When the Nigerian state chooses to play rogue, by Owei Lakemfa

By Owei Lakemfa

Governor Mohammed Umar Bago, the  51-year-old Governor of Niger State  who wears mullah-like beards, is once again trending in the country. He is the star boy of a state gone rogue.

 On August 2, 2025, even the Federal Government which,  as usual, is into its own tantrums in seeking to override the country’s Constitution, could not but seek to call Bago to order.

 In the latest movie Bago is starring, he is unhappy with the privately-owned Badeggi Radio Station which he accused of incitement. Rather than dialogue or allow due process, as usual, he played the bad boy. The handsome, innocent-looking governor,  unconstitutionally shutdown the radio station. This is a  drama in which he plays the victim, the complainant, investigating police officer, IPO, judge, appellate and Supreme Court. This former  Honourable Member of the House of Representatives for the Chanchaga Federal Constituency, also double-casted himself as the prison official. 

When the country, including the Tinubu administration, rose in unionism to point out his follies, Bago decided to present the country with a fate accompli: to simply demolish the buildings and equipment of the station. Unless urgent steps are taken, he would carry out this threat which would not be novel.

 In contemporary times, governors who unconstitutionally style themselves “Executive” have demolished structures of opponents. In one case, an ‘Excellency’ in the South-East who had a political disagreement with a serving Senator, simply moved bulldozers to the home of the latter, levelled it to the ground and turned it into a garbage dump.

These actions are definitely not part of the  dividends of our democracy. Rather, they are the residues of military misrule. 

The Nigerian state has always chosen to play rogue since the military seized power in 1966. The Generals who dictated to the country for a cumulative 29-year period,  and led it into a disastrous civil war, were  unmatchable ravenous eaters.  For instance, if they ate a snail, they did so, not sparing its shell. That, to them, is developing a culture of not leaving anything to waste.

Now, Niger State is at the mercy of thugs and bandits. Bago as the chief security officer of the state decided on a novel way of checking the insecurity. On April 22, 2025, he convened  a security meeting  at the Government House and told  the security men: “Anybody that you find with dreadlocks, arrest, barb the hair and fine him. Nobody should carry any kind of haircut inside Minna. I have given marching orders to security agencies.”

He added: “Also, any house found harbouring criminals should be demolished. Niger State is not for useless people.”

He stated further: “Any vehicle coming into Minna and caught with illicit drugs should be confiscated into government property”.

He gave another directive: “Anyone going to seek for bail of thugs from the police station should also be arrested.”

In hinting  that his fight against alleged criminals will respect no boundaries, he said: “Parents should warn their children. From this moment, it’s 100 per cent fire-for-fire”

Elaborating further on this, the Governor  declared: “Anyone found in possession of any weapon, including knives and sticks, should be treated as an armed robber.” He said if such a suspect is killed, his parents “must pay for the bullet before releasing the corpse.”

Although Bago advocated that a “special court should be established under the supervision of the chief judge of Niger State to handle thuggery cases for speedy judgement and subsequent imprisonment”,  his directives imply a resort to jungle justice.

There are no laws backing most of his directives. People, including security men, do not have the right to take the law into their hands, including shooting suspects and releasing their corpses only after their parents had paid for the bullets expended to murder them.

The Bago government has never hidden its disdain for the media. In November 2023, its Commissioner for Homeland Security, retired Brigadier-General Bello Abdullahi Mohammed, allegedly assaulted and threatened the life of a Voice of America reporter, Mustapha Nasiru Batsari, right inside the  Government House. Then  in January 2025, the Chairman of  Correspondents Chapel of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Yakubu Mustapha Bina, was detained without charge for several hours by the Department of State Services, DSS. His mobile phones were also seized for three days by the State Criminal Investigation Department, SCID, of the state police command.

On the specific closure of Badeggi 90.1 FM Radio Minna, the Nigerian Guild of Editors told Bago his “act of censorship and intimidation undermines the fundamental principles of a democratic society, where a free press is essential for holding those in power accountable.”

It held that: “Governor Bago acted outside his powers to order the closure of a radio station. The power to sanction television and radio stations only lies with the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission, NBC, after a thorough investigation of any alleged breach of the Code.”

Fearing that the governor may not be amenable to correction, the Editors appealed that: “The Federal Government should order the unsealing of the premises of the radio station while an investigation is carried out.”

The Federal  Government reacted through the Ministry of Information and National Orientation which emphasized that the suspension of broadcasting licenses is under the legal jurisdiction of the NBC, not the state government.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government is engaged in its own extra-constitutional acts by issuing a so-called  National Industrial Relations Policy which has been adopted without consultations with tripartite partners in accordance with the country’s laws.

Labour in the country is governed by the constitution, labour laws especially the Trade Union, Labour and Trade Dispute Acts and, the International Labour Organisation, ILO, Conventions domesticated by the country.

Ordinarily, nobody should lose sleep over a policy as it is inferior to the law or Constitution. But that is if we live in a country of rules. It just might be possible that the Federal Government would  implement the policy using bayonets. This is more so when this policy which has not been released to the public is said by government to ban strikes.  I do not know if the Tinubu administration is aware that forced  labour is criminal; so a worker who elects not to work cannot be forced to do so.

Therefore, to criminalise strikes is itself a crime which no government will be allowed to perpetuate. Yes, workers under military dictators  had been sentenced to life imprisonment like the Babangida regime did to eleven electricity workers in 1988. But this cannot be permitted under a democracy. Any government that sends workers to prison for going on strike must know it would be calling its very existence to question. 

May  democracy in Nigeria not be truncated by our leaders. Amen.

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