₦airaland Forum

It is difficult to forget the spectacle of the so-called “Liberation Day” event, when Trump stood on the White House lawn and triumphantly announced tariffs on virtually the entire world. To compound the obscenity of the moment, he claimed that nearly all countries had imposed unfair tariffs on American goods, presenting bewildering tariff figures that left economists, policymakers, and allies struggling to make sense of the math.

Nearly a year later, the Supreme Court ruled the tariffs illegal, not because protectionism itself was unconstitutional, but because Congress had not granted the necessary authority. In other words, the ruling addressed process, not substance. Yet the deeper question remains: does protectionism actually build an economy?

The answer, in most cases, is no.

There are limited circumstances where tariffs make strategic sense: shielding industries critical to national security, or responding proportionately to hostile countries. But declaring a trade war on the entire globe is not strategy; it is recklessness. Global trade networks are deeply interwoven. Disrupting them wholesale is economically counterproductive, raising costs at home while straining alliances abroad.

More importantly, the broader protectionist sentiment that fuelled those tariffs is not unique to Donald Trump. It is prevalent in many economically fragile countries, including Nigeria. The instinct is understandable: protect local industries from foreign competition so they can grow. But history and economic logic suggest otherwise.

Competition disciplines firms. It forces innovation. It drives down costs. It improves quality. Over time, consumers benefit, productivity rises, and the economy becomes globally competitive. Protected economies, by contrast, tend to produce inferior goods at inflated prices. Shielded from competition, firms have little incentive to improve. At the same time, high tariff walls deter capital inflows and technology transfer, precisely the ingredients developing economies desperately need.

In Nigeria for instance, due to high import duties and levies, Nigerian consumers, despite a poor GDP per capita under $1,000, often pay between 35% to 70% more, what consumers in wealthier countries pay for similar goods. These indirect taxes squeeze the middle class and burden the poor, all in the name of “protection.”

If the goal is to help local industries thrive, tariffs are not the answer. What businesses truly need is an enabling environment: low and predictable corporate taxes, affordable and reliable power, efficient infrastructure, strong education systems to supply skilled labour, and security that lowers operational risk.

Tariffs did not build the American economy. Industrial expansion there was driven by innovation, scale, infrastructure, and competition. In invalidating Trump’s sweeping measures, the Supreme Court may have spared the United States from a prolonged experiment in economic regression.

Nigeria should take note. An economy cannot tax and barricade itself into prosperity. It must compete, innovate, and produce efficiently. Reducing excessive import duties and indirect tax burdens is very crucial; let the middle class breathe.

The recent council elections in the FCT, Kano and Rivers States were marked not by drama or contestation, but by apathy. Newsrooms across the country focused extensively on the visibly low voter turnout. Polling units were sparse. Participation was thin.

And the truth is this: many Nigerians did not stay away because they are indifferent to their communities. They stayed away because they do not see the point.

Local government should be the most important layer of governance in a democracy. It is the closest to the people. It is where citizens should feel the most impact. It is where participation should be highest, not lowest. Yet in Nigeria, council elections routinely attract minimal interest because people genuinely ask: What exactly does the local government do? Why does it even exist?

And they are right to ask.

The low turnout is not just an electoral statistic; it is an indicator of a deeper structural problem. Nigeria’s governance architecture is excessively centralised. Real power, real resources, and real decision-making authority are concentrated at the federal and, to a lesser extent, state levels. Local governments exist largely in name, often dependent, administratively weak, and politically constrained. When an institution lacks visible authority or measurable impact, citizens logically disengage from it.

This over-centralisation is one of the fundamental reasons Nigeria struggles as it does. Many of the problems we look to the President to solve should be handled at the local level. If Nigeria were properly structured, critical functions such as law enforcement, community security, emergency services, utilities, transportation, housing, local infrastructure, basic education, and water supply would be robustly managed at the local level. In such a system, local elections would matter, because they would directly shape daily life.

Instead, the current formation of local government has rendered it redundant. It neither commands citizen confidence nor inspires civic participation.

For Nigeria to work, this must change. Transformation will not come merely from presidential directives or federal reforms. It will come from restructuring and empowering local governments; fiscally, administratively, and politically. When people understand that electing a council chairperson determines the quality of their roads, their water supply, their schools, and their security, turnout will not need to be manufactured; it will happen organically.

The low turnout in the FCT and other states is not just about voter apathy. It is about structural design. It is about a governance system that has failed to convince its citizens that their participation at the closest level matters.

If Nigeria truly seeks rejuvenation, decentralisation is non-negotiable. Empower the local governments, and you empower the people. And when the people are empowered, democracy begins to function as it should.

The military, through its spokesperson, has now confirmed that there was indeed a coup attempt to oust the administration of President Tinubu. When the reports first surfaced last year, the military rushed to deny them outright. That was a mistake. The responsible response would have been to neither confirm nor deny until investigations were concluded. A premature denial, only to later reverse course, signals a troubling nonchalance about truth and credibility.

That said, the failure of the coup attempt is good news for Nigeria. A relapse into military rule would be disastrous for the country. History has settled this question already. Military dictatorships do not fix broken societies; they silence them, brutalize them, and leave deeper scars in their wake.

Democracy is often criticized, especially in countries like Nigeria where its dividends feel nonexistent. But one of democracy’s most underrated virtues is the stability it provides. It offers citizens hope (real or perceived) that change is possible without bloodshed. The knowledge that governments can be changed at the ballot box every four years removes the incentive to seek violent overthrow. That sense of hope, imperfect as it may be, is a powerful stabilizer.

Contrast this with Iran today, where protesters demanding a different political order are being killed in their thousands. That is the ugly reality of autocratic dictatorships: the price of regime change is paid for in blood. It does not have to be that way. No society should require mass death or bloodshed to replace bad leadership with new leadership.

Nigeria’s democracy is deeply flawed, but it is not beyond repair. As Winston Churchill said, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried. A coup will not rescue Nigeria; it will only drag the country backward. What Nigeria needs is not soldiers in power, but the hard, patient work of fixing a broken democratic system. Military rule is not a viable alternative; it simply replaces civilian dysfunction with something far worse: unaccountable power imposed by violence and brute force.

President Trump’s recent tariffs on eight European countries, aimed at securing a Greenland deal, expose a troubling mix of strategic shortsightedness and personal obsession. Coveting the territory of a NATO ally, and even suggesting military acquisition is an option, is illogical. Today, there is nothing in Greenland that the United States could not obtain through basic diplomacy: more military bases, additional troops, or mining rights for rare earth minerals would almost certainly be granted. So why the fixation? Simply put, it appears to be personal desire rather than strategic necessity.

Taking into account the possible consequences, a military approach is extremely unlikely. The NATO treaty obliges member states to come to each other’s defense. If the U.S. attempted to seize Greenland militarily, other NATO countries would be legally and politically compelled to respond. Should they act, the alliance would be thrust into a conflict with its most powerful member; should they refuse, the credibility and cohesion of NATO would collapse.

Either way, NATO does not survive, and this lose-lose scenario risks continental security for the sake of one isolated island. To attempt such a move would be absurd: losing a continent to gain an island undermines the very national security justification for Greenland in the first place.

Beyond the immediate absurdity, this unfolding episode signals a shifting global order. For nations like Nigeria and much of Africa, the unpredictability of global order increases risk. Weak, dysfunctional, or chaotic societies are particularly vulnerable: they cannot absorb the shocks of geopolitical turbulence. The lesson is simple: if a flood is coming, you need an ark. Societies without structure or resilience feel the consequences of instability the most.

That said, it may also prove to be a false alarm. Like many geopolitical flare-ups, the Greenland saga could pass quietly, leaving the world order largely intact. But whether storm or passing cloud, the imperative remains: productivity, strong institutions, and national resilience are essential for survival in an unpredictable world.

If Nigeria will survive in a volatile global climate, readiness is everything.

The rift between Nyesom Wike and Governor Siminalayi Fubara has returned with a vengeance, exposing once again the raw underbelly of power politics in Nigeria. The crisis first exploded when tensions between both men escalated to the point where impeachment loomed. President Tinubu intervened by declaring a state of emergency, suspending the governor for six months to avert a legislative impeachment ambush. That suspension period became a merry-go-round of reconciliatory meetings, elite handshakes, and forced smiles, culminating in Fubara’s reinstatement and the illusion that peace had returned.

That illusion collapsed the moment Fubara decamped to the APC to turbo-charge his re-election bid. Wike, determined to block his former protégé’s second term, has since reactivated the House of Assembly impeachment machinery. What is playing out is a textbook case of godfather politics: an ex-governor demanding absolute loyalty from a sitting governor, confident that the governor’s power does not lie in popular mandate or the will of the people, but in his political machinations that produced the officeholder in the first place.

It is also a cautionary tale about making deals with the devil. Fubara likely understood Wike’s temperament and his appetite for absolute control but assumed he could manage him, use him, and later discard him. For power, he made a deal with the Devil and hasn’t gotten a day of sleep since. Power obtained through morally compromised alliances rarely comes without embarrassing consequences.

President Tinubu’s role in this saga further underscores the weakness of leadership without principles. His initial intervention was not rooted in a moral judgment of right and wrong, but in an attempt to appease all sides. In reality, he merely kicked the can down the road. Wike is now forcing the decision the President avoided: choose a side.

The question now is whether the President will finally show the moral courage to stand on principle, or continue down the familiar path of political expediency. Will his choice be guided by justice and democratic norms or by cold electoral arithmetic ahead of 2027 and the battle for Rivers State?

Iran is once again seized by mass protests, with crowds openly chanting “death to the Ayatollah” and, interestingly, calling for the return of the Shah. For many Iranians, the current fanatical regime has become so suffocating that even a flawed past now looks preferable to an unlivable present.

Under Reza Shah Pahlavi, Iran was far from perfect, but it was headed in the right direction. There was relative social freedom, expanding education, a growing middle class, women had public visibility, and the country was oriented toward development rather than permanent ideological warfare.

Many Iranians wanted more—more political participation, more justice, more dignity—and those desires were legitimate. But they were seduced by the false promises of Ruhollah Khomeini, a revolutionary figure who spoke the language of the oppressed and promised to deliver freedom, morality, and prosperity. He offered heaven on earth.

What Iran got instead was hell. The 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah delivered none of its promises. In place of justice came mass executions; in place of dignity, public amputations and eye-gouging; in place of prosperity, economic ruin. The Islamic Republic became a dystopian regime obsessed with exporting terror across the Middle East and pursuing nuclear weapons to threaten Israel and the West, while ordinary Iranians sank deeper into poverty despite the country’s vast oil wealth.

What is unfolding in Iran today exposes two things. First, revolutions often break far more than they fix—though in closed, tyrannical systems, they sometimes appear to be the only option left. Second, and more importantly, this is the danger of organizing society around personalities and their grand promises rather than principles and institutions. History’s worst dictators committed their atrocities while claiming to “save” their countries. When people fixate on ends and ignore the means, they pay a terrible price.

Iran now stands on the brink of another revolution, and many would argue it is justified. As ugly as revolutions are, they may be the only path out of a terror-loving, tyrannical order. The real question is whether Iranians have learned the central lesson of 1979: whether this time they will anchor their future in clear principles—liberty, democracy, rule of law—or whether they will once again trade one crushing burden for another.

Peter Obi’s defection to the ADC has reopened familiar questions about strategy, trust, and power in Nigerian politics. On paper, it looks like coalition-building. In reality, it exposes the deep problems of the country’s political system.

ADC is, for all practical purposes, Atiku Abubakar’s political project. That fact alone shapes every possible outcome. If the party’s primaries are a free-for-all, then the result is almost predetermined. Atiku has spent decades mastering Nigeria’s delegate economy, and in a system where delegates are openly bought by the highest bidder, no one else stands a realistic chance. Money, not momentum or moral authority, decides outcomes.

This raises the central question: does Atiku have the patience and political discipline to step aside for Peter Obi in 2027? Or is this simply a tactical move to pull Obi closer, neutralise him as an outsider threat, and ultimately inherit the votes and energy of the Obidient movement once Atiku clinches the ticket? Given Nigeria’s and Atiku’s political history, the latter seem like the play here.

This episode highlights why a stable, trusted, and credible political party is one of the most valuable assets in any democracy. A system where good or competent people must constantly align with strange bedfellows just to stand a chance at power is not a system built for good governance. It is a system built for compromise, capture, and disappointment.

Nigeria currently lacks a strong, transparent, and dominant political platform that principled and capable people can genuinely call home. That is the real crisis. Many qualified Nigerians would like to run for office but simply opt out: unwilling to waste time in small, irrelevant political parties, or to bargain with political scavengers in dominant ones. And by the way, the idea that you can enter the major parties and “change them from within” is a comforting myth. These structures are not naive; you don’t use them, they use you.

The urgent task before Nigerian patriots is not just winning the next election. It is building a serious, dominant political party that can attract, protect, and project good people at every level of government. Until that happens, defections like Obi’s will remain less about hope, and more about survival.

In a dramatic move, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was captured by U.S. forces in a surprise operation in Caracas and flown to New York to face federal charges, including narco-terrorism and drug trafficking.

Unsurprisingly, the world freaked out. Critics in the U.N. called the operation a violation of international law. Russia, China, Cuba, and other states condemned it as an assault on national sovereignty. Many commentators seem alarmed at the idea that the leader of a sovereign country could be seized in the dead of night so easily, and not even powers like Russia or China who are allies of Venezuela could do anything about it.

But let’s bring some clarity to this moment.

Power or the use of force is not intrinsically evil. When deployed with a sense of morality and justice, power and force can be good. In that sense, holding Maduro accountable was right. He led a regime that oppressed his own people, killed and tortured Venezuelans, presided over economic collapse, and saw 20% of the population flee Venezuela’s crisis over the last decade. In addition, his government became a haven for drug cartels and Iran-backed terror networks.

So yes, liberating Venezuelans from a brutal dictator was the right thing to do since the people could not liberate themselves, and this is not new. In 1990, U.S. forces deposed Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega in a similar operation, long before the orange man came to the White House.

Here is the fact: bad actors and rogue States will always exist. When dictators believe they can act with impunity, the result is suffering and death for everyday people. A world where brutal regimes fear no consequences is not a world anyone should want to live in.

That said, legitimate concerns remain. What comes next in Venezuela matters. Will this intervention usher in good and democratic governance? Also, some statements from the US President, Donald Trump, including talk of managing Venezuela’s government and oil sector until a “judicious transition” occurs, raise questions about motives and long-term strategy.

This remains a fluid situation. Let’s hope that what follows reflects the will of the Venezuelan people.

Ten days ago, Anthony Joshua was fighting Jake Paul in Miami. Suddenly, news broke that he was involved in a ghastly motor accident on the Lagos–Ibadan Expressway that left two people dead. The reaction from most people must have been: how? What is he looking for up and down?

Preliminary reports suggest the vehicle was travelling above the speed limit. It is doubtful that they would have driven with the same level of recklessness on a UK motorway, where speed cameras, fines, and prosecution are real and immediate. In Nigeria, where speed limits are barely enforced, people take chances, and sometimes pay with their lives.

For Western-born people of African descent like Anthony Joshua, who live most of their lives in rigid, rules-based societies like the UK, places like Nigeria may appear exciting because of this absence of order, but lawlessness comes with serious risks. We have seen celebrities die on waterways because they didn’t wear life jackets and there was no emergency response to save them when things went wrong. In societies that work, rules are not there to suffocate freedom; they exist to protect life. Being “free” from them is rarely a blessing.

Safety rules matter and must be enforced: wear lifejackets when travelling by water and drive within speed limits when travelling by road. Nigeria must once again become a place where rules are respected, because rules are sometimes the difference between life and death.

May the souls of the departed rest in peace.

It’s finally happened. For the first time since Nigeria’s independence in 1960, a foreign military (the United States) has carried out airstrikes on Nigerian soil, targeting locations in Sokoto, North-Western Nigeria.

These strikes have effectively placed Nigeria in the same category as countries like Yemen, Syria, and Afghanistan: States judged unable to decisively contain terrorism and radical Islamist violence within their borders, and are therefore subjected to direct foreign military action. Once this Rubicon is crossed, what comes next is anybody’s guess. What we can say for sure is that these strikes are only the beginning.

The airstrikes are the culmination of years of failure. Government after government has played footsie with terrorists—negotiating, appeasing, denying, and delaying—while citizens paid the price in blood. Eventually, international patience ran out, and the proverbial chicken has come home to roost.

For many Nigerians, the strikes are a welcome development. People are exhausted by endless terrorism, kidnappings, and mass killings. In this sense, any foreign military action, however imperfect, feels better than the suffocating nothingness of inaction by the Nigerian government.

However, foreign airstrikes will not solve Nigeria’s security crisis. They did not solve terrorism in Yemen, Syria, or Afghanistan, and they will not solve it here. In the case of Afghanistan, after years of blood and treasure, the United States simply left, and the Taliban took over almost immediately. Foreign interventions don’t last forever. Tomahawk missiles are not cheap, and America will not waste them on Nigeria indefinitely. When the strikes stop, the terrorists will regroup and pick up where they left off, probably with renewed vengeance.

Lasting security in Nigeria must be engineered internally. This starts with voting out the current incompetent and compromised political class. This is then followed by the restructuring of our security architecture: policing and law enforcement must be local. Cities, towns, and villages across this country must be given the tools and authority to take responsibility for their own security, while the military plays a supporting role in extreme hot zones.

Until this is achieved, no amount of foreign airpower will keep the country safe. Airstrikes may buy time; but without internal reform, they will only postpone the inevitable.

The pardon of Sunday Jackson is a relief, but it is also an indictment. After more than a decade on death row, Sunday, a farmer, has finally been freed for what was clearly an act of self-defence. He was brutally attacked by an armed herder on his own farm, fought back to save his life, and killed his attacker in the process with the assailant’s own weapon. For surviving, he was sentenced to death; a sentence upheld all the way to the Supreme Court.

The legal reasoning behind that outcome is as disturbing as it is immoral. The theory holds that once a victim succeeds in disarming an attacker, the victim loses the right to use that weapon to neutralise the threat. At that point, the victim becomes liable for murder. This logic is detached from reality and hostile to basic justice. It prioritises the welfare of the attacker over the safety of the victim and ignores the simple fact that a disarmed attacker can still regroup, rearm, or continue the assault until the victim is dead.

Taken to its logical conclusion, this doctrine effectively criminalises self-defence. If a victim cannot fully neutralise a violent attacker, then the law is asking victims to gamble with their lives. That is not justice; it is moral confusion codified into law.

Sunday Jackson’s case exposes why laws must be grounded in a transcendent moral ethic: one aligned with fairness, reason, and the instinct for self-preservation. When laws violate our basic sense of justice, they do more than punish individuals; they demoralise society and lay the groundwork for instability. The fact that an injustice is legal does not make it right.

Evil or morally confused actors can and do write injustice into law. It is the responsibility of clear-thinking people to call these laws out and repeal them. Sunday’s pardon corrects one injustice. Reforming the immoral legal logic that put him on death row in the first place is the real test of whether we have learned anything at all.

As AFCON 2025 kicks off in Morocco, the tournament once again reminds us why continental competitions matter. They showcase African talent, build shared identity, and give millions across Africa moments of collective pride. But beyond cheering the Super Eagles, Nigeria should be asking: what are we doing to develop sports at home?

A strong local sports industry matters because sport is far more than entertainment. When properly structured and governed, sports competition strengthens social cohesion and provides a relatively safe outlet for rivalry, resentment, and animosity.

Humans are competitive by nature, and every society inevitably generates tension, rivalry, and tribal instincts. Sports provide a symbolic battlefield where those impulses can be expressed without becoming destructive. Instead of conflict spilling into street violence, political instability, or worse, it is ritualised through rules, referees, and time limits. This is why anthropologists often describe sport as a controlled substitute for conflict.

There is a reason successful and stable countries invest heavily in structured sports industries; football, basketball, tennis, motorsports, boxing, wrestling, MMA, and more. This is not accidental. Sports act like a pressure valve. They allow people to express anger, frustration, pride, and triumph in socially acceptable ways: cheering, booing, debating, and celebrating. That emotional release reduces social pressure that might otherwise manifest destructively.

Just as importantly, a healthy sports culture teaches a vital civic lesson: competition does not mean annihilation. You can fiercely oppose an opponent, accept defeat, respect the rules, and return to compete another day. That logic mirrors democratic norms (conflict within boundaries) and makes sport a quiet but powerful educator in civic behaviour.

AFCON matters, but it cannot substitute for domestic sports development. A vibrant sports industry is a win on every front. It binds society together, channels rivalry harmlessly, grows GDP, creates jobs, and produces wealth.

The recent allegation that Nigeria’s new tax laws were altered after passage by the National Assembly, before being gazetted and released to the public, is deeply troubling, even if the full facts are yet to emerge. Some lawmakers insist that provisions they voted on are not what Nigerians eventually saw, while the Speaker of the House has promised an investigation.

In a system plagued by both corruption and incompetence, the truth is that either explanation is plausible: the bill may indeed have been tampered with, or the lawmakers may simply not have done their jobs thoroughly before passing it. For now, the country is left waiting for an investigation whose outcome, frankly, inspires limited confidence.

Beyond this controversy lies a more fundamental problem the tax bill failed to address: Nigeria’s persistently high corporate tax rates. Across the world, there is a clear pattern. The wealthiest and most industrialised countries tend to have relatively low corporate tax rates, while the poorest and least developed countries (many of them in Africa) impose some of the highest. This is not accidental. High corporate taxes discourage investment, limit expansion, and push capital elsewhere.

If Nigeria is serious about activating its economy, attracting foreign direct investment, creating jobs, expanding its tax base, and industrialising, then corporate tax rates must be competitive with—or lower than—those of developed economies. Lower rates incentivise global companies to build factories, establish manufacturing plants, and commit long-term capital here.

This approach has worked before, most notably in countries like China, which used competitive tax policy as one of several tools to attract investment, grow industries, and lift millions into productive employment.

Any tax reform that does not address this critical issue will fall short of delivering real economic transformation.

About PACT
Project for Advancement & Civic Transformation (PACT) is a coalition of citizens with a passion for national advancement and transformation. If you want to connect with other Nigerians committed to this growing movement for real change, join the PACT WhatsApp Channel via this link: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBw50r42Dcljgvrjn1v

The standoff between Aliko Dangote and the head of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, Farouk Ahmed, seem to have entered a new and final phase. Earlier in the week, Dangote published details of Farouk’s children and the cost of educating them in Switzerland, and has formally petitioned the ICPC to investigate the matter. This escalation and accompanying pressure has forced the resignation of the NMDPRA boss.

Yet, Farouk Ahmed’s exit should not be mistaken for a resolution: what Dangote has highlighted is not an isolated problem or a single bad actor. It is a pattern. Corruption in the oil and gas sector is pervasive, and is a direct consequence of over-regulation and excessive state control.

The oil and gas sector is a critical, lucrative, and potentially multi-trillion-dollar industry, yet Nigeria has managed to regulate it into dysfunction. The more choke points Government inserts into the system, the more power it hands to bureaucrats, and the more opportunities it creates for rent-seeking, collusion, and sabotage.

For instance, the idea that Government should build and run refineries has always been a joke, and an expensive one. For decades, this joke stalled the industry’s growth, drained public funds, and entrenched vested interests. It took the entry of private players like Dangote for local refining to even become plausible. By now, Nigeria should be a net exporter of refined petroleum products. Instead, regulatory agency heads and entrenched cabals are accused of actively strangling local refining efforts.

Oil and gas should be powering entire value chains: petrochemicals, fertilisers, plastics, polymers, pharmaceuticals, and more. That future will remain out of reach unless the sector is radically opened up. Government-owned refineries must be privatised, NNPCL should be scrapped, and government’s role reduced strictly to transparent regulatory oversight. Existing licences, permits, and approvals must be audited, with redundant ones eliminated.

Farouk’s resignation may close this chapter, but the book remains open. Over-regulation breeds corruption and suppresses growth. Until Nigeria confronts that reality, scandals like this will keep repeating.

About PACT
Project for Advancement & Civic Transformation (PACT) is a coalition of citizens with a passion for national advancement and transformation. If you want to connect with other Nigerians committed to this growing movement for real change, join the PACT WhatsApp Channel via this link: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBw50r42Dcljgvrjn1v

This week, the Supreme Court ruled on the suspension of Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, by the Tinubu administration. When the suspension first happened, many people correctly pointed out that nothing in the Constitution gives the President the power to unilaterally unseat an elected governor or dissolve a state legislature. That argument is legally sound, but it misses a deeper issue.

When designing a political system, it is not enough to write rules and hope leaders will obey them. The responsibility of system builders is to design institutions that are resistant to abuse, not ones that depend on the goodwill of those in power. The framers of the United States Constitution understood this clearly. That is why they included the Second Amendment, guaranteeing citizens the right to bear arms. The move was not reckless; it was practical. They knew that leaders could become tyrannical, and they did not want citizens to be helpless if the government turned against them. Power, in their thinking, had to be balanced with deterrence.

Nigeria chose a very different path. Here, the President is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and controls virtually all armed law enforcement agencies. This creates a system where only one office holds real power, while everyone else (governors, legislators, and even the courts) ultimately relies on the President’s restraint. That is not a safeguard; it is a gamble.

Here is the uncomfortable truth: the use of force is the ultimate form of power. A system where one individual has a monopoly on force is a system that invites abuse. Nigerians are outraged that an elected governor and legislature were suspended. But a more unsettling question remains unanswered: what if a President decides to do this in all 36 states? Who, in practical terms, would stop him?

This is why debates that focus only on legality miss the point. The Constitution is only as strong as the structures that enforce and constrain power. If state and local governments had genuinely autonomous, armed, and accountable local law enforcement, dissolving elected governments with a statement from Abuja would not be so casually conceivable.

Nigeria’s current arrangement is inherently risky: a system built on trust in the restraint of one man. History shows that this is not how stable democracies are secured.

About PACT
Project for Advancement & Civic Transformation (PACT) is a coalition of citizens with a passion for national advancement and transformation. If you want to connect with other Nigerians committed to this growing movement for real change, join the PACT WhatsApp Channel via this link: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBw50r42Dcljgvrjn1v

PACT Daily Brief #004 – Friday, April 3rd, 2026

Corruption Isn’t a Bug in Nigeria, It’s the System Working as Designed

Aliko Dangote’s recent press conference did more than stir headlines; it exposed a truth Nigerians already know. Dangote accused the head of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, Farouk Ahmed, of living far beyond his legitimate means, alleging that four of his children were educated in Switzerland at a cost of about $5 million for secondary school alone.

Dangote’s point was simple: when a public official’s income clearly cannot explain such spending, the taxman and the system should be asking hard questions.

But here is the real issue: people like Farouk are not a bug in the system; they are a feature of it. The Nigerian system was not designed to filter out corrupt people; it was designed to reward them, protect them, and recycle them. That is why this revelation did not come from the EFCC or the ICPC. It did not come from internal audits or institutional oversight. It came from a frustrated private citizen.

That alone tells you everything you need to know. In Nigeria, it is not unusual for public officials to live this way; it is the norm. An overwhelming number of politicians and senior public officials live lifestyles their salaries could never support. Unfortunately, the institutions that should act either look away or are themselves compromised.

Will there be consequences from this revelation? Very unlikely. At best, because Dangote is probably too big to ignore, there might be a brief suspension, a quiet reassignment, or a reshuffle. There will almost certainly be no thorough investigation, no corruption charges, and no convictions. That is how these stories usually end in Nigeria.

Corruption in Nigeria is not sustained by a lack of laws or agencies; it is sustained by the kind of people who occupy positions of power and influence. Until corrupt individuals are removed from these positions and kept out, corruption will remain undefeated.

That is precisely why PACT matters. Nigeria cannot move forward while people like Farouk dominate its institutions. The good news is that this can change—and it will. PACT exists to rid the system of corrupt people, so Nigeria can finally move forward.

About PACT
Project for Advancement & Civic Transformation (PACT) is a coalition of citizens with a passion for national advancement and transformation. If you want to connect with other Nigerians committed to this growing movement for real change, join theu PACT WhatsApp Channel via this link: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBw50r42Dcljgvrjn1v[b][/b]

PACT Daily Brief #003 – Thursday, April 2nd, 2026

Why Flights Are Expensive: It’s Not Greed, It’s Scarcity

Nigeria’s airfares have become painfully expensive, and as usual, the public conversation is drifting toward the wrong conclusions. The sharp rise in ticket prices is not happening in a vacuum. One of the biggest drivers is insecurity. As highways become more dangerous and rail travel remains unreliable or limited, more Nigerians are choosing to fly; not because they want to, but because they feel they have no safer alternative.

In response, the Senate recently summoned the Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo, over the high cost of air travel. But it is hard to see what exactly lawmakers expect him to do. To his credit, the minister stated the obvious: the government does not set air ticket prices.

Yet, whenever prices rise in Nigeria, we reach for our favourite scapegoat: greed. “Airlines are greedy.” “Businesses are wicked.” “Someone must be exploiting the people.” Although these explanations are emotionally satisfying, they are economically lazy. The real problem is not greed; it is scarcity. There are too few aircraft, too few viable routes, too many passengers, and too many structural constraints in the system.

Prices exist for a reason. They act as a mediator between supply and demand, ensuring that scarce resources are allocated to those who value them most at that moment. When demand spikes and supply cannot respond quickly, prices rise. That is not cruelty; it is how markets signal imbalance.

If we want airfares to fall, two things must happen. First, demand must reduce, and that will only happen when people feel safe travelling by road and rail again. Security is not just a safety issue; it is an economic one. When roads and trains are safe, pressure eases off the aviation sector.

Second, supply must increase. That means creating the right economic conditions for investment in aviation: stable policies, predictable regulation, and access to credit at reasonable interest rates for operators who want to enter or expand in the market. This is harder and slower, but it is the only sustainable solution.

Summoning ministers and shouting about greed will not lower ticket prices. Security, sound policy, and investment will.

About PACT
Project for Advancement & Civic Transformation (PACT) is a coalition of citizens with a passion for national advancement and transformation. If you want to connect with other Nigerians committed to this growing movement for real change, join the PACT WhatsApp Channel via this link: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBw50r42Dcljgvrjn1v

PACT Daily Brief – Wednesday, April 1st, 2026

You Can’t Fight Terrorism with Soldiers Alone: The Case for Local Policing

Nigeria’s security situation is worsening by the day.

From the menace of Boko Haram in the North, to the terror of Fulani bandits in the Middle Belt, to many other security challenges such as militancy and armed separatist groups, it’s clear that the country is unable to keep its citizens safe. Yet for years, most conversations and “solutions” have revolved around one thing: deploying more soldiers. That approach misunderstands both the nature of insecurity and the role of the military.

The military can help with internal security challenges, but that is not its primary purpose. Armies exist to defend nations from external threats and fight wars, not to police towns and villages indefinitely. Soldiers move in, conduct operations, and eventually return to the barracks. But if the security gaps that led to the problem of terrorism is not addressed, terrorists and armed groups simply rearm, regroup, and resume their activities.

You cannot rely on the military for the day-to-day security of a country. That job belongs to police and law enforcement.

Two changes are essential if Nigeria is serious about solving insecurity. First, nomadic herding must be banned by law. In the North, this issue has been a persistent source of conflicts between herders and farming communities, while it in the Middle Belt, it’s become a cover for Fulani militias who want to terrorize rural areas. This has to stop.

Second, the security and law enforcement architecture must be decentralized. The idea of a Federal Police being responsible for the security of a country of around 237 million people and tens of thousands of distinct communities is patently absurd.

Over-centralization always breeds corruption and inefficiency. In this particular case, it breeds insecurity and terrorism. Some have argued for State police; I don’t think that’s decentralized enough. Security and policing should be local. Like we argued yesterday, local government should be restructured and part of their function has to include security and law enforcement.

Nigeria cannot rely on a distant, centralized command to solve its deepening insecurity. True progress requires empowering communities, regulating sources of avoidable violence, and ensuring that those closest to the danger are given the tools, agency, and authority to protect themselves. Without these measures, insecurity will remain not just a headline issue, but a daily reality for millions.

About PACT
Project for Advancement & Civic Transformation (PACT) is a coalition of citizens with a passion for national advancement and transformation. If you want to connect with other Nigerians committed to this growing movement for real change, join the PACT WhatsApp Channel via this link: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBw50r42Dcljgvrjn1v

Welcome to the first episode of the PACT Daily Brief.

In this episode, let’s compare Nigeria with the United States.

The US has about 343 million people, 50 states, and over 90,000 local governments. Nigeria has an estimated 237 million people, 36 states, and just 774 local governments—most of which are non-functional and useless. This difference is crucial as it explains why things work there and fail here.

The fact is that effective public administration can only work at the local level. The level of government that should matter most to the everyday citizen is not the federal government and not even the state government, but the local government. It is the level citizens should be able to walk into, question, pressure, engage, and influence on a regular basis.

Local governments should not be something artificially manufactured by military decrees and political bargaining. Every distinct human settlement should be a local government in its own right—whether a major city, a large town, a small town, or a village. That is how public administration works in countries that function.

In such a system, local governments would be responsible for their own administration, revenue generation, law enforcement, town and urban planning, their own fire and ambulance services, their own hospitals and clinics, their own schools, parks, roads, water supply, and basic infrastructure. Many of these functions are currently handled at the state and federal level in Nigeria, when they should be managed locally.

There is a reason this model is used across the world: it works.

The Nigerian landscape is essentially littered with thousands of cities and towns that have no government, and we are shocked that nothing works. Most distinct human settlement (cities, towns, and villages) should have its own government: meaning that Nigeria should upwards of 45,000 local governments, not 774.

Local government is not a formula for sharing money in Aso Rock. It is the most important and the most fundamental unit of governance and public administration.

Nigeria’s governance problem is not just about bad leadership; it is also about a stupid structure. Until Nigeria is rebuilt from the bottom up, we will keep appointing Comptrollers General for fire in Abuja while the country burns.

About PACT
Project for Advancement & Civic Transformation (PACT) is a coalition of citizens with a passion for national advancement and transformation. If you want to connect with other Nigerians committed to this growing movement for real change, join the PACT WhatsApp Channel via this link: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBw50r42Dcljgvrjn1v