…Amaechi Was the Target
The Rivers State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has expressed shock at Sunday morning’s shooting of Senator Magnus Abe — the senator representing Rivers South East in the National Assembly and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) — and Chief Tony Okocha, the chief of staff to Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, as well as the killing of five children by men of the Nigeria Police.
Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, the senior special aide on media and publicity, released a statement saying the interim state chairman, Dr. Davies Ibiamu Ikanya did not at first believe the news until he verified it because he, like any other right-thinking individual, could not understand why policemen paid with taxpayers’ money could turn their guns against the people, including prominent citizens well-known to them.
“We wish to unequivocally condemn this premeditated murder of our five children and attempted murder of two prominent and innocent Rivers citizens by the State Police Command, which seems happy to transform into an army of occupation instead of discharging its constitutional role of safeguarding lives and property. This is a declaration of war on Rivers State and its people”, read a part of the statement.
“We are holding State Police Commissioner, CP Joseph Mbu responsible for the deaths of five innocent kids that may be our future political leaders by this agents of darkness and the attempted murder on Senator Abe and Chief Okocha, since the shooting was carried out by a team of regular police and mobile policemen from MOPOL 19 on the orders of CP Mbu.
“Acting on CP Mbu’s orders, the trigger-happy policemen had stormed the APC rally organised by the Save Rivers Movement at the College of Arts and Science, Rumuola, Port Harcourt, and started shooting rubber bullets and teargas canisters to disperse the crowd. One of the rubber bullets hit Senator Abe, who fell to the ground and would have died instantly if his aides had not quickly grabbed him and rushed him to a hospital in D/Line in Port Harcourt.
“It is reported that the case of the senator is very critical and arrangement is being made by Governor Amaechi to fly him out for medical attention if he recovers from coma. Chief Okocha’s case is a bit better, as he was only shot on his legs and may be crippled for life if urgent attention is not given to him.
“The Police ordered everybody to vacate the venue. Several persons were injured, as they scampered for safety. The Police insisted that the rally must not hold, claiming that it would constitute a breach of the peace – a very spurious claim. And we are talking of a rally aimed at mobilising the public on the agenda of a political movement, of which the Police was duly informed!
Eze recalled that APc has shouted itself hoarse that Mbu is on a mission to cause mayhem and insecurity in the state; but sadly, the powers that brought him to state for this mission not only continued to sustain him but also continued to empower him in his acts of impunity in Rivers State.
“This single man has on various occasions abused, insulted and vilified our elected State Governor in the person of Gov. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, claiming that he (Mbu) is the chief security officer of Rivers State and not the governor as stipulated by the Constitution of the Federal Republic!” the statement continued.
“This single man has on various occasions given police cover to GDI, the political pressure group of President Goodluck Jonathan and Supervising Minister for Education, Chief Nyesom Wike, while denying the same services to other political groups in Rivers State, including Save Rivers State Movement while we sustain the Police with Rivers State fund. This single man, since he came to Rivers State, has promoted criminality in various ways and has even made himself a member of PDP, attending their meetings!
“The National Assembly has found this man guilty and asked for his redeployment to no avail! The Rivers State Government and various pressure groups have called for his redeployment to no avail, all because the Federal Government is bent on using him to cause a war in Rivers State”!
In view of the foregoing, APC swore that the blood of the five innocent kids that were slaughtered by the Police would hang over Mbu’s head and those of his sponsors. It appealed to Nigerians to join in praying for the survival of Senator Abe and Chief Okocha, praying that by God’s grace, the trials will be overcome, as the plot of intimidation will not deter it from salvaging Rivers State from the PDP-led Federal Government whose hatred and disdain on our people are now legendary.
Interim State Chairman of APC in the state, Dr. Davies Ibiamu Ikanya also condemned the shootings and demanded the immediate release of Hon. Ike Chinwo, who was arrested by the Police after the mayhem “for no just cause”, within 24 hours unfailingly.
In another statement, Interim National Publicity Secretary of APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed accused President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, Patience of causing chaos in Rivers State and making the country ungovernable.
He urged Jonathan to urgently put an end to the worsening reign of impunity in the state, which is being carried out under his watch by those who obviously acting to impress him and the first lady, saying the call has become even more imperative following the irresponsible act of brigandage by the Police, having stopped a peaceful and lawful rally billed for the Obio Akpor Local Government Area of the state by the Save Rivers Movement (SRM)
“The Police went to the venue of the rally, pulled down the erected canopies and fired tear gas at everyone around there and even into nearby homes, with the result that five children are now feared to have died from suffocation due to this shameful Gestapo-style action of the Police, who are being funded by taxpayers to protect the lives and property of the same citizens they are now brutalising and killing.
“Not only that, they injured the chief of staff to Gov. Chibuike Amaechi and fired a supposed rubber bullet, at point blank range, at Senator Magnus Abe, who is now gravely injured. The senator is believed to have been deliberately targeted for attack by the Police.“We understand that the exceptional brutal clampdown on the planned rally by the Police, who seem to have now surpassed even their own act of brutality against the people of the state, was aimed at impressing the first lady, believed to be due in Port Harcourt on the same day (Sunday)”.
According to APC, there is no way a commissioner of police in any state will be so bold as to be waging a war against an elected governor and his aides/supporters if he is not empowered to do so by higher authorities; and as everyone knows, Mbu believes he is now the de facto Governor of Rivers because he has the support of the Presidency to exhibit impudence.
“Mbu, who is going down in Nigeria's history as a classic example of an officer of the law turned the biggest violator of the law, has not only defied the resolutions of the National Assembly, he has also thumbed his nose at the ultimatum issued by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). He is the Alternate Inspector General of the Police who takes orders only from a conniving presidency”.
“The only reason the impunity in Rivers could have continued unabated is because it is a dress rehearsal for what is being planned for 2015, hence the APC has continued to raise the alarm over the instigated crisis in Rivers. Since this reign of impunity started, the Rivers Governor has been barred from accessing his official residence by the Police; members of the State House of Assembly have been tear-gassed and harassed endlessly; the plane owned by the state government has been grounded, using the institutions of state; and even a chartered plane bearing the governor has been prevented from take-off, not minding that the member of the state House of Assembly which the plane was supposed to be carrying was not on board. No one has apologised for this chutzpah.
It lamented that all these are happening under the watch of a president who has been widely quoted as saying his ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian, saying the statement now rings hollow, considering what is happening in Rivers and elsewhere, which is widely regarded as a sign of things to come ahead of 2015.
“President Jonathan should act today to bring Rivers State and indeed Nigeria back from the brink of lawlessness”, APC pleaded. “His body language must discourage the likes of Mbu from turning Nigerian into a lawless nation. He must differentiate his position as the leader of the PDP from his perch as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.In its own reaction, the River State Government claimed that Governor of the state, Rotimi Amaechi, and not the injured two, was the real target of the trigger-happy policemen.
“Today Sunday 12th January 2014, Rivers State witnessed another senseless attack on innocent citizens in a continuous rape of democracy by the Joseph Mbu-led Rivers State Police Command”, Commissioner of Information and Communications, Ibim Semenitari wrote.
“Today’s attack on members of the Save Rivers Movement, a non-governmental association at the College of Arts and Science, Rumuola, Port Harcourt Rivers State and especially the unprovoked shooting of Senator Magnus Ngei Abe, the senator representing Rivers South East senatorial district, is cause for worry and an indication of the length that the PDP is willing to go to silence opposing views.
“The Rivers State government has it on good authority that Senator Abe took the bullet originally meant for Governor Chibuike Amaechi, who was billed to be present at the event. This is disconcerting especially in the light of recent revelations that the Presidency may be training snipers ahead of the 2015 elections and that Governor Amaechi is top on the list of those to be eliminated”.
The Rivers State Government then requested the Federal Government and its agencies to respect the rules of democratic engagement in their “misguided fight” against the people of Rivers State and especially save the nation from the unnecessary chaos into which federal agents like Mbu want to plunge it ahead of the 2015 elections.
“The Rivers State Government therefore reiterates its call for the re deployment of CP Mbu from Rivers State before he turns the state into a graveyard because of his intolerance and unprofessional behaviour.
“The Government of Rivers State understands that Mr. Mbu would prefer to be a policetician rather than a responsible police officer but would request that he attempts to at least protect the lives and properties of the poor Rivers taxpayers who pay his salary, and who are the real employers of the officers and men of the Rivers State police command”.
It condemned the disruption of the rally, describing it as selective, since the Police do not only allow members of the PDP Grassroots Democratic Initiative (GDI) to hold rallies but indeed provides them with protection. It expressed belief in the freedom of association and freedom of expression guaranteed to all Nigerians by the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, asking Inspector General of Police, the Chairman Police Service commission, the Chairman Nigeria Human Rights Commission and Mr. President on whose table the buck ends as Commander in Chief and the Nation’s Number One citizen to call Mbu to order and bring an end to this impunity in Rivers State, and restore the hope of Rivers people that they have not been marked as enemies and lamb for slaughter in their own country.
“Despite the shenanigans of Mbu and his cohorts, the Rivers State Government wishes to reassure Rivers people of its commitment to fight on the side of the people and on the side of truth”, the statement added. “We appeal to our people to remain law-abiding and not to take the laws into their own hands as we promise to continue to use all legitimate and legal means to guarantee the safety of our people and their rights to exist in Nigeria”.
However, the Rivers Police Command has denied allegations of the shootings, saying so single bullet was released while it dispersed the rally.
According to Deputy Superintendent of Police, Ahmad Muhammad, organisers of the rally were dispersed because they did not obtain a Police permit.
“I can confirm to you that Sen. Magnus Abe was not shot”, Muhammad said. “The Police did not expend any bullet while dispersing the crowd. It is not true. The Police did not shoot the senator; we only used minimum force to disperse the crowd at the venue of the rally”.
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The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, has offered whistleblowers between 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent of recovered stolen Nigerian assets held abroad for information that leads to their recovery.
Olukoyede disclosed this on Wednesday while delivering a lecture at the Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime in the United Kingdom.
According to him, the ability of EFCC operatives to trace assets, cooperation from the judiciary and access to credible intelligence have played important roles in the commission’s success in securing non-conviction-based forfeiture orders.
He also described the EFCC as having some of the best investigators in the world and stressed the importance of protecting and encouraging whistleblowers.
He said anyone with credible information about stolen Nigerian assets taken or hidden anywhere in the world could receive between 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent of the recovered assets as an incentive, with payment made after the recovery.
Olukoyede further revealed that the EFCC had forfeited cash and assets worth more than $500 million to the Federal Government within the past three years.
He cited several cases involving the recovery and forfeiture of assets, including cases linked to a former Chairman of the Central Bank of Nigeria and a former Attorney-General of the Federation.
The EFCC chairman explained that the commission is legally empowered to seek the forfeiture of suspected proceeds of crime by applying to the High Court for an order. He said the process is similar to procedures used in countries such as Australia and Canada.
Olukoyede also recalled a case involving an aircraft allegedly acquired by an individual who was accused of receiving about $30 million in bribes in connection with a power project. He said the aircraft was forfeited about three months ago and had subsequently been added to the presidential air fleet.
He also referred to a property containing about 753 housing units that was forfeited from a former CBN governor, against whom the EFCC has filed criminal charges in three courts.
Speaking about the immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, Olukoyede said the EFCC opened an investigation following allegations of abuse of office. He claimed that investigators traced about 57 properties to Malami and that approximately 48 of them had been forfeited.
The EFCC chairman further mentioned the forfeiture of a private university allegedly linked to a director in the Federal Ministry of Health. According to him, the official voluntarily surrendered the property following the commission’s investigation.
Olukoyede said the measures demonstrate the importance of asset tracing, international cooperation, credible intelligence and whistleblower protection in the fight against financial crime and the recovery of stolen public assets.
The Dangote Petroleum Refinery has raised concerns over the growing volume of imported petrol entering Nigeria, warning that it could be forced to export more of its own production if the trend continues.
The refinery said imported Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) made up roughly 43 per cent of the petrol supplied to the Nigerian market in July. It argued that the development was creating serious difficulties for a domestic refinery with the capacity to produce enough fuel for the country.
Dangote Refinery explained that it has maintained sizeable petrol reserves since commencing operations to ensure that consumers across Nigeria have access to a reliable supply. Keeping those reserves, it noted, requires substantial expenditure on storage, transportation and working capital.
However, the refinery said the continued granting of import licences without adequate information about expected import volumes has made it increasingly difficult to determine how much petrol should be produced and stored for the local market.
The company said holding large quantities of petrol becomes financially burdensome when there is no certainty about how much imported fuel will compete for the same market. It therefore considers exporting surplus stocks a more commercially viable option than allowing them to remain in storage indefinitely.
According to the refinery, increased exports in recent months should not be interpreted as evidence that Nigeria lacks sufficient refining capacity. Instead, the exports are being driven by excess stock resulting from unpredictable import volumes.
Dangote Refinery maintained that it remains fully committed to supplying the Nigerian market and has the capacity to meet or surpass the country's petrol requirements. It said its decision to export surplus products was aimed at managing inventory efficiently and avoiding unnecessary storage and financing expenses.
The refinery also warned that market disruptions caused by excessive imports could make it harder for domestic refiners to accurately predict demand. Any resulting supply problems, it said, should not automatically be blamed on local refineries.
It urged regulators and other industry stakeholders to improve transparency around petrol imports and strengthen coordination within the downstream petroleum market.
The company argued that policies that give greater support to domestic refining would help Nigeria reduce its dependence on imported fuel, conserve foreign exchange, strengthen energy security and maximise the economic benefits of investments in local refining infrastructure.
Dangote Refinery said it remains prepared to supply the country but stressed that a more predictable and transparent market environment is necessary for efficient production and inventory management.
Business
In The Spotlight
A group of heartless carpetbaggers have captured the Nigerian state, and it appears that they, their biological and political descendants, will hold the levers of government and access to Nigeria’s commonwealth for a long time to come.
When you consider news reports of how previous and current state actors steal public funds, buy choice properties in the toniest districts of Nigeria’s major cities, acquire private jets, and even establish private universities, you wonder if some people have more than two heads, to adopt a Yoruba phrase.
Either because of an inability to deliver the greatest good to the greatest number of Nigerian citizens, or by intention, the political elite have kept the people poor, causing them to depend on the largeness of heart of the same elite to meet their existential needs.
That explains why poor, downtrodden, and unconnected Nigerians eagerly collect crumbs of measly N5,000, rice, gari and whatever else the politicians offer to obtain their election votes or acquiescence after rigging the elections.
When watching an economically disadvantaged individual tell a politician who is seeking to become a legislator the good news that his wife just had a new baby, and he needed to prepare for the naming ceremony, it felt like the oppressed poor were enabling his oppressor to further oppress him.
It was like the classic case of Stockholm syndrome, of victims collaborating with their “captors” to cement the oppressive stranglehold that they already had over the state and the commonwealth of the nation, thus unwittingly arresting their own future development.
A running mate to a former governorship candidate in a Southwestern state hilariously regaled Nigerians with the story of how constituents would have raided all the alcoholic drinks in his refrigerator in the early hours of the morning, even before he woke from the hectic campaign tour of the previous day.
The political elite have practically cornered the Nigerian state for themselves, children, tribesmen and acolytes, and have devised a way to admit only those that they have found to be loyal, or pliable, into their rank of oppressors.
The oppression of the citizens of Nigeria is easily accomplished because of the high illiteracy level amongst the poor masses. The use of the weapon of illiteracy is more evident in Northern Nigeria, whose political leaders somehow turn a blind eye to the illiteracy and underdevelopment of their people.
In 2024, UNICEF revealed that out of Nigeria’s 18.3 million out-of-school children, about 12.1 million, or 66 per cent, were resident in the Northwest and Northeast regions. Yet, instead of expanding educational facilities and opportunities, some Northern governors are arranging mass weddings for children who are hardly out of their teen years.
And this is not to deny the weaponisation of illiteracy even in Obafemi Awolowo’s Western Region, which is regarded as the Athens of Nigeria, after its pre-Independence head start of free, universal and compulsory primary school education.
As if he had a premonition that Nigeria’s so-called democrats would eventually compromise education, to the detriment of the lowest and marginalised masses, that Karl Marx described as the “lumpen proletariat”, French political thinker Montesquieu argued a long time ago that “It is in a republican government that the whole power of education is required.”
Western Nigeria’s free education scheme was gradually abandoned from the days of the Second Republic when some Yoruba members of President Shehu Shagari’s political party knocked it off its bottom with the argument that “qualitative” education was better than “free” education.
It is more than a shame that a free, universal and compulsory primary school education scheme was abandoned under President Shagari, who not only was a trained teacher, but had a career as a teacher before his political career.
Awolowo had warned Nigeria’s political elite with the following quip: “The children of the poor that you failed to educate will not let your children sleep peacefully.” The insecurity that currently occurs in nearly every part of Nigeria only drives Awolowo’s point home.
Probably the realm of the Nigerian republic that has been most complicit with the carpetbagger political elite is the media, whose members either serve the elites as press secretaries who kill media brushfires, or editors who either run planted stories, or spike stories that the politicians do not want published.
The media is so compromised that it can hardly perform those responsibilities assigned to it by Section 22 of the Nigerian Constitution, which are to “be free to uphold the fundamental objectives contained in (Chapter II of the Constitution) and uphold the responsibility and accountability of the Government to the people.”
Some apologists have argued on behalf of the media that the political elite have so run the economy aground that the media, which can only thrive as commercial enterprises within Nigeria’s quasi-capitalist economy, cannot stay afloat, especially with the devastating inroads that the digital media are making into their audience, advertising revenue and profit.
The absence of regional economies, the argument goes, prevents the emergence of regional newspapers that can thrive on advertising revenues from regional companies, the way it obtains in the economies of North America and Western Europe. Many Nigerian newspapers, that are essentially regional, often pretend to be national to receive advertising revenue from companies whose market is national.
Two other collaborators of the political elite are the election management agencies and the judiciary at both the national and sub-national levels of government. The conspiracy between these agencies and the political elite is almost like that of Siamese twins conjoined by the belly button.
After the election management agencies may have deliberately bungled (especially) governorship and legislative house elections, and declared false reports, the losers, who felt that they won the election, would then approach the temple of justice, with significant financial inducement to ask for justice(?).
From that point on, the justice that both contestants hope to corruptly obtain could swing according to the heft of the naira in the Ghana-must-go bag that they will be hauling into the chambers of the denizens of the corrupted judiciary.
Thus, the “award” of electoral justice is “a matter of cash”, to quote Basi, the protagonist of “Basi & Co”, the television sitcom produced by environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who himself was denied justice from the judiciary that served the regime of General Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s most notorious military dictator.
In Nigeria, the lines of separation of powers that demarcate the duties of the three arms of government –the legislative, executive and judiciary– and the checks and balances that empower each arm to check the others have become almost irredeemably blurred.
As legislators use constituency projects as a ploy to carry out the functions of the executive, the president issues executive orders that are essentially legislative in nature. Though the judiciary does not perform the duties of the other arms, it fails to check them as it indulgently winks at their excesses.
If those who are regarded as Nigeria’s political elite really know what is in their enlightened self-interest and would like to protect the future of their descendants from what Thomas Hobbes described as a short, brutish and nasty existence, they will use their current privilege to correct the evil they have done to Nigerians.
They must urgently redeem the future before it delivers violence against their children.
By Lekan Sote
In The Spotlight
Lagos alone is worth more than Botswana, Namibia, Rwanda and Mauritius combined.
Let that sink in.
With an economy of N41.17tn — about $102bn in 2021 — Lagos State dwarfed the entire gross domestic products of four countries. Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta and Bayelsa sit on oil wealth that funds nations. Ogun, Anambra and Imo churn out goods, services and commerce that would make small economies jealous.
By the numbers, Nigeria’s states are giants.
But walk the streets of Lagos, and you will still find mothers cooking with firewood. Drive through Port Harcourt, and you will see communities drinking water polluted by the same oil that makes the state’s GDP glow. Visit Umuahia, Abeokuta, or Minna and ask the average trader what “trillion-naira economy” means to her dinner table.
The answer is: nothing.
That viral video telling you “10 Nigerian states are richer than countries” is both true and a lie. True, because the 2021 BudgIT figures don’t lie — Lagos at N41.17trn, Rivers at N7.96trn, and so on. A lie, because those numbers are GDP, not prosperity. They measure how much economic activity happens _in_ a place, not how much of it reaches the people who live there.
A country with $7,778 GDP per capita, like Botswana, will still feed its citizens better than a state with $102bn in total output but $2,058 per capita, like Nigeria. A state can host a port, an oil rig, and a tech hub, yet fail to build a hospital that works.
So, the real question isn’t “Which state is bigger than which country?”
The real question, and the one our governors should lose sleep over, is this: When your economy is bigger than a nation, why are your people still living like they have nothing?
In this edition of The Bottomline, we follow the money from GDP to the gutter — and ask why Nigeria’s trillion-naira states have not become trillion-naira lives.
The viral numbers are not new. They were lifted straight from BudgIT’s 2022 State of States report and reflected 2021 estimates: Lagos at N41.17tn, followed by Rivers at N7.96tn, Akwa Ibom at N7.77tn, Imo at N7.68tn, Delta at N6.19tn, Anambra at N5.14tn, Ondo at N5.10tn, Ogun at N5.03tn, Bayelsa at N4.63tn and Niger at N4.58tn.
The trick is in the timing. To pitch those 2021 figures against 2025 country GDPs is statistical fraud. Nigeria has since rebased. The NBS moved the base year from 2010 to 2019, and the whole map shifted. Lagos itself has moved on: its 2025 _Lagos Economic Development Update_ puts the state at N43.06tn in 2023, with forecasts of N54.77tn for 2024 and N66.47tn for 2025. Those are projections, not fresh NBS post-rebasing observations, but they tell you the direction: up.
There is no debate that Lagos is Nigeria’s economic engine. From a colonial port to federal capital until 1991, it never lost momentum. Today, trade, manufacturing, ports, telecoms, tech, entertainment, real estate and finance all cluster in just 3,345 square kilometres. Compare that footprint to Botswana’s 581,730 sq km, Namibia’s 825,615 sq km, Rwanda’s 26,338 sq km, and Mauritius’ 2,040 sq km. Yet in 2021, Lagos’ $102 billion economy was several times larger than Botswana’s $19.9bn, Namibia’s $15.1bn, Rwanda’s $16.4bn, and Mauritius’ $16.2bn, according to 2025 World Bank figures.
That comparison is legitimate. The conclusion people draw from it is not.
GDP tells you how much value was produced in a territory. It does not tell you who owns it, who earns it, or whether the roads work, the lights stay on, or the hospital has drugs.
A state can run a trillion-naira economy and still have mothers boiling water on firewood. A country can have a smaller GDP and deliver a better life. Look at the per capita numbers: Botswana at $7,778, Namibia at $5,309, Mauritius at $11,819. Nigeria sits at about $2,058. Even Rwanda, at just $773 per capita, has pushed its $3-a-day poverty rate down to 38.6 per cent — proof that size is not destiny.
The oil states expose the fraud most brutally. Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta and Bayelsa rank high because petroleum inflates their GDP. But oil wealth does not flow into state coffers in equal measure, and it certainly does not flow into household wallets. BudgIT’s own fiscal sustainability index proves this. In 2022, Rivers topped overall fiscal performance despite Lagos having the biggest economy. A big economy without revenue discipline, jobs, and services is just a billboard.
Nigeria does not have a GDP problem. We have a translation problem.
We have pockets of enormous economic power. Lagos. Rivers. Akwa Ibom. Ogun. Anambra. Delta. The output is real. What is missing is the bridge between that output and ordinary life.
Until economic activity creates real jobs, until IGR rises and addiction to federal allocation falls, until infrastructure supports production instead of strangling it, those trillion-naira figures will remain a cruel joke.
So let the video go viral. Let Lagos be “bigger than Botswana”.
But governors, commissioners, and citizens should ask only one question:
If my state can outproduce a country, why can’t it out-deliver a decent life for the people who call it home?
Until we answer that, we are not rich. We are just big.
By Raphael Mbamalu