State Police. Hallelujah.

Thank you, Mr. President. We are grateful. Through the years, we have written essays. We have screamed from rooftops. We have argued in clubs, in bars, at dinner, and over several games of Scrabble and Draft. “Why,” we would always query, “is it impossible for us to have State Police in Nigeria?”

I stumbled on the answer recently. It was always there, in front of us.

Money.

A widely read national newspaper reports that The Nigerian Police Force makes over N300 billion annually from renting out policemen to protect the new rich, every Local Government Chairman, House of Assembly members, and National Assembly members, active or retired—-in fact, even known fraudsters and drug barons who can pay the rent make the list. This money flows through DPOs up the chain all the way to the highest office at HQ.

Everyday, we wake up to screaming headlines of people who have been killed by bandits and villages sacked by herdsmen. The Inspector General of Police reads the same story. He shrugs his shoulders. He then calls his PRO: “Big guy, issue a statement.” End of story. No preventative action for the future, no memos of concern, no advocacy.
IG after IG. Same situation. Business as usual.
Until now.

Welcome Mr. Disu. He is determined to put an end to this racket.

A few days after his nomination by Mr. President, the new IG set up a committee to look into the modalities for bringing State Police to fruition, whereas, his immediate past predecessor had fought against it. You have to read his writings and hear him speak to start to believe that this IG may be the real McCoy. Is he the man who will take us on that journey to better policing in Nigeria?

No one argues that there will not be problems with our governors trying to hijack the system. Even now, already, a governor who is intolerant of opposition as a certain governor who is fighting for his freedom at the ICPC is said to have been, caused a young man to disappear.

There’s the case of another former governor from a Confluence State who’s being dogged by the EFCC for stealing over N80 billion. He begged for permission to go and pray in the Holy Land. He is said to have also caused a man to disappear.

Some argue that the antidote to that is to remove the immunity clause. No governor should have immunity, they argue. It makes them gods unto their people.
A certain governor in a certain State once boasted that he could kill his predecessor and nothing would happen because he had immunity. He also boasted openly that his predecessor should not step foot in the State he had governed for 8 years. The fellow had to appeal to other strong entities in the State who helped to allay his fears.

State police in Nigeria can only be described in terms of the anecdote of the baby and the bath water. How do we preserve and protect the baby even as we know that the water must be contaminated and needs to be emptied?

Other commentators, in a pushback are against removing immunity. ‘It will be inimical to their ability to govern effectively,’ they argue. They further stated that immunity conferred on governors has not stopped any president who wanted to overreach himself from removing a sitting governor even when the Constitution does not allow it.

Guns are no respecters of persons. An AK47 in the hands of a village youth police has the same potential to protect or to kill as the gun in the hands of a bandit. When the bandit realizes that he no longer has the monopoly of an AK 47, he will be forced to look for something else to do to earn an honest living.

Kidnapping fetched its Board of Directors and Shareholders over N3 trillion in 2025. Who’s gonna give up that kind of revenue without a fight?
Nigerians, let’s brace up for the battles ahead.

NATIONAL CRIME DATABASE

Mr. IG sir, you have a chance to make a mark on history. The time has come to build a national database for criminals. Every police station needs to become 2026 compliant with cameras and fingerprinting software for people being booked for crimes. We have NIN which is already linked to our phone registration and banking. What’s stopping the police from tapping into these existing platforms to build theirs? The time has come for our police stations to look like modern police stations fit for 2026.

FURTHER DAMAGE TO EDUCATION

In recent news, the Education Minister, Tunji Alausa has come up with a declaration that the government wants to scrap Common Entrance Examination while proposing to replace it with a Continuous Assessment System. That will spell the death knell to education in Nigeria. The President should resist the proposal and declare it—-DOA, (Dead on Arrival).
Mr. President, do not let this atrocity happen on your watch. Whoever is proposing this may be a fifth columnist out to destroy your legacy. Mr. President, please ask your Minister why a Learner Identification Number cannot be introduced while the Common Entrance is left in place. Hear the Minister’s argument, “We have 50,000 Primary Schools with 23 million children but only 3 million children make it into Secondary Schools. Where are the remaining 20 million?”

Mr. Minister, you need to start by equipping the existing schools with infrastructure and teachers. There are not enough teachers in our schools. No one wants to teach anymore because a teacher’s salary cannot feed a family. We also need to build more Secondary Schools and recruit and train new teachers with better incentives to draw them in and keep them. If we spend a tenth of the money paid out to National Assembly members on education funding to build new infrastructure and improve pay for our teachers, Nigerian students will be unbeatable. They already are, despite the deficit. A Continuous Assessment System is an open call to a corruption of the system. Teachers and Principals will start collecting money from parents to move them from one class to another. The Minister should be asking for a bigger slice of the budget and not seeking to destroy what is left of our rapidly declining education system. Mr. President, do not be blindsided by this proposal from fifth columnists.

IS IRAN THE NEW VIETNAM?

There’s something about Trump. He shoots straight from the hip. The people who work closely with him must be happy to have a boss like him who is not deep. He probably did not bother to sit with his National Security team to analyze pros and cons before launching his latest war. Or else, he probably just ignored their advice.

Indeed, America may be able to do substantial damage to Iran.
Here’s the deal. Iran can do irreparable damage to the world economy. Trump may have just led them to discover their superpower—the ability to pull down the world’s economy.
Iran can make the Strait of Hormuz permanently unsafe for shipping. This will strangulate 25% of all crude exports. Iran can become a real terror to every single Arab State and cause the airways to become unsafe for travel. This will destroy the economies of these States who had finally broken through the glass ceiling of religion to make their region beautiful for tourism and business. All the work of transformation they have executed through the years can become ashes if America and Israel continue in a no-exit war against Iran.

If anything, this war may motivate another State in the area, if not Iran itself to ultimately see the inevitability of developing a nuclear bomb or just buying one from North Korea or Russia. Why build when you can buy? The world had better watch out for danger signals from the Gulf and the Middle East. The Bear has been poked. The real epic fury may not be American and Israeli bombs dropping all over Iran. It may well be worldwide inflation, something more devastating than COVID. Americans need to start getting ready for gasoline at the pump climbing over $10 a gallon. So much for the war against a small but very potent adversary. Check out the relentless and unyielding Honebadger, an animal that forages for snakes as food.

Americans cannot bear pain. As for us in Nigeria, we are used to suffering. When there’s no water, we build boreholes. When there’s no light, we buy (I pass my neighbor), or, we do poor man’s solar. The question is: What do we do when petrol becomes N5000 a liter?

Trump has issued a threat with a 48-hour ultimatum to Iran for them to open the Strait of Hormuz to uninterrupted traffic. The countdown has begun. It will be interesting to watch how this phase of the war goes.

Dear reader, looking into my crystal ball from here, we may be at the gates of economic hell.

Until we meet again next week, goodbye and Goodluck.