Opinion
By Pat Uchendu
IT has been over one week since Prof. Usman Yusuf appeared on national television and simply brought his highly-rated personality to a disrepute. I have been waiting and expecting him to retract the shame he spewed, but since he is obstinate or delusionary, in his characteristic manner of always jumping out with misinformation, or carrying out the ignorable tendency of appropriating the Emperor of northern Nigeria, let me address him. This is important because wicked narratives must always be shot down, otherwise they wrongly influence public perspectives and opinions. And this one can cause serious ethnic disaffection, even after an Hausa eye witness, Mr Ibrahim Muhammad, a truck driver said exactly what transpired. Luckily, he spoke in Hausa.
It is easy these days to know how fast and deep All Progressives Congress, APC is recruiting merchants of lies. It only requires a cursory observation and you would see identical mouths, like Dele Momodu, Daniel Bwala, Reno Omokri, Femi Fani Kayode, Kenneth Okonkwo and the rest. There are a lesser bunch, who are simply fingerlings of crayfish that think themselves to be lobsters. And no doubt the accounts department of APC must be on panic alarm button, settling all compromised mouths who run over one another lying and disgracing themselves!
Who can imagine that Prof. Usman Yusuf; a professor of haematology-oncology and bone marrow transplantation would go on a national television to dig up relics of a matter that never involved Mr Peter Obi, never happened in Anambra State? A matter that was rightfully thrown away at the national assembly, for lack of merit and orchestration!
That was about the erroneous claim that Peter Obi issued ID card to Northerns living in Anambra State while he was a governor. The said incident, with an entirely different motive happened in Imo State, when Rochas Okorocha was the governor. To cap his misadventure, Prof. Usman Yusuf claimed that the incident happened in 2022, while Mr Peter Obi left office as governor in 2014. What a blunder and how embarrassing that was! And this is a man who claims to know what is current. He even went further to say that Mr Peter Obi and HE Rabiu Kwankwaso would be interrogated by the Northern stakeholders, to ascertain their packages for the north. That’s the Emperor of the north speaking there!
In my time at the university, one of the important lessons our Vice Chancellor, the erudite Prof. Emmanuel Ayandele inculcated in us was the use of our well stuffed and equipped library, not just to read but to prepare oneself to modestly query what the lecturers teach. That is to say, prepare yourself with the rudiments of the subject before class. That way, you will not find a lecturer teach you nonsense, or something out of the course context. It was not just a piece of advice, it became our pre-lecture makeup. We were equally told to protest any rogue marks by any lecturer, with a petition to the University Senate for review. And so, the students were serious, the lecturers more committed. You are talking about the likes of Prof. Esko Toyo, Prof. Ekwe Ekwe, visiting Prof. Ikenna Nzimiro to mention but a few, amongst expatriate lecturers. But today, only God knows how it goes in the universities.
Prof. Usman Yusuf you were not too young to witness the engaging profiles and brilliance of the likes of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, often called the “Golden Voice of Africa,” and Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule (Dan Masanin Kano), celebrated for his masterful, persuasive eloquence. The likes of Mallam Aminu Kano (the crooner of politics without bitterness). The liberal ideologically left – tilted Abubaka Rimi, or Ibrahim Tahir (although regarded as a Kaduna Mafia). Don’t you remember the cerebral Prof. Jubril Aminu, one of the best brains ever to grace this nation? How about Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa, and so forth?
Who are the North you claim to speak on their behalf? Is it the same captured and impoverished youths, your kind have deliberately and systematically kept under the tether of un-education, but have designed every thing possible to subjugate?
Don’t we have the brilliant and vibrant Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Emir of Kano, whose efforts and deliberate understanding of the North has rightly identified that education is the first point of liberation for the multitude, who look up to their leaders for directions? Leaders they hardly find, unless when it is convenient to mobilise them to do the ugly side of political vanguard! Look for Sanusi Lamido’s lecture series and get some education. Not the kind you teach about hatred, separatism, division with poor and dishonest indoctrination, sadly into backward ultra mundane conservatism and sentiments!
Prof. Yusuf, this country is moving away from your kind of train station and working to have some elixir in the combined vision of Obi/Kwankwaso ticket. It is the only ticket the multitude of Nigerians find OK. The moment you join the new vision and remove the spec of old order in your eyes, the better for a new Nigeria.
Thank you.
***Pat Uchendu writes for PO Express Media, POEM.
A.I
May 16, 2026
Tags: Daniel Bwala Dele Momodu Femi Fani Kayode HE Rabiu Kwankwaso Kenneth Okonkwo Mr Peter Obi Pat Uchendu Prof. Ekwe Ekwe Prof. Emmanuel AyandeleM Prof. Esko Toyo Prof. Ikenna Nzimiro Prof. Usman Yusuf Reno Omokri