Opinion

Nigerians Are Holding the Country Together! Their Leaders Are Not

Published

3 months ago

July 1, 2026

By Samuel Ikani; Managing Partner and CEO, Insights &Strategy Consulting Limited

When the Africa Polling Institute unveiled the 2026 Nigeria Social Cohesion Survey in Abuja on 25 June 2026, one result immediately stood out. Nigeria’s Social Cohesion Index (NSCI) has risen to 48.8 per cent, the highest score recorded since the survey began in 2019.

At first glance, this appears to be encouraging news. A closer reading of the report, however, tells a more sobering story. While the country has recorded its strongest performance to date, it still remains below the 50 per cent threshold that represents a socially cohesive nation. After seven years of measurement, Nigeria continues to operate below the point where national unity can be considered stable.

For policymakers, this distinction matters. Improvement should not be mistaken for transformation. The latest figures suggest that while Nigerians continue to demonstrate remarkable resilience, the institutions responsible for governing them are yet to build the level of confidence required to sustain long-term national cohesion.

The report also reveals an important trend. The Social Cohesion Index declined sharply from 44.2 per cent in 2021 to 39.6 per cent in 2022, reflecting one of the most politically divisive periods in Nigeria’s recent history. Since then, the index has steadily recovered, reaching 46.8 per cent in 2025 before climbing to 48.8 per cent this year.

Ordinarily, such a recovery would suggest that citizens increasingly perceive the country as becoming more united. Yet another finding in the report presents a striking contradiction; Nearly 48 per cent of Nigerians now believe the country is more divided than it was four years ago, compared with 31 per cent in 2025. The coexistence of these two findings is perhaps the most significant policy insight contained in the report.

The explanation appears to be that cohesion is growing primarily among citizens themselves, while confidence in the political and governance environment continues to weaken. Communities are finding ways to cooperate, support one another and maintain relationships despite increasing political tensions. At the same time, many Nigerians believe the country’s political environment is becoming increasingly polarised.

The report identifies the principal driver of this division. Party political affiliation, cited by 56 per cent of respondents, has overtaken both ethnicity (46 per cent) and religion (44 per cent) as the leading source of conflict within communities.

This finding deserves serious attention. For decades, discussions around national unity have focused largely on ethnic and religious divisions. The evidence now suggests that political competition itself has become the strongest force fragmenting social relationships. This represents an important shift in Nigeria’s conflict dynamics and should prompt a reassessment of how political engagement is conducted.

One of the most encouraging findings in this year’s survey is the emergence of a stronger national identity. For the first time since the study began, a majority of respondents identify themselves primarily as Nigerians rather than by ethnic, religious or regional affiliation.

This represents a significant national asset. Shared national identity is one of the strongest foundations upon which peaceful societies are built. It strengthens trust between communities, encourages cooperation and creates a common basis for addressing national challenges.

Yet this optimism is tempered by another statistic. Fifty-five per cent of Nigerians say they would relocate abroad immediately if given the opportunity. This illustrates the complexity of the country’s current reality. Citizens may increasingly identify with Nigeria, yet many remain uncertain about its future. Patriotism alone cannot compensate for declining economic opportunity, weak public services or diminishing confidence in governance. National identity can inspire hope, but only effective institutions can sustain it.

Perhaps the most consequential findings in the report relate to institutional trust. Nigerians continue to place relatively high levels of confidence in religious leaders (51 per cent) and traditional rulers (45 per cent). Confidence in public institutions, however, remains significantly lower.

Only 28 per cent of respondent’s express trust in the current administration, while the National Assembly records the lowest trust rating at 23 per cent, making it the least trusted public institution in the country.

This should concern every policymaker, researcher or development specialist.

Social cohesion depends not only on relationships between citizens but also on the quality of the relationship between citizens and the institutions established to serve them. A society where people trust one another but have little confidence in public institutions faces an enduring governance deficit. While citizens may continue to demonstrate resilience, that resilience should not be mistaken for institutional effectiveness.

There is one encouraging development. Public distrust in the executives has declined from 83 per cent to 72 per cent over the past year. Although modest, this suggests that confidence can be rebuilt where deliberate efforts are made. The challenge is to ensure that this progress extends across all public institutions rather than remaining isolated.

The broader lesson from the report is that Nigeria’s improving cohesion should not be interpreted as evidence that all is well. Rather, it reflects the extraordinary capacity of Nigerians to maintain relationships, adapt to hardship and preserve social order despite persistent economic and political pressures.

Resilience is a national strength, but it is not a substitute for good governance.

There is an important difference between citizens becoming more united because public institutions are performing effectively and citizens becoming more united because they are collectively enduring hardship. The former represents sustainable development. The latter represents survival.

This distinction should guide how government interprets these findings. The policy implications are therefore clear.

The proposal contained in the report to establish a National Social Cohesion Commission, similar to Kenya’s National Cohesion and Integration Commission, deserves serious consideration. Equally important is the recommendation to institutionalise social cohesion across Ministries, Departments and Agencies so that policy formulation routinely considers its impact on trust, inclusion and national unity.

Beyond institutional reforms, however, Nigeria must confront the growing role of partisan politics in deepening social divisions. If political affiliation has become the country’s leading source of conflict, then reducing political polarisation is no longer simply an electoral concern. It is a national development priority and a matter of long-term national stability.

The emergence of a stronger Nigerian identity is perhaps the most valuable finding in this year’s report. It is evidence that citizens are increasingly choosing common nationhood over narrower identities. That progress should be protected, strengthened and matched by institutions that inspire the same confidence citizens increasingly place in one another.

Ultimately, the figure to watch is not 48.8 per cent. It is 50 per cent. Crossing that threshold will matter only if it reflects a country where stronger institutions, responsive leadership and effective governance have reinforced the resilience already demonstrated by its people; not simply another year in which Nigerians held the country together despite the system rather than because of it.

Share on Facebook

Opinion

A Comedy of Errors of the Framework Il-literati

Published

11 hours ago

October 1, 2026

The Gleamer

By Kehinde Bamigbetan

The narrative is simple. On September 24, 2026, the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development issued a press statement on the groundbreaking signing of the Framework of Investment in the solid minerals sector by Nigeria and the United States at the Nigerian Mission in New York, United States.

The statement quoted the Honourable Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, extensively on Nigeria’s expectations and set boundaries for the conduct of the joint signatories in executing the framework.

The most poignant part of his declaration deserves emphasis: ‘But let me be clear about Nigeria’s ambition. We are not here to remain a source of raw material for values that others create. Our goal is to turn potential into lasting values at home through stronger local processing, new skills, quality jobs and new opportunities for Nigerian businesses”

Witnesses at the event saw that Alake’s patriotic demand excited his guest. US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau showed excellent diplomatic camaraderie by acknowledging Nigeria’s duty to determine its priority in the Framework. He agreed that Nigeria’s demography and economy make it a regional power with huge continental responsibilities, adding that the US would support leveraging the Framework to advance Nigeria’s national interests.

Alake’s advocacy, by historical precedent and contemporary discourse, is as anti-colonial and anti-imperialist as could be. Were the country not festered by “naboobs of negativism”, it should have earned a heroic applause and hosting of red homecoming flags.

But a section of the commentariat, posing as the finest breed of the literati, had barely digested the content before invading the media- print, electronic, digital and social- with tomes and tones of desperate gobbledegook, unleashing its noxious hallucination and nightmarish schizophrenia on the reading public.

Please dismiss the adversarial calculations and manipulations of the firm of Von Batten- Montague, the official agent provocateur of perennial presidential runner and serial loser Alhaji Abubakar Atiku. Its anti-President Tinubu lobby, from waking the Chicago papers to spinning a Tinubu-Trump meeting yarn, is a voodoo ritual of making corpses walk than professional political marketing. With an unprecedented $ 1.2 million budget, Von Batten is set to plunge his principal into a predictable Waterloo.

Let us also dismiss political opponents, Tinubu haters and confessed annihilators of the ruling All Progressives Congress. Their jaundiced, atavistic rivalry to unseat a progressive administration by hook or crook, including through misinformation and disinformation, calumniating propaganda and digital savagery, already places them outside the precincts of objectivity and fair comment.

The segment of our particular concern is those who pretend to diagnose and analyse, that is, engage in what journalists call informed commentary. This genre is critical to the press because it fulfils the Fourth Estate’s role in holding the other three estates to account. Media awards organisations such as the Diamonds Awards for Media Excellence, DAME and Nigeria Media Merit Awards evaluate its quality and celebrate the expertise of its most creative wordsmiths.

The reason is simple. Informed commentary is the unrivalled forte of the literati- writers, rigorous in research and prodigious in elucidation, yet literary in stringing words that taste sweeter than salt.

The golden rule of informed commentary is sacrosanct: facts are sacred, opinions are free! To worship facts with logical reverence is the literati’s exceptional trait, the traction that delivers their ascendancy.

Unfortunately, the tragedy that befell the genre after signing the Framework is that those who violated the portals and platforms of public discourse broke the golden rule by demonstrating zero fidelity to facts.. With selfish obsession to trend and gain folowers, the “illiterati” betrays a lack of preparation and polish for public discourse. The illiterati arrogantly and lazily strut and stroll across platforms, purveying fallacies as logic and falsehood as facts.

To begin, what in global diplomatic parlance is a Framework? Four decades ago, you needed a dictionary; a decade ago, you would Google. Today, ask AI.Gemini told me: “In diplomatic parlance, a framework (often called a framework agreement, diplomatic framework, or conceptual framework) refers to a foundational structure, set of guidelines, or overarching agreement established by negotiating states to manage bilateral or multilateral relations, guide future negotiations, or address complex, long-term issues.

Rather than settling every granular detail immediately, a framework provides the architecture and rules of engagement for ongoing diplomacy.”

If only the illiterati educated themselves, they wouldn’t go gaga all over the media, infecting innocent readers, listeners, and viewers with rubbish like a $700 billion deal. They turned a contextual information about the estimated value of minerals into a transactional contract!

And this is where the comedy of errors titillates. When I told a journalist that his slug insinuating a $ 700 billion deal was a fabrication, he replied innocently that it was just a caption and that the body of the story carried the authentic information! A slug, not a caption, pegs a story, and it is indeed an egregious error that both should differ in meaning.

He wasn’t alone. Unable to resist the temptation to attract readers with the big figure, a few journalists

took the figure out of context, giving the impression that Nigeria signed away all her minerals.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Delivering the keynote address at the just-concluded annual conference of the Guild of Editors, His Royal Majesty Nnaemeka Achebe, the Obi of Onitsha, counselled:

“In the old order, being first was honour. In this new order, being first with a lie dressed as news is a betrayal of public trust, however unintentional.” Wouldn’t it be refreshing to read the corrigenda of such media organisations tomorrow? I am sure all of us who still believe in the credibility of the media will be glad.

But the most notorious are content creators who latched on this ignorance to excite their followers. Their ad hominem fallacy leaves the subject of the Framework and tries to turn Alake’s professional pedigree in mass communications into a liability. They tried in vain to cast a character out of sync with his working environment.

Such impressions contradict the evidence.Such erroneous misunderstanding of public administration conveniently forgets the crucial role of the bureaucracy as the permanent technical corps of government. Alake is professionally supported by a permanent secretary, Engr Yusuf Yabo; directors-generals of agencies such as the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency, Prof Segun Ige; the Nigerian Mining Cadastral Office, Engr Simon Nkom; the Council of Mining Engineers, Professor Opafunsho; and the Executive Secretary of Solid Minerals Development Fund, Hajiya Fatima Shinkafi. Besides, well-groomed aides tracking the strategic implementation of policies, a layer of competent directors who have honed their skills and expertise over three decades are at his beck and call.

With this array of intellectuals, governance is collaborative. Files are referred to specialised departments for interrogation, implementation and decisions are taken based on sound logic and verifiable facts.

Beyond the popular aphorism that journalists are jack of all trades and masters of all because of their professional exposure to all matters of public interest, Alake holds the extraordinary distinction of strategic communications and innovation, crisis management, and visionary leadership.

His political role is to accomplish the manifesto of the All Progressives Congress as encapsulated in President Tinubu’ Renewed Hope Agenda, cascaded to the Ministry as the Seven Point Agenda. In three years, he has delivered key agenda items, including establishing the Nigeria Solid Minerals Company and the Mining Marshals, increasing the registration of artisanal co-operatives, and raising revenues from N6 billion in 2023 to N70 billion this year.

The minister is most passionate about value addition, based on his determination to reverse the colonial baggage of unequal exchange. His advocacy inspired mining ministers in Africa to set up the Africa Minerals Strategy Group and earned him and Nigeria the pioneer chairmanship of that group.

The critics did not only confuse ministerial portfolio with technical consultancy, by presenting the Framework as a kind of sell-out, they display unpardonable ignorance of four decades of Nigeria’s pro-foreign-investor conversation. The Structural Adjustment Programme launched this policy in 1987 and codified it in privatisation and commercialisation laws. This policy guarantees full repatriation of profits to foreign investors and set up free trade zones as tax havens.

The beauty of our mining laws is that they have not thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Illiteracy is not just the inability to read; it also includes the laziness to employ that skill to gather intelligence for public discourse.

The ignorant illiterate have not bothered to read the regulatory regime that the Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act 2007 and Regulations 2011 impose on mining companies. They don’t know that no foreigner can legitimately and legally hold a small-scale licence, an exclusive preserve of Nigerian citizens. They don’t know that the traditional authority or landowner must write a letter of consent before a prospective miner can obtain a licence over the area. Such built-in guarantees are beyond the conception and imagination of the illiterate, rendering their competition to outdo each other in poking fingers at the framework a grandiloquent exercise in cerebral vacuity.

Alake has enforced the mining laws to sanitise the sector and promote value addition. With his directive compelling all mining licence applicants to submit local processing plans, the value-addition policy has gained traction and attracted over $3 billion in three years. Lithium concentrates and gold refineries are springing up; the era of pit to port will end soon as raw minerals without value addition can no longer pass through Customs.

As we move into the campaigns for general elections, more controversies are providing opportunities for robust debates. Democracy needs enlightened discourses, not an aggressive parade of ignorance. The lesson from the Framework controversy is the need to understand what we reject even more than what we accept.

Share on Facebook