ANN Politics

Tinubu's Drug Case vs. Atiku's Mambila: Why the EFCC Must Pretend to Be Nonpartisan or Officially Join the APC

by Mohammed Bello Doka
21 September, 2026.

There comes a point in the life of a nation when an institution stops pretending. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has reached that point. It is no longer a law enforcement agency. It is a political instrument wearing the costume of neutrality, and the costume is now so tattered that even the President it serves has been forced to look away in embarrassment.

Consider the timeline. On September 17, 2026, an ICC tribunal in Paris delivered its ruling on the Mambilla power project arbitration, rejecting Sunrise Power's claims and ordering the company to refund Nigeria $11.8 million in legal fees. Within forty-eight hours, Premium Times reported that the EFCC had set up a special team, supervised by Chairman Olanipekun Olukoyede himself, to investigate Atiku Abubakar, Abubakar Malami, and others named in the award. Two days. That is the time it took the EFCC to review a 616-page document, identify the individuals mentioned, assess criminal liability, formulate an investigative strategy, and constitute a team led by its chairman. Under the ICC's own rules, the award is notified to parties only after full payment of arbitration costs and following the Court's scrutiny process, which typically takes weeks. Yet the EFCC moved in forty-eight hours. The only logical conclusion is that the agency had advance knowledge of the award's contents. This was not investigative diligence. This was a prepared ambush.

Now compare that speed to the EFCC's handling of allegations involving the ruling party. For months, reports have circulated about hundreds of billions of naira contributed by APC governors through the Progressive Governors' Forum for campaign purposes, allegedly drawn from FAAC allocations meant for governance. The EFCC arrested Mustapha Abdullahi, Director-General of the Energy Commission of Nigeria, over money laundering involving between N500 billion and N701 billion. Investigators leaked to the press that they were tracing public funds. But no formal press release. No public confirmation. No governor invited. No chairman-level team announced. The Energy Commission DG was a convenient scapegoat, a man far enough from the governors to arrest but close enough to the money to question. The principals themselves remain untouched, protected by immunity and silence.

Then there is the National Assembly. On May 6, 2026, Justice Yellim Bogoro of the Federal High Court in Lagos declared the National Assembly's N110 billion allocation to itself unlawful, citing breach of procurement laws, conflict of interest, and self-dealing. The court was explicit: the doctrine of separation of powers does not shield illegality. The lawmakers who approved the expenditure were the same people who benefited from it. That is not legislative autonomy. That is legalised larceny. Has the EFCC invited a single senator? Has it issued a statement? Has Olukoyede constituted a team? Nothing. The silence is deafening, and it is deliberate.

Now consider Osun. On August 5, 2026, just ten days before the governorship election, the EFCC froze the Osun State Government's account. President Tinubu himself intervened the next day, saying he was deeply embarrassed by the timing and directing the commission to vacate the freeze. The EFCC had claimed it acted under its statutory preventive mandate. But the President's statement said the agency had obtained a court order. The agency's own spokesman never mentioned a court order on television. Someone was lying. And then, after the election, the case mysteriously disappeared. No charges. No follow-up. No explanation. The freeze was a political weapon, deployed against an opposition state, and withdrawn once its electoral purpose was served or once the embarrassment became too great even for the President.

This is the pattern. Against the opposition, the EFCC moves with theatrical urgency. Against the ruling party, it moves with bureaucratic caution. Against Atiku, a team is constituted in forty-eight hours. Against APC governors who allegedly diverted public funds, nothing. Against the National Assembly that illegally appropriated N110 billion to itself, nothing. Against Osun, a pre-election freeze that vanished. The message is unmistakable. The EFCC is not investigating crime. It is managing political outcomes.

And then there is the matter of Tinubu himself. The FBI has sworn under oath in a United States federal court that its records were compiled in furtherance of an investigation of multiple individuals for drug trafficking crimes. The court has already determined that an official acknowledgement had been made of an investigation of Bola Tinubu. He was a subject of a criminal investigation related to drug trafficking. That is not an allegation from a blog. That is a sworn declaration filed on August 28, 2026, in the District of Columbia. Tinubu's lawyers are in court right now trying to block the release of those documents, arguing privacy. Being investigated is not being convicted. But it is also not nothing. And if the EFCC can constitute a team in forty-eight hours for Atiku based on a civil arbitration award, what is it doing about the sworn confirmation that the President was investigated for drug trafficking? The answer is nothing. Because the EFCC is not in the business of investigating power. It is in the business of protecting it.

Olukayode behaves like a man who believes he will be in power forever. He supervises teams personally. He freezes state accounts days before elections. He moves with the swagger of someone who has confused the temporary authority of office with permanent relevance. He should remember that Nigeria has survived real dictators. Abacha. IBB. Obasanjo. Men who ruled with absolute power, who jailed opponents, who controlled the treasury and the military. Today they are pages in history books, some of them reduced to footnotes, some of them struggling to remain relevant in a country that has moved on. Nigeria survived them. It will survive Olukoyede. And it will survive the pawns who cannot win a House of Representatives seat on their own merit but who strut around Abuja as though they own the country.

The EFCC has a choice. It can pretend to be nonpartisan. It can issue press releases claiming it is non-sectarian, as it did in August. It can maintain the fiction that it is an independent agency enforcing the law without fear or favour. Or it can drop the pretence and officially join the APC. What it cannot do is continue to behave like a department of the ruling party while demanding to be treated as a neutral arbiter. Nigeria is watching. History is watching. And history has a way of dealing with men who mistake power for permanence.

Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]

Abuja Network News

Beyond Distractions: Tinubu Must Go to America

by Mohammed Bello Doka
21 September, 2026.

When will the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, and every other relevant security apparatus in this country finally open a formal, public, and transparent investigation into the sworn testimony of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that Bola Ahmed Tinubu was investigated for drug trafficking in the United States? When will the Nigerian state stop pretending that the cloud hanging over its chief executive is a figment of the opposition’s imagination and treat it as what it legally is: a matter of national security, international reputational risk, and the integrity of the presidency itself?

And when will Tinubu himself stop running from America? Because that is what this has become. Beyond distractions, beyond the official excuses, beyond the choreography of delegation and the careful language of “domestic priorities,” one fact remains stubborn and undeniable: the President of Nigeria will not set foot on American soil. Three consecutive UN General Assemblies. Three consecutive absences. Three consecutive delegations led by a Vice President who has never once acted as President. That is not a scheduling coincidence. That is a pattern. And that pattern is the story.

The FBI’s sworn declaration, filed August 28, 2026, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, stated plainly that the records sought were “compiled in furtherance of the FBI’s investigation of multiple individuals for drug trafficking crimes”. The filing further acknowledged that a court had already determined an official acknowledgment had been made of an investigation of Bola Tinubu. This is not a blog post. This is not a political rumour. This is the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States government, under oath, confirming that the President of Nigeria was a subject of a criminal drug trafficking investigation. The records relate to a Chicago-based he**in trafficking and money-laundering operation in the early 1990s. The $460,000 forfeiture. The IRS criminal investigation affidavit. The verified complaint under federal narcotics forfeiture laws. These are not inventions of the opposition. They are American court documents.

And what has the Nigerian state done with this information? Nothing. The EFCC, an agency with statutory authority to investigate financial crimes and money laundering, has said nothing. The NDLEA, an agency whose entire mandate is drug law enforcement, has said nothing. The Nigeria Police Force, the ICPC, the National Security Adviser — silence. Complete, total, deafening silence. This is the same EFCC that arrests activists for tweets. The same NDLEA that parades small-time couriers before cameras. The same security apparatus that can find a man who criticizes the President on Facebook but cannot find a file on an FBI investigation of the President himself.

The double standard is not merely political. It is legal. Under Nigerian law, the immunity clause in Section 308 of the 1999 Constitution shields the President from prosecution while in office, but it does not shield him from investigation. The right of action is suspended, not extinguished. The law contemplates that evidence may be gathered, that files may be opened, that the machinery of accountability may turn even if it cannot yet strike. The EFCC has the power to investigate the properties of any person whose lifestyle exceeds their known income. The NDLEA has the power to investigate drug-related allegations. Neither agency has lifted a finger. The immunity clause was designed to protect the dignity of the office, to prevent distractions, not to provide a shield for impunity. It has been converted into a licence for silence.

Now consider the pattern that has emerged. In July 2026, Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Jimoh Ibrahim, went on the record stating that Tinubu would attend the 81st UNGA and would sit “not too far from where the US President, Donald Trump, will be seated”. The President had confirmed his attendance. There were plans for side events on power, energy, education. Then September came. And with September came the reversal. Tinubu would not go. Vice President Kashim Shettima would lead the delegation. The official reason: domestic priorities. The opposition response: fear.

Atiku Abubakar, the former Vice President and a man who understands the burdens of the office, did not mince words. He noted that Tinubu had now skipped the 79th, 80th, and 81st UNGA sessions. He asked the question that every Nigerian should be asking: “Is Tinubu afraid that he could become Donald Trump’s next Nicolás Maduro? Is he haunted by the controversies surrounding his American academic claims and his documented drug-related forfeiture history?” The $9 million spent on American lobbyists. The promises of a Trump meeting that never materialized. The seat secured near the front row that the President had no intention of occupying. Atiku called it what it was: a contradiction that has become scandalous.

The Trump meeting claims deserve their own scrutiny. For months, the Tinubu team touted the possibility of a White House meeting. Ambassador Ibrahim said Tinubu would be seated close to Trump. Then the lobbying firm Von Batten-Montague-York, retained by Atiku Abubakar, stated flatly that key members of the Trump administration made clear the President would not meet privately with an alleged he**in trafficker. The $9 million in Nigerian taxpayer money purchased nothing. No meeting. No photograph. No statement of support from Washington. And then Tinubu cancelled the trip altogether. The lobbying failed. The meeting evaporated. And the President stayed home.

Beyond distractions, beyond the noise of 2027 politics and the choreography of campaign surrogates, one question remains. Will Bola Ahmed Tinubu go to America? Not to sit in a front row. Not to shake hands with Donald Trump. Not to deliver a speech about reform. But to face the questions that follow him. The FBI has confirmed the investigation. The court has confirmed the acknowledgment. The forfeiture documents are public. The pattern of avoidance is documented. The security agencies that should be investigating remain silent. The Vice President who leads delegation after delegation has never once acted as President, a fact that speaks volumes about the trust reposed in him and the power he actually wields.

The Nigerian people deserve answers. Not statements about domestic priorities. Not delegation lists. Not press releases from the Office of the Vice President. Answers. Will the EFCC open a file? Will the NDLEA request the FBI’s records? Will the National Assembly compel testimony? Will the President address the American investigation directly, without handlers and without scripts?

Until he does, the presidency will remain under a cloud that no amount of domestic propaganda can dispel. And the security agencies that have sworn to protect this country will remain what they have become under his watch: silent accomplices to impunity. The title says it plainly. Beyond distractions: Tinubu must go to America. And he must go not to wave from a podium, but to answer for what America already knows.

Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]

Abuja Network News

Sarcastic Sunday: APC Insists Tinubu Is the Best to Lead Nigeria — The 2027 Question: Will Anything Ever Change Under APC?

By Mohammed Bello Doka
20 September, 2026

The World Bank says 87 million Nigerians are living in extreme poverty. The IMF says economic growth is too sluggish to reduce poverty. The National Bureau of Statistics says inflation hit 34.8 per cent, the highest in nearly three decades. The United Nations says 3.5 million Nigerians are internally displaced. The Global Terrorism Index ranks Nigeria eighth most terror-affected nation on earth. And the APC, God bless their unwavering confidence, insists Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the best to lead Nigeria. Welcome to Sarcastic Sunday with Mohammed Bello Doka, the weekly column where we study Nigeria's political gymnastics sarcastically laced with humour and a pinch of salt, because doing otherwise will choke us to death.

Let us begin with the mathematics of patriotism. The APC says there is no better person to lead Nigeria than Tinubu. The World Bank says GDP per capita fell from $2,586 in 2015 to roughly $1,224 in 2025. That is not a decline. That is a disappearing act. If poverty were an Olympic sport, Nigeria would be on the podium, and the APC would be the coach telling us we are actually winning. The naira lost over 70 per cent of its value since June 2023. Food inflation crossed 35 per cent. National debt climbed to ₦159.35 trillion by March 2026, a more than twelve-fold increase since 2015. And yet, according to the APC, this is the best. If this is the best, one shudders to imagine what the worst looks like. Perhaps the worst is when they stop talking entirely and simply hand us the bill.

Abdullahi Ganduje, former APC national chairman, declared with the confidence of a man who has never queued for bread that there is no better person to be elected in 2027 than Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He added that this is the first time Nigeria is lucky to have a politician as president. Lucky. That is one word for it. The IMF might choose another word. The IMF said reforms have significantly eroded household purchasing power and that growth remains insufficient to reduce poverty. That is not luck. That is arithmetic. But arithmetic has never won an election in Nigeria. Only slogans do.

Vice President Kashim Shettima went further, saying only a fool, hell-bent on a suicidal path, or an outright imposter can dare to challenge President Tinubu in 2027. That is a bold statement from a government whose own economic scorecard reads like a hospital bill. The World Bank reported that food inflation exceeded 35 per cent and warned that seven million more Nigerians could be pushed into poverty by 2026 if reforms are not better sequenced. Seven million. That is not a statistic. That is a city. Imagine a whole city of newly poor Nigerians being told that challenging the architect of their misfortune would make them fools. If pointing out that the house is on fire makes one an imposter, then perhaps we should all learn to enjoy the flames.

Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna said no president has done for the North what Tinubu has done in three years. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says over 3.5 million Nigerians are internally displaced, many of them in the North. UNICEF says 1.5 million children have been displaced and at least 100 schools were attacked or closed in 2024 alone. ACLED recorded over 15,000 civilian deaths between 2023 and 2025. The Council on Foreign Relations Nigeria Security Tracker documented over 20,000 violent deaths and 5,000 kidnappings. If this is what doing a lot for the North looks like, then the North may wish to file a formal complaint with the manufacturer.

Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of Kano said the Renewed Hope Agenda is truly working and that Kano is feeling the impact from all angles. The International Crisis Group said Nigeria's security situation has deteriorated significantly since 2023, with the government's response largely reactive and the military overstretched. Amnesty International said Nigerian authorities have failed to protect civilians, with thousands killed or abducted and security forces themselves accused of extrajudicial killings. That is not an angle. That is a full circle of grief. And the only thing renewed is the hope that next year will be less terrible than this one.

Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa said that as a result of Tinubu's reforms, some governors have been able to carry out their work without borrowing a penny from the bank. That is genuinely impressive. It is also worth asking which bank, and whether the rest of us can open an account there. The World Bank, meanwhile, said the benefits of reforms have not yet translated into tangible improvements in the lives of most Nigerians. Most Nigerians. Not some. Not a few. Most. That is the kind of phrase that should end a press conference, not start a campaign.

Aminu Masari, former Katsina governor, said leaders are better known during tough times and that you can see toughness and commitment in Tinubu. Reuters reported that nearly 80 per cent of Nigerians say the country is headed in the wrong direction. A butcher in Abuja told Reuters he used to sell six goats a day and now struggles to sell one or two. That is not toughness. That is tenderness in the worst possible place. If leadership is measured by how many goats a butcher can sell, then Nigeria is not leading. It is following the goats into the bush.

The Global Terrorism Index ranks Nigeria eighth most terror-affected globally, with terrorism deaths rising 12 per cent in 2024. Human Rights Watch said security forces have committed widespread abuses, including extrajudicial killings and torture, with little accountability. And still, the APC insists this is the best. The best at what, exactly? At making the word best lose all meaning? At turning a country into a case study for how not to govern? At proving that confidence and competence are not the same thing, and that one can be loud while the other is absent?

Here is the vital question. If the World Bank, the IMF, the NBS, the UN, UNICEF, ACLED, the Global Terrorism Index, the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Crisis Group, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch all say the country is in crisis, and the APC says it is the best, then who exactly is the APC convincing? Themselves? Their governors? Their appointees? Or the 87 million Nigerians living in extreme poverty who are too busy surviving to attend the rally?

Another vital question. If nothing changes under this APC by 2027, will they finally admit that the problem was never the opposition, the weather, the colonialists, the global economy or the price of yam in December? Or will they simply rebrand the suffering, call it a sacrifice, and ask us to vote for continuity of the sacrifice?

And the most vital question of all. If this is the best, what does the worst look like? Does the worst come with complimentary tear gas, or do we have to pay for that separately?

Sarcastic Sunday will continue to ask these questions because someone must. Not because we enjoy it, but because silence in the face of contradiction is how a nation learns to call hunger a diet and hardship a reform. The APC says Tinubu is the best to lead Nigeria. The data says otherwise. The goats say otherwise. The butcher says otherwise. And the 2027 question remains, as it always does, will anything ever change under APC?

Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]

Abuja Network News

Atiku Pledges Scholarship to Niger Teen Miner After Viral Video

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has offered to fund the education of Yusuf Aliyu, the teenage artisanal miner whose viral video from a gold mining site in Niger State drew national attention following the deaths of 37 miners in custody. Atiku made the pledge in a statement posted on his X handle on Sunday, saying he was deeply moved by the teenager’s intelligence and composure. He said Aliyu should be in a classroom building his future rather than struggling for survival in a community surrounded by gold but buried in poverty.

The video, recorded during an interview with News Central Television, shows Aliyu disputing the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps’ initial claim that the detained miners died from a disease outbreak. He alleged that NSCDC personnel shot at miners at the site and insisted the miners were not engaged in illegal activity. Aliyu said they worked to support their poor parents and to pay their school fees.

Atiku said he could not look at Aliyu and see an illegal miner. He described the teenager as a Nigerian child failed by the country that should have protected him and appealed for his safety, warning that his courage should not expose him or his family to intimidation or retaliation. He stressed that any effort to reach the boy must be handled through his family and appropriate child protection channels.

The former vice president also questioned how a community sitting on gold could remain poor and unable to educate its children. He called on the Federal Government to explain the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the 37 miners and the status of the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Development Initiative in Niger State. The miners died after NSCDC operations in the M.I. Wushishi and Lukoto areas on September 15 and 16.

The Federal Government has constituted a 10 member committee to investigate the deaths, while the Niger State Government has set up its own inquiry and the police are conducting a separate investigation. Atiku said the gold beneath the community should build classrooms and livelihoods, not graves.

Abuja Network News

Arewa, Arewa, Arewa: Is There a Limit to What You Can Do for Power?

by Mohammed Bello Doka
20 September, 2026

Will God ever forgive us for the blood on our hands? Will He forgive our silence, our complicity, our sins of commission and omission, while pregnant women scream in pain, while children are cut down in their sleep, while old men watch their entire world burn?

Who am I to interfere in what God can or will not do? But it is an agreed fact that Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves. So this is not an inquiry. This is an introspection.

On September 17, 2026, thirty-seven suspected illegal miners died in the custody of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps in Minna, Niger State. They had been arrested during operations in the M.I. Wushishi and Lukoto areas on September 15 and 16. Survivors said sixty-five people were packed into a single cell. No ventilation. No food. No water. They pounded on the walls. They begged for air. Guards walked past. Some collapsed. Some died. Others were rushed to the hospital, foaming at the mouth, skin peeling from their bodies. Governor Umar Bago confirmed the deaths, declared three days of mourning, and cancelled the APC campaign rally scheduled for that weekend. He questioned the number of arrests, noting that sixty-seven people were reportedly held in three cells, but only the overcrowded male cell recorded casualties. The NSCDC Commandant and twenty-one other officers were suspended and detained in Abuja.

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This is horrific. This is tragic. But it is not isolated. It is not even unusual.

Every day in Northern Nigeria, people die in custody, at mining pits, in villages, on roads, in markets. In Kebbi, thirty-three people were killed when Lakurawa bandits attacked communities in Arewa Local Government Area. In a single year, SBM Intelligence recorded over seven thousand eight hundred kidnappings and more than five hundred eighty million dollars in ransom payments. The United Nations Human Rights Office documented killings, abductions, sexual violence, and forced conversions across the North, noting persistent allegations of impunity and inadequate protection by authorities. The pattern is relentless. The response is predictable. An investigation is announced. A committee is formed. A few officers are suspended. And then the news cycle moves on. The dead are buried. The families are forgotten. And the machine keeps grinding.

Does anyone care? Does the government care? Does it care when it makes choices about leadership? Or is leadership itself the prize that makes everything else expendable?

Look around. Look at the chains of complicity that bind us all. The businessman who sells supplies to the bandits. The poor informant who trades a neighbor's location for a few naira. The Imam who climbs the mimbar and defends the government while the blood of his congregation is still wet on the ground. The young man initiated into banditry who maims and kills and rapes. The lecturer who writes campaign strategies for politicians. The journalist who spins the narrative. The dibia who makes charms. The mallam who makes amulets. The market woman who traffics drugs and guns. The security agent who oppresses the people he was hired to protect. The voter who sells his vote for a mudu of rice. The party agent who hands it to him with a smile.

Everyone is a node. Everyone is a victim. Everyone knows. And everyone finds a way to justify.

I only collected rice. I only passed on information. I only made the charm. I only wrote the strategy. I only voted. I only kept silent. Each excuse is small. Each is reasonable on its own. But together, they form the architecture of collective collapse. A system of death cannot run without the consent of the living. And we have all consented. Not because we are evil. Because we are hungry. Because we have learned to call our hunger wisdom, our silence peace, and our complicity survival.

And what is the root of it all? One thing. One thing only. Hunger for power. The political elite will do anything, sacrifice anyone, destroy anything to keep it. And the general population, in its desperation, enables them. The two are intertwined. Without the people's silence and votes, the elite cannot rule. Without the elite's rice and noodles and cash, the people cannot eat. It is a marriage of convenience made in hell.

Look at our leaders. Do they look happy? Do they look satisfied? They have the mansions, the convoys, the sirens, the vuvuzela. And yet look at their faces. Angry. Desperate. Terrified of losing power. Terrified to death. Only a few of them seem genuinely composed, genuinely at peace. And who are those few? The ones we abuse, despise, and insult. The ones who refuse to play the game. We mock them because they will not buy our silence. We hate them because they remind us of what we have become.

Look at the bandits. They have collected trillions in ransom. Do you see any signs of affluence? Any satisfaction? They are scared to death. They sleep with one eye open. They trust no one. They die violently, and they die young.

Look at the common people. The professionals. The educated class. The Almajiri. Look at the faces on the street. Do you see joy? Do you see hope? Or do you see hunger, desperation, and a quiet, suffocating despair?

This is not a society. This is a pressure cooker. And it is about to explode.

If things continue as they are, there is only one guaranteed outcome. Continued suffering. Escalation of insecurity. Hunger. Crisis. Until the entire North becomes uninhabitable for everyone. The leaders will flee. They will become leaders in exile, clutching their passports and their foreign accounts. And if the crisis results in a violent change of government, it will be worse. Revolutions born of desperation in third-world countries almost always produce dictatorships. The new regime learns from the old one. It learns how to oppress more efficiently. It learns how to silence dissent more completely. It learns how to hold power more ruthlessly. The people who overthrew the tyrant become the new tyrant, often worse than the one they replaced.

But we have a choice. That is the one thing that remains. God may forgive us. God may not. That is not for us to decide. But regardless of what God in His infinite mercy chooses to do with us, our fate depends largely on how we use the power of freewill He gave us. We can continue to sell our votes. Continue to keep silent. Continue to justify. Continue to hope that someone else will fix what we are unwilling to fix ourselves. Or we can change what is within us. We can refuse the rice. We can speak the truth. We can hold our leaders accountable. We can stop being nodes in the machine of death.

The choice is ours. It has always been ours. The question is whether we have the courage to make it.

Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]

Abuja Network News