Opinion

Why Integrity Group’s ‘120 Reasons’ Cannot Return Okowa In 2027

Published

1 month ago

August 24, 2026

The recent endorsement of Senator Ifeanyi Okowa for another shot at the Delta North Senate seat by the Chairman of the Integrity Group of Nigeria, Delta State Chapter, Comrade (Dr) Martin Nwachukwu Bolum, accompanied by a much-advertised list of “120 reasons” why the former governor should return to the Senate, is as unconvincing as it is politically predictable.

One hundred and twenty reasons may appear impressive in length, but length is not evidence of performance, and repetition cannot become achievement merely by enumeration.

Governance is not measured by how many bullet points political sympathisers can assemble. It is measured by impact, value for money, equitable development and accountability.

Nobody disputes that an administration which controlled the machinery and resources of Delta State for eight years built roads, renovated schools and executed projects. That is the minimum expected of any government.

The real question is whether those projects justified the enormous public resources available to Delta State between 2015 and 2023.

You cannot simply list the construction of a road as an achievement without asking what it cost, the quality of construction and its condition today. Neither can empowerment be measured by counting sewing machines, motorcycles, tricycles and starter packs without determining how many beneficiaries were sustainably lifted into economic independence.

Worse still, splitting related programmes into multiple bullet points to arrive at an intimidating “120 reasons” does not transform political publicity into an objective performance audit.

If Okowa’s record truly “speaks for itself,” as the Integrity Group claims, then let that record answer the harder questions.

How much came into Delta State? How much was borrowed? What was spent? Where was it spent? And what enduring value remains today?

Those questions cannot be buried beneath 120 bullet points.

OKOWA’S EIGHT YEARS: FOLLOW THE MONEY

Accountability Cannot Be Replaced With Achievement Lists

The Integrity Group wants the people of Delta North to judge Senator Okowa by his eight years as Governor of Delta State.

Excellent.

Then let us examine the whole record, not merely the politically convenient portions of it.

Instead of bombarding Deltans with 120 supposedly spectacular achievements, the Integrity Group should demand answers to the legitimate accountability questions arising from eight years of managing the resources of one of Nigeria’s major oil-producing states.

What was Delta State’s total revenue between 2015 and 2023?

How much internally generated revenue accrued during those eight years, and what measurable outcomes did it produce?

How much did the administration borrow? What projects were financed from those borrowings, and what liabilities were left behind?

What resources accrued under the 13 per cent derivation framework and through DESOPADEC, and what measurable development did the oil-producing communities receive?

What federal refunds and other exceptional receipts came to Delta State during the period, and how were they appropriated and utilised?

These are not insults. Neither are they propaganda.

They are legitimate questions of public accountability that require figures, audited accounts and verifiable public records not political applause.

Then there is the celebrated “Road Master” narrative.

A road does not become successful simply because politicians commissioned it amid fanfare. Its true testimony is its durability and the value it delivers to the people.

Where roads have deteriorated prematurely, taxpayers have every right to ask:
What did they cost?
What specifications were approved? What quality was delivered? And did Delta State obtain value for its money?

That is accountability.

If the Integrity Group wants a debate about Okowa’s record and experience, Victor Ochei and the people of Delta North should welcome it.

But experience must come with receipts.

The people cannot be asked to celebrate expenditure without interrogating outcomes.

And beyond the questions of money and projects lies an even more fundamental issue that no compilation of 120 reasons can wish away.

DELTA NORTH IS NOT A FAMILY POLITICAL ESTATE

Experience Must Not Become Entitlement

Senator Ifeanyi Okowa has every right to be proud of his Ika heritage.

What he does not have is a permanent political title deed over Delta North.

That distinction lies at the heart of Rt. Hon. Victor Ochei’s challenge to the old political order.

Okowa has had an extraordinary run in public office local government chairman, commissioner, Secretary to the State Government, senator, two-term governor and vice-presidential candidate.

Few politicians anywhere in Nigeria have enjoyed such extensive opportunities for public service.

The question Delta North must therefore confront is simple:

Must the political future of an entire senatorial district continue to revolve around one man and the political establishment surrounding him?

The Integrity Group calls it “experience and continuity.”

Many others may reasonably see political recycling and entitlement.

Where questions have been raised about the concentration and geographical distribution of projects, institutions and political influence, the appropriate response is not name-calling.

Bring the evidence.

Publish the figures.

Show the distribution of major capital expenditure and public institutions across Delta State and Delta North.

Let the people judge.

This is also why attempts to dismiss Ochei’s challenge as desperation completely miss the point.

Challenging an entrenched political establishment is not desperation.

Demanding that political opportunities remain open to others is not desperation.

Insisting that the democratic ladder remain available to young people, ordinary citizens and those without political godfathers is not desperation.

Experience is an asset. But when experience becomes an argument for perpetual entitlement to political power, democracy must push back.

Delta North belongs to its people.

It is not the inheritance of any individual, family or political establishment.

No endorsement can change that.

No pressure group can inherit the votes of the electorate.

And no politically amplified list of “120 reasons” can substitute for accountability.

The old order has had its opportunities. Delta North must now decide whether 2027 will be another journey into yesterdayor the beginning of a new political direction.

Victor Ochei represents that new direction.

Austin Edemodu, PhD is an Abuja based Journalist and Public Affairs Analyst.

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Opinion

A Comedy of Errors of the Framework Il-literati

Published

10 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.

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