The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Optimum wage; refineries; drownings

    Optimum wage; refineries; drownings

    Hurray, Imo State has followed some other states and has increased minimum wage from N70k to N104k, Ebonyi State increased minimum wage to N90k. Government sets the minimum wage and often it is not the optimum wage required for a wage earner to live a normal life without having to get a second job. It is well known that the N70k is not adequate to exist especially when it is realised that it does not even fill the petrol tank of an average car and over half of it will be spent by the worker merely trying to get to work on the 20 working days in the month. All other governors must do as much or better to lift the economy at the local level.

    We agree that the federal government’s macro-economic measures are working and that perhaps the worst of the financial pain is over. However, more state governments and LGAs should join in to increase availability of funds not for politicians, but at the grassroots by paying an optimum, not minimum wage, to all government workers. This will force a rise in the salaries paid to private sector workers and help compensate for the crash in the value of the naira.              

    Congratulations to all young winners of sports and academic prizes and especially Nafisa Abdullah Aminu, the Teeneagle Global Champion. Education, Education, Education in all areas including computer use and Artificial Intelligence are vital to secure the future for each and every one of our teeming youth in and out of school. We must spend the over N100+billion UBEC unspent funds wasting away  and encourage corporate Nigeria and the ETF and PTAs and Old Students Associations at primary and secondary and tertiary levels to get more involved in quality education infrastructure.

    Certainly, reward successful students in order to encourage them but we are responsible for the useful education of many millions. Crime can be committed by the educated and the uneducated and it is a crime on the part of government not to educate them adequately to their full cerebral and social potential.

    The NNPC Plc announcement that ‘long term neglect hinders refinery revamp’ is correct but it is common knowledge. It also demonstrates the demon on the backs of Nigerians since forever.

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    Fortunately, our new NNPCL board is pointing to the truth. But how much of this truth was deliberate neglect, sabotage or corruption or all three together responsible? This would have been prevented if we had in place a past good honest greedless leadership and a compulsory annual forensic financial and technical audit which should have quickly alerted monitoring authorities to the crimes long before they crippled the country. Nigeria’s losses in prestige, indices of transparency and stolen funds are not calculable in currency but they are in human progress and SDGs-Sustainable Development Goals. The trauma inflicted on the citizenry by the 40 year ‘Turn Around Maintenance’, ‘TAM Scam’, full of hope, sadly signifying nothing, has victims in every home and on street corner in Nigeria, victims deprived by the theft of that money and loss of the use of the petroleum products not produced. A theft of our patrimony, our golden fleece, lost because some preferred a mess of pottage.

    When politicians steal, they actually believe and laughingly say ‘it is not your father’s money’ or ‘has your father lost some money?’ However, it is our fathers’ money and our inheritance in every budget. There is no ‘nobody’s money’ in Nigerian government budgets.

    Just because you do not see the blood of Nigeria’s victims of corruption does stop you from seeing the sorrowful soul of the suffering masses in the eyes and poorly clad bodies and poor upward development of the street people you pass every day. Yes, they laugh and joke because corruption and poverty diminish but do not deprive them of moments of pleasure from a joke or the company of a loving family or friends.

    When is corruption enough; when is corruption at a dangerous level and when will it give way to good governance in the interest of citizen and national survival of even the corrupt individuals -10, 20, 40%? What really happened to the money annually allocated to the now infamous recurring budget ‘TAM’ Scam? While we applaud the current board of management for stating the well know obvious, we must ask if this board has introduced the preventive measures necessary QUARTERLY FORENSIC AUDITS, FINANCIAL ALARMS AND to make NNPCL operate successfully like other similar organisations worldwide?

    The greater fear is that a new government in future may, for greed-sake, introduce a low morality board to reverse any positives from this board. That is our collective fear because abuse, misuse of petroleum resources has been the single most destructive and regressive event hindering the development of the citizens and the country in the past. Will it continue to prevent our progress in the future? We must work and pray that the benefits of the petroleum industry reach all of us and not just a few, as it was in the past up to the very recent past.

    Sokoto loses 100 to another canoe accident. Do we learn no lessons? It would appear that the repeated request for citizens in the canoes to wear life jackets and for no action to be taken is a failure of governance to protect youth from their parents if children were involved. 

  • Dessert for El Rufai

    Dessert for El Rufai

    Last Saturday, the petit enfant terrible that governed Kaduna State for eight years, from 2015 to 2023, Malam Nasir el-Rufai, raised alarm that his successor, Governor Uba Sani, whom he called his godson, was responsible for the political violence that marred a rally he organized to foster the opposition parties in the state. According to media reports, thugs invaded the ceremony, for the official inauguration of the transition committee, jointly set up by opposition parties in the state. El Rufai accused the state governor of sponsoring terrorism.

    While not sympathetic to El Rufai considering his past records, this column condemns all forms of political violence. But we must recall that as governor of Kaduna State, El Rufai ruled like a sovereign potentate, and he treated his victims worse than subjects. The former governor confessed that he paid cross-border herders from neighbouring countries to stop killings in southern Kaduna, instead of bringing them to account. According to him, he told his emissaries to inform the criminals that one of their own, a Fulani, the late President Muhammadu Buhari, had become the president and they should stop the killing.

    But did the killings stop? It didn’t. In fact, it got worse, and instead of showing empathy to the victims, he criminalized them, and made them look like the aggressors. He framed the killings as reprisals and revenge attacks, especially in Kajuru and Kachia local government councils. But interestingly, since Governor Uba Sani took over, the killings have stopped, and even markets closed for many years have been reopened. So what could have led to the return of peace in the communities after the exit of the former governor?

    While the crisis lasted, many indigenes of the affected communities viewed El Rufai as an enabler of the crisis. The Southern Kaduna People’s Union (SOKAPU) on the eve of the 2019 general election raised such alarm. In February, 24 hours to the 2019 polls, they said “The attention of the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU) has been drawn to a report credited to Governor Nasir Ahmad El Rufai over alleged killing of 66 Fulani in Kajuru Local Government Area.”

    They went on: “We are at a loss as to the real motive behind the governor’s disclosure, made public less than 24 hours before the commencement of national polls that were postponed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).” They continued “We are of the view that El Rufai’s comments over Kajuru killings was deliberately orchestrated to inflame ethnic and religious sentiments to produce yet another cycle of bloodshed.” The leaders accused El Rufai of lying about any killing of Fulanis, and accused him of being silent about the actual killing of Adara natives in Ungwar Barde, in Kufana District of Kajuru Local Council.

    The leaders didn’t spare the former governor. In their words “Arising from the above, SOKAPU is shocked at the deliberate falsehood by El Rufai who found it convenient not to inform the world of an earlier attack that claimed lives of 11 Adara natives. SOKAPU is convinced that Governor El Rufai is on an irrevocable journey of inflaming ethnic conflagration that has always been in line with his deliberate chronicle of profiling Southern Kaduna people as favorably disposed to violence.”

    The group claimed that El Rufai was instigating the crisis for political gains. While on one of his visits to the scene of the killings, El Rufai promised to set up a judicial panel of inquiry, which he later did after several months, and sounded sympathetic. He said “It is very sad that people that had lived together side by side for hundreds of years have suddenly started killing one another.” He went on “It is not in our culture, our religion to permit anyone to kill. All those who engage in these are not godly people but godless people, they are neither Muslims nor Christians.”

    Hearing El Rufai sound sanctimonious, one would think that his regime was driven by fairness while he governed the state. That indeed, he had regards for all citizens of his state, regardless of their tribe or faith. But far from that, El Rufai governed the state as a very divisive person, who cared more about winning election at all cost. While justifying his choice of a fellow Muslim as deputy, when all previous governors had shown concern for religious plurality in the state, he spoke derogatorily about the people concerned.

    Speaking to Channels Television, el-Rufai said “what if I tell you that no matter who I choose as my running mate, even if I choose the Pope, 67 per cent of Christians in Southern Kaduna have made up their minds that they will never vote for me.” Clearly el-Rufai was a very reckless and insensitive fellow, who cared not, whose ox was gored. Yet by some accounts, the Christian population is about half of the population in the state.     

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    In the eyes of the law, El Rufai can be properly prosecuted for aiding and abetting terrorism while he was governor of Kaduna State. Some of his opponents who are of the same faith with him, suffered similar abuses like southern Kaduna Christians. Renowned activist and former senator Shehu Sani, calls El Rufai a very divisive fellow, and he believes that the state is safer since his tenure ended. He accused the former governor of engaging in mass sackings, property demolitions and flagrant disobedience of court orders.

    Shehu Sani, wrote El Rufai off, as a “midget professor” and said that “out of power, he is sanctimoniously preaching democracy to the country he helped to wreck, plundered, and persecuted”. He went on: “He demonized the opposition when in the palace and now embraces them in the wilderness.” No doubt, El Rufai is a shifty politician, when it comes to loyalty. He was brought to limelight by former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, but when it suited him, he aligned with former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, to persecute his former benefactor.

    When last week, El Rufai accused his successor of sponsoring terrorism, many waited for a bombshell of evidence. Rather, he said he would submit the evidence to the police if given the chance. One hopes it is not his usual bluff, otherwise why would he wait to present the evidence before the court of public opinion. If he could make such a weighty allegation, without waiting for police investigation, he ought to present his evidence bare, without hesitation.     

    The people of Southern Kaduna, and others, who bore the brunt of several alleged terrorist acts, linked to the ill-tempered governance of El Rufai, as Kaduna State governor, must be amused that the hunter has become the hunted. They would call it, his just dessert. It is also alleged that his poor records as governor, made President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, drop him as a ministerial nominee. Clearly, El Rufai will still pay a lot more price for his time in power as Kaduna State governor.

  • Broken record

    Broken record

    The one they call Ebora Owu lives the reality of a broken record. Tearing others down  echoes his broken public life, when the subject is not brazen service of self.

    Might his core then be rot, since he sees nothing but rot in others?  Only one full of rot would see only rot in others, over all seasons, in every material particular. 

    Indeed, former President Olusegun Obasanjo ticks all the sickening, stinking boxes, in flamboyant rot.  He, the wannabe Pope of public sector morality, is the very epitome of that harsh Biblical put down: a whited sepulchre, rotten within, glittering without!

    His latest sickly pastime confirms it all: the release of a book, Nigeria: Past and Future, to mark his 88 years, though his birthday was in March.

    In that book, he claimed the late Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) was the worst president since 1999; and that incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT) waits, with bated breath, to topple Buhari’s record, just two years into own tenure!

    That’s rich — isn’t it? — coming from a fella whose wayward regime of naked power, powered by holy sleaze, set his PDP on a steady and progressive push to Golgotha!

    Still, if PMB and PBAT are power never-do-wells, and poor President Goodluck Jonathan got crushed by Obasanjo-era systemic sleaze, and the ill-fated Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was too ill to do what Obasanjo dragooned him to do, then who is the best of all times?

    No prize for guessing right: His Excellency, Holy and Immaculate Olusegun Obasanjo, Efficient and Effective, All Wise and All Glorious, Competent and Compassionate!

    Yet, history would reduce his name — and fairly so — to twin-emblems of brazen self-service: Obasanjo Farms Nigeria (OFN) and Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) — both of suspect moral provenance.

    For starters, both are glittering personal trophies from his two tours of duty, first as military junta head (1976-1979), and, as elected President (1999-2007). 

    Then, both are clear policy ambuscades to glorious state capture.  The grund norm of both is the Land Use Decree (now Land Use Act). 

    With the Land Use Act, Obasanjo gamed a huge parcel of land nation-wide (for OFN: incidentally, the twin-abbreviation for his military-era Operation Feed the Nation, OFN); and, in Abeokuta, for his OOPL, his end-term presidential racket.

    As sitting President, for his OOPL — first in Africa! — he proceeded to launch the most bare-faced executive extortion in contemporary Nigeria. 

    Yes, he called it “donation”: president and commander-in-chief — and sitting Oil minister to boot! — glaring down the cream of Nigerian Oil and Gas, opportunistic bankers, brow-beaten PDP state governors, and the emergent local investor class, with sharp eyes for sweetheart deals, coaxing them all to “donate”!

    Such blatant extortion, powered by the most unconscionable abuse of office, is yet to be matched by anyone.  On that, history would be brutally frank, when this generation is long gone.  Yet, Obasanjo tags others “corrupt”!

    But back to his finger-pointing on PMB.  

    Which of the two, for instance, is more public-spirited — even in the eye of a pumpkin, in the Laderin neighbourhood, of Obasanjo’s native Abeokuta?

    The one whose name gloriously adorns a crass business centre for gross personal gain — Obasanjo?  Or the one that silently erected a humming train station, named for Prof. Wole Soyinka, and sworn to total public comfort — PMB?

    That, of course, is the fundamental difference between both: PMB “hurried” with whatever good he had to do — though Obasanjo tagged him “Baba Go Slow” — and bowed out in a blaze of glory.  He made own mistakes, though.

    The tagger, on the other hand, is self-condemned to traducing others, all his very long life; hoping, fasting and praying that others’ “rot”, from his cynical mouth, would bury the putrid stench from own obvious decay, though he were holy Pope.  Nice try!

    Even then, a very special gift from his creator: in Obasanjo’s very eyes, all the tinsel he had packaged as gold would badly unravel, even as he busies himself seeing only the bad in others — before his maker calls him home!  It’s a bond he has with fate!

    All that is playing out in the current PDP misfortune.  It’s grand irony, though: the Great Seer and Grand Visionary, that led that party down that path of perdition, sees nothing!

    Still, you must know: Obasanjo’s obsession with running down others, but exulting self, dated back to 1990, when he released Not My Will, if you discount My Command,(1980), his Civil War tales by the moonlight, in which he framed himself the sole war super-hero.

    But in Not My Will, he went a reckless step further, when he openly mocked — callow, hollow youth! — the great Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s failure to attain federal power, the same power, he bragged, a military junta handed him on a virtual platter!

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    Still, after three years of junta power, and eight years of huff-and-puff presidency; and he still has to drone, now and then, to corral relevance, he is finding out, the bitter way, that greatness hardly correlates donkey years in power.

    The Awo that Obsanjo mocked — after his death, as his latest drivel does PMB — governed the Yoruba-majority Western Region for a scant seven years (1952-1959).  Yet, he turned the place into an irreversible force for good and progress, which still makes it the most prosperous and livable part of all Nigeria.

    Contrast that to Obasanjo’s cumulative 11 power years, and all he is leaving behind are OFN (more, the cynical policy gaming; less, the pristine farming policy); and OOPL — both bawling and screeching the sweet arrogance of self-service! 

    Why, even the rotten provenance of OOPL now attracts a rotten clientele, with EFCC securing conviction for a rash of 419 racketeers using its poolside as merry base! The shallow clearly call to the shallow, just as Awo’s deep called to the deep!

    Awo needed no eternity to put down others.  All he did, with his razor-sharp policies, from his cutting-edge intellect, was hauling up millions, in glorious social democracy!

    On Obasanjo/PMB, history would even be harsher.  For OBJ’s OFN and OOPL, PMB left sundry life-saving public works, to serve Nigerians — and in a season of no cash too: cash earlier finagled during the Obasanjo and PDP ancien regime!

    The taciturn PMB even taught the garrulous OBJ quiet lessons in president/vice-president relations and sane elections; talk less of basic decorum in relations: mutual respect among peers.

    Pray, which military senior or junior hasn’t OBJ abused or traduced with his fashionable rudeness, promoted as high morality?  Gen. Yakubu Gowon?  IBB?  Who?

    It’s the sad tale of avid teacher, lousy learner.  He’s so anxious — arrogant, even — to teach.  But beyond conceit, he has pretty little to impart.  All he projects is he’s too big to learn!  So, how can you teach much, if you had so little in the tank?

    Public-spirited donors must turn the Buhari Centre into a true store of institutional memory, of rich public service — a thunderous rebuke of that loud fakery in Abeokuta.

    In his wild attack on President Tinubu, Obasanjo trained his cynical guns on the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway.  But don’t be fooled, it’s same rotten strategy: bad-mouth legacy projects because you boast none!  Besides, the old blackmail that “PMB-knows-no-economics” is gone!  PBAT appears master of that forte.

    The post Obasanjo/PDP grapes are sour — really sour!  But Obasanjo forgets spite never vitiates the sweetness of honey!

  • Hausa Day celebration and president’s challenge

    Hausa Day celebration and president’s challenge

    The Hausa language day was celebrated by about 24 countries including Nigeria Tuesday, August 26. Back in Daura Zaria, “the event showcased Hausa heritage through music, dance, traditional attire, and a rich culinary experience that reflects the hospitality for which Katsina people are known.” In spite of this new re-awakening here in Nigeria where the term ‘Hausa/Fulani” was coined by Fulani occupying powers to give a misleading impression of shared cultural and social history, it is a sad reminder of our failure to faithfully address this major cause of social dislocation in the north.

    Hausa as we have seen is beyond language. It has a rich culture and glorious origin. Initially known as the Hausa Bakwai or the true seven Hausa states, it was made up of Biram, Daura, Gobir, Katsina Rano and Zaria (also called Zazzau) who, without centralizing power, formed a thriving trade network in the north from the 11th century.

    It was an attempt to resist the control of the conquering power that jihad imposed after their subjugation between 1804 and 1808 that is responsible for what is today becoming a civil war in the north. Unfortunately leaders who should bring these irreconcilable warring groups into conciliation through sincere recognition of the problem have decided to play the ostrich having become the main beneficiaries of their peoples’ tragedy.

    The Rao Fulani (the town Fulani) control political and economic power in the north. It is widely believed they encouraged and exploited the innermost fears of the Bororo (bush Fulani), who are behind current terrorism against indigenous Hausa farmers they accused of converting the traditional grazing route to farm lands and of rustling their cattle. Here we recall late President Buhari’s minister of defence who, following mindless massacre of scores in Benue told reporters, “When you block the grazing route, what do you expect?”

    The allegation against the town Fulani is not helped by the outburst of Bello Turji Kachalla (now eliminated by our security forces), a notorious Nigerian terrorist and bandit leader who was born in Shinkafi Local Government where he grew up as Fulani cattle herder without education. He was personally held responsible for the death of nearly 200 innocent people, including women and children. He admitted taking to war because he could not get justice over the rustling of his family cows and the murder of his six siblings by “Yan Sakia” government supported group.

    Another Fulani warlord also came out during BBC African Eye documentary not too long ago to attribute their mindless killings of subsistence farmers to closing down of traditional grazing routes and systematic exclusion of Fulani from government jobs and other economic opportunities.

    While those who had the power to change the fortune of these poor and marginalized Fulani continue to exploit their fears to remain politically relevant, there was also the  Hausa farming community vigilantes of Kurfa Dunya who swore during the same interview  that because  200 men, women, and children were killed  by their Fulani ethnic rivals, “If allowed, we will kill every Fulani man, even in the town, because they killed our mothers, our fathers, our children, and dumped their bodies here”.

    And if you are still wondering those behind the Hausa farming community group threatening to kill every Fulani in sight, all you need to do is a critical analysis of Ibrahim Dosara’s (former Zamfara Commissioner for information during  Matawalle’s administration and now his special adviser on information) during his last week appearance on Olajumoke Olatunji’s “TVC Politics Today show”.

    He had nothing good to say about Governor Dauda Lawal despite acknowledgments by some journalists and ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo that the governor has within two years changed the fortune of (“a state of three million population, 23 hospitals with 23 doctors, 300 public primary schools manned by a single teacher each while many others in remote rural have no teachers”.

    The only take away from the politics of Ibrahim Dosara who had as Matawalle’s commissioner of information, traced the origin of banditry in the state’s to the conflict between the Fulani and Hausa communities resulting in 2, 619 deaths, 1,190 abducted and 14,378 livestock rustled with 100,000 people displaced from their ancestral homes between 2011 and 2015, was his insistence that the way forward is for President Tinubu “to read the riot act to the Council of Ulama, the Council of traditional rulers and the warring politicians”.

    We cannot disagree with Dosara who is an insider since even as outsiders we have watched in dismay as governors of besieged northern states openly traded off the hopes of those who look up to them for direction for self-preservation.

    Ahmed Sani Yerima chose to exploit the religion and ethnic differences of the people for a temporary political gain. On October 27, 1999, he introduced Sharia law in breach of the constitution. Some of the northern youths he sent for indoctrination under Osama Ben Laden who was then taking refuge in Sudan were believed to have formed the nucleus of today’s bandits and insurgents in the north.

    Abdulaziz Yari, his godson was dragged to court by Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) where he lost N700m when the court “held he could not prove how he got the funds while or before serving as governor of Zamfara State between May 29, 2011, and May 29, 2019.”

    If Matawalle according to Dosara has been cleared of corruption by the high powered panel headed by the Ribadu, the National Security Adviser, he is still in court to defend his honour over his indictment by a panel of inquiry for allegedly taking about 40 vehicles from office at the end of his tenure.

    Every successive governor of Benue in the last 20 years have after each mindless massacre come out to speak of genocide, persecution of Christians by Muslims, attempt  by invaders to take over rich luxuriant Benue land etc. While saying the obvious, they pretend not to know that the insect that feeds on the vegetable lives inside the vegetable.

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    As for Plateau, there was the May 19, 2013 dialogue facilitated by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue attended   by 93, members of the Fulani communities in Plateau. The gathering rejected the labels of ‘strangers and settlers’ insisting that ownership of land has for long been taken away by the Land Use Act and the same vested on states government. Their final submission: “there is no law in Nigeria that allows any person or groups of persons to identify some persons as strangers or settlers and no law equally allows any persons or group of persons to identify themselves as indigenes of a place”.

    There is no record of any Plateau leader challenging these claims .Yet with periodic harvest of deaths, more displaced people joining IDP camps and even after escaping death by the whiskers following attack on their persons, successive Plateau governors would still pretend not to know those behind the nightmare of their people.

    The story of Benue, Plateau and even Bauchi, where the non-Fulani governors in order to be in good book of Fulani hegemonic ruling class says ‘all Fulani from West Africa can claim citizenship of Nigeria, is the story of all the states in the north. Besides frittering away of billions by Katsina’s Aminu Masari and Kaduna’s Nasir El Rufai to appease they identified  as Fulani terrorists, none of them had the political will to confront the terrorist sponsors, exploiting ethnic and religion for political survival.

    I think Dosara is right to have challenged the president. And I think from his daring moves, bold and tough decisions, in the last two years, President Tinubu who claimed to have spent 20 years preparing for his job, is sufficiently equipped to understand that banditry, kidnapping for ransom and terrorism are symptoms of crisis of nation building, best resolved through elite consensus if the nation is too stop drifting.

    Everyone was shocked when the president on the eve of his visit to condole with the people of Benue following mindless killings by Fulani terrorists directed the governor to go back home and reconcile with his people. With all the rage and condemnation of the terrorists and their sponsors, they, like the terrorized, remain citizens of the besieged northern states. They both don’t have anywhere to go. But with the support of the president, they can reach a compromise which is “the highest badge of honour in a federation”.

  • One derailment, too many

    One derailment, too many

    Last Tuesday’s derailment of an Abuja-Kaduna bound train shortly after take-off, has again raised concerns on regular maintenance of rail infrastructure and other critical national investments. The train left the Idu station, Abuja around 11am en route Kaduna but suddenly went off its track between Kubwa and Asham stations overturning some of its cabins.

    It was a scene of pandemonium as passengers struggled to escape some of the overturned cabins. Those lucky to escape unhurt were seen running in different directions, apparently for fear of the unknown in the bushy surroundings the accident happened.

    Emergency rescue services were quickly activated by the relevant agencies. This saw to the quick arrival of medical personnel, rescue services and the full compliment of security operatives. The Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau said at the venue of the incident that six passengers sustained injuries with no casualty recorded.

    But the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) put the casualty figure at seven. The agency said first aid was administered to the injured at the scene before they were transferred to the hospital. Details of the cause of the accident are still foggy. An investigative committee was quickly constituted by the Minister of Transport, Said Alkali.

    Curiously even before the committee began its probe, the Managing Director of Nigeria Railways Corporation (NRC), Kayode Opeifa has taken full responsibility for the incident. “Beyond apologies to Nigerians, I want to state clearly as the MD and Chief Executive, I take full responsibility. When it comes to safety, there is no room for indifference, the chief executive owns it and I do” he said in an interview.

    Yes, the buck stops at his table as the chief executive of the organisation. But in the instance case where an investigative panel has been set up for the purpose, it is premature for the MD to assume full responsibility for the incident when the cause is yet to be established.

    The issue in question is an accident case. In matters of this nature that could have a number of causative factors, some outside the control of the chief executive, it is only proper for the committee to complete its job before culpability could be established. Only then will it be appropriate for anyone to assume responsibility for his acts of omission or commission.

    Train derailment could result from technical failure, faulty or cracked tracks misaligned rails and worn out ties. It could equally be as a result of poor maintenance or outright sabotage. Some of these factors may be outside the control of a chief executive which should instruct a measure of caution in trading blames and assigning culpability.

    The matter really goes beyond blind assumption of responsibility unless the chief executive already nurses some idea regarding what could have led to the incident. Or is there a link between his admission and the allegation by a former senator from Kaduna State, Shehu Sani that the accident was a direct consequence of neglect?

    Sani had said passengers had for months been complaining about the wobbling rail tracks but nobody paid attention to such alerts until the incident happened. If this allegation holds any water, then one can understand the haste with which the NRC MD rushed into accepting responsibility for the incident.

    That is not all there is to the matter. The Kaduna-Abuja rail line, as one of Nigeria’s most active corridor patronised by the high and the low is not new to derailments. In March 2022, terrorists attacked an Abuja-Kaduna bound train with Improvised Explosive Device (IED) at Katari, Kaduna State causing it to derail and overturn.

    The bandits shot indiscriminately killing many of the passengers and abducting others. They held some of the captives for months releasing those able to pay the ransom they demanded. It even took negotiations between the federal government through Sheikh Ahmad Gumi for all the captives to be released. Before then, bandits had severally attacked the same train service without breaking through.

    In May last year, a passenger train from Rigasa station, Kaduna derailed at Jere station. It departed with 685 passengers and crew on board. A month later, another derailment occurred when an Abuja-Kaduna bound train suffered similar fate with three of its coaches overturned.

    The NRC later laid the blame for one of the accidents on vandals. It said in a statement that the train experienced minor technical hitch at Asham station in the Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State. It attributed the minor hitch to the removal of track fastening clips by vandals.

    The derailment is not limited to the Kaduna-Abuja bound train services. In January 2019, a Lagos-bound mass transit train derailed at Ashade killing one passenger. These represent just a few of such train accidents. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that between 2019 and 2025, there have been 188 trail derailments around the country’s train corridors.

    Even then, the NRC admitted that between 2022 and 2023 more then 50,000 rail clips were stolen from the Lagos-Ibadan, Warri-Itakpe and Abuja-Kaduna rail lines respectively. It is Little surprising the high incidence of train derailments across the country.

    These incidents raise questions about the nation’s huge investments in the rail transport system; regular maintenance of the rail lines and other strategic national infrastructure. The Federal Executive Council had in August 2022 approved over N718 million in contracts to secure the Abuja-Kaduna corridor.

    Two security outfits received the sum of N407 million and N310 million respectively. They were each to protect 27.4 kilometres of tracks and eight stations and 18 kilometres of track and four stations over two years. The volume clips’ removal and the regular derailments within this time frame and beyond raise questions as to the efficacy of these security contracts in manning the rail tracks.

     Nigeria’ hope for an efficient and modern transport system is largely predicated on a modernized rail transport system. This thinking is supported by the economy of scale that goes with a modernised rail transportation system.

    Apart from being the easiest and most efficient means of conveying bulk goods across the nation’s vast landmass, efficient train services will draw large passenger patronage as seen in the Abuja-Kaduna rail corridor. It is cheaper and will save our roads the regular damage they face due to the pressure from large trucks conveying bulk goods. The federal government stands to save the huge funds deployed to road maintenance after each rainy season and enhance their durability.

    Government’s modernisation of its rail transport system is largely anchored on loans from the China Exim Bank which is executed through one of that country’s construction giants. In the 2024 budget, the federal government allocated N33.1 billion for various rail projects.

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    This included the completion of Abuja-Kaduna and the Lagos-Ibadan rail lines as well as the rehabilitation of the Itakpe-Ajaokuta line. Additionally, lawmakers allocated N400 billion in the 2025 budget for light rail projects in four states- Kano, Kaduna, Ogun and Lagos.

    The government is also said to have been provided with the proof-of-fund for an ambitious $60 billion high-speed rail network with Chinese partners that promises on completion, to revolutionise rail transport system. The high-speed rail network is primed to connect all key economic corridors across the country.

    These underscore the high premium the government places on rail modernisation and development. But these high-minded goals may not produce the right results in the face of the constant train derailments due to technical failures arising from poor maintenance culture, vandalization and sabotage on account of the cascading insecurity and associated inefficiencies.

    The high number of track clips stolen between 2022 and 2023 from three rail lines point to the absence of effective security monitoring in those corridors. Something urgent should be done to reverse that trend and protect the huge investments made in that sector. It will also save the loss to lives and property which constant train derailments engender.

    Regular inspection of the rail lines, aided by technology driven devices such as drones and CCTVs, will produce better results. Additionally, advanced technologies like ultrasonic rail testing can identify hidden defects for immediate repairs. That should be the right path to protecting and justifying the huge investments in rail infrastructure.

  • Angel of analgesics

    Angel of analgesics

     The Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) must be the boldest association in the country. They committed a public wrong but everywhere they claim to be the holy nation.

     In their last meet in Enugu, they thrived on the people’s amnesia, or so they thought.

    They collected money from Rivers State but would not refund it, and would not even admit it was wrong. It is what Joseph Conrad calls the “the bravado of guilt.” What I want is not just the refund, but a public report of their auditor’s breakdown on how that money was spent.

    One of the charades came in the form of Obiageli Katryn Ezekwesili, the unabashed Obidient, who was a speaker at the event.

    She was also speaking economics that must be her forte.

    But she faltered when she was saying she accepted that President Tinubu should remove fuel subsidy and collapse the exchange rates, but that it was too radical – my words.

    Tunji Ojo, interior minister, said what she and others were calling for was applying analgesics to a deep problem. She is now our angel of analgesics.

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    It is the professional perfidy of such assertions that worry this essayist.

     It all shows that Oby and people like her are not following  what they have believed all their lives because they don’t like the person who is doing what they believe. They are frowning at their own mirrors.

    Oby was in OBJ’s government and wanted all Federal Government schools to be privatized. She was part of the government that hitched itself to the IMF and World Bank now hailing the Tinubu approach.

     She honed her career behind the portals of those organisations. Now she wants to apply Band-Aid to a sore, to deoderise a sty. She was weaned on the sanctity of the market, a doctrinaire laissez-faire expert now clad in a new theology.

    That was the spirit of the last NBA meeting. They invited the multiple hate speech convict, Julius Malema from South Africa, because the conference was to evangelise hate. And hate dripped from every pore of the conference.

     It was the Sultan of Sokoto, Saad Abubakar III, who chastened them and reminded them about their justice as a commodity.

     The NBA itself has become a commodity. It was not a conference of rumination. With all the reports of carousing and arousing, no one expected it to  empower ideas.

  • Suicide by accident

    Suicide by accident

    A festival is the voice of a culture. It is when a people play. It is an icon in time and space and, often, everyone wants to keep politics at bay.

    This day, in the flourish of his white agbada, purple cap and dark shades, Ekiti State Governor, Biodun Oyebanji, upends a festal mood. This is the Udiroko Festival, the day the Ado-Ekiti people celebrate centuries under their king, the Ewi. If the festival is their icon, the iconography is dance, songs, customs and costumes, drama, parades and, of course, food. The Ekiti will not live down their signature pabulum: the pounded yam.

    Udiroko festival is one of the big-time emblems of Nigeria, from the Durbars in the north, to the Ojude ObaFestival in Ijebu land, to the Calabar Festival, and promising Ghigho Aghofen in Warri under the Ogiame Atuwatse III. There are many, like the yam festivals in the east, many of them under-tapped tourist potential. It is the people’s scent.

    Governor Oyebanji, popularly known as BAO, is a public figure whose demeanour  calms a public. He spots a smile, gladhands,not prone to rhetorical spills  and projects a quiescent charisma.

     His style recalls, without irony, the opening lines of Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People, in his characterization of his protagonist. “No one can deny that Chief the Honourable Minister, M.A. Nanga, MP, was the most approachable politician in the country. Whether you asked in the city or in his home village… they will tell you he was a man of the people. I have to admit this from the outset unless the story I am going to tell will make no sense.”

    Achebe wrote this tongue in cheek, but that is because men with such attributes are rare in public life, especially in the terrain of politics. That is the image of BAO. But on the festival day, BAO unclads. He gives his dovish persona a makeover.

    He reminds me of a press briefing that President Shehu Shagari has with editors and the president, known for his unflappability, sparked at a question. “Jesus” I said to myself, “the president is angry”. That is the title of Dele Giwa’s column on the incident.

    BAO addresses the underhand moves and rumours to undermine his party, the APC, and the work of the President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

     His face loses its subdued bonhomie and takes on a grave, sometimes combative mien. The quiet man’s gloves are off.

    His attacks are not on the opposition. He launches at members of his own party who are undermining the president, and want to also dent his own doings as the chief executive of the state. Holding brief for the president, he refers to two major roads now under works under this administration.

     The first is the Ado-Ikere- Akure Road. I was at the Federal Executive Council meeting a few months ago when Works Minister David Umahi presented it and it was approved, but not without some theatrics from Solid Minerals  Development  Minister Dele Alake, an Ekiti indigene.

     Alake had said he supported it wholeheartedly and that the road had been neglected for too long and he had been to that road.

    The president, in a whiff of mischief, asked him, “Are you sure,” more than once, and Alake said, “Yes sir.”

    The other road BAO refers to is the Ado-Afe Babalola  Road, which would soon take off. He says the president could not do everything within two years and he is doing all that is humanly possible. He belts out the proverb that the cock is sweating but the feathers conceal it all.

    Some may think those he is referring to are lovers of Ekiti.

    Rather, they are lovers of themselves. They love Ekiti less. Their eyes are set on the APC primary in October.

     In a statement, his Chief Press Secretary, Yinka Oyebode, alleges that one of them has recruited an army of 250 souls for social media onslaughts.

    The fellow, though unnamed, is the Atiku of Ekiti State. The disrobed Adamawa man may want to call him “mini me. Or minimum me.” The Ekiti APC wannabe governor, like Atiku, does not live in Ekiti.

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     When he is there, he is a sojourner for ambition. Like Atiku, his pocket is deep and mischievous. Like Atiku, he is a perennial candidate. Like Atiku, a perennial loser. BAO’s recent anger recalls what Shakespea                                           re writes in Hamlet: “Beware Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,Bear it that the opposèd may beware of thee.”

    That is his attitude. He is going to the battlefield, and he knows that war is not for gentlemen.

    Some have speculated that former governor and minister Kayode Fayemi may be one of the culprits. My investigations say he is not.

     But the former chief executive cannot take his coattail off some of the rumblings in the state.

     Perhaps some of those undermining the president may be taking a cue from Fayemi’s dig at the Federal Government when he said the people are not happy and they are hungry, and complained about the Omuo-Ilasha-Ayedun-Oye road, and was querulous over refunds to Ekiti.

    Fayemi has not refuted in clear language that he did not make a dig at the centre, and the defence of some of his acolytes that his words were taken out of contempt sometimes undermines the commonsense and literacy of those who heard and even applauded him.

     Just as he did not deny what Amaechi said about his presence on the creation day of the interloper ADC, the former Ekiti State governor must learn, at least, to resist the urge to ambivalence.

     He can learn from the treacherous audacity of his friend from Osun State.

    The fact that BAO has received endorsement from elders, a wide range of party chieftains as well as even those of other parties, including Fayemi himself, should be an indication that BAO has a foothold in the heart of his people.

    Yet a primary should hold, and when it holds, it is the party that will decide who is on the people’s side. But from all indications, those who are fighting should be aware that a BAO has boar inside. His speech at the Udiroko Festival is symbolic.

     The festival often bustles under the Iroko tree. BAO may be daring his challenger if they have the gumption to fell the tree.

    That may result in how historians describe the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire: it committed suicide by accident.

  • Proverbs, politics and Bode George

    Proverbs, politics and Bode George

    This column’s article for last week, titled “World Folklore Day 2025: Proverbs,” celebrated the Day which came up on 22 August with a look at proverbs and how some of them derive from certain fields of the social sciences, agriculture, natural sciences, engineering and medical sciences. Today, a continuation of the celebration looks at how proverbs relate with politics and how they are used by an individual to achieve specific communicative goals in particular contexts. 

    Human beings are political animals. This is the famous Greek Philosopher Aristotle’s summation of the belief that it is from participating in community with others that a human being achieves the ultimate human goal of being happy. Derived from a keen observation of human nature, and being short, witty and often repeated, this Aristotelian statement has become a political proverb.

    A Yoruba proverb which deals with the nature of the political system adopted by a society is: “Idálú ni ìsèlú” (‘How a community originates determines how it is run.’) In other words, the peculiar circumstances surrounding the creation of a society determine the political system, for example between Liberal Democracy or Communism, that would be most suitable for its administration.

    Another political proverb is: “Ohun tí a fún èsó só ni èsó n só” (‘It’s what a guard is charged with guarding that the guard guards.’) With ‘guards’ meaning the armed forces in today’s context, the underlying principle is that different categories of human beings in a society are trained to play different, but complementary, roles for the stability of the society and the benefit of all. This Yoruba proverb therefore abhors coups d’état which undermine both the quality of governance (for which the army are not conventionally assigned or trained) and the quality of security coverage which is the military’s primary duty.

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    A quite confounding political proverb that a respectable, elderly Yoruba man once cited in a conversation with me is: “Eni tó bá gò níí joyè” (‘It’s a foolish person who accepts leadership position.’) This proverb presumes that there are all sorts of people in a community, with some of them quite wise and some glaringly foolish. Usually, even the foolish would insist that they are wiser than the leaders, through pontificating and expressing magisterial opinions about issues they are ill-informed about. And it is the duty of a ruler or politician to play the fool once in a while, and allow these foolish people to have sway, and strategically allow foolish pressure to supplant wise vision.

    One interesting dimension of the proverbs and politics nexus is the use of proverbs by or with respect to a politician. It would be insightful to see how this plays out in the case of Chief Bode George, a retired Commodore of the Nigerian Navy, a former Military Governor of old Ondo State (before it was split into the current Ondo and Ekiti states) from 1988 to 1990, and a former Deputy National Chairman and now Life Member of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He is from Lagos and belongs to the Yoruba ethnic group.

    Remarkably, the eighty-year old Chief Bode George has had numerous television interviews on, notably, ARISE News, Channels Television and TVC News. In a 4 July, 2025 Channels Television interview with Maupe Ogun-Yusuf, Bode George called the PDP “the real iroko political tree”. Explaining the point, he said: “You know what is called an iroko tree in the bush? It is the strongest. Its roots are so deep rooted. No matter the storm, they will weather it.”

    It would therefore be interesting to look at Bode George’s use of proverbs in the context of PDP politics. The party has been bedevilled by a series of internal problems. First, as the national ruling party from 1999, it was defeated in the 2015 presidential elections and thrown into disarray and abandoned by a remarkable number of those who were its leading lights.  Second, the PDP national convention in preparation for the 2023 elections threw up a Northerner, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, as the presidential candidate of the party, despite the fact that another Northerner, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, was already the National Chairman.

    This contravened the PDP’s constitutional stipulation that if one of the two offices was held by a Northerner, the other one should be occupied by a Southerner. This Atiku upset gave room for other unsalutary developments which have undermined harmony in the party. This has led prominent members of the PDP to defect from the party and join others to form a coalition yoked to the African Democratic Congress (ADC) which they declared was to remove President Bola Ahmed Tinubu from office in 2027.

    Asked, by Vimbai Mutinhiri in an 11 July, 2025 interview on ARISE News, about his assessment of the coalition political parties to which PDP members have been presumed to be flocking, Bode George said: “There is an adage in my part of the world that says ‘No matter how many clothing a young man has, he can never have as many rags as the old man.’” In its original Yoruba form, the proverb is: “Tí omodé bá l’áso bí àgbà kò lè l’ákísà bí àgbà.” ‘Clothing’ in this proverb is a metaphor for the zeal of the smaller coalition parties, and ‘rags’ are the vast experience and extensive structure that the PDP possesses. The underlying message is therefore that defecting to those weaker opposition parties was ill-advised.

    Moreover, in a 21 August, 2025 interview with Nifemi Oguntoye of TVC News, Bode George said that the PDP members who moved to the ADC were exactly the ones who created the mayhem at the last convention of the PDP. He also noted that Atiku wanted to contest when President Muhammadu Buhari, a Northerner, had just completed an 8-year term. Chief George continued: “We said, ‘No. … Mr. Atiku, you cannot.’” Chief George also said that it was this position that accounted for Atiku’s “shifting, rolling around like a rudderless ship,” and “running helter-skelter like a little rat.” He then cited the proverb, “A rolling stone gathers no moss” to admonish Atiku to be politically stable to be able to record significant achievements.

    Furthermore, some aggrieved and influential members of the PDP, including the party’s Governors’ Forum, wanted Senator Samuel Anyanwu to be removed as National Secretary; and the South East zone of the party had, in fact, already chosen a replacement for him. However, he could not be removed due to legal encumbrances. In an effort to appease those who could not have their way, Chief George, in the interview with Vimbai Mutinhiri asserted: “Sometimes in an association, you lose some, you win.” This consolatory proverb is normally cited as “You win some, you lose some.” 

    With respect to the PDP’s zoning of party and electoral offices to accommodate diversity and promote inclusivity, Bode George said: “In the First Republic, majority had their way, minority were onlookers. Second Republic, the same thing. That’s why they collapsed.” The proverb which Chief George varied for communicative here effect is: “The minority will have its say, but the majority will have its way.” He cited the varied proverb to show his opposition to the inconsiderate exercise of numerical superiority and the foisting of a Northern presidential candidate on the party for the 2023 elections, in disregard of democratic equity.

    Furthermore, on those who claim to be PDP members, but concurrently belong to the ADC-based coalition of opposition forces or pledge to work for the presidential candidate of the APC in the 2027 election, Chief Bode George said in a 13 August, 2025 ARISE News interview: “You cannot serve two masters.” Christian.com elucidates the point as follows: “In Matthew 6:24, Jesus states, ‘No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.’” In other words, the Naval Chief used the biblical proverb to condemn political double-dealing.

    Chief George also notes in a further romanticisation of the PDP in the 4 July, 2025, Channels Television interview with Maupe Ogun-Yusuf: “There’s no individual in our party that can claim that he owns this party. That’s the beauty of the PDP. … No individual owns our party. It will be a collective decision who will be our presidential candidate. We need to show to the electorate that this party can be trusted. … How do the lawyers say it now? He who comes to equity must come with clean hands.” In other words, using the legal proverb, he continued his public relations offensive to encourage those who had defected from the PDP to return and make the party attractive to the electorate in forthcoming elections.

    Moreover, in the 13 August, 2025 ARISE News interview, Bode George stated: “In any organisation, there must be laws … and there are also red lines. You should not cross the red line. … If you want to be a responsible, respectable member of this organisation, you must obey their laws. If you can’t stand the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen.” He complements this culinary and temperature proverb with the following proverbial admonition: “… let’s call a spade a spade. … Enough is enough.”

    Commenting on the 25 August, 2025 National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the PDP at which significant reconciliatory decisions were reached, Chief Bode George, in a 26 August, 2025 YouTube post of a Channels Television interview with Geoffrey Uzono, said: “It’s a refreshing gallop to see us come together as one indivisible members of this party; because the more a divided house, it will remain a defeated house.” The proverb here is an electoral adaptation of “A divided house cannot stand.”

    He also said with respect to other salutary NEC decisions, including zoning the 2027 presidential candidacy to the South: “No matter how long a load of lies keep flying, it doesn’t take time, when the truth is said, [for it to] catch up and leave [the lies] behind.” This is an adaptation of the Yoruba proverb “Tí iró bá lo l’ógún odún, ojó kan soso l’òdodo ó lee bá” (‘If a lie travels for twenty years, truth will catch up with it in just one day.’)

    As Nigeria continues to strive to reform its electoral system, attention needs to be paid to folklore which can facilitate the process. But even closer attention needs to be paid to folklore which can undermine the effort. For example, an electorally-perverse Yoruba proverb is: “Omodé ò j’obì, àgbà ò j’oyè.” (‘If the youth don’t eat kolanuts, the elders can’t reach the throne.’) Like ‘stomach infrastructure’, ‘kolanuts’ in this proverb is a fanciful or permissive name for electoral inducement or bribery.

  • Ooni, Alafin and lexical storm in a teacup

    Ooni, Alafin and lexical storm in a teacup

    Spokespersons sometimes get their principals into trouble. Last week, former vice president Atiku Abubakar and political coalition leader on the platform of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) had to quickly debunk a statement purportedly made by him suggesting he was more concerned about rebuilding Nigeria than he was desperate to be president. It seemed contradictory, but because Ola Olateju, a professor, claimed during a meeting in Lagos welcoming defectors into the ADC that he was representing the former vice president, many observers were puzzled about what had changed so soon in Alhaji Atiku’s perspective. About two days later, another spokesman claiming to represent the former vice president insisted his boss was still in the running for the presidency, and that Prof. Olateju did not have his mandate to speak the way he did.

    Well, the troubles often stirred up by spokesmen are obviously never in short supply. Before two spokesmen contradicted themselves over Alhaji Atiku’s presidential ambition, two other spokesmen had exchanged in lexical jousting over their principals’ monarchical rankings in Yorubaland. The Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, had conferred a chieftaincy title on an Ibadan-based engineer, Dotun Sanusi. He probably thought nothing of the conferment, and never expected that it would trigger a furore. But it did, in a teacup. First to draw blood over the title was the Alafin of Oyo, Oba Abimbola Owoade, whose media and publicity director, Bode Durojaiye, flew off the lexical handle by issuing an ultimatum to the Ooni. It was indeed a colourful ultimatum, the kind that reenacts the lost art of insults when literary giants crossed swords and challenged one another to a duel.

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    Mr Durojaiye was entertaining, in a pompous way. He said: “The attention of the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Abimbola Akeem Owoade I, has been drawn to the purported conferment of the chieftaincy title of Okanlomo of Yorubaland on a business tycoon, Dotun Sanusi, by the Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi. The conferment of a chieftaincy title which borders on Yorubaland by the Ooni of Ife is an affront to the revered institution of the Alaafin, who is the Titan of Yorubaland and who holds the exclusive right to confer any chieftaincy title which covers the entire Yorubaland on anyone. The Ooni of Ife is behaving as if there is no authority to check and call him to order, and because of that ‘above the law’ syndrome of his, he is in the habit of walking on everybody’s back, including the Apex Court in the country, the Supreme Court, which had ruled on the exclusive preserve of the Alaafin to confer chieftaincy titles that cover the entire Yorubaland on anyone.”

    It was not the most dignifying of statements, one complete with the detachment and cadence many observers of great monarchies associate with illustrious traditional institutions. But, alas, it was just the tip of the iceberg, or perhaps volcano. Mr Durojaiye had fiercely added: “The instrument of office presented to Oba Ogunwusi during his installation specifically limits his traditional area of authority to Oranmiyan Local Government, which has now been split into three local governments, viz: Ife Central, Ife North, and Ife South. The dictum that nobody is above the law of the land is now being put to a crucial test, and the reality of our time makes it very obligatory for the Alaafin to call the Ooni of Ife to order and demand revocation of the so-called Okanlomo of Yorubaland chieftaincy title conferred on Engineer Dotun Sanusi within 48 hours, or face the consequences…”

    The victims of so engaging an ultimatum were at first fairly restrained. But the ultimatum was too tempting, definite and colourful to be shrugged off with a mild sentence or two. The Ooni’s spokesman, Moses Olafare, first told the media that he would not dignify the Oyo provocation with a response, but soon issued a cryptic, defiant and sarcastic statement. “The Ooni is busy setting up businesses and creating jobs for youths across Yorubaland, while they (Alafin and his crowd) are busy fighting supremacy that does not exist. Dead empire. Their 48-hour ultimatum will soon lapse. We are waiting. Dead Empire. Ooni plans for the groundbreaking and launching of the Ojaja smart city in Ibadan, the biggest in Africa; and someone is somewhere busy issuing 48 hours empty threats. Where does this king (Ooni) have time for supremacy hullabaloo? Issuing 48-hour ultimatum over a chieftaincy title that doesn’t even exist.” There you have it. The contempt from Ile-Ife could barely be hidden, just as the Oyo ultimatum was deafening.

    It turned out that the recipient of the title himself had posted on his social media handle that he had been conferred with the title of Okanlomo Oodua, not Okanlomo of Yorubaland. In other words there was really no basis for a verbal skirmish. Media reportage probably transmuted Okanlomo Oodua to Okanlomo of Yorubaland, maybe in error or ignorance; for indeed how does the uninitiated differentiate between Oodua and Yoruba/Yorubaland? Of course the media obligingly went on to feast on the brickbats between the foremost traditional rulers to the dismay of the Yoruba. It was also clear that the brief lexical skirmish was essentially between the spokesmen of the two monarchs fighting century-old grudge matches on their own behalf and on behalf of their principals. Their statements were idiosyncratic of their individual hot-headedness, bearing little resemblance to the monarchs whose comportments are fairly well known to be regal and aristocratic. And judging from the less-than-satisfactory lexical exactitude of the contending statements, it was abundantly clear that none of the aides had adequately weighed or judged their words well before dishing them out on behalf of their bosses to more discerning and discriminating public.

  • Peter Obi heads to court

    Peter Obi heads to court

    Former Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, who is as at today of no fixed political party address, has shocked many Nigerians by deciding to sue human rights activist and lawyer, Deji Adeyanju. By threatening to take legal action, he has probably let his exasperations with Mr Adeyanju’s relentless verbal attacks get to him. Last week, his lawyers wrote the activist asking him to delete his alleged defamatory posts begun since 2022 and to top it with an apology. Sensing that Mr Obi had taken the bait, an elated Mr Adeyanju announced to the world that he was eager to square off in court with the greying LP pugilist. The younger fighter knows that all he has to do in court to quash any defamation allegation is to prove just one of the offending characterisations complained about by Mr Obi.

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    For a notable politician and presumed leader of the cyberbullies (or Obidient) movement, it is not known why Mr Obi has not developed a thick skin to verbal assaults, the kind his supporters torrentially levy against his opponents. He clearly does not like Mr Adeyanju calling him a fake messiah, religious bigot, and corrupt investor. Shortly before Mr Obi struck, the activist’s lawyers had last week written Serah Ibrahim, one of Mr Obi’s female aides, threatening to sue her for defaming Mr Adeyanju’s wife. If the Obi case ends up in court, it will be a bruising battle susceptible to all sorts of delay tactics once an injunction is secured to gag the defendant. Mr Obi will count on the Obidients to rally and inflame the crowd in his favour and against Mr Adeyanju, but the latter also has a captive army of roughnecks capable of fighting on all terrains and in all weather, including biting in the clinches. Nigerians should brace for a battle royal, assuming one of the combatants does not chicken out.