By Owei Lakemfa
Governor Mohammed Umar Bago, the 51-year-old governor of Niger State, who wears mullah-like beards, is once again trending in the country.
He is the "star boy" of a state gone rogue. On August 2, 2025, even the Federal Government, which is often consumed by its own tantrums to override the country’s Constitution, had to seek to call Bago to order.
In the latest episode starring Bago, he is unhappy with the privately owned Badeggi Radio Station, which he accuses of incitement.
Rather than allowing for dialogue or due process, he chose to play the "bad boy."
The handsome, innocent-looking governor unconstitutionally shut down the radio station, playing the roles of victim, complainant, investigating police officer, judge, and the Supreme Court all at once.
This former member of the House of Representatives for the Chanchaga Federal Constituency also cast himself as a prison official.
When the country, including the Tinubu administration, collectively pointed out his follies, Bago threatened to present the country with a fait accompli: to simply demolish the station’s buildings and equipment.
Unless urgent steps are taken, he could carry out this threat, as such actions are not novel. In contemporary times, governors who unconstitutionally style themselves "Executive" have demolished the structures of their opponents.
In one case, an "Excellency" in the South-East, who had a political disagreement with a serving senator, simply moved bulldozers to the latter's home, levelled it to the ground, and turned it into a garbage dump.
These actions are not part of the dividends of democracy; they are the residues of military misrule.
The Nigerian state has a history of playing rogue since the military seized power in 1966.
The generals who dictated to the country for a cumulative 29-year period, and led it into a disastrous civil war, were known for their insatiable greed.
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| GOVERNOR BAGO |
For instance, they would eat a snail without sparing its shell, a practice they saw as a culture of not wasting anything.
Now, with Niger State at the mercy of thugs and bandits, Governor Bago, as the chief security officer, decided on a novel way to address the insecurity.
On April 22, 2025, he convened a security meeting at the Government House and gave the following directives to security personnel:
“Anybody that you find with dreadlocks, arrest, barb the hair and fine him. Nobody should carry any kind of haircut inside Minna.
“I have given marching orders to security agencies.”
He added, “Also, any house found harbouring criminals should be demolished. Niger State is not for useless people.”
He continued: “Any vehicle coming into Minna and caught with illicit drugs should be confiscated as government property.”
He also gave another directive: “Anyone going to seek bail for thugs from the police station should also be arrested.”
Hinting that his fight against alleged criminals would respect no boundaries, he stated: “Parents should warn their children.
“From this moment, it’s 100 per cent fire-for-fire.”
Elaborating further, the governor declared: “Anyone found in possession of any weapon, including knives and sticks, should be treated as an armed robber.”
He added that if such a suspect is killed, his parents “must pay for the bullet before releasing the corpse.”
Although Bago advocated for a “special court to be established under the supervision of the Chief Judge of Niger State to handle thuggery cases for speedy judgment and subsequent imprisonment,” his directives imply a resort to jungle justice.
There are no laws backing most of his commands, and people, including security personnel, do not have the right to take the law into their own hands, including shooting suspects and holding their corpses for ransom.
The Bago government has never hidden its disdain for the media. In November 2023, its Commissioner for Homeland Security, retired Brigadier-General Bello Abdullahi Mohammed, allegedly assaulted and threatened the life of a Voice of America reporter, Mustapha Nasiru Batsari, right inside the Government House.
Then in January 2025, the Chairman of the Correspondents Chapel of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Yakubu Mustapha Bina, was detained without charge for several hours by the Department of State Services (DSS), and his mobile phones were seized for three days by the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) of the state police command.
On the specific closure of Badeggi 90.1 FM Radio Minna, the Nigerian Guild of Editors told Bago that his “act of censorship and intimidation undermines the fundamental principles of a democratic society, where a free press is essential for holding those in power accountable.”
The guild held that “Governor Bago acted outside his powers to order the closure of a radio station.
The power to sanction television and radio stations only lies with the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC), after a thorough investigation of any alleged breach of the Code.”
Fearing that the governor may not be amenable to correction, the Editors appealed to the Federal Government to “order the unsealing of the premises of the radio station while an investigation is carried out.”
The Federal Government, through the Ministry of Information and National Orientation, reacted by emphasising that the suspension of broadcasting licenses is under the legal jurisdiction of the NBC, not the state government.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government is engaged in its own extra-constitutional acts by issuing a so-called National Industrial Relations Policy, which has been adopted without consultations with tripartite partners, as required by the country’s laws.
Labour in Nigeria is governed by the constitution, labour laws (especially the Trade Union, Labour, and Trade Dispute Acts), and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions, domesticated by the country.
While a policy is ordinarily inferior to the law or Constitution, it is only a concern if we live in a country of rules.
It is possible that the Federal Government would implement the policy using force.
This is particularly concerning as this policy, which has not been released to the public, is rumoured to ban strikes.
I do not know if the Tinubu administration is aware that forced labour is a crime.
A worker who elects not to work cannot be forced to do so.
Therefore, to criminalise strikes is itself a crime that no government will be allowed to perpetrate.
Yes, workers under military dictators had been sentenced to life imprisonment, as the Babangida regime did to eleven electricity workers in 1988, but this cannot be permitted under a democracy.
Any government that sends workers to prison for going on strike must know it would be calling its very existence into question.
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