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Anthony Obi Ogbo

Decree of Dictatorship—Governor Abbott’s Intoxication for Power

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5 years ago

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In a democracy, resistance against tyranny is a civic duty.

Over the last few years, America, and indeed the world, witnessed how Donald Trump came into the highest and most respected leadership compartment, saw power, and squandered it without regret. America is a living witness to how Donald Trump’s leadership disgrace exposed the porousness of the democratic process—a typical example that America, as a nation, is not immune from the levels of dictatorship found in countries like North Korea, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Somalia.

However, the destructive influences of Trump’s vicious assault on the rule of law are not going away any time soon. This explains why Texans should be worried about their leader, Governor Greg Abbott, who is currently on a rampage with unrestrained and tyrannous policy-making excess. Abbott and his cohorts have thrown the entire state of Texas into a near-constitutional crisis.

By current standards, democracy in Texas is in a state of uncertainty, orchestrated by a reckless Republican-controlled political base and endorsed by an irrational demigod called Abbott. He has proven to be insecure about his career designation and completely uncomfortable with the rule and process of law.

This governor has completely lost it. Gradually, he has led a gang of stubborn extremists to turn the Lone Star State into a lawless zoo. Currently, Texans wake up each day with grave concerns about their democracy. They feel the scratchy, filthy air of dictatorship under a delusional governor who wakes up each day with a new punitive decree. It is getting worse. For instance, Texans are still shocked about Abbott’s inexplicable threat to defund the state legislature, after Democratic lawmakers derailed an 11th-hour attempt to pass his priority bill that would have made it even harder for the public to cast a ballot in elections.

With fabricated claims of widespread voter fraud, Republicans in Texas and across the United States have tried to suppress access to the polls after a shameful 2020 election performance. Among its numerous, unusual clauses, Texas’s Senate Bill 7 would have imposed felonies on public officials for certain activities related to boosting mail-in voting, banned 24-hour and drive-thru voting, emboldened partisan poll-watchers, and made it easier to overturn election results.

Following this defeat of legislation, Abbott, who views with distaste voting privileges of Blacks and other minorities, threatened to eliminate funding for the Texas Legislature. In typical Trump fashion, he tweeted his retaliatory vows: “I will veto Article 10 of the budget passed by the legislature. Article 10 funds the legislative branch. No pay for those who abandon their responsibilities. Stay tuned.”

He vowed that the troubled bill—which would restrict voting hours; make it harder to vote by mail; give more power to partisan poll watchers; increase punishments for mistakes made by election officials; and prohibit voting on Sundays before 1 p.m., an act viewed as an attack on voting campaigns by Black churches—will be added to a special session to pass it.

But that is not all; over the past months, Texans have been going through Abbott’s policy-making surprises. It may be recalled that earlier this year, Abbott shocked the entire world when he announced the revocation of orders regulating the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. This included the lifting of the statewide mask mandate and the opening of all businesses at one hundred percent capacity. To aggravate this madness, he invoked the usual anti-mask conspiracy phrase: that people and businesses do not need the state telling them how to operate.

In a democracy, an abuse of the process, or exploitation of the majority privileges, is akin to autocracy.

It may be right to conclude that Abbott’s burden of dictatorship is gradually descending on the rule of law. In a democracy, an abuse of the process, or exploitation of the majority privileges, is akin to autocracy. Just this month, Abbott signed a new education law forbidding lessons on systemic racism. This bill, also operated by a handful of states, regulates how teachers discuss current affairs, prohibiting students from getting credit or extra credit for participating in civic activities that include political activism or lobbying elected officials on a particular issue.

Abbott, it appears, is running amok with the latest abuse of his mandate, and Texans are concerned as they watch their chief executive metamorphose into a sharp-horned, evil soul. Imagine Texans carrying handguns without a license; or hotels not being able to stop their guests from taking guns into their rooms; or a situation where the government cannot shut down gun shops during a declared disaster. These are not fairy tales but the realities of Texas under the tyranny of Abbott.

Governor Abbott signed a slate of gun-related laws last week, ranging from technical changes, such as allowing Texans to carry a gun in any type of holster, to more broad political statements, such as declaring Texas a Second Amendment “sanctuary state”. Abbott officially signed House Bill 1927, the “constitutional carry” legislation, that allows Texans aged 21 and over to carry a handgun in public—either concealed or openly—without a permit or training, starting September 1. By Abbott’s new laws, the state’s $40 fee to obtain a handgun license will no longer be required, whilst mandatory training requirements are also no longer necessary.

The values of constitutional process are not ingrained in stone. They are written laws susceptible to interpretative ambiguities.

Most party-hardliners may not publicly admit this, but the decree of dictatorship transcends party lines. It’s simply an affront to the ideals of democracy. The values of constitutional process are not ingrained in stone. They are written laws susceptible to interpretative ambiguities. Therefore, entrusting power to leaders with ethical laxity can gravely jeopardize the ideals of the constitutional process. Thus, rejecting Abbott and his Republican cohort becomes a commitment to protecting the standards of socio-political fairness. There have to be ways to stop Abbott’s repressive rule. Perhaps a massive electioneering presence of Blacks and minorities would make the difference.

State Chairman of the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats, Hon. Carroll G. Robinson, Esq., suggested strategies for Black voter turnout. According to Hon. Robinson, “If we’ve learned nothing else from Stacy Abrams, we should have learned that to maximize Black voter turnout to win, the work and investments must begin early. Elections are won with investments and hard-work done well in advance of an election year. It’s not enough to curse the dark and complain about the incompetence of Abbott, Cruz and other Texas Republican leaders— including Patrick and Paxton—we have to invest in Black voter turnout to defeat them.”

Fighting off tyranny will require all hands on deck. For instance, a group of Democratic Texas state lawmakers just traveled to Washington, D.C. to confer with congressional Democrats and Vice President Harris and lobby for far-reaching voting rights and election reform legislation. Consequently, Attorney General Merrick Garland has announced his readiness to fight voter-suppression. According to Garland, the aim is to ensure that, “all eligible voters can cast a vote, that all lawful votes are counted, and that every voter has access to accurate information.” The Department of Justice is already suing Georgia, alleging that a recently passed election law violates the Voting Rights Act’s protections for minority voters.

Governor Abbott’s intoxication for power signifies a degree of dictatorship incompatible to the process of democracy. He is a governor who has demonstrated a revulsion for justice and fairness. He has uncovered his authoritarian demeanor, and, worse, his animosity and disrespect for people of color are unparalleled. In a democracy, resistance against tyranny is a civic duty. At this time, the people of Texas must stop this hare-brained dictator or forever hold their peace.

♦ Professor Anthony Obi Ogbo, Ph.D. is on the Editorial Board of the West African Pilot News. Article is also published in the West African Pilot News

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Anthony Obi Ogbo

When Air Power Becomes a Christmas Performance: The Illusion of Success in Trump’s Nigerian Strike

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2 weeks ago

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December 28, 2025

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“Bombs alone do not defeat ideology. Precision without intelligence is noise.“ —Anthony Obi Ogbo

When President Trump announced his authorized United States air strike against ISIL (ISIS) fighters in northwest Nigeria on Christmas Day, there was an immediate burst of celebration on Nigerian social media. For a country exhausted by years of kidnappings, massacres, and territorial insecurity, the announcement sounded like long-awaited international support. Memes circulated, praise poured in, and some Nigerians hailed Trump as a decisive global sheriff finally willing to act where others hesitated.

But after the initial euphoria settled, a sobering assessment emerged: the strike appeared less like a strategic military intervention and more like a made-for-television spectacle designed to burnish Trump’s international strongman image.

This was not the first time the United States has launched air strikes in Africa or the Sahel under the banner of counterterrorism. From Libya to Somalia, from Syria to Yemen, U.S. “precision strikes” have often been announced with confidence and celebrated with press briefings—only for the targeted groups to regroup, mutate, and, in some cases, expand their reach. In Nigeria itself, years of foreign-backed security assistance have failed to decisively neutralize Boko Haram or its ISIS-affiliated offshoots. Instead, violence has fragmented, spread, and grown more complex.

No verifiable evidence has been produced to confirm high-value ISIS targets were eliminated

The Nigerian strike followed a familiar pattern. U.S. officials framed it as a blow against ISIS-West Africa Province (ISWAP), a group aligned with the global ISIS network. Trump’s language suggested a decisive intervention—an act of muscular diplomacy signaling that America still projects power where it chooses. Yet no verifiable evidence has been produced to confirm high-value ISIS targets were eliminated, leadership structures dismantled, or operational capacity degraded.

What followed was a digital smokescreen. Social media accounts, many anonymous and unverified, began circulating gruesome images of dead bodies and destroyed villages—photos long associated with banditry in Nigeria’s northwest. These images were quickly repurposed to “prove” the success of Trump’s strike. However, this is where the narrative falls apart under scrutiny.

Trump’s mission, as publicly stated, was to target ISIS. Not bandits. Not kidnappers. Not rural criminal gangs. ISIS is a transnational terrorist organization with ideological, financial, and operational links across continents. Bandits, by contrast, are primarily armed criminal groups—motivated by ransom, cattle theft, and territorial control, not global jihad. Conflating the two may be politically convenient, but it is analytically dishonest.

Killing or displacing bandits does not equate to dismantling ISIS. In fact, indiscriminate or poorly targeted air strikes often worsen the situation, pushing criminal groups to radicalize, splinter, or align with extremist factions for protection and legitimacy. This pattern has been observed repeatedly in conflict zones where military force substitutes for intelligence-driven strategy.

A truly successful counterterrorism raid is not measured by dramatic announcements or viral images. It is measured by clear, verifiable outcomes, including the confirmed elimination of high-ranking commanders, disruption of recruitment and financing networks, seizure of weapons caches, and—most importantly—sustained reductions in civilian attacks. None of these benchmarks has been credibly demonstrated in the aftermath of Trump’s Nigerian air strike.

Instead, Nigeria wakes up to the same grim reality: villages remain vulnerable, highways unsafe, and communities terrorized. The strike did not change the security equation. It did not empower Nigerian forces. It did not restore civilian confidence. And it certainly did not neutralize ISIS as a strategic threat.

This air strike offered Nigerians symbolism, not security.

In that sense, the air strike was not merely ineffective—it was a failure dressed in the language of strength, executed for optics, and amplified for political gain. It offered Nigerians symbolism, not security.

If the goal is truly to eliminate ISIS and its affiliates in West Africa, the path is neither theatrical nor unilateral. It requires robust intelligence sharing, sustained training, and real-time coordination with Nigerian and regional forces. It demands targeted arms assistance, logistical support, and investments in surveillance capabilities that allow local militaries to act decisively and lawfully. Above all, it requires a long-term commitment to strengthening state capacity—not fleeting air shows announced from afar.

Bombs alone do not defeat ideology. Precision without intelligence is noise. And celebration without results is self-deception. Trump’s Nigerian air strike may have produced headlines, but history will remember it for what it was: a failed mission masquerading as success.

♦ Publisher of the Guardian News, Professor Anthony Obi Ogbo, Ph.D., is on the Editorial Board of the West African Pilot News. He is the author of the Influence of Leadership (2015)  and the Maxims of Political Leadership (2019). Contact: anthony@guardiannews.us

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Anthony Obi Ogbo

Trump’s Nigeria Strike: Bombs, Boasts, and the Illusion of Victory

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2 weeks ago

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December 26, 2025

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“With Obama, Al-Qaeda was not eliminated by noise; it was suffocated by intelligence.“ —Anthony Obi Ogbo

It has now been confirmed that the United States acted in collaboration with Nigeria in the recent strike on Islamic State elements in northwest Nigeria. That cooperation deserves recognition. Intelligence-sharing between Washington and Abuja is necessary, overdue, and welcome. Terrorism is transnational; defeating it requires allies, not isolation.

But let us be clear: bombs alone do not defeat terror. And Donald Trump’s strike—trumpeted loudly on social media before facts, casualties, or strategy were disclosed—was less a turning point than a performance.

Trump’s announcement was a classic spectacle: “powerful,” “deadly,” “perfect strikes.” No numbers. No clarity. No accountability. Just noise. It was the same choreography America has deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia—places where U.S. airpower landed hard, headlines screamed victory, and instability deepened afterward. Violence escalated. Militancy adapted. Civilians paid the price.

History is unkind to airstrikes sold as solutions.

Nigeria knows this better than anyone. Long before Trump’s tweet, the Nigerian military had already conducted multiple operations in the same terror corridor. At least five major strikes and offensives stand out:

  • First, Operation Hadarin Daji, launched to dismantle bandit and terror camps across Zamfara, Katsina, and Sokoto, involving sustained air and ground assaults.
  • Second, Operation Tsaftan Daji, which targeted terrorist hideouts in the Kamuku and Sububu forests—precisely the terrain now in the headlines.
  • Third, repeated Nigerian Air Force precision strikes in the Zurmi–Shinkafi axis, neutralizing commanders and destroying logistics hubs.
  • Fourth, joint operations with Nigerien forces, disrupting cross-border supply routes used by ISIS-linked groups.
  • Fifth, recent coordinated offensives involving intelligence-led raids, special forces insertions, and follow-up ground clearing in the northwest.

These were not symbolic gestures. They were Nigerian-led, Nigerian-funded, Nigerian-executed. And yet, there were no fireworks on social media. No flag-waving hysteria. No intoxicated praise of Nigerian commanders as saviors of civilization.

Why? Because there is a dangerous segment of Nigerians who suffer from what can only be called the American Wonder mentality—a colonial hangover that applauds anything louder simply because it comes from Washington. The same Nigerians who ignore their own soldiers dying in silence suddenly abandon Christmas meals to celebrate Trump’s tweets, typing incoherent praise, mangling grammar, and mistaking spectacle for substance.

It is embarrassing. And it is intellectually lazy.

Terrorism is not defeated by volume or virality. It is defeated by intelligence—quiet, patient, unglamorous work. The United States knows this. Barack Obama understood it. Al-Qaeda was not dismantled through social media theatrics or chest-thumping declarations. It was weakened through intelligence fusion, financial disruption, targeted operations, local partnerships, and relentless pressure on leadership networks—mostly without fanfare.

Obama did not tweet. He acted. So what actually works against groups like ISIS in Nigeria?

First, intelligence supremacy. Human intelligence from local communities, defectors, and infiltrators matters more than bombs. Terror groups survive on secrecy. Break that, and they collapse.

Second, financial and logistical strangulation. Terrorists run on money, fuel, arms, and food. Cut access to smuggling routes, illicit mining, ransom flows, and cross-border trade, and their operational capacity withers.

Third, community stabilization and governance. Terrorism thrives where the state is absent. Roads, schools, policing, and justice systems matter. People who trust the state do not shelter terrorists.

Fourth, regional coordination, not episodic strikes. Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Burkina Faso must sustain joint pressure, not reactive operations driven by headlines.

Airstrikes can support these strategies—but only as tools, never as substitutes.

Trump’s strike may have killed militants. It may have disrupted camps. That is commendable. But it is not a solution. It is a moment. And moments, without strategy, fade.

If Nigerians truly want terror defeated, they should stop worshiping foreign loudness and start demanding disciplined intelligence, consistent policy, and respect for the men and women already fighting on the ground.

Real victories are quiet. Real security is built, not tweeted.

♦ Publisher of the Guardian News, Professor Anthony Obi Ogbo, Ph.D., is on the Editorial Board of the West African Pilot News. He is the author of the Influence of Leadership (2015)  and the Maxims of Political Leadership (2019). Contact: anthony@guardiannews.us

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Texas’ 18th Congressional District Runoff: Amanda Edwards Deserves This Seat

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3 weeks ago

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December 18, 2025

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“Her persistence and long-term investment make a clear case: she has earned this opportunity.“ —Anthony Obi Ogbo

In the special election to fill Texas’s 18th Congressional District, no candidate won a majority on November 4, 2025, leading to a January 31, 2026, runoff between Democratic frontrunners Christian Menefee and Amanda Edwards. Menefee, Harris County Attorney, led the field with roughly 29% of the vote, while former Houston City Council member Edwards finished second with about 26%. Both are vying to represent a district left vacant after the death of U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner.

The 18th Congressional District is far more than a geographic area. Anchored in Houston’s historic Black communities, it is a political and cultural stronghold shaped by civil rights history, faith institutions, and grassroots activism. Sheila Jackson Lee represented this district for nearly three decades (1995–2024), becoming more than a legislator—she was a constant presence at churches, funerals, protests, and community milestones. For residents, her leadership carried spiritual weight, reflecting stewardship, protection, and a deep, almost pastoral guardianship of the district. Her tenure symbolized continuity, cultural pride, and a profound connection with the people she served.

Houstonians watched as Jackson Lee entered the 2023 Houston mayoral race, attempting to transition from Congress to city leadership. Despite high-profile endorsements, including outgoing Mayor Sylvester Turner and national Democratic figures, she lost the December 9, 2023, runoff to State Senator John Whitmire by a wide margin. Following that defeat, Jackson Lee filed to run for re-election to her U.S. House seat, even as Edwards—who had briefly joined the mayoral race before withdrawing—remained in the congressional primary.

At that time, Jackson Lee’s health was visibly declining, yet voters still supported her, honoring decades of service. She defeated Edwards in the 2024 Democratic primary before announcing her battle with pancreatic cancer. Her passing in July 2024 left the seat vacant.

Edwards, already a candidate, sought to fill the seat, but timing and party rules intervened. Because Jackson Lee died too late for a regular primary, Harris County Democratic Party precinct chairs selected a replacement nominee. Former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, a retired but widely respected figure, narrowly edged out Edwards for the nomination, effectively blocking her despite her prior campaigning efforts. Turner won the general election but died in March 2025, triggering a special election in 2025, in which Edwards advanced to a runoff.

The January 31, 2026, runoff will hinge on turnout, coalition-building, and key endorsements. Both candidates led a crowded November field but fell short of a majority, with Menefee narrowly ahead. Endorsements such as State Rep. Jolanda Jones’ support for Edwards could consolidate key Democratic blocs, particularly among Black women and progressive voters. In a heavily Democratic district where voter confusion and turnout patterns have been inconsistent, the candidate who best mobilizes supporters and unites constituencies is likely to prevail.

Amanda Edwards’ case is compelling. Although both candidates share similar values and qualifications, her claim rests on dedication, consistency, and timing that have been repeatedly denied. She pursued this seat with focus and purpose, maintaining a steady commitment to the district and its future. Her path was interrupted by the prolonged political ambitions of Jackson Lee and Turner—figures whose stature reshaped the race but delayed generational transition. Edwards did not step aside; she remained visible, engaged, and prepared. In a moment demanding both continuity and renewal, her persistence and long-term investment make a clear case: she has earned this opportunity.

This race comes down to trust, perseverance, and demonstrated commitment. Amanda Edwards has consistently shown up for the district, even when political circumstances repeatedly delayed her chance. Her dedication reflects readiness, respect for the electorate, and an unwavering commitment to service. Voting for Amanda Edwards is not only justified—it is the right choice for Houston’s 18th Congressional District.

♦Publisher of the Guardian News, Professor Anthony Obi Ogbo, Ph.D., is on the Editorial Board of the West African Pilot News. He is the author of the Influence of Leadership (2015)  and the Maxims of Political Leadership (2019). Contact: anthony@guardiannews.us

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