By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

A SURPRISE about Nigerians’ relationship with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is that they have failed to admit that Tinubu, who they elected in 2023, against advice, is a parochial, vicious, uncaring man just like Buhari whose sanctimonious mien served well.

Buhari was a holy man, his ardent supporters say, who evil people surrounded. How did such people get close to such a man. Buhari seemed equally confused about what to do with his chosen people. His ruination of Nigeria is worse than abandoning a ship with its passengers at mid-sea and remain deaf to their pleas for survival kits.

Buhari is gone but the entrenched interests he sustained are insistent on taking Nigerians through unsustainable programmes that draw Nigeria nearer momentous morbidity.

Why does Tinubu surprise anyone? Did he not say he would continue from where Buhari stopped? Did that stop all the anti-people, anti-democratic forces from amassing resources to enthrone Tinubu in 2023? By voting Tinubu in 2023 Nigerians were saying, “we enjoyed Buhari, Tinubu please complete the agenda”.

Can we say that after eight years of gruelling existence under Buhari that Tinubu cast a spell on us in 2023? When he told us from London that he would “snatch, grab, and run with it”, his reference to how he would snatch the election, did many of us not enable him by calling him the great strategist?

Tinubu served notice of his plans. Millions of our compatriots following blinkered passions of religion and ethnicity voted for him. Muslim-Muslim ticket was nothing, we were assured of the APC’s ticket that had the presidential and the vice-presidential candidates as Muslims.

Even Tinubu is no longer cocksure about the benefits of a Muslim-Muslim ticket as he fights for survival. There are whispers that he wants to replace Vice-President Kashim Shettima for the 2027 election. His place would be taken by a Christian from the North. That would be Tinubu’s evidence to the Americans that Christians are not persecuted in Nigeria.

With 2027 rounding the corner and the opportunities that offer themselves to end 12 years of Buhari and Tinubu that had been invested in making the country unproductive through divisiveness, lack of transparency in resource management, and insecurity that has shrunk the country’s ability to harness its resources, feed its people and keep them safe, Tinubu is being promoted to win the 2027 election.

If you wonder what records make him the man for the job in 2027, they scoff at you, accuse you of ethnicity, blindness, ingratitude to Tinubu or being a remnant of the decadent past.

Tinubu made many promises while campaigning in 2023. One of them was that nobody should vote him for a second term if there was no constant electricity supply by 2027.

Opposition ADC by July 2025 reminded Tinubu about the promise. “Whichever way, by all means necessary, you must have electricity. And you will not pay the estimated bill anymore. A promise made will be a promise kept. If I don’t keep my promise and I come back for a second time, don’t vote for me,” Tinubu told a gathering at a December 2022 business lunch in Lagos.

As I was writing this column on Friday, the national grid collapsed again. The video clip of Tinubu’s electricity promise has been in circulation most recently. Comments on social media on the national grid collapse were profound and could be tongue in cheek.

“Let us note that it is the first collapse of the national grid in 2026,” noted a commentator. Is he warning that more collapses are on the way? Could he be among those who praise Tinubu for not allowing the grid since 2026 began?

Tinubu’s electricity promise was specifically to those who attended that business lunch. Not you. Not I. You cannot remind him of the promise if you did not lunch in Lagos.

A major Tinubu headache is not about you and I. He is worried about the Americans who have his hefty files with documents he fought very had to keep out of public view in 2023. He is willing to do anytime, almost anything, to return in 2027.

What you do with Tinubu in 2027 is your business but do not blame anyone if you vote a candidate who promised hardship and has been faithful to that promise.

Finally…

EMEKA Umeagbalasi is a known face in the NGO community, who has run International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, InterSociety, since 2008 after what could be called apprenticeship with the Civil Liberties Organisation, which he joined in 1994. For him, as a screwdriver salesman in Onitsha, to be source of preference for intelligence by President Donald Trump is announcing the collapse of the United States intelligence community, and possibly a knock on Trump. But the sinister motives for that New York Times report were deeper. Umeagbalasi, from the South-East, was supposed to be the reason for the American bombing in the North-East – not banditry, not kidnapping, not the fuel that illegal mining provides for insecurity. New York Times must be on a fast decline for a report, stripped of the essentials of journalism, to pass through its vetting for publication.

A VERSION of what I call official trafficking in humans has continued in the North-West. Kajuru in Kaduna State last Sunday was the centre of abduction of 117 people, including children, during their church service – in broad daylight. Two churches were involved. It is the type Christian-persecution story that our governments do not want to be told. The bandits have reportedly given assurances that the abductees would be returned safely if the bandits are paid N28.9m for their bikes which the military destroyed during attacks on them. It is only after the payment for the bikes, they said, that they would discuss the ransom for their latest victims. How do bandits move 117 people without being stopped? Many things are wrong.

RIVERS State is still in the news for the same wrong reason. The State’s Chief Judge, Hon. Justice Chibuzor Amadi deserves praises for refusing to set up a Committee to investigate the allegations against the Governor which properly situated are based on Governor Siminalayi Fubara’s refusal to accept the terms of an illegal agreement that is meant to make him a puppet Governor whose abilities to perform the duties of his office would be permanently abridged.

THE Senate Ad hoc Committee on National Security has a report that magisterially states that illegal mining of gold was responsible for the insecurity in the North-West. The January 2026 report identified illegal artisanal gold mining as a primary driver of insecurity in Nigeria’s North-West. In July 2024, Tajudeen Abbas, Speaker of the House of Representatives had said that illegal mining of gold was responsible for almost 80 per cent of the insecurity in the North-East. Reports from 2010, 16 years ago, pinned the death of more than 400 children on lead-poisoning from illegal mining of gold. Delays in ending the illegalities in the area means that more people, powerful people, are joining the “gold rush”. Buhari ignored the illegal miners; Tinubu addresses the issue with words, mere words.

APC supporters are busy suggesting to ADC the presidential candidate that can unseat Tinubu and who cannot. It is interesting to know that some beneficiaries of Tinubu’s deficits are among those who cannot wait to see him go.

DR. Lawrence Ewhrudjakpor, much-beloved Deputy Governor of Bayelsa State, known for his intellect, service, hard work, and loyalty would be laid to rest on Friday 30 January in his native Ofoni, Sagbama Local Government Area of the State. He was a worthy representative of his people as a Commissioner, Senator, and Deputy Governor. According to the Bayelsa State Government, the 4-day burial programme will start on Tuesday 27 January with sports activities, through 28, 29 January with the burial on 30 January. May the Almighty rest Dr. Ewhrudjakpor. Amen!

•ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues.