Mr. Nobody

Today, that prophecy is being fulfilled before our very eyes. What makes this betrayal collective is that no prominent southern voice of consequence has risen to defend El-Rufai. The governors from the South, the Yoruba elders, the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC)—they have all maintained a calculated silence. Some have even gone further, actively painting El-Rufai as a corrupt politician who deserves his fate. This is the reward for the man who, as MURIC put it, "gave southerners the presidency" . This is the gratitude of a region that received power on a silver platter from the North and responded by locking the platter’s carrier in a detention cell. The northern politicians who remain in Tinubu’s cabinet are not blind to this betrayal. They see it. They feel it. But they are trapped. They are not loyal allies; they are servants of the crown, functionaries who understand that speaking out would cost them their positions. They watched El-Rufai be sacrificed, and they know they could be next. Those standing on the mandate of Tinubu today are not partners in a national project. They are prisoners of a regional arrangement that has shown its true colors. As the philosopher George Santayana famously warned, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The North remembers. And the North will not repeat its mistake. Let us speak plainly about the numbers. Between 1999 and 2023, the South occupied the presidency for 14 years (Obasanjo 8 years, Jonathan 6 years) while the North occupied it for only 8 years (Yar‘Adua 3 years, Buhari 8 years minus Yar‘Adua’s 3). If Tinubu serves his full first term until 2027, the South would have held Aso Rock for 17 years against the North’s 11 years. If Tinubu wins re-election and serves until 2031, those numbers become 21 years for the South versus 11 for the North. This is not power sharing. This is power hoarding. And yet southern voices have the audacity to call northerners who question this arrangement "traitors" . The philosopher Edmund Burke once observed, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." The good men of the North, the ones who followed El-Rufai’s lead in 2022, have learned a bitter lesson. Their sacrifice was met with silence. Their champion was met with detention. Their loyalty was met with betrayal. It will take a very long time for the South-West to secure another genuine alliance with the North. Trust, once broken, cannot be repaired with appeals to zoning. It can only be restored with justice, reciprocity, and the release of Nasir El-Rufai from the clutches of a persecution that has shamed the very concept of Nigerian federalism. Until then, the North watches, the North remembers, and the North will not trust zoning to the South in 2027. Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected] Abuja Network News

Projects in Lagos, Campaign in Kaduna Amid Insecurity: What Will Tinubu Promise Now? By Mohammed Bello Doka 11 October, 2026. On December 3, 2023, a Nigerian Army drone struck Tudun Biri in Igabi Local Government Area of Kaduna State, killing at least 85 civilians who had gathered for a religious celebration. Among the dead were women, children, and the elderly. President Bola Tinubu did not visit. On September 2024, another military airstrike hit Giwa Local Government Area, killing at least 24 more civilians in what the military called a mistaken targeting of bandits. President Tinubu did not visit. In September 2025, bandits descended on Kachia Local Government Area and abducted 152 people in a single operation. President Tinubu did not visit. In July 2025, windstorms and heavy rainfall devastated five local government areas, displacing 6,172 people and killing six. President Tinubu did not visit. In August 2024, bandits attacked communities in Kajuru Local Government Area, killing four, injuring three, and abducting thirty-seven. President Tinubu did not visit. In September 2025, floods submerged parts of Zaria Local Government Area, affecting 476 people. President Tinubu did not visit. Now, after three and a half years of blood, tears, and silence, the APC has chosen Kaduna as the launchpad for its 2027 presidential campaign. The same Kaduna where 85 people were buried in a mass grave after a Nigerian drone bombed them. The same Kaduna where 152 people were carted away into forests by bandits while the president was in Lagos commissioning buses. The same Kaduna where communities have been orphaned by airstrikes, emptied by kidnappings, and drowned by floods. What exactly is Tinubu coming to tell the people of Kaduna? What is he coming to promise again? Since May 29, 2023, President Tinubu has visited Kaduna exactly twice. The first was a one-day working visit in June 2025 to commission a vocational training institute, a 300-bed specialist hospital, and 100 CNG buses, most of which were state government projects. The second was a private visit in September 2025 to attend a wedding and condole with the widow of a former president. Two visits in three and a half years. Not one of those visits was to console the victims of Tudun Biri. Not one was to visit the families of the 152 abducted in Kachia. Not one was to assess the damage in Giwa after another military misfire. Not one was to stand with the flood victims in Zaria. Not one was to confront the bandits in Kajuru. Instead, he flew to Kaduna for a wedding, shook hands, took photographs, and flew back to Abuja. Compare that to his attention to Lagos. In Lagos, Tinubu has commissioned the first 30 kilometres of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, a project estimated at over one trillion naira. In Lagos, he has rehabilitated the Third Mainland Bridge at a cost of 43 billion naira and built a 2.5 billion naira CCTV monitoring centre. In Lagos, he inaugurated the Red Line Rail, a 37-kilometre project costing over 135 million dollars. In Lagos, he commissioned CNG infrastructure in Ojota, part of a 100 billion naira national rollout, with four major projects in a single day. In Lagos, the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano road, a project inherited from Buhari, was revoked and re-awarded at a higher cost, while the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway received 43 billion naira for phase two. Lagos is where the president's heart beats. Kaduna is where his promises go to die.