Opinion

Soldiers Of Fortune

Published

3 years ago

October 3, 2022

When George Perry Floyd Jr. was killed in the American city of Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, 2020, it was said that his last words were “I can’t breathe”. Those words became the rallying cry of activists of all stripes. Some called for police reform, while others pushed for the defunding of the police. In every voice, there was a sense of urgency to do something, anything to fundamentally change the narrative. The economy of Nigeria has been bleeding for so long, and soon, it might not be able to breathe again. However, in spite of the cacophony of voices from every arm of government, especially the National Assembly, recently, there is no sense of urgency.

Not even the fact that the country is projected to lose a whopping $7.3 billion (or N3.038trillion) is enough to declare a state of emergency or outright war in the industry on oil theft. We are the giant of Africa, yes, by population and GDP. We are also the largest oil-producing country in Africa, yes; but that was before the nanny tasted the elixir in the feeding bottle that she was only meant to protect. Countries like Angola and Libya have overtaken us. Currently, we are the former largest oil-producing country in Africa; and it is not because our quota was reduced by OPEC, or that our oil fields have dried up, and neither is it because we are at war. No. Corruption has undergone a metamorphosis; it has shifted from the coffers to the source with the connivance of officials.

Just like George Floyd, the Nigerian oil and gas industry is gasping for breath because it has been garroted by soldiers of fortune. These men have their knees firmly on the diaphragm of the Nigerian economy. But they are not alone. Those who are deployed to secure oil installations in the Niger Delta have now become our nemesis. Everyone in the Niger Delta knows it, the governors, the multinationals, traditional rulers, regulatory agencies, and President Buhari are fully aware of the humongous amount of revenue lost daily. The cacophony of voices from all quarters suddenly harping on the issue of oil theft gives the sense that the country at large, and those in government in particular have been reused from their slumber. Or, should I rather say those key indicators of the arrival of a tipping point in the oil theft pantomime is now in the public domain, and it has become a national embarrassment.

Governor Wike was ridiculed in some quarters; others called it politics when in May 2019 he singled out then General Officer Commanding, 6 Division of the Nigerian Army, and Major General Jamil Sarhem for running an illegal refinery and bunkering syndicate in Rivers State. According to him, “The GOC is doing illegal bunkering; he has his own team that is making money for him through oil bunkering.” In November 2021, Governor Wike explained why oil bunkering and illegal refining will not stop. He made a broad accusation, with the intent that bunkering and illegal refining have percolated every facet of the security architecture of the state, involving all security agencies.

According to him, “You know this bunkering cannot stop; let’s be serious about it, everybody is involved. The military is involved. Police are involved. The Nigeria Civil Defence Corps is involved. If not, there is no way bunkering can continue. It’s a terrible thing”.”I don’t know, whether we should take the issue of bunkering to even be more serious than treason. If you go around and see what has happened to our environment, you’ll have pity on us.”During a gathering of traditional rulers in January, the governor revealed how he acted on intelligence to stop an army major from providing escort services to illegal refiners taking petroleum products out of the state.

Expressing his frustration at that time, he said, “I don’t know how I can be a security officer sent to a place to protect people, to protect whatsoever belongs to the Federal Government, at the same time, I’m involved in sabotaging the national economy.” Seven months ago, during the donation and inauguration of 14 ballistic gunboats to the Navy, Army, Police, and the Nigerian Civil Defense Corps at NNS Pathfinder, Port Harcourt, Governor Wike reiterated that security agents are working at cross purposes with the government in the fight against illegal bunkering and refining of petroleum products. According to him, “most of the problem we have with illegal oil bunkering is that security agencies are fully involved in this illegal oil bunkering. That’s the truth. Civil Defence is involved, Army is involved, police are involved; Navy is involved. Let us tell ourselves the simple truth.”

Governor Wike’s words were the strongest of anyone in government, and it accurately situates oil bunkering and illegal refining side by side with other treasonable offences where it properly belongs. To date, no high-profile security agent has been prosecuted, even though they are neck deep in this high treason, and economic sabotage. In a recent news conference on the operations of the military, the Director of Defence Information, Major General Jimmy Akpor, tried to disassociate the army from any acts of illegal bunkering, and refining activities. He floated several numbers to show the efforts of the army in curbing the menace.

However, not one mention of the arrest of any high-ranking army officer, or security agent, even against the backdrop of recent allegations from the GMD of NNPC, Mr Mele Kyari, that security agents are complicit. Despite the strenuous denials of the army, major stakeholders in the Niger Delta, like the Ijaw Youth Congress (IYC) have continued to shed light on the involvement of the army in the illegal bunkering and refining business, and also on other criminal excesses of the army. Last week, the spokesman of the IYC, Comrade Ebilade Ekerefe, alleged that most of the recent operations of the Nigerian Army had only occurred due to a conflict of interest between them and the oil thieves. He stated that “in some cases, the Nigerian Military authorities get intelligence report from sister agencies on the complicit involvement of its personnel in cases of illegal oil bunkering and crude oil theft in the region but they keep mute.” According to him, investigations have shown that most of the repeated military invasions of communities have a criminal aspect of armed campaign against the Ijaw nation and the conflict of interests in the proceeds accrued from illegal activities of crude oil theft in the region.

Ekerefe further alleged that some military personnel serving in the region had become richer than those in the Presidency by being posted to the region. He stated that some get as much as N500, 000 weekly to allow secret movement of a whopping 61 thousand litres of stolen crude to a vessel berthed on the Atlantic Ocean under the security escort of combatant armed military personnel. Others own and protect illegal bunkering sites along the waterways and rivers.” The recent award of a surveillance contract to the tune of N4 billion per month to former Niger Delta warlord, Chief Government Epkemupolo (popularly known as Tompolo) is nothing but an indictment on the army, and a testament to their failure to protect critical infrastructure. It is now suspected in some quarters, that most of the Niger Delta groups who vehemently challenged the surveillance contract were in cohort with the army. At this point, only God knows how the synergy between Tompolo’s men and the military would work, particularly due to their divergent interests. Imagine the irony of a civilian security outfit paid to protect critical government infrastructure from renegade soldiers. Regrettably, this is how far the domino of corruption has fallen.

By: Raphael Pepple

Opinion

Agony In Ivory Tower

Published

1 day ago

March 9, 2026

The Tide

Quote: A university that tolerates missing scripts, result manipulation and ‘sorting’ is not merely failing students—it is quietly destroying the moral foundation of education itself.”

The sad cases of missing scripts, compulsory Sorting, inputting of wrong results and other obnoxious practices in some public universities, leave much to be desired. One cannot imagine how a student will be compelled to suffer consequences of the flagrant negligence of a Head of Department, a lecturer, Department staff or an ICT staff.Many academic and non academic staff in several public universities seem to be performing far below standard, thus unproductive to the university system. The unacceptable cases of sorting, missing scripts, missing results, inputting of wrong grades to students, should not be mentioned in a university, not even in any academic community. This is because people who are employed to work in various positions should have cognate work experience and unquestionable competence. They should not be seen as certificate welding illiterates but people who have been proven to be worthy in learning and character, diligent and competent to carry out assigned responsibilities with minimal or no supervision.

The university as a citadel of learning should boast of men of integrity, people who are repositories of applied knowledge and competence to drive the much desired holistic development in a nation that functions on quality teaching and learning. A situation where a student having gone through the crucibles of learning and written a prescribed semester examination or class-based evaluation test, is told that his or her script is missing or that he or she did not participate in that academic exercise, or must sort to pass, is an unpardonable error and a height of callousness. In fact some lecturers and staff of Departments are using the seeming systemic defect (which is their architecture) as an opportunity to extort students. Sometimes it is discovered much to students chagrin that the supposed missing script was later discovered when a ransom was paid.

Since a lecturer, or Head of Department has in their disposal both Yam and the knife and determines who takes what (if they wish to give without strings), students have no alternative but to submit to their importunate demands in order to graduate at record time.Such practices should be unheard of in an institution that should be a vanguard of moral and ethical values and conduct. What people learn in school constitute their behavioural patterns in the society. Where the school as an agency of socialisation cannot drive positive change first in its immediate environment, then the objective of education as a bedrock for the development of society, is inevitably compromised and counter-productive. The German Reformer, Dr. Martins Luther was quoted as saying, “I advise parents not to put their wards or children in any school where the Bible is not being used as a rule of life because such institutions will unnecessarily be corrupt”.

Gleaning from Luther’s sentiment one can deduce that the lack of respect and regard for values as well as the absence of the fear of God is the greatest undoing of most public schools. Another major challenge is that lack of Information, Communication and Technology literacy or compliance on the part of some lecturers and heads of department, may have informed the decision to give students’ scripts to secretaries to compile and input students results thereby making the secretaries the determinants of students’ fate. It is not saying a new thing that some of the secretaries in the process of compiling results have inputted wrong results, omitted names or down graded some students or given unmerited grades to others.Society today is ICT-driven and ICT-literacy enhances efficiency, speed and a reasonable degree of accuracy if the person behind the computer is level headed, articulate, competent, alive to responsibilities and is aware that negligence on his or her part is not only tantamount to a disservice to the university but to the students who may not graduate at record time because of his or her (computer operator’s) gross ineptitude or carelessness.

The ICT era makes the carrying of hard copy of results obsolete as lecturers through the Heads of Department can log on to the central server of the Exams and Records (if any) or ICT unit and input students’ results directly. By so doing the incessant cases where result on spread sheet is different from the one published online, more often than not, caused by abject negligence, will be avoided. The process will also end the intermediary services of some staff in the universities’ Information, Communication and Technology Department which has become a money spinner-a lucrative source of income to many of them. In fact some ICT staff reserved the power to award grades to students depending on students’ degree of compliance to terms and conditions. They can dubiously make or unmake a student. The university community should be considered too lofty to have careless, negligent, immoral and academic or professionally deficient people as academic or non-academic staff.

The Governing Councils and Senates of universities should be proactive in addressing the menace of missing Script, inputting of wrong results and sorting. This is necessary to end the slogan “Education is scam” so the system can produce quality students who are truly found worthy in learning and in character by operators who exemplify diligence, moral and ethical values. The much-needed reform must begin within the institutions themselves, because the future of any society is shaped in its classrooms.

By: Igbiki Benibo

Opinion

Strength of Emotional Equality

Published

1 day ago

March 9, 2026

The Tide

Quote: “Love thrives not when one gives more, but when both give fully — not in competition, not in performance, but in partnership.”

In every healthy relationship, there exists an invisible balance. It is not measured in grand gestures, expensive gifts, or public displays of affection. It is measured in something quieter and far more significant: emotional equality. When couples stand on equal emotional grounds, love becomes less of a negotiation and more of a partnership. Emotional equality does not mean both individuals express love in identical ways. It does not require matching personalities or mirroring temperaments. Rather, it speaks to balance — a shared willingness to invest, to communicate, to be vulnerable, and to grow. It is the difference between two people walking side by side and one person constantly trying to catch up.

In many relationships, imbalance begins subtly. One partner initiates most conversations. One apologizes more frequently. One carries the emotional labor — remembering important dates, managing conflicts, sensing tension, and attempting reconciliation. Over time, this uneven distribution of emotional effort breeds exhaustion. The partner who gives more begins to feel unseen. The one who gives less may grow comfortable in emotional passivity. Love, in such a space, starts to tilt — slowly at first, then significantly. Resentment can creep in quietly, disguising itself as patience. Silence may replace honest dialogue. What once felt effortless begins to feel heavy.

When couples stand on equal emotional grounds, responsibility is shared. Both people are accountable for the health of the relationship. If conflict arises, neither hides behind silence nor dominates through control. Instead, they engage. They listen. They speak honestly without weaponizing words. Equality creates safety — and safety strengthens intimacy. It allows both individuals to express needs without fear of ridicule or rejection. One of the most overlooked aspects of emotional equality is vulnerability. True connection requires courage. It demands that both partners risk being misunderstood. But when vulnerability is one-sided, it becomes exposure rather than intimacy. If one person consistently opens up while the other remains guarded, trust cannot fully deepen.

Equality ensures that emotional risks are mutual. Where one shares fears, the other shares too. Where one admits weakness, the other responds with openness rather than judgment. In such a space, authenticity flourishes. Another crucial element is validation. In emotionally balanced relationships, both partners feel heard. Their concerns are not dismissed as “overreactions.” Their feelings are not minimized or compared. When couples operate on equal emotional ground, they acknowledge each other’s experiences as legitimate. They may not always agree, but they always respect. Validation does not mean surrendering one’s viewpoint; it means recognizing that another’s emotional reality matters.

Equality also protects individuality. Contrary to popular belief, healthy love does not erase personal identity — it enhances it. When both partners are emotionally secure, they do not feel threatened by each other’s independence. Personal ambitions are encouraged, not resented. Friendships are respected, not restricted. Growth is celebrated, not feared. Standing on equal emotional grounds means neither person shrinks to accommodate the other. Instead, both expand, knowing the relationship is strong enough to hold their evolution. Power dynamics often expose emotional inequality. When one partner controls communication — appearing and disappearing unpredictably, withholding affection, or using silence as leverage — imbalance emerges.

Emotional dominance weakens intimacy. It creates anxiety instead of assurance. But when couples share emotional power, there is consistency. There is clarity. There is no need to decode affection because it is offered freely and intentionally. It is important to understand that equality does not imply perfection. Couples will still disagree. They will face stress, miscommunication, and moments of frustration. However, when emotional footing is equal, conflict does not threaten the foundation. Instead, it becomes an opportunity for understanding. Both partners approach challenges as teammates rather than opponents. They choose resolution over ego and repair over pride.

Time often reveals whether emotional equality truly exists. In the early stages of love, intensity can disguise imbalance. Enthusiasm feels mutual. Effort appears equal. But as routine settles in and novelty fades, the structure of the relationship becomes clearer. Who still initiates? Who still invests? Who still shows up consistently? Sustainable love requires sustained balance. It is built not merely on attraction, but on deliberate reciprocity. Standing on equal emotional grounds requires intentionality. It demands honest conversations about needs and expectations. It requires both partners to examine their habits — whether they withdraw during tension, avoid accountability, or rely on the other to carry the emotional weight. Emotional maturity is not about avoiding conflict; it is about handling it responsibly and returning, again and again, to shared ground.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of emotional equality is peace. There is no constant anxiety about where one stands. No guessing games about commitment. No fear that affection may suddenly disappear. Instead, there is stability. There is reassurance. There is mutual effort. In a world where relationships often blur the lines between attention and commitment, equality offers clarity. It reminds us that love should not feel like competition or performance. It should feel like partnership. When couples stand on equal emotional grounds, they build something resilient. They build trust that does not fracture easily. They build respect that does not depend on mood. They build a connection rooted not only in passion but in balance. And in that balance, love finds its strength — not in who gives more, but in how both give fully.

By: Sylvia ThankGod-Amadi

Opinion

NDDC: Time To Illuminate Homes

Published

1 week ago

March 2, 2026

The Tide

Quote:“Twenty-five years on, the Niger Delta cannot celebrate illuminated streets while families sit in darkness. Development must begin inside the home — where children study, businesses grow, and lives are built — before it glows on the roadside.”

The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) was established in 2000 with a clear and urgent mandate: to facilitate the rapid, even, and sustainable development of Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta region. The creation of the Commission followed decades of agitation over environmental degradation, infrastructural neglect, and socio-economic marginalization in the region. Its core mandate included the development of roads, bridges, electricity, water supply, health facilities, education, housing, environmental remediation, and economic empowerment initiatives. At inception, expectations were high that the Commission would transform the Niger Delta into a model of regional development. Over the years, the NDDC has indeed implemented numerous projects across the nine Niger Delta states. Roads have been constructed and rehabilitated in several communities, easing transportation challenges.

Schools have been renovated, and new classroom blocks have been provided in underserved areas. Health centres have been built or upgraded, improving access to primary healthcare services. The Commission has also awarded scholarships to students, including foreign postgraduate scholarships, empowering thousands of youths academically.Skills acquisition and youth empowerment programmes have helped many young people gain vocational competencies.Through various interventions, the NDDC has contributed to job creation and local economic stimulation.Solar-powered street lighting projects have been widely implemented in urban and semi-urban communities. These streetlights have improved visibility at night and contributed to enhanced security in some areas. Markets, highways, and public spaces illuminated by solar lights have experienced extended business hours.

For these efforts, the Commission deserves acknowledgment and commendation. However, development must always align with foundational mandates and pressing grassroots realities. A growing concern among residents is that while streets are illuminated, many homes remain in darkness. Rural electrification and household power access remain inconsistent and inadequate across large parts of the region. In riverine and remote communities, families still rely on generators, kerosene lamps, or complete darkness after sunset. The irony of brightly lit streets juxtaposed with powerless homes cannot be ignored. Electricity at the household level directly impacts education, health, and small-scale enterprise. Students cannot effectively study at night without reliable indoor lighting.Families cannot preserve food or power essential appliances without stable electricity.

Micro and small businesses struggle to grow without dependable energy access. While street lighting enhances public aesthetics and security, it does not substitute for domestic electrification. The proverb “charity begins at home” is especially relevant in this context. True community development must first empower households before beautifying public spaces. The Commission’s original mandate emphasizes integrated and sustainable development, not isolated infrastructural gestures. Balanced development requires that energy interventions prioritize homes alongside streets. Solar technology presents a unique opportunity for decentralized household electrification in off-grid communities. Extending solar solutions to individual homes would have a transformative social impact. Home-based solar systems could power lights, fans, small appliances, and communication devices.

Such interventions would reduce poverty, improve living standards, and stimulate grassroots productivity. By broadening its energy focus, the Commission would better reflect the spirit of its founding legislation. This is not a call to abandon street lighting projects, which have their merits. Rather, it is an appeal for balance, inclusivity, and alignment with core developmental objectives. Strategic planning should ensure that rural electrification and household access form a central pillar of ongoing interventions. Community engagement and needs assessments can help determine priority areas for household solar deployment. Twenty-five years after its establishment, the NDDC stands at a reflective moment in its institutional journey. The people of the Niger Delta say: thank you for the efforts so far—but not very much—because true appreciation will come when development begins at home and radiates outward, not merely when streets shine while houses remain in darkness.

By: King Onunwor