I said what I said!

Akpabio has declared Tinubu’s two years the best thing since sliced bread

Good morning, Big Brains. I don’t know who’s going to take up the fight, but someone has to do something about the prices of burgers in this country, because what exactly is going on

- Margaret

Word count: ~ 1,000

Reading time ~ 5 mins

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Let’s get into today’s edition:

• Akpabio declares Tinubu’s two years the best thing since sliced bread

• Battle of mids: WAEC is giving JAMB a run for their money

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The Big Deal

Akpabio has declared Tinubu’s two years the best thing since sliced bread

Nobody does this ride or die thing better than Nigeria’s Senate President, Godswill Akpabio; he’s so locked in, it’s almost fascinating to watch. Yesterday, while Tinubu marked his two years in office, Akpabio showered him with every compliment under the sun, and then some more.

You might be feeling hopeless as a Nigerian living in Nigeria, but the Senate President does not understand what you’re on about because, from where he’s standing, Tinubu has doled out hope to Nigerians on a platter. You probably just snoozed and missed out on yours.

According to Akpabio, the President is “improving the lives of Nigerians, rekindling hope in our people and building a brighter and prosperous future for our nation.”

The Senate President also praised Tinubu for his achievements in security. In his words, “the results are obvious and positive.” Again, you’re the problem if you disagree with this.

Ending with a flourish, Akpabio said Tinubu’s competence is like no other, leading to the mass endorsements he’s been getting.

“These endorsements are certainly not a fluke but founded on verifiable performance in good governance and delivery on campaign promises and undiluted national consciousness.”

Why is this a big deal?

Not to shit on the President and his efforts, but we’re not sure Akpabio was being truthful in his description of Tinubu’s first two years in office. Nigerians are living through what has been described as ” its worst economic crisis in a generation.” We’re witnessing insane levels of sachetisation by manufacturers because Nigerians' purchasing power has reduced so much that they can hardly afford the things they used to.

The World Bank’s April 2025 Poverty and Equity Brief for Nigeria revealed that multidimensional poverty is spreading. The bank said that about 30.9 per cent of Nigerians are forced to survive on less than $2.15 daily, 45.1 per cent do not have access to standard sanitation, and 32.6 per cent lack access to drinking water.

Under this administration, Nigerians braved through a food inflation spike which rose as high as 40.53% in April 2024, removing food staples from the tables of many Nigerian homes. By July 2024, several news outlets reported that yam vendors resorted to slicing tubers of yams in halves and pieces, because many Nigerians could no longer afford single tubers.

As all of these happened, Nigerian children suffered; in June 2024, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) revealed that 11 million children under the age of five in Nigeria experience severe child food poverty. This translates to one in every three children under five lacking adequate feeding. The country also found its way to the league of top 20 countries worldwide that make up 65 per cent of 181 million children suffering severe child food poverty.

While Akpabio says that the President has achieved so much in the security sector, Amnesty International says that at least 10,217 people have been killed in Tinubu’s two years. As expected, the federal government has poked holes in this report, but we wonder what they have to say about the data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) stating that an estimated 2.2 million people were kidnapped across states in the country between May 2023 when the President took power, and April 2024. The report also showed that kidnapping got so bad that an estimated ₦2.2 trillion ransom payments were made within the same period.

At the detriment of his crucial position as leader of the 10th assembly, Godswill Akpabio has made it clear several times that he’s Tinubu’s guy and will ride with him no matter what. From singing literal campaign songs on the Senate floor to saying his job is not to challenge him, Apkabio has locked in and is not looking back.

There are so many things to unpack here, but the heaviest among them are these:

• Tinubu has not performed as well as Akpabio is making him out to be.

• Akpabio’s unwavering support for Tinubu is rendering Nigeria’s checks and balances system useless and harming the country’s democracy and development.

Battle of mids: WAEC is giving JAMB a run for their money

We’re not sure what’s going on here, but there seems to be a competition between the Joint Admissions Matriculation Board (JAMB) and the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) over who is the most incompetent exam body.

In April, a glitch from JAMB’s end led to mass failure in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME); Nigerian students have barely recovered from this, and WAEC decided to twin with JAMB to show them pepper. On Wednesday, May 28, senior secondary students sitting for the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) were made to write the English Language paper late into the night.

The paper, which was originally scheduled to start at 4 pm (according to WAEC’s timetable), did not begin in some centres across the country until nightfall. Some centres wrote the exams as late as 9 p.m. and 11:45 p.m. Candles and phone torches were used to light up a number of centres in the darkness.

Why did that happen?

If you screamed “what the helly!” we did too. Apparently, WAEC discovered that the English papers had leaked online, so the exam body thought it would be a brilliant idea to change the questions and still have the paper written that same day.

As you can tell, parents are pissed off by this but WAEC, like its brother in arms, (JAMB), has explained and apologised for the incident (because that’s supposed to make things better for some reason).

“While maintaining the integrity and security of our examination, we faced considerable challenges primarily due to our major aim of preventing leakage of any paper,” a statement released by the council on Thursday, May 29, read.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives Committee on Basic Education and Examination Bodies has told WAEC that it has 24 hours to appear before it to explain what that national disgrace was all about.

We like this energy from the House of Reps, but we’re not buying it until someone is sacked for this incompetence. Before our very eyes, JAMB’s incompetence led to the failure of 379,997 candidates across the 157 centres in Lagos and the South-east region, but the board’s Registrar, Ishaq Oloyede, has somehow managed to keep his job because he broke down in tears to apologise.

We’re also interested in seeing how WAEC addresses parents’ concerns of possible mass failure.

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The Big Picks

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This Week’s Big Question

“What's your prediction for the 2027 presidential election?”

Nnena’s response - “We’ll likely be disappointed again.”

You can also share your response here, and if it’s as interesting as Eno’s, we’ll feature it in the next edition.

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