Donu Kogbara
I saw this little narrative online:
They asked the Pharoah: “What made you a tyrant?”
He said: “Nobody stopped me”.
Someone recently asked me why the former Rivers Governor and current FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, struts around like an emperor.
My wry response was: “Because he can.”
Long story short: If you allow individuals who have forceful personalities to do as they please, they will ride roughshod over anyone who gets in their way, ignore the wishes of the majority, misbehave massively and engage in aggressive empire-building.
If the rest of us want democracy and dignity and freedom and justice, we must acquire the courage to push back and say “hell, no!”.
There is no point sitting passively in your house, impersonating a sack of garri and complaining only to your friends and family and workmates behind closed doors…while wondering why you are suffering in bondage and being bullied to bastard.
Liberation from overbearing leaders is never handed to any populace on the plate. It has to be demanded, fought for, seized and earned.
Most Rivers people are sick and tired of Wike’s shenanigans and want him to stay in Abuja and concentrate on his Abuja duties.
But this will never happen until they consistently stand up to him and make a series of drastic – theatrical even! – moves like surround Port Harcourt Airport waving placards when they know that a dreaded Wike visit is imminent!
I guarantee you that Wike’s security guys will not dare shoot at anyone within this context. There are times when Naija authorities will not take the risk of trying to get away with murder.
By the way, I was very impressed when Rivers Women noisily rejected Mrs Theresa Ibok-Ete Ibas, the wife of the Vice-Admiral Tinubu imposed on Rivers State as a Sole Administrator.
The protesting women quite rightly pointed out that she is not our First Lady and has no business carrying on like one.
But I have a problem with their claim that they would not have walked out if Mrs Remi Tinubu had showed up, as they’d expected.
Why is Mrs Ibas regarded as more toxic than Mrs Tinubu within this context?
Is it Mrs Ibas’s husband who slyly egged Wike on to fight Sim Fubara and create a political crisis in the state? Is it Mrs Ibas’s husband who initiated martial law, otherwise known as the state of emergency?
Abeggie!
Ibas is far from saintly and has done several annoying, illegal and disrespectful things since he became the Sole Administrator.
So, yes, he – like everyone who is supporting Wike and Tinubu’s hijacking of Rivers State – is guilty of malfeasance.
They are all guilty; but some are more guilty than others and I for one would rather put up with Mrs Ibas than Mrs Tinubu. At least the Ibas folks come from an oil-producing region.
Arewa lament
I came across this commentary online. It was penned by Idris Muhammed Abdullahi and is a real food-for-thought piece.
The great North – home to over 150 million Nigerians. A land blessed with vast resources, rich history, vibrant culture, and deeply resilient people. Yet today, in the 21st century, Arewa stands alarmingly bare in the global economic arena – a sleeping giant robbed of its voice, its industries, its independence.
Let’s say it as it is:
There is no single indigenous Arewa company worth N100 billion headquartered in the North.
Not one.
No homegrown bank.
No insurance powerhouse.
No regional stock exchange.
No independent power producer.
No commodity market.
No seed bank.
No arms manufacturing plant.
No international media house.
No globally reputed airline.
No publishing giant.
Not even a privately-owned, Grade A agro-allied conglomerate.
And yet… this is a region that boasts some of the most fertile land on the African continent.
Haba! Kamar taron birai?
How did we get here?
Look to the South East – states like Abia are reforming their power sectors, restructuring Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, reviving small industries, and rebuilding textile clusters.
In the South-West, Lagos thrives on VAT from active ports, reformed taxation, border trade, and deliberate ease of doing business.
And in Arewa?
No functioning seaports.
No land-border logistics hubs.
No strategic economic planning.
Who did this to us?
No bombs.
No sanctions.
No drones.
Just self-sabotage, silence, and decades of leadership failure.
We outsourced every tool of wealth creation.
We handed over banking, telecoms, commerce, insurance, education – even agriculture – to others who have no stake in our prosperity.
We became dependents. Not developers.
Consumers. Not creators.
So how can poverty not cling to us like a curse?
Ta yaya talauci ba zai mana katutu ba?
How do a people rise without industries, without innovation, without independence?
Let’s ask the bitter but necessary questions:
Where are our representatives at FAAC meetings?
Why is there no regional economic blueprint?
Why haven’t we built dry ports, revived processing zones, and tapped into cross-border trade with Niger, Chad, and Cameroon?
Why are we still stuck in colonial bureaucracies while the world is sprinting into AI, Green Energy, and Smart Infrastructure?
Why aren’t Kaduna, Kano, and Jos becoming tech and industrial hubs?
While the South invests in education, innovation, and industry, the North plays politics with school roofs and calls it development.
Is this politics – or is it stupidity?
Arewa has not been conquered by an enemy’s guns.
We have been defeated by our own complacency, division, and refusal to evolve.
Only the trauma of war humbles a people like this.
Maybe only a war of consciousness can revive us now.
We must rise. Not with blame, but with building.
Not with violence, but with vision.
Not for religion, but for relevance.
We must:
Unite across tribe and sect to form economic alliances
Establish industrial cooperatives and regional banks
Invest in local ventures, border reforms, logistics corridors, and functional dry ports
Demand our governors declare economic states of emergency and act
The future of Arewa will not be written in Abuja.
It will be shaped in Kano, Kaduna, Sokoto, Maiduguri, Bauchi, Zamfara, Gombe, Jalingo, and Jos.
Arewa cannot afford to sleep anymore.
It is time to wake up. Now.
