On Tuesday, June 9th, 2026, a statement finally shot through the political space, performing an alerting function on how close Nigeria is to an insecurity melt down. All 10 signatories to the statement – Dr. Husseini Abdu; Amb. Fatima Balla OON; Usman Bugaje; Ibrahim Gambari, CON; Dr Yahaya Hashim; Jibrin Ibrahim; Attahiru Muhammadu Jega OFR; Prof Mohammed Kuna; Barr Abubakar Balarabe Mahmoud, SAN, OON and Mal Kabiru Yusuf – have roots in broader civil society activism, making it safe to categorise the outing as a radical democratic signaling. This time though, it isn’t an outing in ideological critique but an alert on the threat level of Nigeria’s entanglement in ‘permacrisis’
There’s a sense in which that’s what Nigeria has been waiting for – categorical standpoint emanating from elements symbolic of the civil society on the state of the nation. Though depending a lot on how the statement is received in the wider society, such standpoint can rearrange power relations through subject positioning and, by implication, determine what is acceptable and otherwise.
Intervention considers it safe to hold that such has been the trajectory of contestation of the status quo in Nigeria, climaxing under the Babangida administration when the closest to a ‘historic bloc’ emerged, outflanking the regime in discursive articulation of alternatives. It was the Campaign for Democracy (CD) made up of incommensurate interests such as NANS, the NLC, ASUU, WIN, middle class professional associations, market women and a host of them, none of which had to renounce its own specific organisational pursuit. It preceded new social movement politics which reconstituted the struggle against oppressive policies away from Jacobinism to open, relational but no less a radical ontology in the post-Cold War.
Is that what this statement may trigger? It is too early to say. Should the statement trigger the return of that tradition of ‘war of position’ ala Gramsci, then Nigeria might be in the process of rebirth as, irrespective of whichever fraction of the elite is in power will have to contend with a frontier of antagonism capable of conscientising the people by advancing alternatives to the banality of power in contemporary Nigeria in the name of democracy.
Some observers wonder to Intervention if the country hasn’t gone too far below the threshold. Even the radical constellation has not been immunised against severe crisis of ideological stagnation, political and ethical decay, given observable manifestations of acts of ethnic profiling and chauvinistic territorialisation of identity within it. But it may also be the case that, like most dislocations, this crisis too could be productive of a major quality of newness.
In spite of seeming loss of steam due to prolonged absence, the radical residue is still there in what used to be the radical temperament in Nigerian politics. It comes to the fore at its own events and certain moments. But it has been a case of the willing spirit versus the weak body in the absence of a ‘collective will’ and a powerful organisation pushing it, and in the face of tempting narratives from entrenched local and external forces and interests.
