The tragedy of ‘anything goes’ politics, and escalating killings

The desperation of politicians is impacting negatively on governance in Nigeria. For politicians, it is about anything
goes. Nigeria is standing on the precipice.

Pray, where are the forest rangers meant to check senseless killings and abductions?

 

Desperate politicians

Like the killing spree which has become part of the Nigerian life and to which politicians have become accustomed, the nation’s democracy has been murdered by a political class that delights in political “anyhowness.”

Originally, politics defined as “activities that either involve, or in some ways directly affect, the institutions of the state…” has completely been messed up in Nigeria.

Here, it can aptly be defined as “activities aimed at improving someone’s status”. This informs the high level of wheeling and dealing associated with it.

Since after the 2023 general election, politics in Nigeria has taken a far more frightening slant than what was known before. There is absolutely no resemblance of anything that bears the name, governance. The Nigerian people are completely at a loss today what is going on as many have lost touch with the role of government in a supposedly democratic nation.

During the administration of Shehu Shagari, first democratically elected president after the transfer of power by the military on October 1, 1979, Nigerians felt leadership and had an idea of what a democracy was supposed to be and mean.

Those were the days when mature minds played politics for nation building beyond parochial interest.

Although the Shagari administration was not perfect as was partly reflected in the general election conducted by Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) in 1983 that resulted in the military intervention in December of that year, many observers say that, put side by side, the Shagari administration and what is happening today, even Lucifer would give Shagari 100 percent thumbs-up!

Today, politics is being given a bad name in Nigeria. In the eyes of many citizens, anyone that exhibits bad behaviour is a politician. The way the game is played has given the impression that all those in the field are con men and women. And they play to type!

For instance, what better name can be ascribed to those who sat down to perfect the plot to rig an election that comes up in January next year? What manner of ingenuity would anyone ascribe to a National Assembly that decriminalised certificate forgery to the point of boldly putting same in the Electoral Act? They decided to ambush anyone who may decide to go to court to challenge a candidate that presents forged certificates.

This high level of fraudulent ambush is happening at a time when the new leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is pledging credible election. Many believe that the 2027 general election is a fait accompli. It already has a predetermined outcome?

This is coming at a time the Federal Government, through its education and examination (regulatory) bodies, such as the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), and the Nigerian office of the West African Examination Council (WAEC), are fighting tooth and nail to check the high level of examination fraud and certificate forgeries that have become the order of the day in the country.

For the first time in the history of Nigeria, JAMB and WAEC were badly hit in 2025. Their examinations were highly compromised to the point that the leaderships borrowed the offensive word, “glitches”, that Yakubu Mahmood, immediate past INEC chairman, manufactured and threw into the nation’s electoral lexicon in 2023.

Today, with what is happening in the Electoral Act 2026, no teacher, examiner or regulator has the moral high ground to tell a student that cheating in an examination is a bad behaviour. It would also be hypocritical for any government agency to reject forged certificates at the point of employment interviews.

Now that the National Assembly has sanctioned any litigation against certificate forgery, a national apology should be tendered to Kemi Adeosun, former minister of finance and coordinating minister for the economy, and Geoffrey Uche Nnaji, minister of Innovation, Science, and Technology, both of whom were forced to resign from their positions over certificate forgery.

Nigeria is gradually losing its soul. We have been sowing to the wind as a nation, very soon we will be reaping the whirlwind. Values are being destroyed with impunity. The political class is not after values. It is about the end justifying the means. Values once held so dear have been abused and completely delisted from the psyche of the political class.

Because of the high level of corruption associated with politicians in the country nowadays, many parents go to any extent to ensure their children pass their exams by all means.

Some of them collude with their children’s schools to cheat in external examinations. When you ask them why they are doing so, they will tell you straight away that those in government are doing worse.

Why do we still have prisons in the country since everyone is doing exactly what the inmates did that landed them into the correctional centres?

Some openly rob, kidnap and take ransom, while some others engage in all manner of examination and election malfeasance. Evil is evil. The failure of governance has resulted and still results in the untimely death of millions of Nigerians. Who did this to us?

Integrity is no longer a virtue, nor an attitude of pride. Those who said one thing yesterday are saying another thing today, yet life goes on because they need political survival.

Those who sang hosanna to PDP yesterday, are today singing crucify the party.  But the masses know that they are untrue. They are just being driven by the allure of power and filthy lucre. For them, tomorrow does not exist. They only live for today.

We see men and women who became whatever they are today on the PDP platform, jump ship and curse the same party that made them- a case of biting the finger that fed them.

If the table turns tomorrow, they say worst things against the APC. It is about mercantile and transactional politics. How are they better than criminals who sacrificed their parents to make money?

We see the public opprobrium trailing Daniel Bwala over his desperate effort on Al Jazeera TV programme to bury his past. History is like an open wound and has a way of throwing mud at us.

The opposition state governors are all busy jumping ship today into the ruling party because they have lost faith in the ballot box. That governors no longer believe that people’s votes will count is the real tragedy of a nation heading for the precipice, which still prides itself to be in democracy.

They now believe that rigging determines the outcome of elections and that where they are running to guarantees them victory on a platter. If they had the faintest belief in the efficacy of the ballot box, there would be no defection.

Those serving their second term, who ordinarily have no business leaving their parties, are defecting to have their ‘sins forgiven.” In their new party, all the misgovernance and looting of public treasury will no longer be remembered. That, unfortunately, is the criticality of the state of anomie in Nigeria.

The present crop of politicians is a different kind. They believe they have come into the world to stay indefinitely. But we know that power is ephemeral and also transient. Even if they recycle themselves in the corridors of power for 100 years, one day, they must bid the world farewell, willy-nilly.

I weep for my country! But, must our tears forever flow?

 

Escalating killings: But where are the forest rangers?

Last year, as part of measures to combat terrorism and banditry, the federal government rolled out the Presidential Forest Guard Initiative.

Since their deployment, there has not been any let up in the attacks by terrorists. From Niger to Kwara; Zamfara to Kebbi; Jos to Benue; Taraba to Katsina, and Adamawa to Borno, it has been stories of killings and abductions. Reports have it that a number of military officers are being killed randomly in Borno State.

It would seem that the terrorists are having a field day. What are we not doing right? Is intelligence failing Nigeria? Why does it seem that the more Nigeria pushes back, the more ferocious the terrorists’ attacks become?

The mineral resources in Nigeria have exacerbated the insecurity across the states. The illegal mining of gold in Zamfara has made the state a hot spot for bandits. This is the same story in all the states where illegal mining of various minerals is going on.

Nigeria has been responding to the challenge haphazardly. How does a country survive the low-grade war going on? In peace time, a country is losing over 300 souls in one day? In Borno State, the other day, over 200 people were reportedly abducted. They included women and children.

Hope brightened when President Donald Trump showed interest in assisting Nigeria combat the security challenges. Since the Christmas eve bombing of terrorists’ dens in Sokoto by America, no further such attack has been carried out.

By February 2026, the US was said to have deployed about 100 to 200 military personnel to Nigeria to support operations against terrorist groups, focusing on training, technical assistance, and intelligence sharing. Nigerians are worried that the presence of the military personnel may not have started to yield the expected dividends.

As for the forest rangers, how equipped are they? Were they deployed with toy-kinds of firearms that cannot stand the superior fire power of terrorists?

Who will halt the needless bloodshed in Nigeria? That’s the question on the lips of many Nigerians.