Politics
Sorrowful letter to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu (2)
Sorrowful letter to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu (2) By Tunde Odesola
In a jaw-dropping revelation, Ade Lawyer, the self-confessed hired killer, accentuated how subsequent Lagos State governments of Tinubu, Babatunde Fashola, and Akinwunmi Ambode, had indirectly made life unsafe, cheap and nasty through the abetment of NURTW activities in the state.
In a front-page story, “Confession Of An Alleged Assassin: How I Killed People For Money – Ade Lawyer,” published by Daily Independent newspaper, on March 17, 2018, the assassin said, “After my release, I went back to Ajah and I started working again as a bus conductor and a driver. I worked in Ajah for like two years before I joined the National Union of Road Transport Workers, Ajah branch, and I was made a parking attendant at Phase One Unit in Ajah in 2004.
“After a while, I became king of the boys and I started collecting N50 from every bus that comes into that park. I later turned that my (parking attendant) position into a unit. I started collecting N100 security money from every commercial vehicle that made a turn at the Ajah garage. I also recruited some boys who started working with me.
“At the end of each day, we will share all the monies collected among ourselves and we will also give a part of it to the chairman of the unit where we worked.”
Ade Lawyer continued, “I did that for about six years before the Ajah branch chairman died and a caretaker committee led by one Mustapha (Adekunle) Sagoe was sent to take over the branch by the then state chairman. The caretaker committee stopped my job and I went to Sagoe, whom I knew very well because he is also from Lagos Island, and I begged him to allow me to retain my job (in Ajah)…He snubbed me…”
The quotations here were the unforced words of the murderer. Now, let’s pause and chew on the kernel of my argument: Who is to blame when killers and hoodlums forcefully extort motorists and share money that should go to the government’s coffers in a state with an elected executive and legislature? Mark you, the Lagos State government since 1999 has never complained to the Office of the Inspector General of Police about the disturbing activities of Lagos NURTW thugs.
The insane manner Ade Lawyer took over public space unchallenged by the government, and started to force money out of motorists is typical of all NURTW parks across the country. The obscene scene painted by Ade Lawyer is what Lagosians, including children and the old, are afflicted with in the hell called garages everyday.
Can the Lagos State Government under the leaderships of Tinubu, Fashola, Ambode and Sanwo-Olu claim not to know the activities of the hoodlums and killers masquerading as transport workers? What did each governor do to stop Lagosians from suffering the bloodletting and violence by NURTW vagabonds? The romance between Lagos State and Lagos NURTW not only makes thuggery attractive, it also makes NURTW scoundrels look like they are the only ones that can successfully operate commercial road transport.
According to an investigation by the International Centre for Investigative Report, Lagos NURTW generates N123 billion annually. This is about the 2021-2022 budget proposals of Nasarawa, Niger, and Yobe, Taraba, Kogi, Ekiti, Osun, Benue, Ebonyi, Plateau, Adamawa, Enugu, Jigawa, Kebbi, Zamfara, Abia etc states each. Sadly, no state in the country generates enough funds to fully execute annual budget proposals. Many financial experts believe the transport union generates far more than N123bn yearly.
The colossal sum of N123bn generated by the NURTW annually translates into N10.25bn monthly, which is far higher than the combined annual capital expenditures of all federal and state tertiary institutions nationwide.
How can a worthy state government leave killers and thugs to collect billions of naira in unaudited funds from motorists and garage hawkers? How much of these funds is paid to government, how much ends in private pockets? The superrich Frankenstein monsters created by the powers that be in Lagos State have bolted through the window; now, they’re dragging the thrones with princes, wrestling with lawmakers for maces, even as Alausa, Lagos State seat of power, will loom in sight at the fullness of NURTW madness.
That scumbags largely operate commercial transport and collect revenue on behalf of state governments nationwide since 1999 is indicative of the hatchet job transport unions do for the political class.
Back to Ade Lawyer. The killer said he sided with the Chairman, Lagos State NURTW, Olohunwa, in 2010 when a supremacy fight broke out between Olohunwa and another faction that included Agbede, MC Oluomo and Sagoe. He said when Olohunwa lost out in 2012 as state chairman of the union, he went back to his hemp business just as he got himself an AK-47 and a pistol.
Ade Lawyer explained that in 2015, he teamed up with the Peoples Democratic Party elements on Lagos Island to mobilise and win the presidential and state governorship elections for the PDP on the island. When the PDP lost the elections after fierce gun battles which involved bloodshed, the killer said Sagoe and his men ordered all PDP supporters in the NURTW ‘to leave Lagos Island and follow President Goodluck Jonathan to his hometown in Bayelsa State’. Thus he left the NURTW and started to kill for a living.
The leadership of the PDP, which included former President Jonathan, isn’t less guilty than Tinubu and the APC in sponsoring violence as it was the case when the Jonathan government sponsored the Gani Adams-led Oodua Peoples Congress to unleash violence on Lagosians during the countdown to the 2015 presidential election. News of NURTW members engaging in killings and violation of peace is also commonplace in states controlled by the PDP and other political parties.
However, Tinubu, an APC presidential aspirant, is being held to scrutiny in this article because his godson, MC Oluomo – an APC leader and bestial arrowhead – is covertly staking his claim to the Oshodi chieftaincy crown.
“Ko s’oba l’Oshodi, Oluomo sha la ni,” meaning, “There’s no king in Oshodi, we only have Oluomo,” is a popular refrain by a glorified thug who found fame and fortune chanting (not singing) Fuji music in croaky voice, unlike Fuji music creator and king, the late Dr. Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, who never mixed politics with his art.
Given the love of MC Oluomo for Fuji musicians to sing his praise, it is flabbergasting that before the throne of Oshodi recently became vacant, no musician has ever sung the praise of MC Oluomo in relation to his claimed royal family. Was he just born into a royal family last year? Why has no musician ever called him omoba (prince) if he was truly one – in all these years of frolicking?
Word has it that the crowning of another road transport leader as king in Lagos State is the sole impetus firing the desire of MC Oluomo to become king.
The wise one from India, Mahatma Gandhi, says, “Poverty is the worst form of violence,” I disagree. I, however, agree with the words of the Russian sage, Leo Tolstoy, who opines that, “Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.”
Were it not so, the Shehu Shagari-led National Party of Nigeria (1979-1983) wouldn’t cuddle Bayo Success in Oshodi, the Olusegun Obasanjo-led PDP won’t caress Lamidi Adedibu in Ibadan, and Tinubu won’t kiss MC Oluomo in Oshodi.
After getting exhausted harassing and extorting innocent youths who carry laptops in their bags, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission should add the NURTW to their list of untouchables.
Nigeria: A scamming leadership ably supported by ruthless hooligans.
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: @tunde odesola
Twitter: @tunde_odesola
Politics
2027 BATTLE: How Much Nigeria Can Save, Invest In Infrastructure By Rotating Power Among Six Geo-political Zones For A Single Term Of Five Or Six Years
2027 BATTLE: How Much Nigeria Can Save, Invest In Infrastructure By Rotating Power Among Six Geo-political Zones For A Single Term Of Five Or Six Years
As a Southernern, particularly from the South East Geo-Political Zone, I believe the most potent argument for us in 2027 is that the North/South zoning arrangement of political power at the center is a scam. It’s a scam because it has only benefitted the South West and the North West geo-political zones since the return of ‘democracy’ (civil rule) in Nigeria on May 29, 1999. Nigeria, it must be clarified has six geo-political zones, not two.
Nigeria was divided into six geo-political zones in 1996 by the military government of General Sanni Abacha. This new zoning arrangement was a brainchild of the 1994/1995 Constitutional Conference chaired by the late Justice Adolphus Karibi-Whyte and empaneled by General Sanni Abacha.
At that Conference, no less a person than former Vice President Chief Alex Ekwueme and a group called Mkpoko Igbo proposed that since Nigeria will now be divided into six geo-political zones, to give all zones a sense of belonging within the Nigerian State, that power at the center should rotate among the six geo-political zones for a single term of five or six years. In their thinking, if power was rotated among the six geo-political zones for a single term of five or six years, within 30 years or 36 years, all six zones would have had one of their own leading Nigeria, particularly, from their first 11 (primus inter pares). The North and the South West delegations at that conference pooh-poohed Chief Alex Ekwueme and summarily shut down that all-important proposal. The rest they say is history.
More than 30 years later, there is yet no national peace, national cohesion, national political stability, national unity, and national loyalty to the Nigerian State. Had the proposal of Chief Alex Ekwueme and Mkpoko Igbo been adopted and implemented since 1999, at least, the 5th Geo-Political Zone would have had one of their own in Aso Villa today, and by 2035, the last geo-political zone would have being sending us one of their own to contest the Presidency across Nigeria’s current 18 political parties. This mathematics is if we had gone with a single term of six years (the maximum limit) as proposed by Dr. Ekwueme and the South East and South South delegates in that 1994/1995 Constitutional Conference.
Fast forward to today, in his recent Arise TV interview, and in some other public and private fora, H.E. Atiku Abubakar asked for Dr. Ekwueme’s forgiveness as he was among key Northern delegates in that Constitutional Conference from the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua group that opposed the rotational presidency among Nigeria’s geo-political zones. Waziri Adamawa had disclosed that he even apologized to Alex Ekwueme when he visited Oko, Anambra State, to pay homage to the former late vice president sometime in 2017/2018.
By and large, for 2027, I believe that the most potent argument that will sell in the South East is that the North East where Waziri Adamawa hails from, just like the South East (our region), had also been marginalized in the scheme of things in Nigeria. Aside from Alhaji Tafawa Balewa from Bauchi State (North East), nobody from the region/zone has been head of national government, head of state, or even president since 1966.
So, H.E. Atiku Abubakar is right in contesting the Presidential election billed for January 16, 2027, to right this wrong, and return Nigeria’s presidency to an equitable distribution of power at the center. When elected, and it’s entrenched in the Nigerian 1999 Constitution (as amended), that power rotates among the six geo-political zones for a single term of five or six years, this new formula will bring about national peace, national cohesion, national unity, and tremendously commandeer national loyalty among Nigerians from across the six geo-political zones for their beloved country, the Nigerian State.
As a budding political scientist of repute and ardent student of contemporary Nigerian history and politics, let me tell us what this formular would do for the Nigerian State. The battle for the soul of the Nigerian State will be ferocious at the zonal level, while the center will become unattractive. So, let’s say it is the turn of the North East Geo-Political Zone to produce the Presidency in 2027, the battle to gift Nigerians their First 11 (primus inter pares) will be ferocious across the States in the region. The people of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, and Yobe will now be more interested in partisan politics, thus being proactive participants within the current 18 political parties in Nigeria.
Giving Nigeria’s configurations and peculiarities, one of the positives of this political proactiveness is that it’s a win-win situation for the entire region if a man from Adamawa becomes President of Nigeria in 2027. The people from Yobe, Borno, Taraba, Gombe, and Bauchi will be largely happy, contented, hold their peace, love Nigeria better, and be more loyal to the Nigerian State because one of their own is now the GCFR, the primus inter pares, and the No. 1 Citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The steep insecurity that has ravaged the North East Geo-Political Zone since 2009, largely owing to perceived agelong marginalisation, oppression, injustices, would largely die down.
This will be the same case for the South East Geo-Political Zone. Biafra secessionist agitations, IPOB, ESN led by Nnamdi Kanu, will die a natural death. Justice and equity for all breeds contentment among men, and contentment among men births peace, unity, commandeers loyalty, and tremendously brings about prosperity. I stand to be challenged on this self-evident truth on any national television station.
When it is the turn of another region to produce the Presidency, after the North East has had their turn, all political parties in Nigeria must constitutionally present a Presidential candidate from the region whose turn it is to produce the presidency for a single term of six years. This rotational presidency formula must be entrenched in Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution (as amended) by May 29, 2027.
I avow that rotational presidency among Nigeria’s six geo-political zones for a single term of five or six years is the best political science solution to the agelong hydra-headed problem of Nigeria, especially in the guise of disunity, unpeaceful, and disloyalty problems among Nigerian citizens. Doing this will also largely curtail the executive rascalities, legislative rascalities, and judicial rascalities currently being perpetrated by the Bola Ahmed Tinubu led Executive arm; the Godswill Akpabio led Legislative arm; and the CJN Kudirat Motonmori Olatokunbo Kekere-Ekun led Judiciary arm.
The over desperation of getting re-elected for a second term in office, as shown today by Bola Tinubu, will be eraced for future Nigerian Presidents. The humongous money and depletion of Nigeria’s national treasury just for seeking re-election at all cost, and conducting elections will also be erased.
The Highfalutin, Draining Cost Of Conducting Elections In Nigeria?
For the 2023 general election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) proposed N305 billion in May 2022, which was a 62 percent increase over the 2019 budget. Ultimately, the National Assembly approved N355 billion for the exercise, though the commission spent N313.4 billion as of September 2023.
For the 2027 general election, INEC Chairman Prof. Joash Amupitan proposed a total budget of N873.78 billion to the National Assembly in February 2026. This proposal includes N375.75 billion for election operations, N209.21 billion for technology, and N92.31 billion for administrative costs. The Bola Ahmed Tinubu led APC regime had previously allocated N1.01 trillion to INEC in the 2026 budget presented in January 2026.
Ladies and gentlemen, INEC’s election budget ballooned from N355 billion in 2023 to a whopping N873.78 billion for a re-election season in 2027? This is approximately a percentage increase of 146.13%. This is unacceptable, opprobrious, and insalubrious.
If we entrench in the Nigerian 1999 Constitution (as amended), zoning the presidency among the six geo-political zones for a single term of five or six years, this proposed N873.78 billion to coduct the 2027 re-election season would have been eliminated.
What Can N873.78 billion Do For Nigerians In Terms Of Infrastructural Developmental Projects?
If hypothetically redirected or matched in scale for infrastructure development, N873.78 billion could significantly advance Nigeria’s infrastructure across key sectors:
1. Roads and Transportation: This amount could fund the rehabilitation of over 10,000 kilometers (6213.712 miles) of rural and urban roads, especially when combined with technical support from institutions like the World Bank’s RAAMP-SU project.
It could complete critical projects like the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway or support the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, enhancing regional connectivity and trade.
2. Railway Development: Based on past projects, N873 billion could finance a new 600–800 km (373-497 miles) standard gauge rail line, similar to the Abuja-Kaduna or Lagos-Ibadan lines, which were partially funded by Chinese loans.
Rail expansion would boost freight movement, reduce road congestion, and create thousands of jobs.
3. Power and Energy: The sum could support renewable energy projects, such as solar mini-grids for 10,000 rural communities, or fund transmission infrastructure to reduce power losses.
For context, Power Africa facilitated $63 million in renewable energy investments over 26 months—N873 billion could scale such efforts dramatically.
4. Water and Sanitation: Funds could build or upgrade water treatment plants, boreholes, and sanitation systems in underserved urban and rural areas, improving public health and reducing waterborne diseases.
5. Agricultural Infrastructure: The NSIA’s Multipurpose Industrial Platform Ltd (MIPL) in Akwa Ibom, including an ammonia and fertilizer plant, is a multi-billion-dollar project. N873 billion could fund multiple such agro-industrial hubs, boosting food security and reducing import dependence.
Analyzing The Current Infrastructure Spending In Nigeria In Relation To N873.78 Billion?
For comparison, Nigeria’s actual infrastructure allocations are much lower than the humongous money INEC is proposing to conduct the shaky 2027 general elections in Nigeria.
The 2025 Federal Budget allocated ₦4.06 trillion ($2.7 billion) for infrastructure—about 7.4% of total spending.
The National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan (NIIMP) aims to raise infrastructure stock to 70% of GDP by 2043, requiring $100 billion annually—far above current spending levels.
Pension funds invested ₦262.57 billion in infrastructure in the first 10 months of 2025. This is below N873.78 billion being earmarked for the 2027 elections.
Without mincing words, let me aver that the N873.78 billion could transform infrastructural developmental projects in Nigeria, But the fact that this amount is proposed for elections, not infrastructural developmental projects, highlights a mismatch between public needs and government spending priorities in Nigeria, especially under the disastrous APC regime of Bola Tinubu.
Conclusion
While N873.78 billion is earmarked for elections, its scale underscores what Nigeria could achieve in infrastructure if similar resources were consistently invested. Redirecting even a fraction of election budgets toward roads, power, rail, water, and agriculture could accelerate economic growth, create jobs, and improve quality of life in Nigeria. However, transparency, accountability, and long-term planning are essential to ensure such investments yield lasting benefits.
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, let’s consider the substantial ingredients of this political seminal and fix this mess of power rotation at the center among Nigeria’s six geo-political zones for a single term of five or six years. Let’s stop wasting scarce resources in Nigeria conducting re-elections at the center and across state levels. Let’s stop wasting everybody’s time in Nigeria.
Ikenna Asomba is a political scientist and journalist. He writes from the State of Illinois, United States.
Politics
2027 BOMBSHELL: Dismantling The Myth Around Kwankwaso’s So-Called Electoral Dominance In Kano
2027 BOMBSHELL: Dismantling The Myth Around Kwankwaso’s So-Called Electoral Dominance In Kano
Politics
I am fully ready for the 2027 general elections”- ADP, presidential aspirant, Prof. Omolaja, declares
“I am fully ready for the 2027 general elections”- ADP, presidential aspirant, Prof. Omolaja, declares.
By Comrade Samson Ajibade Alabi, NLP Media Director
A presidential aspirant under the Action Democratic Party (ADP), Prof Muhammad Omolaja, has said that he is fully ready for the 2027 general elections especially the presidential contest.
Prof. Omolaja who disclosed this in an exclusive interview with pressmen in Abuja on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, said he has done his consultations with leaders of the Party, boasting that he is the next president of Nigeria by the grace of God.
He submitted that he has won the heart of the people at the grassroots across all the States and geopolitical zones including the federal capital territory (FCT); and convinced them about his clear vision and mission for Nigeria.
According to him, Nigerians are tired of the APC government and ready to vote them out in favour of his Party; the ADP!
Prof. Omolaja added that ADP is the only Party that can liberate Nigeria and rescue the citizens from the prevailing insecurity and other challenges facing the country.
The presidential aspirant said “you are asking me if I am ready for the 2027 general elections or not, I hereby inform you categorically that I am fully ready for the election; we have done what to be done, we have systematically carried Nigerians along in our preparations especially the people at the grassroots; and we have let them know that ADP is the only credible alternative Party that can liberate them from all the challenges the country is facing under the prevailing APC government. I am confident that I will get the ticket of our great Party being the leading contestant, and win the upcoming 2027 presidential election by the special grace of the Almighty God”
He therefore urged Nigerians to rally support for him and his Party (ADP) at the polls in the spirit of peace, love, unity, and patriotism in Nigeria.
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