No safe-landing for Wale Edun; the insecurity conundrum, and babel of voices in ADC

Rumour mills had it that Wale Edun was given the option of throeing in the towel, but he felt there was no way his long-time ally would give him the Brutus treatment. So, he decided to wait for the guillotine until his head left the body.

The ferocious manner of bandits and Boko Haram attacks across the country is no longer a laughing matter. The federal government must get serious!

The African Democratic Congress (ADC) appears to be a congregation of strange bed fellows.

Edun’s journey to ‘Golgotha’

The announcement Tuesday of sack of Wale Edun as minister of Finance and coordinating minister of the economy, did not come to many Nigerians as a surprise. For months, there had been question about when, and not if, the sacking was going to be announced.

The sacked minister, Edun, a long-time ally of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has been blamed by many observers for many things, with some saying that he laid the solid foundation for his own ouster.

According to the observers, the fiscal side of the economy that Edun supervised was not at the same wave length with the monetary side under Yemi Cardoso.

Read also: Tinubu removes Wale Edun in cabinet reshuffle, elevates Oyedele as finance minister

At a recent interview with BusinessDay, Olisa Agbakoba, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and Maritime lawyer, had pointedly said: “I am prepared to give Cardoso very high mark. He has steadied the economy. He has lowered the rates and strengthened the naira. The fiscal side is not doing well.”

There must be a handshake between a budget and development plan. Nigeria has a budget that is rising independent of development plan.

Edun was supposed to be the coordinator of the economy, which means he was also supposed to oversee the budget ministry, why was he not able to properly get the budget ministry to work with the Finance Ministry as to positively affect the economy?

His exit effectively began on February 20, 2026 when he, with the Federal Government Economic team, appeared before the Senate Committee on Appropriation Bill, to defend and walk the senators through the priorities of the fiscal plan from revenue mobilization to infrastructure funding to social-sector commitment.

At that meeting, there was a shocking revelation that many ministries had not been properly funded. As a matter of fact, only an infinitesimal I percent or 2 percent funding had been released to several ministries.

The 2025 capital allocation to the ministries was abysmal to the point that the senators were wondering if it was not better to reduce the size of 2026 budget or leave it the way it was.

As Edun left the office, three budgets are overlapping. The 2024, 2025, and 2026 budgets are running the same time. The fiscal management has not been tidy enough. The 2025 budget has been extended to end of June this year.

Edun was accused of not having a cordial relationship with other ministries and agencies. Contractors point fingers that it must be Edun that denied them payment for their work.

The economy, despite the reforms, has not been impacting positively on the lives of citizens. And despite the increase in revenue accruing to the federal coffers, people are suffering and the necessary budgets are not being executed.

The question many observers are asking is, at what point did President Tinubu lose confidence in Edun?

Why was Edun not given the privilege of resigning, at least for face-saving sake, as has been applied in many cases.

In his published article in BusinessDay headlined, ‘Soft-landing as statecraft and the politics of elite exit,’ Chris Agbedo, a professor at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, traced what seems to have become a pattern in the Tinubu administration.

On June 27, 2025 Abdullahi Umar Ganduje was removed as the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), he was said to have voluntarily resigned on health reasons. But no sooner had he left office than he was given another appointment which belied the poor health gambit.

When Mohammed Badaru Abubakar left Tinubu’s cabinet as minister of defence on December 1, 2025, he was also said to have taken the decision to attend to his health even though it was crystal clear that he was yanked off over non-performance.

By the same token, on February 24, 2026, Kayode Egbetokun was sacked, but was given the opportunity to resign honourably. He said his reason for leaving the cabinet was to attend to family matters.

Read also: Inside the cabinet reshuffle that sacked Edun, elevated Oyedele

But there are questions that have remained unanswered. Was non-payment of contractors Edun’s fault? Was the non-release of funds to Ministries, Departments and Agencies for capital projects Edun’s fault? Was there funds for those projects and Edun decided to sit on them? Or was he just a fall guy, who took the bullet for the President?

lnsecurity in Nigeria: No longer a laughing matter

The insecurity challenge in Nigetia has become a serious concern to many citizens. That may not be said of the Federal Government given the unseroous manner it is handling the low-grade war. That Nigeria is at war with itself is not in question. A country that has, in a matter of weeks, lost three Army Generals cannot be said to be in a normal situation. Everyday, news of killings, attacks and kidnapping hit the citizens like thunderbolts. The government appears to be playing politics with a problem that is capable of consuming the entire nation. The strategy being applied by the Federal Government to contain the ferocious attacks of bandits and Boko Haram is not effective enough. The thinking in many places is that the fight against insurgency has been politicised by those who were supposed to carry the battle to the enemies.

The rhetoric from those who were supposed to lead the battle against the terrorists has exposed the lack of intentionality in ending the Noko Haram assault.

Government action has been lacklustre. Instead of coming straight up with the truth and reality on ground, they delight in pampering monsters. For instance, instead of admitting that herdsmen are wiping out communities unprovoked, Nigerians are being fed with false narrative of herders-farmers clashes. Nigerians are now being fed with the shocking homily of terrorists being prodigal sons, they are told that repentant terrorists will soon be reintroduced into the military.

Today, many parts of the North have been over run by bandits and Boko Haram terrorists. Many innocent citizens are languishing in several bandits’ cells while many others are being killed in several attacks.

The Boko Haram insurgents are fighting a religious war. The government is talking about non-kinetic strategy while the monsters are becoming deadlier in their attacks.

The banditry today has become a huge business because the government continues to look the other way. Up till this moment, over 400 abducted persons are still being held in parts of Borno State with a hefty ransom of N1billion hanging on their neck

Why has the government refused to deploy the same fury it applied in dislodging the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)? Why has the FG continued to pamper the bandits and Boko Haram in the North whereas it deployed the state might against Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho, leader of Yoruba Nation.

Igboho did not kill anybody, yet the state unleashed the full might and pursued him to Benin Republic. Had the government meant to end the insecurity problem in Nigeria, it should have ferociously gone against the killer Fulani elements that have turned Plateau and Benue states into killing fields. Why has the government refused to move with all the powers within its arsenal against bandits and Boko Haram insurgents?

Read also: Insecurity squeezes Northern Nigeria as food prices surge

Why has the government refused to issue ultimatum to everybody living inside and within the Sambisa Forest, and then level the evil forest therein?

Why have the Northern political and traditional leaders continued to behave as if they are protecting the dangerous elements within their domain?

The Boko Haram elements appear determined to sustain the bloody campaign for as long as it would last. The most difficult battle to fight is fighting a group that are not afraid of death; they are ready to die. A radicalised religious group that believes that if they die fighting, they would be compensated with many virgins.

Nigeria must get serious with whatever it is doing to end the madness.

The way the insecurity is ripping through the length and breadth of Nigeria, a time will come, when killer elements will finally take over the country.

Three Brigadier-Generals were killed recently by the Boko Haram insurgents. These generals were not killed in another country, but within our country, by insurgents.

There are ominous signs all over the place. It is no longer a laughing matter.

Babel of voices in ADC

While the David Mark’s faction of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) is anxiously looking forward to a favourable judgement by the Supreme Court, observers say that the major threats reside inside the party itself.

Read also: ADC, PDP risk exclusion from 2027 polls as S/Court reserves judgment in leadership disputes

The presidential ambition of some of its prominent members may put the final death knell on the party.
With the signal that some of the aspirants are kicking against zoning to the south, the house is already divided against itself. It is like a babel of voices as Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president, who has contested for the President many times, insists on picking the presidential ticket and that every member of the party, irrespective of zone was free to seek the ticket. Peter Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, and presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in 2023, believes it should remain in the south. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, a former governor of Rivers State, and former Minister of transport in the Muhammadu Buhari administration, shares Obi’s view. He also claims to have the right to the ADC ticket. The popular opinion is that the aspirants should have by now settled on a consensus candidate, their strongest candidate and not to dissipate energy going for a weakest link.

Many believe that the party would cease to exist the very day of its presidential primary, if it chooses a wrong candidate.

Many of their members and Nigerians sympathetic to their cause could turn their back and say “To your tents O Israel.”

It will be pay the ADC better to avoid the 2022 error of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).