Jafar Balarabe

Executive Director of @ramhim2 & @jabacofoodng | Farmer | Lawyer | Entrepreneur | Master of Information Technology Law (MITL) #FreeElrufai

[Vanguard Africa @VanguardAfrica]

#Nigeria's opposition icon @elrufai remains jailed months before 2027 polls, even as civil society groups and Islamic clerics call out the biased courts. Lawfare is muzzling one of @officialABAT's fiercest critics and targeting the political opposition.

https://t.co/t8WhIDnr99

[Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai @elrufai]

A Must Watch 📹

THE MALLAM NASIR EL-RUFAI DOCUMENTARY

By 'The Justice For El-Rufai Project'.

[Simwal @Simwal]

Questions I would put directly to General Musa.

In September 2023 you said terrorists and bandits would be made to leave Nigeria completely. Almost three years later, Boko Haram, ISWAP and armed bandit groups remain operational. What happened to that commitment?
In January 2025 you described 2025 as the year to end terrorism and banditry. Do you accept that this objective was not achieved?
What measurable benchmarks did Defence Headquarters establish for that 2025 promise, and how many were actually achieved?
In September 2024 you said Bello Turji’s days were numbered. What is his present status, and why has the commitment taken this long if he remains at large?
How many communities are still paying levies, protection money or other payments to bandits and terrorists?
How many Nigerians were killed or kidnapped by terrorists and bandits in 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026, respectively, and what does that trend say about the effectiveness of the strategy?
If financing, informants and community logistics are the “oxygen” sustaining terrorism, as you stated in June 2026, how many financiers and logistics providers have been identified, prosecuted and convicted?
What lessons were learned from the failure to meet the 2025 deadline, and what new deadline or measurable objective should Nigerians now use to assess your performance as Defence Minister?

[Ibrahim Modibbo Sanusi Maikudi 🇵🇸 @ModibboSanusi]

For God, For Country, For Malam Nasiru Elrufai

[𝔼𝕟𝕟𝕪 @ennyola0015]

This is unprofessional from the Minister of Defence.🤦

He seems to have forgotten that he is not just an ordinary minister, but one whose office is responsible for the security and peace of the nation.

Calling out El-Rufai in this manner is careless.

[Jafar Balarabe @JafarBalarabe]

@StatiSense Kindly provide "Debts by President" as well.

[uche diala @uchediala]

Mallam Nasir @elrufai Has Been Consistent.

What he told Angela in this interview is exactly what he told @chamberlainusoh in another interview on @channelstv that I have shared severally.

If you don't know who Mallam is, shut your mouth.

And that includes Femi Fani Kayode @realFFK. He is too inconsequential and tainted to taint Mallam Nasir El-Rufai.

If not for the unfortunate elevation of Tinubu, who and what would have given Femi Fani Kayode the opportunity, platform and temerity to talk about El-Rufai?

FFK has now set his eyes and fangs on Kaduna state.

I pity those Southern Kaduna folks who might think FFK loves them. They should go and ask some of my Igbo/South East brethren how fast FFK dumped them without looking back the minute he saw that food was ready on the other side - after deceiving and misleading them with his pseudo love and solidarity.

Take FFK serious on any aspect at your own peril.

#EyesOnTheBall

[Jafar Balarabe @JafarBalarabe]

The Cost of Unchecked Births: Why Capacity Must Come Before Children

By Jafar Balarabe, Esq.

​A man who cannot reliably feed, educate, and guide a child through to adulthood has no business fathering one. This is not a moral sermon. It is a practical observation about consequences that Nigeria lives with every day.

​Look at the number of children on the streets. Many are not there by accident. They are the product of parents who brought them into the world without the income, stability, or foresight to sustain them. Education, healthcare, and the basic essentials of life do not appear by magic. When a father is already near retirement, in declining health, or simply without steady means, the gap between intention and provision widens. The child pays the price.

​In Nigeria, this pattern is magnified. High fertility among the poorest households, combined with limited economic opportunity, produces large cohorts of young people who grow up with little structure, little education, and few realistic paths forward. An idle mind is the devil’s workshop. When purpose and prospects are absent, crime, gangs, and armed groups find ready recruits. Street children and abandoned youth are not the sole cause of insecurity, but they form a significant pipeline. Bandit groups, cults, and insurgent factions do not invent their manpower out of thin air. They draw heavily from the neglected and the unmoored.

​Government failures are real. Schools are underfunded, jobs are scarce, and security is weak. Yet those failures are tested and made more damaging by the sheer volume of children born into conditions that were never sustainable. Prevention is better than cure. Once the numbers are already large, the social and security costs become far harder to reverse.

​State-sponsored mass weddings in several northern states illustrate the wrong priority. Public funds are used to facilitate marriages among people who often lack the economic foundation to raise the children who will follow. The stated goals are "to reduce social vices and help the vulnerable," which sounds compassionate. The practical result risks expanding the same cycle of under-supported births that already strains families, streets, and security.

​An ideal population is not one that grows fastest. It is one in which most children are born to parents who can reasonably expect to provide for them. Income must be the first filter. A man should assess his earnings, his stability, and his likely remaining healthy years before deciding to father a child. Age matters because provision is a long-term obligation. A father at 40 still has a realistic window. A father at 70, especially in a context of lower life expectancy and weaker safety nets, is far less likely to see that obligation through.

​If poorer parents had fewer children, Nigeria’s population trajectory would be slower and more manageable. The absolute numbers of vulnerable youth would shrink. Deviance and insecurity would not disappear because governance, poverty, and conflict have deeper roots, but the human pipeline that currently amplifies them would narrow.

​The alternative is familiar: more street children, more idle young people, more recruitment into violence, and endless efforts to treat symptoms while the source continues. Responsibility begins with the individual decision to bring a life into the world. Capacity first. Children second. Anything less is not foresight. It is the quiet manufacture of tomorrow’s problems.

​©️JafarBalarabe

[uche diala @uchediala]

Mallam @elrufai To The World

#EyesOnTheBall

[Jafar Balarabe @JafarBalarabe]

2027 Presidential Election: Regional Arithmetic and the Path to Victory
By Jafar Balarabe, Esq.

The dynamics of the 2027 presidential election are expected to differ from those of 2023. Religion, which influenced voting patterns three years ago, particularly through Peter Obi’s appeal in Christian-dominated parts of the North Central and the effect of the Muslim-Muslim ticket on northern support for Atiku Abubakar is likely to be less decisive. Economic hardship and performance-related discontent now appear to be the dominant factors.

Peter Obi is expected to secure a decisive victory across the South-East, retain significant support in the South-South states he previously carried, and perform strongly in Christian-majority North Central states.

Atiku Abubakar is positioned to dominate the core northern states and is likely to carry Muslim-majority North Central states. Northern demographic weight is expected to favour his candidacy substantially. He may also record limited gains in the South-West and a few South-South states.

A closer examination of the 2023 results underscores the critical weight of the North-West. In that region, which accounted for approximately 6.7 million votes, Tinubu led with 2.65 million votes (40 percent), ahead of Atiku’s 2.33 million (35 percent), while Kwankwaso secured 1.27 million (19 percent).

If Tinubu’s 2.65 million North-West votes were added to Atiku’s national total of approximately 6.98 million, Atiku’s figure would rise to about 9.63 million, well above Tinubu’s actual national total of 8.79 million. This illustrates the decisive potential of fuller northern consolidation. In addition, a significant portion of Kwankwaso’s 2023 support is likely to shift toward Atiku in 2027, as many of those voters are expected to prioritise northern and historical considerations over an Obi-led ticket. This further strengthens Atiku’s northern arithmetic.

President Bola Tinubu is expected to face considerable difficulty, including a weakened performance in the South-West. The recent Osun State governorship election provides a clear illustration of this vulnerability. Incumbent Governor Ademola Adeleke of the Accord Party defeated the APC candidate with 511,067 votes to 444,815, carrying 19 of the state’s 30 local government areas. Low voter turnout in that region, driven by widespread economic hardship, would further undermine his prospects. Although the APC retains structural advantages through incumbency and control of most state governments, these organisational assets are likely to prove less decisive under current conditions of severe public discontent.

Under conditions of a free and fair election, the combination of economic hardship, regional voting arithmetic, particularly the size and competitiveness of the North-West, the expected movement of a substantial share of Kwankwaso’s former votes toward Atiku, and anticipated low turnout in key parts of the South-West points to a difficult path for the incumbent.

On the current configuration of candidates, Atiku Abubakar appears better positioned to capitalise on these factors.

@ishakaa
@jrnaib2
@uchediala
@VanguardAfrica

[Channels Television @channelstv]

"If it's a credible, free, and fair election, Tinubu will lose maybe before 4 p.m."

-PRP National Chairman Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, speaking on the possible outcome of the 2027 presidential election

#PoliticsToday

[Omoyele Sowore @sowore]

MY RESPONSE TO DATTI BABA-AHMED OVER MY COMMENTS ON EX-NIGERIAN MILITARY DICTATOR IBRAHIM BADAMOSI BABANGIDA AT 85: COMPASSION DOES NOT REQUIRE HISTORICAL AMNESIA

Dear Datti Baba-Ahmed,
Yesterday, at the National Peace Committee event, I met Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, Datti Baba-Ahmed’s elder brother and PRP chairman. I gently tapped him on the shoulder to say hello while he was standing with others. He immediately turned to me and, in the presence of his party’s presidential candidate, former Cross River State Governor Donald Duke, declared that he was my “number one fan.”

We laughed about it, but he reiterated that he wasn’t kidding. Donald Duke and I also exchanged a few words on the sidelines, including about something he has always enjoyed teasing me about. My advocacy for legalization of cannabis.

Later, when all the presidential candidates gathered to sign the “Peace Accord,” Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed met me again. He handed me his business card and told me that no matter what I faced, I should never change my position on social justice. Earlier today, I messaged him to thank him for his kind words at yesterday’s meeting.

He replied, again reassuring me of his admiration, and then asked whether I had read what his younger brother, @dattibabaahmed, had written in @daily_trust, excoriating me over my comments regarding former military dictator Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida on his 85th birthday.

I hadn’t seen the piece. When I told Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed that I couldn’t find it online, he explained that it appeared in the print edition of Daily Trust. I have now read Datti’s response, and I can only pity him.

Instead of confronting the historical record of Ibrahim Babangida’s dictatorship, Datti chose to deliver a sermon about “compassion,” while attacking me personally and attempting to whitewash a legacy that Nigerians have every right to interrogate. I have also been made to understand that Datti belongs to that class of Nigerians whose fortunes and opportunities were substantially shaped by the benevolence of the IBB-era establishment. I learned today he was an ex-military man and probably one of the military officers known as the “Babangida Boys.”

Perhaps that explains some of the reverence.

My own encounter with Datti was only once before now, ironically, also at a National Peace Committee event during the 2023 election cycle. I was seated in an area to deter the National Peace Committee’s attempt to separate those of us it did not consider “frontline candidates” from its preferred candidates. Datti confronted me, claiming I had no right to sit next to Peter Obi, his presidential candidate, because he was supposedly keeping the seat for him. I reminded Datti that he, as a vice-presidential candidate, had no superior claim to a seat designated for presidential candidates.

Then APC candidate Bola Tinubu arrived and sat next to me. What happened next was revealing. The same Datti Baba-Ahmed whose ticket was campaigning fiercely against Tinubu and the APC suddenly became extraordinarily deferential, “Uncle,” “Sir,” “Daddy,” all in practically the same breath; he practically knelt down for Tinubu in my presence. I was stunned. After all the ferocious rhetoric surrounding the election, particularly from the Obidient movement against Tinubu and the APC, here was one of its principal candidates displaying an astonishingly servile attitude toward the very political adversary his supporters were being mobilized to defeat.

When @PeterObi eventually arrived, Datti was moved to the back while I retained my seat, which was where I belonged under the alphabetical seating arrangement.
Interestingly, that same alphabetical principle I fought for was finally respected at yesterday’s event. But the spectacle did not end with Datti.

When the event concluded, I watched Peter Obi himself displaying similar deference toward Tinubu. I walked away, looked back at what was happening, and something became clearer to me, that is, beneath the public political warfare, Nigeria’s establishment politicians are often far more comfortable with one another than their followers are encouraged to believe.

Their supporters fight bitterly online and sometimes in the streets. They insult, threaten and destroy relationships, defending political figures who, behind the curtains, address one another as “Uncle,” “Daddy,” “Sir,” brother, and friend.

That experience stayed with me, and it provides useful context for Datti’s latest lecture about how Nigerians should treat members of the old political and military establishment. The records are there.

Now, let us deal with his arguments about General Ibrahim Babangida, history, compassion, and accountability.

I have read Datti’s lengthy response to my comments about former military ruler Ibrahim Babangida. Datti devoted considerable space to insulting me, suggesting drugs, alcohol, prison, and even an ICU, while simultaneously delivering a sermon about compassion, morality, and human decency. The contradiction is difficult to miss.

First, I did not attack Ibrahim Babangida because he is 85 years old. My criticism was about his record in power and what his decisions did to Nigeria. Age does not erase history; in fact, the world is replete with people facing punishment in old age for atrocities committed in their prime. Ill health does not confer political sainthood, and compassion for an elderly person does not require Nigerians to pretend that decisions made while that person wielded enormous power had no consequences.

I wish no illness upon Ibrahim Babangida, but I will not participate in rewriting his record simply because he has grown old.

Datti asks where Sowore will be at 85.

I do not even know if I will make it to 85; Nigerian wicked leaders, including Babangida, have dealt heavy blows on my body and soul; however, wherever I am at 85, Nigerians will have every right to examine what I did with whatever power or influence I possessed. If I betray the democratic will of Nigerians, they should say so.

If I impoverish people through disastrous policies, they should say so. If I violate their rights, they should say so. If I leave behind institutions weaker than I found them, history should record it. If I killed journalist Dele Giwa with a parcel bomb, I should be judged for it.

If I am credibly implicated in crashing a plane full of junior army officers because I feared they might become ambitious and overthrow me, the public should interrogate and judge that record. That is accountability.

Datti lectures me about compassion while speculating about alcohol, drugs, prison, and ICU. He wrote that perhaps alcohol or drugs would destroy me; politics might confine me to prison; or people might restrict me to an ICU.

Then, almost in the same breath, he preached about humanity. Apparently, his compassion extends to powerful former rulers but disappears when dealing with political opponents. I have already experienced prisons and detention because of my political beliefs and activism. Datti does not need to fantasize about them for me.

Then he describes Babangida as a “revered former Nigerian leader.” Revered by whom?

Datti is entitled to revere him. Millions of Nigerians are equally entitled to remember his disastrous rule differently. History is not determined by the affection of political elites.

Babangida himself has now acknowledged that MKO Abiola won the June 12, 1993 presidential election and has accepted responsibility for decisions taken under his watch. So what exactly is immoral about Nigerians remembering the consequences of that history?

Datti invokes Babangida’s supposed role in “managing” Nigeria’s political crises.

This is precisely the elite rewriting of history that I reject. A ruler cannot create or deepen political crises and then demand eternal gratitude for “managing” them. The June 12 election was not some minor administrative disagreement. Nigerians voted. MKO Abiola won. The democratic process was cruelly truncated for selfish reasons. Babangida himself now admits Abiola won. That is not my imagination. That is history.

Datti also speaks about Babangida’s “support for democracy.” Democracy means respecting citizens’ votes and their right to choose their leaders. You cannot annul Nigerians’ expressed democratic choice and then have your admirers demand that history remember you principally as a defender of democracy. The most elementary democratic principle is that when citizens vote freely, their votes must count.

Datti mentioned that I criticized him in 2023 for calling Tinubu “Uncle.” Yes, I did, and I stand by the principle behind that criticism.

The fact that today you no longer stand with the toxic and fraudulently packaged political expression and company you kept in 2023 only reinforces my view about the deceptive nature of establishment politics. Nigeria’s political establishment has spent decades turning public affairs into a family reunion.

“Uncle,” “Daddy,” “Leader,” “Baba,” “Your Excellency.” This culture of excessive deference to powerful people is one reason accountability remains so difficult. A President is a public servant, not my uncle.

A former military ruler is a historical figure whose record must be interrogated, not a family patriarch before whom citizens must kneel or genuflect.

You want me to worship before the altar of your fallen god. I will not.

Respect is earned; accountability is mandatory.

Datti says courtesy does not mean surrender. Fine. But neither does criticism mean cruelty. I wish I could separate respect for Babangida’s humanity from condemnation of his political record, but IBB’s record leaves me with little humanity to celebrate. A man whose regime executed his close friend, Mamman Vatsa, after a coup trial cannot simply have that history erased by the passage of time.

What I will not do is confuse respect for old age with surrendering historical truth.

Datti says political disagreement should not make us lose our humanity. I agree. So apply that principle universally. Apply it to the poor. Apply it to protesters. Apply it to political prisoners. Apply it to workers whose livelihoods have been destroyed by bad government.
Apply it to young Nigerians whose futures have been repeatedly squandered by leaders celebrated at elite birthday parties. Humanity cannot become a doctrine reserved for powerful men when they become old.

@dattibabaahmed says people like me seeking to rule Nigeria are “the real danger.”
No, Datti.
The danger to Nigeria is not citizens who refuse to worship former wicked rulers. The danger is a political culture nurtured by your types that repeatedly rehabilitates failure, protects privilege, and demands silence from anyone who refuses to participate.

The danger is historical amnesia. The danger is treating powerful people as untouchable while ordinary Nigerians bear the consequences of their decisions.

My politics has never been about hatred of individuals. It is about systems. It is about accountability. It is about institutions that work for all citizens regardless of class or social status. It is about refusing to accept that Nigeria must permanently rotate between the same political families, military-era power brokers, their protégés and their associates. I don’t care whether the person responsible is 35, 55 or 85. If you exercised public power, your record belongs to the public.

Finally, Datti, you are free to respect Ibrahim Babangida.
You are free to call @officialABAT “Uncle.”

You are free to admire whichever members of Nigeria’s ruling establishment you choose. But don’t demand that the rest of us surrender our memory in order to demonstrate compassion.

We remember.

We remember June 12. We remember Dele Giwa. We remember military officers executed over alleged coup plots.
We remember political detainees sent to rot in prison.

We remember the killings.

We remember the controversy surrounding the looting of $12 billion from the 1990 Gulf War oil windfall. We remember the Structural Adjustment Program and the economic devastation Nigerians associate with it.

We remember the corruption. We remember the deception.

We remember the self-styled “evil genius” and the political and economic legacy his years in power left behind.

We remember the endless transition program.

We remember what military dictatorship did to Nigeria.
And we will continue to interrogate the records of those who exercised enormous power over our country.

Growing old is a privilege. It is not immunity from history.
Nigeria must stop worshipping its rulers and start holding them accountable.

That is not hatred.

That is how a serious country learns from its past and builds a different future.

#RevolutionNOW

[Vanguard Africa @VanguardAfrica]

"There is something we call 'lawfare'... what's happening to @elrufai is a complete abuse of [#Nigeria's] legal process. The people in power are punishing him because he doesn't support them. We cannot embolden such impunity" -@sowore

Additional info: https://t.co/RAEjESLgzX

[Jafar Balarabe @JafarBalarabe]

_“I cannot agree that a reasonable man who had been stabbed twice already and who was still being attacked with a herdsman's stick would hesitate to fight for his life. It would have been a different thing altogether if there had been an intervening period in the fight.”_

She gave real weight to something the trial judge himself had done and then left hanging. He had looked at Jackson's wounds with his own eyes, in open court, with both lawyers close enough to see exactly what he saw, and he had written it all down without ever once saying he disbelieved a word of Jackson's account. A court that leaves evidence sitting there, examined but never weighed, leaves the door open for someone else to weigh it. Ogunwumiju JSC walked through that door. She believed Jackson.

On the question that had settled the case for everyone else on the panel, whether three stabs to the throat was one too many, she wrote:

_“Proportionality can be difficult to measure particularly when there is no referee during the course of the fight.”_

She turned, after that, to the Constitution itself. Section 33 guarantees the right to life, and no one, it says, is regarded as having been deprived of that right if he dies from force that was reasonably necessary for the defence of a person from unlawful violence, or for the defence of property. She read that guarantee beside a distinction she believed both courts below had missed entirely, that an intention to kill formed in the very act of saving your own life is not the same creature as a murder planned in cold blood. She put it in words that cut straight through the confusion:

_“In self-defence, the mens rea is the intention to kill in order to save oneself and the actus reus is the action itself. The intention to kill at that material time cannot negate the defence of self-defence.”_

To test her own thinking, she reached for a comparison hard enough to make a reader sit up. A trespasser breaks into a man's home and shoots him. The wounded man wrestles the gun free, and in that same breath, before the danger has had any chance to pass, fires it back and kills the man who shot him. Would any court call that a premeditated murder, planned and waited for in cold blood? She did not believe so. And she did not believe Sunday Jackson, standing alone in an open field with a dagger that had already opened two wounds in his body, was any different from that wounded man defending his own home.

She would have set the whole conviction aside. She would have sent Jackson home to whatever life still waited for him there. Her judgment does not close with the cool, careful language courts usually reach for. It closes with something nearer to a plea, thrown out to whoever might still be listening now that she no longer had the votes to save him herself:

_“Since I appear to be in the minority, I recommend this appellant as a proper candidate for the Governor of Adamawa State to exercise his prerogative of mercy.”_

XII. The Verdict
And now with four votes against one, on 7 March 2025, just over ten years later, the Supreme Court of Nigeria brought Sunday Jackson's case to its end. The conviction for culpable homicide punishable with death stood. The sentence of death by hanging stood with it, unmoved by everything that had been argued to shake it loose.

Thank you for reading. You have just read the facts and principles of Sunday Jackson v. The State [2026] 4 NWLR 407. My name is Sani Ammani. I’m a retired poet and recovering writer. By the grace of God, I am the Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Kano Branch. I write from the ancient and economic city of Kano. You may reach out to me at [email protected]

[Jafar Balarabe @JafarBalarabe]

SELF-DEFENCE: A RETELLING OF SUNDAY JACKSON V THE STATE

-By Sani Ammani

I. A Farm Near Kodomti
Kodomti is a village in Numan Local Government Area of Adamawa State. Sunday Jackson kept a farm there. The farm runs out into raw bush, and the bush runs back into more farms, so that a man's whole claim to a piece of earth is often nothing but a line only he remembers. On Tuesday, 27 January 2015, close to eleven in the morning, Sunday went out to the farm. He was cutting thatching grass. He had brought nothing with him but his sickle. The sun was already climbing hard.

Then the bush broke open, and cattle came pouring through it, and behind them a man running, driving them fast, calling out as he came. His name was Ardo Bawuro. He had been chasing men he was certain had rustled some of his cattle in the night, and somewhere in the chase the trail had gone cold. He thought they might have slipped through this farm, and he asked Jackson if he had seen them.

Jackson said he had not.

It should have ended there, two strangers trading a question and an answer under a hot sky, each going back to his own trouble. It did not Bawuro did not turn back. He drove his cattle straight into the farm.

Jackson called out to him, his voice sharp with the anger of a man watching his own labour get trampled.

‘Why bring your cattle into my farm?,’ Jackson said.

Bawuro said nothing back, not a word, not so much as a glance. So, Jackson waded in among the animals himself and began forcing them out with his bare hands.

II. The Dagger
Bawuro brought out a knife, the blade catching the light as he raised it. Jackson had nothing.
No cutlass.
No stick.
Not even the sickle he had carried into the farm that morning.
A man with empty hands and a blade coming at him has only one answer, and Jackson gave it.
He turned and ran.

He ran hard and screamed for help into the bush that swallowed the sound and gave nothing back. Bawuro closed the distance and drove the knife into the back of Jackson's head. Jackson felt it land. He kicked backwards, blind, trying only to break free, and the knife came down again, this time opening his left leg.

Two wounds now, the blood already finding its way down his skin, and still Bawuro would not stop. He raised the knife a third time. This time Jackson did not run. He caught Bawuro's wrist in both hands. The two of them went down together into the grass.
Grappling.
Chest to chest.
Each man's weight against the other's.
It did not last long.
And when it ended, the dagger was no longer in Bawuro's hand. It was in Jackson's.

Bawuro, even though disarmed, did not retreat. He snatched up a stick from the ground beside him and held.

III. Three Stabs
Jackson stood there with the same blade that had opened him twice already, and something in him turned.
He drove it into Bawuro's throat once.
Then again.
Then a third time.

Bawuro went down into the dirt of the very farm Jackson had been quietly tending an hour before, and his blood ran out fast and dark into the soil. He did not get up.

For a moment there was nothing but the two of them, one standing, one not, on ground that had asked for none of this.
Then Jackson ran.

He left his cap behind in the grass.
He left his sickle where it had fallen.
He threw the dagger down at the spot where the fight had ended.
He did not look back.

He went home carrying only what a man carries when he has just taken a life, which is fear. He told his mother. She told her younger brother. He told his best friend. And from there it was only a matter of time before the whole village knew a man was dead in the bush near Kodomti. No name was mentioned.

[Jafar Balarabe @JafarBalarabe]

Three things had to line up for that door to open all the way.
The killing had to happen in the heat of passion, before there was time for that passion to cool.

The provocation had to be grave and sudden enough that any ordinary man, not merely an excitable one, would lose command of himself.

Whatever he did in answer had to bear some real relationship to what provoked him, not race far past it.

Two of the three lined up without a fight. Bawuro's attack had been sudden and grave, and Jackson had plainly lost hold of himself in the scramble for the blade. It was the third that would not line up, the same wall Jackson had already hit once. One stab might have answered the provocation and stopped there. Three stabs to the throat ran past anything that provocation could carry.

The judgment then turned to explain something that cuts against how most people imagine defending themselves. A man cannot claim self-defence and provocation in the same breath, not even when the court raises the second one on his own behalf, because the two describe two different men entirely. Self-defence describes a man who held onto his composure and acted with a clear purpose to save his own life. Provocation describes a man who lost his composure completely and lashed out blind.

Abba Aji JSC, in Kalgo v. State, gave the contradiction its bluntest phrasing, and the judgment reached for his words:

_“To simultaneously put up self-defence and provocation is to shoot oneself at the foot. Accused persons who scramble for defences to save themselves from drowning often go into unpardonable errors to lump up defences that cannot agree or betray their innocence and inculpability in an offence.”_

Both doors, tried one after the other, shut on him.

X. The Confession
A confession properly taken into evidence outweighs almost anything else a court can hear, because it comes from the one person who was actually standing in that field when it happened. Once Jackson withdrew his objection and let exhibits B1 and B2 stand unchallenged, the law presumed he had spoken freely, and that what he said was true.

At trial, the story he told on the stand drifted from the one he had given the police, in small but telling ways. His statement said simply that he had been cutting grass when Bawuro's cattle came through. In court he filled in more, the quarrel over where the cattle stood, the chase, the kick thrown out in desperation. The bones of it held steady across both versions.

But one difference cut deeper than all the rest. In his statement, Jackson had said that he stabbed Bawuro, meaning to kill him. On the stand, he said he never believed the stabbing would kill him at all.

The court has a long answer for that kind of gap. When a man's spoken evidence disagrees with a confession he never challenged, the confession wins, unless he can explain why the two stories differ. Jackson offered nothing. The Supreme Court held that his own statement, standing entirely alone, said enough to prove both what his hands had done and what his mind had meant by it. The coroner's findings and the eyewitnesses only confirmed what his own words had already settled.

XI. The Dissent
Helen Moronkeji Ogunwumiju JSC read the very same record her four colleagues had read, word for word, page for page. She came away seeing an entirely different man standing in that field.

Her disagreement began at the very foundation the two courts below had built on, the idea that a man who gains the upper hand in a fight owes the law a second attempt at running, no matter what his body has already survived to get there. Jackson had tried running once already, she pointed out. It had earned him two stab wounds and nothing more. To ask him to gamble everything on a second flight, bleeding, weakened, unarmed, against a man who had already caught him once and cut him twice, was to ask more of a frightened human being than fear allows anyone to give. In her own words:

[Daily Trust @daily_trust]

El-Rufai Accuses ICPC of Isolating Him From Family, files N10bn suit
https://t.co/wvkB2cCenK

[Jafar Balarabe @JafarBalarabe]

2027 Presidential Election: Regional Arithmetic and the Path to Victory
By Jafar Balarabe, Esq.

The dynamics of the 2027 presidential election are expected to differ from those of 2023. Religion, which influenced voting patterns three years ago, particularly through Peter Obi’s appeal in Christian-dominated parts of the North Central and the effect of the Muslim-Muslim ticket on northern support for Atiku Abubakar is likely to be less decisive. Economic hardship and performance-related discontent now appear to be the dominant factors.

Peter Obi is expected to secure a decisive victory across the South-East, retain significant support in the South-South states he previously carried, and perform strongly in Christian-majority North Central states.

Atiku Abubakar is positioned to dominate the core northern states and is likely to carry Muslim-majority North Central states. Northern demographic weight is expected to favour his candidacy substantially. He may also record limited gains in the South-West and a few South-South states.

A closer examination of the 2023 results underscores the critical weight of the North-West. In that region, which accounted for approximately 6.7 million votes, Tinubu led with 2.65 million votes (40 percent), ahead of Atiku’s 2.33 million (35 percent), while Kwankwaso secured 1.27 million (19 percent).

If Tinubu’s 2.65 million North-West votes were added to Atiku’s national total of approximately 6.98 million, Atiku’s figure would rise to about 9.63 million, well above Tinubu’s actual national total of 8.79 million. This illustrates the decisive potential of fuller northern consolidation. In addition, a significant portion of Kwankwaso’s 2023 support is likely to shift toward Atiku in 2027, as many of those voters are expected to prioritise northern and historical considerations over an Obi-led ticket. This further strengthens Atiku’s northern arithmetic.

President Bola Tinubu is expected to face considerable difficulty, including a weakened performance in the South-West. The recent Osun State governorship election provides a clear illustration of this vulnerability. Incumbent Governor Ademola Adeleke of the Accord Party defeated the APC candidate with 511,067 votes to 444,815, carrying 19 of the state’s 30 local government areas. Low voter turnout in that region, driven by widespread economic hardship, would further undermine his prospects. Although the APC retains structural advantages through incumbency and control of most state governments, these organisational assets are likely to prove less decisive under current conditions of severe public discontent.

Under conditions of a free and fair election, the combination of economic hardship, regional voting arithmetic, particularly the size and competitiveness of the North-West, the expected movement of a substantial share of Kwankwaso’s former votes toward Atiku, and anticipated low turnout in key parts of the South-West points to a difficult path for the incumbent.

On the current configuration of candidates, Atiku Abubakar appears better positioned to capitalise on these factors.

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