By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

FOURTEEN years ago, then President Goodluck Jonathan increased the price of fuel on 1 January 2012. I summarised 2012, then, as the year that almost wasn’t. The President’s single act raised the prices of everything and some who travelled to our villages for Christmas made it back to the cities later as they struggled to raise new transport fares.

However, over the next three years that he was still in office, Jonathan’s other policies carried Nigerians smoothly until the vicious propaganda led by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Jagaban Borgu, as he was mostly known then, took Nigeria through eight excruciating years of Muhammadu Buhari’s exhausting policies that almost expired Nigeria.

Tinubu started 2026 with tax policies that even him does not seem to understand beyond the fact that they would fan more trillions into government coffers he controls.

Where are the crowds that jammed Freedom Park, Lagos, and other places to protest Jonathan’s fuel price hike? Are the crowds in support of Tinubu’s taxes? Do they see the taxes as better than fuel price increase in 2012?

Buhari birthed Tinubu, a worse version of Buhari, who in addition to his entitlement mentality, mocks us with his numerous “and there’s nothing you can do about it” remarks. His 30 months have afflicted Nigeria with more traumas than Nigerians, still drained from Buhari’s burdens, ever imagined.

How Tinubu became President is a fresh story. Only a few need to be reminded about it. Tinubu’s stories will be everywhere again as the push to 2027 gains more momentum.

One thing Tinubu should avoid preaching in 2026 and 2027 is his claim to being a Southern candidate. He killed that concept in 2015 when he supported Buhari against Jonathan, a Southern candidate.

Tinubu is not in any position to present himself as a Southern candidate. He is not. At best, he is a South-West candidate which his conducts since 29 May 2023 have proven.

His pernicious policies against the South-East, and the South-South, are obvious. Whether it is appointments, or location of projects, Tinubu has persistently demonstrated an inexplicable level of faithful unfairness to the two zones.

And unapologetically so. The din of panjandrums from both zones drowns voices that draw attention to Tinubu’s anti-South policies except if South-West could be affected.

In 2027, therefore, a Northerner candidate would emerge, who would be opposing Tinubu at the election. Just like Tinubu did for Buhari in 2015, this candidate will be supported to defeat Tinubu. The frightening details would unfold before him in the coming days.

From 2015, Tinubu destroyed our politics so that he will be President eight years on. He will be shocked by the determination of Nigerians to overcome all the hurdles on their way to elect a replacement for his unfeeling government, a government that calls for sacrifices but taunts the people with its lack of great examples; a government that owes the people no explanations for the trillions it borrows, outside earnings from oil and gas, and taxes.

Tinubu will have to be more transparent in 2026, including telling us who he really is. The inquest starts now. Those who refuse to ask Tinubu as was the case in 2023 are complicit in the matter.

I find Tinubu over-qualified for my 2025 Hall of Infamy. Someone like Tinubu requires entirely different criteria to judge his humanity. He is therefore excluded.

Next to be excluded is Sheikh Ahmad Abubakar Gumi. Ahmad, a son of Shayk Abubakar Gumi, who has gained fame and notoriety in even measures for his chumminess with bandits and terrorists. He has supported them for years, heightening his support as bandits and terrorists ravage the land.

See where Gumi differs from Tinubu – he attended Sardauna Memorial College, SMC, for his senior secondary school education. He was admitted to the Ahmadu Bello University to study medicine and on his graduation, he was enlisted into the Nigeria Defence Academy. Gumi resigned from the military at the rank of Captain. He moved to Saudi Arabia to further his Islamic education at the Umm al-Qura University where he studied Islamic Jurisprudence and Tafsir. Though no doubts exist about his academic journey, some of Gumi’s classmates in Saudi Arabia are known and often named in his CV.

Tinubu, who I excluded from my list, cannot undergo scrutiny on any issue. His opacity is typically his.

“If the country could pardon coup plotters who committed treasonable offences in the era of military administration, the bandits can as well enjoy similar forgiveness even better under democratic rule,” Gumi had suggested in one of his interventions for bandits in the North.

He justifies the activities of kidnappers too. “Kidnapping children from school is a lesser evil because in the end, you can negotiate and now bandits are very careful about human lives. Before, the mission of bandits was to go into a town, ransack it and kill people,” he says.

Gumi’s latest attention has been on the Nigerian Army. He makes demoralising remarks about the personnel and the quality of its equipment.

Nobody calls Gumi to order. He attends negotiations on behalf of bandits, defends them, speaks for them, and promotes “non-kinetic approaches” in dealing with bandits and terrorists, which align with the position of the National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu, on ending banditry and terrorism.

All those who make it possible for Gumi to dredge credibility for bandits and terrorists from the blood of their victims, are responsible for Gumi being the menace he has become in the fights against banditry and terrorism.

Officials of governments, the military, politicians speak in defence of Gumi. No effort is made to rein him in. He can deride efforts to fight terrorism. He gets away with anything.

He most recently warned that attacks on bandits and terrorists could “provoke” them and jeopardise peace negotiations.

Gumi is not new to supporting payment of ransom which he stated in conditions for releasing students of Greenfield University, Kaduna, who were kidnapped in 2021. He asked the Central Bank of Nigeria to pay.

His former aide, Tukur Mamu, is currently facing trial on terrorism-related charges, including allegedly receiving N50 million from terrorists after the 2022 Kaduna train attack.

Tax popped up as 2025 was ending. The insistence on starting it “immediately” was another Tinubu way of proving he was in-charge and not accountable to anyone.

Here is a President who Nigerians are not sure of where he has been for days. His spokesman knew whatever he was concealing when he announced that the President was continuing his end-of-year holidays in “Europe”. A new country? In which of Europe’s 51 countries is the President?

Has the President become too ashamed of his trips to France that the answer to where the President was is to leave Nigerians guessing?

We know what a great sacrifice not going to France earlier is. Wherever he is, those who are interested, found out within minutes of his departure from Nigeria.

Tinubu should have been around to see the early days of his new tax policies through. The Vice-President dare not do it, and no one else can. A lot of damage is being done in the absence of clarity about the tax’s implementation, implications, and complications. Unlike Jonathan’s fuel price hike, tax policies are more than changing pump prices.

Tinubu has got the tax policies he wants. Let him come back and superintend them. Those who should tell Nigerians what the taxes are about appear too scared to say something that could upset Tinubu.

Perhaps it is the French who would explain the taxes. Then, they should come, speaking enough English for us to tell majority of our people who would want to understand these matters in our mother tongues.

Tinubu cannot be in hiding or heading to some fancy week-long festival in United Arab Emirates, with all the uncertainties, plus insecurity in Nigeria where Tinubu is the Commander-in-Chief, at a time of expected more US bombings against terrorists in Nigeria.

Is that the time to stretch a holiday abroad? A major achievement of the UAE trip could be another visa misinformation.

Tax like the issues before it would not make the 2025 Hall of Infamy. Tinubu should contest this.

Nigerians must stay woke in 2026. It is not too early to start asking Tinubu why he has been a constant star in thinking Nigeria was his alone, particularly since 2014. It is also not too late to ask for a full disclosure of who the President is.

Happy New Year, as you stay woke.

Finally…

SENATE President, Obong Godswill Akpabio, started the New Year on a clean slate. According to him, he is withdrawing all defamation cases he initiated after a New Year message moved him. I hope those who countered sued him for defamation are also moved to forgive him.

MINISTER of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Barrister Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, speaks in manners that suggest that he is unaware that the APC train has left Obi-Akpor without Wike. His former political godson Simi Fubara is on board and is inviting passengers as leader of APC in Rivers State. What is Wike in APC Rivers to keep discussing how he will change leadership in Rivers in 2027? Didn’t Wike know when the train passed?

•ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues.