OPINION
Reincarnating Mugabe, the Black Hitler, in Lai Mohammed
By Festus Adedayo
All through history, even with the advent of modernism, despots who hate the power of free speech always have their own version of repressive ancient monarchies’ abenilori. These were the ones entrusted with the task of beheading opponents, literally or metaphorically.
While Robert Gabriel Mugabe of Zimbabwe had his in Minister of Information and Publicity, Jonathan Nathaniel Mlevu Moyo, President Muhammadu Buhari has Lai Mohammed, his Minister of Information and Orientation. History recorded that Mugabe’s Moyo lent himself as a tool in the hands of a man who became one of the most tyrannical Africans to sit in a Government House. In a full coercive capacity, he helped articulate Mugabe’s wave of oppression against Zimbabweans.Five years younger than Mohammed, having been born in 1957, from 2000 to 2005 and 2013 to 2015, Moyo drafted and vociferously defended Mugabe’s tools of repression. These came in the form of Broadcasting Services Act (BSA) (2001), the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (Commercialization) Act (2003), the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) (2002), the Public Order and Security Act (2002), and the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (Commercialization) Act (2003). All of these restrictive legislations were targeted at muzzling freedom of speech and attracted widespread criticisms for their violation of Zimbabweans’ rights to free speech. Upon being brought to the Zimbabwean parliament, Chairman of Zimbabwe’s Parliamentary Legal Committee, Dr. Eddison Zvobgo, repelled AIPPA thus: “I can say without equivocation that this Bill, in its original form, was the most calculated and determined assault on our liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, in the 20 years I served as Cabinet minister.”
So when Nigeria’s own Mugabe tool went the Zimbabwean route in a bill recently parceled to the national legislature seeking amendment to the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) Act, so as to enable Mugabe – oh, my apologies, Buhari – control online media operations in Nigeria, it was obvious that, as physicists say, like was attracting like. Last week, the minister told the House of Representatives Committee on Information, National Orientation, Ethics and Values that he wanted the committee “to add that internet broadcasting and all online media should be included in the bill.” In the specifics he seeks, Mohammed wants NBC’s powers amended so that it can superintend over the licensing, registration and regulation of the social media. His morbid thirst for the blood of free speech is not done. He also wants the Press Council Act amended, as well as the Advertising Media Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) code, all in the bid to place the media on the laps of government. And Mugabe smiled mischievously in his grave.
As Minister, Moyo turned pugilist against the Zimbabwean press, until he got expelled from the ZANU-PF. Beaming like a voyeur at the government closure of one of the most vociferous newspapers in Zimbabwe, he had remarked, “The Daily News is a victim of the rule of law which it had been preaching since 1999.” He was vilified in Zimbabwe and became as worthless as the country’s dollar, so much that, in 2005, Asher Tarivona Mutsengi, a student leader, journalist and agronomist at the Solusi University, described him thus: “…he will go down in the annals of history as a minister who lacked foresight and for pouring vitriol against his perceived opponents, his shopping spree in South Africa of scarce foodstuffs, causing unemployment to a multitude of journalists and a penchant for uncivilized propaganda.” Mutsengi poured the last vitriol: “…my final analysis is that he is heading for the precipice… He might be a spin-doctor and intelligent as some claim, but I don’t subscribe to that myself.”
The United States was so chagrined by his role in the muzzling of free speech that it banned him from travelling to America. When in January, 1998, Moyo moved to South Africa’s University of Witwatersrand to work on a W.K. Kellog Foundation-sponsored project entitled The Future of the African Elite, the university later alleged that he eloped with a chunk of the research grant totaling 100 million rand. It got so bad that younger brother of President Thabo Mbeki, Moeletsi of Witwatersrand university, led a campaign to have Moyo jailed if he ever stepped his feet on the South African soil.
Scholars have established that there are two models of leadership that exist in Africa. First is one that swivels from benevolence to repression. The second begins as a dictatorship and significantly graduates into heroism. I add a third and the fourth: a leadership that begins as dictatorship and enjoys this sadism’s bumpy ride till its last day in office. The last is one that begins benevolently and never departs from this highway. Two African Heads of State personify the first two models. They are Mugabe and Jerry Rawlings of Ghana respectively. General Sani Abacha represents the third and Nelson Mandela, the fourth.
Mugabe, African nationalist and ideologue, began his leadership journey as a moderate. By the time he left office in 2019, he had become a world renowned dreaded tyrant. Born in February, 1924 to a poor family called Shona in Kutama, then Southern Rhodesia, later known as Zimbabwe, Mugabe was a Marxist-Leninist, revolutionary and politician who became Leader of the Zimbabwean African National Union (ZANU) in 1980 and served, first as Prime Minister and later, President of Zimbabwe for 30 years, 1987 to 2017.
When this revolutionary got into office, he was extremely people-friendly. He expanded Zimbabwe’s healthcare and education phenomenally, tickling the world into a state of exhilaration. He transited from being a major hater of white rule as demonstrated by his guerilla warfare, especially in the Rhodesian Bush War. He fought lan Douglas Smith’s white government to a standstill and reconciled blacks and white. Smith was a Rhodesian fighter pilot, politician, farmer who ruled Rhodesia as Prime Minister from 1964 to 1979 when he handed over to Mugabe. A dotting world waited on Mugabe as a competent and benevolent leader. He lifted the Zimbabwean economy to double-digits, shot school enrolment up from 2 to 70 percent and more than doubled literacy level from 45 to 80 percent. In recognition of all these leadership feats, Mugabe was garlanded with international awards and honors, the most outstanding being the knighthood he received in 1994 from English Queen Elizabeth II and his shortlist for the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize in the 1980s.
By the turn of this century, however, Mugabe had morphed into a recalcitrant monster and grew fiery Dracula fangs. The world in turn robed him with the trophy of one of the most repressive governments in the globe. The Zimbabwean economy nosedived horribly under his grips, so much that a fourth of the population was forced to flee the country to seek refuge elsewhere. More than 90 percent of Zimbabweans were unemployed and healthcare nose-dived to its nadir, shooting HIV-AIDS prevalence figure to a fifth of the population. Mugabe’s government got so repressive that, in a speech he delivered in 2003, thumping his chest like a matador, he boasted against the opposition that he would rule like a “Black Hitler, tenfold.” Under him, the Zimbabwean dollar became one of the most worthless in the world as he printed the currency at will, forcing inflation to jump to 231 million percent in 2008.
Rawlings, a Flight Lieutenant of the Ghana Air Force, on the reverse, hijacked power in Ghana in 1979 as a bloodthirsty despot. He ordered the execution by firing squad of eight military officers – Generals Kotei, Joy Amedume, Roger Felli, and Utuka and three former Ghanaian heads of state – Generals Kutu Acheampong, Fred Akuffo, and Akwasi Afrifa. Hs wave of oppression included torture, killings and arrests of dissenting voices, as well as muzzling of the press. He later resigned from the military, founded a political party named National Democratic Congress (NDC) and became Ghana’s first civilian President. Towards the latter days of his reign, Rawlings amazingly transited into a benevolent democrat and by the 1990s, had become the IMF and World Bank’s poster boy for good governance, tremendously and positively transforming the Ghanaian economy. Thereafter, he got re-elected and at the end of his terms, he supervised the first peaceful transition of power to another civilian government in Ghana.
The comment of Innocent Madawo, a Zimbabwean journalist and Toronto Sun newspaper columnist, about the Zimbabwean Minister of information, is where I begin my comparative analysis of Nigeria’s Mohammed and Moyo. Apparently frustrated by Moyo’s regression into the hall of infamy, Madawo had said of the Zimbabwean Minister of Information: “…a lot are embarrassed that they ever knew him.” Same with Mohammed. His grandson was probably the most embarrassed. In his self confession, the Minister said the lad confronted him with the notorious narrative of “lie” as substitute for his “Lai” first name that is reigning on the streets.
I have bumped into Mohammed about twice, once as Chief of Staff to the Lagos State governor and another time at the Agodi, Ibadan Secretariat sometime in 2011 and I can say that Mohammed cut the visor of a man who could not hurt a fly. Soft spoken but a man you would goof tremendously if you ever set store by his cranial endowment, he looked like your avuncular neighbor next door. To now imagine that such a man could transmute into and carelessly walk into a Moyo hall of infamy, to many who knew him, is one of the mutative wonders of political power.
Caligula, who the unconscionable quote at the beginning of this piece was attributed to, real name Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, the third Roman emperor, was equally inebriated by power. He was so powerful that he planned to leave Rome, the seat of power and permanently live in Alexandria Egypt, where he would be deified and worshipped as a living god. On 24 January 41, he was stabbed 30 times, like his elder brother, Julius Caesar, by assassins within who disdained the idea of Rome losing out as the seat of power.
A lot has been said of Muhammed’s embarrassing assaults on the sanctity of truth and his weaponization of untruth as instrument of the management of governmental information. He has made himself the proverbial man who hangs on his waist a belt made of grains of corns who invariably gets embarrassingly scampered after by a colony of chickens. His penchant for Goebbelsian lies – from Joseph Goebbels, Germany’s Nazi Party chief propagandist and Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 1945 – which he dresses in the euphemism of propaganda, is notorious. Mohammed’s most recent infamy, which in my own estimation is his chunkiest assault on common sense and reasoning, is his attempt to get the National Assembly legalize his hatred for free speech.
In his years as Minister, Mohammed has negatively defined the boundary of operations of an information minister to include deodorizing the excrement of the man in power. He blatantly dresses government’s failure in garment of honour and turns upon their heads obvious realities in the polity, just to suit the whims of the people-hating, animal-loving government of Buhari. He has effectively used magical realism and voodoo as a tool of communicating government activities. With the UN recent statement that 4.4million Nigerians were starving, I will be shocked if Mohammed hasn’t issued a release to argue that enemies of Nigeria were behind the claim. His notoriety for blatant contradictions became manifest during the EndSARS protests, especially over its casualty figure as he sought to criminalize CNN’s report on Buhari’s decision to borrow a leaf from South Africa’s Soweto massacre.
Mohammed received flaks across board recently when, in a press interview where he attempted to criminalize Twitter’s yanking off of President Muhammadu Buhari’s genocidal quips, he equated Nigerian president’s outlawry with Nnamdi Kanu’s deranged tweets and sought same treatment for both by Twitter. Last week, while speaking on a Radio Nigeria programme, he claimed that Twitter and its founder, Jack Dorsey, were liable for losses that Nigeria suffered during the protests, alleging that Dorsey, through Bitcoins, raised funds in sponsorship of the protests and his Twitter platform fuelled the crisis. At that point, you begin to wonder if indeed Mohammed was ever at the Nigerian Law School. How can Twitter, either vicariously or otherwise, suffer any liability in a Lekki toll gate civil, lawful protest that, all over the world, is held to be a fundamental human right? He has been exhibiting huge appetite to swallow Twitter up and let out its excrement inside a pit latrine.
I do not know if Mohammed realizes that, as the Yoruba say, the yearly masquerade festival, with its feast of plenty and brawns, no matter how long the frills take, always comes to an end. The son of the Chief Masquerade will thus have to resume his patronage of akara – bean cake – seller at the market square. The muscle-flexing and intoxicating wine of power will by then have melted into nothingness.
Today, Mohammed’s predecessors in mis-wielding of raw power – Mugabe, Moyo, Abacha and many more – have become footages in history. At the end of their tour of coercive power usage and stomping on the people’s right to express themselves, Buhari will conveniently mesh into his conservative Hausa–Fulani society which will garland him as a hero; so will Garba Shehu and other hirelings. Where will Mohammed hide his untruthful face in a very critical, very unsparing Yoruba society? What will be said of him when historiographers and historians are compiling 21st century diary of infamy?
Ayinla Omowura calls one of his for a tete-a-tete
Last Tuesday morning, lovers of the music of late ace Yoruba Apala musician, Ayinla Omowura, a.k.a Hadji Costly, Egunmogaji, lost one of the connoisseurs of that traditional music. Waheed Ganiyu was my friend, with whom I shared intellectual conversations on Omowura. He knew Omowura like the back of his hands, though like me, he never met the Abeokuta, capital of Ogun State-born bohemian musician who was killed 41 years ago in a beer parlour tiff. Ask him what vinyl volume a particular track of the musician could be found, he would tell you off hand, with clinical precision. As a testament to his depth, knowledge and how he lent immeasurable hand in the writing of the book, I showered huge encomiums on Waheed in the book.
But for him, I most probably would not have written the biography of Omowura. He rummaged through information and located me sometime in 2015, clutching earlier pieces I had done in newspapers about Hadji Costly. With that characteristic smile of his, he demanded that I wrote a book on the musician. He would inundate me with calls and pleadings, asking that I should wake up from my procrastination. More out of the need to satisfy him, work began on the book in 2018. You could see the fire of enthusiasm on his face as researches turned up tomes of information about Omowura. He was ever ready to accompany me on the several interview trips I embarked on to Abeokuta and Lagos to talk to sources about the musician.
In February this year, Waheed took ill and we all thought he was going to pull through in matter of weeks. Some weeks ago, he called that his health was deteriorating. Ever not ready to burden anyone with his load, he hid details of his existential challenges from his friends. Only for that jarring news of his passage to hit the airwaves last week.
Lovers of Omowura’s music worldwide should not allow Waheed’s only child, Ganiyu Abdulateef Oluwapamilerinayo, a student of Oriwu Junior Model College, Igbogbo, Ikorodu to suffer the absence of his father. Many thanks to Azeez Temitope, a friend of his who offered his shoulders for Waheed to lean on in his last moments. May Allah repose his soul.
Festus Adedayo is an Ibadan-based journalist.
By Fransiscus Nanga Roka, Yovita Arie Mangesti
On 28 February 2026, Israel launched what it called “Operation Lion’s Roar” against Iran, coordinated with a U.S. campaign reportedly named “Operation Epic Fury.” Within hours, Iranian state media confirmed that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was dead, killed in strikes on Tehran that also hit senior leadership and key military infrastructure—followed by Iranian missile and drone retaliation across the region.
This is not merely another Middle East escalation. It is a strategic decapitation strike against the core of the Islamic Republic’s authority—an act that, whatever its tactical logic, carries the legal and political DNA of a war that can metastasize faster than diplomacy can react.
The other legal questions involving this conflict: was it reasonably necessary in the circumstances? Did a proportionality of means match the threat posed?
Under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, states must refrain from the threat or use of force against another state’s territorial integrity or political independence—unless force is justified by Security Council authorization or self-defense (Article 51). In the public reporting so far, there is no indication of a Security Council mandate; hence the legal center of gravity becomes self-defense.
Washington and Jerusalem appear to be positioning the operation as a preemptive strike against “imminent threats” tied up with missiles, nuclear risk, and regional armed networks. That phrasing means something—but in international law cannot simply represent self-defense. It entails at least these aspects:
Imminence (the threat is about to materialize, not speculative)
Necessity (no other reasonable way, including diplomacy, could render the threat harmless)
The heavier end of the spectrum is even states friendly to America and Israel would be unyielding. If your justification sounds more like preventing a future capability than stopping an imminent attack, it resembles the controversial doctrine of preventative war. This was widely condemned as not part of the Charter.
Targeting the president: “Assassination” by any other name
The death of Khamenei creates a normative shock that can’t be avoided. International law does not harbor among its otherwise neat principles a clear sentence stating “Never you must target a leader”; instead, legality is created from the surrounding circumstance:
If a State is involved in an armed conflict w another state and the person targeted satisfies enough criteria for being a legitimate military objective (through his function, direct participation, command role), then the attack could in principle be legal—in which case.the principal constraints are those of distinction and proportionality under IHL.
If the operation is not lawfully justified in self-defense (jus ad bellum), then even a very accurate operation becomes an unlawful use of force—making the death of a head of state a symbol intensified by this illegality of warfare, thereby augmenting backfire dynamics.
This is why the strike is strategically “successful” and strategically catastrophic at one time: not only may it weaken decision-making at the top, but it also removes that last psychological ceiling which often keeps adversaries from directly targeting each other’s core leadership.
Proportionality isn’t just about bombs and bombers—it’s about consequences
When assessing IHL proportionality, civilian losses projected against concrete and immediate military advantage are weighed. But here, in a region where oil production facilities and military bases as well as nuclear reactors are likely to be next-door neighbors such judgment takes into account predictable second-order effects: attacks on bases, drones overhead in cities to which they have become accustomed anyway, strikes in the Gulf, panic buying in world energy markets, commercial shipping disrupted.
Certainly, financial reporting and live briefings are already a sign that the Strait of Hormuz has the backing of fear and widening regional strikes are on their way.
Simply put, while knocking out one leader could have the “advantage,” human and economic costs mushroom faster than expected, turning into legal issues of guilt when decision-makers could predict a cascade of damage to noncombatants yet proceeded.
The succession problem: war plus a vacuum equal’s big trouble
AP: Khamenei’s death leaves a power vacuum, and while succession technically lies in the hands of Iran’s Assembly of Experts (AOE) it’s shaped in practice by entrenched security institutions.
This is important because while avoiding escalation requires one end of a conversation, it works best if that party has the power to make decisions and then carry them out. A divided leadership will produce the opposite result: parallel lines of counterattack, misunderstanding, and a race to seem “tough enough” take over as Logos.
The “most dangerous war” isn’t doing the first strike—it’s what happens afterward.
What makes this moment so infinitely dangerous is not only that Iran, America, and Israel are all sending signals in the worst three-hours of nations’ lives. No, what’s even worse is the following:
The U.S. and Israel both end up on a regime change course which they may not be willing or unable to follow through on.
Iran’s factions are led into a cycle of retaliation that politically they cannot get out of.
Once leaders are targeted and killed, war becomes less about deterrence and more about who survives it. It quickly becomes distorted so that neither negotiating nor averting destruction have a serious chance—the three craziest-speeding accelerants of all time.
If Operation Lion’s Roar marks the end of Khamenei’s rule, it could also mark the dawn of a nastier era: a Middle East in which the old rules of setting up matches out of eyesight crumble down, new matches are struck as soon they go public retaliative cycles break no holds barred diplomacy, and there’s nobody confesses they can still control.
By David Ugwunta
At the National Traditional and Religious Leaders Summit on Health held in Abuja on 17th February, attended by President Tinubu, an unexpected institutional fault line surfaced as an Enugu monarch and the Ooni of Ife openly disputed the existence of the Southern Nigeria Traditional Rulers Council.
Speaking at the health summit, the revered Eze Ogbunaechendo 1 of Ezema Olo in Ezeagu Local Government Area of Enugu State, a former Chairman of the Enugu State and South-East Council of Traditional Rulers, seasoned diplomat, and elder statesman, challenged references to a Southern Nigeria Traditional Rulers Council.
He stated: “Now again, they were talking about the Southern Traditional Rulers Committee on Health, and the eminent Professor Pate was saying that this will be an annual event – what we are doing today – if I heard him correctly.
” “The truth of the matter is that there is nothing like a Southern Traditional Rulers Council. If you come here and give money to people on that basis, it is not correct.” “The South is not the North. We have our systems. We need unity in diversity.” “So, if you want to deal with us, deal with us in the South East.” “If you have resources for us, give it to us. Don’t give it to people who come and say they represent a traditional rulers’ council.” “Democracy is a representative government, and anybody who goes to present himself without his people is not democratic or traditional. So, get it right.”The interposition was not casual, it was categorical, yet it stands in sharp contrast to what occurred barely eighteen months earlier, when on 30th July 2024, the inauguration of Southern Monarchs’ Council occurred. The event hosted by Governor Hope Uzodinma, was presided over by President Tinubu, represented by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume, as monarchs and political dignitaries gathered under the banner of southern regional cohesion.
Months later, a harder question emerged: Does the Council exist beyond ceremony? It was inaugurated with political and symbolic weight; does it exist institutionally? Public inauguration grants visibility; collective consent grants legitimacy.
The dissent exposes the Council’s core vulnerability. When a former South-East Council Chairman declares that “there is nothing like a Southern Traditional Rulers Council,” the matter shifts from organisational to existential.
Membership is very optional, Ooni professed. If membership is optional, can unity or regional cohesion, by definition, be optional?
Southern Traditional Rulers Council
The inauguration in July, 2024 saw the respected Ooni of Ife, Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, appointed as chairman, with Cletus Ilomuanya and Jaja of Opobo as co-chairmen, and Benjamin Ikenchuku Keagboreku as secretary. The intent was unmistakable: To create a coordinated Southern platform comparable, though not identical, to the more centralised structures historically associated with Northern traditional leadership.
During the inauguration, Governor Uzodinma explicitly urged collaboration with northern counterparts, and support for President Tinubu, while George Akume reaffirmed the president’s respect for traditional rulers as custodians of Nigeria’s heritage. The Ooni of Ife, Ogunwusi framed it as a new era of unity across the Southern protectorate of the country.
Yet, at inauguration, while some southern governors were represented, the absence of several others raised quiet questions about the breadth of consensus underpinning the initiative. Absences could be linked to limited consultation, concerns over the council’s inclusivity, and sub-regional balance. Similarly, the absence of notable traditional rulers reflected reservations about process, political perceptions, and representation.
Institutions are sustained by consent and validated by acceptance. What appeared, in July 2024, as a historic consolidation was, in February 2026, openly contested. The public rejection by an elder statesman, Igwe Ambassador LOC Agubuzu, whose career reflects a rare fusion of ancestral authority and modern diplomacy, did not merely contradict a claim. It punctured the presumption of collective mandate, shifting the issue from symbolism to structure.
The Import of Agubuzu’s Interposition
Igwe Agubuzu’s remarks deserve serious engagement, not dismissal. When he warned against individuals presenting themselves as representatives of Southern traditional rulers without broad consent, he was not merely contesting nomenclature. He was defending legitimacy; emphasising that the South is not the North, that its strength lies in diversity, and that democracy, whether traditional or modern, rests on representation grounded in the people.
These are not trivial concerns. They echo long-standing anxieties about the centralisation of traditional institutions and sub-regional dominance. They reflect a historical wariness of imposed structures masquerading as consensus.
Yet, diversity without coordination does not automatically produce strength. When respected monarchs deny the existence of a Council inaugurated by the President of the Republic before him, the issue is not opposition, but rather, structural ambiguity. Such a council cannot function in a state of suspended definition.
Why Optional Membership Undermines the Council
First, authority cannot be selective. A council that some of the most prominent traditional rulers feel free to ignore will never command national, let alone international respect, particularly in a political environment where access and voice matter.
Second, legitimacy requires completeness. Governments engage more seriously with institutions that demonstrably represent the full spectrum of leadership. Optional membership creates parallel voices, rival claims, and confusion over representation.
Third, conflict resolution demands comprehensiveness. Traditional rulers remain critical actors in mediating identity tensions. A partial council lacks the moral authority to intervene across sub-regions.
Fourth, cultural preservation is collective work. No single monarch or bloc can safeguard Southern Nigeria’s diverse traditions alone. A coordinated platform prevents selective recognition and marginalisation.
Finally, legacy matters. Institutions endure only when they are cohesive. A voluntary council risks becoming ceremonial, useful for optics, politics and symbolism; but fragile in substance and importance.
Politics, Acknowledged, But Not Determinative
It would be naïve to ignore the political undertones surrounding the Council’s formation. Governor Hope Uzodinma played a central role in the inauguration, signalling alignment with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress. The presence of Dapo Abiodun, chairman of the Southern Nigeria Governors’ Forum, and Mai Mala Buni, underscored the inauguration event’s political weight. However, institutions of consequence must outlive political moments.
If the Southern Traditional Rulers Council is perceived primarily as a political artefact, it will wither with shifting alignments. If, however, it evolves into a rule-bound, inclusive, and representative institution, it can transcend its origins.
The burden now rests with the appointed chairman, the Ooni of Ife. His role is both symbolic and strategic. The surrounding contestation demands engagement, not assumption; persuasion, not proclamation. Direct dialogue with dissenting voices is essential. So is a formal charter defining representation, decision-making, membership obligations, rotational leadership, sub-regional balance, and structured joint programmes.
The Southern Nigeria Traditional Rulers Council was inaugurated with promise. However, promise does not create unity. Structure does. The public denial of its existence by a respected monarch is not merely opposition; it is a warning about the cost of optional unity. Legitimacy cannot be assumed. It must be earned through inclusivity, clarity, and shared commitment.
If Southern Nigeria is to speak with authority in Nigeria’s evolving governance architecture, its most revered institutions (traditional) must be binding as well as symbolic, representative as well as ceremonial. Unity cannot be optional. It must be institutional.
David Okelue Ugwunta, a public policy and economic planning specialist, is a senior adviser with Thoughts & Mace Advisory.
By Abiemwense Moru
When Chioma Ezeakonobi, a mental health advocate and author, welcomed her second child, what should have been a joyful season gradually dissolved into anxiety, exhaustion and persistent sadness.
However, rather than surrendering to the silence that often surrounds maternal mental health struggles, she confronted postpartum depression and found a path to recovery.
Ezeakonobi said her experience began unexpectedly after childbirth, marked by tearfulness, fatigue, anxiety and emotional withdrawal.
She said the feelings confused her because motherhood is often portrayed as a time of unbroken happiness.
According to her, postpartum depression remains widely underdiagnosed and misunderstood across cultures, largely because societal expectations discourage women from speaking honestly about emotional pain after delivery.
“The cycle of silence leaves women to suffer alone,” she said, urging mothers to speak openly so they can access professional care, family support and reassurance during recovery.
Indeed, global health authorities affirm that postpartum depression is neither rare nor a personal failing.
The World Health Organisation describes it as a common but treatable mental health condition that can affect women after childbirth and, if left unaddressed, may impair maternal wellbeing and child development.
Available estimates indicate that about one in seven new mothers may experience postpartum depression, with symptoms including prolonged sadness, frequent crying, guilt, anxiety, sleep disturbances and difficulty bonding with the baby.
In Nigeria, studies suggest prevalence rates ranging between 10 per cent and 36.5 per cent, underscoring the need for routine screening, early intervention and accessible maternal mental health services within primary healthcare systems.
Furthermore, mental health professionals warn that depression is not limited to mothers alone but is increasingly affecting Nigerians across age groups and professions, often progressing silently until productivity, relationships and emotional stability begin to decline.
Dr Michael Nubi of the Association of Resident Doctors at the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Yaba described depression as “a silent killer” that thrives when emotional distress is ignored.
He identified common triggers to include chronic stress, financial hardship, sleep deprivation, childhood trauma, job loss, divorce and persistent negative thinking.
According to him, depression often deepens in environments shaped by intense societal pressure and unrealistic expectations, thereby making emotional self-regulation and supportive relationships essential protective factors.
Similarly, mental health advocate and media entrepreneur Chude Jideonwo has shared his personal struggles publicly, adding momentum to conversations that challenge stigma and encourage help-seeking behaviour.
Mental health organisations are also intensifying awareness.
The Cope and Live Mental Health Awareness Foundation notes that depression, anxiety and substance misuse frequently lead to social isolation, which in turn worsens emotional distress.
Rev. Chukwudiebube Nwachukwu, Executive Director of the foundation, explained that fear of judgment, trauma, illness and rejection often push affected individuals away from social interaction, deepening loneliness and eroding self-esteem over time.
He advised gradual reconnection through volunteerism, hobbies, faith-based engagement, outdoor activities and professional counselling as practical steps toward rebuilding confidence.
Dr Salawu Abiola, also of the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Yaba, emphasised that Nigeria still faces gaps in mental health data, calling for stronger collaboration between government and private institutions to generate evidence for policy and service delivery.
He warned that depression is rising among young people as well, fuelled by social media pressures, economic uncertainty, environmental stressors and relationship challenges.
According to him, digital platforms often promote unrealistic images of success and perfection, encouraging unhealthy comparisons that can trigger anxiety and depressive symptoms.
At the community level, Mrs Abimbola Agbebiyi, Founder of the Tabitha-Abimbola Foundation, said widows and single mothers face heightened vulnerability due to compounded grief, financial strain and caregiving responsibilities.
She noted that targeted therapy sessions and support networks help such women feel seen, valued and emotionally supported during isolating periods.
Clinical psychologist Marcellinus Aguwa urged early help-seeking, stressing that stigma and cultural attitudes continue to discourage many Nigerians from accessing timely mental healthcare.
Experts agree that recovery is strongly linked to awareness, family support and access to professional care; factors that shaped Ezeakonobi’s survival story.
Reflecting on her journey, she said knowledge of the condition helped her regain control, while the support of her husband and family played a critical role in her healing.
Her experience later inspired her to write ‘Navigating Postpartum Depression’, a book that documents her story and amplifies the voices of other mothers who endured similar struggles.
Ultimately, across clinical insights and lived experiences, stakeholders say one message stands clear.
They emphasise that breaking the silence around postpartum depression can transform suffering into survival, restore dignity to motherhood and strengthen families and communities alike.(NAN)
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ShareDetermined to end terrorism and other related criminal activities in Nigeria, the Nigeria Forest Security Service (NFSS) has created a...