₦airaland Forum

Streetinvestor2:
If obi says anything about believe in judiciary in the next election. Thr will be no need supporting him.It means he is not serious and weak.
We are going to defend it this time from the polling units up to Inec HQ.
The judiciary is dead on arrival in next election. If your bet is on rigging.
Well his new interviews show he has lost confidence in judiciary and no longer interested in that line.As he has been hitting them hard on edo election

DMerciful:
That's slip of tongue

Lifestone:
I thought kneeling is only for the Yoruba and that a tribe don't kneel down to greet.

SmartPolician:
LP members have to be the most uselezz people in Nigeria. A party that has never been this important got its best moments by attracting Peter Obi, but messed it up. For the first time, it won several senate, HOR and HOA seats across the country.

Yet, they couldn't manage this small shine. Now that Peter Obi has decided to move on and find his square root elsewhere, they are visibly angry. Well, I totally understand this level of anger and frustration. You folks didn't have what it takes to manage this level of success.

ooduapathfinder:
Letter to the Church in Nigeria: From ‘Balanced Ticket’ to a Balanced Federation



This letter is prompted by the recent stance of the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), a leading Nigerian research and advocacy group, which rejected the “undeserved” papal invitation extended to President Bola Tinubu to attend the inauguration of the 267th Pope, now known as Pope Leo XIV.

The Yoruba Referendum Committee does not dismiss Intersociety's call as a mere protest, rather we see it as a wake-up call to both the leadership and laity of the Church in Nigeria.

Intersociety, known for its rigorous documentation of human rights abuses, provided alarming statistics about Christian persecution in Northern Nigeria. However. beyond the compelling statistics on the persecution of Christians in Northern Nigeria lies a deeper issue. to wit: Nigeria’s failure to recognize its diverse Ethnic Nationalities as foundational units of the Federation.

The Yoruba Referendum Committee emphasizes that the controversy underscores Nigeria’s unresolved “National Question”, to wit: the deliberate erasure of its Peoples as Constituent units, replaced by impersonal administrative entities called “states”, a legacy entrenched in the fraudulent 1999 Constitution, which falsely declares that “Nigeria is a Federation of States and FCT.”

We now have a system that substitutes real communities with artificial “states,”; this deception is central to Nigeria’s dysfunction, and the Church has been largely silent.

The Church in Nigeria is not only complicit by association with power, as Intersociety argues, but more fundamentally by its failure to advance the cause of its people.

It has neglected the intersection of Faith and Nationality a failure that leaves Christians, especially those in the North, politically voiceless and socially vulnerable. Yet. Christians are part of specific Ethnic Nationalities whose identities are erased in national discourse. Official narratives often reduce mass atrocities to generic “clashes” between “Christians and Muslims,” or “banditry”, glossing over the nationality identities of the victims.

Christians in Northern Nigeria are not a monolith; they belong to specific Ethnic nationalities. Yet, official narratives blur their identity, often grouping victims as “Christian and Muslim” without acknowledging their national heritage.
Meanwhile, Northern Muslims recognize the Fulani Sultan of Sokoto as their ethno-religious leader, giving them both spiritual and national representation. Christians have no such leadership structure, rendering them invisible in national power equations. This absence weakens their collective voice and political agency.
This vacuum is even more critical in Northern territories where both Muslim and Christian communities are victims of terrorism. Recognizing them by their true national identities is key to empowering them to resist oppression on their own terms, ethno-nationally.

Even among Northern Muslims who are also victims of violence, recognition of their ethno-national identities would empower them to resist terror on their own cultural and territorial terms. The displacement of Christian communities and seizure of ancestral lands are not incidental; they are part of a calculated strategy of territorial domination by Fulani elites under the guise of national unity.

The dispossession of ancestral lands and farmlands in Northern Nigeria, as documented by Intersociety, is part of a long-standing project of Fulani hegemony to dominate territory through displacement and homogenization.

As noted in our May 12, 2025, Bulletin:

“……insecurity in Nigeria is a political enterprise. People are being displaced from their lands, particularly in the North, while the government keeps them in IDP camps, thereby stripping them of political representation. When Northern leaders meet, as the Northern Governors have done, those lands are counted as part of the "North," but the original, displaced inhabitants remain unrepresented. Instead, power remains with those complicit in their displacement. Meanwhile, perpetrators are reintegrated under the "repentant" doctrine, sustaining cycles of violence and preserving Northern dominance at both national and state levels."

During the 2023 elections, the Church’s response was limited to opposing the “Muslim-Muslim Ticket” and demanding a religiously “balanced” ticket, that is. a Christian-Muslim or Muslim-Christian pairing. This reaction was shortsighted. A balanced ticket in a fundamentally imbalanced Federation is mere window dressing and meaningless.

The Church must now move from advocating for religious balance in politics to demanding a Balanced Federation based on the recognition of Nigeria’s Indigenous Nationalities. It must now shift its focus from religious parity on election issues to Constitutional justice for Nigeria's Nationalities. It is not enough to seek symbolic inclusion in a broken system. The Church must push for Constitutional Restructuring through Nationality Referendums, the only viable path to justice, peace, and development. The Christian community must rally not around candidates, but around a cause: the Re-Federalization of Nigeria through Nationality Referendums.

President Tinubu may continue to promote his economic reforms, fund various central programs, enable FAAC-fueled state spending—none of these addresses the foundational crisis: Nigeria has become an illegitimate union of unequal partners which cannot be ameliorated by any type of zonal electoral permutations. Nigeria’s faulty foundation can only be corrected with a Federation of Nationalities, not states as the only path to peace and progress.

Africa’s underdevelopment stems, in large part, from adopting Nation-State models imposed by Europe that ignore the continent’s cultural and national realities. Nigeria, like much of Africa, cannot thrive without first confronting this inherited dysfunction. The Church, which helped lead Europe's political reformation, must now help chart a similar course in Nigeria.

In theory, Nigeria is a democracy where citizens “render unto Caesar” through their votes, taxes, and participation in governance. But in practice, the state ignores the people’s authority, weaponizing public finance against them.

This contradiction demands the Church reexamine its role: is it truly rendering unto God the things of God, namely, restoring the people’s God-given identities and sovereignty?

Christians must reclaim their civic and spiritual agency. They must act on Christ’s command for justice, truth, and peace. This begins not with electoral cosmetics, but with a systemic reset: a Balanced Federation built on the recognition of Nigeria’s Ethnic Nationalities.

Christians must assert both their civic and spiritual responsibility. Voting is not the issue, voting with vision is. For too long, Nigerian Christians have voted for “balanced tickets” that failed to deliver security, dignity, or justice.

The record is clear: Nigeria has had Christian Presidents and balanced tickets for decades. None resolved the persecution, marginalization, or insecurity Christians face today. Repeating the same broken formulas is not godly wisdom, it is political delusion.

As the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. History repeats itself for those who refuse to learn.

President Obasanjo, a Christian, presided over the dismantling of ethno-national power centers in the South and ignored the rise of Islamic extremism in the North. He even dismissed the Christian Association of Nigeria.

President Jonathan, another Christian, flirted with reform but failed to let the people drive the process. One delegate, Sir Olaniwun Ajayi, infamously said, “we went there to play.” The entire national conference became a mockery.

Godly wisdom demands that we break this cycle. Christians must still vote—but now with purpose; not to prop up old structures, but to forge a new path that reflects justice, truth, and equity. We are past symbolic inclusion. The Church must lead the movement toward structural justice through Nationality Referendums and a Re-Federalized Nigeria.

The Church must now fully commit itself to the quest for Nationality Referendums and a true Federation of Nationalities as the foundation of Nigeria’s future. Anything less is complicity in our collective destruction.

This means supporting candidates, movements, and policies that advance the cause of a Re-Federalized Nigeria, built on Nationality Referendums, not fake state lines drawn by colonial and military rulers.

This must become the central plank of the Church’s public engagement heading into 2027.

The time for symbolic participation is over. The Church must now lead the demand for structural Re-Formation of Nigeria. Nothing less will suffice.

Editorial Board
Yoruba Referendum Committee.


YES DADDY

amaridigital:
Then the traditional worshippers will demand Wednesday as work free days and the Agnostics will demand Tuesday as work free days while the African Jews of Nigeria will finally demand Mondays as their official work free days instead of sitting at home. You think say na only mohammedians get craze for head?

amaridigital:
Then the traditional worshippers will demand Wednesday as work free days and the Agnostics will demand Tuesday as work free days while the African Jews of Nigeria will finally demand Mondays as their official work free days instead of sitting at home. You think say na only mohammedians get craze for head?

hafeeanubasy:
Nobody use NBAIS to study secular course except Arabic and Islamic Course.

I don't know why Christians always have headache over things that have nothing to do with them.!

SmartEnergyng:
By One Who Knows That Freedom Is Not Anarchy

Democracy is not a street corner where anyone with a microphone becomes a government-in-waiting.

It is not an open market where opposition becomes theatre, and policy becomes parody.

It is a structure. A discipline. A covenant of order. And when men begin to mock that structure with shadow cabinets, underground mandates, and whispered executive fantasies, then the state has every right — and even obligation — to respond.

Which is why the DSS is justified in its action against Professor Pat Utomi.

Let us clear the smoke. No one is against dissent. No one is allergic to opposition. But there is a line — and Pat Utomi, with his recently announced “Big Tent Coalition Shadow Government,” has not merely crossed that line — he has danced on it.

He has taken the language of democracy and dressed it in the robes of disruption. A “shadow cabinet” operating outside of parliament? In a foreign country? With a self-appointed leader and no electoral mandate? That is not democracy.

That is delusion.

And delusion, when dressed up as civic duty, becomes dangerous. Because it invites chaos in the name of conscience. And Nigeria, at this delicate moment of reform, cannot afford civic fantasy masking as noble rebellion.

Now, some cry foul. “Other countries have shadow cabinets!” Yes, they do. But let’s tell the full story.

In the UK, the Shadow Cabinet is formed by the official opposition in parliament, recognized by law, and bound by procedure. In Canada, it is appointed by the party with the second-largest seats — not by a retired professor in Washington, D.C. waving press releases at Twitter.

Even in India, where protest is lively and loud, no group creates parallel governments from abroad and calls it democratic accountability.

In Nigeria, we are barely stitching our democracy back together. Elections are tough. Institutions are young. This is not the time for revolutionary cosplay.

Utomi may be an academic, but even academics must respect reality. If he wants to govern, let him build a party, win elections, and face the ballot. You don’t crown yourself a moral savior and expect the state to clap.

And what does this say to the average voter? That elections don’t matter? That someone can bypass the people and anoint himself the conscience of the nation? What message does this send to soldiers, students, or separatists?

That governance is now a suggestion box?

No. Democracy without restraint is mob rule. And the DSS, as a constitutionally empowered body tasked with protecting national stability, has the legal standing and moral duty to interrogate any political actor — no matter how well-spoken — who tries to play government outside of the rulebook.

Those arguing otherwise mistake noise for nobility. They confuse flamboyance for freedom. And they forget that[b] freedom of expression is not freedom from consequence.[/b]

Even in the freest democracies, there are limits. Julian Assange was hailed as a whistleblower — yet pursued for endangering national secrets. Donald Trump faces charges for actions taken while in power. Why then should Nigeria fold its arms when someone begins to assemble a phantom state?

This is not repression. It is response.

So let Pat Utomi make his case. Let the DSS make theirs. Let the courts arbitrate.

But let us be clear: if we truly love democracy, then we must protect it not just from tyrants — but also from theatrical hijackers.

Because democracy is not a circus.

And Nigeria is not a stage.

mdokaba1:
With an army of SANs (and trust me, they don’t come cheap) defending him every week, you’ve got to wonder - whose deep pockets are keeping this legal circus running?.....curious me.

omoredia:
Funding for boko haram and fulani terrorists. Don't use ur money to fund evil

Tochitee:
All these just to tarnished the name of the deligent national president of the progressive party! Well I know justice will prevail at the end of the day.

JagabanBorgu:
These folks always talking about the North, u lots don't get tired talking about the north?
You don't have votes to cast against the north?
The north chose the candidate they felt is a better fit, neither Obi nor Atiku were better fits and they don't serve Nigerian interests, thinking u lots know better than the north is funny.
You made your choice, the north made theirs, you can't be screaming Democracy and crucifying others for their choice in a democracy and think you are right in doing that.

surgical:
you are very wrong, those votes were allocated, bought, that is why Tinubu is not beholden to any one,nobody made him president, his gut,his money, made him president not any north,not anybody

Looking4you:
You mean Cell?

Looking4you:
How come she has suddenly gone quite with her views about Nigeria?
One would expect she would have said a lot of things in support of Natasha

Streetinvestor2:
This is a man I know well.The only politician presently who has cult followership like Buhari is el rufai whether you like him or north. Him and Buhari has what the north call white angel. They both hide under Islam to an extent fanatism to pull large crowd all over North. He was the person that finished obi image in the last election across north. And to crown it he is very intelligent both in politics and academics.He only fears his fellow Fulani superior

jamafa:
That *burning the place down* is not necessary

helinues:
Those factors that made Peter Obi to receive 3 million votes outside his region are no longer there.

South South is gone, NC is gone, infact the Christian north votes gone as well

President Tinubu's health can't sell again

Muslim Muslim ticket na DOA..

Not to talk about how some Obidients have been attacking anyone associating with president Tinubu irrespective of regions

Except if una want to be deluding una self because the 2027 election is gone just yet to be conducted

helinues:
Those factors that made Peter Obi to receive 3 million votes outside his region are no longer there.

South South is gone, NC is gone, infact the Christian north votes gone as well

President Tinubu's health can't sell again

Muslim Muslim ticket na DOA..

Not to talk about how some Obidients have been attacking anyone associating with president Tinubu irrespective of regions

Except if una want to be deluding una self because the 2027 election is gone just yet to be conducted

zero8zero:
Stop saying what you don't know. The same Kwankwaso that had already gone to Aso rock t collect ministerial appointment before Ganduje blocked it. If Ganduje is ready to reconcile with him today, he will join APC. Senator Kawu Sumaila that has decamped to APC, do you know how powerful he is in Kano?. dey play.

Penguin2:
Why do I feel Kwankwaso has changed his mind from defecting or is this sakamanje?

ALTERNATEID:
FG shouid just ignore Pat and his noise making coalition friends. Not even one of them can win their polling units not to talk of ward.

owobokiri:
E don reach to dey insult Nigerians right left and center for calling out an oppresively corrupt but comatose presidency? You mismanage our lives so waywardly and then get all rilled up because the people called you out? We can't criticize the supposed presidency of the country anymore without having to deal with all sorts of uncouth outbursts from these retinue of compromised characters hired by Tilimgbu?

What is the difference between you and Bwala with the invective you are spewing?

This Lagos agbadorian bunch of inebriated APCs-ineffective buffoons at Aso Rock are starting to see themselves as lions and leopards that must be feared by the people, when in actual fact they are nothing but stray cats. Disoriented ones at that. You were not "elected" to trade insults with the people, you are there to listen to them and to solve problems, you dolts..

Macphenson:
Those who bought the land and their lieutenants are parading the land with AK 47, raping women and kidnapping people around the community.

Macphenson:
Are Easterners buying land in the north with AK 47?

Terrorist
.

Bobloco: