Good morning,
President Bola Tinubu prayed inside the Ka’abah this week. Saudi authorities granted him access to the interior, a privilege reserved for heads of state and select dignitaries. He described it as a historic and deeply cherished spiritual experience, and photographs circulated showing him inside the holy site. It is a rare honour. It is also the first time in three years in office that he has found his way inside the Ka’abah, and it happens to coincide with the opening of the 2027 campaign season. Faith is not a campaign strategy, but timing is. Fuel remains above ₦1,400 a litre. Food inflation is at 19.59 per cent. A calm, dignified image from abroad is a useful thing to have when the numbers at home refuse to behave.
Organised labour has split over the ₦70,000 monthly transport allowance. The NLC accepted it. The TUC rejected it, calling it haphazard and demanding a permanent salary increase. Joe Ajaero says the NLC can negotiate alone; Festus Osifo says Ajaero shortchanged workers in 2023. The government approved the allowance for six months from November, and the TUC was not in the room when the deal was struck. “If two elephants fight, the grass suffers,” one civil servant said. The elephants are fighting. The grass is already short.
The Sultan of Sokoto has urged Nigerians to stop negative narratives about insecurity, noting that Iran, the United States, Germany and France have security challenges too. He is right that insecurity is global. He is also the spiritual leader of a region that has buried thousands, and comparing Nigeria to France minimises a crisis that is local, daily and lethal. In Gusau, hundreds of protesters blocked Freedom Square and demanded President Tinubu’s resignation over hunger and insecurity. “We are tired of hunger, we are tired of killings,” one said. Security dispersed the crowd. The grievance did not disperse. The NCDC, meanwhile, has clarified that its ₦10 billion health security fund covers Ebola, Lassa fever, cholera and everything else, not Ebola alone. The National Action Plan requires ₦104.4 billion annually. The fund is two per cent of the need.
Residents of Lagos Island took to the streets over days of blackout and unbearable heat, carrying placards on Lewis, Okesuna, Beecroft, Simpson and Sandgrouse streets. The DisCo has not commented. The regulator has not commented. In Lagos, a couple, Harry Uyanwanne and Oluwakemi Odia, have been jailed again for a ₦67.6 million property fraud, their second conviction in two years, with Uyanwanne still at large and his sentence suspended until he is found. And in Kano, traders were arrested for allegedly altering the expiry dates of expired milk in Singer Market, their shops sealed. Revalidated milk sells at full price. Enforcement is the only thing standing between the shelf and the stomach.
There were also quiet victories. A soldier posed as a ransom courier in Nasarawa and helped trap a kidnapper who had threatened a woman with abduction unless she paid ₦200,000. The money was recovered. In Owerri, police arrested a man after his girlfriend’s 17-year-old sister fell from a two-storey building while rejecting his advances. She survived. A mob gathered. The police protected him so that a court could decide. That is how it is supposed to work.
A prayer in Makkah. A protest in Gusau. A split in labour. A blackout on Lagos Island. A soldier in a courier’s uniform. These are not separate stories. They are the same story: a country where the relief is temporary, the grievances are permanent, and the people keep waiting for the state to arrive before the emergency does.
Warmly,
Lolade