Category: Opinion

By Hon. Anayo Edeh

As the 2027 General elections approach, it is imperative to emphasise the need for the People of Enugu State to collectively support Governor Peter Mbah’s re-election bid.

Another four years for Mbah, will put Enugu on the path of sustainable development in all Sectors.

In the past three years, Enugu has witnessed unprecedented
development in Education, job Creation, Health, Infrastructure, Security and Human Capital. Never in our history have we seen a government that is so prepared for overall transformation in all the nooks and cranies of Enugu State.
All over the state, the impact of effective governance under Mbah abounds: Smart Schools in all the Wards, second to none International Conference Centre, a novel Airline, Bus Terminals for orderly Public Transportation, 300-room World-class Hotel within the International Conference Centre, resuscitation of Niger Gas, New Layouts for Smart Cities, several kilometres of newly-constructed roads across the State, 260 Smart Farms in all the Wards, World -Class Hospitals, Type 2 Hospitals in the 260 Wards in the State, Massive Investments in the digitalization of the State’s Economy, Civil Service Reforms, a new Security Architecture with State of the art equipment and facilities to keep Enugu safe, acquisition of Drones for surveillance and a renovated Presidential Hotel which was left moribund for Ages by previous Administrations.

Mbah’s developmental strides are limitless and visible.

The promise by Mbah to move Enugu’s economy from Four Billion United States Dollars to thirty Billion dollars has become achievable. The signs are everywhere.

It is in the light of the outstanding accomplishments of Mbah in all Sectors that it has become morally binding for all to support him in the 2027 Governorship election. It is, indeed, a desideratum for the new Enugu of our dream.

Those who want to constitute a clog in the wheel of progress under the guise of contesting the Enugu Governorship in 2027 against Mbah, need to be told in very clear terms that they are embarking on a futile adventure that can only cause distractions. They can only cause a crack in the wall , they cannot fall the wall of progress which Mbah is erecting in Enugu. This advice is particularly necessary for the Nkanu Sons who claim to be running for Governorship.
Chiefs Chinyeaka Ohaa and Uche Nnaji who claim to be running for the 2027 Governorship election in Enugu, need to be told to sheathe their Swords and allow the good works under Mbah to continue for another four years.

As Nkanu sons, Ohaa and Nnaji need to be counselled that a contest against their brother now is ill-advised, inappropriate and unnecessary. We need all hands on deck under Mbah to reposition Enugu. This is not the time to dissipate energy unnecessarily.

The entire Nkanuland ought to maintain a united Front on the re-election of Mbah for continuity.

Nkanu West produced former Governor Chimaroke Nnamani. Oha and Nnaji who are from Nkanu West need to be told that their contest against Mbah (their brother from Nkanu East) is reprehensible and vexatious. Mbah is the first Governor from Nkanu East since the creation of Enugu State.

Any plot against him will be seen as an affront on the entire Nkanuland. This will be crushed.

Furthermore, the visibility which Enugu is enjoying today in National Politics is as a result of Mbah’s influence. Enugu is no longer a Spectator at the Centre. It is now a Key Actor in Mainstream Politics in Nigeria.

The re-election of Mbah in 2027, is a task that must be done. Let the Heathens stop raging and imagining vain things.

Enugu is on the path of irreversible development. We cannot allow detractors to pull us back.

Anayo Edeh writes from Onicha-Agu, Nkanu East.

By SNC Nwagu 

​The debate over whether NATO can function without substantial American military support is essentially a European question. But its implications are unmistakably African.

​For more than seven decades, American power has underwritten NATO. Now, as Washington reassesses its global commitments, Europe is being forced to assume greater responsibility for its own defense. The lesson is clear: great powers ultimately prioritize their own strategic interests. Africa must take note.

​If Europe becomes more focused on defending its own territory, rebuilding its defense industries, and reinforcing its eastern flank, African security may receive less European attention and fewer resources. Africa cannot answer this shift with complaints. It must answer with capacity.

​The continent possesses immense natural resources, strategic waterways, a vast population, and expanding markets. Yet it remains heavily dependent on external powers for weapons, intelligence, military financing, training, and logistics. That is Africa’s central strategic contradiction: a resource-rich continent without strategic autonomy.

​The African Union has made progress through initiatives such as the Peace Fund, but the larger challenge remains unresolved. Africa must develop the capacity to finance and conduct African-led security operations without perpetually waiting for external assistance. That means intelligence-sharing, indigenous defense production, maritime security, strategic mobility, secure communications, and predictable financing. Above all, it requires political will.

​NIGERIA’S RESPONSIBILITY

​For Nigeria, the changing NATO equation should be treated as both a warning and an opportunity. Nigeria is too important to remain merely a consumer of global security arrangements. If Abuja genuinely seeks strategic autonomy, that ambition must begin with national capability.

​The country’s persistent internal security challenges expose the gap between diplomatic aspiration and strategic capacity. A state unable to secure its borders, citizens, and critical infrastructure will inevitably find its international influence constrained.

​Nigeria’s foreign policy should therefore move beyond choosing between America, Europe, China, Russia, or any other competing power. The objective should be partnership with everyone and dependence on no one. Nigeria should cooperate with major powers where such partnerships advance its interests, while building the indigenous capabilities required to make independent choices.

​More importantly, Nigeria should use its diplomatic and economic weight to champion a stronger African security architecture—one grounded in collective intelligence, defense cooperation, indigenous military industries, and reliable African financing. Africa does not need another external security guarantor. It needs the capacity to negotiate with every power from a position of strength.

​The significance of a possible NATO without America, then, is not simply that Europe may have to defend itself. It is that the international system is delivering an old lesson with renewed urgency: those who cannot provide for their own security will ultimately depend on those who can.

​Europe is preparing for that reality. America is recalibrating around it. Africa—and particularly Nigeria—must wake up to it.

-By Abdul Mahmud

Exactly 35 years ago today, on Wednesday, 28 August 1991, the gates of the Maximum Security Prison, Kirikiri, were finally flung open, and two young student leaders walked out into the Lagos morning after four months of detention by the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida, carrying with them the belongings with which they had entered the prison and the memory of a struggle that had already begun to shape their lives in ways neither of them could then have fully understood. They were this writer, Abdul Mahmud, then President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), and Bamidele Aturu, then National Mobilisation Officer of NANS, two young men who had committed the unforgivable offence, in the eyes of a military junta, of insisting that Nigeria deserved something better than the political contrivance that the regime called a transition programme.

The events that brought us to Kirikiri had begun several months earlier, between 29 April and 2 May 1991, when the Babangida junta moved against the central leadership of the Nigerian student movement and arrested student leaders across the country. The immediate offence was political, and there was nothing clandestine about it: we had called for the resignation of the military junta and demanded an end to what we regarded as its contrived political transition programme, proposing instead a Government of National Unity that would oversee a genuine, inclusive and credible transition to democratic rule. The student movement had understood something that the political class of the period sometimes struggled to acknowledge, namely that a transition designed by an unelected military government could not become democratic simply because the junta gave itself a timetable and announced a succession of political stages, and that the people whose country was supposedly being returned to them had a right to participate in determining the terms upon which that return would occur.

The response of the junta was to reach for one of the most notorious instruments of repression in its arsenal: the State Security and Detention of Persons Decree No. 2 of 1984, a decree designed to place political detainees beyond the ordinary protection of the law and to give the security apparatus extraordinary powers to detain people without meaningful judicial scrutiny. Under that decree, the courts were effectively shut out from enquiring into the circumstances surrounding an arrest and detention, while those detained could be denied access to visitors and legal representation, turning detention into an experience in which the state became the investigator, jailer and ultimate arbiter of the detainees’ fate. It was this legal hole into which a generation of young Nigerians was thrown, and for those of us who were barely out of our teens or in our early twenties, the experience was particularly brutal because the purpose of detention was never simply to confine the body; it was intended to break the will of the person who had dared to challenge the authority of the state.

I was 22 years and 6 months old when I was arrested, first taken to the holding facilities of the State Security Service on Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, and subsequently transferred to Kirikiri Prison with Bamidele Aturu. Other student leaders were also arrested and detained. Opeyemi Bamidele, who would many years later become the Majority Leader of the Nigerian Senate, Luke Aghanenu, the late Olaitan Oyerinde, the late Biodun Aremu, the late Biodun Ogunade, and Bola Aidi, who would go on to become a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, were among those taken into the SSS custody, while Kayode Olatunji, Chris Akani, who would later become a traditional ruler in Rivers State, Bunmi Olusona, who would later emerge as a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Nasir Kura and Chima Okereke were detained in Ikoyi Prison. Looking back after 35 years, the different paths our lives eventually took make the circumstances of our youthful detention even more remarkable, because the state had gathered us together not because we were criminals but because we had become inconvenient voices in a political order that had little tolerance for dissent.

The experience of prison was deliberately calculated to humiliate and demoralise. Young men who had been students, elected representatives and organisers of a national movement were suddenly treated as though they were hardened criminals, and the authorities were perfectly capable of understanding the psychological effect of placing political detainees in a prison environment designed for ordinary criminal incarceration. For a 22-year-old, the message was unmistakable: the state wanted you to understand that your education, youth, office and political convictions offered no protection whatsoever once the machinery of military power had been turned against you. We were not before a court where the evidence against us could be tested; we were not appearing before a judge who could ask why we had been arrested; we were detainees under a decree whose very design was to remove the ordinary restraints of law from the exercise of state power.

There was, however, something the military rulers could not quite understand about the student movement, and that was the peculiar stubbornness of conviction among young people who had come to believe that their country belonged to them as much as it belonged to those who occupied the offices of government. Detention could deprive us of liberty, but it could not settle the argument that had brought us there, and imprisonment could postpone a political demand without making the demand itself illegitimate. The years have demonstrated that the questions we raised about military rule, political engineering and the credibility of transition programmes were not the products of youthful impatience; they were questions about the nature of political legitimacy that Nigeria has continued to confront long after the soldiers returned to the barracks.

 

Our release itself became a small theatre of the absurdity of military detention. On 27 August 1991, the SSS released us from its headquarters on Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, but there was no formal release order, and, naive as we were, we returned to Kirikiri to collect our belongings, believing that the matter was finally over. The prison authorities, however, were not prepared to let us simply walk away, and so we spent another night in detention, as though the state had forgotten that it had decided to release us. It was only the following morning, 28 August, that the gates of Maximum Security Prison were opened and we stepped out into freedom.

I have often wondered about those gates, because they have acquired a meaning in my memory that extends far beyond the physical moment of our release. They opened after four months of incarceration, but they also opened into a future none of us could see. We were young men leaving prison with the conviction that Nigeria still had to be changed, although we could not have known what the next decades would bring, which of our comrades would remain beside us and which would depart before the work was finished. We could not have known that some of those who walked into detention with us would later occupy important positions in public life, or that others would become lawyers, politicians and community leaders, or that one of the men who walked out of Kirikiri with me that morning would not live to see this 35th anniversary.

Bamidele has gone ahead.

He died in 2014, at the age of 49, leaving behind a life that was far too short for the measure of his convictions. When I remember him today, I do not remember merely the political detainee with whom I shared a cell or the student leader with whom I confronted a military government; I remember a comrade whose courage was formed in the difficult years when dissent carried a price, a friend with whom I shared an extraordinary chapter of Nigeria’s history, and a man who believed that political freedom was not a gift to be bestowed by those in power but something citizens had to insist upon and defend. Thirty-five years is a long time in the life of an individual, but it is a short period in the life of a country, and perhaps that is why the memory of Kirikiri remains so immediate. The faces of those who detained us have faded, the military decrees under which they acted have largely disappeared from everyday political vocabulary, and many of the young people who now participate in Nigeria’s politics were not yet born when those prison gates opened, but the fundamental question that brought us to Kirikiri remains alive: what does it mean to build a country in which citizens can challenge power without being treated as enemies of the state?

The struggle of that generation therefore cannot be reduced to nostalgia, because to remember those years only as an episode of youthful rebellion would be to misunderstand what was at stake. We were fighting over the right of Nigerians to determine their political future, and although history moved in directions none of us could have predicted, the obligation to continue that work did not expire when the military eventually left office. Political freedom is never won once and for all, and the generations that inherit the gains of earlier struggles inherit, with them, the responsibility to protect and extend those gains. So, 35 years after those gates opened, I remember Bamidele Aturu with gratitude. I remember the young man he was, the convictions he carried and the price he was willing to pay for them. I remember those with whom we shared those dark months, some of whom have gone on to serve Nigeria in very different capacities. Above all, I remember that the gates of Kirikiri did not open because the state had suddenly discovered the virtue of freedom; they opened because, in the end, detention could not permanently imprison an idea.

Bamidele has gone ahead. I remain. And the work for which we were detained remains unfinished.

 

 

By Sebastine Okafor, Ph.D.

A few days ago, the National Leader of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Senator Seriake Dickson, convened a meeting for all the leaders of the party in Enugu State to identify the issues affecting the party and discuss how to move the party forward.

As the Secretary of the party in Enugu State, some members of the State Working Committee and I were invited, but due to time constraints, I could not make it. However, as a well trained columnist, investigative and interpretative journalist, I was able to extract all the information that transpired from our group, opposing group, and others who work with some leaders of the party at the National level.

My findings are what I will detail in this piece. I found out that what was meant to be a meeting to find a way forward became a can of worms, as one revelation opened the door to another. Even the convener was said to have been shocked by the extent of the problems and allegations that emerged.

In the meeting, it was evident that NDC Enugu State is on course for total electoral failure, which will favour the PDP and APC in 2027 if absolute justice is not allowed to thrive. During the meeting, the former alleged Senatorial candidate of the party, who was visibly aggrieved, accused the factional gubernatorial candidate of working for the APC and not being serious about the party. He alleged that the man is not popular and that the only face of the opposition is the former Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, who is already in the PDP. In making his point, he also alleged that the gubernatorial candidate gave him a sum [named sum withheld by us] to run an election in which he did not attend his campaigns and subsequently worked with some members of the national leadership to remove him. From his statement, one could feel the anger in his voice and the fire in his determination to fight back against those he believed had betrayed him. The bitterness surrounding the allegation was understandable, particularly against the background of their previous political relationship.

The situation became even more revealing when allegations previously directed against other members of the party were reportedly turned against those making them.

My findings revealed that the meeting also reportedly exposed the extent to which young leaders had become alienated from the party. According to accounts of the discussions, many participants believed that the marginalisation and neglect of younger members contributed significantly to the internal crisis.

One particularly serious allegation concerned the claim that Dr. Johnpaul Anih and his group collected ₦300 million from the APC to destabilise the NDC. The allegation was reportedly made by one of those who had previously advanced similar claims, and it allegedly shocked Senator Dickson. No evidence substantiating the allegation was presented in the meeting.

The development demonstrated one uncomfortable reality of internal political conflicts: allegations can eventually return to those who make them. The truths that began to emerge from the meeting were a clear indication that the National Leader was not aware of the enormity of the crisis in the state. He was not aware that the people he entrusted with managing the party did not understand his vision and political ideology.

Perhaps the most significant revelation was the apparent lack of clarity surrounding the emergence of candidates in Enugu State. It reportedly became clear that some candidates currently presenting themselves as NDC candidates did not emerge through recognised primary elections. Questions were also raised over the circumstances surrounding the acceptance of the name of the party’s factional gubernatorial candidate. According to the account of my findings, INEC officials had initially questioned the candidate’s emergence on the grounds that he had not participated in a known primary election. It was subsequently alleged that the party asked that his name be submitted while arguing that only a court of competent jurisdiction could remove him if anyone challenged his candidacy.

The controversy reportedly became more complicated after the candidate announced himself publicly as the NDC candidate on May 26, 2026, before subsequently deleting the post after being cautioned.

These developments raise a fundamental question: can a political party claim to be offering Nigerians a credible alternative while failing to adhere strictly to the democratic procedures required to produce its candidates?

Another issue raised during the meeting concerned the relationship between the NDC and the Enugu Resident Electoral Commissioner.

One of the factional candidates reportedly accused the REC of frustrating the NDC and working for the APC. However, another factional female NDC candidate reportedly challenged that argument, pointing out that the REC had applied the same standards to other political parties. That intervention deserves commendation because electoral rules cannot be selectively applied simply because a particular party is dissatisfied with them.

In my view, the Enugu REC has demonstrated firmness in dealing with questions surrounding electoral compliance. His reported position captures the fundamental principle that should guide electoral administration. If a party did not conduct a primary election, it cannot reasonably expect an electoral officer to certify that one took place. You cannot build a house on sand and blame the wind when the walls begin to shake.

The meeting with Senator Dickson was inconclusive, reportedly ending without a final resolution, with the National Leader asking that the Enugu crisis be resolved within the state.

That proposal raises another important concern.

If the National Secretary and Zonal Vice Chairman of the party are themselves alleged to have played roles in the crisis, can they objectively preside over the process of resolving it? Those with direct interests in a dispute should not ordinarily be the final arbiters of that dispute. You cannot ask the accused to sit as judge in his own case, nor can you put the fox in charge of guarding the henhouse.

NDC leaders should also recognise the role played by Dr. Johnpaul Anih and his team in conducting a primary election which, according to their position, produced candidates for the party. If the argument is that Dr. Anih lacked the authority to conduct the primary, then the obvious question is: who conducted the recognised primary election that produced the party’s candidates?

The inability of Senator Dickson’s representatives to conduct a primary election was reportedly one of the factors that frustrated several politicians, including Hon. Tony Ugwu and Hon. Humphrey Onyima, out of the party. You cannot shut the door and complain that people are standing outside; you cannot destroy the bridge and then blame others for not crossing the river.

Dr. Johnpaul Anih and his team  —which I am a part of — should not be underestimated. They have demonstrated that they are prepared to defend their position, and any peace process must therefore be transparent, credible and inclusive. Any attempt to get the issues resolved must be clear and not an ambush. Nobody is a fool, and any attempt to peddle what did not happen during the meeting will be resisted. Let me say it again: peace talks in Enugu are important, but the National Secretary and Zonal Vice Chairman should not be part of them as interested parties. The process should be handled by independent bodies with zero interest in the matter.

From all indications, however, some of those calling for peace may not yet be prepared for the compromises required to achieve it. The reported attitude that some members are too insignificant to negotiate with is fundamentally incompatible with democratic politics. You cannot seek peace with one hand while holding the sword with the other. No political organisation can build a sustainable opposition by treating sections of its membership as irrelevant.

In my next write-up, I will examine what happened at the second meeting, why some leaders reportedly boycotted it despite attending the first meeting with Senator Dickson, their laughable proposed solution and more.

However, I must acknowledge that I am beginning to admire Dr. SKC Ogbonnia. He is a force to reckon with — a firm, fearless and purpose-driven leader who tells bitter leaf its ugly taste to its face. He does not sugarcoat the truth or dance around the issue; he looks it straight in the eye and calls it by its name.

-By Abdul Mahmud

In my op-ed last week, Nigeria’s CODESA Moment, I argued that the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) had not yet entered the kind of unmistakable electoral decline that would make its defeat in 2027 a reasonable assumption. That, however, is not the same as saying that the APC is electorally invulnerable. The more immediate question is whether the party has now exhausted enough of its electoral goodwill to become vulnerable to defeat in the 2027 presidential election. Its institutional capacity to win elections remains beyond serious dispute, but institutional power is not the same thing as electoral consent. The relevant test, therefore, is whether the APC still commands sufficient support among voters to overcome the combined effects of incumbency fatigue, political disaffection and the growing capacity of an opposition, however fragmented, to mobilise against it. The recent record of Nigeria’s off-cycle governorship elections offers an imperfect but useful starting point for examining that question.

Since 2023 general election, the APC has contested eight off-cycle governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo, Kogi, Edo, Ondo, Anambra, Ekiti and Osun. It won five of them and lost three. At first sight, that record appears formidable. A closer examination produces a rather more complicated picture. In Bayelsa, Timipre Sylva polled 110,108 votes against Douye Diri’s 175,196. In Imo, Hope Uzodinma secured 540,308 votes, while his two principal challengers, Samuel Anyanwu and Athan Achonu, together obtained 135,584. Kogi produced 446,237 votes for Usman Ododo against 259,052 for Murtala Ajaka and 46,362 for Dino Melaye. The two subsequent victories are equally instructive. In Edo, Monday Okpebholo defeated Asue Ighodalo by 291,667 votes to 247,274, a margin of 44,393 in an election in which the opposition was divided between the PDP and Labour Party. In Ondo, Lucky Aiyedatiwa obtained 366,781 votes against Agboola Ajayi’s 117,845, winning all 18 local government areas. Anambra was the reverse of that picture: Charles Soludo of APGA won overwhelmingly with 422,664 votes, while the APC candidate, Uche Ekwunife, managed 99,445.

Across those eight elections, APC candidates accumulated over 1.85 million votes. That number is large, but numbers detached from their electoral context can be deceptive. The more revealing question is how much of that vote represents durable political attachment and how much is attributable to incumbency, local political structures, candidate-specific advantages, fragmented opposition, patronage, the deployment of state resources or the peculiar circumstances under which each election was conducted.

No serious analysis should simply subtract alleged votes bought, intimidation or institutional interference from declared results and announce the residue as the “real” APC vote. Such an exercise would require evidence that can withstand scrutiny. There were, however, credible concerns surrounding aspects of several recent elections, including reports of irregularities and questions about electoral integrity. Civil society assessments of the 2023 Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi elections recorded substantial concerns, while subsequent assessments of the 2024 Edo and Ondo elections also examined issues such as overvoting and the integrity of the ballot. The more useful exercise is therefore to ask what happens to APC’s electoral position when the advantages of incumbency are placed under greater pressure and when opposition parties begin to behave as though victory, rather than mere participation, is the objective.

That is where the eight elections become politically revealing.

APC’s victories in Imo, Kogi and Ondo were substantial. Its victory in Edo was considerably narrower. Its defeat in Bayelsa, Anambra and Osun demonstrated that the APC could still be beaten in a state where the incumbent possessed a strong local political base. However, Anambra offered perhaps the most striking warning. APGA’s Soludo won with 422,664 votes, more than four times the APC candidate’s total, despite the enormous resources and visibility available to a governing party at the centre.

Anambra should not be treated as a template for 2027. Neither should Imo or Ondo. State elections are shaped by local political histories, personalities, ethnic and regional calculations, incumbency and the peculiar organisation of political parties. The presidential election will operate on a different scale. Nevertheless, these elections expose a weakness that the APC cannot afford to dismiss: its electoral strength is not uniformly transferable across Nigeria. That weakness becomes more consequential when placed beside the condition of the opposition. The APC’s greatest electoral asset may not be its own popularity but the fragmentation of those who oppose it. The opposition remains dispersed among parties whose leaders have frequently struggled to subject personal ambitions to a common electoral project. The experience of the 2023 presidential election demonstrated the consequences of that fragmentation, when the opposition vote was divided among Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rabiu Kwankwaso and others. The 2024 Edo election provided another illustration of how division can make a competitive race more difficult for the challenger: the APC won, while the PDP came second and Labour Party came a distant third.

That is the paradox of 2027. APC may be electorally vulnerable without being electorally exhausted. The distinction is crucial.

A ruling party can lose goodwill and still win an election. Electoral politics is not a popularity contest in which the candidate with the greater reservoir of public dissatisfaction automatically loses. Victory requires organisation, credible candidates, polling-unit presence, voter mobilisation, legal preparedness and the capacity to translate public sentiment into actual votes. The opposition presently has considerable work to do in each of those areas. The streets matter in this equation. By “connection to the streets” I do not mean social-media popularity or the ability to generate online outrage. Nigerian elections are still ultimately won at polling units, wards and local government areas. The political party that can identify its supporters, persuade them to register, ensure that they vote, protect their votes and remain present through collation possesses an advantage that no amount of online enthusiasm can substitute for.

APC understands this reality. Its strength is not simply the unpopularity of President Bola Tinubu or the performance of his government. The party has inherited and consolidated an extensive network of political actors across the states. Governors, legislators, local party structures and political appointees provide party political and organisational reaches that fragmented opposition parties presently struggle to match. An opposition party that discovers this only during the campaign will have discovered it too late.

The assumption that APC has already exhausted its electoral goodwill therefore requires qualification. The party may have suffered a significant erosion of goodwill, but erosion is not exhaustion, and dissatisfaction is not automatically an electoral majority. Nigerians may be unhappy with the party’s performance in government and still vote for the governing party if the opposition presents a disunited front. They may also prefer continuity where they distrust the opposition more than they dislike the incumbent. The real danger to APC is that 2027 could become an election in which accumulated dissatisfaction meets an opposition that has finally learnt how to organise. That combination would be different from the scattered contests of recent years. A disparate opposition gives the APC room to survive with pluralities. A coordinated opposition could transform the same underlying numbers into a formidable challenge.

For the opposition, therefore, the lesson from the eight off-cycle elections is not that APC is finished. The lesson is that APC can be beaten, but only by an opposition prepared to do the unglamorous work of winning elections. The figures from Bayelsa, Anambra and Osun demonstrate that the ruling party is not invincible. Edo demonstrates that fragmentation can rescue it from a competitive contest. Imo, Kogi and Ondo demonstrate the continuing power of incumbency and political organisation.

The 2027 election will therefore be decided less by declarations about APC’s declining goodwill than by whether the opposition can convert that decline into an organised electoral force. If it remains disparate, disconnected from the streets and preoccupied with elite negotiations, APC may win despite the erosion of its popularity. If it builds a broad political coalition, develops credible candidates and establishes a physical presence where votes are actually cast and counted, the numbers begin to tell a very different story. APC may have less goodwill than it once enjoyed. Whether that becomes defeat in 2027 will depend substantially on what its opposition does with the opportunity.

By Sebastine Okafor, Ph.D.

A few days ago, I saw media reports about the endorsement of a factional candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Enugu State Chapter, by 22 communities in Awkunanaw, and how his supporters were jubilating over it. I was pleased to see that the factional candidate was engaging with some of his people, who had earlier prayed for and endorsed the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) months before.

During the said endorsement, an ọfọ was given to him as a mark of blessing, which he collected as expected. I had to watch the visuals of both events to ascertain whether, in the presentation to both Nkanu sons, there was any issuance of a fake one, but there was none. I also watched the visuals again to ascertain whether it was an endorsement or a prayer, and I found out that the APC candidate was prayed for and received an endorsement, while the factional NDC candidate only received prayers.

Just as the Igbo adage says, “Anụ bụ ụzọ, na aṅụ mmiri ọma”. Going by that, the first candidate has already taken the blessings, while others that will follow are just mere portions that they will enjoy.

So, for all the noise about endorsement, there was nothing like that. It was a mere prayer, and many more of such will still come before the election. If you beckon on them, they will answer, just as churches will also and always do when anyone comes to them. They will welcome, accept and bless the person, and he goes.

While we are working for a better Enugu State through a viable opposition, it is also important that we do not sideline the principles of justice and democracy because one of the least things expected of a leader is to be just and fair to all. I wonder how someone who never emerged through any primary election would want to lead Enugu State. Tomorrow, if the court sacks him, we will start shouting, “Democracy on fire.”

No matter how you see it, there was no primary election conducted in Enugu State that produced him as a candidate. Since the matter is already before the court, I will refrain from delving deeper into the legal questions. It is, however, only a matter of time before the courts pronounce on the dispute.

So, prayers by the Awkunanaw clan do not mean endorsement. They are simply a request for divine intervention and blessings. We should therefore be careful not to turn every prayer into political endorsement simply because it suits our preferred narrative.

Politics is about people, but it is also about rules, fairness and due process. If we genuinely desire a better Enugu State and a stronger opposition, then we must be willing to defend democratic principles even when they do not favour our side. We cannot condemn injustice today and celebrate the same injustice tomorrow because it benefits us. The people deserve leaders who emerge through a process that is transparent, credible and acceptable to the law.

The court is already handling the matter, and I believe that justice will ultimately prevail. Until then, political supporters should reduce the noise, allow the legal process to take its course and stop presenting ordinary prayers as though they were formal political endorsements. The people of Enugu deserve clarity, not confusion.

By SNC Nwagu, Esq., FIICA, MNIIA

The next frontier of African sovereignty is not another declaration. It is the capacity to protect African lives.

For decades, Africa has remained at the receiving end of humanitarian intervention. When war erupts, communities are displaced and populations face famine, disease or violence, the familiar pattern begins: international agencies mobilise, foreign governments announce assistance, donors pledge money and external actors debate what should be done.

Africa participates. Africa appeals. Africa receives.

But an uncomfortable question can no longer be avoided: why should a continent of 1.5 billion people remain structurally dependent on external actors to protect its own populations?

This is not an argument against international humanitarian cooperation. Africa needs its partners, just as the international community has a responsibility to respond to human suffering wherever it occurs.

The problem is deeper. Africa has gradually normalised a system in which externally supplied money, logistics and strategic capabilities often determine whether a humanitarian response is possible at all.

That is not sustainable.

Africa must begin moving from humanitarian dependence to strategic solidarity.

The Missing African Firewall

Africa does not lack institutions. The African Union has its Peace and Security Council, the African Peace and Security Architecture, regional security mechanisms, early-warning systems, mediation structures and peace-support capabilities. The African Peace Fund also provides an important foundation for continental peace and security operations.

Yet these mechanisms do not always function as one integrated system.

Early warning may exist without rapid response. Diplomacy may begin after violence has already escalated. Humanitarian agencies may arrive without sufficient logistics. Peace operations may lack predictable financing. Governments may possess the political will to act while lacking the strategic airlift, intelligence, equipment or emergency financing needed to act effectively.

The problem, therefore, is not that Africa has no institutions. It is that Africa has institutions without sufficient integration.

This is where the proposal for an Integrated Security and Civilian Assistance Architecture (ISCA) deserves serious consideration.

ISCA should not become another African bureaucracy. Nor should it become an African version of NATO. Its purpose should be practical: to connect the capabilities Africa already possesses into a coordinated system for preventing crises and protecting civilians.

It could function as an African humanitarian-security firewall.

The first layer would be early warning. Africa must be able to identify when political tension, communal conflict, food insecurity, climate shocks or security threats are moving towards catastrophe.

But warning is meaningless if nobody acts on it.

The second layer would therefore be preventive diplomacy: African mediators, diplomats and political leaders engaging before violence becomes war.

The third would be humanitarian preparedness. Why wait until hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced before searching for medical supplies, shelters, transport and food? Strategically located preparedness hubs could allow Africa to respond rapidly when emergencies occur.

The fourth layer would be civilian protection. Where prevention fails, African institutions should have the capacity, under clear legal mandates and appropriate safeguards, to protect civilians, humanitarian workers, medical facilities and essential infrastructure.

The fifth would be peace and security response. Not every crisis requires soldiers. But where armed groups threaten civilian populations and diplomacy fails, Africa must possess the ability to respond.

The sixth would be recovery. Protection without reconstruction merely postpones the next crisis.

Together, these six layers—early warning, preventive diplomacy, humanitarian preparedness, civilian protection, security response and recovery—could make ISCA more than another acronym in Africa’s institutional vocabulary. They could turn it into a functioning architecture.

Partnership, Not Dependence

There will be an understandable objection. Is this simply another version of the familiar slogan of “African solutions to African problems”?

Not quite.

Africa’s relationships with external powers are too important and too complex for isolationist rhetoric. China, Europe, the United States, the Gulf states, India and international organisations will remain important partners. Africa should welcome their resources, technology, intelligence, logistics and expertise.

But there is a difference between partnership and dependence.

External partners should complement African capacity, not substitute for it. The guiding principle should be simple:

External resources without external ownership.

Africa should welcome international assistance while retaining the authority to define its own priorities, coordinate its own response and remain accountable to the people it exists to protect.

That is not isolation. It is sovereignty.

The Financing Test

Every ambitious African proposal eventually encounters the same question: who will pay for it?

This is where ISCA must be different. Africa cannot establish another institution whose mandate is impressive but whose bank account is empty.

The African Peace Fund offers a foundation, but civilian protection requires additional and predictable financing. African governments must contribute. African financial institutions and businesses must participate. Telecommunications companies, airlines, logistics firms, pharmaceutical manufacturers and technology companies all possess capabilities that could be mobilised during emergencies.

External partners should also remain part of the financing ecosystem. But Africa must progressively build the capacity to fund the first response itself.

That could involve emergency reserves, assessed contributions, pre-positioned supplies, regional procurement agreements and formal partnerships with private logistics and medical providers.

The objective should be clear: no African humanitarian emergency should become a catastrophe simply because Africa could not finance the first response.

Nigeria’s Special Responsibility

Nigeria should pay close attention to this debate.

For decades, it has presented itself as a major African power and has invested diplomatic, military and financial resources in continental peace and security. Its experience gives it both an interest and a responsibility in the development of any continental protection mechanism.

But Nigeria should not approach ISCA as an opportunity to become Africa’s permanent security leader. That would be counterproductive.

Nigeria’s more constructive role would be that of a capacity anchor. It can contribute diplomatic expertise, mediation experience, peace-support capabilities, intelligence cooperation, training, logistics, medical capacity and financing.

At the same time, the architecture must belong to Africa collectively.

Nigeria should help build the system without seeking to own it. That distinction matters. A continental institution will succeed only if smaller states see it as a shared instrument rather than an extension of the ambitions of the largest powers.

Do Not Militarise Humanitarianism

Another danger must be confronted directly. If humanitarian institutions become too closely tied to military structures, humanitarian neutrality can be compromised.

ISCA must never become a mechanism for militarising humanitarian assistance. Humanitarian actors must retain the principles of neutrality, impartiality, independence and humanity. Security forces may protect humanitarian space; they must not control it.

The objective is coordination, not fusion.

Any civilian-protection system must also operate under clear legal mandates, respect human rights and remain subject to political and public accountability. The protection of civilians cannot become a licence for unchecked intervention by governments or security agencies.

A New Measure of Sovereignty

The debate about African sovereignty has usually focused on political independence, economic independence and freedom from external interference. These remain essential.

But sovereignty also has a more basic meaning: the capacity to protect one’s people.

A country that cannot protect its population during a crisis must inevitably look elsewhere for assistance. A continent that repeatedly requires external logistical and financial intervention to manage its security emergencies cannot claim complete strategic autonomy.

This does not mean Africa needs to become militarised. It means Africa needs to become capable.

The strongest Africa is not necessarily the Africa with the largest armies. It is the Africa that can see a crisis coming, act before it escalates, protect civilians when prevention fails, mobilise resources quickly and rebuild afterwards.

That is strategic solidarity.

From Recipients to Responders

Africa’s humanitarian narrative must change.

The continent is too often described through the language of vulnerability: refugees, conflict, famine, terrorism, fragile states and humanitarian emergencies. Those realities cannot be ignored. But Africa is also a continent of extraordinary human capital, institutions, entrepreneurs, diplomats, soldiers, researchers, businesses and civil societies.

The difficulty is that these capabilities frequently operate separately.

ISCA is therefore not primarily about creating new capabilities. It is about connecting African capabilities.

The central question should no longer be: who will come and help us?

It should be: what can we organise together before we need help?

That question captures the meaning of strategic solidarity.

African leaders do not need to choose between Africa and the international community. They must choose between dependence and partnership.

The continent should not close itself to the world. It should become stronger within it.

Africa does not need a fortress. It needs a firewall: one that detects threats early, activates diplomacy before violence spreads, moves food and medicine rapidly, protects civilians when necessary, mobilises peace-support capabilities when diplomacy fails and remains accountable to the people it serves.

The next chapter of African sovereignty should not be written only in terms of gross domestic product, military strength or diplomatic influence. It should also be written in a more fundamental language:

Can Africa Protect Africans?

The answer should eventually be yes—not because Africa rejects the world, but because Africa has learned to stand with the world without depending on the world for its survival.

That is the journey from humanitarian dependence to strategic solidarity.

And ISCA could be one of the institutions through which Africa begins that journey.

By Ikechukwu Amaechi