We
are in the first month of 2026 and there is no doubt about it because 2025 is
gone and gone forever! The dirge for 2025 started with the ember months and
climaxed at 11.59pm of 31/12/25. It was characterised by the
usual seasonal signs and wonders; chaotic and inexplicable rise in prices,
reverse migration, as the cities were depopulated
to the advantage(or disadvantage) of the hinterland, which witnessed imported
inflation and traffic madness, accidents and fires caused by the devil(never by
human recklessness), and assorted frauds (as some people were being easily swindled). I hope you are not
surprised that the ember months is usually a season of frauds! The Lagos-Onitsha fare for one-way-ticket on road-crafts rose from N40000 to
N100000 while that of the aircrafts was
unmentionable. Curiously, it became cheaper to fly to foreign countries than to
fly within Nigeria especially to the South East.
Between 11.30pm of 31/12/25 to 12.30am of
1/1/26, people were ‘chasing away’ the old year while welcoming the new-year with
noise, bonfires, explosive ‘knockouts’
(which the police always pretended to
ban), night-vigils, and
environmental degradation as all-sorts were dumped on the roads.
There were also hurried efforts by ‘evil-servants’, especially those in the
finance and budget departments to ‘finish-up’ whatever was approved but
not yet expended before the clock ‘knocked’
12 midnight on 31/12/25. All free and floating cash was downloaded and side-loaded
into spurious accounts, which the almighty BVN failed to capture just
as the NIN woefully failed to track the
phone numbers used for hostage negotiations. I must confess that there was an
unusual development this year; the price of rice did not run riot like other
commodities but it did not go as low as it was in the pre APC days.
Sure, across the globe, this is 2026 but in Nigeria,
we are already in 2027. The only thing
that reminds us of 2026 was my birthday which was attended by cloud-friendly
fellows on 1/1/26, some new year resolutions, which people have already started
breaching, and prophecies by ‘Pastorpreneures’,including
laughable and obvious ones like ‘a powerful politician will die in a foreign
hospital this year’ and ‘ PDP has collapsed or most non-APC governors
are usually in opposition by day but ‘standing on his mandate’ by night and that
our president will travel to foreign countries in search of foreign
investors.In other climes, investors are attracted by macroeconomic
fundamentals, and fidelity to well-thought out policies but in Nigeria, we have
to physically go and attract them, even in an era when couples can copulate
online!.
We are
already in 2027 and here is why and how, starting with the fiscal dimension. There is no 2026
budget because what we shall be operating this year is the ‘consolidated 2024
& 2025’ budgets, which we could not
execute as at, and when, due. And even
the 2025 budget( as has almost always been the case) was used to buy the
opposition, reward loyalists, and start projects to showcase during the 2027 elections(
they knew those projects would still be in progress as at 2027!). By the way
despite the FREEZ on new projects, over
400 project lines valued at between N3.5trn and N7trn were inserted into the
2026 project, including N11.2bn for presidential vehicles, N393bn for 1447
street lights at N271000000 apiece (may be we are planning to light-up France)
and N6.74bn for the empowerment of traditional rulers. I think we should
establish FG vehicle and solar light manufacturing facilities, specifically for
budgetary ‘mathemagics’
Politically, everything since 2025 has been all about 2027. Go and verify via
Google: in 2025, the most mentioned year in Nigeria was 2027, not 2026. We committed jump and pass against 2026 and
concentrated on 2027. Of course the campaign for 2027 started
in 2023 immediately after the swearing in . By 2025, the 2027 movement had become so visible and desperate, and nothing was spared for that
purpose. People were coerced, bought or
blackmailed to either defect to APC or
endorse the renewed hope president or
declare him as the only candidate for 2027 when he had not gone half of the
first term. As Okey Osiji wrote in Ihuowelle
Quarterly of April 2025,…. ‘A new orchestra comprising all manner of
political town criers, stooges and compromised surrogates suddenly converged in
town playing to the delight of some and to irritation of others. The choir, top
heavy with paid professional praise singers and groveling sycophants, find
willing allies in some dailies which give free rein to perceived endorsements
of Tinubu. Unarguably, political governance has been relegated to the
background and all that Nigerians hear and see everyday are the numbers of
state governors and lawmakers who have decamped from the opposition parties to
APC. The entire exercise has been reduced to a stage comic opera in front of
television cameras for visual effect. It is indeed a carnival of party cross-carpeting’.
Even when the president visited Benue on a condolence visit, it became a
campaign ground; political gyration on the fresh graves of compatriots murdered
by rampaging and bloodthirsty terrorists
Check the records; without any major elections and in obedience to the gods of cross-carpeting( which started in the Western House of Assembly in the days of yore) the APC members of the House of Representatives increased from 162 to 242; Senators from 59 to 73 and governors from 15 to 27… all of them fully focused on wining elections for Tinubu and retain their own seats in 2027, or to be protected after 2027. Even Fubara, the ‘sim without network’, has decamped to APC to ensure electoral victory for BAT in 2027. The weird River’s case has also showcased the absurdities of Nigerian politics as APC members of the State House of Assembly are desperate to impeach an APC governor, in obedience of the invisible-hand manipulations of a PDP stalwart
The fate of 2026 was recently sealed when high-neck(INEC) reportedly released
the 2027 electoral timetable. And you know that whenever the political season starts, governance takes
back seat. So, from the calendar, this
is 2026 but operationally in Nigeria, this is 2027.
However, one of my friend is named Onye-ma-echi,
which simply means: who knows tomorrow!
Welcome to
2027!
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