For the umpteenth time, Nigeria has been thrown into a theatre of fiscal absurdity.

With barely six weeks to the end of the year, the Federal Government is yet to present the 2026 budget to the National Assembly.

What should have been a routine exercise in governance has become a tragicomedy: endless delays, hasty excuses, and a sense that planning is merely optional.

Budgets are not fancy stationery; they form the skeleton on which the nation’s development muscles hang.

Delay it, and everything wobbles: contractors scramble unpaid, civil servants freeze, and markets jitter nervously.

Yet, here we are again, holding on to the illusion that procrastination is a form of strategy.

To its credit, the Senate has insisted on the 2024 performance report, the 2025 capital projections, and a revised MTEF before considering the 2026 budget. Quite reasonable, one would think.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act actually demands it. But the executive, inspired by the art of suspense perhaps, has not obliged. In Abuja, timelines are suggestions, not law, it would appear.

Meanwhile, MTEF a document intended to anchor medium-term fiscal stability has become a casualty of neglect.

Outdated assumptions are its hallmark, oil price forecasts are at best delusional, and the targets of production read more like fiction rather than achievable goals.

And yet, the framework remains unsubmitted, leaving the ministries and agencies in some type of purgatory.

MDAs: Demoralized and Underfunded

At the heart of this chaos are the MDAs: demoralized and resource-strapped. Critical training programmes remain on hold; equipment procurement grinds to a halt. There are complaints from directors about dwindling motivation.

Budget Implementation Reports, once sacred quarterly rituals, have vanished for nearly two years, lowering transparency to levels that would make even the most secretive magician blush.

Meanwhile, the 2025 “Budget of Restoration” that was to resurrect the nation’s fiscal soul has remained in limbo. Contractors protested; plenary had to be abruptly suspended.

And with no money to warrant, the new rule requiring MDAs to secure warrants before spending is almost laughable. It is beginning to feel like governance has become performance art.

While the federal government dithers, states have moved ahead: Bayelsa, Cross River, Ekiti, and Osun have already presented appropriation bills to their legislatures.

Governors hold town halls, engage citizens, and get budgets moving. In other words, the states are doing what the federal government can’t or won’t.

The administration of President Bola Tinubu had promised the early submission of the 2026 budget.

In July, a circular was issued by the Budget Office directing MDAs to prepare personnel cost estimates. The said circular optimistically assumed that the MTEF for 2026–2028 would be completed on time. That optimism now reads like a cruel joke.

Rubber-Stamping: Expensive and Dangerous

Such a tendency, though apparently expedient, might be appealing to these officials.

But for the country, it is disastrous. Rubber-stamping, without due diligence, has left in its trail a litany of spurious assumptions, padded projects, unexecuted allocations, and abandoned infrastructure. Nigerians endure this costly habit year after year.

Public spending is the beating heart of the economy: delay it, and the body trembles, jobs are postponed, private sector activity stagnates, citizen confidence declines, and inflation, unemployment, and social hardship make the waiting game even crueler.

Uncertainty: Delivered on Schedule

It is high time the government shed its procrastination cloak. The revised MTEF must reach the Senate, and the 2026 budget must be presented, debated, and approved. Budget Implementation Reports must be revived. Anything less is not just incompetence; it is a betrayal of the people.

It is time Nigeria stopped building prosperity on promises, delays, or polite excuses. For now, uncertainty is the only thing delivered on schedule.

There’s something bitter ironic in the way history folds back on itself.

Ten years since the United States quietly turned the tide of events against Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency, Nigeria’s ruling All Progressives Congress might now face the same foreign policy playbook it earlier applauded.

Only this time, the moral lecture from Washington is not about corruption or electoral reform it’s about the killing of Christians and the alleged genocide unfolding across Nigeria’s northern states.

The American government has spoken with growing urgency about what it calls the “systemic persecution of Christians” in Nigeria.

Human rights reports have once again deluged the Western press on many fronts, painting a grim picture of a government totally indifferent to the daily massacre of innocent believers.

The rhetoric sounds familiar. Once, these words were leveled against Jonathan; today, they are directed squarely at President Bola Tinubu with proves.

Just as in 2015, the accusations are coming not from a whispering fringe but from the very heart of US policy circles, with President Donald Trump himself threatening action and sanctions if the Nigerian government “continues to allow Christian blood to flow.”

It’s a story the world has heard before. And those who helped write the last chapter are finding themselves suddenly recast in its sequel.

A Familiar Script, New Targets

In 2014 and into the beginning of 2015, the insecurity crisis in Nigeria was framed almost exclusively by the U.S. and its Western allies as a matter of Jonathan’s inability to combat Boko Haram.

The media portrayal became unrelenting: a weak, indecisive head of state who had lost control of his country. Washington hardened its tone; aid slowed; military cooperation became conditional.

Human rights groups, many of them funded by Western partners, amplified reports of abuses committed by the government and soft-pedaled the insurgents’ atrocities.

That pressure helped cement a narrative that Nigeria needed change. And the APC then a bold, insurgent opposition seized it.

Every press briefing, every policy statement echoed the international language of accountability, reform, and security. When Washington frowned at Jonathan, APC smiled.

Now the shoe is on the other foot.

Under Tinubu, the United States has resurrected the same human-rights-driven moral argument.

Only this time, the story isn’t about Boko Haram’s war; it’s about genocide against Christians. The framing is powerful, emotional, and politically dangerous.

It strikes at the moral legitimacy of the government and directly threatens its international standing.

Trump’s Return and the Faith Narrative

Donald Trump’s renewed political momentum has only added fuel to the fire.

No American president before him had linked U.S. foreign policy with evangelical Christian activism.

His administration once classified Nigeria as a “country of particular concern” over religious freedom violations-a diplomatic scar that has never quite healed.

Now, in his post-presidency resurgence, Trump’s rhetoric has turned harsher. He openly accuses African governments of “complicity in Christian killings” and vows to “act differently” if given the chance.

In conservative U.S. circles, Nigeria has become a symbol a Christian nation under siege, betrayed by its own leaders.

For Tinubu, that framing is politically explosive. It doesn’t just threaten sanctions or frozen aid; it chips away at Nigeria’s diplomatic capital. If the rhetoric crystallizes, then it could influence how Western nations approach Nigeria in the lead-in to the 2027 general election much like it did in Jonathan’s twilight years.

APC is Tasting Its Own Medicine

There’s poetic justice at play in all this: the APC once leveraged Western disapproval of Jonathan’s government to galvanize its rise to power.

The same U.S.-driven human rights language that was used in undermining Jonathan’s image has now returned to shine its spotlight on the APC’s own failures.

The current wave of reports complete with grim photographs, survivor testimonies, and faith-based outrage echo the very tactics once used to discredit the previous administration.

Then, the APC presented itself as the reformist alternative, the patriotic defender of the persecuted.

Today, it is the accused scrambling to explain why so many Christians have been killed without consequence.

If the whispers from Washington grow louder, the consequences may be very large: visa bans, economic sanctions, and the suspension of military aid-all familiar tools once used to corner Jonathan-could find use again.

In this regard, Tinubu’s foreign policy team seems aware of this risk; however, the domestic crisis has already overtaken diplomacy.

Regime Change or Religious Politics?

That is the question hanging over every conversation in Abuja’s power circles now: Is the U.S. pushing for a regime change or merely signaling moral disapproval?

To some political insiders, this feels like déjà vu: When Washington began raising alarms about Boko Haram a decade ago, it wasn’t just humanitarian concern it was soft power at work. By 2015, international sentiment had so completely turned against Jonathan that his legitimacy seemed unsalvageable.

Today, a similar pattern emerges. Trump’s open talk of sanctions, coupled with congressional lobbying from Christian rights groups, suggests a coordinated ideological agenda.

It’s not necessarily about Tinubu himself; it’s about controlling the narrative of who speaks for “Christian freedom” in Africa’s largest democracy.

And that’s where things get even more complicated: Tinubu is a Muslim from the Southwest who fronts a government often accused of freezing out Christian voices, particularly in the north.

The optics are grim. And in an era where Washington’s moral compass so frequently aligns with religious activism, optics can matter just about as much as policy.

The 2027 Factor: Lessons From 2015

Nigeria’s next general election looms like a thundercloud. The international narrative forming today will almost certainly influence how that election is perceived.

If the U.S. and its allies adopt a hardline view of Tinubu’s government as “complicit in Christian persecution,” opposition parties could find unexpected sympathy abroad just as the APC did in 2015.

That is the kind of moral framing that shapes everything from election monitoring reports to media coverage and international funding channels.

In an increasingly globalized information space, perception is power. And if Washington’s tone hardens, Tinubu could find his government diplomatically isolated by 2026.

The irony is almost Shakespearean: the very foreign playbook that elevated the APC’s rise could now script its downfall.

Faith, Power, and the Price of Moral Politics

Nigeria’s tragedy is that the faith question-Muslim versus Christian-keeps reappearing not as a unifying struggle but as a political weapon.

The United States too plays its part in this global moral theatre, amplifying whichever story best fits the conscience of the moment.

The US invoked humanitarian sympathy to pressure Jonathan when Boko Haram was terrorizing the northeast; the very same US moral conscience now insists on action as killings of Christians proliferate under Tinubu-as if the core insecurity had not outlived governments, tribes, and regimes.

For Nigeria, however, the danger is the persistence of external moral narratives ordering domestic politics.

The killing of innocent Christians is indeed a horror that warrants justice, but when that tragedy becomes the scaffolding for foreign political influence, the victims become nothing more than a diplomatic talking point.

History’s Iron Hand

If history teaches anything, it is that political alliances built on foreign moral endorsement rarely end well.

Once, the APC celebrated America’s cold disapproval of Jonathan’s government as proof that change was needed. Now, it has to live with the uncomfortable truth that moral diplomacy is no one’s permanent friend.

These are the same Western partners who once framed the APC as reformers but now paint them as negligent rulers presiding over silent slaughter.

The tone in Washington has changed. Tinubu’s circle feels it. If the trend continues, the 2027 election might echo 2015 in ways Nigeria is not ready for.

Because when America starts mixing faith, foreign policy, and moral superiority, it rarely stops at rhetoric.

A Prophecy of Politics

Perhaps that is Nigeria’s self-fulfilling prophecy: that every government that rises on the wings of moral outrage will someday have to face its own reckoning. For the APC, that reckoning may already be underway.

The U.S. didn’t change its playbook-only its targets. And in the quiet corridors of Abuja, one question lingers like a ghost from 2015: If America helped open the door to power, what happens when it decides to close it again?

Introduction

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent on the things that matter” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

In a world devoid of injustice, it would be better for hundreds of unrepentant perpetrators of heinous crimes to be hanged than for one innocent person to be wrongly accused and imprisoned.

Since the beginning of mankind, there has never been peace where there is injustice, because justice is the foundation on which peace is built.

It is the basic fabric of a progressive union, and essential for tranquility, trust and nation building. Everyone deserves it, and those who are upright defend it regardless of the consequences.

When it comes to justice, nothing can be overemphasized. The deteriorating health of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, as reported, and the urgent need for his release for proper medical treatment is the purpose of this article and it cannot be overstated.

His case is currently on the lips of every Nigerian, and has dominated the political discourse and social media arena.

The protest calling for his release, led by the courageous Omoyele Sowore, 2023 Presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) and the publisher of Sahara Reporters is both commendable and justified, because only the living can stand trial.

Yes, the Internet is cheap and so is talking, thus anyone can hide behind a keyboard and a cheap Chinese phone to cause mischief.

Every individual is entitled to his or her opinion; however, when such an opinion is maliciously expressed or in a way that undermines justice, it not only reveals the person’s true character but can also carry serious consequences.

Sowore has awakened the consciousness of many through his “#FreeNnamdiKanuNow” protest. Everyone with a conscience should do whatever that is necessary and legal to ensure that Kanu does not die in prison.

Questions on the lips of many, and the guess on why the government finds it extremely difficult to free Kanu

Some schools of thought are of the opinion that Nnamdi Kanu’s case with the federal government is very precarious at the moment.

It is perilous because, after years of incarceration and denial of freedom, the prison gate cannot simply be opened for Kanu to walk away as demanded by many.

If that should be the case, having suffered dehumanization, severe mental and physical torture, having been ridiculed, and now fiercely battling in court to save his life, the Federal Government fears that there could be significant legal repercussions. Therefore, all legal processes must be fully exhausted.

Furthermore, they argued that those calling for a pardon should be aware that a pardon is only granted to someone who has been convicted. In this case, Kanu cannot be pardoned because he has not yet been convicted.

Kanu was “abducted” in Nairobi, Kenyan Court rules

For Nnamdi Kanu, it seems too late for his accusers to reverse the mistake of his abduction and the resulting damage.

He had said in court that he could not be tried because he had been kidnapped from Kenya to Nigeria and that nothing should stand on illegality.

In what seems to support his argument, the High Court of Kenya, at Nairobi (Milimani Law Courts), in Case No. HCCHRPET/E359/2021 presided over by Justice E.C. Mwita, condemned the manner in which Kanu was forcefully taken to Nigeria, and described it as an act of “abduction.”

Such forceful removal “was in violation of the laws of Kenya; his rights and fundamental freedoms, including freedom of movement and security of the person guaranteed by the Constitution of Kenya, 2010”, the judgement stated.

Consequently, Kanu was awarded 10 million Kenya Shillings (about N122 million) as damage.

Did Kanu jump bail?

Some political and social commentators have accused Kanu of jumping bail. This is an allegation that Kanu has vehemently denied.

He claims that military personnel invaded his home in 2017 after he had been granted bail, killing many people and that he only narrowly escaped death.

He therefore maintains that he never jumped bail.

In a nutshell, it should be recalled that the Federal Government under late Buhari proscribed IPOB (Indigenous People of Biafra) as a terrorist organization.

Kanu, the group’s leader, was subsequently arrested. After a long legal battle, he was released on bail in 2017.

Nnamdi Kanu, who had accused the then Nigerian president of bigotry for not declaring herders terrorists, has continued to insist that IPOB is not a terrorist organization as professed.

He argues that if IPOB was truly a terrorist group, it would have also been recognized as such by Western nations.

In all of the above narratives, how do we move forward?

In a society where justice is paramount, no one should be oppressed and no one should equally take laws into his/her own hands irrespective of circumstances. Every individual, regardless of the offense committed deserves a fair trial and due process.

Nothing in the human experience is more sacred than life. The moment we stop breathing, all our struggles and efforts to gain wealth and fame end.

Our money, beauty, education, looks, property, popularity, etc. no longer matter.

Therefore, life is invaluable and priceless. For the sake of humanity and for the creation of a better society, we are morally and constitutionally obliged to preserve it.

The court is said to be the last hope of the common man; therefore, Kanu’s court case should be encouraged fairly, but the process can only continue if Kanu is alive. Grant him bail on health ground.

The narrative that he should remain in prison regardless of his health by some people, as justice for those killed by his followers, questions our contemporary society. Is this stance rooted in justice, hatred, fear or tribal prejudice?

A plea to President Tinubu

We have heard about the danger posed by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s deteriorating health, and I am compelled by compassion to urge President Tinubu to take action to ensure that Kanu does not die an avoidable death in detention.

As the father of all Nigerians and a master strategist, I appeal to him to draw on his wealth of experience and intervene, because the developments surrounding Kanu’s case do not bode well for the nation.

This is not the time to oppose those who genuinely seek a sustainable solution and a workable Nigeria; rather, it is the moment and the opportunity to begin a genuine healing process.

To achieve this, it is important to be cautious of misleading advice from individuals in high political offices, especially those from the Southeast, whose counsel may not serve the nation’s best interests.

This challenging situation did not originate under his administration but was inherited. Nevertheless, he should ensure that it does not continue to cast a shadow over his government.

His administration, whether past or present, has never been associated with any act of kidnapping, either locally or internationally.

Notably, the leader under whose the attempted abduction of Umaro Dikko occurred in London in 1984 was the same leader whose administration was identified by the Kenyan High Court as being responsible for the abduction of Nnamdi Kanu from Kenya to Nigeria.

Thanks to Sowore for the #FreeNnamdiKanuNow peaceful protest

The freedom to express one’s opinion, as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others, is guaranteed by every constitution.

This includes the right to protest. I would like to thank Omoyele Sowore for his sacrifices and courageousness in mobilizing and also leading the peaceful protest.

Only the living can stand trial, the dead cannot speak or be arraigned, and justice can only be served when life is preserved.

Kanu’s continuous detention in such an alarming and deteriorating health condition, as raised by the government’s own appointed medical experts, seems tantamount to a warrant for his slow death.

It is heartbreaking and deeply troubling. The apprehension is causing havoc in the lives of many.

The health and safety of detainees is the responsibility of every government, as is the case globally.

Therefore, the laxity of prompt action since the alarm was raised is negligence of responsibility and a violation of basic human rights and dignity. It seems as though his life does not matter.

Nigeria’s diversity ought to be our greatest strength, not our vulnerability. However, our inability not to have effectively channelled this diversity toward national unity till now calls for restraint and wisdom in handling sensitive issues.

The apparent disregard for a court ruling that had ordered for Kanu’s release reflects internal inconsistencies that undermine both our judicial integrity and our image before the international community.

For the sake of justice and to preserve our integrity internationally, we must, in the future, endeavour to fully respect and faithfully implement every court judgment, avoiding the selective obedience that undermines the rule of law.

The allegation that Sowore organized the protest to get at Peter Obi

Must every issue in Nigeria be filtered through the lens of tribalism and politics? Even those who oppose Sowore cannot ignore the merit of his good deeds.

His historic protest was commendable and exemplary. In my view, it transcended politics, it was about the soul of Nigeria and a test of whether we truly uphold the rule of law.

Continued selective justice will corrode the little remains of our moral foundation.

Some have accused Sowore of organizing the protest for personal political gain or to target Peter Obi, and many dismissed such claims as bunkum.

I won’t waste my time engaging in such, as it is akin to people in motor parks early in the morning, holding local gin, debating whether Aliko Dangote of Nigeria is richer than Nassef Sawiris of Egypt, or whether Ronaldo is a better footballer than Messi.

However, it is clear that Sowore courageously did what was right. He took a bold and principled stand for justice and deserves every accolade for his noble and exemplary action.

At a time when many remained silent or played politics with Kanu’s life, he chose to speak up for what was right, regardless of the personal cost.

His fearless support for human rights must be applauded. You can try to discredit him and question his motives, but you cannot erase the fact that he stood for justice where silence was a norm for political advantages, and no amount of noise, tribal bias, cheap blackmail or manufactured outrage can diminish the significance of that righteous decision. He is a hero.

Conclusion

For the sake of humanity, nation building, national unity, and development, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu should be released to receive proper medical attention, for only the living can stand trial.

Uzoma ahamefule, a concerned patriotic citizen and a refined African traditionalist, writes from Vienna, Austria.

E-Mail:uzomaah@yahoo.com
Mobil +436607369050 (WhatsApp messages only)