Tortoise folktale in his highly celebrated Things Fall Apart, among other motifs, excoriates an act of betrayal as evil. In having Ekwefi, one of his characters, narrate the proverbial cunning and treachery of the Tortoise to her daughter Ezinma, Achebe attempted to paint a moral canvass suggestive of the fact that traitors always take fatal leaps that eventually lead to their unraveling. Like the tortoise, they break their shell carapace.
This is Ekwefi’s narration: There once lived a very avaricious Tortoise whose greed knew no bounds and which eventually became its tragic flaw. One day, with the general awareness that birds were planning a huge feast in the sky, Tortoise met the Chief of Birds and pleaded with him to get his bird colleagues to make him partake of the feast. But the wings with which he would fly became a challenge. After pleading passionately with them, reluctantly, the birds agreed to each donate feathers to him so that he could be able to fly heavenwards and partake of the feast. On getting to the feast venue, Tortoise’s tragic flaw then took the best of him as he announced to all in attendance that his name had changed to “All of us.”
Unsuspecting of his manipulative motive by then, by the time the meals arrived for “all of you” and Tortoise cornered them to himself so that he could take them back to earth, his name being “All of us,” his cunning dawned on all of the birds. Miffed by this colossal deceit and selfish greed, the birds demanded that he returned their feathers to them. Left all alone, Tortoise pleaded to be done the last favour: the birds should help tell his wife to arrange soft cushions for him so that when he leapt earthwards, his fall would not be fatal. Conversely however, the birds told Tortoise’s wife to arrange a pile of stones, upon which he fell and which broke its shell till this day.
To Achebe, the above folklore was a symbolic foretelling of the calamity that awaited Okonkwo for partaking in the killing of Ikemefuna. While the Tortoise’s tragic flaw was greed, Okonkwo’s was pride and incestuous betrayal of the filial bond that existed between a father and the sonship of a foster surrogacy. Remember that grisly, gripping forewarning to Okonkwo by Ogbuefi Ezeudu, the oldest man in Okonkwo’s clan of Umuofia: “That boy calls you father. Do not bear a hand in his death.” This is because acts of betrayal rankle the spleen of society. It is why society approximates a link between treachery, avarice for power and the fit of epilepsy. They all seize their victim all of a sudden. The common thread that runs through them is that, when victims are in its fit, shame takes flight.
On Monday February 14, 2022, a known surrogate of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, two-term governor of Lagos State and presidential aspirant on the platform of the APC, former Osun State governor and Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, leapt into negative reckoning for mordantly attacking his benefactor. The bile, the magisterial arrogance and the Godlike sense of irreplaceability that dripped out of the address delivered by Aregbesola in Yoruba at a political gathering in Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State instantly gained traction on the social media, which gave readers the latitude to label him a traitor.
This has provoked the need for an examination of the concept of betrayal, what it means to betray and who a betrayer is. By definition, betrayal is an act of breaking or violation of a presumptive contract, trust and confidence. This rupturing of a written or unwritten contract produces a moral and psychological conflict. The person who betrays an ideal, a country or a person is commonly referred to as a traitor or betrayer.
There have been several acts of betrayal in history. When betrayers strike, their actions provoke a constellation of negative behaviours, thoughts, and feelings among their victims and society. In Yorubaland for instance, an act of betrayal is not only excoriated, betrayers are ostracized.
In Nigerian politics, where a stupendously wealthy political patron hands over power to a client, there have been claims and counter claims of betrayals. These have provoked the moral or otherwise in betrayal. In other words, when a political patron, who most times subverts the process, loots resources to benefit a client, does his client have a moral right to remain true to their agreement? Does anyone have to abide by the ethos of written, unwritten, sworn or unsworn agreement between a client and the patron?
Political betrayal became an issue during the First Republic between Nnamdi Azikiwe, KO Mbadiwe, RBK Okafor and JOJ Okezie, as well as between Obafemi Awolowo and S. L. Akintola. During the Nigerian Fourth Republic, the tiff between Jim Nwobodo and Chimaroke Nnamani after the 1999 Enugu gubernatorial elections also became a subject of discourse. So also the 2003 tiff between Chris Uba, the barely literate but stupendously wealthy Anambra businessman and Chris Ngige, which exposed the destructive phenomenon, as well as revealing the sacral importance of traditional African oath in the service of abidance to agreements. The Uba-Ngige issue shows the phenomenon of abidance to political oaths as being sustained by recourse to African traditional medicine, whereby the godfather and godson go before grooves of renowned destructive shrines to swear oaths of allegiance. Ubah had financed the election of Ngige to be governor of Anambra, pulling him by the nape of his trousers to the Okija shrine to swear by an oath of abidance, at about 2 a.m. At midnight, a naked Ngige performed the rituals which involved dead bodies, his dangling member revealing the shame of godfatherism.
In Lagos, there was also the Tinubu-Raji Fashola experiment. What many saw, for almost four years, was matrimony worthy of an example. Not until the re-election campaign of Fashola in 2011 did the cracks begin to be noticeable, revealing a godfather/godson relationship as the proverbial seeds in a walnut pod, ostensibly in the distribution of the largesse of power. In many other states at this time, the matrimonies became a bedlam almost immediately. In Enugu, for instance, Sullivan Chime was still a governor-elect when he started to undo all that his mentor did. He spent eight years trying to pull down the Ebeano house that midwifed him. Orji Kalu suffered same fate in Abia, where his erstwhile chief of staff, T. A. Orji, who was in the EFCC custody while his election was taking place, eventually emerged governor. Orji spent his years in government firing ballistic missiles at Kalu who spent billions of state funds to skew the process in his favour.
The above political treachery has been replicated in virtually all the states, even in the 2015 elections where the anointed godsons, having mutated to become godfathers themselves, attempted to foist their own godsons too as successors. In Anambra, Peter Obi, while shopping for a godson, sidestepped the generally accepted skewer-minded political class, and walked into the supposedly sane banking hall as he searched for an urbane, corporate world executive. He got Willie Obiano. Less than a year after, the strange, somber-looking Obiano had transmuted from the gentleman who couldn’t hurt a fly into a stone-hearted political pall-bearer who strenuously presided over Obi’s political funeral. Same was replicated in Kano where Umar Ganduje, erstwhile Rabiu Kwankwaso’s lickspittle, became a hydra-headed monster who seeks to swallow his ex-boss. The rift between Emmanuel Uduaghan and his cousin, James Ibori was also alleged to be an act of betrayal.
At Ijebu-jesa, from the word go, Aregbesola did not leave anyone in doubt that he was embarking on an institutional insurrection. The speech began with a pugnacious howl you will find in a fight-baiting Alsatian dog. His APC faction in Osun, he began in the dexterous weave of bile, was the core Afenifere – a progressive group that genuinely loves the people, Awolowo’s group, Bola Ige’s group and “Baba Akande’s group, before he partly left us.” It is a known fact that Akande currently daily picks flowers in Tinubu’s garden.
“We followed and served this leader with all our might. In fact, our loyalty to him had caused some people to start wondering if we were no longer Muslims… Sadly, we didn’t know that while we wished him well, he didn’t think good of us. However, because we placed him higher than where he ordinarily should be, he started to think he is our god….By the time my successor was handed over to me around July or May 2018, I was told, ‘Rauf, this is the ideal successor that would stand by you. He would further showcase your efforts. He would not betray you; he would not dim the light of your glory’. That was what the person, who handed him over to me said. If the person is listening to me, it would resonate with him, if he said so or not. But, did he do as he was vouched for? And when he reneged on these promises, did the person, who handed him over to me draw his attention to these failings? Anyway, isn’t the person the one we now see today?” Aregbesola had waffled endlessly (all bold italics mine).
With the above, the question remains, is there morality; or should there be morality, in political patron-client relationship? This reminds one of that famous statement from Fashola which articulates the moral dilemma of the godson to his godfather. Fashola, apparently at a critical juncture of a loyalty intersection, had, prayer-like, supplicated, “may our loyalty never be tested.” In flagellating Aregbesola, so many tales have been told about how he literally emerged from the gutters and is today a man of political reckoning, courtesy Tinubu. The Lagos landlord was said to have spent billions of naira to install this erstwhile lickspittle of his as governor of Osun, rising from being a Personal Assistant to him for about few months after the January 1999 election, to being Commissioner for Works, seconded to Osun where he served two-terms as governor and currently, minister. The godfather also allowed the Minister to grow a hydra-headed political base in the Alimoso area of Lagos. So why was Aregbesola making an issue of “serving ‘this person’” with the whole of his might, against someone who gave him this colossal uplift?
Aregbesola’s followers however say that the support was vicarious, that the cache of political favour was mutual and that the godfather was the ultimate beneficiary. For instance, they said that the former governor, known for his eclectic spirituality, was allegedly Tinubu’s marabout and spiritual Man Friday. More importantly, Aregbesola was also said to have been planted in Osun as an agent, ajele in Yoruba. If this then is so, the agent ought to know that he was not sent out by the godfather so that he could become another godfather. The Yoruba will say that a farmhand does not plant plantain or kolanut. If he does so, he would be seen as a farm grabber because as the Yoruba say again, if the beard of a labourer is as long as the distance of Bourdilon to Ebira land, his master remains his master forever. So, knowing the self as the roots of his so-called push to the top and perhaps the subversion of societal norm that went into the process of his push up by the patron, can it be said that Aregbesola and other political godsons who dealt treacherously with their patrons, were/are guilty of a moral subversion?
What will seem to be an answer to this knotty moral dilemma is that ancient Western aphorism which says that there should be honour even among thieves. It was lusciously propounded by Salawa Abeni, the self-styled Queen of Waka music who, in one of her songs, sang: “I have partaken in spending from proceeds of your wealth so I am barred from joining in abusing you.” What that means is that, no matter how amoral the proceeds of wealth of the patron that sustains the ascendancy of the client is, the moment the client decides to close their eyes to the immorality behind the acquisition, they are barred from moralizing their treachery against the patron. This convicts Aregbesola and other political godsons in allegation of rank treachery. In the case of the Minister of Interior, like the Tortoise at the feast in the sky, he became the “All of us,” manifesting a triad of audacious greed for power at the expense of his godfather, ultra political selfishness and assuming the ultimate power of God or Fredrich Nietsche’s Superman.
No matter the pains, discomfort and acts of betrayal a political client suffers in the hands of his patron, escalating the disagreement to the absurd level that Aregbesola did in Ijebu-Jesa was treasonous. Apparently, having been privileged to be in the inner caucus of his patron, the Minister, ipso facto, sees himself as having transmuted to the same level with the godfather. Which is a fatal flaw in the laws of power. The consensus of mind between him and his Ijebu-Jesa political gathering bred that ad-lib reference to “those who are now urinating on themselves” by one of his cohorts. By refraining from immediately censoring the author of the ad-lib, it will appear to suggest what lawyers call consensus ad idem between him and the author of the quip.
Now, Aregbesola has met the first level of his waterloo, his candidate having recorded a colossal loss in the Osun APC primary held on Saturday. When traitors exhibit their treachery, there is often room for mending of fences between them and the patron. However, the scar may never heal enough to be totally off being seen. Tinubu’s political odyssey is said to be replete with a baffling path of forgiving traitors. However, that Ijebu-Jesa misadventure, for Aregbesola, and his loss of face and gradual decimation in Osun politics, may be a signal to a gradual nunc-dimitis of his political relevance, preparatory to a political well that is beginning to run dry. His loss today in the Osun gubernatorial primary will seem to be the beginning of a long dip into political abyss. The problem with treachery is that, it provokes and legitimizes future intra-group treachery against the traitor himself too. When this happens, the traitor will remember the ancient aphorism which says, you never miss the water till the well runs dry. When the Tinubu well runs dry, the traitor’s treachery would have run its full throttle and he will begin to miss his water.
Dr. Festus Adedayo, a Journalist, Lawyer and Columnist writes from Ibadan, Oyo State
As the road to 2027 gradually unfolds across Oyo State, political conversations are shifting from routine permutations to deeper questions about competence, generational leadership, and measurable impact. In Ibarapa East, that conversation has found a new voice in Yusuf Abiodun Ramon — a Lanlate-born technocrat whose entry into the race for the State House of Assembly is redefining what representation could mean for the constituency.
In a political environment often dominated by familiar faces and conventional calculations, Ramon presents a profile shaped by technical discipline, structured thinking, and solution-driven engagement. His professional background, anchored in analytical precision and systems management, forms the foundation of his public service aspiration.
For him, representation must move beyond ceremonial presence to practical responsiveness — laws that reflect local realities, oversight that protects public resources, and advocacy that translates into visible development.
Ramon argues that the future of Ibarapa East lies in leadership that listens deliberately, plans strategically, and delivers measurably. He speaks of strengthening rural infrastructure, expanding youth-driven economic opportunities, and institutionalising transparency as core pillars of his agenda. In his view, governance must not merely be symbolic; it must be structured, accountable, and people-centred.
Rooted in Ile Odede, Isale Alubata Compound, Ward Seven of Ibarapa East Local Government, and maternally linked to Ile Sobaloju, Isale Ajidun Compound, Eruwa, Ramon’s story is not one of distant ambition but of lived experience. He is, in every sense, a son of the soil — shaped by the same roads, schools, and economic realities that define daily life in Ibarapa East.
“I was born here. I grew up here. I understand our struggles, our strengths, and our untapped potential,” he says. “Representation must go beyond occupying a seat; it must translate into preparation, competence, and genuine commitment to development.”
His academic journey mirrors that philosophy of steady growth. He began at Islamic Primary School, Lanlate (1995–2001), proceeded to Baptist Grammar School, Orita Eruwa (2001–2007), and later earned a National Diploma in Mechanical Engineering Technology from Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, between 2009 and 2011. Refusing to plateau, he advanced his intellectual horizon and is now completing a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration at the University of Lagos. “Education,” he reflects, “is continuous capacity building. Leadership today requires both technical knowledge and administrative insight.”
That blend of engineering precision and managerial training has defined a professional career spanning more than a decade. Shortly after his diploma, Yusuf joined Mikano International Limited as a generator installer, gaining hands-on experience in industrial power systems — a sector central to Nigeria’s infrastructural backbone. He later transitioned into telecommunications at Safari Telecoms Nigeria Limited, where he received specialized training in Industrial, Scientific, and Medical radio bands, strengthening his expertise in network operations.
In 2013, he became a Field Support Engineer at Netrux Global Concepts Ltd., then a leading ISM service provider in Nigeria. Over four formative years, he immersed himself in telecom infrastructure deployment and maintenance, mastering field coordination, logistics management, and real-time technical problem-solving.
Since July 2017, he has served as a Field Support Engineer with Specific Tools and Techniques Ltd., a power solutions firm providing services to major operators including MTN Nigeria and Airtel Nigeria. In that capacity, he operates at the frontline of ensuring energy reliability and network uptime — responsibilities that demand discipline, accountability, and systems thinking.
For political observers in Ibarapa East, this trajectory matters. It reflects more than résumé credentials; it speaks to a mindset anchored in efficiency, coordination, and measurable outcomes — qualities increasingly demanded in legislative representation.
Beyond the private sector, Ramon’s political exposure is neither sudden nor superficial. A loyal member of the progressive political family in Lagos, he once served as a personal assistant to a former lawmaker, gaining practical insight into legislative procedure and constituency engagement. Within his community, he has quietly extended financial support to small-scale entrepreneurs and students — modest but consistent interventions rooted in personal responsibility.
“My interest is my people,” he states firmly. “Ibarapa East deserves strategic, responsive, and capable leadership at the State Assembly. We must move from rhetoric to results.”
Across the constituency — from Lanlate to Eruwa — development priorities remain clear: youth employment, vocational empowerment, rural road rehabilitation, stable power supply, agricultural value-chain expansion, improved educational standards, and stronger lawmaking that directly reflects community needs.
Political analysts argue that Ramon’s technocratic background positions him uniquely at the intersection of policy formulation and practical implementation. At a time when national discourse increasingly favours competence over grandstanding, his profile resonates with a broader generational shift toward performance-driven governance. His engineering discipline reinforces problem-solving; his business training strengthens administrative understanding; his grassroots roots anchor his empathy.
For Ibarapa East, the 2027 election cycle may represent more than a routine democratic exercise. It may mark a recalibration of expectations — a demand for representation that understands both the soil beneath its feet and the systems that drive modern development. As political alignments gradually crystallize in Oyo State, Yusuf Abiodun Ramon’s declaration signals the arrival of a candidate seeking to translate private-sector structure into public-sector impact.
One thing is clear: the conversation about the future of Ibarapa East has begun — and it is now framed around competence, credibility, and capacity.
Oluwasegun Idowu sent in this piece from Eruwa, Ibarapa East LG, Oyo State
“In a sky where delays are normal, one airline flies with precision and trust. Ibom Air shows that reliability can be a strategy”.
In Nigeria’s skies, where flight delays and cancellations are often taken as routine, Ibom Air has quietly rewritten the rules. From the moment it launched in June 2019, the Akwa Ibom State–owned carrier has treated reliability not as a bonus, but as a core strategy—turning punctuality, discipline, and operational excellence into a competitive edge that passengers can count on.
While most airlines chase rapid expansion or flashy promotions, Ibom Air has chosen consistency. Flights depart on schedule, disruptions are minimal, and communication with passengers is clear and timely. This predictability has quickly earned the airline a loyal following among business travellers, professionals, government officials, and families for whom time is invaluable.
The airline’s approach is methodical. Every flight is treated as a commitment, and operational decisions are guided by structured planning, not improvisation. This discipline underpins everything from scheduling to fleet management, ensuring passengers experience flying without surprises.
Central to this model is Ibom Air’s modern fleet. Its Airbus A220-300 and Bombardier CRJ-900 aircraft are fuel-efficient, comfortable, and rigorously maintained to meet both manufacturers’ specifications and the regulatory standards of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and international aviation bodies. Safety here is a culture, not a compliance exercise.
Cabin cleanliness and aircraft health are equally prioritized. Passengers consistently step into neat, hygienic, and professionally maintained cabins, reinforcing confidence and comfort even before take-off. In a sector where small details signal operational quality, Ibom Air’s standards speak volumes.
Technology quietly drives reliability across operations. From booking and check-in to flight coordination and customer service, modern systems enhance efficiency, reduce disruptions, and ensure smooth communication. These tools allow the airline to anticipate challenges rather than merely react.
R–L: Dr. Solomon Oroge, a consultant, and Mr. Idowu Ayodele, journalist and media practitioner, aboard an Ibom Air flight.
Service delivery follows the same disciplined pattern. Pilots, cabin crew, engineers, and ground staff operate under strict professional standards. Courtesy is paired with efficiency, and calm, structured service ensures passengers feel confident throughout their journey.
The Ibom Flyer loyalty programme reflects this structured approach, rewarding consistent passengers and fostering long-term engagement. It turns reliability into a tangible benefit for frequent flyers.
From its hub at Victor Attah International Airport, Uyo, Ibom Air serves major Nigerian cities including Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Calabar, and Enugu, while extending its reach to West Africa with flights to Accra, Ghana. Expansion is deliberate, prioritizing sustainability over rapid growth that could compromise service quality.
Measured growth allows the airline to maintain operational excellence and service consistency even as demand increases—a strategy that contrasts sharply with competitors whose rapid expansion often strains resources.
Mr. Idowu Ayodele, journalist and media practitioner, pictured inside an Ibom Air aircraft.
Beyond commercial success, Ibom Air has become a national example. It has created employment, stimulated tourism, and strengthened regional connectivity, projecting a positive image of Nigerian aviation at a time when confidence in the sector is often fragile.
The airline has also challenged assumptions about government-owned enterprises. By combining professional management with operational autonomy, it demonstrates that public investment can achieve efficiency, accountability, and competitiveness.
Reliability, in the case of Ibom Air, is than a promise—it is a deliberate business philosophy. It shapes operations, informs decisions, and builds passenger trust consistently.
Technology, discipline, and attention to detail converge to produce an airline that works. Every element, from fleet maintenance to cabin service, supports the promise that Ibom Air delivers what it advertises—without surprises.
In a market where uncertainty has been the norm, Ibom Air has shown that consistency can be a strategic advantage. Passengers no longer fly with anxiety; they fly with confidence, knowing their schedules will hold and service will meet expectations.
Ultimately, Ibom Air is not just an airline—it is a model of operational excellence in Nigerian aviation. By prioritizing reliability over spectacle, discipline over improvisation, and planning over shortcuts, it sets a benchmark for the industry and a standard for passengers: in the skies, predictability is priceless
Idowu Ayodele – Journalist, Ibadan, Oyo State
0805 889 3736 | megaiconpress@gmail.com
In Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, the concept of the “Greek gift” was invented. The Trojan Horse became the undoing of Troy, ending a decade-long war in which many Greeks had perished, including the mighty Achilles. The Trojans accepted the Greeks’ gift, and the rest, as they say, is history.
In the past few days, both social and conventional media have been agog with reactions to President Donald J. Trump’s threat to the Nigerian government regarding terrorism. In his words, Nigeria must “address the genocide against Christians in the North and Middle Belt, or else the U.S. will cut aid to the country and, in addition, come into the country guns blazing in an attempt to flush out the terrorists.”
Sincerely speaking, the tweet made by the U.S. President sounded a bit comical to me, as did many other commentaries that followed. Comical not in a ridiculous sense, but in a comedic sense.
This piece is not written to support or oppose any particular view, but to lay down facts in the most succinct and objective manner, thereby allowing for the independence of a balanced position.
In 2009, a terror group named Jama’at Ahl al-Sunna li al-Da’wa wa al-Jihad (popularly referred to as Boko Haram) emerged with the aim of establishing Islamic rule across Nigeria. According to the group, Sharia was the only path to true progress, and any faith other than Islam was haram (forbidden).
Soon after, this group began launching vicious attacks against Christians and Christian places of worship. From singularly attacking Christians, their targets shifted to government institutions and facilities, and on 28 November 2014, one of the greatest attacks against fellow Muslims occurred with the bombing and mass shooting of Juma’at worshippers at the Kano Central Mosque. Over 120 worshippers were killed and another 260 critically injured.
The point here is to underscore the fact that Boko Haram—and indeed all other extremist groups in Nigeria—are not targeting Christians alone, as earlier claimed, but are pursuing a more sinister agenda of land grabbing with the colouration of economic, psychological and socio-political domination of conquered territories, with intentions of spreading across the country.
From the Northeast, the activities of wanton killing and destruction perpetrated by terrorists spread to the North Central region, particularly Plateau and Benue States. What originally began as farmer–herder clashes metamorphosed into full-blown village and community sackings, where Fulani invaders razed entire communities, leaving hundreds dead or wounded while survivors were displaced and left with harrowing experiences in IDP camps.
This wave of destruction continued, with one of the bloodiest in recent times occurring in Yelwata, Guma Local Government Area of Benue State, on the night of 13–14 June 2025. According to Amnesty/CE/UN/NGO, over 200 people were gruesomely massacred, several houses burnt to ashes, and about 3,000 people displaced and rendered homeless. In 2025 alone, Amnesty reported more than 10,000 additional people displaced in Benue across several local governments, ranging from Gwer West to Agatu, Ukum/Gbagir, Logo, Kwande and Guma.
From the North Central, terrorism—or better still, banditry—also found its way to the North West. The activities of bandits, kidnappers and other criminal elements were consistently reported in Zamfara, Kaduna, Kebbi, Sokoto, Kano, and even Katsina, which was once regarded as the true home of hospitality, as its state slogan depicts, and as I can also attest considering how much I enjoyed the peace and serenity of the state during my days therein as a Youth Corps member. Reuters.ng reports that as of 2025, approximately 2,456 people had been killed in the North West region across multiple states. In addition to this, about 7,260 people, including schoolchildren and commuters on highways, had been abducted, with several millions of naira collected by kidnappers as ransom payments. Some parts of the South West, South East and South South have not been spared the atrocities of terrorists and bandits.
Therefore, it is safe to say that the entire country has, at one time or the other, experienced the activities of bandits, terrorists and kidnappers. The intensity of attack, however, differs from region to region.
Late General Sani Abacha once said that “if any insurgency lasts for more than 24 hours, a government official has a hand in it.” This saying more or less amplifies the complexity of the terrorism–banditry–kidnapping problem in Nigeria. Nigeria is a country abundantly blessed with all manners of rich mineral resources. Apart from the vast arable land required for productive agriculture, there is virtually no region of the country that does not possess one valuable solid mineral or another.
From iron ore in Zamfara, Kogi and Enugu; gold in Kaduna, Kebbi and Osun; lithium in Nasarawa, Kwara, Oyo and the FCT; bitumen in Ondo, Edo and Ogun; plus other industrial minerals like gypsum, kaolin and limestone, with deposits of over one billion tonnes across many states—Nigeria is sitting on an incredibly underutilised treasure worth billions of dollars. The government’s inability to adequately manage these vast potentials provides fertile grounds for opportunistic scrambling, illegal mining, chaos and its attendant conflicts.
One can therefore boldly say that the chaos and violence camouflaged as terrorism and banditry is indeed a calculated campaign driven not just by Islamic extremism but by land grabbing and occupation for the purpose of blood mineral extraction and illicit mining.
Thus, a sophisticatedly armed radical Islamic Fulani ethnic militia, often operating under political protection, carries out multiple killings, displacements and kidnappings across the Northeast, North Central and North West, after which reports reveal that foreign miners appear following the death and displacement of indigenes to exploit the lands.
Amnesty International has also reported that Nigeria loses over $9 billion annually to illicit mining of gold, tin and lithium, with a significant portion—estimated at 10%—funding violence and corruption. The report further revealed that the involvement of some government elements in this corruption is not in doubt, as eyewitness reports of survivors and satellite surveillance footage revealed the connivance of certain government personnel. Some survivors have also repeatedly claimed that they witnessed helicopters in the middle of the night dropping weapons and ammunition for the bandits—a disclosure corroborated by Professor Bolaji Akinyemi in an interview on African Stream earlier this year.
So, it is right to say that the violence and carnage are just a smokescreen and a catalyst to a far-reaching economic, psychological and socio-political agenda of certain influential elements in the country. This is part of the reason why the billions of naira spent on security to equip the military to better fight insurgency have not yielded much result to date.
In addressing the threat of President Donald Trump, I would like to start by recounting a little history about the 47th President of the United States and his previous antecedents. In January 2018, at a news conference in the White House, President Trump referred to Haiti and some African countries—including Nigeria—as “shithole countries” that should not be accorded immigrant status in the U.S.
Furthermore, his government’s stern immigration policies and visa restrictions clearly reflect a hostile stance towards Africa and some other Global South countries. In light of this, it is hard to understand where the sudden genuine concern for Nigerian Christians is coming from—more so when a U.S. congressman earlier this year revealed that USAID played a significant role in the funding of Boko Haram and other terrorist groups. This concern was never mentioned when Late President Muhammadu Buhari visited the White House a few months after the “shithole” saga and was praised by the same Trump for his valiant efforts in fighting Boko Haram and ISWAP, despite staggering reports of attacks and killings in the Northeast and North Central during that period.
Under the erudite scholarship of Professor Kunle Ajayi, I learnt several years ago, in one of our Politics of Global Economic Relations lectures, that in world politics and global socio-economic relations, the overriding determinant of states’ decisions and actions is strategic interest. Altruism is hardly ever a factor.
Present realities of Nigeria’s economic relations are fast approaching self-sufficiency—particularly in the oil sector, where Nigeria was once a major importer of finished petroleum products from the U.S. The Dangote refinery, having begun domestic refining and production of petroleum products, is fast taking over a market once dominated by imports from the U.S. This shift, no doubt, is taking jobs away from American oil workers—no cheering news for the country’s oil conglomerates. Secondly, China has since replaced the United States as Nigeria’s foremost trading partner.
According to Nairametrics (2025), the value of trade between Nigeria and China between 2023–2025 totals approximately $50 billion compared to an estimated $30 billion with the U.S. This paradigm shift would certainly not be palatable to the U.S. or her president, who happens to be a dogged businessman that hates the word “no”. From this perspective, it is not difficult to see where President Trump is coming from.
Be that as it may, I think Nigeria needs to employ shrewd diplomacy in dealing with the U.S. under a president like Donald Trump. Regardless of international law and conventions, the U.S. has repeatedly proven itself willing to take unilateral military action against countries, defying the rule of law and popular global opinion. So those hinging on Nigeria’s sovereignty as a deterrent to the U.S. are not good students of history.
What is, however, more important in all of this is that global attention is once again drawn to the horrible atrocities of these criminal elements in Nigeria. The country cannot continue to behave as though it is normal headline news when people are slaughtered daily, and families and homes are torn apart.
I believe this is an opportunity for the government to rejig the entire security architecture of the country, with the needed political will, to once and for all end these killings. Strategic partnership with the United States in this regard is not a bad idea. With its extensive experience in counter-terrorism operations and access to sophisticated military technology and intelligence, the U.S. can assist in identifying and eradicating the major financiers and enablers of terrorism and banditry. It is not rocket science that when the financing of terrorists ends, terrorism ceases to exist.
However, this should be done only on the basis of shared interest, mutual respect, trust, and understanding reflective of a healthy and balanced foreign policy relationship. By prioritising constructive diplomacy, dialogue and partnership, Nigeria can work with the United States in a strategic alliance to restore peace, security and confidence across the nation. That is the way to go.
Olusegun Hassan, Ph.D
Public Policy Analyst and Social Commentator
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