AN ANALYSIS OF THE DISAPPEARING NATION
By Agbeze Ireke Kalu Onuma, AI-KO
This is the third day of a very difficult conversation I have been having with myself, and with you.
It began with a cry of angry disbelief in “ARE WE EVEN A COUNTRY? OR JUST A SHARED SPACE OF TRAUMA?” – where we confronted the terrifying silence of a citizenry trapped in a void. Yesterday, we went deeper into the structural abyss with “NIGERIA, OH NIGERIA WHERE TO FROM HERE?” – a reflection on the raw heartbreak of a General’s execution, the abduction of our daughters in Kebbi, and the encroaching darkness on our map.
But today, the conversation must shift. We must move from the emotional to the political. We must move from the tears of the victims to the blindness of the ambition.
Because while the map of Nigeria is turning black with ungoverned spaces, and while citizens are paying taxes to warlords just to harvest their crops, there is another group of people living in a completely different reality. They are the politicians already plotting, merging, and calculating for the next election cycle.
They are fighting for the wheel of a car that has already lost its engine.
So, today’s installment is a direct challenge to that delusion. It is an investigative X-ray of a nation that is geographically shrinking while political ambition expands.
While the headlines in Abuja are obsessed with 2027 – with endorsements, mergers, and “credibility thresholds” – a much darker reality is unfolding in the “other” Nigeria.
The question “Which country do you want to rule in 2027?” Keeps reoccurring in my mind, and it is not rhetorical. It is a literal geographic inquiry. Because at the rate we are losing territory, sovereignty, and sanity, the Nigeria of 2027 will not be the Nigeria on the map today.
This is an X-RAY of two nations: The one politicians are fighting for, and the one that is fast disappearing, one village at a time.
THE FIRST COUNTRY: THE “ELECTION” NATION (The Illusion)
This is the country that exists in the minds of the political elite. It is a country of rallies, zoning formulas, and “strategic endorsements.”
The Disconnect: In this country, the North West APC has already endorsed President Tinubu for a second term. Governor Bassey Otu of Cross River is predicting a “90% victory” for the President in 2027, citing “bold reforms.” The Labour Party is endorsing Peter Obi again. Atiku Abubakar is building new coalitions.
The Delusion: These men are fighting for the keys to the Villa. They are arguing over who gets to be the Captain of the ship. But they are so busy fighting for the wheel that they haven’t noticed the hull has breached and the passengers are drowning.
The Reality: They are campaigning in a vacuum. They are measuring their popularity in states where they can no longer safely drive on the roads. They are planning to govern a population that is currently being harvested by warlords.
THE SECOND COUNTRY: THE “CAPTURED” NATION (The Reality)
This is the country where the map is turning black. It is not waiting for 2027. It is fighting to survive today.
THE “LAKURAWA” REPUBLIC (The New Government in the North West)
While Abuja debates “Tax Reform Bills,” a new government has already formed in Sokoto and Kebbi. They are called LAKURAWA.
Territory Captured: They are not just bandits raiding and leaving. They are staying. They control five Local Government Areas across Sokoto and Kebbi.
Governance: They have replaced the Nigerian State.
Judiciary: They adjudicate disputes between farmers and herders.
Revenue: They collect “Zakat” (taxes) from farmers. If you want to harvest your onions in Tangaza, you pay Lakurawa, not the FIRS.
Law Enforcement: They whip youths for listening to music. They impose curfews.
The Implication: The Nigerian Constitution does not apply here. The Governor of Sokoto is a landlord without tenants. The real Governor wears a turban and carries an AK-47.
THE “ISWAP” CALIPHATE (The Humiliation in the North East)
The execution of Brigadier General M. Uba this week was not just a murder; it was a message.
The Message: “Your Generals are our toys.”
The Capture: ISWAP is no longer hiding in the deep bush. They are ambushing brigades. They are shooting down jets. They are establishing a parallel state in the Lake Chad basin where they control the waterways, the fish trade, and the lives of millions.
The Silence: The Military High Command calls it a “fake narrative” because admitting the truth means admitting that they have lost the monopoly of violence in the North East.
THE “SILENT” SOUTH (The Economic Siege)
In the South, the capture is not by gunmen, but by economic strangulation.
The Grid: The National Grid has collapsed 8 times in a month. A country without power is a country that has ceased to function industrially.
The Exit: Multinationals are leaving. Factories are closing. The “middle class” is selling its cars to buy food. The young are fleeing (Japa).
The Result: We are left with a hollowed-out economy where the only thriving sector is “Politics” and “Crime.”
THE VERDICT: A RACE AGAINST EXTINCTION
So, I ask the APC, the PDP, the Labour Party, and every “2027 hopeful”: Which country do you plan to rule?
Do you want to rule the Lakurawa Republic? Because they are already collecting the taxes you think belong to you.
Do you want to rule the ISWAP Caliphate? Because their flag is flying where yours has been torn down.
Do you want to rule a Graveyard? Because at this rate, the voters you are counting on will either be dead, displaced, or destitute by the time you print your ballot papers.
THE DISAPPEARING NATION
We are witnessing the “Somalia-zation” of Nigeria. Not all at once, but slowly – one village, one LGA, one state at a time. The center (Abuja) holds, but the periphery is rotting away. And a body cannot survive when its limbs are gangrenous.
A REFLECTION: THE FOOLHARDINESS OF THE 2027 RITUAL
THE ELECTION IN THE FRACTURED LAND
We must pause our political calculations to ask the most dangerous question of all: Can you hold a legitimate election in a country that technically does not exist in parts?
The foolhardiness of both the government and the governed lies in our collective pretense. We are pretending that 2027 will be a normal ritual of ballot boxes and returning officers. But let us look at the map again – the one that is bleeding black.
THE LOGISTICS OF IMPOSSIBILITY
INEC relies on a premise: “Access.” To conduct an election, a corper (NYSC member) must carry a BVAS machine to a polling unit, set up a table, and wait for voters.
The Question: Will INEC send a 23-year-old NYSC member to Tangaza in Sokoto, where the Lakurawa group collects taxes? Will they send election materials to the Lake Chad islands where ISWAP flies its flag?
The Answer: No. They will do what they did in 2023 but on a larger scale: they will create “Super Polling Units” in IDP camps. They will tell the villagers, “If you want to vote, come to the capital.”
The Result: This is not an election; it is a migration. It disenfranchises the weak, the old, and the terrified. It turns the right to vote into a privilege for those who can afford to flee their homes.
THE “SUBSTANTIAL COMPLIANCE” TRAP
Here is where the legal nightmare begins. The Nigerian Courts rely on the doctrine of “Substantial Compliance” (established in Awolowo v. Shagari and reaffirmed in Buhari v. Obasanjo). It essentially means: “Even if there were irregularities, did they affect the final winner?”
But we are facing a scenario the law did not anticipate:
Territorial Amputation.
If elections cannot hold in 15 Local Governments in the North West due to Lakurawa…
If elections cannot hold in 10 Local Governments in the North East due to ISWAP…
If elections cannot hold in parts of the South East due to a violent enforcement of a “Sit-at-Home” by separatist factions…
The Constitutional Crisis:
The Constitution requires a winner to have 25% of votes in 24 States. But if three or four states are rendered “inconclusive” by warlords, does the winner still have a mandate?
If a President is declared winner based only on votes from the “Safe Zones” (Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt), while 30 million Nigerians in the “Fractured Zones” are locked out by guns, is he the President of Nigeria? Or is he just the Mayor of the Green Zones?
THE CRISIS OF LEGITIMACY
This is my verdict on the foolhardiness of our current path: We are sleepwalking into a legitimacy crisis that no Supreme Court ruling can fix.
A government that cannot secure its territory cannot claim the loyalty of its people. If the people of Maga in Kebbi cannot vote because the state abandoned them to terrorists, they will not recognize the winner of that election. They will recognize the man who holds the gun in their village – the Warlord.
We are creating a Bifurcated Sovereignty:
De Jure Sovereignty (The Law): Resides with the President in the Villa, recognized by the UN and the AU.
De Facto Sovereignty (The Reality): Resides with the Bandit Kingpin in the forest, recognized by the farmer who pays him tax to stay alive.
THE FINAL VERDICT
To plan for 2027 without reclaiming these territories is not democracy; it is delusion. We are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while the iceberg – the loss of our sovereign territory – tears through the hull.
If we go to the polls in 2027 without fixing this, the winner will not inherit a nation. They will inherit a map of holes, a flag that flies only in the state capitals, and a people who have learned that their real government is the one that carries an AK-47, not the one that carries a ballot box.
FINAL WORD
Stop talking about 2027. There might not be a “Nigeria” to rule in 2027 if you don’t save the one bleeding to death in 2025.
… Political Update 11th November 2025 …
