Category: Opinion

Enugu State is undergoing a profound transformation under the visionary and results driven leadership of Governor Peter Ndubuisi Mbah. What distinguishes this administration is not rhetoric, but speed, clarity of purpose, and measurable outcomes. From security to infrastructure, education to digital innovation, Enugu is steadily reclaiming its place as a model of purposeful governance in Nigeria.

Governor Mbah encapsulates his governing philosophy succinctly: “We did not come to manage decline; we came to build a productive, competitive, and prosperous Enugu State.” This resolve has translated into decisive action across all sectors of governance.

Security and Intelligence Driven Policing:

Security has become one of the most defining pillars of the Mbah administration. Recognizing that development cannot thrive without safety, the government has deployed intelligence led surveillance cameras across strategic locations in Enugu State, significantly enhancing crime detection, deterrence, and rapid response.

This initiative is complemented by the deployment of modern patrol vehicles, a highly responsive Distress Response Squad (DRS), and drones equipped with thermal imaging technology. These assets have strengthened night operations, improved forest surveillance, and disrupted criminal networks.

As Governor Mbah rightly noted, “Security is the foundation of development. Without safety, investment, education, and prosperity cannot thrive.” The impact is evident: Enugu State is now widely regarded as one of the most crime-free states in the country.

Security analysts observe that the state’s investment in crime-fighting infrastructure is yielding disproportionate and far reaching benefits boosting investor confidence, enabling night-time economic activity, and restoring public trust in law enforcement.

This success has attracted national recognition. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu recently drafted Governor Mbah and his security team to contribute to federal efforts aimed at upgrading infrastructure and operational capacity in Police Training Colleges across Nigeria, underscoring Enugu’s emergence as a reference point in internal security governance. The saying that “a goldfish has no hiding place” is very true.

Tourism and Legacy Infrastructure Revitalization:

The Mbah administration has also tackled long-neglected legacy assets. Moribund projects such as Hotel Presidential, the International Conference Centre, and the Enugu State Niger Gas Company once symbols of decay have been revived and repositioned as catalysts for economic growth and tourism development.

According to the Governor, “Every idle public asset is a lost opportunity for jobs, revenue, and pride. Our duty is to unlock their value for the people.” These interventions are expected to generate thousands of jobs while expanding internally generated revenue and private-sector participation.

Transportation Revolution:

Enugu’s transport sector has witnessed an unprecedented overhaul. The launch of Enugu Airline has placed the state firmly on the national aviation map, improving connectivity and easing investor access. Ultra Modern Bus Terminals are redefining inter and intra city transportation while easing traffic movements along major markets in Enugu and Nsukka metropolis. All bus union operators, tricycles and taxis along the terminal axis are directed to load and offload inside the terminals. The State has gone further to approve construction of an unprecedented number of urban and rural roads to improve mobility, commerce, and security. “Roads are not just concrete,” Governor Mbah emphasizes. “They are pathways to opportunity, security, and shared prosperity.”

Reawakening Governance and Fiscal Discipline:

Governor Mbah has reawakened all sectors of governance, replacing bureaucracy with performance driven public service. Ministries, departments, and agencies now operate under strict timelines, benchmarks, and measurable deliverables.

Fiscal discipline remains a cornerstone of this governance model. Public funds are deployed strategically toward projects with long-term economic and social returns. As the Governor repeatedly stresses, “Public funds are sacred. Every naira must work for the people.”

Human Capital Development and Digital Transformation:

Human development sits at the heart of Enugu’s transformation agenda. The state is positioning itself as a future IT and digital innovation hub, supported by expanding broadband infrastructure, digital public services, and youth-focused technology initiatives.

Education has become a flagship sector. Smart schools equipped with digital learning tools are now the standard, while continuous retraining of teachers ensures alignment with global best practices. These reforms are preparing Enugu’s children for a competitive, technology driven world. “Our people are our greatest asset,” Governor Mbah affirms. “Infrastructure without skilled human capital is an empty shell.”

Raising the Leadership Bar:

Governor Peter Mbah has set a new leadership benchmark defined by competence, urgency, and results. The effects are tangible: improved quality of life, renewed investor confidence, and a growing sense of optimism among residents. Notably, Enugu indigenes in the diaspora are returning home in significant numbers, drawn by visible infrastructure, improved security, and expanding economic opportunities. As one returning professional remarked, “For the first time in decades, Enugu feels ready for the future.” Reflecting on this renewed confidence, the Governor observed, “When governance is serious, investors listen, citizens believe, and the diaspora returns home.”

Indeed, the Eagle is not merely flying, it is soaring higher than ever before. The rolling hills of Enugu is singing a new tune, our tomorrow is truly here with Governor Mbah’s disruptive but positive innovations.

Dr. John Egbo, Deputy Sheriff retd writes from Enugu.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Oseloka H. Obaze

Social media has a way of either uplifting your day or just sullying the day, ever before it starts. For me, SM is an inevitable tool. I gave up on television long ago. This lazy Sunday morning, I woke up and scanned my SM pages and mails. Good news; bad news, ugly news; and a huge blanket of snow. This represented Shakespearean normalcy. Neither heaven nor earth was at peace. I took in the status quo in strides.

Then there was this snippet from a dear friend. It was not forwarded. It was unsigned. But Zee is someone I take seriously and value his views. He is not given to frivolities. His words: “I am angry. And so are millions of Nigerians. 2026 shall be named -The Year of Our Anger. In 2026 they will tax the poor. And the anger will overflow. But it will not overflow into the streets. Because it will be channeled. The straw shall break the camel’s back.”

Very chilling words, indeed. Especially as it came from someone I’ve come to believe is clairvoyant. It gave me pause, coming as it did after my morning prayers. I did not respond. Twenty-four hours later, I have still not responded. I knew this snippet and message had to be shared, somehow.

Then, another SM message dropped from another interlocutor. “Is this possible? The ADC to the C-in-C got another fast-track promotion; the second within 12 months.” I considered the question rhetorical, even as it came on the heels of very befuddling and controversial ambassadorial nominations. Yet my initial reaction, without prejudice to the credentials of the officer and gentleman in question, was: What a lucky fellow? But then, how would his military course mates feel? Perhaps in lieu of due process, the ‘doctrine of necessity’ was applied. I rationalised it all. Being at the right place at the right time! Membership has its privileges! Good things come to those who, wait, serve or grovel. And in that eternal East Central State parlance, I surmised: “onye ube rulu, ya larama.” (If your pear has ripened, do well to enjoy it.)

Of late, some events and occurrences in the native land have gotten me thinking. In those immortal words of James Bond, they have gone from happenstance and co-incidence to enemy action. Although there seems to be no rhyme or reason, the entire season of undue and ostensibly unmerited rewards begins to make sense. The senseless borrowings also begin to make sense. The unrequited foreign concessions begin to make sense.

I’m thinking outside the box, now. Come with me. Contemplate the canticle of Nunc Dimittis! The Last Wish! The Last Lunch! The Last Witness, the Last of the Mohicans, The Last Emperor and The Last Kingdom. There is a common thread here. I’m still thinking and it’s all beginning to make sense. Contextually, Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture, is even more poignant.

Here’s a tangential personal recall. I’ll stray briefly into the realm of morbidity and share lessons learned. In the late 90s, a very dear aunt of mine was dying of terminal breast cancer. Her doctors in the U.S. told us so. They forecasted a “maximum of three months to live,” thus ruining everybody’s Christmas spirit. My aunt reacted: “It’s not my portion. They are not God.” Conversely, my uncle, her husband, an engineer, craftsman and pragmatist, pulled me aside. “Can the doctors stabilize her sufficiently for us to fly back to Nigeria?” I passed on his question and request to the doctors. They said they could. And they did. So we turned the Christmas that followed a few days later, into one of the most indelible festivity events for me and perhaps, for other family members. My wife as I hosted my aunt and uncle and the extended clan on that Christmas Day. We sang, ate, danced and made merry. It was a twined-celebration; a Christmas and a Funeral. I knew, for sure, it was for my aunt, the Last Christmas.

My aunt and uncle flew back to Nigeria on Swiss Air from JFK airport and spent New Year in their well appointed home in GRA Enugu. She had time to bond with her family, staff, students, mentees, etc. She passed on well wishes, gave out gifts and rewards. She hosted family and friends. More importantly, she rewarded her long term and most loyal domestics: cooks, stewards, drivers, and maids. She tidied her affairs. I flew to Nigeria to visit her a week before she passed. She thanked me for visiting her, but more importantly, she asked me to thank my uncle for bringing her home and giving her the opportunity to acknowledge, thank and reward her long-serving and loyal staff and relatives. Exactly 90 days after her US doctors told her the end was near, she passed peacefully. Lessons learned.

As a career diplomat, mediator and policy wonk, when confronted with certain thorny situations, I often ask: What are the options? What’s the exit strategy? Where’s the off ramp? Is there a face-saving option? These questions help immensely in arbitration, mediation and conflict resolution, assuming the conflict is ripe for resolution. So much for the musing.

Recently, someone had asked facetiously; “Please explain to me, if you could, why the present APC and Tinubu-led government is rewarding scofflaws, converting opponents and transgressors, punishing critics, offloading national assets to cronies, taking foreign loans as if it was going out of fashion and outsourcing the national commonwealth?” That was a thunderbolt slew of questions.

With my thinking cap on, I contemplated historically known facts, actions and reactions. What was the essence of the “Nunc Dimittis?” What happened in the “Last Lecture?” What was the messaging in the “Last Wish” and personally for me; what lessons did I glean from my aunt’s near-perfect exit strategy. End stage situations; be they personal, physical or political tend to be subliminally dramatic.

I’m not exactly sure what 2026 and 2027 portends for Nigeria. Yet, because there is honour among thieves, like most Nigerians, I am witnessing as those who participated in perfecting State Capture are being duly rewarded. I also see those who helped to drag Nigeria into her present predicament being rewarded expeditiously, as if there will be no tomorrow; no 2026 or 2027 and beyond. In that mix, I see an exit strategy and an off-ramp circumstance.

I see the tidying up of the profligate stable, just in case tomorrow comes. I see a bunch of political leaders acting as if they have no hope whatsoever in the sustainability of the Nigerian nation. What do you do when the political permutations for the future suddenly looks bleak, despite your wherewithal? Here’s the upshot. When the odds begin to stack up against rogue leaders, they imprudently look for an egress, and exit strategy, and an off ramp. They tend to reward insensate loyalists on time, more so, those who believe in the doctrine of “heaven can wait.” Dictators tend to leave the political stage, when the price of staying on far outweighs the price of leaving; but they do leave eventually. Nigeria is no exception to this rule.

Now let me backpedal and ponder those fateful words, once again. “I am angry. And so are millions of Nigerians. 2026 shall be named -The Year of Our Anger. In 2026 they will tax the poor. And the anger will overflow. But it will not overflow into the streets. Because it will be channeled. The straw shall break the camel’s back.” If I were a leader of a badly polarized and fractured nation, and understood this, even if by mere conjecture to be my extant reality, what would I do? Perhaps, reward those who have made my present state and sojourn possible; just in case there is no future for me and them. I’ll do so, just in case there is no second chance; just in case there is no second term. And just in case one of the many straws flying around lands on the camel’s back and the story and journey ends abruptly.

As a not-too-good chemistry student, I remember one chemistry point vividly. Every titration has its endpoint. What’s Nigeria’s endpoint given the present national miasma? Like the song says, “the answer my friends, is blowing in the wind.” Meanwhile, we can expect more presidential pardons, rewards, national awards, promotions, outsourcings, concessions and denials. We can also expect more subversion of the rule of law.

The merits, demerits and remits of state rewards all make sense now. But like the agberos in Ochanja Market Motor Park will tell you “make you join our own bus, so you no go enter one chance bus.” In reality, however, genuine buses and “one chance” buses all get loaded the same way and in the same motor parks. The difference is in their intended destination and how and where they offload their passengers. The reality is that even those who load “one chance” buses get criminally rewarded. Present day Nigeria offers some striking parallels. What separates genuine buses and “once chance” buses or purposeful governments and rogue governments, is that element, which some call luck and others call fate. While ill-fate might be temporary, luck eventfully runs out on even the most powerful and maximalist leaders.

Every day, we learn! Reward or no reward, “if tomorrow comes,” with apologies to Jeffery Archer, “the anger will overflow.” And then, there will be other forms of recompense.

———-

Obaze is MD/CEO, Selonnes Consult – a policy, governance and management consulting firm in Awka.

ADVICE TO MR. PRESIDENT: A GRACE PERIOD OF 90 DAYS SHOULD BE ADOPTED TO TRAIN ARMED PRIVATE SECURITY PERSONNEL TO TAKE OVER POLICE VIP ESCORT; LIMIT POLICE VIP ESCORT TO 1 OR 2 OFFICERS DURING THE YULETIDE.

By Dr. John Egbo, a retired USA trained Deputy Sheriff.

From a law-enforcement perspective, withdrawing VIP Police Escort for vulnerable political leaders, business executives, and other high-risk individuals in Nigeria without an effective transition plan is equivalent to creating new security problems while attempting to solve existing ones.

A more strategic approach would be to delay the implementation of this directive for at least 90 days, during which period, the government can fast-track the training and licensing of armed private security personnel capable of providing escort and protection services to private citizens. This is consistent with practices in developed countries such as the United States, where President Bola Ahmed Tinubu previously lived. In those systems, private security companies rather than state police provide protection for private individuals who require it.

Importantly, granting the President the sole discretion to decide who receives Police VIP Escort can easily be misinterpreted as political favoritism or even political witch-hunt, especially in Nigeria’s highly charged political environment. A transparent, rules-based system is therefore necessary to avoid such perceptions.

Furthermore, VIP Police Escorts should be standardized and limited to one or two officers, ensuring operational efficiency while stripping down unnecessary and excessive deployments. These officers also contribute to public safety because, wherever VIPs travel, escort teams serve as mobile patrol units, especially in areas without established police divisions.

As the Christmas season approaches a period historically associated with increased travel and heightened security risks exposing VIPs to avoidable vulnerability does not align with the fundamental purpose of policing, which is the protection of life and property for all persons.

Ultimately, the President is already burdened with the complex task of governing the nation and should not be directly involved in determining individual eligibility for VIP Police Escorts. A structured policy framework based on clear criteria, private security integration, and regulated police involvement offers a more sustainable and credible solution to Nigeria’s security challenges

Dr. John Egbo is a United States retired Deputy Sheriff and Consultant on Security Matters. Jnegbo1@gmail.com 

Quite often, when a nation is dire straits, it is resistance groups that rally to save that nation. Just as the “partagiani,” the diverse coalition of Italian resistance fought fascist leader Benito Mussolini, NADECO, a diverse coalition of Nigerian partisans, fought the Abacha regime in order to restore democracy. In Italy, it was a populist working class movement of political and military elements that eventually freed Italy from fascism in the early parts of the 1940s. Despite NADECO’s efforts, the propitious end of the Abacha regime in 1998 followed a distinctively different trajectory. But NADECO’s role remains indisputable.

Since often life tends to mimics art, this may well be satirical essay that grapples with some rude realities of Nigeria’s realpolitik. Then again, it may not be.

For the third time in over six decades, Nigeria’s nationhood and democracy are once again under severe threat, this time from unfettered illiberalism, and orchestrated drift toward monocracy and one-party state. This much is beyond debate. The sustaining tenets of viable democracies are all under assault in Nigeria. There is gross diminution of ordered liberties. Separation and balance of power is vividly absent. The responsibility to protect has become a mere cliché. So, besides the civil war years and the absolutionist Abacha era, Nigerians are once again, asking under President Bola Tinubu’s leadership: Which way Nigeria?

If Nigeria were to be a Fortune 500 company, she would have a Board of Trustees or Board of Directors. These would be persons of high integrity and irreproachable credentials; who though not directly responsible for the day-to-day running of the nation, will do whatever heavy lifting that is required of them, to keep the nation secure and functional. Two indistinct groups fit this bill: the so-called owners of Nigeria, and Nigeria’s Legitimisers. Some would readily discount the existence of any such groups; or that at best; attest to their being an amorphous group of individuals that selfishly arrogate to themselves, undue influence in national affairs. That unfortunately is neither their bona fides nor forte.

Owners of Nigeria are by no means the Legitimisers in Nigeria. Members of both cadres cross-fertilize and they are respectively and distinctly involved in the multidisciplinary efforts at nation-building. Often, they operate remotely. A commonality shared by both groups, is the informal and unstructured nature of the two cadres. Both also exist and operate outside formal government structures, even as some might have served in government in one capacity of the other, either as civilian or military officials. As unstructured and informal as both bodies are, they play a critical role in the political and development trajectory of Nigeria. The owners of Nigeria are mostly those, who as young men, fought to keep Nigeria intact. They are now aged patriots, but a concerted bunch that is averse to seeing the Nigerian nation disintegrate.

The Legitimisers are fewer in numbers. They are also subsumed in the larger nucleus consisting of owners of Nigeria. Whereas the owners of Nigeria are the custodians and titular successors of the founding fathers, and thus represent in the main, those who fought hard to keep Nigeria whole; the Legitimisers are the national sentinels, who are frequently consulted on vital national eldership issues. It is they, who validate national decisions, including those who are presumably fit to lead Nigeria. They will readily disavow meddling in governance matters, but are rarely shy of individually or collectively acknowledging or wielding their superlative influence. Hence, prospective, presumptive and incumbent Nigerian leaders are tacitly beholden to their imprimatur. They informally authentic candidates considered prima-facie qualified to run for the Nigerian presidency, before such candidates are presented to the voting electorate.

When two or three of the Legitimisers speak up openly, on any national issues, things begin to happen; the policy and practical wheels begin to churn. Some are so influential, they hardly grant press interviews. Reportedly, in mid-November 1993, when some critical national stakeholders gathered at the Flag Staff House on Marina, Lagos, to decide the composition of the Abacha regime after the ousting of Interim National Government (ING), a handful of the Legitimisers were present; they would, in the national interest, largely validate the end of the ING and the return of the military to power after six months. It was they, who supposedly sanctioned some trenchant opposition and NADECO activists joining the Abacha regime.

Ahead of return to participatory democracy in 1999, it was the Legitimisers that proffered the qualifier of “a safe hand” to guide Nigeria. When late President Umaru Yar’Adua was on his deathbed, and the “Doctrine of Necessity” was being bandied around, it was the Legitimisers that gave the non-existent notion their nod, thus allowing it to gain traction and become a redemptive national policy.

In 2015, it was the Legitimisers that tacitly gave a nod to the formation of APC, as a means of strengthening Nigeria’s democracy and getting eclectic politicians with otherwise divergent styles, beliefs, means and modalities, to rally to a consensus as an alliance opposition party. The subterranean consideration was to ensure that the North-South leadership balance, which was intermittently disturbed by natural attrition and the death of Umaru Yar’Adua, was redressed. There are indications, that the Legitimisers are favourably disposed to endorse another political alliance going into 2027.

It is believed, that the Legitimisers, in the national interest, also looked the other way, by tacitly acquiescing to the emergence of Bola Tinubu, despite the very flawed 2023 presidential elections, in order to sustain the merits of foundational policy of rotating presidency between the North and the South. In this sense, they made the tactical decision that played down a credible electoral outcome, in favour of sustainable and unbroken democracy, since 1999. By 2023, the Legitimisers were seemingly acquainted with Peter Obi, but not sufficiently to grant him a carte blanche to the Nigerian presidency. They needed to study him more, grasp the diversity and credentials of those around him, and ensure also that he would stick to his political undertakings, well beyond what his Manifesto or slogans promised.

Because the Legitimisers will not implicitly or explicitly endorse Nigeria’s return to military rule under any guise, the Nigerian military has essentially remained subservient to elected civilian authorities, since 1999.

The Legitimisers are detribalized patriots, who may have political sympathies, but are hardly ever partisans. They don’t carry party cards. Yet their exulted positions make them an asset to any party in power; and also grant them unfettered access to any incumbent Nigerian leader. When they speak, wise leaders listen. Their public remarks, when uttered, elicit prompt policy responses. Recently, when two Legitimisers spoke openly about the spiraling killings in Nigeria by armed bandits, the policy response wheels immediately began to churn. Insiders believe that it was the Legitimisers that persuaded President Bola Tinubu to put the leadership of the Ministry of Defence back into the hands of an experienced military officer and that more changes can be expected in that context.

Two tasks presently preoccupy the Legitimisers. First, is the expeditious retracting of secular Nigeria from crag of being categorized as the fulcrum for religiously induced genocide, a situation that is already eliciting international attention. Second, is to determine, Nigeria’s next leader, cognizant that Nigerians are fed up with the lackluster performance of the Tinubu administration. This consideration assumes greater impetus with emerging evidence that the 2023 elections were exceedingly rigged. The underlying thrust of any action in this direction will be predicated largely on national interest and more importantly, with a sole focus of keeping corporate Nigeria whole.

The Legitimisers may have witnessed various aspects of Nigeria’ socio-economic and developmental fabric damaged irreparably by transactional politicians; but they will definitely not stand and be witnesses to the destruction and implosion of Nigeria. For this reason, while the Legitimisers will discernibly not be seen as taking sides; they will, like puppeteers, ensure that Nigeria’s ongoing political kabuki, does not default to uncontrollable tremors and chasms. Their focus will be to ensure that the 2027 elections are as transparent and credible as possible, in order to keep our democracy on an even keel and the chain that started in 1999, unbroken. To that end, the balance of power will be constitutionally orchestrated to remain in the south for the remaining four years. But who will be at the helm for those four years is still up for debate and consideration. Noting can be taken for granted.

While the Legitimisers talk to each other routinely, of late, from the various power centres in the North, South, East and West, they have intensified their consultative role. They are constructively engaged with owners of Nigeria. They understand the urgency. They are visibly perturbed. Daily, they have watched and heard Nigerians vent their anguish. They have also seen the gory photos of Nigerians being slaughtered in peace time. They have witnessed Nigeria’s lost glory as a respected global player. So, can Nigeria’s Legitimisers save Nigeria from perdition? Perhaps! They know they must act decisively before it is too late. And I suspect they are doing so. We pray, in the national interest that they will succeed as they have always done. God bless the Legitimisers; and God bless and save Nigeria.

———-

Obaze is MD/CEO, Selonnes Consult – a policy, governance and management consulting firm in Awka.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-By Abdul Mahmud

The news from Advocates Sans Frontieres France should trouble every conscience. Eighty two Nigerian women now sit on death row in different correctional centres. Their stories never for once told hide behind the walls. Their names rarely appear in public conversations. Their lives only exist in the long shadow of a criminal justice system that refuses to see women as full persons. The Country Director of ASF France, Angela Uzoma Iwuchukwu, spoke in Abuja this week. Her words opened a window into a crisis long ignored, even by advocates of civil liberties. Nigeria now has one of the highest female death row populations in sub Saharan Africa, she said. These women face the death penalty, a punishment that many scholars describe as gendered violence orchestrated by the state. How sad that the law turns its back on these women. Courts ignore the years of suffering that often precede the moment that leads to criminal charge.

Many women on death row reacted to prolonged abuse. Some faced domestic violence. Some faced forced marriages. Some endured sexual assault. Some lived for years with controlling partners who ruled their bodies. When violence reached a breaking point, they pushed back. When that moment produced death, the law moved against them with speed. Prosecutors treated them as aggressors. Courts stripped their stories of context. The feminist legal theorist Carol Smart warned that the law often behaves like a male language. It speaks in the tongue of power, or what Judith Butler, the author of Bodies That Matter, described as the logic of the masculine symbolic order that decides which bodies are recognised and which bodies can be ignored. It excludes women from its moral universe. The Nigerian experience proves both Smart and Butler right. When abused women stand before courts, the law reads their acts as rebellion against social order. Courts punish them not only for the offence but for refusing to remain silent victims.

This is what Uzoma Iwuchukwu described as the double punishment that women face. First for the act that leads to conviction. Second for daring to act at all. Nigerian judges rarely apply doctrines like the battered woman syndrome. Nigerian prosecutors rarely present the social conditions that shaped the accused. Nigerian investigators rarely ask why a woman acted in the way she did. A leading scholar of domestic violence whose name I cannot recall now once argued that law often refuses to see coercive control as a continuous process. It treats violence as single events. It ignores the history of abuse. That blindness appears again and again in Nigerian courtrooms.

Poverty deepens this crisis. Many women on death row had no legal representation during investigation. Some had lawyers who lacked training in gender sensitive defence. Some had no money to secure independent medical reports. Some could not speak English. Some could not read their own statements. These failures carry the mark of what gender activists call intersectionality. Women suffer from overlapping layers of marginalisation. Gender. Class. Poverty. Culture. The law punishes those layers with a cold indifference. The situation in northern states under Sharia law raises further questions. The 2002 Katsina case of Amina Lawal offers a painful example. A young woman was sentenced to death by stoning for becoming pregnant outside marriage. The sentence which violated international human rights standards, conflicted with the African Charter, and contradicts the principle of human dignity, was eventually set aside by the Sharia Court of Appeal. As I have consistently argued, punishments that destroy the body cannot stand in a modern legal order. Nigeria continues to apply them. These women do not receive proper legal aid. They do not receive counsel trained in Sharia procedural rights. They stand before courts that see pregnancy as proof of wrongdoing. They carry the full weight of perverse judgements. But, it takes two to tango. Their partners escape accountability. The culture of silence protects the men. The full force of the law falls on the women. Alone.

The Nigerian Correctional Centres hide the daily struggles of these women. Many live with untreated trauma. Many carry injuries from past abuse. Many raise children in prison. Scholars like Julia Sudbury describe this as the prison industrial punishment of women who are already victims. Nigeria mirrors this pattern. The system treats their pains as irrelevant. The system measures only their offence. The death penalty itself raises moral and constitutional problems. Nigeria continues to retain it. Nigeria continues to sentence people under laws inherited from colonial rule. The United Nations has urged countries to restrict the death penalty for the most serious crimes. For women charged with murder arising from domestic violence, the law ignores international standards that call for mitigation based on personal history. Hannah Arendt wrote that violence flourishes when the state loses moral authority. The state gains no moral authority when it kills women who acted to save their own lives. The criminal justice system claims to defend social order. It ends up defending patriarchy. It creates a cycle in which women face violence in the home and violence in the courtroom.

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence should move Nigeria to reflection. This country cannot talk about ending violence against women while sentencing women who once fought for their own survival to the death row. Gender based violence does not end with awareness campaigns. It ends when the law listens. It ends when judges understand trauma. It ends when police treat abuse as a crime. It ends when prosecutors recognise the role of coercive control. Reform must begin with investigation. Police officers need training in interviewing survivors of domestic violence. Prosecutors need guidelines that demand full inquiry into the background of female defendants. Courts need sentencing frameworks that recognise the role of prolonged abuse. Legal aid must reach every woman. Civil society organisations must have access to women on death row. Sharia courts require urgent review, if not abolition. Punishments that destroy the body belong to an age that no longer exists. Nigeria must bring those courts in line with constitutional guarantees of dignity. Women must not face death by stoning. Pregnancy must not function as evidence of guilt. Nigeria must also confront the culture that keeps women silent. Violence inside homes continues because society treats it as a private matter. Domestic violence is a crime. Survivor stories must shape public policy. Scholars like bell hooks (the scholar who prefers her name in lower case) remind us that patriarchy survives through silence. Breaking that silence remains the first step to freedom.

The eighty two women on death row represent a national failure. They represent the refusal of the state to protect the vulnerable. They represent a justice system that sees women through a distorted lens. Their continued imprisonment exposes the gap between constitutional promises and lived reality. Our country must not turn away from them. Their stories deserve attention. Their lives deserve compassion. Their trials deserve review. Justice must mean more than the mechanical application of law. Justice must reflect the human condition. Justice must listen to the voices that society has long pushed to the margins. Our country cannot claim progress while women wait for death in forgotten cells. Their freedom begins with truth. Their protection begins with reform. Their survival begins with a criminal justice system that treats them as human beings.

Thank you, Angela Uzoma Iwuchukwu, for drawing our country’s attention to the plight of the forgotten women on death row.

Finally, the chicken has come home to roost. That which we were forewarned about has come upon us. As the late Ghanaian poet and literary icon, Koofi Awoonor, says in “Songs of Sorrow,” “Death has made war upon our house.” Kidnappers, terrorists, extremists, and all manner of criminal cartels, who dared not lift their heads to look in our faces in time past, have come out as men. Criminals, who rape our women, murder our citizens in cold blood, abduct our children (including nursery and primary school pupils), task us on ransoms as though they loaned money to us.

We are paying the price of the obstinate refusal of successive administrations since the fall of the First Republic to allow Nigeria to run like a federation. The introduction of the highly misplaced Decree 34 of 1966 by the General Aguiyi Ironsi Administration, which put Nigeria on the path of unitary form of government as opposed to the federalism adopted after various painstaking conferences in Nigeria and London by our founding fathers set the state for our sorry state. The Ironsi Regime set up a body look at the desirability of unifying the Nigeria Police and Local Government Police. The irony is that the General Yakubu Gowon Regime, populated by those who overthrew Ironsi and made him pay the supreme price for his unitary tendencies supposedly aimed to pocket the rest of the country, and quickly nullified the contentious Decree 34 of 1966, still went ahead to foist a unitary police system on the country. This is as opposed to a decentralised police system with various layers of police services that subsisted until the coming of the military.

That was not all. From 1966 till the last military regime quit in May 1999, a lot of harm was done to the federal structure that birthed Nigeria’s golden era. The result is the Nigeria we have today – a nation beset by security and economic woes. While the introduction of unitary police gradually made the nation vulnerable to insecurity, the destruction of fiscal federalism and subsequent introduction of what former Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, christened “Feeding Bottle Federalism,” destroyed the creativity, self-reliance, and competitive growth that gave rise to the economic successes recorded before the 1966 coups.

However, as far as I am concerned, the military is no longer to blame, as 26 unbroken years of democracy are more than enough to right the wrongs we felt the military had done to Nigeria. I recall that Ekweremadu pushed for the decentralisation of policing since the Sixth National Assembly until the Ninth National Assembly. When hapless Nigerians were massacred in Barkin Ladi, Plateau State, in 2018, an already frustrated Ekweremadu forewarned that the most painful part was not just that many hapless citizens were massacred, but also that more people would be killed and more villages overrun. In his words, “there is no way you will have a big federation like Nigeria with all the diversities, and continue to operate a centralised policing.” Sadly, people who should know were more interested politics and narrow interests.

Working closely with the Senate Committee on Constitution Review as Ekweremadu’s media aide afforded one the privilege of understanding the underpinning ethnic and regional politics as well as unfounded fears, claims and sentiments that have torpedoed every attempt to introduce state police over several Assemblies. But perhaps, the greatest enemy of state police, in my opinion, is the selfish belief by successive presidents that it is in their best interest to have a total control of all legitimate instruments of coercion in their firm grips – an assumption that have severally boomeranged in their faces. They only see the need for state police after leaving. This is where President bola Tinubu is different.

It is therefore heartwarming seeing the consensus that now flow in favour of state police – even from the unlikeliest quarters. Only a few days ago, the top echelon of the northern political leadership and intelligentsia – governors, top traditional rulers led by the revered Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar III, top security chiefs, among others – all gathered at the Kashim Iman House to unanimously endorse state police. As former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Business and one of the critics of Ekweremadu’s State Police Bill, Senator Ita Enang, once confessed on Channels TV’s “Politics Today,” “state police is an idea, which time has come.” It is an emergency and he was no longer interested in what the governors could do with it, so long as they protect the people.

Quite significantly – and also ironically – support for this paradigm shift has equally come from former President Goodluck Jonathan and former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar (Retd.). Of course, the recent meeting of the Southern Governors Forum and the Southern Nigerian Traditional Rulers Council in Ogun also came up with the same verdict.

However, beside the harsh realities in the form of a worrisome wave of insecurity, the credit to the momentum and consensus state police now enjoys should go to President Tinubu for body language, statements, and federalist dispositions, including the devolving of more powers to the states. The president also gave a new kick to the push for state police during his recent declaration of emergency on insecurity. The president declared that “Our administration will support state governments, which have set up security outfits to safeguard their people from the terrorists bent on disrupting our national peace.” He also asked the National Assembly to “begin reviewing our laws to allow states that require state police to establish them.”

Indeed, in the face of rising insecurity in recent times, the president has shown uncommon courage and the political will to navigate Nigeria away from doom. From changing the service chiefs across the military services to the appointment of former Chief of the General Staff, General Christopher Musa as new Minister of Defence, to the directive for the mass recruitment across the military services and the police as well as the recent approval by the National Economic Council, the sum of N100 billion proposed by the Governor Peter Mbah-led Committee for the Revamp of Police and other Security Training Institutions, President Tinubu has displayed a strong will to fix the nation’s security lapses.

However, of particular commendation is his recognition of the fact that security is local. Thus, he went ahead to not only show the political will to see state policing through, but to also support local security initiatives by governors. Talking about local initiatives, what Governor Mbah is doing with security in Enugu State clearly demonstrates how far a purposeful state government can go to secure a state. In less than three years as governor, he has changed the Enugu security story. He has invested heavily in the construction of a state-of-the-art Command and Control Centre matched with AI-enabled cameras mounted across Enugu State for full surveillance. He set up the Distress Response Squad, a special police unit powered by over 150 security vehicles fixed with AI-embedded cameras for effective patrol of the state to mitigate crimes and also ensure a quick response to crime situations. Just recently, he launched hitech equipments like high-impact drones and patrol vehicles to strengthen the war against insecurity in his state. We have also seen how he dusted up Enugu’s dormant law to demolish several properties used for kidnapping in the state to send a warning to the criminals that crime does not pay. It could therefore be imagined what Mbah would do when additionally armed by the constitution to set up a state police for Enugu State.

Now that the president has accorded the National Assembly the desired political support to amend our constitution to birth state police, the onus is now on the apex legislative body to get cracking. One of the legacies of the Ekweremadu leadership of the constitution review processes of the National Assembly is the introduction of an incremental approach. Unlike in previous Assemblies where all the proposed amendments were lumped into one bill and the failure of one (such as the tenure elongation proposal) meant the failure of every other amendment, including popular ones, the Ekweremadu-led approach ensured that proposals were broken into different bills. That way, they succeed or fail independent of the rest.

The point here is that the Tenth National Assembly does not need to wait for the rest of the proposed amendments to be ready before proceeding with the amendment to create state police. That would be time-wasting. They should emulate the example of the Sixth National Assembly following the controversies and near constitutional crisis that arose over non-transmission of power to the then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan during the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua illness in 2010. Once the constitutional order was salved via the Doctrine of Necessity and Jonathan ascended the presidential seat, that Assembly quickly proposed and processed a single bill that led to the amendment of Section 145 and 190 of the Constitution. Consequently, once the president or governor is absent for more than 21 days, the vice president or deputy governor automatically assumes office in acting capacity, letter or no letter.

Again, given the extensive work that went into Ekweremadu’s Bill for the Creation of State Police, the National Assembly has a brilliant document to dust up and work with. The special thing about the Ekweremadu bill is that it consciously and meticulously addresses the critical issues of structure, standardisation, control, armament, disciplining, co-existence with federal police, and, importantly, the fears of abuse by state governors. The bill benefits from best practices around the world, especially federal climes like the US, Canada, and Brazil.

Now, with national momentum and presidential willpower in favour of state police, plus a ready document to work with, the ball is now in the court of the National Assembly. Let the amendment begin.

Anichukwu is Media aide to Enugu State Governor, Peter Mbah.