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My Binoculars: Of partisan politicians, defection, lack of consultations and the pending rebellion of young people against the present unproductive political order

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3 years ago

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My Binoculars: Of partisan politicians, defection, lack of consultations and the pending rebellion of young people against the present unproductive political order

My Binoculars: Of partisan politicians, defection, lack of consultations and the pending rebellion of young people against the present unproductive political order

By: Bodunrin Kayode

Since 1993 when billionaire Moshood Abiola set the pace from the private sector by throwing his hat into the ring for the presidential election, he used his charisma to lure a lot of young people into partisan politics. Abiola ignited a mini revolution by going into some higher institutions in Nigeria and donating to several causes that would better the lot of the entire community. Many of them who were students in those days have graduated and some are still struggling to make ends meet till this day. He achieved similar feats outside the shores of this country which earned him the title of pillar of sports in Africa. His constituency was mostly young people and he never wasted opportunities to help them become better citizens. Almost 20 years after his demise, the opposite is the case, the present leaders keep recycling themselves. They don’t care about the young in spite of the so-called not too young to run bill which has been passed. In Nigeria today, the population of young people keep increasing and most of them have been edged out of the political system. And you know what that means, they will be bouncing back with violence if not well handled before the next general election.

If over 70 percent of the population of Nigeria is made up of some of these young people, who saw the winner of the June 12, 1993 election move around and received the kind of acceptance he got in company of his vice Presidential candidate Babagana Kingibe, then all those politicians in the older bracket of the age ladder should be terribly scared about the current enlightenment around the young people of today. I am talking about those in their 60’s, 70’s and 80’s who form less than 6 percent of the population of Nigeria. These young people have been frustrated over the misbehaving political class and have vowed to take back the country from these political casanovas. People who defect from one party to another without principles. I mean the foundational principles laid down for them by Aminu Waziri, Solomon Lar, Obafemi Awolowo, Zik of African and many others who lived up to the early eighties. These people gave hope to their followers. And even when such hope is diminished, like when Awo lost to Shehu Shagari, the principles of being progressives guided them on.

Why politicians defect from one party to the other

Politicians who defect from one party to the other do so mostly for their personal interest and not for the people they claim to serve. That is why some of them who have contested for the same position several times unfortunately do so to oil the engine of me, my wife and children. And not for the generality of their people. Very few political stalwarts can actually claim to be innocent of this awkward behavior including the progressives. After defecting some of them are promised of sure victory because they are sure of using the young people to rig them into office. They believe that the winner takes it all mentality is a good thing and the shortest route to join the upper class. So let’s rig and win. This is so since there is no guarantee of such long term riches again in the middle class which is almost wiped out in Nigeria.

One senator acquires so many cars and houses yet the condition of his people does not improve in anyway. These young people are mostly used as his thugs and they see all these forms of ostentatious life oiled by stolen cash. Stolen mostly from the porous system created to favor a particular section of the country. They award contract to themselves in the name of settlement and patronage for those who work for them to be rigged into office. And they share the butty with the civil servants who are willing tools in the hands of these political plunderers.

Sadly some defect when they are deprived of stomach infrastructure or a chance to get to a particular office. And when they ultimately move to the new party they will contest several times until they are in position of power which is the ultimate aim. Some even see partisan politics as a profession that should feed them instead of a call to service. And that is what most Nigerians who flock around them know as feathering their nest by acquiring so much to keep them going during the rainy day. The sad reality of what is going on in Nigeria is that ignorance is perpetually used as a weapon to keep the followers from knowing the truth. And when that is done, they begin to hope that the next President will be better. If he is not better, their hopes begin to deem till it gets to a point of no return. The cult like figure that some of these politicians have will surely disappear if by the end of the 2023 election, the young people do not see hope at the end of the tunnel. The billions that some of them have will no longer work as a bait and these political stalwarts will no longer be safe. Some may be going back to their mansion in London to hide. This time not for politics but to stay underground. Of a truth some of them had billions made from businesses before coming to look for the power like Chief Moshood Abiola, who was a philanthropist and longed for power, while others came to power purely out of greed before looking for the cash using the very civil servants they met in the system. 

Bad influence of the politicians on the civil servants

Once upon a time, it was mostly the political holders that used to end up being stupendously rich before the present sick form of corruption in government which has become the norm disturbingly at the Federal level in spite of anti graft agencies breathing down their heads. Now it is the civil servants that are eying the billions. At present, the civil servants no longer want to teach the political elites how to steal while they go home with a paltry gratuity after 35 years. They too now steal with impunity as we have seen from the statistics churned out by the Economic and Finance Crime Commision (EFCC).

Indeed, some of the reasons why Africa has so much backwardness is because most of the people who clamoured to get into political offices are equally backward and possibly unemployable. So the only option is to steal through getting into the system or come in through the backdoor as a credible contractor, collect juicy contracts and steal most of it after the accountant general has been given his share. Some of them claim to have gone to school but gone are the days when the sound of their certificates draws one to attention. This is because most of them bought their teachers and acquired the certificates at all costs which is why when some of them stand up to speak for their people in the National Assembly watchers of the polity  wonder how this one got there.

Also Read: Italy-bound physically challenged man arrested with drugs…

When they get out of school, their mindset is channelled on how to get a white coloured job where they can be able to steal as much as they cannot spend in their life time. That explains why a man will climb the ladder of the ministry of finance only to get to the level of Accountant General of the federation and steal as much as N200 billion in the period of his appointment. The man who replaced him is suddenly replaced after being fingered as having soiled fingers by the financial intelligence agencies. And sadly these are the people that teach politicians how to steal. It is this stealing with impunity that these young people have been seeing that has built up these pent up anger. That is why the general election of 2023 will be a strange one because so many unthinkable surprises will emerge.

Strange reasons some Nigerian politicians are desperate to hold on to power

Most Nigerians want to get into politics because it’s the easiest way to get rich quickly and establish members of their families. The Nigerian polity is so distablized because you have people with no principles jumping from one party to the other wanting to situate themselves where it is happening so that they will participate in the sharing of the Commonwealth of the masses, making them worse than they met them. They rely on the politics of patronage and settlement to achieve their goals. That is why the nation has never had good governance since President Shehu Shagari left office. It’s either we have a military despot who was killing everyone to civilian leaders who ran the country based on trial and error. We have not had a Commander in Chief who has been able to handle security effectively for instance in the last 20 years. These are the worries of the young people.

What you have now are recycled and sick leaders who lack ideas but are holding tightly to parties to help them get into power. None of them can in their individual merit run as independent candidates and even win in their council areas. That is why they don’t be want the independent candidacy clause to be inserted into the reviewed constitution and passed in the National Assembly. 

 If not why would there be so much desperation in the realm of politicking to become President of Nigeria? Why would someone be so condescending to insist that it is his turn now? Even if we were in a federation of turn by turn inserted in the constitution, is it really his turn? How will these young people feel seeing someone desperately insisting that it is his turn? What about those in the south east don’t they have a right to say it’s their turn too?

Sadly, these are some of the questions these young and angry members of the public use to pose to us whenever we come across them. As a journalist, I am trained to ask the questions and not to pretend to understand the minds of all politicians including the diabolical ones who steal and are dragged to court by EFCC. Of course the innocent ones will escape even without a good lawyer but what marvels me is that some guilty ones still find time to go back and re-contest for offices. Such politicians hardly have shame. No need to name anybody here but they know themselves. Why is it that some of them who have actionable cases with the EFCC are not ashamed to contest? Known drug dealers and sniffers are in public offices with heads raised high up. Some of them contest elections and the same young people who take their drugs kill and steal ballot boxes on their behalf. Win or loose, they are allowed to walk around and pollute every one. Why should anyone vote for you when you disrespect and look down on the people by telling us that it’s your turn? Or you have contested 5times and you think you are the only one qualified to contest again. Why should I piety any sick one just because he has thrown his hat into the ring? Who says our tribe is not qualified to have the presidency? How about our religious group,  are we so useless that no one is qualified to represent us? Why is it that there is no ideology in the parties? All of them lean towards a common front?   The stomach ideology which is common to all the strong parties. 

The bottom line for a national front for the country is for a third force to come as canvarsed for by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo recently. A third force based on justice fairness and balance.

My Binoculars: Of partisan politicians, defection, lack of consultations and the pending rebellion of young people against the present unproductive political order

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My Binocular: Federal Orthopedic Hospital Azare achieves first interlocking intramedullary femoral nailing operation

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1 week ago

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January 21, 2026

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My Binocular: Federal Orthopedic Hospital Azare achieves first interlocking intramedullary femoral nailing operation

By: Bodunrin Kayode

I got to know Dr Ali Ramat when I was directed to see him by the CMD of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) Professor Ahmed Ahidjo a couple of years ago. He was to analyze the results from a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) I had undergone for the bottom side of my cerebrospinal region and treat me of the pains. I suddenly developed some serious pains towards the bottom of my back due obviously to a car crash I was involved in about 25 years ago in Niger state where I served as the correspondent of the guardian newspaper. I was treated then in the National Hospital Abuja and told to go home and rest instead of an immediate operation to fix back some of the shifted ribs as the X-ray depicted. 25 years later, possibly due to advancing age, the intervertebral stops down there as I want to address them in layman’s language are screaming pains due to stress whenever I indulge in long distance driving. Dr Ramat looked at the results I brought from Prof Zainab a consultant radiologist who ran the MRI and gave me some drugs which I took and the pain left. In my usual way I never left his office without saying thank you and prying into his young background. That was when he told me about his specialist training in Turkey on spinal matters. I was excited at the zeal of such a young professional who seemed to be moving at a speed far higher than his contemporaries in the same UMTH where he trained.

The University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) is truly a citadel for the hatching of great minds dominating the medical sector in Nigeria. Within the last decade, it has produced several Chief Medical Directors now managing sister medical institutions in the entire North East region of the country. One of those products of the ” Prof Ahmed Ahidjo mentoring school” is Dr Ali Ramat of the department of orthopedic medicine. Ramat a young enterprising consultant orthopedic and spine surgeon calls Prof Ahidjo his mentor because he was instrumental in the advancement of his career in Turkey where he expanded his orthopedic knowledge by specializing in the critical spinal region. As an orthopedic Doctor, Ramat has treated several bone cases in the UMTH where he became one of the apples of the eye of the CMD Prof Ahidjo such that immediately it was time to set up the National Orthopedic Hospital Azare (NOHA) in Borno State, he was quickly recommended and today he is the first Medical Director of that Hospital. He follows the trail of Professor Chubado Tahir another mentee of the Ahidjo school who is equally managing the National Orthopedic Hospital Jalingo (NOHJ) and many others.

First successful operation in the National Orthopedic Hospital Azare, Borno State

After a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed between the federal and state government in May 2025 for the speedy take off of the facility, the newly appointed Medical Director Dr Ali Ramat hit the ground running by assembling his team of 29 doctors some of whom were equally seconded from the UMTH. The State government led by Professor Babagana Zulum had already given out it’s take off facility which is the former general hospital Azare and was very happy about the development. Commissioner of health Prof Baba Mallam Gana was beyond happiness because he is now the special apple of the eyes of Prof Zulum his Principal.

The speed with which the hospital had to take off without any take off grant from its federal benefactors did not affect him yet he started work. He was really in a hurry to stamp his knowledge acquired on the sands of time by ensuring that humanity is served quality dividends in a very short period. And that is what he did on the 6th of January this year which was my birthday. It was a special day in the anals of medicine in North East Nigeria and my special day too. In our chit chat, Ramat announced his first feat in the hospital this way. “Today Tuesday 6th January 2026 the National Orthopaedic Hospital Azare Hawul Borno State successfully conducted its first Orthopaedic Surgery of (interlocking intramedullary femoral nailing). The team was led by the Medical Director Dr. Ali Mohammed Ramat a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon. The patient is recuperating ” he said to me in a short, sweet and what I can describe as journalistic way. I am happy for him because he is a very young consultant who still has many years ahead of him before he begins to get tired or depreciate due to the law of diminishing returns which is quite natural with our common humanity. With this feat Ramat has started to write his name in gold in the country. He is also getting ready to move in a meteoric speed to serve humanity in a big way beyond northern Nigeria. Meanwhile as he and his team of about 29 doctors and 16 nurses wait for the usual red tape to be concluded in Abuja for more equipment to be supplied to the facility, Ramat has opened the hospital to everyone who is sick to approach them for treatment. This is a good beginning for orthopedic medication in Borno and Nigeria in general. Congratulations my friend Dr Ramat.

My Binocular: Federal Orthopedic Hospital Azare achieves first interlocking intramedullary femoral nailing operation

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The North and ‘Northerners’ The Fear of the Middle Belt

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2 weeks ago

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January 17, 2026

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The North and ‘Northerners’ The Fear of the Middle Belt

By: Balami Lazarus

When I recently read some works that are negative and biased on the Middle Belt, it dawned on me to put my contributions on this subject.

Several discourses and comments on the Middle Belt have put fear in the minds of many individuals in the north, fueled by the ‘Northerners.’ The work of one writer recently on the Middle Belt was insulting, where he called it the ‘Bible Belt,’ giving it religious interpretations without any historical considerations, undermining the fact that it has large numbers of other faithfuls, Moslems inclusive. I dismissed that work as fiction of his wild imagination with no specific genre to hinge his work on.

However, the response of Dr. Pogu Bitrus, the president of the Middle Belt Forum (MBF), to a recent article by one Safyan Umar Yahaya on the Middle Belt spoke my mind. That piece gave the true picture of the sociocultural, political, and economic dynamics of the Middle Belt. And hence the birth of this piece.

The north today is where lives, properties, and investments are not safe. The three geopolitical zones that formed the geographical north are a theater of insecurity; homes for bandits, insurgents, and kidnappers; a hallmark of poverty and ignorance where economic activities are cornered and confined. Farming, movements of goods and services, for instance.

There has been a loud ethnic and religious nagging fermented in the cauldrons of sentiments nurtured by the ‘Northerners,’ which has created fear of the Middle Belt and streamed into the minds of the uniformed poor northerners. These have attempted to distort the struggle and agitation for the Middle Belt as a geopolitical zone yearning for a clearly defined cultural identity as a region with political representation. A mark of its geographical identity and expressions.

In this piece, I shall debunk the argument or the notion that the north is a unified bloc, giving my own reasons why it is not. The emergence of the Middle Belt in the body polity of Nigeria long before now has divided the north. For some, it is a recent phenomenon.

First, one has to clearly define the north. Is a geographical expression, and during the days of the late premier Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, it stretched from the banks of the Benue and Niger rivers to the Chad/Niger borders. The premier then wielded power and respect across the ethnic provinces that made up the north because of his sense of fairness and equity in the ways and manner he handled and discharged his duties and led the region. The north was a bloc with a common purpose and sense of unity. But today these have manifested themselves into ethno-religious sentiments, attacks, and discriminations from Hausa and/or Fulani vs. Christians. Kabilus that paints the pictures of Moslems or Christians in the north, and the ‘game’ is the Middle Belt.

For me, the present north has four definitions that emerged from the crooked activities of ‘northerners.’ These are political north, ethnic north, religious north, and geographical north, which has long been replaced with geopolitical zones.

The Balkanization of the north noticeably came to the fore long before now, where other ethnic groups who constitute part of the north population were not carried along in the scheme of affairs because they are either Arnes or Kabilus, who are considered parts of the ignorant oppressed Talakawas of the north.

The level of ethno-religious divide has caused discrimination between Christians and Moslems in the north. The Middle Belt agitations have further widened the space where the term “Arewa” means “Moslem north,” while “Middle Belt” means “Christian north” in the minds of bigots.

However, when you speak of the north, you need to ask yourself, which of the north are you referring to in respect of the definitions earlier mentioned? Similarly, if you say “Northerners,” which of the Northerners are you also referring to?

Time and space are making so many tribes/ethnic groups realize their cultural history and where they belong with pride of identity. Therefore, the Middle Belt is a fusion of different ethnic nationalities and the right to be different as a Nigerian.

Balami, a Publisher/Columnist 08036779290

The North and ‘Northerners’ The Fear of the Middle Belt

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Medical and Health Developments Amidst Insecurity: The Case of University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH)

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3 weeks ago

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January 4, 2026

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Medical and Health Developments Amidst Insecurity: The Case of University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH)

By: Balami Lazarus

Insecurity challenges have pervaded and taken over every inch of the Nigerian estate, spreading their wings, casting dark shadows stealthily in silence of ambush. The predator has created excuses against growth, progress, and development among ministries, departments, and agencies (MIDA’s), including health institutions where medical and healthcare services are needed.

Development means a different thing to many people. “An improvement in people’s living conditions inevitably contributes to higher productivity and to economic growth, subsequently development.” Therefore the needs of people in a particular area are their development. For example, health.

Moreover, development is essentially concerned with continuous improvements of the human life and condition right from time, in its capacity for qualitative and quantitative reproduction and capabilities to control and manipulate the environment for the betterment of mankind as a whole. Therefore, the purpose of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy, and creative lives at all levels of their growth and progress.

But for UMTH under Prof. Ahmed Ahidjo, the CMD, medical and health development in infrastructure, human capital, and healthcare services is a continuous process amidst insecurity in Borno State and Maiduguri, the state capital.

At UMTH, the story of growth and development has brought progress in health and medical services that are expected from institutional hospitals. The rate and level of medical and healthcare services through specialized medical centers equipped with modern state-of-the-art equipment second to none in Nigeria is a testament to health/medical development in the aforesaid hospital.

People have always examined the concept of growth and development from economic perspectives, refusing to align them to the objectives of human needs that will increase productivity to provide and satisfy these human needs to ensure good medical and healthcare service delivery that is available at all times in UMTH “Centre of Excellence.”

Prof. Ahidjo has no doubt facilitated the concept of health development through changes in the health and medical services provided by UMTH in spite of the ten security challenges staring us hard in the face.

Growth, progress, and development initiated by Prof. Ahmed Ahidjo is itself a concept of development in the health sector. The CMD has blended the concepts of development together through their aims and objectives, which are charted towards the improvements of the human standard of living in healthcare and medical services.

Prof. Ahmed’s efforts have therefore brought developments in the life of the hospital that have never been witnessed since the inception of UMTH, until the man with the Midas touch came on board with improvements and transformations of infrastructures and facilities.

Prof. Ahidjo had directed his development towards the satisfaction of the hospital’s needs, the primary objectives of UMTH, which translates to human capital development through teaching, practicals, medical research, and provisions of healthcare services to her immediate host community.

Therefore, development cannot be seen purely as economic, social, and political affairs but rather as an outcome of man’s effort to transform societal structures and institutions in the case of UMTH.

Balami, a Publisher/Columnist 08036779290

Medical and Health Developments Amidst Insecurity: The Case of University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH)

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