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The Presidential Working Group on the proposed National Policing Bill has invited Nigerians to submit memoranda and policy proposals as part of efforts to develop a comprehensive legal and operational framework for state policing.

The Chairman of the Working Group and Chief of Staff to the President, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila, announced the initiative on Monday following the group's meeting at the State House in Abuja.

According to Gbajabiamila, the Working Group is reviewing the Police Act 2020, the Police Service Commission framework, police regulations, and other relevant legislation to support the development of a modern, effective policing system.

The proposed framework will establish national minimum standards for policing, define state readiness and certification requirements, clarify jurisdictional responsibilities, provide for independent oversight, safeguard human rights, and ensure sustainable funding. It will also outline a structured transition to a dual-policing system comprising federal and state police services.

To encourage broad participation, the Working Group has opened a two-week window for the submission of memoranda from citizens, professional bodies, civil society organisations, security agencies, state and local governments, academics, and other stakeholders. The submissions will be reviewed and incorporated into the draft bill before it undergoes further nationwide consultations ahead of its transmission to the National Assembly.

The Working Group has adopted a seven-week work plan spanning July 27 to September 14, 2026. Under the schedule, the draft Executive Bill will be presented to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on September 3, 2026, after which it will be subjected to national consultations before final approval.

The proposed National Policing Bill will prescribe standards for recruitment, training, oversight, funding, and transition arrangements aimed at promoting credible, effective, and accountable policing across the country.

"A proposed State Police Service must demonstrate that it has credible arrangements for recruitment, vetting, training, pay, pensions, equipment, custody, complaints, discipline, data, firearms control, independent oversight and financial sustainability before it begins policing," Gbajabiamila said.

Representing the Nigeria Governors' Forum, Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun described the proposed establishment of state police as a landmark reform and one of the defining initiatives of President Tinubu's administration.

Addressing concerns over possible federal interference, Abiodun said the proposed legislation is not intended to place state police under federal control but to provide a clear operational framework that will ensure professionalism, accountability, and uniform standards nationwide.

The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, said the proposed legislation is designed to strengthen the security of lives and property while ensuring that state police structures are not used as instruments of political persecution.

He added that states not immediately prepared to establish their own police services would continue to rely on the Nigeria Police Force until they satisfy the prescribed operational and institutional requirements.

Other participants at the meeting included the Inspector-General of Police, Tunji Disu; President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Afam Osigwe; Chairman of the Policy Advisory Committee, Justice Abdullahi Liman (Rtd.); Head of the Nigeria Police Reform Secretariat, Professor Olu Ogunsakin; Senior Special Assistant to the President on Planning and Research, Nnadubem Moghalu; and Brigadier General Olutayo Muyiwa Adesuyi, who represented the National Security Adviser.

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In a crowning stroke to a 12-year tenure that transformed United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc into an international financial powerhouse, outgoing Group Chairman Tony Elumelu is preparing to finalize the bank’s expansion into Paris, France, marking his final major strategic milestone before stepping down next month. The pan-African banking giant is expected to receive final regulatory authorization from France’s Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution (ACPR) in the coming weeks, clearing the path for full operational commencement in the French capital.

The regulatory green light caps a rigorous 18-to-24-month compliance process that began in late 2024. During Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s landmark state visit to France, Elumelu signed a high-profile business cooperation agreement at the Élysée Palace with French the Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry, Antoine Armand, in the presence of President Tinubu and French President Emmanuel Macron.

A Global Legacy Capped in Paris
Elumelu, who will officially step down on August 21, 2026, upon reaching the Central Bank of Nigeria’s mandatory 12-year tenure limit for non-executive directors, has long championed the concept of UBA as "Africa’s Global Bank". Under his leadership, the bank built a footprint across 20 African nations and established footholds in key global financial centers; including London, New York, and Dubai. The addition of Paris secures UBA’s long-sought primary operational hub within the European Union.

Key Milestones of UBA's Paris Expansion
Bilateral Backing: Agreement signed at Élysée Palace during Nigerian State Visit to France (Nov/Dec 2024).
Regulatory Body: Final approval pending from France's ACPR (Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution).
Strategic Function: Official European Union hub for UBA's international operations.
Global Network: Joins UBA's major financial nodes in London, New York, and Dubai.

Bridging Francophone Africa and Europe
The Paris entry holds deep strategic significance for UBA’s trade finance and corporate banking network. With existing operations in 11 Francophone African countries, the bank’s French subsidiary is structured to serve as a direct bridge for trade, cross-border corporate transactions, and diaspora remittances between European markets and West/Central Africa. "Expanding into France is a natural progression, with Paris serving as our European Union hub as we continue to bring Africa and the world together through innovative financial solutions," Elumelu noted when establishing the initial bilateral framework.
The expansion embodies Elumelu’s signature economic philosophy of Africapitalism—the belief that Africa's private sector must drive the continent's development through long-term investments in strategic sectors. By embedding an African financial institution directly inside Western money centers, the move aims to reduce reliance on foreign intermediary banks for intra-African trade settlement.

Institutional Continuity
The finalization of the Paris license comes as UBA executes a structured leadership transition. Long-serving non-executive director Emmanuel Nnorom, a chartered accountant with four decades of financial experience, has been named to succeed Elumelu as Group Chairman effective August 21.
As Elumelu prepares to hand over the reins of a banking group serving over 50 million customers worldwide, the Paris approval stands as a testament to his vision of positioning African capital at the center of global trade.

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There is something wonderfully revealing about the Nigerian Presidency's response to the Catholic Bishops' Conference: when confronted with an uncomfortable diagnosis, it has chosen to quarrel with the physician rather than examine the patient. The bishops met President Bola Tinubu, presented their assessment of Nigeria's economic distress, insecurity and democratic anxieties, and apparently did precisely what citizens ought to expect of religious leaders with a conscience: they told power what they thought power needed to hear. The Presidency's subsequent irritation is therefore less a rebuttal than a demonstration of why the bishops felt obliged to speak. Let us dispense first with the most tiresome proposition: that the bishops' assessment is merely “one perspective.”

Of course it is a perspective. So is the Presidency's. So is the Central Bank's. So is the National Bureau of Statistics'. So is the testimony of the trader who cannot afford her weekly groceries, the pensioner waiting for payment, and the family calculating whether school fees can coexist with dinner. Nobody has canonized the bishops' memorandum. But neither has the Presidency been ordained custodian of empirical truth. The Catholic bishops are not claiming infallibility. They are exercising judgment. And their judgment is hardly eccentric. Earlier this year, the CBCN itself identified poor leadership and a defective understanding of politics as major causes of Nigeria's worsening economy, insecurity and poverty. Other Christian leaders have subsequently raised comparable concerns about insecurity, education and the deterioration of living conditions.

That hardly resembles a conspiracy of episcopal hallucination. The Presidency's more interesting complaint is that Cardinal John Onaiyekan discussed the private meeting on television. Here, there is a legitimate question of discretion. Confidentiality is valuable. If the meeting was expressly confidential, the cardinal should have respected that understanding. But the Presidency cannot have it both ways. It cannot treat a private conversation as confidential when criticism emerges and simultaneously use the contents of that conversation to publicly rebut the critics. Once the government itself begins litigating the substance of the encounter in public, the sanctity of the Villa's diplomatic curtains becomes rather less convincing.

More fundamentally, a meeting with the President is not a vow of omertà. The bishops were not summoned to negotiate a classified military operation. They were religious leaders speaking about the condition of the nation to the nation's elected president. Their moral authority derives precisely from their ability to speak publicly about what they believe is wrong. The Presidency's argument that Tinubu does not need bishops to tell him what is happening is particularly curious. Nobody suggested that the President possesses no intelligence, newspapers, advisers, statistics or telephones. Of course he does.

The problem is not information. It is interpretation. A president may receive ten newspapers every morning and still fail to understand the experience of the citizen buying food at 40 per cent higher prices. He may receive impeccable security briefings and still underestimate the terror of a parent whose child has been kidnapped. He may possess every macroeconomic indicator available to the state and still misunderstand what “recovery” feels like in a household where income has not recovered. Government statistics measure conditions. Churches encounter people. The bishops therefore supply something bureaucratic intelligence cannot: moral testimony from the pews.

And here lies the Presidency's most unfortunate rhetorical mistake. The bishops did not say Tinubu was unaware of Nigeria's problems. They said Nigerians were suffering. Those are not the same proposition.
The President's response—that the country has emerged from a “dark tunnel” and that economic foundations for recovery have been laid—may be defensible. The administration can legitimately point to fiscal improvements, more regular salary and pension payments in states, NELFUND and other policies. Indeed, the State House has publicly highlighted NELFUND, security efforts and the federal government's support for education and healthcare.

But a government is not entitled to convert evidence of improvement into evidence of sufficient improvement. That is the elementary distinction the Presidency seems determined not to understand. If inflation slows from catastrophic to merely brutal, the statistic has improved. The citizen is not necessarily flourishing. If government finances stabilise while household purchasing power collapses, both statements can be true. If security operations achieve successes while kidnappings and killings continue, both propositions can coexist. A country can be recovering statistically and suffering socially. That is not contradiction. It is economics. The most revealing part of the presidential response is perhaps the attempt to politicize Onaiyekan by invoking the Catholic Church's alleged sympathy for Peter Obi in 2023. This is spectacularly weak.

If a bishop criticises the government, the appropriate response is not to rummage through his presumed electoral preferences. Refute his facts. If the bishops are wrong about insecurity, show where. If they are wrong about economic hardship, produce the evidence. If they are wrong about democratic deterioration, demonstrate it. If their recommendations are constitutionally misplaced—as with mission schools—explain the constitutional allocation of powers. That is debate. “Perhaps they supported Obi” is not rebuttal. It is political gossip wearing a necktie. Nor does the claim that other Christian organizations disagree rescue the Presidency. Truth is not established by headcount among clerical bodies. If ten bishops say the house is burning and eleven pastors say it is merely warm, the fire brigade does not conduct a referendum. The President is right about one thing: governing Nigeria is harder than shepherding a parish. Precisely. That is why government must be held to a higher, not lower, standard of accountability. The Catholic bishops have no power to arrest a kidnapper, stabilize the naira, collect taxes or secure a highway. The government does.

And when the government tells suffering Nigerians to seek assistance from churches—as critics have complained—it risks making the ultimate inversion: the institution constitutionally charged with solving public problems lectures the institution that has been feeding, educating, sheltering and burying the victims to do more. That is not statesmanship. It is subcontracting failure. The Presidency should therefore stop behaving as though criticism is an act of treason against the administration's economic narrative. A democracy worthy of the name does not require bishops to applaud the government before breakfast and whisper their objections after Mass. The bishops spoke. The President answered. Excellent. Now let the argument proceed where it belongs: on the evidence, in the streets, in the economy, in the security statistics and, above all, in the lived experience of Nigerians. Power does not become wiser by silencing its critics. It merely becomes more surprised when the critics turn out to have been right.

 

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There has been quite some drama out there in the lead up to Nigeria’s 2027 general elections and one of the most outstanding episodes would be the unending, protracted feud between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his former running mate, former Vice-President, Waziri Atiku Abubakar. Both were in charge of Nigeria at the centre between 1999 and 2007. Theirs is a decades old fight, gladiators in the arena since the 2000s. More than twenty years later the two leaders are still at daggers drawn, obviously this is one of the longest, surviving feuds in Nigeria’s political history, re-enacted every political season since 2003, but the roots of the conflict are much older. Waziri Atiku Abubakar had been elected as Governor of Adamawa state in 1999, but President Olusegun Obasanjo took the decision to have him as his Vice President after the elections, and hence Atiku left Yola for Abuja, and the better-appointed precincts of Aso Rock Presidential Villa. It seemed like a brotherhood made in Heaven as the Obasanjo-Atiku, Yoruba-Fulani, Christian-Muslim combination looked like the right solution that Nigeria needed after the years of division and pain that was inflicted on the country by the prolonged abuse of military rule. Atiku was the perfect image of a Vice President. He had the trust of his principal. He was assigned the big task of overseeing the economy and the privatization process initiated by the Obasanjo administration. He chaired the administration’s economic management council. His principal allowed him to have voice, scope and influence. He loved it.

It was a period when Governors and their Deputies in the states soon began to behave like quarrelsome housewives – as in Lagos state where Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as he then was, and his Deputy Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele fought each other to a standstill. The latter had to resign in December 2002, and also in Abia State where then Governor Orji Uzor Kalu became a sworn enemy of his Deputy Governor, Enyinnaya Abaribe. Abaribe resigned as Deputy Governor of Abia state on March 7, 2003. He declared for the All-Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) on whose platform he sought to become Governor and challenge his principal. On March 15, 2003, he was formally impeached by the Abia State House of Assembly. By this time, there were cracks also, already at the Presidential level. Ahead of the April 2003 general elections, the relationship between President Olusegun Obasanjo and his Deputy had soured amidst speculations that Atiku Abubakar had become so powerful that he was plotting to displace his boss, Obasanjo as President. Obasanjo’s main opponent in the 2003 election was General Muhammadu Buhari, but the enemy within that he faced was his own Deputy, Atiku Abubakar, who had become so big under Obasanio’s watch that he threatened to take over the Presidential position during the primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to which both belonged. The narrative at the time was that Atiku had the support and the solidarity of the PDP Governors across the nation, 21 of them, and together they were going to switch the 2003 ticket from Obasanjo to Atiku and make Obasanjo a one-term President. There were reports that Obasanjo was in such a helpless situation, he had to beg his own Deputy to be allowed to hang on. He was said to have been so humiliated by the same man that he lifted up to become a national figure at the centre and gave so much influence. Those in the know claimed that Obasanjo was at Atiku’s mercy until the very last minute when by some magic, the Governors switched again and Obasanjo got the ticket. He would then go on to win the 2003 Presidential election with 26 states plus the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), 61. 94% of the votes. Atiku remained his Deputy but there was no longer any love lost between them. Atiku had violated the first law of power: Never Outshine The Master.

As soon as they assumed office in May 2003, for a second term, the Presidency was no longer the same. It became a divided house. It became a toxic Presidency. The then Vice President Atiku Abubakar was stripped of the powers and privileges that he had hitherto enjoyed. Presidential aides on both sides of the Villa fed into the feud and exploited every occasion for their own gains. The Villa practically became a rumour mill, with everyone working at cross purposes. The poisoned atmosphere went far beyond the Villa and determined relationships in the larger society. You were either for Obasanjo or Atiku. While the usual rivalry and animosity between Governors and their Deputies raged in the states, the Obasanjo Presidency had no right to occupy any moral high ground, because it was embroiled in a worse crisis of its own, with the President and the Vice President trading allegations of corrupt personal enrichment against each other. I was a witness to the history of that moment and in a series of articles titled “A Bolekaja Presidency”, I documented many aspects of how the Obasanjo Presidency lost its second term in office to the politics of division, hate and mutual suspicion.

Politics is as much about events and personalities as it is about memory. Since 2003 till date, Obasanjo and Atiku have refused to allow the old wounds to heal. Every election cycle since 2007, Atiku has attempted to succeed his former boss, and at every turn, his main adversary, even when he was no longer on the ballot, has been this former boss. Atiku has moved from one party to the other, the Obasanjo obstacle continues to stand in his way. After the 2003 conflict and during the Bolekaja Presidency, it is a matter of public record that Obasanjo and Atiku worked at cross purposes. Someday, a researcher would do well to calculate the cost of that disruption at the highest level of the Nigerian government. It is known for example that the 2005 National Political Reform Conference, a national dialogue convened by President Olusegun Obasanjo, with 400 delegates who agreed on about 187 out of 189 issues on the table, collapsed, not merely because of the argument over “resource control” but because a conversation about policy and governance got reduced to the sold idea that Obasanjo wanted to use the Conference to impose a third term on the country for himself. Obasanjo has forever insisted that this was blackmail, and that he never did anything to sit tight in office. It was the season of the Bolekaja fight, and many have identified Atiku as a spoiler in the game. The drama was re-enacted recently when President Obasanjo claimed that indeed Atiku had bribed the late Rt. Hon. Ghali Na’Abba, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, a sum of N5 million, to have him impeached as President.

Atiku wasted no time firing back, giving additional fuel to an old war. He says: “Coming at a time when the political landscape ahead of the 2027 general election is taking shape, the obvious objective is to besmirch my person and reputation and confer an undeserved political advantage on the former President’s kinsman... Nigerians, however, know better. They are too discerning to be distracted by stale allegations resurrected for political convenience…My offence was that I stood firmly against the unconstitutional third-term agenda. As a democrat, I chose the path of constitutionalism and the rule of law. Rather than surrender democratic principles on the altar of personal ambition, I defended the Constitution and successfully asserted my rights through the courts in a series of landmark legal victories against a sitting President. Those battles are now part of Nigeria’s democratic history. It is evident that the bitterness arising from that defining period has failed to leave former President Olusegun Obasanjo.”

This was sometime around July 24, 2026. Obasanjo, not one to take a punch, without hitting back, saw an opportunity for a rebuttal at a book presentation organized by Charly Boy Oputa (the only 76-year-old man in Nigerian history who calls himself a boy, the only aging grandfather who prefers to remain a boy- when will Charly Man step up?). Charly Boy had asked President Obasanjo during an interactive session if he had any regrets in the course of his public career. Obasanjo said his biggest mistake was the man he chose as his running mate, his Deputy. He bluntly refused to mention his name, the highest level of contempt that could be reserved for any human being. He was of course referring to Waziri Atiku Abubakar who has also since retorted telling Obasanjo: “I cleaned you up when you needed me; I stood against you when Nigeria needed me.” Atiku doubled down on his claim that Obasanjo wanted a third term in office and he was proud to have led a “rebellion” against him. He added: “History records that while Chief Obasanjo was in prison, I stood firmly by him. I supported his family, worked tirelessly with other patriots for his release… When he eventually regained his freedom, he had little to his name. I received him, clothed him, ensured he was properly cared for and extended every support necessary for him to regain his footing…” Thus, the “Bolekaja” war between both elders is back. This means a lot in the context of the race towards the 2027 Presidential election. Waziri Atiku Abubakar is in the race, as Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the seventh time he is seeking to be President (1993, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019, 2023), and at 79 years of age, (he will be 80 in November 2026) this is most likely his last possible chance. If he loses this time around, he will be too old to be a sellable Presidential candidate in 2031.Obasanjo is not running. But he once said that God will be displeased with him if ever supports Atiku’s ambition to be President of Nigeria. His objection to Atiku therefore looks like a pact with God. It may not be true that he is supporting his kinsman, Tinubu for 2027 as Atiku claims, in fact if he endorsed anybody in recent memory, that would be Peter Obi in 2023. Atiku claims he fed and clothed him in the past, thus more or less calling him an ingrate. But Obasanjo considers Atiku a traitor, who is unfit for high office. As Atiku’s former boss, he has most recently just issued a testimonial and a reference that discredits Atiku in the public domain. Both men make their quarrel look like a fight-to-finish, a do-or-die conflict, with two elephants fighting, what Yorubas call “ija agba meji.”

In African societies, when two young persons are quarrelling, it is the responsibility of elders to step in and make peace. Now in the case of Obasanjo and Atiku, it is the other way round. We, therefore, call on both elder statesmen to sheathe their swords and allow peace to reign. They should leave whatever grievances that may exist between them to the judgement of history. Obasanjo is almost 90. Atiku is almost 80. What else can both men be fighting for like bitter rivals at such an advanced age? What kind of example are they setting for the younger generation? The hardest part of any relationship should be knowing when to let go. Obasanjo and Atiku can co-exist in Nigeria’s political space without crossing each other’s path. They can demonstrate a good example to the nation. Their fight, reenacted for the umpteenth time, as Nigeria prepares for the 2027 elections and the campaigns begin on August 19, is one distraction that the people can do without This is a season that should be dominated by ideas – the manifestoes of the political parties, the contract of the candidates with the people, and how to move this country forward. The politics of abuse, name-calling and unresolved hate, may provide entertainment for the audience, but it does not move the country forward. It is undesirable. Atiku’s spokespersons do him great injustice devoting their best efforts to gripping words of abuse to malign his perceived opponents. They would do a better job to tell Nigerians why Atiku should be considered a better man for the job. By fighting Obasanjo, they take their eyes off the ball, and it will be remembered that their candidate was distracted when it mattered most. Obasanjo in comparison, has nothing to lose.

By Reuben Abati

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Segun Agagu Passes at 65

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Dr. Olusegun Kokumo Agagu, former governor of Ondo state, and chieftain of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), has passed. Agagu, who was born on 16 February 1948, died on Friday after a brief illness at a Lagos Hospital.He is survived by his wife, Olufunke Agagu and children.

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