Today’s North has indices of human suffering worse than Ethiopia in 1985– Fred Eno, ex-Advisor to UN Systems in Nigeria

2026-03-15 - 07:16

•ON INSECURITY: Americans are coming to Nigeria 10 years too late •ON HOPE ‘93 AND RENEWED HOPE: How By Soni Daniel, Editor, Northern Region Fred Eno, whose career spans nearly four decades in journalism, politics, diplomacy and philanthropy, has been directly involved in issues that continue to shape our narratives as a nation, including the annulment of the June 12, 1993 elections to the Boko Haram insurgency, which continues to cause havoc in North-East Nigeria till today. Fred, who has visited 42 out of the 54 African countries, recently concluded his assignment as Advisor to the United Nations Systems in Nigeria. In this interview, Eno, who hails from Ejagham in Cross River State, reflects on a variety of contemporary issues in Nigeria. Excerpts: You appear to have disappeared from the radar after the issues related to the annulment of June 12. Is that the case? No, I’ve never stopped working for and thinking about how to make Nigeria a better place. I’ve not left and will never leave the political scene, because one’s responsibilities as a citizen does not depend on whether you have a political position or you’re running for political office or not. I believe sincerely in that. As you know, I spent the last 10 years with the United Nations here in Nigeria before stepping aside on June 1, 2025. What were you doing for the UN? I was the Adviser to the Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, a position that basically puts one on the front line of both the security and humanitarian crises, as well as the political developments as they evolve in the country. And so, even in that role, when you do the official side, you do the private side, one still remains active, serving the society. I think service to me has always been a question of what are you doing as a citizen? To point out to those in authority, point out to those around you and question yourself every time an opportunity to serve comes. I don’t wait for and I don’t look for political appointments. President Trump recently sent in some military officers to help train and tackle insurgency in the country. How do you feel about that? Is that a good development? They are coming 10 years too late. Yes, they should have come earlier than now. They would have put them on the ground here in 2016. There’s nothing they want here that they do not know. We’ve cooperated with America for so long in security, intelligence, religion and culture. What is this whole thing about sovereignty? So, in 2014, when they kidnapped the Chibok girls, by then America was still strong on the ground in Niger. Their drones were flying all over the place. They knew the movements of the Chibok girls and were willing and ready to provide that information. And I’m sure people in the security architecture here had that information. This is where they are. If you cannot carry out a rescue operation without endangering lives and all of that, at least just know that they are here and they are alive. How did they do that? In 2020, when they came and rescued this man in Katsina, did they take permission? Is that something you can just do? What I’m trying to say is we have a problem. And successive administrations have papered over it, and then we’ve played the national security card and all of that. So, what I also want us to understand, and this I say with all seriousness, we have tough guys in this country who can negotiate Nigeria’s integrity and sovereignty at all levels. So let America know everything it wants to know about Nigeria. They will not control us against our interest. We just need governments like what they’ve done now. Yes, we have the high-sounding criticisms on genocide or Christian persecution or Muslim persecution, but I’ve seen both. We have a security challenge. America, as a friendly country to Nigeria, this is our challenge. Let’s work together and deal with it. It’s in America’s interest, too, because when you cut all of the Sahel and move it there and you get it into Libya and you get it into Yemen, their own trade in that zone does not. Today, as we speak, if conflict escalates in Iran, you’re going to have a movement of Houthis from Yemen into Djibouti. You’re going to have movements into Somalia. You’re going to have movements into Libya, and that whole flank is open. It is good for America to work with Nigeria because if we had started this 10 years ago, we would not be having this conversation today. Now let’s maximise what I consider to be a huge opportunity to correct the insecurity situation in this country. Don’t forget, after five years of negotiating and getting nothing, it took the first Trump administration for us to get the Tucano jets we are now using to fight the terrorists in the North-East. He’s back in power now. He was not voted by Nigerians, so it’s not about whether you like him or you don’t like him. If his presence there affords us the opportunity to deal with the kind of self-inflicting fratricide that we got ourselves into that has made the North of this country today have indices of human suffering worse than Ethiopia in 1985, let us support it. If that’s what it is, spare me the whole pride of sovereignty and whatever you call it, and let’s do what we have to do. Like I told you, this country has the capacity, diplomatic and intelligentsia to match up American interest. Would that not infuriate other world powers who would want to come and contest for a piece of Nigeria? Which world powers? You’re talking about China, you’re talking about Russia, you’re talking about these other countries that see themselves as America’s competitors in business, in economy and security matters. The ones that see themselves as America’s competitors do not tell us here that they are America’s competitors. They tell us here that they are one with America and that’s the Europeans. Let’s stop all of this pretense and work for what helps us as Nigerians. They are constructing roads, bridges, railways in Nigeria. America does not? Yes, for free? They are making their money. Yes, that’s what I’m trying to say. How much money has America been making out of oil in Nigeria in the petroleum industry for the last decade before even the Chinese started coming into play? They are dwindling. The revenues are dwindling. Exxon Mobil is going. Chevron is selling off and so on and so on. Yes, and Nigerians are buying it. Is it not Nigerians who are buying it from them? It is. Why do you think Nigerians are still unable to sleep with two eyes close despite heavy investment in security? If you sleep with two eyes closed and wake up with an empty stomach, what difference does your good sleep do for you? So having said that, and you say as a Nigerian, I’ll be the first to admit that there are failures at different levels but there’s no greater failure than a failure in our political leadership. Why do you say so? We have had successive, unbroken democratic governance from 1999 till date. Is that not enough success? Democratic governance success in terms of sustaining democratic governance is what we all yearn for. Right? But have we had success in delivering the benefits of democratic governance? And that’s where leadership comes in and that’s what I’m talking about. So that success in delivering the benefits of democratic governance is laid squarely on the political class, the political elite. Now, is it that the entire political elite is bad? No. Is it that the entire political elite is incompetent? No. But has the competence within that political elite generated the kind of opportunities for Nigerians that democracy can engender? And absolutely not. Where did we miss it? Who caused it? We all are responsible for that and even at a time like this, which may not be a very popular thing to say, I think we’re spending too much time talking down Nigeria. Sometimes we think we are just, we have a right to talk down Nigeria to ourselves. So, I’m not against critical thought. But we spend so much time, even in the course of politics, even in the course of our own rhetoric talking down our own dear country, Nigeria. We need to change the narratives in the interest of Nigeria. Is that the cause of the leadership failure? Not really but it is a symptom of it. But who is going to address the leadership failure for us as a nation? Who else but the leaders and the politicians themselves? But and that’s what comes back to that earlier thing I told you that, my responsibilities and my rights as a citizen supersede any appointment or any position. Let’s stop talking down this country and begin to think of how best to make things work in our own little corners. And do what? And then, as I said, I will criticise every administration that I have an opportunity to. I will distance myself from every political engagement. But every politician that I know knows that I will have a frank conversation with them about my positions. I’m not going to come and stand here and tell you that these people are useless. I can’t do that. So even as a citizen, we share the responsibility for where we are. And again, I want to harp on that point. I’m not suggesting in any way that we should all go out there and say Nigeria is great, Nigeria is this, no. There are critical points that we have to really look ourselves in the mirror and say we have failed. But the way and manner that we keep harping on it; the way and manner we keep portraying Nigeria’s failure as if we are the worst thing that can ever happen to mankind in this world. Do you think the negative disposition of Nigerians towards leadership is borne out of ignorance or mischief? I want to say it’s neither. It is neither ignorance nor mischief because if we’re going to say its ignorance, it could be very easily dismissed. When you say its ignorance, the ignorance factor of it comes from those who totally interpret where we are as a country based on really very parochial things. Neither ignorance nor the mischief being exhibited by Nigerians towards their leaders bothers me. What bothers me is where we see senior, mature, respected Nigerians, learned Nigerians who use where we are today as a country to create the impression here that this failure is due to the incompetence of Bola Ahmed Tinubu or that failure is due to the fact that the President took out oil subsidy. Or that failure is due to the fact that the President gave Dangote crude for Naira. But were those very popular decisions? They don’t need to be popular. But do you think these policies are working for majority of Nigerians? Yes, they are working. Now, the point, as you know, is that these things that will happen a lot of times. This guy put up a refinery that if you did not have a government that understood what it meant to have that kind of a facility beyond the fact that you want to meet your own internal petroleum needs, it will be comatose working on those old sentimental issues of government refineries, Warri Refinery, Kaduna Refinery and all of that, no, it doesn’t work that way. So, you have to take some bold decisions and let the private sector drive that process in whichever sector you are dealing with. So those things are working. And I’m waiting for economists or whoever to come and challenge that. We talked earlier about how does this percolate? So, the whole trickle-down economy thing, it is 24 months or thereabouts that these guys have started doing things they’re doing. I think the President has a competent team at the Central Bank, very competent team. They’re doing a great job. They are holding the banking sector to check doing what they have to do. I’ve seen lately that there is quite some push, especially with the stabilisation of the currency. The manufacturers seem to be stepping up the plate. But business going forward is going to be a lot more than just building factories and reviving textile industry here or metal industry there. We’re at a time when we have this large, young, dynamic population that even if you show them a big factory, they will spend all of his time trying to see how to transform everything in the factory into an AI-generated operation. The problem with the bright economic outlook you have painted is that they do not translate into good life for the average Nigerian. Poverty still pummels the ordinary citizen. How do you react to that? Let me tell you one thing. We started with a conversation around the whole social safety net and social. If you pump the amount of money that is going out there through these cash transfers and there’s consistency, things would certainly change and many will begin to feel the impact of the cash transfer policy. It is only a few months since the numbers started jacking up and there’s consistency in that. It takes that family that’s been deprived for five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten years, literally scrounging. You’re not even talking about the 3.5 million displaced Nigerians but just normal families in our rural areas and even in our urban centres. Don’t forget, in a lot of this data collected, Lagos is ranking high. They’re all marginally vulnerable people. It’s only been under the last year that these disbursements are beginning to go up. Who has the accurate data of vulnerable population in Nigeria? Who compiled it and when and where is it? Almost all state governments have the number of their vulnerable population and they have been duly involved in disbursing the cash to their people. I know that state governors, the Ministries of Humanitarian Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Communications, NITDA, NIMCY and many other agencies are involved in the data compilation. Let me take you back to where you came from. You worked with the late MKO Abiola till he died. You witnessed Hope 93, which was later truncated. Now, we have a President whose agenda is Renewed Hope. Is there any correlation between Hope 93 of Abiola and Renewed Hope of President Tinubu? There’s no mistake at all, none. No mistake? They mean the same? None. I mean they mean, when you say they mean the same, I mean, even in the relationship, that’s what I’m saying. The relationship is thick. It is symbiotic. It is natural. How? Hope 93 and the series of events from beginning of the campaign to winning the elections to the annulment to everything else that came along, now forced Nigerians in a path where the main objective at that time was to ensure that the path to democratic governance of Nigeria was laid and that every effort to truncate it, including the annulment, was not going to stand. So, Hope 93 was shaped in that mode; so, pro-democracy, progressive politics, a unified strong Nigeria was set in motion by that agenda. Now fast forward to Renewed Hope. Renewed Hope inherited the democratic civilian government and it was elected and the election accepted and it assumed power under Bola Ahmed Tinubu who was an integral part of Hope 93. What that means is that both Hope 93 and Renewed Hope operate under the same ideology to tackle Nigeria’s mounting challenges but under a civil democratic dispensation, transform its economy, deepen its unity, and provide security for all. Is Renewed Hope able to drive this interest from what you’re saying because MKO was a different personality from Tinubu? I didn’t expect them to be the same personalities. And yes, personality matters. But each leader comes with their own personality but the objectives remain the same. I don’t think Tinubu would like himself just to be seen as the Governor who transformed Lagos right now in Tinubu’s political life, I don’t think so at all. He’s bent, hell bent, ambitiously driving to be seen as the President who transformed Nigeria. Now, personalities may differ, in which case, Tinubu may not be seen as the guy who built mosques and churches across Nigeria. If you were to see President Tinubu today, what would you advise him to do as a Nigerian who was in the same camp with him before now? The last time I saw the President was in September of 2023 when he gave an address to the UN General Assembly and I had this very rare opportunity and privilege to walk with him, just the two of us, about five minutes from when he left the podium to go and meet where his delegation that was waiting for him. If I see Mr. President, I would repeat what I told him that year: Mr. President, we have turned the corner. Keep on driving it. Stay focused and let us, the rest of us, the rest of the country, those in positions of leadership, leaders of business, civil society, start understanding that where we are at the moment and where we need to be as Nigerians. Are we there yet? Not at all. But have we made progress? Very well. I know what we were going through in this country in terms of security challenges in the Northeast and I know what it is right now. I how frequently young, brilliant military officers and men were being slaughtered routinely in Maiduguri and buried in the military cemetery with fresh where fresh mud became a common feature weekly. I also used to come across a number of Nigerians coming out of the bush and fleeing the battlefront there and a lot of farmers were thrown into avoidable hunger and starvation because they could not access their farmlands between 2018 and 2019 and so on. But this challenging situation has been brought under control and things are beginning to look up in those places. So yes, there is insecurity in the land. But let’s give it some little context compared to what it was and where we were five, six, seven years ago. In two years, this thing has reduced dramatically but we report it more now which is a good thing and let’s keep that pressure on. But I would tell the President, we’ve turned the corner, keep your foot on that pedal. Your main objective is not to be seen as the Governor who transformed Lagos but the Nigerian President who transformed Nigeria.