The All Progressives Congress (APC) on Thursday held its primaries to select candidates for the 2015 governorship election across the country with some states recording violence, anger and boycott.
In some of the states where the governors on the platform of the party are serving their first terms, such governors were mostly unanimously endorsed by the party for another term in office.
For example, in Kwara State, Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed, who was part of the governors that moved from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressives Congress, won as the sole candidate for the election after recording a total of 3,016 votes at the exercise held inside the main bowl of the Kwara State Stadium, Ilorin.
The governor got all the votes from delegates from the 16 local government areas of the state according to the leader of the national delegation of APC, Prince Azu Uwandu, who gave the figure of those that votes as 3,016 with nine of the nine votes declared invalid.
The election was peaceful and devoid of any rancour and Governor Ahmed commended the delegates for participating in the election, adding that it shows that the government had been successful with its developmental programmes for the state.
He used the opportunity to reel out more programmes for the people including youth empowerment and job creation.
Senator Bulola Saraki also thanked the delegates for their peaceful conduct, promising that the party would not let them down. He also urged the delegates to continue to support the party through the 2015.
Aspirants Boycott Election in Taraba
In Taraba State, three aspirants for the governorship ticket on the platform of the APC boycotted the primaries, citing lack of transparency and irregularities in the process leading to the exercise as their excuse.
The three aspirants who boycotted the exercise include Dr. Muhammad Julde, Alhaji M T Tumba and Barr. Yusufu Akirikwen.
Though they were earlier cleared for the exercise, they had petitioned the APC Primaries Committee in the state, accusing the committee of partisanship in the process instead of being neutral.
They copied the resident commissioner of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the state Commissioner of Police, the state Director of SSS, the national and zonal chairmen of the party claiming that they had the knowledge that the committee was not transparent.
"We committed ourselves in various ways to see that we participate as democrats in the primaries. We further in pursuit of this purpose applied for all the information necessary for our successful participation in the process of the primaries," the petitioners said.
"It is true that we asked for the list of delegates accredited by the party for the exercise of electing a sole candidate from all the aspirants but this request has not been honored by you the primaries committee.
"Up to this moment even though you are eager to go ahead with the process of the primaries regardless of the fact that our request has been denied.
"Take note that we are ready and also prefer to opt out of the primaries as our request as aforementioned has not been met by your committee."
In his reaction, the state chairman of the party, Hasan Jika Ardo, said there were no grievances and that none of the aspirants complained to him prior to the election.
Violence in Benue
The chairman of the party in Benue State, Mr. Abba Yaro, turned the supposed peaceful exercise into a war situation as he terrorised and beat up aspirants and elections committee members both by himself and the thugs that followed him to the party secretariat, according to sources who spoke with Huhuonline.com.
Though it was difficult to know what actually caused the trouble, the chairman, according to some of the party members at the secretariat, stormed out of his party immediately the election materials were brought into the secretariat by a Toyota van.
One of the aspirant confirmed that as the chairman shouted and cursed till he got to the van, he started tearing into shreds the ballot papers and shouting at everyone present to leave the premises.
A female committee member who dared confront him was beaten to a pulp by the thugs loyal to the chairman while another aspirant for the House of Assembly was beaten up for recording the incident with his phone.
The police however intervened and shot severally to scare the thugs and all those engaged in the free-for-all that ensued, but at this stage, many of the election materials had been stolen.
Angry Senator Abbey Boycotts Primary in Rivers
Angered by the development in the APC in Rivers State, one of the aspirants for the governorship election on the party's platform, Senator Magnus Abe, refused to turn up for the primaries thus leaving Dakuku Peterside, another aspirant to have a field day.
Peterside had been endorsed weeks ago by the party ahead of Abe and the party's Publicity Secretary in the state was quoted as saying that Peterside was endorsed by the party because of his integrity.
This had angered Abe, who claimed the statement had endangered his good name as it could be an indirect way of saying he lacked integrity and was not qualified for the position. Abe had demanded a public apology over the statement.
Chairman of the election panel, Prince Austin Eweka, declared Peterside winner of the primaries saying that though 3,914 delegates voted, 3773 of the votes were valid while 140 votes were voided.
Prince Austin Eweka said the earlier endorsement of Peterside had made the committee's job very easy confirming that the exercise was peaceful.
"What you have done in the state is a new dimension in our political history. It has brought peace, and harmony among party members. In some states there are about thirteen aspirants for the governorship primaries. Those of us from Abuja are so happy that the governor has taken the party to another level."
In his reaction to the exercise, Governor Rotimi Amaechi said Abe was eminently qualified to contest but that the party endorsed Peterside to ensure equity.
"Senator Magnus Abe is eminently qualified to be our governor. He is a very intelligent man; there are two Nigerians I respect for their intelligence, Senator Magnus Abe and Odein Ajumogobia. I told Magnus that he is eminently qualified to be governor in the same manner I told them that my Deputy, Engr Tele Ikuru is eminently qualified.
"The caucus decided we should present Hon Dakuku Peterside. It does not mean that he is more qualified than others. But somebody has to carry our flag.
"The choice of Dakuku is for the purpose of equity. Equity as it stands in Rivers state demands that it should go to the South-East and he has emerged the consensus candidate of APC in the forth coming election. By the grace of God, very soon I will be walking behind him as he becomes the governor of the state," Amaechi said.
He also said lawmakers loyal to his administration were returned during the primary election for House of Assembly as a reward for standing by him during the trying period. "We are rewarding those who stood by us in the House of Assembly. This is a way to pay them back," he said appealing for a free and fair election.
Peterside, a member of the House of Representatives, thanked the party and the delegates for supporting him adding that he would continue to uphold the party's manifesto.
Governor Amosun Wins Ogun Primaries
With a total of 3,554 votes caste in his favour, Governor Ibikunle Amosun was declared winner of the APC primary election for the 2015 governorship election in Ogun State.
Though there was a total number of 3,861 delegates who participated in the primaries, many of the votes were voided and Amosun had nothing to worry about being a sole candidate for the exercise.
He was declared winner by head of the election team, Tunde Oladunjoye and Kehinde Mustapha, in a voting that commenced at 1pm.
Describing the exercise as peaceful, Amosun said the election was a demonstration to what APC stood for.
"We must abide by the rule of the game which says that primaries must be conducted. It is a call for further service to the people of Ogun; they have given me the mandate to continue the service that we have been rendering to the people of Ogun.
"No one person can do it alone; it will take collective responsibility of all of us; all the support you have been giving to us will not be taken for granted and we will continue to serve you better," he said while wishing his deputy, Segun Adesegun, who has started campaigning against him through the Social Democratic Party (SDP) well as, according to him, that is the beauty of democracy.
Ezea Endorsed in Enugu
It was a case of endorsement in Enugu where the party gave its nod to Chief Okey Ezea as its consensus flagbearer for the governorship election in 2015
The decision of the party was announced by the state Chairman, Dr. Ben Nwoye, after a meeting with the delegates.
He said the delegates and party members unanimously adopted the Ezea against other aspirants adding that the party saw him as one of those who could successfuly rescue the state from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
Ezea, who welcomed the development, said the mandate was given to him in trust adding that he would always have this in his consciousness.
He appealed for support especially as campaigns begin just as he promised to change the face of the state for better if voted into office as governor.
Election Commences Late in Plateau
The election that was aimed to start by 9am did not commence in Plateau State even at 5pm. This was because one of the aspirants who entered the race very late was given the opportunity to meet with the delegates and lobby before the election.
One of the aspirants, Alex Kwapnoe, stepped down while other aspirants include former Speaker of the State Assembly, Barr. Simon Lalong, Barr. Solomon Dalung, Senator Venmark Dangin, Prof. Emmanuel Garba and the late joiner, Dr. Selchang Maina.
The total number of delegates for the election at the Crest Hotel, Jos was 2,900 delegates across the 17 Local Government Areas of the state.
Sunny Moniedafe, one of those from the APC headquarters, said there was need to allow for equal opportunities among the aspirants.
In Lagos, the election was yet to be concluded at the time of this report, but it is believed the exercise is a battle for supremacy between Governor Babatunde Fashola, who is supporting the State Commissioner for Works, Obafemi Hamzat, and former Attorney-General of the State, Olasupo Shasore against Bola Tinubu, the party's national leader who is believed to be backing Akinwunmi Ambode, a former Accountant-General for the state.
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Gunmen believed to be kidnappers attacked a commercial vehicle belonging to Benue Links, the state-owned transport company.
About 17 candidates travelling to Otukpo for their examination centres in the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) are feared to have been abducted, although the exact number of victims remains unclear.
Information available to our correspondent says that the incident took place between 7–8 p.m. on Wednesday, April 15, along the Benue Burnt Bricks in Otukpo, Otukpo Local Government Area (LGA) of Benue State.
According to sources, the assailants waylaid the bus and robbed the occupants of their belongings before whisking them away into the bush.
An eyewitness, who spoke to journalists on the condition of anonymity, said the Benue Links bus, which was conveying about 18 passengers, ran into the kidnappers at about 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday night.
“The passengers were mainly young persons heading to Otukpo to sit for the JAMB examination scheduled for Thursday.
“Two people, the driver and one passenger, managed to escape. Incidentally, the passengers were mainly young men and women who travelled to sit for the JAMB examination scheduled for today (Thursday),” he said.
When contacted, the General Manager of Benue Links, Mr Alexander Fanafa, confirmed the incident, noting that the driver of the bus is presently undergoing interrogation at the police station in Otukpo for violating the company’s safety policy not to travel beyond 6:00 p.m.
He said, “As I speak with you, the driver has been arrested and is under investigation for traveling against company directive. I have warned all drivers to stop night journeys, as they would be held as first suspects if anything unfortunate happens.”
The General Manager further stated that the driver took his vehicle and loaded the passengers who were heading to Otukpo after official hours when the park manager, Mr Amedu, had closed, and ran into trouble, so he has been arrested.
The Executive Chairman of Otukpo Local Government Council, Prince Maxwell Ogiri, confirmed the incident, saying that it occurred between 7 and 8 p.m. on Wednesday.
He added that security agents have been mobilized to rescue the victims, stating that the victims are all young people coming to Otukpo to write JAMB examinations.
“It is true, I’m just coming out from a security meeting, and security operatives have been moved into the forest to help rescue the kidnapped victims.
“The victims are mainly young boys and girls coming to Otukpo to write JAMB,” Ogiri said.
However, when contacted, the Benue State Commissioner of Police, Ifeanyi Emenari, confirmed the situation, but said 14 passengers were kidnapped, while one passenger escaped.
The commissioner disclosed that he had already arrived in Otukpo and is conducting the rescue operation.
“I am in Otukpo now with all my team and DPOs who are here in the bush, and I am heading the operation.
“What happened was that one Benue Links bus carrying passengers coming to Otukpo was stopped and attacked by hoodlums, and 14 passengers were kidnapped, but one was able to escape,” he said.
According to him, the command had commenced an investigation into the incident, particularly the circumstances surrounding the journey.
He maintained that Benue Links management has a policy against night travel, but the driver allegedly picked up passengers after official hours.
“We know that Benue Links has a policy and don’t usually drive at night. So from what I got, they have already closed, but the driver, for reasons best known to him which we are still trying to find out, picked passengers along the road, and when he came here, the story you have is what we are having.
“But as we are investigating, we are on the ground to make sure that the victims are rescued,” Emenari said.
News
There are governments that save for the rainy day, governments that prepare for the storm, and governments that, when the heavens open and money falls like tropical rain, rush outside with buckets full of holes. Nigeria, under President Bola Tinubu, has perfected a fourth category: the government that borrows during a windfall. It is a feat of fiscal acrobatics so astonishing that even the most cynical observers of Abuja’s budgetary theatre must pause in admiration. For decades, Nigeria has squandered oil booms with the reliability of a metronome. But this administration has achieved something more ambitious: it has managed to squander a boom before it even finishes arriving.
The US–Iran war has sent oil prices soaring to $115 per barA Government Addicted to Debtrel, nearly double the government’s benchmark of $64.85. Nigeria is earning an extra $92 million every single day; a torrent of unbudgeted cash that would make even the most jaded petro state accountant blush. In barely a month, Abuja has pocketed almost $3 billion in windfall revenue. If the conflict drags on, the country could rake in $30–$36 billion this year alone. And what has the Tinubu administration done with this unexpected bounty? Why, it has gone on a borrowing binge, of course.
In the past week alone, the National Assembly approved: a $5 billion loan from First Abu Dhabi Bank; a $1 billion UKEF backed loan for Lagos ports; a $6 billion external borrowing package, rubber stamped in under four hours, and a N68.323 trillion budget; the largest in Nigeria’s history. This is not fiscal policy. This is a national credit card with no spending limit. Nigeria’s public debt now hovers around $115 billion, and debt servicing will gulp N20.5 trillion in 2026; more than the budgets of health, education, and infrastructure combined. Yet the government borrows as though it were a teenager discovering online shopping for the first time. One might have expected that a historic oil windfall would inspire restraint. Instead, Abuja behaves like a gambler who wins the lottery and immediately takes out a loan to buy more lottery tickets.
The Senate: From Upper Chamber to Upper Cashier
The Senate’s role in this farce deserves special mention. Once conceived as a check on executive excess, it now functions as a conveyor belt for presidential loan requests. The $6 billion borrowing package was approved with the speed of a fast food order; no debate, no scrutiny, no hesitation. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, hardly a stranger to Nigeria’s fiscal melodramas, described the approval as “reckless urgency.” He is being polite. The Senate has not merely abdicated oversight; it has embraced its new role as a ceremonial stamp of approval, a kind of legislative rubber chicken waved over every loan document. One wonders whether senators even bother to read the fine print anymore, or whether they simply check the exchange rate, sigh, and sign.
The Oil Windfall That Will Not Be Saved
Other countries treat oil windfalls as blessings. Norway built a sovereign wealth fund so large it could buy entire countries. Saudi Arabia uses its surpluses to diversify its economy. Even Angola; long mocked for its corruption, has learned to stash away a portion of its oil riches. Nigeria, by contrast, treats windfalls as invitations to spend more, borrow more, and plan less. The Excess Crude Account, once envisioned as a rainy day fund, is now emptier than a politician’s promise after election day. The Sovereign Wealth Fund is a polite fiction. And fiscal discipline is a rumor whispered in the corridors of the Ministry of Finance. The tragedy is not that Nigeria is poor. The tragedy is that Nigeria is mismanaged.
The revised N68.323 trillion budget is a monument to fiscal optimism. It allocates N15.8 trillion to debt servicing; N15.4 trillion to recurrent expenditure, and N32.2 trillion to capital projects, many of them rolled over from previous years because the government failed to implement them. This is not a budget. It is a wish list. The government insists that the spending spree will “stimulate growth,” “unlock infrastructure,” and “stabilize the economy.” These are the same phrases Nigerian governments have used since the 1970s, usually moments before the economy collapses under the weight of its own contradictions.
Borrowing to Service Borrowing
The most farcical element of the Tinubu administration’s fiscal strategy is its reliance on borrowing to service existing borrowing. Nigeria now borrows to pay interest on previous loans, borrows to refinance old debts, borrows to fund recurrent expenditure, and borrows to cover budget gaps. This is not fiscal management. It is a Ponzi scheme with national colors. The administration insists that the debt is “sustainable.” So did Greece in 2008. So did Argentina in 2001. So did Nigeria in the 1980s; right before the IMF arrived with structural adjustment programs (SAP) that Nigerians still curse today.
Nigeria’s economy is a house built on sand: the naira remains fragile, inflation is suffocating households, foreign investors are fleeing, debt service consumes most of national revenue, oil production is unstable and non oil revenue is anemic. And yet, in the middle of this storm, the government has chosen to borrow more; at a moment when it should be saving aggressively. The oil windfall is a gift. But gifts require stewardship. And stewardship requires discipline. Neither is in abundant supply in Abuja.
Conclusion: A Nation at the Edge of a Fiscal Cliff
The expanded budget includes lavish allocations to the judiciary ahead of the 2027 elections, feasibility studies for politically convenient infrastructure, and capital projects that conveniently align with electoral maps. This is not economic planning. It is election year choreography. Nigeria is not being prepared for the future. It is being prepared for the polls.
The Tinubu administration inherited a difficult economy. But it has chosen to make it worse. Instead of using the oil windfall to rebuild reserves, strengthen the currency, reduce borrowing, and stabilize the economy, it has embarked on a reckless spending spree financed by loans that future generations will be forced to repay. Nigeria is earning billions, and saving nothing. And it is borrowing everything. History will not be kind to this moment. Nor will the bond markets. In the end, Nigeria’s tragedy is not that it lacks resources. It is that it lacks restraint. And in Abuja today, restraint is as scarce as electricity.
Business
In The Spotlight
On Friday, Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters confirmed the death of the Commander of the 29 Task Force Brigade in Benisheikh, Borno State, Brigadier General Oseni Braimah, and three other soldiers, following a ruthless attack on the military formation. Though this confirmation calmed initial reports that more than 17 soldiers were killed in the April 9, 2026 attack, it, however, ignited a deeper cause for concern among Nigerians, considering the fact that just about five months earlier, another brigadier general, Musa Uba, was murdered in cruel but avoidable circumstances near Wajiroko, in the same Borno State.
The attack on the military formation was not the only terrorist strike that week. That same Thursday, the devastating news of the soldiers who paid the supreme price had not been fully digested when another report filtered in, at night, that no fewer than eight persons had been killed by gunmen, in Mbwelle village, Bokkos Local Government Area of Plateau State. This was besides the bloodshed recorded in Shanga Local Government Area of Kebbi State on Easter Sunday, where 24 people were killed, according to the Kontagora Catholic Diocese, and in Kebbi and Kwara states, where 49 villagers were reportedly killed on Friday.
Despite the confusion, mourning and grief that followed the killing of these helpless civilians in various communities, described by authorities as some of the deadliest incidents recorded in recent months, the report of the military formation invasion and the killing of soldiers specifically caused panic attacks among citizens and gave a “hopeless situation” slant to the worsening security crisis. And this has become a trend since the beginning of the Boko Haram insurgency in 2009.
It is true that Nigeria’s security forces under the current administration have been dismantling bandit networks and killing scores of terrorists. But the relentless attacks on innocent citizens, which have led to the death of over 10,000 people in two years, and the kidnapping of more than 1,100 people in northern Nigeria, in just four months, appear to have enveloped security agencies’ efforts and boxed the current All Progressives Congress administration into a more precarious corner than previous opposition governments.
A few analysts have tried to compare the security situation under the late former President Muhammadu Buhari with the situation now. While some scored the President Bola Tinubu administration above his predecessor’s, others like Olu Fasan, in his article: “Recurring bloodbath: Nigeria is too fragile, too fractured to be safe”, said, “It has taken Tinubu less than three years in office to achieve a worse security situation than Buhari did in (his) eight years in power.”
I may not directly agree with this notion, but I know that the prevailing economic hardship or widespread poverty in the country, despite significant, growth-targeted policy reforms like exchange rate unification, subsidy removal, and fiscal coordination, can be justifiably linked to rising insecurity.
The Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research, in a 2024 study brief, titled: “Insecurity takes the lead as the key driver of poverty in Nigeria”, said, “Once a country experiences conflict and insecurity, it faces a reversal of economic development, which in turn increases the likelihood of further conflict, resulting in a cycle economists refer to as doom-loop. By undermining household livelihood activities on massive scales in Nigeria, increasing insecurity in the last five years has not only intensified poverty in the country, but has also opened up new frontiers of multidimensional poverty across Nigeria.”
Insecurity, according to NISER, drives poverty by disrupting and destroying livelihood activities and by reducing access to basic needs, thereby stifling meaningful improvement in the quality of life in Nigeria. This argument can be better appreciated if one considers how many Nigerians have abandoned leisure or commercial farming, especially in rural areas, owing to rising insecurity.
It would be unfair to pin the blame for this lingering crisis on the current administration; past governments were not also able to do much to stem the tide. But the fact that political IOUs seemed to have trumped competence during the initial formation of President Tinubu’s cabinet inadvertently gave room for unpalatable political treatment of delicate security matters across the states.
The Ministry of Defence, according to analysts, was the worst hit until recently, as analysts found it difficult to decode the consideration behind the choice of the two ministers who were initially saddled with such a priority responsibility. Perhaps, if the issue of security had been given the kind of attention it is being given now, from the beginning of the current administration, the terrorists might not have been this emboldened amid international focus.
The result is that, unlike when Nigeria was ranked the Number One Destination for Investment in Africa for two consecutive years (2012 and 2013), other African countries have, since then, continued to displace the nation, owing to a combination of factors, including accessibility and innovation, economic stability and investment climate, among others.
Of the 31 countries that were tracked in the 2024 edition of the “Where to Invest in Africa” report, published by Rand Merchant Bank and the Gordon Institute of Business Science, Nigeria was ranked as the ninth most viable destination for investment in Africa, behind South Africa, in fourth position; and Ghana, sixth. The 2025 report sadly reflected a further decline for Nigeria, by nine places, to the 18th position.
It doesn’t take an economist to understand that banditry, kidnapping, killings, among other forms of security crisis being witnessed on a large scale in Nigeria, can seriously damage the investment climate and trigger capital flight. Any government that picks the socio-economic well-being of its citizens as Number One on its priority chart must, therefore, go all out to first ensure the security of lives and property, against all odds.
That the Federal Government has published a list of 48 individuals linked to terrorism financing is a step in the right direction. That it has also secured 386 convictions, out of 508 cases in a mass terrorists’ trial, is another feat that can deter others and stem the tide, but politicians must, in the interest of the masses and the well-being of the nation, stop playing politics with this sensitive issue of insecurity.
Rather than mock or blame the APC administration for the current predicament, opposition figures and Nigerians as a whole must converge on the need to be united against this monster. However, the Tinubu administration must also avoid actions or statements that could trigger a revolt at this period. With the economic challenges from almost every angle, Nigerians seem to be constantly on edge.
In March 2014, the APC, then the main opposition party, lambasted the former President Goodluck Jonathan administration for trying to cover up its “incompetence and cluelessness” in tackling the Boko Haram insurgency.
The APC, in a statement signed by Lai Mohammed, its interim National Publicity Secretary at the time, said, “A country that has no discernible counter-terrorism strategy that will clearly identify the multiple means for preventing, responding and defeating terrorist groups, including the alignment of political, military, social and economic instruments and objectives, cannot expect to successfully battle any insurgency.”
Now that the APC is the ruling party, and Nigeria is still not out of the woods, should citizens still agree with the party’s assertion? How the authorities handle the situation will determine the answer. What goes around comes around!
In The Spotlight
Nearly 40 years ago in London, I was invited to dinner by a Nigerian woman I knew in Lagos.
She had described the place in general terms, but I arrived at an upscale home with some serious luxury. She was kind enough to show me around, and following a stylish dinner, she described how she had acquired the place, mentioning headline Nigerian names.
I had no reason to doubt her: some of them called during the evening. I declined her offer to share her conversations with them.
It was my personal introduction to the scale of Nigerian property in the English capital, as she described who owned what or lived where.
While my visits to England at the time were work-related and I had little time to socialise, I did meet several teenage Nigerian students whose parents were glad to send them abroad for education.
They patrolled the streets of London in exotic cars, and I thought it was ironic that, in isolation away from Nigeria, the young ladies were often being manipulated by their fathers’ friends.
In the decades that followed, I read stories of politically exposed Nigerians, particularly state governors, for whom the UK was the first address in money laundering.
On a few occasions, I have alluded to that phenomenon in this column. They acquired expensive homes, cars and even gold phones. One, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, fled London disguised as a woman. Another, James Ibori, was tried and jailed.
Keep in mind that there have been about 185 governors since May 1999, and that London is nearly always their first port of call.
It is humbling to reflect on what percentage of this number has, in the past 26 years, sunk Nigerian wealth into the soil of England, with considerable swathes lost to middlemen and smooth women.
Remember: in 2006, the then-Minister of State for Finance, Nenadi Usman, criticised governors, saying that they disappeared abroad just days after receiving state allocations and after visiting Bureau De Change operators.
In 2007, a famous Human Rights Watch report, “Chop Fine,” described the case of Rivers State in grim detail.
The problem is that it is not always governors, as demonstrated by the story, “Abuja on Thames,” which appeared in the British monthly, Private Eye, in March 2019. That month, I commented on that story, which involved the astonishing wealth in that country of Paul Ogwuma, a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The full Nigerian picture of capital flight, elite consumption, and political patronage was on display when the Panama Papers in 2016 and the Pandora Papers in 2021, two massive international media investigations in which our Premium Times participated, uncovered how the world’s rich and powerful deploy offshore mechanisms to hide their possessions.
As always happens, no Nigerian lost a kobo, let alone a heartbeat, as a result of those investigations, because in Nigeria, crime and hypocrisy quite literally pay.
And then in 2024, a list appeared of 58 deceased Nigerians with unclaimed assets in the UK, as part of a daily-updated “Bona Vacantia” (BV) list, meaning that having remained unclaimed, they are now considered the property of the Crown.
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The Nigerian government does not inform Nigerians about the BV list or the claims process, so those properties are probably lost forever.
Remember also, the case of Nigerian “government” property on the verge of forfeiture in the UK a few years ago. In New York and Maryland, in the US, Nigerian governors and diplomats have left behind a long trail of property issues. In 2012, Alamieyeseigha forfeited $401,931 in traceable assets to the US government when President Jonathan’s government failed to claim them.
And so, the rich continue to flourish, and in January 2026, Tax Policy Associates of the UK published the extensive investigation, ‘Who secretly owns Britain? The hidden offshore owners of £460bn of UK property.’
A report in The Londoner, based on that investigation, peeled back the layers to link the late Herbert Wigwe, the former chief executive of Access Holdings, to about 106 properties. That placed him at No. 7 on a list of “The overseas power players in London’s property market,” with each property registered under shell companies outside the country, leaving none of them directly traceable to him.
While some of these practices are legal, especially on the part of private businessmen, the problem is that Nigeria has, for decades, been burdened by an army of much smaller ants eating away at her. Most of them are pillars of society, either claiming sainthood or praying for it, while the people from whom they amassed their wealth starve to death.
But there is another side: in Nigeria, the Tax Policy Associates investigation, like the arrests of Dariye and Alamieyeseigha and the trial of Ibori, would have been impossible.
“Abuja on Thames” would never have been investigated or published. Not the Pandora Papers. Not the Panama Papers.
Because we are traders. We are either buying or selling. When the aroma of money or power is present, some would sell their very souls. It is why we are where we are.
The system, of course, is in many ways pre-rigged. On real estate matters, we operate a fragmented administrative system with multiple overlapping authorities, incomplete digitisation, and overwhelming opacity. The FCT and state capitals are stories of greed.
This is because the Land Use Act vests all land in each state in the governor (and the President for the FCT). This means that, technically, no one “owns” land outright; one only holds a Certificate of Occupancy. That creates enormous scope for discretionary allocation and corruption, since governors and the FCT minister can grant or revoke rights, and often do.
This is why an FCT minister is a king. He can allocate land to whomever he pleases:
Relatives of the First Lady were thrice removed.
His wife.
Fourth cousins.
Underage children.
Governors, again.
EFCC officials.
ICPC officials.
Code of Conduct Bureau officials.
Girlfriends and their friends.
Supreme Court judges.
Court of Appeal judges.
INEC officials.
Senators.
Top police officers.
Among others, remember the FCT land scam of 2004; the Ministerial allegations involving the current FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike; and the 57 multi-billion-naira properties linked to former Attorney-General Abubakar Malami.
Just imagine what a Tax Policy Associates-style investigation of real estate ownership in Nigeria’s big cities would reveal.
Because in Nigeria, power is deployed into service only when we pray in the mosque or the church. Outside that, power is for the self.
And if you can export that power abroad in funds that belong to the commonwealth, to deprive other Nigerians of it and make you live like a king forever, so much the better!
Sonala Olumhense