When I was invited to Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, in June, I didn’t know what to expect. I had not visited the place since 2005. Even though I had been to nearby Rivers and Delta States several times, Bayelsa didn’t cross my mind.

To make matters worse, the state was often in the news for the wrong reasons. Not that it was an exception, but press headlines seemed to suggest that if you wanted the most depressing news about intra-party wrangling, post-election disputes, or the scariest stuff about kidnapping and youth militancy, Bayelsa was the place to go.

Bayelsa, the home of Nigeria’s first president from the south-south and one of the jewels of Nigeria’s oil reserve, also appeared to be one of its most volatile spots.

I didn’t plan to go there. And as if to validate my lethargy, days before this visit, there was something in the news that Bayelsa was the leading state in the prevalence of monkeypox. I kept the news to myself to save my family from panic. It was now looking like a suicide mission.

To go or not?

Yet, if Yenagoa was Nigeria’s chaos capital, it didn’t show in the voice of Esueme Dan-Kikile, the general manager corporate affairs of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), who never once wavered in his commitment to me to read my book there.

When anxiety and prejudice nearly prevailed, I yielded to Dan-Kikile’s reassuring calmness and my nagging curiosity for adventure. 

After 19 years of mental pictures, mostly from unflattering news reports, I decided to face the demon. By a quirk of fate, I used the longer route – Warri to Yenagoa. What a trip this second missionary journey turned out to be!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, one travel mile is worth two thousand. Words sometimes fail to describe the joys and excitement of new faces, places, sounds, and smells of travel. 

Jonathan was “king”

The last time I visited, former President Goodluck Jonathan was governor. The state was nine years old, and there was only one road in and out of the capital. 

Bayelsa, located in southern Nigeria, edges the Atlantic Ocean. It was the hotbed of militancy by youths who, sometimes at the behest of politicians, took hostages for ransom and blew up oil and gas pipelines as bargaining chips. Its people are mostly fishermen and farmers whose environment and toils have been ruined for decades by oil spills and the ravages of gas flaring.

This visit felt different from when I landed at the airport in Warri, Delta State, for the three-and-a-half-hour drive to Yenagoa. 

The East-West Road

After over N350 billion and 18 years, the construction of the East-West Road, highway to the six states in the Niger Delta region and gateway to the East is still on. They say it would take nearly three times that amount, and God knows how long to finish. 

This was what Senate President Godswill Akpabio said four years ago when he was Minister of the Niger Delta Affairs – that the road, which NDDC was handling under his supervision, would cost about N1 trillion naira to complete.

Large portions of it were still impassable as of last week. Where you could drive freely for a mile or two, you had to look out for barricades and sand-filled drums at makeshift checkpoints where the security men and local youths appear to have agreed on a joint approach and a standard extortion formula. 

“Tollgate ahead, off the mic!”

If this sounds confusing, you haven’t heard the more confusing part. Extortion doesn’t only happen on the highway. Four years ago, just before Akpabio said the East-West Road might cost N1 trillion to finish, a “tollgate” was mounted for him inside Nigeria’s parliament in Abuja.

A joint session of Nigeria’s Senate and House of Representatives was conducting an audit of the NDDC, and the Commission had not completed the East-West Road after many years and billions of naira spent. As Akpabio proceeded to open the can of worms after hinting that the contracts for the road were awarded to companies belonging to his interlocutors, the committee chairman and current Minister of Interior Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo interjected: “Off your mic! Honourable Minister, it’s OK, off the mic!”

That interjection became the national joke for killing any potentially embarrassing thing that should be said. Talking too much is against the convention at any tollgate – whether in Abuja or on the East-West Road. Off the mic, pay the toll, and move.

Akpabio, an accomplished toll collector, should have known the tradition. According to a NEITI report in 2013, the NDDC received about N400 billion between 2007 and 2011, which is almost one-quarter of its 20-year existence. If the Commission were a state with a revenue of N168 billion in 2011, for example, it would be the sixth highest earning in the country, displaced only by Lagos, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers. 

Yet, as the car taking me to Yenagoa drove by, the most prevalent evidence that the Commission is working on the East-West Road is the enormous square slabs, each engraved with its name erected shamelessly within every two kilometres or so. It would be a surprise if this work is finished in another 18 years, even if Nigeria robbed a Chinese bank for N1 trillion.

Waterfront and petrol queues

After nearly three hours of driving, we finally arrived in Yenagoa, turning off at the Yenagoa-Mbiama part of the East-West Road at Igbogini Junction onto Glory Drive. The driver said the new road was constructed last year. The one-road state capital had a new access road, which I later learned was the third.  

In Yenagoa, the makeshift food shops on wooden stilts at the waterfront at the end of Alamieyeseigha Road, just a stone’s throw from the imposing Content Board Tower, were great. The food, smell, neon lights, music, and the energy of the solicitous food vendors courting mostly young customers were hard to resist. 

The place reminded me of Tampa Bay in Florida – if, for a moment, from behind any of the wooden shacks, you looked far beyond the large waterweeds and abandoned wooden canoes at the shore to the Ocean just at the horizon. 

On our way to the venue of the book reading at Golden Tulip the next day, we saw long queues of vehicles snaking for miles from a nearby NNPC filling station where drivers were waiting to buy petrol. 

It’s heartbreaking that residents in this state, home of Oloibiri, where crude oil was first discovered in Nigeria and home to the country's fourth highest concentration of oil wells, must go through this to buy petrol. My driver said drivers unable to buy petrol the same day would leave their vehicles at the station and return the next day. They are used to it. I shook my head.

Read the book!

The book reading was electrifying. It was attended by a fine collection of students from four universities in the state with their teachers. Accomplished writers and professionals from other walks of life were present, too. The audience's enthusiasm and determination to seize the moment for their own good were remarkable. 

Dan-Kikile spoke from the heart about NCDMB’s passion for upskilling capacity at institutional and individual levels; the moderator, Doubra Timi-Wood of Channels TV, made the reading a shared moment of intimacy, and the audience loved it. 

The cure for my lethargy was facing my fears. I’m glad I did. 

** Ishiekwene is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP and author of the new book Writing for Media and Monetising It.

Self-limiting beliefs challenge the possibility of achieving the Nigerian Dream, as outlined in my last article. I proposed that within four years, the government should build 20 million housing units to create immediate employment, generate income, and pass generational wealth to the masses. Simultaneously, we should construct a railway complex, starting with three East-West railways, to spur growth in heavy manufacturing—generating substantial income and employment across every economic sector. However, the same limiting mindset claims that President Bola Tinubu had no choice, due to foreign debts, but to cut real wages through devaluation and withdraw energy subsidies, a key input in our national production.

It is economic slavery when creditors hold a nation to ransom, preventing it from attaining basic elements of life such as housing, employment, and health. This becomes more alarming when this economic enslavement is perpetuated by those who physically and politically enslaved us. Nigeria, the largest source of slaves that built the Western economy, has never been repaid for these historic costs. Therefore, Nigeria has the moral capital, based on the exploitation of our people, to demand a five-year moratorium to restructure and double our economy for our own African Dream.

Tinubu should have declared a War on Poverty—since in times of war, debts are suspended—instead of succumbing to IMF/World Bank pressure to devalue the currency and cut subsidies, which only deepens our economic enslavement. He should have torn up the slave rulebook and engaged in economic and political restructuring. This would involve cutting imports, reducing the cost of governance, rescheduling debts, and engaging in a massive deficit-budgeting effort, similar to Roosevelt's 1933 New Deal, to build wealth and stimulate both consumer and production markets, thereby realizing the Nigerian Dream.

The true cost of the American Dream was African slavery, which built the American economy and cemented Western global economic hegemony. For the American Dream to be realized, the African Nightmare had to occur. The real cost of the African Dream is awakening from this nightmare. We freed ourselves from physical slavery on plantations in the Americas, culminating in the Haitian Revolution. After the end of transatlantic slavery, economic slavery shifted to Africa in the form of colonization, where we were divided into political plantations designed to produce crops and raw materials while serving as dumping grounds for colonists’ manufactured goods. Eventually, we awoke from colonization through decolonization, but economic slavery morphed into neocolonialism.

The question now is how to free ourselves from the remaining vestiges of economic slavery, which prevents us from achieving the African Dream of prosperity and freedom for the majority. Across Black nations in Africa and the Americas, just as plantation slaves had to pay for their freedom, debts are used to prevent our leaders from fulfilling social contracts to achieve global standards of housing, employment, and health—fundamental components of every free people’s pursuit of happiness and economic parity. This struggle differs from the fight to abolish slavery and decolonization. It is known as decoloniality.

While decolonization granted us pseudo-independence, colonialism's lingering effects persist in the form of coloniality of knowledge, power, being, and economics. These chains of economic slavery have led Tinubu and previous leaders since the 1970s to tighten the poverty trap on Nigerians. It was Yoruba, Igbo, and others who fought to end slavery, beginning with the Haitian Revolution of 1791. The likes of Herbert Macaulay, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and Obafemi Awolowo fought to end colonization. This generation must use our human and natural resources to end neocolonialism. However, unlike previous struggles against White colonial powers, this battle is against Black neocolonial leadership.

The coloniality of knowledge has miseducated our leaders, leading them to follow the dictates of Western banks—founded with the proceeds of our slavery and colonization—while labeling any deviation as socialism or communism. The coloniality of power ensures that only leaders who adhere to the 'free market' policies of foreign banks are allowed into the political spectrum. If they seek assistance from China or Russia, they are labeled as enemies. The coloniality of being disorients us from making rational political and economic decisions, while the coloniality of economics restricts us to producing raw materials and importing manufactured goods.

The coloniality of knowledge and power has made us believe that socialism and communism are permanently anti-Western political systems, rather than temporary phases necessary to restructure our colonial economic foundations. Neither the IMF, the World Bank, nor private investors undertake long-term, socially beneficial production. Nations like Russia and China, which did not rely on slavery, restructured their economies using command economies to channel collective resources into social housing, railways, and heavy industry.

Russia took too long to reopen its economy, unlike China, which after restructuring under Chairman Mao, reopened under Deng Xiaoping, leading to astronomical economic growth. Economic restructuring’s success depends on how quickly and efficiently it is conducted, followed by reopening the economy for normal business. This can only be achieved with a lean government and the Army.

The Army, specifically the Engineering Corps and the Defence Industries Corporation, is the only organization capable of managing this nationwide program efficiently. Regardless of ideology, every nation has involved its army in building its industrial military complex. While mercantilism built the slave economy, post-slavery Western nations turned to war and military subsidies (Military Keynesianism) to drive their most important economic sectors—cars, planes, and computing.

The first step is to drastically reduce our import bill, which comprises fuel and oil (33%), cars (21%), and food (10%). We need an emergency Army-led action to repair our refineries within 90 days, reducing the largest chunk of our imports. Simultaneously, we should cut vehicle imports and decree that all government tiers buy only Nigerian-produced cars. These import substitution techniques will not only free up foreign exchange but also provide massive employment, as local car assembly plants would need to scale production exponentially. Imports must be restricted during the phased economic restructuring to prevent inflation from money leaking into imports. Accelerated housing and railway development programs must be built with nearly 100% locally sourced materials, at the lowest cost, to generate the surplus value needed for debt settlement and growth.

Economic restructuring must be accompanied by political restructuring. While national infrastructure projects can only be built centrally, political restructuring should move away from the unitary government system—created to siphon resources for neocolonial purposes—towards decentralized governance. As the government builds the national grid of railways, devolution to states is essential to fuel the construction of feeder railways to every corner of the country. This will enable local development in industries like rail, electrical, and chemicals, while generating multiplier effects across other sectors like haulage. The surplus value gained from lowest-cost, rapid development will offset our debts and stimulate the economy.

** Justice J. Faloye, author of The Blackworld: Evolution to Revolution, President, ASHE Foundation Think Tank, is Afenifere National Publicity Secretary.

Renée Onque

Being cynical may seem harmless, or even safer than trusting others, but that’s far from the truth, according to Jamil Zaki, an associate professor of psychology at Stanford University. He is the author of the new book “Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness.”

Cynicism is “the belief that humanity in general is selfish, greedy and dishonest,” Zaki tells CNBC Make It, and it can be harmful for your health.

“Cynics tend to be more depressed [and] anxious. They suffer from more addiction. But it’s also physical. Cynics tend to suffer from more heart disease [and] more diabetes. They even die younger than non-cynics,” Zaki says.

If you’re worried that not being cynical means you’d be naïve, it’s important to know that the opposite of cynicism isn’t trusting just any and everyone, Zaki notes.

“Of course, there are benefits to not trusting people in lots of situations, but cynicism is deciding not to trust anybody. It’s a blanket theory about allpeople, and it’s very hard to understand how something like that could help us,” he says.

Here are three statements that Zaki says, if you agree with them, may indicate that you are a cynic. Plus, his advice he has for how to reverse cynicism and why it’s important to do so.

If you agree with these 3 statements, you might be a cynic

1. No one cares much what happens to you.
2. Most people dislike helping others.
3. Most people are honest chiefly through fear of getting caught.

“If you disagree with all three, you’re probably low in cynicism. If you agree with just one, you’re on the low- medium end—think medium- rare for a steak,” Zaki wrote in his book.

“If you agree with two, you’re on the medium- high end. And if you agree with all three, you might be a well- done cynic, with a bleak ‘theory of everyone.’”

In the 1950s, psychologists Walter Cook and Donald Medley came up with an assessmentthat included 50 statements, prompting teachers to indicate if they agreed or disagreed with them, in an attempt to identify good teachers. The three above statements are pulled from Cook and Medley’s list.

“The more a teacher agreed [with the statements], the worse their rapport with students,” Zaki wrote. “The more statements anyone agreed with, the more suspicious they were of friends, strangers, and family.”

3 practices to reverse cynicism and become more hopeful

“The first thing is to want to give [cynicism] up. If you do, then there’s a couple of things that you can try,” Zaki says.

To reverse cynicism and be more trusting of the good in people and positive outcomes:

• Stop glamorizing the idea of cynicism:“Being really negative doesn’t make you right, doesn’t make you wise, it doesn’t keep you safe, and it doesn’t make you moral,” Zaki says.
• Try to be more like a scientist: Search for evidence to prove, or disprove, the negative beliefs you have. “When you find yourself making blanket judgments about people or distrusting folks that you’ve just met, ask yourself, fact-check that impulse [and] say, ‘Why am I feeling that way?’”
• Give people a chance to show you who they are: This requires taking leaps of faith and calculated risks to learn what people are like before assuming how they are. “We underestimate how trustworthy, generous, friendly and open minded people are,” Zaki says. “That’s not to say there are not jerks out there. Of course there are, but the average person underestimates the average person.”

When you follow these practices, you can develop a sense of hope, Zaki says. It “turns out that hope is incredibly valuable for our health, and it’s especially important when we face adversity.”

Hopeful people with chronic illnesses experience less depression, students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who have hope tend to “tend to see their academic goals more clearly and pursue them more fiercely,” and hope is often at the center of social movements, he explains.

“Hope [is] not a sort of complacent, rosy feeling, but rather a yearning for something better that improves our health, strengthens our relationships and communities, and actually is a force for social change.”

CNBC

The ongoing petrol scarcity in Nigeria has escalated with sharp increases in fuel prices, creating widespread disruptions in Lagos, Abuja, and other major cities. On September 3, 2024, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) adjusted the price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) to N855 per litre in Lagos and N897 in Abuja. The price hike has been accompanied by severe shortages, forcing motorists to queue for hours at the few operational filling stations, further straining daily activities.

Across the country, transportation costs have surged by over 50%, aggravating the economic burden on citizens. In Abuja, Lagos, and other urban centres, commuters expressed frustration, citing unaffordable fare hikes. For example, in Abuja, fares from Zuba to Berger increased from N1,000 to N1,500, while inter-city routes like Abuja to Kano saw fares rise from N8,000 to N11,000. Similar spikes in transport costs were observed in cities such as Port Harcourt and Kano, where many residents resorted to trekking due to the high prices.

The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has warned that the petrol price hike could fuel inflation, further weakening consumer purchasing power and pushing the economy into deeper crisis. According to MAN, the cost of goods and services is expected to rise as businesses pass on increased transportation and production costs to consumers.

In response to the crisis, various organizations and political groups, including the pan-Yoruba socio-political organization Afenifere and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), have called for an immediate reversal of the price hike. Both groups have criticized the government for worsening the plight of Nigerians, already suffering under severe economic challenges.

Meanwhile, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) has condemned the fuel price hike, demanding its reversal and warning of potential social unrest. Similarly, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has announced plans for mass protests across major cities beginning September 15, urging the government to address the fuel crisis and remove NNPCL’s Group CEO, Mele Kyari, from office.

The situation remains dire as transport disruptions, inflationary pressures, and growing public discontent intensify, threatening to plunge Nigeria into further economic instability.

The Chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT), Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Bashir Dalhatu, has apologised to the people of Northern Nigeria for the collective failure of leaders to protect the region from falling into one of the worst crises in its history.

He, however, said ACF is exploring strategies of tackling the existential challenges facing the North and Nigeria.

He then declared that the North is willing to embrace constitutional review and administrative changes.

Speaking at a meeting of the BoT and Northern Leaders in Kaduna, Dalhatu dispelled notions that the North is opposed to constitutional review saying, “We must put all and sundry on notice that the North is ready, now and in the future, and will be willing to consider any proposals for changing the constitution as well as the administrative structure of Nigeria.”

Dalhatu acknowledged the region’s failures, saying, “We owe our people deep apologies for our collective failure to protect the region from falling into one of the worst crises in its history.”

Some of the Northern leaders who attended were Ibrahim Shekarau, former governor of Kano and protem chairman of League of Northern Democrats; Tanko Almakura, former governor of Nasarawa, former National Chairman of APC, Abdullahi Adamu; Halilu Akilu, former minister of internal affairs, Muhammad Maigoro, Kabiru Gaiya, former governor of Kano; Yayale Ahmed former SGF, former National Chairman of PDP, Adamu Muazu, former governor of Jigawa, Sule Lamido, former governor of Kaduna state Ramalan Yero, former SGF Babacir Lawal.

Others are the immediate SGF, Boss Mustapha, Former minister of state defense, Lawal Batagarawa, Former Inspector General of Police, MD Abubakar, Aliyu Attah, Former governor of Jigawa state, Sa’ad Birnin Kudu among others.

A communique is expected at the end of the meeting.

Daily Trust

Once again, Nigeria’s struggling masses are forced to bear the brunt of yet another petrol price hike, a staggering increase that has seen fuel prices skyrocket to as much as N897 per litre in Abuja. This latest act of economic cruelty comes as Nigerians are already buckling under immense pressure from inflation, joblessness, and the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor. How, we ask, is the average Nigerian supposed to survive?

The reality is grim: transportation costs have risen by over 50%, meaning that basic necessities—food, medicine, utilities—are further out of reach for millions. What was once a harrowing commute has now become a nightmare of extortionate fares, leaving citizens no choice but to either pay exorbitant amounts for public transport or face the indignity of walking long distances. Parents can no longer afford to send their children to school, and breadwinners are being pushed to their breaking points. As businesses face rising overhead costs, the prices of everyday goods are spiraling out of control, exacerbating an already dire situation.

The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) rightly warns that this hike will push inflation even higher, squeezing the last breath out of an economy that has long been gasping for air. As transportation costs surge, so do the prices of goods and services, creating a domino effect of hardship. What this means is that the Nigerian worker, already underpaid and overtaxed, now faces the brutal choice between survival and dignity. Businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, are already closing their doors as the cost of operating becomes unsustainable. Job losses are imminent. And for what?

We are constantly fed promises of reforms and economic revival by the federal government, yet every action they take seems to drag Nigeria closer to collapse. President Bola Tinubu’s administration insists that these price hikes are necessary to stabilize the country, but stabilizing at what cost? A government that claims to be working for the people must first be willing to listen to them. Instead, there is deafening silence from the corridors of power as Nigerians cry out for help.

Pan-Yoruba socio-political group Afenifere, the opposition PDP, and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) have all demanded an immediate reversal of this latest price hike. Yet, what is most infuriating is the government’s audacity to ignore these calls. The presidency’s dismissive response to the outcry, insinuating that the hike is simply a byproduct of broader economic adjustments, is not only tone-deaf but downright insulting to the millions living in poverty.

Nigeria is sitting on a powder keg, and this latest move could ignite an explosion of unrest. Already, tricycle riders in Delta State have taken to the streets in protest. The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) is preparing for nationwide demonstrations on September 15. Yet, there’s no sign that the government is prepared to alter its course.

For how long will the Nigerian government continue to play this dangerous game with the lives of its people? How much more can the average Nigerian endure? The so-called "reforms" have stripped away every semblance of security, leaving a country of over 200 million people at the mercy of global oil prices, political mismanagement, and unaccountable leadership.

The truth is plain: this fuel price hike is a death sentence for millions of Nigerians already drowning in poverty. If this government does not act swiftly to reverse this decision and implement genuine economic relief measures, it will plunge Nigeria into deeper chaos.

Nigeria’s most valuable resource is not its oil—it's its people. Yet, with every price hike, the government demonstrates that it cares more about balancing its books than ensuring that its citizens can put food on the table.

This is unsustainable. And if the government continues down this path, it will be remembered not for leading Nigeria into prosperity, but for driving it into ruin.

Fresh attacks, Tuesday night in the Daffo and Kwatas communities of Bokkos Local Government Area of Plateau State have claimed no fewer than seven lives, sources said.

Natives had gone on many social media platforms calling for assistance to repel the attackers, whom they said were lurking around the communities in the evening of Tuesday.

They succeeded in carrying out the attacks about 7p.m.

The Media Officer of Operation Safe Haven, Samson Zhakom said at press time that he was awaiting details of the incident before he could comment.

The natives under the aegis of Bokkos Cultural Development Council, BCDC, confirmed that the area has been under persistent attacks since May 2024.

Chairman of the group, Farmasum Fuddang said: “We are deeply saddened by the resurgence of deadly attacks targeting ethnic minorities in the Bokkos council. Despite the Nigerian military’s peace agreements, over 30 killings and 1,000 farm destructions have occurred since May 2024.

“We feel betrayed by those responsible for our protection. Close to 10 of our members are currently lying dead, victims of the latest assaults in the Daffo and Kwatas communities. These attacks, executed simultaneously on September 3, followed a week of isolated attacks resulting in 16 deaths.

“The latest attack in Daffo started about 7p.m., targeting peaceful residents in a commercial area near a military base.

“The Fulani-speaking terrorists launched a brazen attack, leaving seven persons dead. At the same time, similar attacks in Kwatas and Ambul-Barkish killed at least four people,” he added.

Vanguard

Netanyahu says Israel will not leave Gaza border corridor until it is secure

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel will only agree to a permanent ceasefire in Gaza that guarantees the border area between southern Gaza and Egypt could never be used as a lifeline for the Islamist movement Hamas.

"Until that happens, we're there," he told a news conference in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu repeated his outright rejection of a withdrawal from the so-called Philadelphi corridor in the first phase of a deal, expected to last 42 days, saying international pressure would make it effectively impossible to return.

For a permanent ceasefire to be agreed upon after that, Israel would need guarantees that whoever ran postwar Gaza would be able to prevent the corridor from being used as a route for smuggling weapons and supplies for Hamas.

"Somebody has to be there," he said. "Bring me anyone who will actually show - not on paper, not in words, not on a slide - but day after day, week after week, month after month, that they can actually prevent a recurrence of what happened there before," he said, referring to Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

"We're open to consider it, but I don't see that happening right now."

The Philadelphi corridor, along the southern edge of the Gaza Strip bordering Egypt, has been one of the main obstacles to a deal to halt the fighting in Gaza and bring Israeli hostages home in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

Netanyahu has insisted on retaining control of the corridor, where Israeli troops have uncovered dozens of tunnels that officials say have been used to supply Hamas with weapons and ammunition.

The prime minister has faced heavy criticism from many in Israel for holding out on the issue, including from many in his own security establishment who believe Israeli troops can make targeted interventions if needed to prevent any smuggling.

The families of many hostages, including some of the six whose bodies were recovered from a tunnel in southern Gaza on Sunday, have accused him of sacrificing their loved ones by insisting on keeping troops in the corridor.

But he said maintaining pressure on Hamas was the best way to return the 101 hostages still remaining in Gaza.

"You need to squeeze them, to put pressure on them to release the remaining hostages. So if you want to release the hostages, you've got to control the Philadelphi corridor," he said.

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Zelenskiy orders war's biggest reshuffle to give Ukraine 'new energy'

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that Ukraine needed "new energy", as he ordered a major government reshuffle at a crucial juncture in the war against Russia.

A total of six ministers, including Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, submitted their resignation and parliament accepted the resignations of four.

They included the resignations of a deputy prime minister in charge of European integration, the strategic industries minister overseeing Ukraine's arms production and two other ministers, the lawmakers said.

"We need new energy today, and these steps are related only to the strengthening of our state in different directions," Zelenskiy told media during a joint news conference with a visiting Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris.

Lawmakers said that parliament was expected to consider Kuleba's resignation on Thursday.

After Zelenskiy, 43-year-old Kuleba was the best-known face of Ukraineoverseas, meeting leaders around the world and lobbying for military and political support in fluent English.

Later on Wednesday, Zelenskiy met lawmakers from his "Servant of the People" party, and the leader of the parliamentary group said those attending backed the president's calls for changes in the government line-up.

"Based on the results of the meeting of the faction, a general picture of personnel rotations was worked out to strengthen the state," faction leader David Arakhamia wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

On the list of candidates being considered by deputies to replace ministers who resigned was First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha as a potential successor to Kuleba.

RESHUFFLE DELAYED

Analysts said the government reset had been planned for some time but was postponed as Zelenskiy had focused on talks with Kyiv's Western partners to secure military and financial aid.

"This is a planned personnel overhaul of the government," said Volodymyr Fesenko, a Kyiv-based political analyst.

"Now half of the government will be renewed. This is Zelenskiy's style. He believes that the new minister brings new energy, new approaches, works more actively. He expects exactly this effect."

Fesenko did not expect a major foreign policy change following Kuleba's expected dismissal.

The Kremlin said that government changes in Ukraine would not affect a peace negotiation process in any way, although such talks appear a distant prospect with the two warring parties far apart in their objectives.

The next few months are key for Zelenskiy as he seeks to win more support from the West and seize back the initiative in the war with Russia, after its invasion in February 2022.

Later this month Zelenskiy travels to the U.S. where he hopes to present a "victory plan" to President Joe Biden, a key ally.

Russian forces are advancing in the east of Ukraine while Kyiv's troops have made an incursion into Russia's Kursk region.

Moscow has intensified drone and missile attacks in recent weeks, while Kyiv launched a mass drone attack on Russia's energy infrastructure over the weekend.

On Tuesday, at least 50 people, including soldiers, were killed by two missiles in the central Ukrainian town of Poltava in the deadliest single attack of the war this year.

Analysts said Zelenskiy's talent pool was limited and expected some outgoing ministers to be reappointed to new roles.

Outgoing Strategic Industries Minister Oleksandr Kamyshin, who oversaw a jump in domestic arms production, said on Tuesday he would remain in the defence sector in a different role.

Among the other positions being considered were the justice minister and culture and information minister, who would have a say over countering Russia's narrative about the war.

Lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak said parliament would continue considering resignations and appointments on Thursday. For now, 10 out of 21 ministerial portfolios were vacant.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia provides details of strike on Ukrainian military training center

Moscow’s forces have carried out a high-precision strike on a Ukrainian training center in the city of Poltava, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed on Wednesday. The facility was housing a number of foreign instructors who were training Kiev’s troops in communication, electronic warfare, and drone operation, according to Moscow.

The strike was initially reported by Ukrainian officials, who stated on Tuesday that two Russian Iskander ballistic missiles had hit the School of Military Communication and Information Technology, resulting in the nearly 300 casualties, including nearly 50 killed.

While the Russian Defense Ministry did not initially comment on the attack, it confirmed the strike in an update on Telegram on Wednesday. It said Russian forces had conducted “a high-precision strike on the 179th Joint Training Center of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the city of Poltava” on September 3.

The ministry added that foreign instructors had been preparing specialists in communications and electronic warfare at the facility, as well as operators of unmanned aerial vehicles participating in strikes on civilian targets on the territory of the Russian Federation.

Previously, Kherson Region Governor Vladimir Saldo had also claimed in an interview with RIA Novosti that the training center had effectively served as a base for NATO instructors, and was being used to train newly mobilized Ukrainians who had recently been “caught on the streets.”

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has used the attack on the center to demand more air-defense systems from his Western backers.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has claimed that the strike was a “demoralizing blow to Ukraine,” given how Kiev’s troops were already retreating from relentless Russian advances along the main front in Donbass.

Reuters/RT

Thirty years ago, Nigeria was in severe crisis. In the wake of the previous year’s elections that was annulled and the attendant protests, 1994 was an unpleasant time. General Sani Abacha had rigged his way into power through a coup and was setting the country on edge. Media houses had been shut, and journalists serially harassed and detained. Acclaimed winner of the 1993 presidential election, Moshood Abiola, was in prison along with scores of activists who had protested either the fuel prices inflation or the election annulment. Ken Saro-Wiwa too was in prison. The Niger-Delta region was restless due to the state-induced violence racking the region.

NADECO members were arrested and charged with treason for their audacity to challenge Abacha. Government critics had their homes raided, and some were attacked. That was the year Wole Soyinka went into exile. Decree after decree expanded the government’s power to punish. They could detain—without charge or trial—anyone suspected of subversive activities. The Senate that had been inaugurated the previous year was disbanded. Six of the lawmakers who had taken a stand against the government were arrested and charged with “treasonable felony and conspiracy.” They were initially granted bail, and five of them re-arrested months later. The sixth person? That was Bola Tinubu.

By now, I am sure you already see where I am going. As you would have read, this week the police arrested and charged 10 people who allegedly participated in the #EndBadGovernance protests last month for the same crime Abacha’s government had once arrested Tinubu: treason. Those 10 people, along with another 700 police said they also arrested, were some of the thousands who responded to the strangulating economic and political conditions the same way Tinubu and his fellow travellers did in 1994.

Tinubu is either forgetful of history or, since he once confessed that he took a major economic policy while under the influence of a “spirit,” has been fully possessed by Abacha’s ghost. It does not matter which is true; the shame is that a severe charge like treason is being trivialised by a government that cannot brook citizens towing the same path that brought him into power. I want to believe that Tinubu’s fellow pro-democracy activists, some of whom were imprisoned on frivolous charges during the dark days of Abacha’s rule, are looking at the unfolding chain of events and terrified at the uncanny repetition of history.

Wherever he is now, Abacha must be exultant. He should rejoice; he is not the only tyrant whose ignominious history would be tossed into the sewers of our national history. By the time their time passes, Tinubu and company would have personified the Orwellian pigs who became indistinguishable from the “man” they kicked out of the animal farm. When we find the mouth with which to tell the story, we will understand how we sought statesmen but were rewarded with executioners.

After reading the police’s press release issued by a fellow called Olumuyiwa Adejobi, I still fail to see how the protests are treasonable. Which “foreign sources” gave “substantial backing” to the #EndBadGovernance protesters? Or was it just that one Briton, Andrew Wynne, who constituted the so-called “foreign sources”? Given that last month, the Department of State Services also arrested about eight Polish nationals who were on an education tour in Kano State while the protests were ongoing, this might just be a case of using white Europeans to create a sensation. DSS spokesperson Peter Afunanya said those Polish nationals were arrested “because of where they were found during the protests and for displaying foreign flags.” I am yet to understand the method to the madness of this “foreign-phobia” among our security agencies.

There are several wild accusations in Adejobi’s document that need substantiating. I am not saying Adejobi plagiarised Abacha’s playbook, but the allegations are a frightful recrudescence of the military era. He says, “preliminary findings suggest they orchestrated and funded violent protests…to create anarchy and justify their illegal plot to overthrow…government.” But what is the pedigree of these individuals that they could organise what is tantamount to a coup? How would their supposed plan to overthrow the government through protests have led them to Aso Rock? Did they have an armoury, or the weapons of their supposed warfare were just placards? What were their plans to take over the National Assembly, for instance?

Adejobi also says they are investigating how these people planned to “orchestrate violence across the country”? I am genuinely curious how this bunch of individuals (including a shop attendant) can have the means to organise the violence that will disrupt the entirety of a complex country like Nigeria. Meanwhile, hear Adejobi on how they established Wynne’s guilt: We went to invade (Wynne’s) bookshop. As we asked questions, he came out. If you have a genuine business, are you not going to ask the police what we went to do in his shop or his office? You read that and you wonder at the quality of investigation that sort of rudimentary extrapolation of evidence can possibly produce. Meanwhile, let us not forget that the “comprehensive investigation” on which they planked their whole case took place in less than a month. If they are that efficient, how come they find it hard to solve kidnapping problems?

Whether they like it or not, protests are a democratic right. You can charge people who committed crimes of looting or violence during protests, but you cannot stifle the right to protest. I never thought the day would come that I would look back and compare Muhammadu Buhari’s government favourably with anyone, but looking wistfully from inside the fire of Tinubu’s government, I am beginning to think we were better off inside Buhari’s frying pan. Even in all his pathological madness, Buhari did not go to the extent of charging the #EndSARS protesters for treason. He did accuse them of trying to topple him, but the ghost of Abacha that had been haunting Aso Rock did not possess him fully. The ghost waited until the perfect person usurped his path into power before completing Abacha’s historic mission of perpetuating himself in power using democratic means.

You listen to the families of those arrested and you realise these people have no new game; they are stuck in historical time. Unfortunately, we are trapped along with them. The Nigeria of 2024 is not that different from that of 1994. There is hardship in the land. Prices of goods and services are skyrocketing; purchasing power is dwindling, and it is getting harder and harder to get by. The marriage of Asiwaju and Shettima of last year has become Àşetì 2023. Nobody’s hope has been renewed, and people are more combustible than the fuel they are expending hours on their lives on extended queues just to purchase. The days ahead are likely to be filled with protests, and the government is preemptively charging protestors with arrests to intimidate.

Meanwhile, this same government faces a million other challenges. There is economic insecurity, a serious threat to the lives and livelihood of Nigerians. Shouts of “ebi ń pa wá” have replaced the “on your mandate we shall stand” anthem in many mouths; hunger is resetting the political loyalties of those whose heads were climbed into power but have now been forgotten. The government appears confused by the complexity of the situation; they have undone several economic knots, and they know not how to re-tie them. Then there is the issue of kidnapping that has become a national epidemic and revealed the police as impotent. Let us not even talk about banditry, plus the one million problems of poor infrastructure that bedevil the country.

Rather than the Tinubu administration concentrating on what it can solve, it compounds its own problems by investing administrative time and energy hounding people for treason. Like the Yoruba door that eventually gets unhinged when endlessly swung back and forth, the Tinubu regime too has found the wàhálà that will wear it down. I almost feel sorry for them.

Punch