Happy new year, everyone! This year will be consequential for many reasons, the most mundane of which is the claim by numerologists that it is a "number one" year associated with hopeful new beginnings.
Numerology
According to the math, when you add up the numbers making up 2026 (2+2+6), you get 10. To get a single digit to work with, we still have to add the two numbers making up 10. 1+0=1. In the words of Christine O'Day, "If you spent 2025 finally ridding yourself of attitudes and relationships that needed to end, then 2026 will be your year to start fresh and become the person you want to become." The future will impact on your present more strongly this year.
Actually, you don't need any esoteric science to know that this year is destined to be a decider in many facets of our national life. We are on the eve of another election year. The socio-economic and political thorn-bush we have been cultivating has matured. It is harvest time for sowers of prickles, barbs and spiky prongs to reap the fruits of their clandestine labour.
Terrorism
The US Africa Command (AFRICOM) has been positioned like the sword of Damocles to dismantle the terror machine that has held Nigeria down for 16 long years. After playing the ostrich with terrorism for many years, whoever knew that help was going to come from another country 5,621 miles away?
Enablers of terrorism will not escape judgement this year. A full measure of the same medicine being dispensed to the terrorists will be dished out to the enablers -- a full measure, shaken together, pressed down and generously apportioned.
Those who made blood money while their fellow citizens were wasted will also meet their nemesis this year. One of the intentions of the US in helping to rid Nigeria of terrorists is to ensure that all those who have stolen monies earmarked for tackling the problem are brought to justice. The Abuja-based Center for Democracy and Development estimated in 2022 that approximately $15 billion had been squandered through fraudulent arms procurement deals over the previous two decades.
When the first missile hit target in Sokoto, terror-lovers said the bombs merely scattered dust in the desert. Some others posted pictures of expired fuel tanks and other expendables discarded by the missile as evidence that the missile had missed its mark. On social media many of them lampooned the US, challenging Trump to show proof that the intended targets were hit.
But when the photographs and maps of the coordinates were released, they changed tune. They accused the US of violating Nigeria's sovereignty -- the same sovereignty that Boko Haram and their other ISIS affiliates had torn to shreds for many years to the delight of their enablers! Indeed, that first strike exposed many of the hitherto unknown sympathisers of terrorism in the country.
As for the well-known terror apologists who have been hiding under clerical garbs or tribal associations, it can't be comforting to know that you're in the crosshairs of the deadly weapons of the most efficient army in the world. When it comes to incinerating terrorists, America won't mind killing an ant with a sledgehammer!
Gumi
I have counselled many netizens who have been campaigning for the dismissal of Sheik Gumi's son from the Nigerian Army to leave the young man alone. While I am not disputing their superstitious link that a leopard can only beget another leopard, I think there is something to be said for the fact that the trajectories of the two men are somewhat different.
Ahmad Gumi is a certified medical doctor from Ahmadu Bello University Zaria and was a former military officer who left service as a captain. He obtained a PhD in Islamic jurisprudence at the umm Al-Qura University in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Interestingly, it was the same Saudi Arabia that denied him entry into their country last year. With all his utterances in support of terrorists, netizens have been clamouring that the Nigerian army decommission his son on the suspicion of him being a mole ferreting intelligence to the terrorists. It is at that point that I part company with those social media warriors.
However, it is significant that the Saudi authorities also think he's a negative influence on pilgrims and therefore banned him from entering their country last year despite being a member of the Ulama team of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), which was charged with guiding and preaching to Nigerian pilgrims during the Hajj. On that occasion, Gumi said: "For some obvious reasons, my views about world politics, the Saudi authorities are uncomfortable about my presence in Hajj after giving me the Hajj Visa."
I recall that in 2010, Gumi was arrested and detained for over six months by the Saudi Arabian authorities for allegedly relating with Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian underwear bomber who tried to bomb a Northwest Airlines Flight 253, from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan, on Christmas Day, 2009.
In this year 2026, what was obfuscated will be made plain. There will no longer be proxy deaths. Every ant will carry its own load of firewood, one by one.
Restructuring
The most urgent task before President Tinubu is the restructuring of the country. The general consensus is to convert the present six zones which also have their own development commissions, to confederating regions with a plebiscite to validate the people's choice. Restructuring is not complex.
Those who believe in a theocracy can be allowed to have their own region while others who want to live under the universally accepted rule of law can also have theirs.
Restructuring will make regional security manageable. Planning for the population within each region will be better coordinated, and economic activities will be re-engineered in a way that benefits each region. The current unitary arrangement which dispenses feeding bottles to ever indolent children is no longer sustainable. If carried out now, political restructuring will help Nigeria avoid the fate of Yugoslavia and USSR.
Tinubunomics
In the abundance of water, Nigerians are thirsty! President Tinubu's initiatives to wit: the new tax regime, government spending, foreign direct investments, infrastructural development, poverty alleviation programmes, job creation, health and education investments -- will have direct consequences on his second term ambition to the extent that they impact positively or negatively on the lives of the people. If the people end up being poorer than they were in 2025, if life is even more harrowing in 2026 than it has been for the generality of the people, a second term ambition will be a hard sell.
Year 2026 will witness the advancement of hybridity, which blends the physical, biological and digital worlds. We are entering the unannounced era of the 4th industrial revolution where, according to the renowned futurist Bernard Marr, cyber-physical systems and technological deployment will profoundly affect our world. How President Tinubu domesticates these new developments to make life more abundant for Nigerians will determine his political fortunes and his place in history.
Welcome to the consequential year 2026. May your miseries be fewer and your fortunes multiply this year and beyond!
Wole Olaoye is a Public Relations consultant and veteran journalist. He can be reached on [email protected], Twitter: @wole_olaoye; Instagram: woleola2021