Reporting News and opinions
Central to the indictment was the breathless lamentation over the demolition of the old Benin Central Hospital. Listening to the rhetoric, one would assume the facility was a pristine sanctuary of modern medicine arbitrarily flattened to make way for art.
We are told this is the silver bullet for our security paralysis. But as Nigeria stands on the precipice of altering Section 9 and dismantling Item 45 of the Exclusive Legislative List, we must ask: Are we solving a modern security crisis, or are we reawakening old ghosts that once broke the back of our democracy?
Nobody disputes the premise. Hunger did, in fact, predate Bola Tinubu, in the same sense that gravity predated Isaac Newton. The trouble is what the premise is being asked to do. It is not offered as background. It is offered as an alibi, the rhetorical equivalent of a defendant telling the court that crime existed before he was born, and therefore he cannot reasonably be expected to account for the burglary. The doctrine of necessity has been stretched to cover many things in Nigerian constitutional history; this may be the first time it has been invoked to cover a grocery bill.
In the United States, corporate culture has a colorful vocabulary for the hyper-sycophant: the brown-noser, the bootlicker, the corporate shill. But in Nigeria, this behavior isn't just a personality trait of that one annoying guy in middle management. It is a highly sophisticated, deeply institutionalized standard operating procedure known colloquially as "Eye Service."
MC Oluomo, born Musiliu Ayinde Akinsanya on March 14, 1975, in Oshodi, Lagos, embodies a classic rags-to-riches narrative intertwined with the raw mechanics of street power, union politics, and partisan loyalty in Nigeria. His legacy is polarizing: celebrated by supporters as a self-made leader, philanthropist, and champion of transport workers, yet criticized by opponents as a symbol of thuggery, electoral intimidation, and impunity.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 