Good morning,
Two men walked into a Federal High Court in Abuja this week carrying two irreconcilable sets of numbers. Hope Uzodinma’s affidavit claimed he polled 230,464 votes in the APC primary for Imo West. Rochas Okorocha’s claimed Uzodinma polled 1,098. Okorocha said he won with 150,780 votes to Uzodinma's 102,158. Justice Obiora Egwuatu preferred Okorocha’s evidence, sacked Uzodinma as the candidate, ordered INEC to publish Okorocha’s name, and barred the governor from parading himself as the flagbearer for January 2027. It mirrors 2020, when the Supreme Court installed Uzodinma as governor after he placed fourth. A court has chosen the candidate. The voters have not.
Thirty state assemblies have now approved the constitutional amendment for state police, crossing the 24-state threshold after Lagos, Niger, Kogi and Ebonyi signed on. Senate President Godswill Akpabio says the federal force remains intact under strict safeguards. But the safeguards are still a promise, not a statute. Criminologist Etannibi Alemika warns that decentralisation without oversight simply hands governors their own instruments of repression, and Lagos Speaker Mudashiru Obasa says the framework still leaves too much power in Abuja. The detail nobody has written is funding. A state that cannot pay teachers on time will not build a police force that resists capture. Imo West already shows what happens when the machinery is contested: two men, one ticket, and a courtroom deciding.
The Trade Union Congress has rejected the ₦70,000 monthly transport allowance and demanded ₦300,000 for the lowest-paid worker. Its argument is not greedy, it is forensic. The 2023 wage award was never implemented holistically, and more than 80 per cent of states and informal-sector workers received nothing. “How can workers be expected to trust fresh promises when previous obligations remain outstanding?” Festus Osifo asked. The same week, Dangote raised its gantry diesel price to ₦1,840 per litre. Diesel runs the generators, trucks and production lines that the grid cannot. The 30-day petrol discount does not cover diesel. Manufacturers are on their own, and the cost passes on to consumers.
The Nigeria Premier Football League is also struggling with subtraction. Club chairmen expected at least ₦150 million each from a $2.5 million sponsorship deal under a 60-40 split. They received ₦15 million. The league declined to convene an emergency congress and told the clubs to fund their own travel to Wednesday’s meeting in Jabi. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin hosted 48 African delegations in Moscow and accused Western lenders of debt bondage, offering grain, energy projects, a nuclear memorandum with Togo and AI expertise. Russia’s economic weight on the continent remains far below China’s. It has built leverage through security and disinformation, and the Africa Corps now operates in seven additional countries. The pitch is leverage dressed as partnership.
Two sets of numbers in a courtroom. Thirty assemblies and no funding formula. A wage award announced and never paid. Fifteen million where a hundred and fifty was promised. Diesel at ₦1,840. Debt relief offered by a country that trades in leverage. The arithmetic didn't add up anywhere this week, and the people who must live with the sum were never in the room.
Warmly,
Lolade