Between Honour And Delusion

By

Olabode Opeseitan

There could never have been a sharper reminder of the distance between honour and delusion, between a nation stepping into its future and a faction still worshipping the ruins of its past.

Earlier this week, President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu stood as the honoured guest of the British Royal Family and the British Government, received with the full splendour of a state visit at Windsor Castle. It was the first such recognition for Nigeria in thirty seven years. The symbolism was unmistakable. A democratic Nigerian president welcomed with carriage processions, a guard of honour and a state banquet in St George’s Hall. It marked not only diplomatic renewal but the restoration of Nigeria’s global standing after decades of drift.

And yet, at the same period Nigeria’s colours shimmered under the chandeliers of Windsor, a small crowd gathered on the streets of London, waving the flags of a proscribed organisation and chanting the name of a man whose legacy is written in the ashes of communities he helped inflame. It was a spectacle of tragic irony. Enlightened men and women who knew the record of IPOB and ESN, who knew the killings, the enforced sit at home orders, the economic strangulation of the South East, and the violence in Lagos during EndSARS, still chose revisionism over responsibility. Only someone who has numbed their conscience could have stood in that crowd and called it justice.

They marched not in defence of truth, but in defiance of memory. They carried placards demanding the release of Nnamdi Kanu, a man lawfully convicted and serving his sentence in Sokoto, yet never once during the years when IPOB’s terror held the region hostage did they raise a single banner calling for restraint, accountability or peace. By aligning themselves with a movement whose actions devastated the very people it claimed to champion, they have become accessories to the reign of terror it orchestrated, and to the blood of innocent souls shed needlessly.

Posterity will remember this moment, not for its noise but for its shame. My thoughts remain with every family in the South East who lost loved ones to that season of carnage. No political solution can be meaningful without truth. If there is ever to be a path to reconciliation for Kanu, it must begin with acknowledgment, apology and restitution. Anything less is an insult to the dead.

But beyond the noise of that misguided protest lies the real story. A nation reclaiming its dignity. To President Tinubu and the people of Nigeria, this was a moment of pride earned through difficult reforms and relentless diplomacy. The work ahead is steep and Nigerians are carrying heavy burdens. But the world is watching again, not with pity but with respect.

May God grant the President the strength to serve with wisdom, and may Nigeria continue its ascent with clarity, courage and grace.

UK Parliament
UK Prime Minister
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu Support Group Germany (ABATSG)
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu Leadership Support Movement.
Nigerians in United Kingdom
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Nigerians in America (USA)
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