The timing of the Maiduguru Bombings And The Synchronicity Of Opposition Voices Calling For A Cancellation of President Tinubu’s UK State Visit Is Suspicious!
Since the return to civil rule in 1999, terror attacks have always increased in intensity as elections draw closer. This is because they are actually political rather than religious. Ask yourself this question: Which true Muslim will attack other Muslims without provocation during the holy month of Ramadan?
Some political actors have seen that the single greatest diplomatic feat that Nigeria has ever achieved in thirty-seven years was about to happen—the state visit by President Bola Tinubu to the United Kingdom on the invitation of His Royal Majesty, King Charles III.
This singular honour is worthy of particular mention, given that in the last ten years, the United Kingdom has had approximately ten inbound state visits, with one held roughly every year.
Brimming with envy over the economic fest President Bola Tinubu has achieved in Nigeria, with twelve cycles of GDP growth and trade surpluses, culminating in Nigeria being the sixth-largest contributor to global GDP growth in 2025, a fact celebrated by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, given their past comments and actions, it is not beyond President Tinubu’s opponents to take extraordinary steps.
Economically, these individuals cannot fault President Tinubu. They were all in Nigeria on Tuesday, February 3, 2026, when the Managing Director of Operations of the World Bank, Anna Bjerde, said, “Nigeria is a frequent example in my discussions with people around the world, presidents around the world, policymakers around the world, investors around the world, because I think in these two years, the results that have been achieved are really commendable.”
The above is a direct quote.
When you consider someone like Peter Obi, who last year and the year before vociferously called on Nigeria to copy Argentina’s reforms, and then deleted all his social media posts where he made such calls, after the Argentine economy collapsed (check his social media timelines. He, out of a guilty conscience, has deleted those posts), you begin to understand the extent of the economic cluelessness of the opposition.
The reason why the British Monarch invited our President for a State Visit is because of the steady social and economic progress that has been achieved in Nigeria under President Tinubu, who has added $67 billion to Nigeria’s GDP, moving us from a ₦269.29 trillion economy on May 29, 2023, when he became President, to ₦372.8 trillion today.
Additionally, this is even as the total market capitalisation of the Nigerian Exchange, which stood at ₦27.915 trillion on December 30, 2022, before President Tinubu, hit ₦122 trillion in January 2026, which we thought was unprecedented. That is almost five times what it was before President Tinubu was elected.
But what we thought was unprecedented has now been precedented, with the All Share Index hitting the 200,000-point mark on Monday, March 16, 2026.
Faced with such undeniable economic progress, which has seen the World Bank upwardly revise its economic growth projection for Nigeria to 4.4% in 2026, President Tinubu’s opponents are in crisis.
And when you situate the sudden return of bombings in Maiduguri, after that ugly trend had been stemmed under the Tinubu administration, and particularly the fact that it took place on Monday, March 16, 2026, two days before the start of the President’s State Visit to the United Kingdom, alarm bells begin to go up in your mind.
This is more so when you consider the speed at which the President’s opponents rushed to the social space and the media with attacks on the President, rather than the terrorists, who perpetrated the act. Then, calling on him to cancel his State Visit appears to be amiss.
It was rather like they were waiting, even prepared for this. Within hours of the explosions, they released statements and had their mouthpieces on morning TV talk shows, repeating the keywords: “Cancel the State Visit.”
The whole thing looked scripted and coordinated. It was almost, and dare I say it, as if that was the target of the bombings!
How can a man, who said he saw nothing wrong with what Nnamdi Kanu did, now turn around and question why the President went ahead with his State Visit?
Nnamdi Kanu gave a broadcast calling for the same things that occurred in Maiduguri on Monday to happen in Lagos in November 2020.
If what happened in Maiduguri is bad, and it is, then where do you come off saying Nnamdi Kanu is innocent?
And the President was right not to cancel the August event. You know why?
If these people had been able to intimidate and manipulate the President not to go for this State Visit, which has already achieved so much for Nigeria, the next time the country is about to achieve something great, there would be another explosion, because they would have known that that is what they have to do to stop the country from progressing.
So, I call on the nation’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies not to let this seeming coincidence go uninvestigated. Investigate properly to find out if there is a nexus between the terrorists who did this and the politicians who took advantage of their actions.
After all, a local parlance says the witch flew last night, and the baby died in the morning. The parent of such a demised child would be most reckless not to investigate the linkage between both events.
Reno Omokri
Ambassador Designate to Mexico. Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #TableShaker. #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years. Hodophile. Hollywood Magazine Humanitarian of the Year, 2019. Business Insider Influencer of the Year, 2022. 21st Most Talked About Person in Africa, 2024.
