The Pull of Abuja

Questions over a ₦153m office lease highlight a broader danger; Nigeria's newest development commission may become more attached to the capital than to the region it was created to serve.

Nigeria's institutions have an unhealthy habit of migrating towards Abuja, even when their mandates lie elsewhere. The South East Development Commission (SEDC), whose headquarters is in Enugu, was designed precisely to reverse that tendency. Yet recent exchanges with the Senate Committee overseeing the commission suggest that the capital's gravitational pull remains difficult to resist.

Among the questions raised was the reported expenditure of ₦153m on office accommodation in Abuja, alongside concerns over the utilisation of over ₦16bn already released to the commission.

These figures matter less for their size than for what they reveal about priorities.

The South East Development Commission exists because decades of neglect left the region's infrastructure, industry and ecology in need of focused intervention. The commission was conceived as an instrument for rebuilding and accelerating development in Nigeria's South-East. Its mandate is not abstract; roads, infrastructure, ecological restoration, industrialisation, human capital, and economic renewal across Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo. The region itself is the commission's reason for existence. It was deliberately headquartered in Enugu to ensure that its operations remained close to the communities it was established to serve. In principle, the commission should embody a departure from Nigeria's over-centralised tradition.

While maintaining some form of presence in the capital is sensible, however, with a headquarters already established in Enugu, the obvious question is why a rented office in Abuja should command ₦153m. What strategic necessity justifies such expenditure? Could a more modest arrangement not have sufficed? What opportunity costs are involved?

Development commissions should be austere institutions. Every naira spent on overhead should be treated as a naira unavailable for erosion control in Anambra, industrial infrastructure in Aba, roads in Ebonyi or power projects in Nnewi.

The Senate Committee's scrutiny should therefore be welcomed, oversight is not hostility. The more important question concerns the ₦16bn already released. How much has translated into actual projects? Which contracts have been awarded? What measurable outcomes exist? What proportion has been absorbed by administration?

These are not merely accounting questions, they are questions about institutional philosophy.

Nigeria has seen this movie before and it offers little comfort. The Niger Delta Development Commission, established with lofty ambitions, became synonymous with endless investigations into expenditures that often bore little resemblance to the developmental needs of the region it was established to serve. Headquarters and guest houses proliferated. Consultants multiplied. Committees convened. Meanwhile, many communities remained as underdeveloped as before.

The South East Development Commission was intended to avoid this fate.

The South-East has waited too long for reconstruction to settle for symbolism. It does not need another institution whose most visible assets are offices and expenditures. It needs roads, industrial parks, flood control, electricity and jobs.

The commission's success will not be measured by the quality of its address in Abuja, it will be measured by whether, years from now, the people of the South-East can point to tangible improvements in their lives and say that this institution justified its existence.

The Senate has asked questions, Nigerians deserve answers. More importantly, Ndi Igbo deserve results.

Ugwu Onyeama: Two Hundred Plus Deaths Later, Where Are the Investigation Reports?

How Many More Must Die at Ugwu Onyeama?

For Ndi Enugu, and indeed many Nigerians, Ugwu Onyeama no longer evoke the beauty of the ancient hills that welcome travellers into Enugu. Instead, it has become synonymous with twisted metal, burning vehicles, mass casualties, and grief.

In the last twenty-four months alone, more than two hundred lives have reportedly been lost on that stretch of road. Entire families have been wiped out, breadwinners have vanished in moments and children orphaned. Yet, after every tragedy, we observe a familiar ritual; condolences are offered, promises made, and then silence returns, until the next catastrophe.

One is compelled to ask a simple question: What have the accident investigation teams actually discovered?

Road crashes are not acts of fate. They are events with causes. Around the world, every major accident is studied, documented, and analysed so that lessons can be learned and future disasters prevented. If scores of people have died repeatedly at the same location, surely there should be a body of findings by now.

Have investigators, if any, established whether the problem lies with excessive speed, brake failures, poor road geometry, inadequate signage, lack of escape lanes for heavy-duty vehicles, insufficient enforcement, overloaded trucks, driver fatigue or some combination of these factors?

More importantly, where are the reports?

Ndi Enugu deserve answers. The families of the dead deserve answers and the commercial drivers who traverse that route daily deserve answers.

For decades, accident investigation has never been intended merely to assign blame after lives have already been lost. Its primary purpose is prevention. Every investigation that fails to produce reforms is little more than an exercise in counting the dead.

What recommendations have the Federal Road Safety Corps, the police, the Ministry of Works, and other relevant agencies produced? Which of those recommendations have been implemented? Which have been ignored? Why has a notorious black spot continued to claim lives with frightening regularity?

Other countries have transformed deadly stretches of road through engineering and policy. Runaway truck ramps have been installed, speed restrictions enforced, heavy vehicles subjected to stricter inspections, warning systems upgraded, road geometry redesigned and intelligent monitoring introduced.

Is Nigeria incapable of doing the same?

It is unacceptable that a location with such a tragic history should continue to function as though nothing has happened. Every fresh accident raises uncomfortable questions about institutional memory and governmental accountability.

Perhaps the most disturbing possibility is that the findings exist but remain buried in files, unread and unimplemented.

A society that learns nothing from tragedy condemns itself to repeat it.
The next accident at Ugwu Onyeama should not be described as an unavoidable misfortune. If known risks have been identified and no corrective action taken, then such deaths cease to be accidents; they become governance failures.
Two hundred plus souls ought to have been enough.

How many more must die before Ndi Enugu decide that prevention is more important than condolences?

Oga Tomorrow Is Here, where are thou?


Dr. EK Gwuru writes from Nkolo Ikembe.

OGA NDI ENUGU AND HIS TWO SONS.

Oga had two sons.

One day, the villagers gathered because strange stories were flying around the compound.

The first son was accused of borrowing a university certificate from the spirit world. People said the certificate had travelled farther than its owner ever did.
The second son, they said, came carrying an NYSC certificate so mysterious that the very people who issue such papers looked at it and said, “Young man, we don’t know you.”

Naturally, the villagers expected Oga to call both sons, bring out the cane, and ask difficult questions.

But Oga is an experienced man.

He summoned the first son and said: “My son, what you have done is terrible. You have disgraced the family. Go and sit in the corner.”

Then he turned to the second son, embraced him warmly, slaughtered a goat, beat the egwu, and announced to the whole village: “This is the son I endorse. He is the future of our lineage.”

The villagers scratched their heads.

One old woman whispered:
“But Oga, are these not two children from the same Nkanu womb?”
“Yes.”
“And are they not both answering to allegations concerning certificates?”
“Yes.”
“So why punish one and celebrate the other?”

Oga adjusted his red cap and replied: “My children, wisdom is not for everybody. Some certificates are more equal than others.”

Another elder coughed and asked: “But what lesson are you teaching the grandchildren?”

Oga smiled and said: “Simple. If two goats enter the yam barn, the one I like becomes a sheep.”

Since then, the village has learnt an important principle of modern politics: Forgery is a mortal sin when committed by your opponent. It becomes a misunderstanding when committed by your favourite son.

And thus the people of Enugu approach 2027, not asking whether certificates are genuine, but merely whose certificate deserves forgiveness.

For in our land, consistency is often the first casualty of endorsement.

Dr. EK Gwuru writes from Nkolo Ikembe.

The Future That Fear Steals.

The greatest mischief wrought by fear lies not so much in the injuries it inflicts upon us, but in the lives it persuades us not to live and the possibilities it silently removes from our reach.

Fear is among the oldest companions of mankind. It has preserved us from danger and enabled our species to survive. Yet the very faculty that protects life can, when it exceeds its proper office, become one of its greatest enemies. The tragedy of fear is not merely that it causes suffering. It is that it deprives us of experiences, opportunities, and forms of happiness that might otherwise have been ours.

A person may imagine that fear’s effects are visible only in moments of pain or anxiety. But its more profound consequences are negative rather than positive. Fear prevents rather than produces. It keeps men from speaking truths they believe, from loving where affection beckons, from venturing where curiosity invites, and from attempting achievements whose possibility remains forever unknown. Thus, what fear destroys is often invisible, for one cannot easily count the friendships never formed, the discoveries never made, or the joys never experienced.

Many institutions have depended upon fear for their power. Tyrants have relied upon it, religions have sometimes cultivated it, and societies have frequently used it to preserve conformity. Yet every advance in civilisation has depended upon individuals who were willing, despite fear, to think independently and to act courageously. Intellectual progress itself is impossible where fear governs the mind, for fear prefers certainty to truth and obedience to understanding.

It is a common error to suppose that courage means the absence of fear.

Courage consists rather in refusing to grant fear sovereignty over one’s actions. A life wholly free from fear would be reckless, but a life ruled by fear is scarcely lived at all. Security purchased at the cost of curiosity, affection, or liberty is too expensive a bargain.

In old age, people seldom lament the embarrassments they endured or the failures they encountered. More often they regret the roads they declined to travel, the convictions they failed to express, and the aspirations they abandoned for the sake of safety. The wounds inflicted by action may heal, but the losses imposed by timidity frequently remain permanent.

For this reason, the greatest tragedy of fear is not the pain it causes, but the countless possibilities it quietly carries away. A man may survive his fears and yet discover, too late, that in guarding himself against life, he has also been guarded from its richest rewards.

It is in this light that citizens must consider their obligations to public life. Governments, being human institutions, are not exempt from criticism, nor does patriotism require silence in the face of incompetence, injustice, or neglect. On the contrary, the health of a nation depends upon the willingness of ordinary men and women to speak with honesty and reason when those entrusted with power fall short of their responsibilities.

For Nigerians, fear must not become a substitute for citizenship. If there are failures in governance, whether in matters of security, economic hardship, corruption, or the administration of justice, then these failures ought to be addressed openly and without malice. To remain silent merely because criticism is inconvenient or unpopular is to surrender one of the chief privileges of a free people.

No government is strengthened by flattery, but every government is improved by an informed and courageous citizenry. The duty of Nigerians is therefore not blind loyalty to those who govern, but steadfast loyalty to the Republic and to the welfare of generations yet unborn. Through peaceful expression, reasoned criticism, civic participation, and the ballot, citizens may remind those in office that authority is held in trust and not possessed by right.

Fear may preserve comfort for a season, but silence in the face of national decline is too dear a price to pay. For the greatest tragedy of fear is not merely what it does to us, but what it takes from us, and among the things it steals most completely is the future we might otherwise have had.

Dr. EK Gwuru writes from Nkolo Ikembe.

The Theft of Agency. A Curated Weapon Against Thought.

One of the most curious habits in contemporary Nigerian political discourse is the casual accusation that anyone who disagrees with us must be “teleguided.” The word, inherited from military and intelligence vocabulary, implies that a person does not act from conviction or reason, but merely carries out instructions from some unseen hand. It is a convenient insult, and also a profoundly anti-democratic one.

To accuse a person of being teleguided is not merely to question his judgment; it is to deny his agency.

Agency is the capacity of human beings to think, choose, judge, and act according to their understanding and conscience. It is one of the fundamental assumptions of any democratic society. Citizens vote, protest, support and oppose government because they possess agency. Strip agency from the citizen, and democracy itself becomes meaningless.

Yet in Nigeria, political discourse increasingly treats disagreement as evidence of manipulation. Critics of government are said to be teleguided by opposition, while supporters are dismissed as paid agents. Labour unions are allegedly acting at the behest of enemies. Civil society organisations are accused of serving foreign interests. Even ordinary citizens expressing frustrations over inflation, insecurity, or corruption are often branded as pawns in some hidden conspiracy.

Such accusations are not only intellectually lazy but more dangerously, they are authoritarian in instinct.

Bertrand Russell observed that one of the marks of dogmatism is the inability to imagine that sincere and intelligent people may arrive at conclusions different from our own. The democratic spirit requires precisely that recognition. If a person criticises government policy, it does not follow that he is controlled by someone. If another praises the same government, it does not mean she has been bought. Human beings possess minds, they have experiences, values, hopes, fears, and interests. These are sufficient to explain most political positions.
The tendency to attribute every opinion to hidden masters reveals an impoverished understanding of citizenship. It assumes that Nigerians are incapable of independent thought, that they are forever clients, tribesmen, or hired voices. Such a view reduces citizens to marionettes and, politics to conspiracy.

Ironically, this language reproduces the paternalism that colonialism itself depended upon. Colonial administrators often viewed Africans as masses incapable of autonomous reasoning, susceptible only to manipulation by chiefs or agitators. Today, Nigerians sometimes inflict the same insult upon one another. Every protest must have a sponsor, every criticism must originate from an enemy and every opinion must have a godfather behind it.

This mentality is especially corrosive in the age of social media. Rather than engage with arguments, many prefer to attack presumed affiliations. “Who sent you?” becomes more important than “What are you saying?” Truth becomes secondary to tribe, party, or patronage. Arguments are not answered; motives are casually assigned.

Such discourse impoverishes public debate. A nation cannot solve its problems when every dissenting voice is treated as illegitimate. It becomes easier to dismiss concerns about insecurity, unemployment, poverty, corruption, or constitutional reform by alleging hidden sponsors than by confronting uncomfortable realities.

Certainly, people can be influenced, propaganda exists and political interests exist. Some actors are indeed paid or coordinated, but influence is not the same as control. Human beings are not robots. A person may agree with Peter Obi, Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, Rabiu Kwankwaso, or any other political figure without surrendering his autonomy. Agreement does not imply servitude nor does support negate agency.

The accusation of being teleguided often says less about the accused than about the accuser. It reveals an inability to accept plurality, the uncomfortable fact that other people may genuinely see the world differently. It substitutes suspicion for engagement and conspiracy for argument.

Democracy demands something nobler. It requires that we grant to others the dignity we claim for ourselves; the dignity of independent judgment.
For if I insist that my support for a candidate springs from principle while your support springs from manipulation, I have elevated myself into a free citizen and reduced you to an instrument, thus claiming humanity for myself while denying it to you.

And that is the ultimate theft.

The greatest injury in calling a person “teleguided” is not that it questions his loyalty, it is that it strips him of what makes him fully human; his agency, his reason, and his right to arrive at conclusions different from ours.

A republic worthy of the name cannot be built by citizens who refuse to acknowledge one another as thinking beings. Liberal democracy begins not with agreement, but with the recognition that those who disagree with us are nevertheless authors of their own convictions.

Dr. EK Gwuru writes from Nkolo Ikembe.