On trophies from Paris and farewells to Jacobs and Peter

By the time you’re reading this, President Bola Tinubu is probably concluding his 21-day holiday in Europe, where he’s been mode-switching from rest, work and scheming ahead of the January elections.

The past three weeks have been one of those times when the forecourt of the Aso Rock Villa falls quiet, and the parking lots stay empty until the big man returns.

Last Sunday, the President arrived in Paris for the second leg of his European holiday. For those who observed, the president swapped the order of his holiday destinations this year. Last September, he began his holiday in Paris and planned to conclude in London, until he abruptly changed his mind and flew to Kaduna for the wedding of the son of former Zamfara State Governor, Senator Abdul’aziz Yari.

Politics and conjugal celebrations are two sides of the same coin. Incidentally, however, U.S. President Donald Trump was scheduled to begin his state visit to the UK that week.

In my earlier pieces, I explored what I argued was the hide-and-seek relationship between the two men. My observations will be further proven if Tinubu defies all earlier arrangements and does not show up at this year’s United Nations General Assembly in New York. I’ll leave it at that.

So the past week saw the president engage in various forms of remote work. From Paris, he moved the digital free zones from paperwork to implementation, targeting global jobs for young Nigerians who currently export themselves because their skills cannot find a local buyer.

From Paris, too, came Tinubu’s arguably sweetest news for the week, when, on Thursday, an International Chamber of Commerce tribunal sitting in that same city threw out the claims by Sunrise Power and Transmission Company against Nigeria, and ordered the firm and its promoter, Mr Leno Adesanya, to refund most of the Federal Government’s $11.82m legal bill.

Sunrise had demanded $680m in settlement and interest, tied to a separate claim of more than $2.7bn over the 3,960MW Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project. The President called it “the single biggest legal hurdle” that had paralysed Mambilla for over two decades, a project born out of a 2003 contract the Federal Executive Council reportedly never authorised.

Then came the roll call of gratitude, where Tinubu commended the Attorney General, Lateef Fagbemi, the Paul Hastings defence team led by Elizabeth Oger-Gross and Tolu Obamuroh, the NSA, the EFCC, and then former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the late President Muhammadu Buhari, both of whom testified for Nigeria in the Paris arbitration.

And from Paris, the President is reportedly trying to broker peace between the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, and aggrieved APC governors. Such a quarrel, if left to fester, could curdle into something ugly for the governing party’s campaign.

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However, the weeks also came with their own gloom. The first was the loss of the Assistant Director of Information and Public Relations at the Presidential Villa, Peter Onwubuariri, who died in Kano at 48 after a prolonged illness and was buried in Owerri.

The President called his passing “a painful loss to the Presidency, the News Agency of Nigeria, the media community and the nation.” Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga led the media team to Peter’s home in Abuja.

Mr Tunde Rahman called the late official a workaholic who never returned an assignment unless it was excellent.

They are a thousand times right, all of them. From my perspective, however, Peter was more than an official. Being the avid reader that he was, he always had some insightful feedback on my writings that kept me looking forward to seeing him.

It was Peter who once told me, almost in passing, that I was the reporter filing the most exclusives on President Tinubu’s much-anticipated ambassadorial appointments from late 2023 right through to the eventual postings in late 2025.

He had been counting. I had not. That is the kind of man Peter was. He was watchful enough to notice the good work of others and generous enough to tell you when you were winning.

He read my copy and offered feedback drawn from years of serving on the media teams of three presidents: Jonathan, Buhari and Tinubu. In an environment where information is currency, and most people guard their tokens, Peter gave freely, out of the abundance of his experience and his desire to see me do better. “Punch Man! Punch Man!! Which exclusive are you looking for today?” he would say when we met in the corridors. Go well, Peter. Rest well, Uncle Peter.

On Thursday, the country lost another institution, veteran actor Olu Jacobs, who died at 84. The President called him “a giant of the Nigerian creative industry,” whose body of work “will continue to speak to generations yet unborn.”

For me, he will always be Chief Udensi in the 1998 home video Obstacles. His unmistakable voice, his carriage of authority and, much later, the gems of wisdom on the various forums he has spoken on are what I will remember him for. Our condolences to his family.