By George Mgbeleke

Prominent pro-democracy and civil rights advocacy group HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) said it has discovered that the politicians holding political offices including the President, Governors and legislators, have demonstrated deliberate and strategic decision not to implement pro-poor, pro-people and pro-growth economic policies and initiatives that would benefit majority of Nigerians because they believed that the poorer most Nigerians are, the likelihood that they could be clearly bought over to sale their votes at cheapened rate.

Besides, HURIWA has accused the government of selective economic empowerment of cronies and friends with the agenda to mobilise funds to buy votes in the 2027 election.”The government concentrates political appointments and give lucrative contracts that are pre-paid to their political strategists and cronies in readiness for accumulating the war chess to prosecute the 2027 election which is why the National Assembly has just marked up the campaign funds’ sealing that is beyond the reach of office seekers with godfather in the ruling class.”

HURIWA in a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Nnadozie Onwubiko and made available to newsmen on Sunday said that it is certain that the government at both the centre and the federating units are focused on retaining political power by every conceivably crooked means and since millions of Nigerians who have registered as prospective voters at elections aren’t sophisticated and educated enough not to mortgage their consciences and exchange their votes for a few notes of the Naira at the polling boots, therefore politicians have become adept at churning out only capitalist, toxic and draconian economic programmes such as high taxation and tariffs for goods and services so as to keep the majority of the citizens impoverished and too poor to resist offers of ‘peanuts’ (few Naira notes) during elections.

HURIWA said it a shame that for millions of Nigerians, poverty is likely to get more acute in 2026 just few months to the 2027 election. The Nigeria Economic Outlook 2026 report, published in the first week of the New Year by PricewaterhouseCoopers (a global financial consultancy), according to HURIWA, graphically painted a picture of a nation whereby the clear majority of the citizens would even become the more poorer and absolutely impoverished just as the Rights group said the pauperisation and impoverishment of majority of Nigerians is a strategy by politicians to expose voters to the temptation of capitulating to the offers of bribes by political office seekers for the votes of the electorate.

HURIWA expressed consternation and asserted that it is indeed absolutely unnerving to find out that the aforementioned expert opinion on the expansion of poverty has made a projection that about 141 million Nigerians, roughly 62 per cent of the population, will be living in poverty by 2026.

HURIWA recalled that the report titled “Turning Macroeconomic Stability into Sustainable Growth,” the report paints a grim picture of deteriorating living standards as Nigeria enters the 2027 electioneering season. It is also important to remind Nigerians that the World Bank has projected troubling economic challenges for millions of struggling Nigerians even as World foods programme says Nigeria has the highest numbers of starving children in the world. “Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger accounts for 77 percent of the foods insecurity figures. Over 13 million children are also expected to suffer malnutrition in 2026, according to WFP in a report published on January 16th 2026 titled “Humanitarian aid cuts push millions deeper into hunger amid rising violence and population displacement in West and Central Africa”.

Besides, HURIWA said experts were right to assert that despite recent policy adjustments touted as steps toward economic stabilisation, the reality confronting millions of households remains far harsher. Weak real income growth, persistent inflation, and high living costs are combining to push more Nigerians below the poverty line.

PwC notes that most Nigerians are unlikely to enjoy income increases sufficient to offset rising prices in the short term.

Even if headline inflation moderates slightly, the underlying cost structure, driven by energy prices, logistics costs, and exchange rate pass-through effects, means affordability will remain elusive for the average household.

HURIWA claims that the widening scope of poverty amongst majority of Nigerians is politically motivated given that politicians have experimented with giving out financial inducement for votes in some of the off-circle and even during the 2023 general elections and the politicians have realised that due to weakened and compromised anti-graft institutions and also a highly corrupt policing institution, bribes for votes have gone on for long so those current political office holders have decided to spread poverty so as to force hungry electorate to sale their votes in 2027 poll.

HURIWA also stressed that what is called stomach infrastructure is also a foundation for buying votes. “Governors seeking either second term or wanting to go to the Senate, often provide palliatives to their heavily impoverished residents of their states so as to compromise the election. National Assembly members have also used the yearly budgets to introduce padding of budgets and provisions for constituency projects which are just ways of capturing and bribing prospective voters.

“We in HURIWA fear that the growing poverty rates amongst Nigerians and the intentional implementation of anti-poor and anti-people economic policies at both the centre and the states, are political strategies by the presidency and the governors to win the 2027 election. So the 2027 poll may lack credibility and transparency.”

By
Hon. Eseme Eyiboh, MNIPR

In politics, silence is often louder than speech, for it speaks in the language of calculation and consequence. Forgiveness, when declared by a powerful man, is louder still—a thunderclap in a quiet chamber. It unsettles expectations, invites suspicion, and demands interrogation, not because it is weak, but because power is never presumed innocent when it chooses mercy.

When Senate President Godswill Akpabio, GCON, announced his New Year resolution to forgive all offenders and withdraw every suit he had instituted, Nigeria’s political class instinctively reached for its usual tools—cynicism, calculation, conspiracy. This decision, however, does not fit comfortably within the margins of the country’s familiar scripts of power and vendetta; it demands a slower reading.
The context itself matters. On New Year’s Day 2026, Akpabio was not behind a podium, flanked by politicians. He was seated in Sacred Heart Parish, Uyo, listening to a homily—not as Nigeria’s number-three citizen, but as a humble, God-fearing parishioner. The priest, Reverend Father Donatus Udoette, preaching with quiet authority and pastoral fervor, exhorted his congregants to let go of past hurts and choose peace over grievance. Akpabio would later say that, at some point, he realised the sermon was speaking directly to him.

The announcement that followed shortly after bore the unmistakable imprint of that moment. About nine defamation suits would be withdrawn, including the ₦200 billion case against Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, arising from allegations he had consistently denied and publicly rejected. Other cases, some involving his close associates, would go the same way. In a political culture where litigation has become an extension of reputation management, this was no minor gesture. Akpabio had been unapologetic about defending his name through the courts. The law, in his hands, had been both shield and sword. To voluntarily lay it down is to interrupt a habit of power.

The question, therefore, is not whether Akpabio could afford to forgive. It is why he chose to do so.
To answer that, one must resist the temptation to isolate this act from the man’s broader leadership story. Akpabio has always lived publicly in dual registers. There is the assertive politician who, as governor of Akwa Ibom State, left behind concrete evidence of ambition fulfilled—flyovers, boulevards, hospitals, model schools, an international airport, and an international stadium. Supporters invoke the Latin phrase res ipsa loquitur: the facts speak for themselves.

Then there is the other register: the man who frames his political journey in spiritual terms; who describes his rise from the shadows to national limelight as evidence of divine ordering and grace; who once called himself, without irony, “the most ranked Christian in government.” A man who sees himself not merely as a participant in Nigeria’s politics, but as an instrument within a providential design—God’s will, he believes, for Nigeria at this moment.

In Nigeria, faith in politics is common. Stability of faith is rarer. Akpabio’s Christianity is not episodic. It has shaped how he understands authority itself. Power, in this worldview, is not merely seized or negotiated; it is entrusted. And what is entrusted carries moral obligation.

This is where forgiveness ceases to be sentimental and becomes political philosophy.
The same drive for tangible outcomes has characterised, albeit differently, his tenure as Senate President. It has been defined less by flamboyance than by control. The Senate he leads has been unusually productive and notably calm—more than ninety-six bills passed in two years, with over fifty-eight assented to by the President. In a chamber once notorious for theatrics, this stability is not accidental. It reflects a leadership style that values restraint over spectacle and consensus over conquest.
While his action was inspired, it also makes political sense. Withdrawing defamation suits fits neatly into this logic. Legal battles consume attention. They tether leaders to old grievances. They narrow the emotional bandwidth required for institutional leadership. To let them go is to reclaim focus—and to recommit to what ultimately matters: nation-building.
Critics will argue that forgiveness is easier from a position of strength. They are right. That is precisely why it matters. In fragile political systems, restraint by the powerful sets a tone no code of conduct can enforce. It lowers the temperature. It changes incentives.
Nigeria’s public sphere has become deeply adversarial. Every disagreement is framed as insult. Every critique is personalised. Politics has learned to confuse hostility with toughness. In such an environment, Akpabio’s choice rightly disrupts a dangerous rhythm.
Faith provides the language; humility provides the discipline. Humility here is not self-effacement. No one can accuse Akpabio of being unaware of his own stature. Rather, it is a confidence that does not require constant vindication. As the late global gospel icon, Uma Ukpai, once told him: “Only fruit-bearing trees draw missiles. If you are drawing missiles, it means you are bearing fruit.”
To accept that counsel is to understand leadership as emotional labour. To forgive is not to deny injury; it is to refuse to let injury define governance.
There is, of course, a strategic dimension. Nigerian politics does not permit innocence. The decision comes at a time when Senate unity is under constant scrutiny and rumours of internal challenge circulate freely. Choosing reconciliation over escalation strengthens institutional cohesion. It preserves authority without making it brittle.
Yet strategy does not cancel sincerity. In Nigerian leadership, the sacred and the secular are not opposing realms but overlapping obligations. Godswill Akpabio’s Catholic identity, deeply rooted in his home state, has always been both personal and public. He has hosted bishops at the national level. He is planning a worship centre within the National Assembly complex. These are not gestures of convenience; they are expressions of a worldview in which governance, godliness, and morality intersect.
This is why the withdrawal of lawsuits should be read not merely as personal forgiveness but as public modelling. Akpabio has often spoken of nation-building as a collective task, insisting that it requires citizens to rise above division and embrace shared purpose. Forgiveness, in this sense, becomes civic pedagogy.
Nigeria suffers from obvious physical infrastructure deficits. It also suffers from what might be called spiritual infrastructure decay. Distrust is habitual. Anger is efficient. Leaders who demonstrate emotional regulation contribute to national repair in ways budgets cannot capture.
The implications extend directly into legislative leadership. Managing one hundred and nine senators with competing ambitions requires more than procedural mastery. It demands moral authority—authority that flows not only from rules, but from example.
By choosing forgiveness over litigation, Akpabio strengthens his hand not through coercion but through credibility. He signals that power can afford generosity; that leadership does not require perpetual combat; that not every insult deserves a reply.
There is risk, of course. Forgiveness can be misread as weakness. Silence can be exploited. But leadership that waits for perfect safety rarely leads. Akpabio’s resolution accepts vulnerability as the price of example.
What emerges, then, is a synthesis: the force of developmental leadership from his gubernatorial years, the finesse of institutional management as Senate President, obedience to God and now a claim to moral authority through public restraint.
Nigeria often produces leaders who deliver material progress but corrode trust, or leaders who speak ethically but govern ineffectively. Akpabio’s gesture attempts to collapse that false choice.
To be clear, the true test lies ahead. Forgiveness must be sustained, not performed once and shelved. Its power will be measured by whether it cools tempers, reshapes conduct, and encourages reciprocal restraint.
For now, Akpabio has offered an unconventional lesson in Nigerian statecraft: that surrendering legal claims can strengthen authority; that stable faith produces calm rather than noise; and that humility, properly understood, is not the absence of confidence but its highest expression.
In a country struggling to rebuild trust while confronting insurgency, economic hardship, and climate anxiety, reconciliation is not a luxury. It is governance.
Sometimes, the most radical act in politics is not retaliation, but restraint. And with his New Year’s resolution, Senator Godswill Akpabio, the Senate President has demonstrated precisely that.

Rt Hon Eseme Eyiboh mnipr is the Special Adviser, Media/Publicity and Official Spokesperson to the President of the Senate

By David Owei, Yenagoa

The Executive Governor of Osun State, Senator Ademola Adeleke has expressed profound sadness over the news of the passing of Prince (Dr) Ismail Olasunkanmi Adeyemi, the CEO of Crystal Hospital in Lagos.

Governor Adeleke who expressed his deep pains at the loss of Dr. Adeyemi to the cold hand of death, said the Ikirun-born physician dedicated a significant part of his life to save lives and advance a healthy society.

The Governor extends his heartfelt sympathy to the immediate family of the deceased, the Oba Ara ruling house in Ikirun, management and staff of Crystal Hospital, who lost a breadwinner and a significant source of support.

“I’m disheartened to learn about the unfortunate passing of the CEO of Crystal Hospital in Lagos, Prince (Dr) Ismail Olasunkanmi Adeyemi, who died on January 5, 2026. Prince Adeyemi was a model of a good citizen, utilising both his intellect and wealth to benefit the society,” Governor Adeleke was quoted as saying in a condolence message.

“While his time here lasted, Prince Adeyemi dedicated himself to expanding qualitative healthcare access as reflected in the founding and nurturing of Crystal Hospital, and contributing to community developments,. particularly in his Ikirun hometown. His death is a huge loss because Osun state has lost one of its finest, whose sincere contributions made a lot of difference.

“On behalf of the Government and the people of Osun State, I express my heartfelt condolences to his immediate family, the Oba Ara ruling house in Ikirun, management and staff of Crystal Hospital, and everyone touched by the unfortunate death of Prince Adeyemi.”

Governor Adeleke prays to Almighty God to grant the deceased an eternal rest and bestow him the grace of an abode in paradise. He also prays to God to grant the family left behind by Prince Adeyemi the fortitude to bear the irreplaceable loss.