By Emmanuel Nnadozie Onwubiko
The rumours swirled around the weekend that the British political leader Mr. Keir Starmer would quit today being Monday June 22nd 2026 and then on Sunday, the 21st of June, the rumours gained a global level of notoriety when the maverick president of the United States of America, Mr. Donald John Trump posted in his Truth Social media that the Britism Prime Minister would resign in the next twenty four hours and the American president assessed his time as Prime minister of Great Britain as too weak and very poor on the major issues of checking immigration and the economy.
Then when Monday June 22nd 2026 came, the British Prime minister removed every doubts hanging around the rumours that he was preparing to go by announcing his resignation from the office of the PM of Great Britain. Few weeks back, when the Labour Party lost the local council poll massively, the calls for the PM to quit started to gain prominence. The PM stood his ground and refused to go. Then what follows was remarkable. Three or four of his Cabinet level appointees left him after demanding to his face that he should resign from office of the PM of Great Britain. The announcement that he has decided to leave, has automatically become the cover page news all around the globe.
The below is how the British Broadcasting corporation summed up the development in Great Britain this Monday thus:
•Keir Starmer resigns as prime minister and leader of the Labour Party;
•In a statement outside 10 Downing Street, the PM says his party has been asking whether he’s “best placed to lead us into the next general election”, adding: “I have heard the answer”
•He says that every decision he has made in office has been about “putting the country I love first” – key points from the statement
•Visibly emotional, the PM thanks his “fantastic wife, Vic”, describing her as his “rock”, and says he wants to be the “best dad I can to my beautiful children”
•What happens now? Starmer says he’ll remain in post until Labour chooses a new leader, which he’s asked the party’s governing body to ensure happens “before Parliament returns in September” and importantly,
•Andy Burnham – who could replace the PM – will be in Westminster today to be sworn in as MP for Makerfield, after winning a by-election last week.
This summarisation of the resignation of the British Prime minister encompasses the eternal virtue of the British or Western style democracy which is openness, transparency and accountability but above all, what this demonstrate is that the British political system is heavily clothed in integrity and the moment the holder of the public office such as the PM is experiencing personal integrity or credibility deficit, the next best thing that has to happen is for that person to quit the office.
However, as a Nigerian, I asked myself that supposing the British Prime minister is the Nigerian political leader what will he do when his popularity, integrity and acceptability begin to wane.
The truth is obvious. If Keir Starmer is a Nigerian leader, he will do a number of things beginning from that time few weeks ago when some of his cabinet level appointees started questioning his leadership by resigning from the cabinet.
If Keir Starmer is a Nigerian, he would have directed the anti-corruption enforcement agencies to scrutinise the financial records of his ministers who disgraced him by quitting the cabinet and demanding that he quits. The anti-corruption agencies will work in full force to find just anything incriminating to deal a moral blow to these ministers who disgraced the political leader.
The anti-corruption agencies will also go to work and even if some of the ministers could not defend how an amount as small as N50,000 was spent in his office, the person would he automatically arrested and disgraced in the media before multiple charges would be filed in the courts of law that are actually too weak not to do the bidding of the nation’s political head of state.
But before sending his attack dogs to go after those ministers who walked out on him, the Nigerian ‘Keir Starmer’ would have dangled thousands of raw dollars or Pounds in cash as bribes to make the ministers change their minds just so he can hang on in power.
Then the Nigerian ‘Keir Starmer’ would use the ministers who are loyal to him to hire amorphous groups to organise press conferences condemning the calls for the leader to quit. These groups would then blame those ministers quitting for not working so hard for the ruling party to win the local elections and they would also say that the failure of the ruling party to win the Local council elections should be blamed on those running the party in those councils whereby the party lost the last local election.
Then the Nigerian ‘Keir Starmer’ will send armed thugs to disruption the by-election that his possible successor is tipped to win so the strong contender for his office under his political party can’t have the opportunity to get to parliament and pose a challenge to his political leadership of that country. The Nigerian ‘Keir Starmer’ will also hire protesters to demand that he does not resign even as they would say that he is the greatest leader of their nation of all times and then condemn those demanding the PM’s resignation as public enemies.
The Nigerian ‘Keir Starmer’ will never resign from office even if his ministers are all asking him to go but of course, ministers in Nigeria do not have minds of their own and are stooges of the political leader. Besides, the National Assembly is made up of ‘O’ yes men and women even when they do not belong to the same party but what matters to them is that bribes have been distributed from acolytes of the embattled political leader. So they will oppose any ca for the leader to quit.
Luckily, Keir Starmer is British and not a Nigerian politician.
*EMMANUEL NNADOZIE ONWUBIKO, is the founder of the HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) and was NATIONAL COMMISSIONER OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF NIGERIA.
