Category: Lekan Otufodunrin

By Lekan Otufodunrin

I had decided not to write this week due to my mother’s hospitalisation that has got me a bit worried and busy shuttling between my Abule Egba home in Lagos and her location in Otta, Ogun State.

Visiting the hospital can be traumatic for many reasons. Suddenly, you realise what it really means to be healthy.

Outside the hospital, we all go about our daily lives oblivious of what people hospitalised are going through. We take for granted our ability to move around and do whatever we need to do without any physical hindrance.

Even when we drive past a hospital, not many of us spare a thought for those battling for their lives for various ailments.

It’s not as if we are heartless and uncaring, it’s just that unless we are down ourselves or have someone who is sick, life has a way of keeping our minds off such places.

But each time I visit a hospital like I have for most of this week, I try hard not to be depressed seeing what people are going through.

You see people who are normally agile lying helplessly, unable to speak or move parts of their bodies. That’s the moment you realise that being healthy should not be taken for granted and everything possible should be done to stay healthy unless in situation beyond our control.

You can’t enter the hospital and not come out being grateful for the gift of life when you realise you could have been the person on the sick bed.

I will never forget the weeks I spent at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH).

Just when you think your case is a worrisome one, you see others have more debilitating situation than yours.

I could move around and do most things for myself, but many couldn’t. They have to be carried around, even to the toilet if they are not confined to using the bed pan.

My son who was in the hospital with me said, seeing how spouses have to care for their partner in the hospital, especially those who are incapacitated made him to understand the full meaning of the marriage vow of ‘for better for worse in health and in wealth.’

I got out of the hospital alive but while there some patients died and I got the bad news of some who passed on after I left.

I remember the agonising pains of some patients in the night with the only two nurses on duty overnight battling to take care of them. Sometimes they just have to choose who to attend to. Sometimes, they get tired and sleep off and can’t be woken by call for attention by the patients.

Doctors and other medical personnel do their best to care but there are lives that could have been saved with more diligent attention.

My son also told me how he was waiting to pay for a drug for me and the relative of a patient arrived to announce the death of the person he came to collect drug for earlier. Many sad stories hard to forget has kept me being grateful for every day I am alive.

While you are healthy, never stop to acknowledge God’s love. We sleep and we wake up because the Lord sustains us. Never fail to spare a thought for those who are not healthy.

By Lekan Otufodunrin

Death is debt we all owe. The Bible says it’s appointed for man to die once. Shakespeare says it’s a necessary end, it will come when it will come.

Before the global pandemic, we were not short of incidents of people dying in various circumstances, but the cloud of despair now is such that death from COVID-19 and many difficult to explain situations leaves one confused.

Like I noted in my recent piece titled: Bind the spirit of fear, the choke of Coronavirus can indeed be suffocating with the rate at which people are announced dead. As it is, it’s as if we are all waiting for who goes next in whatever way.

I have been too shocked by the circumstance of the death of Tolulope Arotile, Nigeria’s first female combatant pilot that I have not been able to write anything about it.

I keep staring at one of her most used picture in which she was standing in front of a fighter jet with hands akimbo.

It seems to have a message which the picture was not intended for. “ I have run my race and I got to fly off” Maybe if she died in one of the air raids of the insurgents camps, it would be easy to comprehend her death, but a freak accident within the Air force Barrack or what? Really puzzling how death could sneak in on us.

There are speculations that there could be more to her death, but whatever the truth is, she has joined the list of one death too many at this time, considering her age and what she represents in the annals of accomplishments in our country.

Our hearts are with the family with  as they bore this grief more than any of us. Devastated, like the father said in an interview is an understatement, only God can grant him, wife and children the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss.

Talking of countless sudden deaths of the season, I remember a colleague, Aramide Oikelome, former Religion Editor of Daily Independent Newspaper who passed on along with some other journalists.

The other media professionals included acclaimed Radio Show host, Dan Foster, Nkiruka Udoh of AIT, Naomi Uzor, Vanguard, Azeez Sanni, The Nation, Xavier Ndayongmong, Daily Independent and Hugo Odiogor, formerly of Vanguard.

Aramide’s death happened the week I had included her name on the list of participants for a stakeholders meeting on an issue I knew she would be too glad to make some valuable contributions.

Being the founder of an organization that caters for children and widows, she was a perfect fit to discuss about Managing Internal Displacement in Nigeria with regards to the plight of Internally Displaced Persons ( IDPs), but alas, she turned out to be a victim of the lack of enough attention for other sick persons apart from COVID-19 patients.

Apart from other engagements, we have attended two international media programmes in the United States. That was how close we were in her lifetime.

Instead of mourning her passage, I chose to celebrate her in a Facebook post for the good life she lived and impact she made.

“I wish I could cry, but I won’t. I would rather remember the joy of the Lord you radiated in your lifetime. I will tell the world how you cared about humanity and sacrificed all you had to make the world a better place.

“I will tell of the outstanding journalist you were and how you brought succour to many you met and could reach in your earthly journey.

I will thank God for enabling you to fulfill your purpose and being a faithful daughter of Zion and mother to the motherless. Sleep well my dear sister Aramide Praise Oikelome.”

Lekan Otufodunrin

The above question was what a journalist asked when she sent me a text message concerning a picture she saw on Facebook that I was one of those tagged.

The picture was that of a community in Lagos called Monkey Village when a Non-Governmental Organization, Centre for Children Health, Education, Orientation and Protection ( CEEHOPE)  provided a water borehole to give them access to clean water.

Before now, people in the community, behind Opebi area have had to either make do with water from a nearby stream or send their children some far distance to get water.

Water is one of the many challenges they have been coping with. They do not have electricity and other amenities in the shanty bothering the high scale Opebi neighbourhood.

As part of its commitment to catering poor communities, CEEHOPE, led by Betty Abbah, Journalist and Gender Advocate has been providing among others, educational support for children and girls in Monkey Village. It also provided food supplies for families in the village and other parts of the country during the lockdown.

The blocking of the main road leading to the community by landlords in Opebi drew more attention to the plight of the residents and an anonymous donor offered to provide a borehole for water supply which has brought a major relief them.

In addition to the water, the NGO with the help of another donor has also built a Youth Hub ( ICT/skills development youth engagement Center)  for school children as part of its Education for all campaign.

The ICT Center is one of five to be established soon the in Benue, Plateau and Kaduna (including in three orphanages).

Last Friday, the two major projects in Monkey Village were commissioned and you need to see the joy of the residents who were full of praise for CECHOPE and the donors.

Undoubtedly, the project will have a major impact on the community. They no longer have to worry about getting clean water to drink and use for other domestic purposes.

The children who have not had the privilege of computer training, which even some other children in better communities do not have, can learn computer and other skills.

As CEEHOPE’s Executive Director rightly stated, it’s the little gestures in the little, obscures places of the earth that make a huge difference to the neediest and sometimes forgotten of our planet, and not necessarily the largest or loudest.

“Kids unlucky to be born into poverty (or displaced by conflict) do not have to endure the double tragedy of ICT-poverty in a Zooming age.“

Abbah and her team have really done well with the projects they have implemented in many communities across the country since the organization was founded. As a member of the Board of Trustees of the organization, I attest to their commitment to accomplishing the vision of the organization, even at great personal cost.

While the government has the responsibility to cater for the wellbeing of the citizens, the initiatives of NGOs, other organizations and individuals will be necessary to ensure that as many needy communities like the Monkey Village are provided for.

Since the people living in Monkey village are not monkeys, they deserve a better life and every support needed for a better standard of living.

Even monkeys deserve better lives than what some of the residents are forced to go through due to lack of a functioning social support system in the country.

By Lekan Otufodunrin

I can lay claim to being an above average social media users with the various accounts, with one of them verified.

Although I’m also on Instagram, I can’t claim to be really active on the platform. This is perhaps why the name of the notorious Instagram big boy Hushpuppi who was recently arrested in Dubai along with his gang did not sound familiar when his name started trending on social media.

I mind my business on social media a lot and don’t pay attention to many who are on the platforms for social, more than professional interest.

With over 2.4 million followers on his verified Instagram account Hushpuppi who claims to be a real estate developer in his profile flaunted his supposed wealth to the admiration of his followers until he was arrested last week.

Pictures of his ostentatious lifestyle and properties fill his Instagram account and until he was arrested there was no hint of the false life he lived. Even when there was room to suspect, he covered his track well enough to give the false impression of who he really was.

Hushpuppi and his gang reportedly created fake pages for existing websites in order to redirect victims’ payments to their own accounts.

While he was mesmerising his Instagram followers about his life and purporting to be a successful businessman and his gang hacked corporate emails and sent fake messages to clients in order to redirect financial transfers and people’s bank details to their own accounts.

Read Also: Hushpuppi, others defrauded 1.9 million victims – Dubai Police

Other details of his arrest include the fact that he and his gang committed fraud amounting to 1.6 billion dirham (N168bn) and scammed 1, 926, 400 victims.

Thirteen luxury cars worth 25 million Dirhams were bought by Hushpuppi and his gang with the money stolen from people who have been scammed, while the Police seized items worth more than 150 million Dirhams from the gang after taking possession of 21 personal computers, 47 smartphones, 15 flash drives and 5 hard disks.

Contrary to the false image he promoted, Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, who was born Ramoni Igbalode was according to the Dubai Police “an international online”.

Those he had always tormented with his supposed wealth on social media now know better that he is nothing but a criminal who made living from defrauding others of their hard earned money.

Unfortunately, he was not satisfied with committing the crime he and his gang were engaged in secret, he had the false confidence that he would not be found out. He forgot that the same way he could use the technology to swindle others, the technology can also be used to track and pick him up as a criminal who he was.

Everyday could be for the thief, but one day is indeed for the owner through the law enforcement agents like the Dubai Police that spent four months to crack the case.

All the signs were there that Hushpuppi couldn’t have earned his supposed wealth legitimately judging by the way he flaunted them, but until he was caught, there was no way to prove that he was nothing but a fraudster like many others like him who claim to be what they are not.

Hopefully, many like him who are yet to be caught will back off from their criminal activities, but I know they won’t. They will trust in their ability to beat every legitimate system to acquire illicit wealth until they will be caught someday.

Hushpuppi’s case reinforces the need to question source of wealth of emergency ‘money men’ who have no antecedents to back their claim to whatever wealth they have. We have to stop celebrating people whose sources of wealth are questionable.

By Lekan Otufodunrin

In response to a prompt to share a paragraph or two from one of our writings and name where it was published, a Kenyan friend and Career Coach, Colleta Macharia shared an intriguing statement from her new book titled How to design your game plan.

“As I observe and reflect on this technological revolution, I have a question of my own: Is artificial intelligence growing at a faster rate than our emotional intelligence? That will be a tragedy, and we must not let it happen.

“We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Our humanness is what keep us in the game and that is why we must nurture it at all costs,” she wrote.

The above statement got me thinking about what I have been reflecting on without voicing my thoughts and this was my reply: “I have a feeling that AI is really growing faster somehow and we must not let it happen. Facebook is always asking what’s on your mind when those around you don’t bother to. FB reminds you of past memorable moments that excites you. Banks are the first to send you all kinds of anniversary messages. We must not allow machines to outdo us.”

Colleta responded: “You are so spot-on in your observation. Someone said that machines are trying to be more like human, while humans are trying to be like machines. Really tragic.”

Indeed, those automating the AI are doing everything possible to turn machines into human and doing well from what we are experiencing in various digital engagements. More worrisome is that the digital engagements is making most not to realise how much of needed human interaction we are losing.

Unconsciously, we are getting so used to exchanging text and comments on various platforms, seeing and liking our posts on social media that many hardly talk or meet physically. Thank God for the technology that keeps us in touch globally, but behind those digital exchanges are many things we don’t see.

On social media we can easily mask our reality. Sad people can pretend to be happy and having fun. People who are going through all kinds of challenges can chat and put up posts that gives no hint of their true state.

So we suddenly hear of someone dying and we can’t reconcile their being sick according to those around them with the things you have seen them share online.

Unfortunately, when Facebook asks us what’s on our minds, it’s not all the time we can own up and tell the world what we are really feeling or thinking about. We understandably don’t want to put our lives out there and allow our privacy to be invaded in the way we don’t.

Anyway, we should be grateful that the machine is concerned enough to ask what’s on our mind when sometimes those physically around us, who can see through our façade of all is well, don’t bother to.

Some of us have also become so used to exchanging text that we don’t even pick up the phone to call and hear the voice at the other end which can also give us an idea of how the other persons is really feeling.

Visits are no longer as often as we should even when the distance is not an issue. Machines have just become a comfortable replacement for physical meetings. The Coronavirus pandemic has even given us more reason not to bother.

As much as we want to make maximum use of what the machine makes possible, we must not lose our humanness as Colleta noted. We must break loose from the machines once in a while and meet with people who matter to us and those who need to see us. Even in the use of machines, we must be sensitive enough in the words we use knowing that what we say to people and how we say it matters.

Lekan Otufodunrin

The challenge of checkmating fake news predates the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the problem has become more worrisome considering that the health challenge of coronavirus is a matter of life and death.

The worry of ensuring that the public gets the right information in the continued battle against the spread of the virus informed a webinar I spoke at on Friday organised by the Lagos Civil Society Against COVID-19.

The other panelists were the Director of the International Press Centre (IPC), Lagos, Lanre Arogundade and Mrs. Funke Treasure Durodola, former General Manager of Radio One of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, while the Executive Director of EnvironNews Development Network, Mr. Micheal Simire was the moderator.

Lagos being the epicentre of the pandemic in the country has reasons to be more worried about the indiscriminate publications and sharing of fake news and false information on various platforms with the increasing number of infected persons compared with other states.

While governments at various levels are doing their best to combat the pandemic, the extent of ‘infodemic’ is alarming. Without regard to the danger posed by fake news, which is the deliberate dissemination of false information, many are engaging in the unfortunate act.

Some people just concoct false information about supposed cure, who has died, new research findings, what people should believe and many more which they send to unsuspecting members of the public, some of who take the information as true. There have been reports of some who have even used prescribed false cure combination drugs and died in the process.

The media indeed have a major role to play in checkmating the fake and false information and have been doing a lot in this regard. Journalists and other information disseminators still have to do more if the goal of ensuring the flattening of the infection curve is to be achieved.

Being a new disease, which even medical personnel are trying to understand, journalists have to take time to learn more about it and understand the various issues involved. Without properly understanding what the disease really is, they may not be able to provide the necessary information which the public needs to know and counter false information.

It will not be enough to say what people are getting on various platforms are false; journalists will need to explain in details why they are and the dangers involved. The gullible public needs more convincing facts, figures and explanation on the matter.

Even while getting information from those who are supposed to be experts, every claim or information has to be verified and fact-checked. There are standard procedures for medical practices and research which must be complied with before any claim should be reported.

Fake news and information thrive in the absence of enough information for journalists to work with. It will, therefore, be necessary for government agencies and officials involved in managing the pandemic to provide correct information promptly.

Medical personnel, scientists, other experts, political and religious groups should speak up more to counter the false narrative about the disease. There is so much doubt about how real is the disease that no effort should be spared in providing needed information beyond the major cities.

There may also be the need for media literacy education for people to know how to know fake news and false information and avoid spreading them as the truth to others.

By Lekan Otufodunrin

I have always wondered about the psychology of rapists. How do they force themselves on another person for whatever pleasure they are seeking? They grab a lady, young or old and even babies, against their will and sexually violate them.

They inflict injuries on their victims and leave them devastated in a way some find difficult to recover from the experience. They take advantage of people who trust and respect them and carry on as if they have not done anything wrong.

Some are even boastful about what they should be ashamed of like a man in a viral video online boldly telling his friend how he raped a young lady in his shop and said he cannot be arrested.

He must really be sure of himself as he didn’t mind being recorded while speaking to his faceless friends who are also accomplices in a way as they laughed over the crime he committed.

What kind of men are rapists? How deprived can someone be that he has no feelings for the victim who is scared stiff and trembling as she is about to be subjected to a traumatic experience?

No shouting, cries, pleadings, kicking and whatever protests can stop them.

Some are not satisfied with committing rape, which is already a heinous crime, they kill their victims to cover up. Dead women can’t talk, but rapists forget that their families, friends and the general public will be too outraged to keep quiet and somehow they will be found out.

Some think their victims will be too traumatised to speak on what happened for fear of shame and stigmatisation, but that used to be the case. Not again. Even those who never spoke in the past will one day speak up like Busola Dakolo.

Some threaten their victims claiming they will kill them if they talk about it to anyone. Such secrets have a way of being found out even when the victims don’t want to speak about it. The trauma is there to see all over the victims, even without speaking and it’s a matter of time that they will succumb to pressure to speak and unmask the  rapists.

Some offer money to their victims as if money can pay for the everlasting pain they have inflicted.

Some rapists blame their unpardonable acts on how some women supposedly wear revealing dresses, but how do they justify the raping of those who are not. Children, toddlers, women in Hijab, and those attacked in their homes.

What has wearing revealing clothes got to do with manifesting the beast in the rapists? What is revealing anyway? Why didn’t others who saw the women react like the rapists?

How does a teenager rape a 70 year plus woman? How? What could have come over him that the sheer thought of it should have left him paralysed? What kind of influence can the boy be under that he didn’t realise the abomination he was committing?

How does a Pastor, Iman or whatever religious faith they profess sleep with their members or people who come to seek whatever succour from them? How? What kind of God do they serve that tolerates that kind of inhumanity to man?

How do they preach holiness, faithfulness and all other virtues when they are waist-deep in evil?

How do old men, rape children, some far younger than theirs or their age mates and sleep without being haunted in their dreams? How?

How do they abuse other people’s children and wish theirs well? How?

How do some lecturers rape their students and lay claim to being sane intellectuals.

What kind of men are rapists?

No psychological explanation is enough to justify what they do. They are better not born.

By Lekan Otufodunrin

There is a definition of FEAR based on the four alphabets that says F.E.A.R stands for is False Evidence Appearing Real. This can be true in many cases as most of the things we fear never cone to pass.

However, fear and uncertainty due to COVID-19 is not the kind that can exactly be described with the meaning of FEAR above. It’s real. From one index case in Lagos, we now have about thousands of cases of positive persons infected.

Beyond the health pandemic, businesses and professions like the media have been devastated with all-time low revenue resulting in companies taking drastic cost-cutting measures including salary cut, forced leave and layoff.

What other proof, some may say, do we need to confirm that these are indeed trying times which can test the soul of gentlemen and women of the media.

However, as Christians who trust and have faith in the only wise God who is able to do exceeding and abundantly beyond what we can think or imagine (Ephesians 3:20) we must not behave like unbelievers who are easily moved by what they see, what they hear and not the word of God.

If anyone who has been affected by the various measures taken by media houses and even those who are yet to, are not sure of what the future holds for them in the industry or in other endeavors and are anxious, their human fear of uncertainty is understandable.

Who won’t be? How would they pay their bills and fulfil other obligations? How will married women and men cope with no salaries or 20-50 percent some companies are offering to pay?

However, instead of getting unnecessary worried about a situation we can’t immediately do anything about, here is God’s reassuring words for a time like this.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6–7)

We should be thankful for how far God has brought us in the profession. The things we have accomplished and what can still do. You should not feel unnecessarily diminished.

The scripture says in all things, we should give thanks. (1Thesssalonians 5: 18)  This is His will concerning us.

What we should do is to pray for God to take control of the situation. He is the one who can make a way when there seems to be no way. He is the God who knows the end from the beginning.

We should ask Him for clear direction of what to do and avoid taking panicky decisions or lapsing into depression because some of us can’t imagine why God allowed what happened to us. This is not time to indulge in any self-pity.

This is the time to really wait on the Lord and meditate on His promises with full assurance that all will be well.

Prayerfully, there are also many practical steps to take. Think of the available options of what to do next. To look for new job or not. To work on some other ideas you have always wanted to pursue?

There are new possibilities we must open our minds to not only locally but globally too.

There are however some of us who need to be honest to ourselves and know we have inadequacies we have to work on to get another chance of making career progress God can make possible for us. Some of us have to acquire new skills to make ourselves employable again, especially in the new digital world. We have to retool. We have to break away from our analogue past and become digital savvy.

• Excerpts from speech at Journalists for Christ May 2020 fellowship in Lagos

By Lekan Otufodunrin

Last week, I focused on the media and Post-COVID-19 realities for the obvious reasons of being a journalist and a stakeholder very concerned about the survival of our industry.

It’s indeed a trying time for the media sector, which though plays a crucial role in the development of any society, does not get as much support and understanding from those who should be interested in how well we are doing.

With the economic the situation in the country, further complicated by the Coronavirus pandemic, many media organizations are barely surviving and there is no guarantee of how long they can continue to live up to expectations except they get some bailout or waivers.

The public can also offer their support by subscribing to print and online copies or donations to offset expense that is becoming unbearable.

Beyond the media however, the impact of Coronavirus is general and everyone or sector has to deal with the aftermath in one way or the other.

Though it may still be early to start talking of Post COVID-19 when the number of infected persons in the country is rising by the day, the relaxation of some of the restriction of movement measures make it imperative for all to get back to our lives before the lockdown and face the realities we are confronted with. A number of things have become new normal and what is required is to make the necessary adjustment in various aspects of our lives.

From all indications, the virus, like others before it, which though may not have recorded as many death cases as early as COVID-19 will remain with us for long even if the much the desired vaccine for treatment is found. So, instead of waiting for when the disease will be totally eradicated, the best option is to learn to live with it.

Hopefully, by abiding by all the preventive measures, the rate of infection will slow down and there will be no need for the huge amount and resources being spent to treat patients and curtail the spread.

Considering the disruption of businesses and operations of various organizations, many are may not be able to pay their staff and inevitably have to resort to layoffs, forced leave and salary cut to reduce the cost of operations.

Workers, especially those in the private sector, should prepare for these wave of survival decisions which may affect their employment status or earnings. They should not wait till they get an official notification before considering what they may need to do. Many may be spared, but no one can be sure who will, based on various considerations. So, like the motto of the Boys Scout, Be Prepared.

Work patterns and schedule may also not be the same again for some organizations based on the experience of having staff working from home during the lockdown. The decision to reduce staff may not have to do with cutting cost, but they need to optimise operation using improved technology that may not need as many staff as before. What this means is that staff who are not as technically savvy as they should may not have a place in the new dispensation.

Having stayed home for long, returning to the full work mode for some self-employed persons may not be easy, but the reality is that the earlier one gets over the lockdown time the better.

Even if one wants to continue work more from home, targets must be set and attained.