by Mohammed Bello Doka
25 July, 2026
There is a man whose hands are stained with the blood of over a thousand civilians, whose administration paid millions of dollars to thirty-four non-existent companies, who attempted to bribe his way into a third term in office, and who today walks the streets of Nigeria as a respected elder statesman. There is another man who served as vice president for eight years, sat on the boards that approved every major decision of his administration, and yet has never been asked a single tough question about any of it. And then there is Atiku Abubakar, who is hounded daily for crimes he did not commit while the real offenders are given sainthood. This is not justice. This is not accountability. This is the Lagos-Ibadan Media at its most cynical, using its ink to rewrite history, protect its kinsmen, and crucify the Northerner who dares to stand in their way.
The hypocrisy is so glaring it should blind every Nigerian who can still read. When Atiku Abubakar is mentioned in the Lagos-Ibadan press, the words that follow are always the same: corruption, $16 billion, power sector failure, Jefferson bribery scandal. The narrative is relentless. The Presidency recently referenced Atiku's alleged links to the William Jefferson bribery scandal and a 2010 US Senate investigative report titled Keeping Foreign Corruption Out of the United States: Four Case Histories, which examined financial transactions involving Atiku and his former wife. They cite his alleged links to investigations and claim he used offshore companies to move suspect funds. On and on it goes, day after day, headline after headline, all designed to paint one man as the face of corruption in Nigeria.
But here is the question the Lagos-Ibadan Media will never ask: where was Olusegun Obasanjo when all this was happening? Obasanjo was not a spectator. He was the President. He sat in Aso Rock. He signed every contract. He approved every payment. And yet, when the House of Representatives investigation alleged that Obasanjo's government had paid millions of dollars to thirty-four non-existent companies, with $16 billion spent without improving power supply, Obasanjo declined the panel's invitation to appear in person. He denied any personal responsibility. And the media? They let him. They printed his denial on page one and moved on. Not a single front-page editorial demanding answers. Not a single investigative series tracking the money. Just silence. Blessed, convenient silence.
Let us be clear about what Obasanjo did during his eight years in office. In November 1999, six months after Nigeria returned to democracy, some armed people killed seven policemen in Odi community in Bayelsa State. President Olusegun Obasanjo responded by sending the Nigerian army into the community. By the time the army finished, they had killed many people and burned the entire town to the ground. An estimated one thousand people were killed in Odi. The army used tanks, warships, and helicopters. Women and girls were reportedly raped. Every building except the bank, the Anglican Church, and the health centre was razed. The government put the death toll at forty-three, but a report listed 2,483 victims.
Two years later, in October 2001, the Nigerian army rounded up residents in Gbeji village for a meeting, made them sit on the ground, separated the men from the others, and then opened fire upon the men indiscriminately. Witnesses reported that some of the victims' bodies were then set ablaze. Further killings took place as soldiers invaded the villages of Vasae, Anyiin, Iorja, Ugba, Sankera and Zaki-Biam. More than two hundred unarmed civilians were killed. The Speaker of the House of Assembly described the attacks as an act of near genocide. And what did Obasanjo do? He justified the army action as part of a peace-keeping operation and rejected calls for the soldiers responsible to be punished. He said soldiers are trained to kill and if deployed that is what they will do.
This is the man whose integrity the Lagos-Ibadan Media has never once questioned. This is the man who attempted to bribe his way into a third term, with lawmakers allegedly offered N70 million each to support the constitutional amendment. This is the man who turned the EFCC into a political weapon against his own vice president, setting up a kangaroo committee that found Atiku guilty of spurious allegations in the Petroleum Trust Development Fund. This is the man who, to this day, has the audacity to point fingers at Atiku and call him corrupt. And the media? They amplify his voice. They give him a platform. They treat him as an elder statesman whose every word carries the weight of wisdom. They have become, in essence, his public relations firm.
What the Lagos-Ibadan Media conveniently forgets to tell Nigerians is that Atiku Abubakar was not a passive spectator during his years as vice president. He was not a rubber stamp. He was a man who had the courage to stand up to his principal, to disagree, to fight for what he believed was right, and to take his battles to the court of law. Between 2003 and 2007, during his second term as vice president, Atiku sued his own President, Olusegun Obasanjo, and the Peoples Democratic Party on multiple occasions. He won fourteen cases in court, mainly against the government of the very President he served under. Atiku Abubakar won in court and frustrated Obasanjo's term elongation agenda. He defended the Constitution and successfully asserted his rights through the courts in a series of landmark legal victories against a sitting President.
The case that perhaps best captures Atiku's defiance was his legal battle over his own removal. When Atiku opposed Obasanjo's controversial bid for a third term in office and defected to the Action Congress to run for president, Obasanjo and the ruling party declared Atiku's vice-presidential seat vacant and stripped him of his official security and privileges. Atiku sued, challenging the legality of the sack. In January 2007, the Court of Appeal ruled that Obasanjo did not have the power to sack his vice-president for joining an opposition party. On April 19, 2007, the Supreme Court of Nigeria ruled in Atiku's favour, declaring the government's action unconstitutional, null and void, affirming that a vice president cannot be arbitrarily removed from office by the president. It was a landmark judgment that has since become a bedrock of Nigeria's constitutional democracy.
This is the man the Lagos-Ibadan Media has chosen to vilify. A man who had the courage to challenge a sitting President in court, who stood up for the Constitution, who defended the principle that no President is above the law. Atiku Abubakar did not just talk about democracy. He fought for it. He bled for it. He put his political career on the line to stop a President who wanted to become a life President. And what did he get in return? He got branded as corrupt, hounded out of his party, stripped of his security, and subjected to a relentless media assault that continues to this day.
Now compare this to how the same media treats Yemi Osinbajo. Osinbajo served as vice president for eight years under Muhammadu Buhari. He chaired the board of the National Emergency Management Agency when it was indicted by the House of Representatives for illegally approving a N5.8 billion north-east intervention fund. He was alleged to have collected N4 billion from Ibrahim Magu, former acting chairman of the EFCC. He himself revealed that he wanted to request the EFCC to investigate fraud allegations against him, but President Buhari stopped him. When he was vice president, the Buhari administration was accused of brazenly and massively deploying all the instruments of the state to brainwash the public into believing it was fighting corruption.
And yet, has anyone in the Lagos-Ibadan Media ever asked Osinbajo a single tough question about any of this? Has any newspaper run a front-page investigation into his role in the N5.8 billion NEMA scandal? Has any television station grilled him on the N4 billion Magu allegation? Has any editorial demanded he explain his silence while the Buhari administration borrowed Nigeria into a debt trap? No. Not once. Not ever. The media has built a fortress around Osinbajo. He is the pastor-integrity, the clean man, the one who somehow served for eight years in one of the most corrupt administrations in Nigerian history and emerged completely untouched. It is a miracle. Or, more accurately, it is a media-manufactured mirage.
The pattern is unmistakable. When a Yoruba figure is involved, the media finds reasons to shield, protect, and sanctify. When a Northerner is involved, the media finds reasons to attack, demonize, and destroy. The treatment of Abba Kyari versus Femi Gbajabiamila is a perfect illustration. When Abba Kyari, the late Chief of Staff to President Buhari, was alive, the Lagos-Ibadan media subjected him to a relentless media assault. He was labelled Nigeria's de facto President. He was accused of boxing the Vice President into a disrespectful corner. He was the leader of the Aso Rock cabal. Even in death, the media continued its posthumous crucifixion. But when Femi Gbajabiamila, current Chief of Staff to President Tinubu and a Yoruba man, faces allegations of taking bribes to allocate political appointments, trading off appointments to the highest bidder, and demanding a forty-eight per cent kickback from a N27.3 billion agency grant, the same media suddenly discovers the virtues of restraint, context, and innocent until proven guilty. The allegations are reported in whispers, if at all. The headlines are defensive. The editorials are sympathetic. It is the same story, but a very different narrative.
This is not journalism. This is ethnic propaganda masquerading as news. The Lagos-Ibadan Media has chosen its tribe, and it defends that tribe with every headline, every editorial, and every carefully curated omission. When Obasanjo is the President who ordered the massacre of civilians at Odi and Zaki Biam, the media looks away. When Osinbajo is the Vice President who chaired boards implicated in corruption, the media looks away. When Gbajabiamila is the Chief of Staff facing bribery allegations, the media finds excuses. But when Atiku Abubakar is the Vice President who had the courage to sue his own President and win, the media brings out the gallows.
How dare Obasanjo, a man whose hands are stained with the blood of Odi and Zaki Biam, point fingers at anyone? How dare the Lagos-Ibadan Media, which has never asked Osinbajo a single hard question, demand that Atiku account for the failures of an administration he did not lead? How dare they sanctify the Yoruba while demonizing the Northerner, as if corruption and abuse of office are tribal traits rather than human failings? How dare they ignore the fact that Atiku stood up to Obasanjo in court while Osinbajo sat silently as Buhari ran Nigeria into the ground?
The truth is uncomfortable but undeniable. In Nigeria's political journalism, accountability is not about facts. It is about ethnicity, patronage, and who controls the narrative. The Lagos-Ibadan Media does not report the news. It manufactures it, shapes it, and deploys it as a weapon in a war it has been fighting since 1960. And in that war, the Northerner is always the villain, and the Yoruba is always the saint, no matter how much blood is on their hands.
Nigerians must learn to read between the lines. When you see a headline attacking Atiku, ask yourself: where is Obasanjo? When you see an editorial praising Osinbajo's integrity, ask yourself: where is the scrutiny? When you see the media demanding accountability from a Northerner, ask yourself: why is the same standard never applied to the Yoruba? The double standard is not an accident. It is a design. And it is time we called it what it is.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
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