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Category: Saturday Magazine

  • OYETUNDE OJO: My battles with tradition as Ada monarch

    OYETUNDE OJO: My battles with tradition as Ada monarch

    The newly installed Olona, Dr. Oyetunde Olumuyiwa Ojo, the traditional ruler of Ada community in Boripe Local Government Area, Osun State, spoke with TOBA ADEDEJI on the lifestyles he is missing as a traditional ruler and his plans for the community.

    What memories of your early years can you recall?

    I was born 57 years ago to the Adeitan ruling house. My father, Prince Gabriel Oyewole Ojo, died in the year 2000, having retired from the Lagos State Civil Service as an Inspector of Education. My mother, Olori Abigail Olayemi Ojo, also retired as the headmistress of a school, St Luke Primary School, Ororuwo, a community that is very close to us here, in 1992.

    I attended John Micheal Primary school, Ita Olookan, Osogbo, completed it in 1976 and gained admission to Secondary Commercial Grammar School Ada. I did my WAEC Exam in 1981 and passed in flying colours. I gained admission to the University of Nigeria, Nzuka in 1982 where I obtained a degree in Political Science in 1986. I served the nation at Luba Comprehensive High School, Ijebu-Ode.

    In 1988, I was given an appointment as a teacher in Army Children High School, Epe, 311 Field Artillery Regiment, Epe. I was transferred in 1990 to Army Cantonment Secondary School Ikeja and in 1992, I left the teaching profession and joined Colored Chemicals; a private company where we were producing screen printing materials.

    Then the urge for me to pursue my education was so much, so in the year 2000 I went to University of Ibadan and obtained Masters Degree in Public Administration, so I obtained a proceed grade to do my PhD, and it was that qualification that handed me an appointment in Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho, where I was employed as an Assistant Lecturer in 2008.

    I registered for my PhD in 2014 which I completed in a record time of 2018. Currently, I am a holder of a doctoral degree in Management Science with a specialisation in Human Capital Management and Public Management, so I continued my job with LAUTECH, Department of Management and Accounting till January 28, 2021, when community duty beaconed on me to be the Olona of Ada.

    At what point in your life did you know that you could become a king?

    There are two answers to that question. It could be answered positively and negatively. The moment you are a prince, you are a monarch in embryo, it is your birthright, so every prince is a potential king. But whether it had occurred to me that I would mount the throne of my father and probably it had been occurring to me persistently, I would say no. As at the time community duty beckoned for me to become the king of this community, I never expected it.

    My predecessor, Oba Abimbola Abioye II, mounted the throne at a relatively young age of about 43, and he was on the throne for about 24 years and his performance was sterling, fantastic and very spectacular.

    On April 4th 2019, I heard that my predecessor was dead and people started calling me to proceed to Ada to become the next king.

    It is the Lord that that anoints kings. There were 50 of us from the Adeitan ruling house that obtained the expression of intention form, and through the careful selection process of the Almighty, it was reduced to 26, later to 13 and later to four, and from there, I emerged. There was agitation and we went back to 13 again, and from 13 it became four, and from four it became one.

    But in the two final selection exercises, there was one that was conducted by the traditional chiefs. I was among the four that were selected and among the four that was eventually selected in the interview by the elites of the community, I was among the four. So two did not make it, and there were two that made it among the four that were chosen by the traditional rulers, but they never made it to the level where the elites conducted the interview.

    It was myself and a banker that consistently made the list of the four with the one traditional chiefs conducted. And the interview conducted by the elites at that time, I was having the feeling that let this cup not fall on me. After all, let the will of the Almighty be done.

    Where were you when your name was announced by the state government?

    I was in Ogbomosho. I was in my office when people brought the news to me. People were calling me from Ada.

    How did you feel about it?

    I was glad about it even though I was not desperate for the stool. At the same time, I am not a reluctant candidate. It is the stool of my forefathers and it is the wish of God that I should mount it and I accepted it with joy and gladness.

    Everybody around me was glad because it had eluded my father twice. My father was even much more loved than myself because he was a complete community man when he was alive. Whatever my father had, he would share it with everybody without bothering about his upkeep. When Oba Abioye, the father of my predecessor departed in 1969, my father was a teacher in Igbajo. He was a young man of 35 years, so people in our community approached him because the desire for an educated elite to be on the throne had been long in Ada. But my father declined.

    He said he was relatively young and there was somebody, his uncle in Ibadan, who was a successful contractor at that time. He said there was no way they could be mentioning the name of that man and he would be competing with him, because the two of them are from the same Adeitan Ruling House. But cruel fate played the fast one on that one he was not crowned.

    The second time was after the departure of Oba Samuel Oyedele. My father was the choice of everyone and we all felt that time was right. But man proposes and God disposes, so it eluded him again. I thank God that since I am on the throne, it has not eluded my father.

    Would you say the goodwill of your father worked in your favour?

    Definitely! That was where I got my title “Bibire Kosefowora”. My parents were known for good works. Definitely, my mother, who is still alive, is known for her good works too. For more than 16 years, she was the treasurer of the Anglican Church and she was a reference point. She ended up being given a chieftaincy title of the Iya Egbe Aya Bishop by the entire Anglican Church. Then within the community, she played several roles. Some mothers or other Obas would adopt Ilufemiloye and whatever, but I adopted “Bibire kosefowora” because the good deeds of my parents tremendously contributed to my emergence as the Olona.

    Is there a kind of lifestyle you would miss as the kabiyesi?

    Ehmm…There are a lot. The moment you are the kabiyesi, you are no longer a private man. You will miss your privacy a lot. There are certain things you want to do but tradition would restrict you. The social conditions too would restrict you. You cannot eat in the public. I don’t like being worshipped, even when people come to me to state their case, after they might have knelt, I don’t feel comfortable if you have to subject them to kneeling for long. I will keep telling them to get up and they would say they are kneeling for the throne and not for me. Things like that are not my way of life.

    Hitherto, I had been a private person but right now, I no longer live that kind of life. You are a public figure and everything you do before, you can’t do them again. You cannot socialise with your friends, you cannot go out and drink or go out and eat. I’ve attended several functions where I would be hungry but cannot eat there while others will be busy eating. And they would not want you to go, because when people do ceremonies, they want you to be there. So when you get there, you just have to tolerate whatever circumstance that you meet there. It is not in all circumstances that you have privacy to go and eat. You cannot go out with your friends and interact with them and because they don’t want to incur the wrath of tradition. They just have to measure whatever they say to you. I missed all those things.

    What are you doing to develop the community?

    We have the contributing council under the leadership of Engineer Prince Tunde Ponle who has done so much for this community. And there are other people too who have been working with him to make sure that Ada is developed. We have Asiwaju Kola Oyadeji who was a contractor. We also have somebody who retired as a Director of the Leventis conglomerate, Prince Demola Adetona. Then we have Chief Segun Alalade. These are the people we should describe as the architect of development of this community.

    When we take it one by one, probably social welfare, educational affair, economic affair and then tourism. There are volumes of ideas and vision which we’ve been putting in place. We are trying to institutionalize and within some few periods, they will begin to yield their dividends. If we take the issue of social welfare, the time I was installed was the time of COVID-19. Without soliciting with anyone, people were bringing in food with which we were sharing with our people, our women, the vulnerable ones, particularly the widows and the poor.

    As at the time we were keeping records we had kept records of almost 2000 people that we were able to touch their lives. So I have a vision to empower my people economically. I will help our graduates in this community to secure jobs. Some of our people now are coming in to impact skills. One of my sons based in Thailand is already floating programmes where people are being retrained so that they can acquire skills. These are some of the visions that I have, and that was why my son had to partner with me to mobilise people. We went to talk to them. We were together when they started the programme and these are some of the things that we need to do to transform Ada people, because it is the people that make a community.

    I want an Ada community where virtually all our children will be soundly educated. And of particular importance to me is the girl child education, and I think that was the first battle I had to fight when I was installed, because when you look at the poverty-stricken societies, some of our young girls might be thinking of getting married or pregnant for somebody as an escape route from poverty. But I fought that battle. I did much to discourage our children that they shouldn’t look at it from that perspective. If you don’t have a skill and you are into marriage, you are a liability and you will eventually become a punching bag of your husband.

    OYETUNDE OjoThese are some of the things we tried to do in terms of counseling. In terms of social mobilization, I was moving from one church to another, preaching the messages that when you train a boy, you trained a nation, when you train a girl, you trained the whole world.

    On tourism, I think one of the gold mines that Nigeria is eating at the top without our awareness is tourism. Her potentiality is using tourism to be revenue-earning sector. Regardless of the petrodollar money that we all focused upon, the tourism potentialities of every community is so much. That of my particular community here, we have several potentialities and they have not been tapped, but we’ve been able to liaise, and we’ve invited the commissioner for tourism.

    In fact, the rescue tourism initiative that they organised in Osun State, I was made the father of the day where we went and the people who came on the need for them to focus on the development of our tourist potentialities.

    We have several cases in Ada the size that you cannot determine. You cannot even know where it ends; you can only know the beginning. And some of them has fine architectural designs that when you enter it you will feel like you’re in three or four bedroom flat, some of them with natural water inside the rock, and you begin to wonder what nature has created with that kind of circumstances and who has done it. Then in the farm of one man that we called “Ojuloge” there is a rock there that you will see fine carvings, handwriting that you begin to wonder who has done that. So these are some of the things that abound in our community.

    It is my vision to showcase our potentialities so that they become the source of revenue, particularly for Osun State which is a civil service-oriented state. I also intend to preside over a community where there would be peace and tranquility; where it would be crisis-free. I thank God I’ve been on the throne for about two years now. We thank God that the community has enjoyed relative peace of all the communities that we have in Boripe Local Government.

    Between myself and my chiefs, nobody has had to settle any dispute among us, and there has been no case they brought to us that we have not been able to do justice to. So these are some of my visions and I thank God for putting them in place.

    How are you managing security and the issue of herders and farmer clash in Ada?

    People in Ada are peaceful. In fact, I intend to make one of the Fulani leaders the “Seriki of Fulani”. So ours is an inclusive administration. We don’t look at them as if they are not our people. They’ve been married to some of our daughters, and when we have this issue of cattle, we settle it amicably. We don’t allow it to boomerang to such a level that it would lead to inter-ethnic crisis, so we bring in these people from time to time and they counsel them on the need for them to maintain law and order and not to allow their cattle to stray into people’s economic strength and destroy them.

    Then we have the hunters, vigilante and Amotekun, the Agbekoya; they are all here. Those who watch over the community every night are more than 60 now, and the community tries as much as possible to respond to pay them. So we thank God we are living in a peaceful environment.

    Do you think giving a constitutional role to traditional rulers will address the challenge of insecurity?

    That is the reason a handful of us are advocating that we should be given constitutional recognition. You see, we have had instances when the legal-rational authorities run into trouble; it is the traditional rulers that they run to. And that is the reason some of us are advocating for a constitutional role with a specific role to play so that we can complement the effort of the government. Where there is no justice, there can be no peace.

    Some of the things that are happening in our society today, why there is so much insecurity is as a result of the fact that the economic system is killed against many. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Under such circumstances, we will have some people who would just go for the killer. That is why it is the extremely deprived that will be interested in violence. When you are not deprived, when you are a stakeholder in society, you wouldn’t want the society to be in crisis. So I think what we equally need to do and what the government has to do is to complement the efforts of the traditional rulers, because we are the closest to the people, we fill their pulse.

     

    If somebody is not hungry today he walks into the palace that he needs food. I don’t know how many invitation cards I get weekly. People will ask for donation in one way or the other and we don’t have the money. They feel free to approach us than to approach the politicians because our doors are open while the politicians will keep the police at the gate; you cannot go to their house unless you are allowed. But we allow them in even with the police at the gate. So we are very close to the people, and I think if they can assist us, we will assist the government in the real distribution of income. And when you do that, you will discover that those who have been disgruntled with the system will have no cause to do so.

  • Tales of rape, violent attacks rock rural communities without electricity

    Tales of rape, violent attacks rock rural communities without electricity

    Rape and myriads of other criminal activities have become regular features in many rural communities devoid of electricity supply across the country. Nights for the villagers are nightmares as they live perpetually under fear of possible attack by hoodlums. INNOCENT DURU reports that in spite of promises made by successive state governments to provide electricity in rural communities, power supply in remains a mirage in remote communities.

    Many young girls in Kaani area of Khaana Local Government Area of River State, who longed to remain undefiled until they get married, have had their dreams shattered with indelible scars left in their hearts. On many occasions, the victims were picked up from the roadsides the morning after they were dehumanised with bloodstains and drained of energy.

    The malleable ones are said to have become objects of unbridled sexual abuse at the hands of hoodlums who rob and rape them at will while the victims are searching for where to charge their phones at night. Many of the rapists, it was learnt, hide in uncompleted buildings from where they pounce on innocent girls that are passing by and heartlessly defile them.

    Bari, a concerned member of the community said: “Many girls have been attacked in the course of going to charge their phones at night.

    “The hoodlums rob some of them of their phones and rape them. You need to see some of the girls in the morning after the hoodlums would have messed them up.

    “There have been several cases like that arising from our girls going out at night to charge their phones.  Unfortunately, there is no place to report such incidents.

    “Some of the rape victims are taken to the hospital. It is a very serious matter. Only God can help us.”

    The inhabitants of Kaani have since it was founded many decades ago lived in total darkness. But for a few privileged members of the community who use generators as source of electricity, many of the villagers would not have had the faintest idea of what power supply means.

    Rivers is one of the five biggest oil producing states in the country, but in spite of its wealth and contribution to the economy of the country, many communities in the state are still living in deprivation and want. Following the spate of rape incidents, Bari said, a town crier was made to go round, announcing that people should not go out anyhow at night.

    Bari said: “You are on your own if you walk about at night. When there is darkness, who will secure who? I mean who knows who?

    “Here, it is difficult to use a torch, because once you flash the light, you give yourself out and anybody anywhere can grab you. It is the torchlight that shows you are there.”

    In the 21st Century when many countries have bidden farewell to primitive means of lighting the homes, the people of Kaani still go about with antiquated materials to illuminate their homes.

    In an emotion laden tone, Bari added: “Many generations have come and gone without knowing what electricity is, but there is nothing we can do.

    “I go to Bori to do business and return home to darkness. We use aboki light powered by a finger battery.

    “It is only those who can afford generators that manage to have electricity.”

    The military regime led by Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (rtd) had raised the hope of the people of Kaani when the now defunct Directorate of Food and Rural Infrastructure (DFFRI) mounted electric poles in the community. But the project was later abandoned, dashing the hope of the people.

    The incumbent River State governor, Nyesom Wike, as part of celebrations of the state’s Golden Jubilee in 2017, had said that his administration would embark on aggressive rural electrification scheme in a bid to revive the rural economy.

    Wike, speaking through his Chief of Staff Chukwuemeka Woke, had said the state government believed that rural electrification was key to stimulating the economies of rural communities.  He said that the state government had  set up a high-powered committee to interface with a major independent power producer to electrify key areas and facilities in the state so as to ensure uninterrupted power supply to major businesses and government facilities. But four years down the line, little or nothing has changed.

    A youth leader in Kaani, Friday Mbani, is embittered by the discomforting condition that absence of power supply has boxed the community into. He confirmed claims of sexual assault on vulnerable females in the community, saying: “When privileged people switch on their generators at night, you see everybody rushing to go there and charge their phones. But hoodlums are taking advantage of that to rape our girls.

    “The hoodlums hide themselves in uncompleted buildings, and when the girls are passing, they pounce and rape them.

    “The old people here, except those who have travelled to Port Harcourt, don’t know what is called power supply.”

    He lamented that as a business man the absence of power supply in the area had escalated his overhead cost and forced many people out of business.

    He said: “I have a business centre. I use a generator to run it daily and that costs me an average of N3,000 every day. We are shut out of happenings in other parts of the country and the world. Our health centre is down and so are other things in the community.

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    “We depend on lanterns while those who have the means use generator the year round. We have not even seen a cable before in the whole of the community.

    “We even did a documentary recently where we pleaded with the government agencies to help us with power supply.”

    Freedom, a computer services and PoS operator also bemoaned the absence of electricity in the community, saying: “I have to buy fuel every day. The PoS business requires one to charge the device every day, and that requires me to buy fuel all the time.

    “People are not safe because where there is no light, darkness thrives. Electricity supply from the government is strange here.

    “The children wouldn’t have known what electricity is if not for the people that have money to use generators.

    “People are not exposed to modern facilities. It affects our people’s education as those who need power supply to study cannot do so.

    “It also affects our living standard because people who have skills in different areas of life cannot do anything as there is no power supply here.

    “Tailors, welders, cold room businesses, among others, cannot function here except for those who have big generators.”

    Discouraged by the uninspiring developments in the area, Freedom said: “I have not seen any hope for our youths because successive governments have been promising and failing.

    “There was a time a former local government chairman came to the community twice promising that he would provide us with power supply.

    “They surveyed the whole place, giving us hope, but they didn’t do anything. Nothing also has been done since another administration came on board. Everybody has been struggling individually.”

    Secretary of the Community Development Committee, Sir Fredrick: said: “Since the creation of Kaani, we have not seen power supply. Businesses are not doing well here because of the absence of power supply.

    “You know that power supply has a ripple effect on businesses. It also affects security issues and there is no way you can eliminate the issue of rape from the problem of power supply. It is at a minimal level here and it occurs even in all places. Insecurity in Nigeria is everywhere and not peculiar to Kaani.”

    As a community, he said, “we have applied for power supply but all to no avail.

    “The last time the governor came to Bori, he said that any community that has not been connected should be given electricity, but nothing has happened since then.

    “All I know is that the government has approved electricity for Kaani.

    “We use generators and lanterns, depending on individuals’ purchasing power. Those who have no money are in perpetual darkness.

    “It has generally affected employment and gainful engagement of our people in productive activities.”

    Nightmare in Bayelsa communities

    Many rural communities in Bayelsa, another top oil producing state in the country, have also been living in darkness since they were founded.

    In 2000, a former governor of the state, the late Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, promised to supply the local government areas in the state with pipe borne water and electricity before July, 2001. The promise ended up as a mere political statement. Not even any of his successors, 21 years after the promise was made, has deemed it fit to alleviate the plight of the embattled rural dwellers.

    “All the communities in Southern Ijaw, apart from Amasomma, that is the late Alamieyeseigha community where we have the university, and apart from oil companies that have supported some communities with generators and diesel, there is no light.

    “If you go to Brass Local Government, which is on the fringe of the Atlantic Ocean, there is no national grid. If the oil companies do not help, the people will have no light,” Morris Alagoa, an environmental activist, said.

    He added: “In Brass Local Government Area, AGIP is assisting to some extent. All the other communities are on their own.

    “If you go to Ekeremor, which is far flung from the state capital, it is the same thing. The same thing is obtainable in Sagbama Local Government, Ogbia Local Government and others like that.

    “Even if I give an estimate of over 90 percent, it is not a wrong assessment.

    “We often describe it as a tale of two cities where you have the oil companies and the communities. You will see the oil companies’ environments aglow while the communities are in darkness.

    “We thank God that both Shell and AGIP, which have been operating in the communities, managed to provide generators and diesel to power the plants.  Throughout this year now, the community people have been saying the diesel supply was no longer coming.”

    He added: “The Alamieyeseigha government promised in 2,000 through the Commissioner for Utility, Mr Gabriel Owodo, that the state government had made an arrangement that every community is powered and that adequate budgetary provision had been made not only for them to have light but also for them to have water, but all that went into a voice mail.

    “The oil companies, that is why I said to a large extent, aside from the negative environmental degradation, their presence has been more visible in the communities than the state and the federal government.

    “The implication is that what people are supposed to do with light in terms of business and all of that, they cannot do.  If you don’t buy a generator you are on your own.”

    Unlike the Kanni community in River State, Alagoa said rural communities in Bayelsa have not had cases of rape. “But in communities like Otuasega in Ogbia Local Government, when it is night,  the people are afraid that cultists and thieves would start to occupy spaces, steal and do all sort of things.

    “Like I said, we have not been hearing about rape, but the people are apprehensive when it is night and the whole community gets dark.

    “Shell will soon give them light. We are working on the K2s Gas Plant. It is almost complete and they may all get light very soon.”

    Lamentation in Benue

    It is also tales of woe in Benue State over lack of electricity supply in the rural communities. In Agatu Local Government Area of Benue State, which has 10 council wards, only two communities have electricity.

    Obagaji which is the local government headquarters and Osugudu  are the only places with power supply.  The other eight have been in perpetual darkness since inception.

    The district head of Odugbeho, Hon Bawa Haruna, said: “We don’t have power supply here in Odugbeho. The wire did not even cross this place as you can see.

    “This has so many implications for us the people. You know what it means for any community not to have power supply.

    “We are just managing life because there is nothing we can do on our own. It is people who have money to buy generators that enjoy electricity to some extent while those who have no money remain like that.

    “We pay N50 every day to charge our android phones, because we need it to be on.”

    He noted that the security challenges they are having would have been tackled to a large extent if there was power supply.

    Haruna said: “If there is power supply, there would be no hiding place for all the local thieves.

    “Nobody has put any poles anywhere here. Nobody has awarded such a contract to my people.

    “Our present House of Reps member has been promising us all along.

    “You know politicians, they will publicise the whole thing but it will not work. Here, we don’t know about cold water from the refrigerator.

    “We have local pots that are made of mud. We fetch water into it and leave it in a room.

    “The water from it is a little bit cold but it cannot be compared with the one from the fridge at all. This challenge is making many youths who are supposed to help in farming to migrate to urban areas.”

    Primitive lifestyle persists in Plateau

    Life in Ngar, Gashish District, Barkin Ladi Local Government Area of Plateau State is not too different from what it was when it was founded over 100 years ago. They have never had power supply.

    But for a few privileged members of the community who own and use generators to provide electricity, many members of the community would not have known or experienced power supply.

    Members of the community still rely on torch and lantern to provide light in their homes.

    Deputy Imam of the community, Alhaji Umar Abdulahi , lamented the effects of reading with lantern on the sight of the children. Abdulahi said: “We have been applying to different organisations for help to no avail.

    “There was a time the Chief Imam and I met the Vice President in Aso Rock and he promised to give us power supply. But up until now, there is nothing like that.

    “There is darkness everywhere at night. We have electric poles but there are no wires on them. Our community is more than 100 years old.

    “Our children depend on touch and lantern to read. Our joy is that in spite of the darkness, our community is peaceful.”

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    He said succor came their way recently when a non-governmental organisation provided them with solar street light. Unfortunately, the poles are not enough to serve the entire community.

    Like people on a hunting expedition, members of the community, including children, are usually seen at night brandishing their torch and lantern at public events.

    Oyo rural communities also in darkness

    Oyo State governor, Engr Seyi Makinde, said in 2019 that his administration was committed to developing the rural areas in the state by providing electricity and accessible road networks to the length and breadth of the state. He spoke when he received a delegation from the Austrian Embassy led by Commercial Counsellor at the Austrian Embassy, Guido Stock, who paid a courtesy visit to his office.

    According to a statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Taiwo Adisa, Makinde said: “We are very much interested in developing our rural areas and providing electricity in those places, providing access road to the rural communities, and it is one of the areas through which we feel we can expand our economy. So, I guess after this meeting, we can meet again to discuss privately on the projects.”

    Checks around rural communities in the heart of Ibadan, the capital city, showed that the governor never meant the words he uttered in the presence of his guests, as the communities in question remain in utter darkness.

    A farmer at Ladunni area, Lagelu Local Government Area of Ibadan, the Oyo State capital,  Ojo Lamidi, and  Chief Sulaiman Akande in Abegede area said they never had power supply.

    “We depend on generator for everything. I need electricity to do my work but it is not available here. I depend on generator and it is not cheap at all,” Akande said.

    Ojo Lamidi, in a despondent tone, said: “We don’t have electricity, we don’t have hospital, in fact, we don’t have anything. Politicians come here to make promises but we don’t see anything thereafter.”

    We’ve hit the ground running – Rivers govt

    Rivers State Commissioner for Power, Damiette Herbert Miller, in a telephone chat with The Nation, said the state had begun work on rural electrification.

    Miller said: “Presently, I am in Abuja and cannot call for the records now.

    “I know that some communities have been linked up and some other communities are about to be linked up.

    “From the period I came into office till now, we are linking up the entire Khana Local Government Area in Ogoniland.”

    When our correspondent told him about the plight of Kaani community, he said: “If you don’t have power, what do you do? You go to the government.

    “If they sit in their homes and expect government to know everywhere that needs power, I don’t think it is going to work that way.

    “When they have issues, they should come to the government and explain.

    “Kaani is part of Khana Local Government that the governor on the 15th of May called me to the podium when the Ogonis were holding a reception for him and gave me a marching order to connect the entire of Khana Local Government, not just a section, and that is ongoing.

    “Documents have been prepared and soonest we are going to hit the ground running.

    “No! They have not started having light. Taking power all the way from Afam to Khana Local Government is like crossing about three or four other local government areas to get to Khana.

    “It just doesn’t start like that. You do survey, you do a lot of other things and begin to hit the ground.”

    When our correspondent reached out to the Chief Press Secretary to Benue State governor, Nathaniel Ikyur, on Tuesday, he did not answer the call.

    He, however, replied to a text message, asking the correspondent to call back the following day (Wednesday, from 10am) as he was in transit.

    When The Nation called on Wednesday to seek Ikyur’s comment on the plight of the rural people, he said: “Let me call you back.”  He was, however, yet to do so at press time.

    Plateau State Commissioner for Information, Dan Manjang, requested our correspondent to speak with the Commissioner for Water Resources and Energy, Sa’ad Bello, when his comment was sought as to what the state government was doing about making electricity available to rural communities.

    The calls made to the commissioner’s mobile phone however went unanswered. He was yet to return them at press time.

    The Chief Press Secretary to Oyo State Governor, Taiwo Adisa, neither answered the calls made to his mobile phone nor replied to the text message sent to it.

    FG makes fresh promise to connect rural areas

    After failed promises by the previous administrations, the Federal Government in September  promised to take its rural electrification programme to every nook and cranny of the country.

    Vice President Yemi Osinbajo disclosed this while commissioning a 100kwp solar hybrid mini grid and the modern market worth N2.2 billion in Kasuwan Magani, Kajuru Local Council of Kaduna State.

    Osinbajo said: “There is a key focus globally on renewable electrification that we can take advantage of, especially to expand rural electrification in the country, to provide electricity for underprivileged communities.

    “This rural electrification approach is laudable and I must commend the state governor for this initiative. We shall continue to expand the rural electrification.”

    He said despite the passage of the Electric Power Reform Act in 2005, the activation of rural electrification was only commenced in 2019.

  • Grand Mufti of Yorubaland: How crisis was averted in Osun

    Grand Mufti of Yorubaland: How crisis was averted in Osun

    It is about 14 days since a major face-off between the Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Abdulrosheed Akanbi, and League of Imams and Alfas, a body of Islamic clerics in the Southwest and the South-south states of Edo and Delta was averted, following the apprehension that greeted the plan by the Oluwo to install the founder of Jamaa’t Taawunil Muslimeen, Said Molaasan, as the Grand Mufti of Yorubaland.

    The League of Imams and Alfas saw this as an affront and a ploy by Oba Akanbi to usurp their powers. Consequently, the league approached the Osun State High Court and Justice Sikiru Oke granted the prayer filed by their lawyer, Barrister Kazeem Odedeji, asking it to halt Oluwo’s plan to install a Grand Mufti for Yorubaland.

    Up until some days before a truce was reached, the Iwo monarch had insisted on going ahead with the ceremony.

    In fact, preparations were said to be already at a crescendo with reports claiming that tents had been erected at the Oluwo’s palace in preparation for the installation.

    Before then, an Islamic cleric in Iwo,  Khalifat Asiru Adio Imran who incidentally was a known Oluwo’s friend before the face off, had also obtained a judgment delivered by Justice Kola Adegoke of Osun State High Court declaring that  Oluwo had no power to appoint any Islamic title holder for the  Iwo Central  Mosque.

    The League had also written to all the obas in Yorubaland to put them on notice that the Oluwo was on an alleged mission to rewrite Yoruba history by solely appointing the Grand Mufti for Yorubaland.

    The League also based its opposition against the Oluwo’s move on the premise that three or four such appointments in the past were done by them. These include the  honorary titles bestowed on  Alhaji Wahab Folawiyo as the Baba Adinni of Yorubaland and later the Baba Adinni of Nigeria; the late MKO Abiola as the Baba Adinni of Yorubaland; Arisekola Alao as the Aare Musulumi of Yorubaland;  Asiwaju Khamis Olatunde Badmus as Asiwaju Musulumi of Yorubaland, Chief Yekini Adeojo as the Seriki Musulumi of Yorubaland and Chief Mrs Sahkinah  Adekolani as the Iya Adinni Musulumi of Yorubaland and the last occupant of the post of Grand Mufti of Yorubaland who died two months ago, Sheik  Hamzat Hussein was installed by  League.

    Hence, they argued, it was the first time a monarch would be appointing an Islamic title holder for the entire Yorubaland.

    An insider said since the position in dispute is reserved for highly cerebral individuals and there are about eight or ten professors of Islamic Studies in the University of Ibadan and the University of Ilorin alone, they could have picked any of them, except that those in the academia usually avoid such appointments.

    The source said: “In Saudi Arabia, when a judgment is made for somebody to be executed, it is the Grand Mufti that signs the execution paper. If he fails to sign, nobody would dare do that.

    “He would look at the judgment to see whether it is in alignment with the Islamic doctrines.” were made before a middle point position was taken on the controversial issue and the tension generated by the appointment was doused.

    The Asiwaju Musulumi of Yorubaland, Alhaji Kamis Olatunde Badmus, one of the people who brokered the peace deal, told The Nation that the agreement would not have been reached but for the cooperation the Oluwo exhibited in the matter.

    The Asiwaju Musulumi of Yorubaland dismissed the alleged apprehension in certain quarters, saying the matter was not as serious as people thought.

    “The League of Alfas and Imams came to me and said they wanted to see the governor and tell him that the Oluwo does not have the power to confer, install or turban anyone as the Grand Mufti of Yorubaland, saying that the power resides in them and they have been exercising it for the past 30 years.”

    In a veil support of the League, Asiwaju Musulumi explained that there are two categories of Islamic titles in Yorubaland, one of which is exclusively reserved for the religious leaders who are very versed in the Islamic religion, and the Mufti of Yorubaland happened to be one of them. “It should be for people who understand and can interpret the Quran. If there is any crisis anywhere, they are the ones that are supposed to go there and interpret what the Quran says.And they must be a revered and knowledgeable personality acceptable to all and sundry.”

    In respect of this, according to him, the League felt Oluwo would be overreaching his bounds in trying to do that.

    “They saw the governor and made a formal presentation to him. At that meeting, the governor said he would liaise with me and find a way out of it. The Commissioner of Police and the Director of SSS were there.”

    He added that the Commissioner of Police called him and the Oluwo to resolve the matter.

    He said: “I went with the Chief Imam of Osun and it was made known to  the Oluwo that he had no power to confer that title on anybody, and if it was to be a traditional title, that can be within the purview of Oluwo.

    “I also echoed it that the League of Imams had already installed three in the past, one in Osun, one in Oyo and the other one in Ogun. The one that died was in Osun here.”

    He recalled that while with the Commissioner of Police, the Oluwo put up several arguments claiming that his forefathers were the first Muslim Oba. “But the question is if your forefathers were the first Muslim Obas, is it in the declaration that every Muslim Oba must be the one to assume the leadership of Muslims in Yorubaland?”

    During the meeting, the Oluwo was also said to have claimed that the first mosque was built in Iwo. But the Asiwaju Musulumi also faulted the claim, insisting that the first mosque was built in Oyo Ile, and it was about 105 years later that a mosque was built in Iwo.

    The Asiwaju Mususlumi, the representative of the League and the Oluwo then resolved at the CP’s office to find an end to the imbroglio.

    He said: “I told him (Oluwo) you are an Oba, don’t be involved in Islamic matters. He said that was what he inherited. But at the end of the day, in the presence of everybody, he said he agreed and he was going to send his delegate to me the following Wednesday.

    “On Wednesday (the following day), his people came and said we should allow this one to go but the next one is one that they are not going to dabble into. I said no, don’t play with our intelligence.

    “I said  the League of Imams would not take this. I told the delegates that  Kabiyesi wouldn’t have given you this mandate.”

    It was said that while the CP and the Director of SSS were finding a way out of the logjam, the Oluwo backed down a day before the installation and put a call through to the Asiwaju of Musulumi, saying that he had acceded to the request to stop the installation of the Grand Mufti of Yorubaland, and would instead install the Grand Mufti of Iwoland.

    The League was said to have reluctantly agreed to the new position of the Oluwo, though he met some resistance even after dropping the idea of installing the Grand Mufti of Yorubaland because the League observed that the invitation he sent out read ‘Grand Mufti of Yorubaland’.

    Before then, the League of Imams had approached the court, to say that there shouldn’t be anything like that.

    Asiwaju commended the Oluwo for taking a good stance by not allowing the installation to be done in his palace. He said: “Why I respect Oluwo is that he did not allow the so-called installation to happen in his palace. If the Oluwo had made his palace available, allowing the installation to go on, it would not have been in his interest to disobey the court order. He did well by not allowing this.

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    “The governor made sure we found a solution to this. The major point is that Oluwo did well in the first instance by not installing the Grand Mufti of Yorubaland. Though we made him understand that if anything happens in the palace, they would say Oluwo disobeyed the court order.

     

    Oluwo backs down

    Staying true to his word, speaking through his media aide, Ibrahim, the Oluwo said there was no installation of the Grand Mufti of Yorubaland today because court had stopped Oluwo.

    He said the Oluwo was not part of the acclaimed installation. What they did in the palace was to feed the less privileged. “They have said we should not install him. The palace was not part of his acclaimed installation.

    “If the place wants to confer the title, it will take place in the palace. There was nothing like that in the palace, what we had in the palace was the usual feeding of the orphans and the vulnerable, they all came to the palace to eat as usual custom of the Oluwo. If we were part of the process it would have taken place in the palace.

    Truce at last

    The Asiwaju Musulumi of Yorubaland commended the governor, the Commissioner of Police, the DSS and the Oluwo for allowing the matter to go the way it did.

    According to the Asiwaju Musulumi, “maturity played a lot of role in dousing this tension because the police did not over react. There was no major presence of police in Iwo on that day.

    “Because of what had gone underground, we were able to douse the tension and I think the League of Imams was happy with that.”

    In a release, the President General of the Association, Sheik Jamiu Kewulere, thanked Governor Gboyega Oyetola, the Osun State Commissioner of Police, the Director of State Security Services, all other state security agencies in the state and the Oluwo of Iwo for “their positive efforts in forestalling what probably could have reduced Osun State and the entire Yoruba land to a jungle of religious crises and such that might have further tensed security lapses in the country if Oluwo had gone ahead and made available his palace for the purported installation of the self-styled Mufti of Yoruba land.”

    The release further appreciates all the Obas in the entire Yorubaland for their patience and moral support for the League.

    Not yet uhuru

    While the League of Imams and Yorubaland have shifted grounds by allowing the Oluwo to appoint a Grand Mufti in Iwo, there are Islamic groups who are still kicking against the installation of Daood Imran Malaasan as the Grand Mufti of Iwoland.

    Khalifat Asiru Adio Imran, speaking to The Nation, insisted that the Oluwo does not have the power to appoint anybody in Islamic religion.

    “He can’t equate himself with the emir. We’ve had a Christian as the Oluwo. Oba Samuel Omotoso was a Christian. If it were to be statutory for all the Oluwos to be Muslims, probably, he could be excused.

    “Oluwo wears a crown. Those emirs he compares himself with are alfas. Former Emir of Kano is an alfa and has a degree in Islamic Studies. I challenged him in court over this.

    Imran said there is a constitution at the central mosque that guides the activities of Islamic clerics.

    He insisted that the Oluwo had no power to appoint the Grand Mufti of Iwoland, but because the League just wanted to honour him, they allowed that to pass. “He does not deserve it. Unfortunately, most of the alfas in Iwo right now are cowards,” Imran said.

    He admitted that they were friends but his bid to correct the Oluwo that he had no power to remove the Bashorun of Musulumi in Iwo caused friction between them.

    “I said look, this is a religious appointment, not a traditional appointment. It is only the person you appointed in your palace that you can remove, not an alfa.”

    He said the Oluwo is a traditional ruler and not a religious one, adding: “That is what the law says. Religion is not part of it.”

    According to Imran, if the Oluwo had gone ahead with his move to install the Grand Mufti of Yorubaland, it would have met with serious protests. An Iwo based Islamic group, Taawunu Health Initiative also said that it rejected the appointment of Molaasan.

    According to the group, the decision was based on the fact that Malaasan lacks the major requisite, which is knowledge, to give verdict on Islamic matters.

    They also accused him of having “no respect for the Shari’a which he is imposing himself to be speaking for.”

    They accused him of shunning the invitation of the Sharia panel.

  • Man presumed dead impregnates schoolgirl in Nasarawa, seeks her hand in marriage

    Man presumed dead impregnates schoolgirl in Nasarawa, seeks her hand in marriage

    Residents of Rukubi, a sleepy community in Doma Local Governmnet Area, Nasarawa State, are still in shock and disbelief after discovering that their daughter was impregnated by a man who had died by hanging in Gbuko village, Awe Local Government Area of the state.

    The body of Thomas Abakwa, a hunter, was said to have been found on a tree with a rope around his neck in a forest in Gbuko village about five years after he got married to his wife, Esther, in 2014.

    With Esther and her only son finding it difficult to cope with life after the demise of their breadwin ner, she decided to relocate from Gbuko to Rukubi as a widow in search of greener pastures, particularly because her late husband was the only son of his parents.

    At Rukubi, she came in contact with an alluring young man, Audu Genger, with whom she later fell in love. The news of a new husband after the mysterious death of the first one naturally gladdened the hearts of Esther’s relatives at their Tombu village in Keana Local Government Area when she went home with Genger to commence their marriage rites.

    Although her bride price was rejected because she was pregnant for Mr Genger before introduction as was forbidden by her people’s tradition, the two lovebirds nonetheless returned to Rukubi where they settled down as husband and wife.

    Events, however, took a new turn when Genger’s niece (daughter of his elder brother) named Pati came home from her school in Doma LGA and was found to be pregnant. Pati’s parents and other members of Genger’s family insisted that she must come home with the man responsible for her pregnancy.

    After much pressure, Pati’s impregnator agreed on November 6 as the date to meet with her family members for a formal introduction. To the shock of Esther, who was seated with her husband at the venue of the reception, Pati’s would be husband turned out to be Abakwa, her former husband who died by hanging about two years ago.

    The scene was said to have provoked a pandemonium as Esther, who was said to be shocked to the marrow at the sight of her ex-husband, marched towards him and asked: “Why are you here? You were my husband. You died some years ago and we buried you in Awe…”

    But while she was yet speaking, Abakwa vanished into thin air, causing her to collapse and go blank.

    Speaking in an exclusive interview with our correspondent, Esther narrated how Abakwa had died mysteriously and was buried before she relocated to the community where she met her new husband.

    She said: “My name is Esther, a native of Keana. I met the late Thomas (Abakwa) in Awe Market in 2013 when I went there to trade with my mother who is now late. He saw me and picked interest in me, and we finally got married in 2014.

    “We spent five years together as husband and wife while the marriage was blessed with a son.

    “The late Thomas was the only son of his parents, although he had a sister who also got married but was killed during the herdsmen crisis.

    “Thomas was a farmer and a hunter. We lived a happy village life. He was lovely and caring.

    “In December 2014, he left for the bush to hunt and did not return. After three days of intense searching, he was found dead and hanging on a tree with his lifeless body decaying. We hurriedly buried him.

    “I left the house because there was nobody to assist me and I relocated to Dinka part of Rukubi to join a friend and probably start a new life here.

    “There I met Mr Genger, my second husband, and we got married.” she explained

    ‘How I fell in love with ghost’

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    But the fate that befell Pati was no less cruel than Esther’s as members of her family are now said to be busy seeking spiritual help to repel any evil spell her romance with a dead man might breed.

    At the time of filing this report, she was said to have been taken into the sanctuary of a church led by a prayer warrior in Lafia, Nasrawa State capital, as was suggested by one of her friends.

    After denying our correspondent access to Pati at Rukubi, his efforts paid off while Pati was being transferred from Rukubi to Lafia on Wednesday.

    It was an intriguing encounter as the SS3 pupil narrated how she fell in love with the ghost that impregnated her and the cloud of uncertainty that now envelopes her life.

    She said: “In 2020, precisely in October, I had closed from school at about 6pm and went to the roadside to buy a bag of pure water. There I met Thomas on a bike. He had come to the same shop to get some provision.

    “He saw me and picked interest in me. He asked me to get anything of my choice in the shop. He indeed paid for all the things I picked in the shop and got my contact.

    “He told me he was a businessman from Abuja but was based in Lafia. Within two weeks, we bonded together and spent nights together from one hotel to another in Lafia. But almost all our operations were in the night.

    “He had a small car he was using. He bought everything I needed and that got me more attracted to him. He convinced me beyond reasonable doubts, so I didn’t care to know much about his origin.

    “Four months after, we started having unprotected sex and he got me pregnant

    “When I told him about the pregnancy, he didn’t hesitate. He promised to take full responsibility.

    “He agreed to meet my parents and commence the traditional way of getting married to someone who is already pregnant.

    “He actually made it to Rukubi where he met his first wife (Esther) who got married to my daddy’s younger brother after Thomas Abakwa was said to have died. Then he disappeared upon seeing his wife among the mother-in-laws he was to talk to.

    “When Esther saw him arrive, she shouted and raised the alarm. That was when my world crashed like a pack of cards.

    “I had no inkling my man, father of my unborn child had died before. But I later believed because if it wasn’t true, he wouldn’t have vanished. I’m short of words to express how I feel, but I have to accept my fate as an act of God.

    “It is shocking because we had come a long way, and now the man has gone, leaving me with his unborn baby.”

    Pati’s mother, Monica, told our correspondent that the family was concerned about how to manage the stigmatization from the incident.

    She said: “A lot of people in Rukubi are not aware except in the Dinka village compound. We want to manage the issue carefully so that her future will not be ruined and she can live her life.

    “We have approached a pastor and a reverend father in Lafia who confirmed that Thomas Abakwa was a ghost. He wasn’t a human being, so Pati needs to undergo some traditional rites for living with a ghost for years.

    “But we shall do our best for her to return to her normal life. That is why we are going to see a pastor.”

    On the pregnancy, the mother said she would consult the pastor and other family members to know what to do with it, saying it was already about four months old.

    Our correspondent traced the location of the husband of the late younger sister of Abakwa. After several days of search, Mr Agba Agu, who is now based in Kadarko, told our correspondent that the late Abakwa was his in-law as he got married to his (Abakwa’a) younger sister but, unfortunately, she was killed by herdsmen.

    He confirmed that Thomas Abakwa actually died some years ago, adding that he personally attended his funeral when he died mysteriously in the bush by hanging.

    He said: “If anybody claims he sees Thomas, then it must be his ghost. I can’t doubt what his wife is saying because she spent many years with him.

    “But Thomas had died. I know him very well. He was my in-law and a man of few words.

    “He was a hunter, and when he died, I attended his funeral. So it might be his ghost and not the real Thomas.”

  • High price I’ve paid for pastoral ministry – BISHOP OKONKWO

    High price I’ve paid for pastoral ministry – BISHOP OKONKWO

    As part of the preparations for the 40th anniversary of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM) and its annual convention themed Exceeding Glory, the presiding bishop, Mike Okonkwo met with select journalists to bare his mind on the church at 40, the security situation in the country and sundry national issues. ADEOLA OGUNLADE was there.

    The church is about to celebrate its 40th anniversary. Could you recall how the journey began and what has been your experience?

    There is no way I will be able to articulate all that God has enabled us to do in 40 years. But suffice it to say that for me, it has been 40 years of adventure of faith; 40 years of foundation laying; 40 years of seeing God for who God is; 40 years with all the blessings and goodness of God. But they are never without the challenges that come with them. The good news, however, is that in spite of the challenges that we have, because it is not just what they call a walk in the park at all, it has been like 40years that I ventured into faith. That means you don’t see everything manifest before you take your step. You take out the step because God told you to. And, when you take the step, God helps you to take the rest of the step.

    That is the way it has been and through it all. I must tell you that it has been quite a very inspiring and encouraging experience which I won’t take for granted. God has helped us from the days of small beginning from where we have moved from to the days of convenience where anyone will desire. But God took us step-by-step and every step has been an experiment. So, I really give God the praise for what he has done with us so far, but I know that it’s just a tip of the iceberg just like ours.

     

    What is the indication to the ministry?

    Just like I was sharing with the congregation during our close of fast last week, which was on last Sunday evening; that whatever we have been able to achieve as a ministry so far, that God is saying that is just a foundation we laid.  And being first generation or the founding bishop of the ministry and God kept me alive so that I can be able to ensure that a solid foundation is laid for the next generation that will now take it up to another level. Mindful of the fact that one person does not accomplish the vision that God has for a people. Not one person if you want – If you understand that concept it will enable you to apply yourself.

    The scriptures in Psalm 90 said teach me to number my days that I may apply my heart to wisdom. So, there is limitation by mortality. So no matter the desire and aspiration you have for the work that God has called you, you still have human limitation, which you cannot accomplish in your lifetime. And that is scriptural, because when you check the scripture, you will find out that most often not one person accomplishes a vision. When you don’t understand that fact, then the vision will die in your hand, which I don’t intend that it does as far as we are concerned.

    What are some of the peculiar challenges faced by the ministry in last 40 years?

    At the Inception of the ministry; there were challenges. First of all is the difficulty in believing that which God was telling me. I had a hard time believing some of the things that God was telling me that we were going to do in my lifetime in Ministry, because looking at my background and how we were, I didn’t see the possibility of it happening.  There were things that would have been a source of discouragement to me at the inception of this ministry. I lost my first child at the age of two plus, and by then we were just coming up. That was enough to discourage me. And while I was still thinking in terms of that and how with all those challenges, I lost another younger brother of mine, my immediate younger brother who was a medical doctor and a surgeon lieutenant in the Navy.

    Why it was too painful to me was the fact that he was more or less the only person out of my family who stood with me. By then he had not been to the university. He studied at the University of Lagos. By then, he just finished his higher HSE in Government College, Sokoto. But he was the only one out of my entire family who supported me when I answered the call. No one believed in me. No one accepted that I should because I had to leave the bank to go to answer the call of ministry. I was walking in the bank successfully, doing very well and suddenly I left the bank for the unknown. Not like today when ministry have become something that people are talking about and are  attacking ministries and complaining and talking about ministries interested in money; collecting people’s money.

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    In those days, to even think of being in ministry was a curse. If you told somebody that you wanted to marry their child, it was an anathema. Why would you? Who are you to come and marry? That was when I started a ministry. And so, this young man was supportive of me. He just believed that somehow God was going to see me through. But somewhere along the line, after he had been through school and he was working with the Navy as a medical doctor, he was shot by armed robbers. It was when armed robbery was just starting in Lagos. It was armed robbers who shot him right inside the church, but not outside the church. Then we were at Akoka.

    He was shot inside the Church when he came to carry out an assignment that I gave to him. So you can imagine that; I mean that will raise a lot of questions in your mind. This young man came to the Church after service on Sunday to come and carry out the assignment I gave to him only for him to lose his life in the attempt. So it was very painful. That’s another one, and I can tell you many others that transpired. So those are some of the experiences. And that incident caused me to lose my father. And, of course, after that, my mum and I lost two other brothers. So, it’s been one tragedy after another in terms of death. And, of course, while growing up, we had to fight for our property. There were many properties we bought but lost, which are some of the things you face in ministry.

    There concerns about succession disputes in churches. Can you give a fatherly advice on this? 

    I don’t see why succession should be an issue for any church that must have longevity. Like I said earlier, why should it be an issue? Let me start with Archbishop Idahosa’s issue. Archbishop Idahosa’s wife was in ministry. I quite believe that it is not every pastor’s wife that is called to ministry. The fact that your husband is so, so, so or you are the pastor or general overseer does not automatically bestow upon you the right to become a person. But I also believe there are people whose wives are called in their own rights into ministry. In their own rights they are called by God just like their husbands are called. And so, I know very clearly that Idahosa’s wife was involved in ministry. The fact that people are agitating does not change anything; the woman was called to ministry. And as at the time the man passed, she was the only one among the people who had the capacity of holding that ministry if there was going to be continuity.

    I know a lot of people who are in that organisation. Some of them were very close. But the truth is that at that time, she was the only one that could keep the ministry going until now. I am not just going to advocate for anybody out of sentiment so that it may remain in the family. For instance, the Redeemed Christian Church, Adeboye was the least person to be appointed of all the leaders of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, who were older than him. So, for him to be appointed shows that it is not about family. Actually, the man had children but he did not appoint them, to show that it is not about family. So, transition should not create any problem.

    Foursquare, for example, they have a written document. So, if there is any rumble in the place – it shouldn’t be. There document reads that there will always be tenure change. So, it’s not the case of you are a general overseer, you remain there forever. So, you do your tenure and then step down for another person to take over. So if somebody decides that he wants to remain there, obviously, it will create problems. But that should not be at all. So, we as a ministry also have in our document the base of transition. If anything happens to me, the Church will not stop, because we have in our document how transition should take place. And so for me, it should not be a problem.

    And everyone knows, as far as this ministry is concerned, even though God used me to start it, there is not one thing that has to do with this ministry that I own personally.

    What is your view on insecurity in the country?

    Everyone knows that the country is at the cusp of trembling, and it is not a hidden thing. And the situation transcends any human being. It is beyond what you should be apportioning blame to this person or that person. No, it is much more than that. We need God to help us. That’s all I can tell you as far as this country is concerned. Like never before, we should stop playing politics. Let’s not politicise our security situation.  Before I came for this interview I was just reading the news of how bandits invaded the University of Abuja and the man was lamenting and crying – one of the professors lamenting and crying. They are attacking Katsina, the President’s home state, Zamfara and all over the place.

    So, I am saying this so we can leave politics aside and Nigerians should be honest for once and sit down and let us put our heads together and solve it. We should not play politics with people’s lives. My pain is that we play politics with people’s lives – it goes beyond parties, to the point that they blew up the rail line. If that is not telling us something, then it means somebody must be blind or something. So, it is an unfortunate situation and if I am to proffer a solution, I would say probably the presidency needs to profile our military and find out. Are there infiltrators who have infiltrated our security architecture (army, police, and other security agency) to find out if we have saboteurs within the system, then you can be sure we are not going to get anywhere.

    It is a business. It’s a racket. People are making money and it is unfortunate that people are making money with people’s lives. People are dying like chicken. So, there needs to be honesty and sincerity.

  • ‘Watching my grandmother sell stockfish inspired my choice of business’

    ‘Watching my grandmother sell stockfish inspired my choice of business’

    Henry Chiago, a Nigerian based in Switzerland, is the Chief Executive Officer at Polifuds Group, a company involved in the processing, sale and distribution of non-specialised wholesale foods, beverages and tobacco. In this interview with Sheriff Atanda, Henry, as he is fondly called by friends, shares his experience working across continents of Africa and Europe in the last couple of years.

    Typical day

    Henry Chiago is an early riser no doubt and he has been like that for as long as he can remember. He said that much during the chance interview session with our correspondent.

    “My typical day begins early. I’m an early riser. I rise as early as 6am. Of course, I meditate and pray so I’m grounded to do the work of the day armed with my daily to-do-list.”

    Management style and philosophy

    For Henry, simplicity is bliss and this reflects much in his management style and philosophy. “I’m quite flexible and adaptable. My outlook on management is very simple. I’m very strict on principles because life principles that govern humans do not change. However, my first approach to every management scenario is to first identify the overarching objective or goal; I can then adjust my management approach per time to empower the people I’m managing in a way that supports the strategic direction of the business as a whole.”

    While elucidating more on his management philosophy, the suave and gentlemanly native of Ngor Okpala in Imo state, holds the view and very strongly too that, “A true leader is that servant leader who knows the way, shows the way in a way that will make people believe the way so they work in a way that moves everybody forward including the key stakeholders of the business.”

    Delegation of responsibility

    The young man who studied Applied Chemistry at the University of Calabar and also bagged a degree at Ecole de Migro, in Switzerland, respectively, says naturally, he has a predilection for delegation of responsibility.

    According to him, “Delegation is leadership training for the entire team. As someone who believes in grooming others, I delegate responsibilities to team members and with our robust feedback system, we work to achieve our set goal.”

    Expatiating, he says matter-of-factly, “There is no way I can do all things and be all things. So I pay great attention to my team members. I address my team members as colleagues and partners, within the service industry where we currently play in, team cohesion, and ensuring that every member of the team brings their ‘A’ game to work is critical to the success of our organisation and the great customer experience we create for our international clients and partners. We consistently ensure that we avoid psychological lacuna within teams, so communication is free flowing from top-down, bottom-up and across.”

    Other area of interest

    On his other areas of interest besides business, he says he has a deep-seated passion for everything agribusiness.

    “I’m deeply interested in agriculture in Nigeria and this includes the entire agriculture value chain in Nigeria. I see Nigeria as a goldmine that the owners are spending unending years sitting in meetings to discuss on the way to kickstart gold mining and exploration. Most of the things we import from Asia into Europe can really be found in Nigeria massively so we are looking at cluster processing parks as well since we have our ready market Europe as off takers.”

    Henry, who obviously loves the good life, says he is a travel freak and bookworm combined. “I love reading and travelling. I enjoy books and they provide me lots of insight, fun and mind escape,” he enthused.

    “Travel,” he observes, “Is very therapeutic for me and moreso our business involves much travelling for exhibitions, including visiting our suppliers, inspecting factories where most of our products are produced. Of course, we keep an eye on the innovations in our industry around the world and discuss on how best to meet up with the standard requirement for destination countries of each product.”

    Interestingly, he says one of the last books he read is Rhapsody of Realities, a daily manual from the stable of Christ Embassy.

    Holiday destination

    On his choice holiday destination, he chose some famous locations in Greece. Santorini, in Greece, is the port of call when he craves a holiday resort outside Nigeria. “You really can’t have enough of that country,” he says of Greece, with a tinge of excitement in his voice. I have been there a couple of times, it’s fascinating, Santorini, Greece pops up first on my mind anytime I think of where to relax. Amazing Islands spread across that country.”

    Personal motivation

    According to him, what motivates him as a Christian is spreading love that all men must feel, hear, see and touch as a language that all men must speak. “Love has the potency to solve most of the problems on earth. Love motivates me.”

    On what makes him tick, he says that would be his depth of spiritual awareness.

    Sense of style

    Though a man about town, he loves to keep it simple all the time, especially his dress sense. “I love to keep it simple and comfortable. I wear anything I’m comfortable in and simply smart anytime. You know I was asking a friend of mine a few days ago. How come when people get to their 80s they don’t care much about what they wear and how you see themselves? The reason is there is this wisdom that prevails as they begin to remember they came to this earth alone will leave alone as such they pay less attention in impressing people.”

    Read Also: Wofai Fada laments high cost of food

    However, to stay healthy, he follows a simple-keep-fit-programme as part of his regimen. “I take lots of water to keep hydrated and I take a lot of walks, it will shock you to know most of them are in the forest. I learnt that in Switzerland and it pays especially if you are the type that prays a lot and I can tell you will not lack inspiration.”

    Staff motivation

    On how he motivates his team, he says he does so by making them have a sense of belonging. “We make our staff have a sense of belonging within our organisation, we show them the growth that is possible and of course, we reward with fair wages and other benefits, we equally encourage flexible hours.”

    Applying stick and carrot approach

    Life, he says metaphorically, is about carrots and sticks to get the balance. “But you may be surprised to hear this from me, I believe everyone is a good person as such it is always best to sit and negotiate.”

    Best decision thus far

    A businessman, no doubt, but he says one of the best decisions he took in life is becoming a born again Christian. “I have a life I never knew existed before from that one decision. Not only that, everyday I discover a better version of me with layers of depth of awareness of who I’m and what I’m capable of achieving on earth. It’s intriguing.”

    Worst decision in his working career

    His worst decision in his career as an entrepreneur is importing palm oil from Nigeria that had colourant Sudan IV. That decision got his fingers burnt literally, he says. “I lost all my assets because of that costly mistake. Funny enough, whoever introduced that colourant must have done that just to gain some thousands of Naira… What that individual didn’t know was that that singular action stalled the business of exporting Nigerian palm oil in Europe. That act was set to destroy a business with a prudent assessment in millions of dollars, brands built over the years. Our containers were flagged at every port in Europe. My error was that I decided to extend our sourcing to my home country-Nigeria with the intention that jobs can be created for some people.”

    •Chiago sweating after a time out at the Lawn Tennis Court

    Greatest influence

    Not born with a silver spoon, he says growing up was anything but smooth as they had to scrap by. “We didn’t have a lot of money growing up but we were loved and taught the principles of hard work. When I was in primary school, I watched my late grandmother, then a widow trade on stockfish. She always had this unique comfort that comes from counting money after making good sales. Most things we learn at a young age stay with us and become the filter with which we view life thereby moulding our destiny.”

    Life lesson

    He has learnt to be patient and hopeful. Waxing philosophical, he says, “You know they say every broken clock can be corrected twice a day.”

    Definition of success, career-wise

    Life, he says, is a moving train, a sort of Marathon and not a sprint. “Fundamentally I view success as increasing my ability to set goals and achieve my set goals within the set time. Success for me is improving my personal capability to produce results. This is exactly what I’m focused on daily.”

    Favourite Nigerian dishes

    His favourite Nigerian meal is ogbono but he regrets that these days to get good ogbono is indeed difficult. “You get all sorts of offensive taste in ogbono now unlike in those days.”

  • Silent war in Magodo

    Silent war in Magodo

    The orderliness and serenity for which Magodo Phase II, a highbrow estate on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, was once renowned is being gradually eroded not only by the explosion in human traffic but also the erection of some structures that are clearly at variance with the vision of its founders, GBENGA ADERANTI reports.

    Those who conceived the idea of Magodo, a highbrow residential estate located off the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway on the Lagos Mainland, may not be comfortable with the sight that now confronts one at the once serene community. A quiet but bruising war is raging between the old settlers and the new ones whose activities appear to be defiling the beauty, orderliness and serenity for which the estate was once renowned.

    According to an enumeration done by the Magodo Residents Association (MRA), while there were 2,747 houses on the estate in 2013, the number has soared beyond the imagination of the founders of the estate who had conceived it as an exclusive residential area devoid of any form of pollution or congestion.

    Once treated as a hallowed land, the original owners of the community cherished its serenity so much that they named it Magodo, a Yoruba expression that literally translates to ‘no pounding’.

    However, Magodo, particularly the part designated as Phase II, has lost its hallowed nature.

    Its population of high flying career men and women, retirees and senior citizens has in recent years been infiltrated by people of questionable character as was evident in the arrest of a high profile robbery and kidnapping suspect popularly called Evans from the estate some years ago.

    A retiree who is resident on the estate expressed concern in a chat with our correspondent that the estate is gradually turning into a hideout for people of questionable character.

    He said: “Until that celebrated kidnapper (Evans) was arrested, nobody would have thought that the estate was harbouring that kind of individual. We are retired and we want to live in a peaceful environment. That is why we came here. But we are no longer getting that peace.

    “This is supposed to be a peaceful environment, but some people have bastardised it. We now have groups of young boys in the estate, you see them hopping around in expensive cars when other people are busy at work, but you don’t know what they do for a living.

    “These are boys in their early 20s while most of us here are pensioners. When we were coming in, we thought we were coming to make Magodo our home, but the boys are turning it into a terrible place.

    “You see many of them coming in as late as 1 am or 2 am, blaring music from their expensive cars and constituting themselves into nuisance to the neighbourhood. We are not happy about it at all.”

    Another concerned resident noted that many of the youthful residents who are given to an ostentatious lifestyle are now in the habit of buying houses mostly from the foreign-based children of deceased original owners.

    “They sell such properties to the vibrant new owners who are not prepared to conform to the estate’s quiet lifestyle.

    “What they do most times is to demolish the building and turn the site into any kind of construction they desire in complete disregard for the original master plan and the requirements of town planning authorities,” he said.

    Thus, besides the nuisance constituted by some ‘new residents’, the altering of the physical development regulations in the estate has also attracted the attention of concerned residents who are determined to stop the trend. That became the basis for the quiet war that now rages between the old and the new generations of residents.

    At the moment, the residents’ association is kicking over the construction of two buildings, each containing two apartments on a plot of land at No 12 Oluwole Akinosho Street, Magodo GRA Phase 2, Valley View Zone and the loss of life on the site.

    The Nation gathered that before the construction of the twin buildings commenced, the plot of land on which they are being built had only one building on it. Not a few residents of the estate were therefore shocked to find about two years ago that two massive structures had sprung up on the plot of land measuring about 817 square metres.

    The development, a building expert who asked not to be named said, contravenes the physical development rules and regulations of the state. “You can only have a single building or a duplex on such a plot of land. But here now is a property less than 900 square metres with two massive buildings on it. This, definitely, is going to constitute real nuisance to the neighbourhood,” he said.

    In their bid to stop the land’s developer in his track, the Valley View Zone of Magodo Residents’ Association on August 2, 2021 wrote to the Lagos State Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, requesting the ministry to intervene in respect of the construction of two buildings on a piece of land at No 12 Oluwole Akinosho Street, Magodo GRA Phase 2, Valley View Zone and the loss of life on the site. In the letter signed by the General Secretary of the association, Felix Ogunmade Esq, and Mrs Adetoun .O. Olawale, Environmental Secretary, the MRA said the ongoing construction at the site followed neither the government building codes nor approved drawings.

    Read Also: Magodo residents warn against move to convert wetlands to residential purpose

    The body alleged that on some occasions, notices were pasted on the gate and the property marked with RED in several places apparently by agents of the state’s town planning authorities who would also seal the gate. But to the shock of residents, the sealed gate would be broken a few days after and construction work would go on in defiance of the government order.

    The residents’ association also alleged in the letter that on July 30, 2021, one of the artisans who were working at the site fell from the topmost floor of the building and later died because there were no “adequate safety measures” in place.

    They alleged that although the property was sealed, work resumed on it barely two weeks later without steps taken to remedy the situation.

    Worried that the penchant of the owner of the building for disregarding the authorities could catch on among like-minded residents, the association on 6th October wrote to the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, to draw his attention to the “construction of four massive town houses of four floors each on a plot of land just about 870 square metres in size.”

    They alleged that “the developers are not able to make provision for the necessary air space and car parking spaces.

    While also appealing to the governor to take urgent steps on the matter, MRA urged him to direct that thorough investigation be carried out on the level of compliance with the relevant environment and physical planning laws and regulations; verify the level of compliance with the approved building plan; and where violation of the terms and conditions of the certificate of occupancy is confirmed, revoke the certificate of occupancy granted the land owner.

    A resident of the association, who confirmed that letters were sent to the ministry and the governor, said that MRA was yet to get a response from the Lagos State Government.

    He said: “We have made recommendations to the government, but we don’t know what they are doing about it.”

    According to him, “the development could constitute a serious security threat because a building that is supposed to accommodate eight or 10 people now containing four apartments means you are going to have about 30 people within the premises.

    “There would not be enough space for parking, so they will park on the streets. They will wash their cars and do so many terrible things on the streets. Many people will be coming in and out of the estate and at night. They will constitute nuisance to the neighbours and it will cause discomfort for other residents in the estate.

    “We are not saying they should not develop their properties but they should adhere to the government’s specifications.

    “When you want to erect a building in Magodo there are physical development regulations you are expected to abide by. There are some necessary approvals you are supposed to have.

    Speaking with The Nation, the Environmental Secretary of Magodo Residents’ Association Valley View Zone, Mrs Adetoun Olawale, said while it might be a bit difficult for the MRA to enforce the urban and physical planning law and regulations because it does not have prosecutorial powers, the Lagos State Government, commendably, is always going round on enforcement drive within the estate.

    Olawale said knowing that Lagos State will never approve building drawings and designs in contravention of its own laws and regulations, MRA often engages property owners and developers to supply a copy of their drawings to the estate office.

    “Some people ignore this request. In this regard, it will be expedient if Lagos State can do more to empower the MRA to assist it in this public spirited drive,” she said.

    “The whole idea is vigilance. Residents are encouraged to say something if they see something. Whenever any construction is being put up in contravention of the Lagos State laws and regulations, we lodge a report with the Ministry of Physical Planning & Urban Development which has the power to serve the statutory notices prior to removal or demolition of the offending structure.”

    She said as a way of curbing the excesses of some residents of the estate, MRA had embarked on an operation called ‘know your neighbour’.

    One of the people on site who claimed to be the eye of the owner of the buildings on site, but pleaded not to be named, described the allegations leveled against him as mere witch hunt.

    He insisted that the buildings in question had all the necessary approvals from all the regulatory agencies after the necessary documents were submitted, including the building plans, even though the approval was delayed because of some administrative hiccups.

    He said that all the physical development planning and development agencies in Lagos State had visited the site for inspection or verification at one time or the other demanding for the approval which he said he produced.

    Those who claimed that the building was sealed many times but the seals were broken by the developers spoke out of ignorance.

    He said: “You know that in Lagos, there are various agencies. There is Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA), there is town planning, there is development control, there is physical planning, and so on. There is also material testing. They come at different times and they ask, ‘Where is your approval from us’.

    “When they come, they seal the place. Then you go and show them the approval that you got and they come back and unseal it.”

    He denied the allegation that the seal of Lagos State was broken several times, saying that “nobody has the audacity to break a government seal without the authority of the agency that sealed it.

    “It is not true that the seal was broken. At no time was any seal broken. Each time a seal was put on the gate, we engaged the agency that was involved, we would provide the necessary approvals and they would come and unseal it,” he said.

    He insisted that all building approvals for the property were obtained and were in order.

    “That can be verified from the building development control,” he said.

    He confirmed that there was an accident at the site in which a victim lost his life on the way to the hospital. “The matter was investigated. All the safety measures were put in place. It was just an accident.”

    He also said contrary to the allegation that the building project in question would constitute nuisance in the estate and the owners did not provide enough parking space for tenants, the building could accommodate 16 vehicles on the premises, assuming that each tenant would have four cars. He said: “The twin buildings you see there are divided into four dwelling apartments. The place is built for four families. If there are four families and you say each family should have four cars, that would be 16 cars, and that is even an overkill. Otherwise, I would say three cars are enough for one house.

    “There is enough parking space for four cars per house. Nobody is allowed to park on the road in that place; all that is provided for. I really don’t know why these people are after me.

    He said he believed that if the building did not have an approval, the residents’ association would have approached the regulatory agency to stop the construction.

    He said that unlike other estates where there are specifications, there is no specification on the type of structure to be erected in Magodo.

    “Who enforces specifications? Is it not the physical planning and development control? If it is true that there is specification, it is physical planning and development that will enforce it.

    “But there is no such specification in Magodo. Property have been developed there that were once dwelling houses.

    “Maybe a retiree built a house there 30 years ago, he is late, and his children want to develop it to suit the current realities. So they break down the whole building as I did. That is exactly what the owner is doing. “If he is doing the wrong thing, nobody would give him an approval.”

    On the issue of new people coming into the estate, he said he saw nothing wrong with that because the new generations are coming in to dwell in the estate as the original owners are gradually passing on.

    He said: “You see, Magodo is occupied by a lot of pensioners, a lot of retirees. They have always lived there with the notion that Magodo is a retired people’s home. But with the way things have evolved, we have younger people coming in.

    “We now have many old people dying and their children taking over their houses. There is a new generation of boys coming in. There are eatries, drinking joints in the estate and a lot of you get people living there.

    “Of course you know that what young people do will be more prevalent. They play loud music and they go out at night.”

    When our correspondent gained access into the building, it was noticed that there is more than ample space for parking.

    Reacting, the Public Affairs Director, Lagos State Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development, Mr. Mukaila Sanusi said, the unsealing of the building was based on the production of the provisional safety compliance letter issued by the Safety Commission.

  • My life as medical doctor, herbalist, Ifa priest – Oba Olusina Adekoya

    My life as medical doctor, herbalist, Ifa priest – Oba Olusina Adekoya

    Oba Adedayo Olusina Adekoya, the traditional ruler of Ode Ule Kingdom, Remo North Local Government Area, Ogun State is both a medical doctor and a herbalist. The President of Wakamdo Health Industry Programme of Losi Group Limited and President General of the Worldwide Isese Agbaye Community (WIAC) spoke with GBENGA ADERANTI about how he managed to combine orthodox and traditional medicine, the role he played in the emergence of the late politician and business mogul, Bashorun MKO Abiola as the Presidential candidate of the defunct Social Democratic party (SDP) before the Ibrahim Babangida-led junta denied him his mandate and how he reluctantly became the traditional ruler of his community, among other issues.

    How did you become  the President of WIAC?

    I had always been very innovative. I see things from the point of being a Nigerian. One way or the other, I participated in the politics of that time. I became the board chairman of the Ogun State Council for Arts and Culture.

    Some of the old men and women, cultural people, requested that they wanted to be holding meetings at the June 12 Cultural Centre, but were asked to go and pay for the hall. These people didn’t have money, but I assured them that we would find a way of bringing them in. I called the director and requested that they should allow them to use the hall for their meeting because the place is a cultural centre, and since that time, they have been holding meetings there.

    I asked them, ‘What unifies you? Christians are called Christians, Muslims are called Muslims. What are you people?’ Some said they were olorisa (idol worshippers) some called themselves elesin abalaye (traditional religion practitioners) and so on. But I said they must have an identity. I did my research and found that the only word that combines everybody together is isese, and they all agreed to that. Without my knowledge, they said because I gave them an identity, I would be the one to lead them. That was how I became the President General of Isese people.

    Isn’t orthodox medicine in conflict with isese?

    There is no conflict. Medical practice is a profession; isese is a way of life or religion. There are medical doctors who are Muslims and there are others who are Christians. What is conflicting about that? Nothing!

    You said you could claim to have come from six different states in Nigeria. What does that mean?

    I can claim to have come from Ogun State. I can claim to have come from Ikorodu in Lagos State. I can claim Oje town in Oyo State. I can claim Osun State. I can claim Bauchi in Bauchi State and I can claim Billiri in Gombe State. Those are the six states.

    Are you saying you have roots in all the states?

    I was born at Ode-Ule in Ogun State. I have some ancestral links with Ikorodu. We are descendants of Oba Mero from Ife, and that takes care of Osun. Talking about Oyo and Oje, Bashorun Ogunmola of Ibadan was from Ode Ule. Even in Ekiti, my great, great grandmother was a princess. I have a marriage certificate from the registry in Bauchi because one of my wives is from them. My other wife is from Gombe. So I’m related to all those places. They all happened before I became a traditional ruler.

    What took you to Bauchi and why did you eventually marry from there?

    What took me to Bauchi initially was the national youth service. After the youth service, I eventually settled there. I did very well. Wherever I find myself, I do my best. If I resumed duty at 8am, I won’t stop working until 6pm. Most of the patients preferred to join the queue before me.

    There was a time the governor came and noticed what was happening. He asked why the queue was so long. They said it is that doctor that is actually working. I’m an Ife (Obafemi Awolowo University) trained medical doctor. We don’t leave cases unattended to; you must do that surgery before you go. You must see the patient.

    It was the same mentality I took to Bauchi and everybody appreciated what I was doing. The governor just said, ‘You are special adviser!’. It was during my service year. That was why I couldn’t leave the state immediately I finished. The kind of problems (insecurity) we are having now was what drove me back. That time, the Maitatsine crisis was on. When people got hot headed, they would just start misbehaving. They burnt the staff quarters of one of my friends, a medical doctor from Rivers State, with his wife and two children inside the house. There was no way I could continue stay in the state in spite of everything.

    You are one of the admirers of President Muhammadu Buhari. What is the fascination?

    Buhari is the saviour of Nigeria. People don’t understand what is actually happening. In 1983 when he was the head of state, they said he was good and this and that. The same persons are now saying he is bad. What went wrong? What is happening now is that Buhari, whether as a military head  of state or as a civilian president, has changed the pattern of governance from the conservative way to the progressive. If you want to change a system, you have to overhaul everything.  We are going through overhauling now, and by the time he finishes, the infrastructure for that change would have been set. We no longer depend on oil to run our budget. I feel so proud of what Buhari is doing. I feel so proud of being a Nigerian. I’m not saying that there are not people that are better than him outside the government, but right now, this man is good for us. He is doing the right thing for us. You are talking about insecurity; did it just start now? There are lots of deteriorating decadence Buhari came to meet, and they are gradually being corrected. If we didn’t have such a man, I don’t know what could have happened.

    What are the memories of Bauchi you would not forget in a hurry?

    Oba Olusina Adekoya
    Oba Olusina Adekoya

    Bauchi was a very good place, because anywhere you go and the people give you their daughter to marry, the people must be good.

    At the time I wanted to marry and we got to Konta Billirini, my father-in-law asked me, ‘Where are you from? Don’t speak English?’ I said no.

    ‘Don’t’ they speak Hausa?’ I said no. ‘Don’t they speak Tangali? (their indigenous language)?’ I said no. He asked, ‘What language do they speak there?’ I said we are generally Yoruba and we speak Ule language, which is a variant of Yoruba.

    He looked at me, and asked again, ‘Do they have God there?’ I said plenty plenty. He said, ‘Go take my daughter.’ I can never forget that.

    The way people suffered there made me work and work, because I found out that there was no one that could satisfy the needs of those people, so I took it upon myself.

    There are some people there who have just got hot heads. I’m very vocal, so I was lucky that I got out of that place without being hurt. I don’t know why there are some people that are just bad. If you could go to a place, surround the house, burn the doctor’s house thinking he was in and unfortunately, burn the place with the wife and children in it, it was a bad thing. I will never forget that.

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    You had become a medical doctor before you became a traditional ruler and herbalist. How did you feel leaving your profession?

    The thing had been long coming because before I was born, my father met someone at Ifaki, Ekiti State, who told him that his wife was pregnant with a baby boy and the boy should be called Olusina. He said it was their great ancestor and oba that was coming. I left Bauchi to stay in Lagos, but due to one reason or the other, the place where I was staying was not conducive,  so I came home and started treating people without having staff. I remember how a girl poured hot pepper on herself and she had 75 per cent burn surface area. That was how I started the Losi Clinic in Ode Ule and people started coming for treatment. There was no doctor managing a hospital around here then. I’m saying these things because they were the things that pushed me to stay here (Ode Ule). I was also told that as a child of 18 months or thereabouts, each time my parents woke me up because they were about to go to work, I would tell them not to wake an oba up. That was when they knew that this man was their ancestor.

    There was something that happened that I didn’t know, and I was just being myself. By the time Oba Funso Adeolu (Chief Eleyinmi in the Village Headmaster) became the Alaye Ode-Remo, they told him that Legusen owned the land. If he wanted progress he must move with Legusen. Oba Adeolu now asked for an educated young member of the royal family. Then, my father’s uncle was the Legusen, and he stepped down for me. That was how I became the Legusen.

    At that time, I didn’t realise that I was being moulded for a particular role. It was the reemergence of Odo Ule and the people. My crown was one of the first 16 crowns created by Obatala.

    When I started a pilgrimage programme with Isese people, I didn’t know that something was pushing me towards a particular objective. I took people to Ife on pilgrimage. We now reached a point that was the Obatala shrine. I was not meant to go there. I’m an ifa man, a practising babalawo, medical practitioner and herbalist. My friend encouraged me to visit Obatala, not knowing that the Legusen crown taken in 1783 was taken to Ife. It was not until about 222 years later that I got it back from Ife.

    When they gave me the letter to become Oba Amero, it was Oba Adeolu that encouraged me to take it. That time, I was gunning for the Senate.

    How did you take that crown? Did you just pick it from Ife?

    No. By the time we reached Ife, each year they were holding the Obatala Festival, the crown would be telling them that it wanted to go home. But nobody knew where the home was because everybody felt the place was its home. When we got there, the crown said the people that would take him home had come. I didn’t know what the elders at the obatala grove were talking about. The elders at Ife now gave me a letter that I should become the Oba Mero. I said no because anything that had oba in it would stop me from politics and sincerely, I was planning for the 2015 presidency and that was in 1999. Because in 1993, after the elders had agreed, I was the one that dialed the phone before my grand uncle, Alhaji S.O. Gbadamosi, told the late Chief MKO Abiola to pick a Social Democratic Party (SDP) card. I was the one that dialed the phone and told Chief MKO Abiola that Alhaji wanted to speak with him. It wasn’t me that spoke with him; I was just a dialing agent. That was how he started what became of June 12 now. With that, however little my part was, it was a very strong part. I was still feeling bad about what happened and somebody was telling me that I should become an oba, I said forget it. I ran away for more than four years.

    You said some armed robbers attacked you on Ife/Akure Road and your vehicle was stolen. How did you recover it?

    We were to attend the funeral of my father-in-law at Ijebu-Ijesha. Our car broke down, some guys just came and they took the car away. I am a babalawo (native doctor) and before we went, I consulted ifa and ifa told us what was going to happen and we made the necessary sacrifices.

    It happened exactly the way it was predicted by ifa; that they were going to take our car and they were going to leave us there, but we should pray that they would not take our lives and that whatever was taken from us would come back. I just prayed that one of them would survive, because that was the only way we would recover the car quickly, because I knew none of them would survive.

    The woman they sold the car to took the car home for re-registration in Ilorin. An eagle-eyed road safety officer found that something was wrong with the number. He later found that the car belonged to my wife. That was the way we recovered the car.

    What is the relationship between a herbalist and a medical doctor?

    It is a very simple thing. What is the practice all about? It is about human beings. You want to get the best of human beings, western medicine, indigenous medicine. There is something we had been doing before western medicine came and it had been taking care of our people. When people say bad things about our indigenous medicine, I just laugh because the indigenous medicine of Europe is what they brought to us and call western medicine. So, when you say the indigenous medicine of someone else is better than yours, I just wonder what you are talking about.

    What they did in Europe was to regulate it in their own way. Here, we have regulated it. The fact that it does not agree with that of Europe does not mean we don’t have a regulation.

    Instead of demonizing our thing, we should find out what is going on. We have brought religion into medicine.

    As a traditional ruler, do you still practise medicine?

    Yes. The mistake people make is that they think the doctor’s work is at the hospital. Ninety-five per cent or more are outside the consulting room. One of my areas of specialization is management in medical practice. I was one of the first set of postgraduate medical college Lagos trained management experts in medical practice. They found that doctors are not in management; they are in administration. They had to then train us. That was in 1985. As a management consultant, there were lots of things I recommended. Every political ward in Nigeria has a primary health care centre; that was part of my consultancy, I did that free of charge.

  • Nice guys can’t run varsities in Nigeria —Ex-UNIOSUN VC

    Nice guys can’t run varsities in Nigeria —Ex-UNIOSUN VC

    Prof. Labode Popoola, whose tenure as the Vice Chancellor of Osun State University (UNIOSUN) ended on Thursday, is on his way back to his office as a lecturer at the University of Ibadan (UI). He tells KOFOWOROLA BELO-OSAGIE that he earned less as a VC than he did as a lecturer. He also recalled that among his success secrets as VC was his ability to manage funds and care not to play Mr. Nice.

    What next after your tenure as VC?

    By the special grace of God, on November 5, I will be in my office in UI. I am happy you recognised that I am still a teacher. I still teach at the University of Ibadan. I have three postgraduate courses and one undergraduate course. I have also been teaching since I came here (UNIOSUN). I still mark scripts and supervise my students.

    If you were to look back, would you have left your comfort zone for this position?

    It is about service. There is no comfort zone anywhere. I applied for this job and I had an idea of what I was coming for and I was prepared for it. It was not about the pecks of office.

    At a point in time in UI, I was earning probably higher than I am earning here. I had my basic salary but I had my consultancies, which the system allows me to uphold. There are grants which every month, legitimately, I could be entitled to – as much as 1,500 dollars. But I chose to come here. Service also has value. Some people who would not have known me if I remained at UI now know me.

    I am glad I have this opportunity. It is a privilege. And I am saying this: I did not see any pecks of office or any luxury houses. In any case where are they? You can’t find me with a pilot. Most vice chancellors go about with a pilot. At times I drive myself to work, because I know it is wrong for me to drive an official car. If my driver is on leave, I drive myself in my personal car to the office. You can’t find me with a retinue of security guards around me.  I came here to work. Nothing has changed about my lifestyle.

    What I would have been missing is teaching, but I am still doing it. So, I am just myself. By the grace of God, on the 5th of November, I will be back in Room 112, Department of Forest Resource Management at the University of Ibadan.

     What is your advice to your successor?

    Nice guys don’t run the university system in Nigeria. If you want to be nice, or you want people to say you are nice, most likely you will be doing some wrong things.

    So, that is my advice to whoever will succeed me. I tell people, and it is a covenant between me and my God, I just want to be right, I don’t want to be nice. But I know those who know and those who believe and those who have seen it know that I am harmless. But if you want to please people, you won’t get this job done. So, that is my counsel, not just to whoever will succeed me, but whoever wants to be a vice chancellor in the Nigerian university system.

    By the grace of God, I am going to write a book. It is not a job for the faint-hearted because there are so many negative tendencies in the system. People call themselves professors, but they are not professing anything. They know the law but they want to circumvent it. We have some great professors who are contributing. But equally, we have so many negative ones and you have to find a way of dealing with them. Apply the laws; apply the rules.

    I made a statement during my first congregation and people thought that was uncharitable. I said that I would step on toes. I remember there was a magazine in the Post Graduate School of the University of Ibadan. When I first got to the place as Dean, I made that same statement, and that was how we transformed that school, and the same thing has happened here. If you want to be nice to people, you may be doing the wrong thing.

     Would you say you achieved your vision at UNIOSUN?

    Yes, largely fulfilled. But you know as much as possible, I don’t like blowing my trumpet. I like people to see what they see or tell the story of how they feel, because it is not about me. I applied for the job. I wasn’t offered. About 23 of us, and I came first with a gap of about 30 points. So, it means I put an assignment on my head. I want to say that over 90 per cent of things that I willingly wrote that I would do have been done. So, if that is a measure of fulfillment, that is my description of it.

    The University I inherited was anything goes. It was a university in name but the academic culture was completely missing. Universities run on academic culture. Integrity is one. Selflessness is one. Finesse, neutrality, accountability and openness. These are the culture that universities the world over are known for. So, anything outside of that will not be meaningful to someone like me. We were able to instill these by resisting those who were against the reform. The turbulence was enough to frustrate any human being. But like I said, we resisted them.

    But we also had the support of our principals – the Council and the Visitor to the university. Gladly, we are back. We are operating according to the rules and regulations of the university; the laws of the university.

    Corruption has reduced drastically. We have the means of knowing if it is happening. Gladly, that reduced the cost of running the system. It reduced project cost and we now have efficient service delivery. We have quality delivery of projects cost.

    Look at our projects, you will find out that we have value for money. It did not come easily. We had a situation where lateness to work, absenteeism were the norm, and we applied the rules and regulations. That has also reduced.  We had a university where students were lawless. All you heard about UNIOSUN then were students in cultism, 419, Yahoo Yahoo. But what we did was that we brushed the leadership of the students. We selected some of them that we thought were reasonable, and we engaged them for the whole of three years, giving them leadership training. We organised retreats for three good years to let them know the essence of leadership, and that culminated in the first ever students union executive this university has ever had. Students elected their own leaders and they are now in place. And they are doing the job that executives should be doing – enlightening students, creating awareness, serving as bridge between management and the students.

     How did you manage the funds?

    My policy is that I do not think any amount you have is enough and I do not think any amount is too little. It is about how you manage it. At times people wonder how we manage to pay salaries and still able to do all that we have done.  If you want to know this, I have hardly ever got 50 per cent of my wage bill since I came here. At the initial stages, I was receiving barely 25 per cent of my monthly wage bill. Then by 2018 the economy improved. And it was not because the government did not want to pay us; they did not have the resources. When things improved, we got closer to having 30 per cent, 40 per cent, and now we are just about 50 per cent.

    But we pay salaries earlier than other government workers. We pay salaries ahead of other universities in this country. It is about resource management. Resources will always be scarce all over the world. Harvard does not have everything it needs; Cambridge does not have everything it needs. It is about how you manage resources. And largely, we have been able to manage our resources. It marvels even our principals.

    But these are resources that would have been shared by people and you would not know. We built six hostels in one year. We have built laboratories. We have built other infrastructures using internally generated revenue – apart from TETFund support. There are so many of them scattered all over the place. Staff welfare, staff training, at least in the last five years, more than 60 per cent of our members of staff have enjoyed trainings, either abroad or within, and it is from the resources available to us.

    We have a state of the art laboratory. These are things you can see because we have managed our resources prudently. Instead of sharing it, we make sure it goes where it supposed to.

     How was your relationship with the unions?

    There are four major unions in the university system. I have had the privilege of working in the university system for over 30 years. That is the only job I understand. And I know that there are three scenarios or so. When there is peace between the unions and management, it means that there are some things going on between management and the unions; they are enjoying themselves. That is one way.

    Read Also: 35 make first class as UNIOSUN graduates 1,815

    Two, it can also mean that the leadership of the union is reasonable and sympathetic to the cause of the university. When there are crises, it means they are not dancing; no tangle. It could be that the Vice Chancellor is not doing what he supposed to be doing or the expectation of the union leadership. When I say expectation, I don’t mean workers welfare, because that’s what unions are for. It means their expectations are not being met by the vice chancellor.

    But having said that, unionism in this country has also become personalised. The union leader feels that he is in a position to get things for himself using the number of workers. Even when he or she is fighting a selfish cause, he does it in the name of unionism. We had a scenario here. Somebody had a case to answer, but because he didn’t want to answer the case, he mobilised in the name of the union. Now, the workers know better that he was not fighting their cause. Workers know better because they know that on 25th or earlier every month, their salaries are paid. I am not sure there is any university that pays ahead of us. We don’t pay half salary; we pay full salary on the 25th of every month. Staff members know that their promotions are not delayed. They did not need any union to fight for that. They know that their entitlement are not withheld.

    Some people are of the opinion that private universities may overtake public universities. What do you think public universities should do to remain relevant?

    Now what is wrong with that? Universities are universal.

    But they are not accessible to the less privileged…

    What do you mean by the less privileged? At the end of the day, they will be a leveler and I don’t see why we have to complain. Now, what the private universities have going for them is stability of academic calendar, which I will also say very proudly that UNIOSUN has been able to achieve. Even with COVID-19, though it set us back a bit, we were able to go online. We were the first university in this country and probably in Africa that did online matriculation. Unfortunately, the union said it was a charade, but every university is now doing it. We were the first public university to hold an online convocation. Now, everybody is doing it. It tells you it is possible. So, we have a smooth calendar running.

    Also, private universities don’t have resources that public universities have. Go and do your investigation very well. One way you know this is why are lecturers in private universities eager to transfer their services to public universities? What they have is sanity in the academic calendar; some measure of discipline. You talk about cost, I’m saying this and I will be glad you publish this so that we all know the truth, government cannot fund education alone. It is not done anywhere in the world. And that is why if you enter any classroom in the UK, it is not oyinbo people you find there.

    You have more foreigners there because tertiary education is not fully the business of government and they have more private universities in the UK and the US. People must be ready to pay. It is a partnership.

    For public universities, we say it is cheap but how cheap is it? The final analysis is virtually the same. Yes, we charge and they say it is much and I just laugh. Things we charge here is much less than what some secondary schools are charging even in this town. But there is value for your money. We must be ready to pay something. We should know there is no free education anywhere in the world.

  • My breast cancer horror …Stella Adadevoh’s cousin relives nine months of emotional, physical trauma

    My breast cancer horror …Stella Adadevoh’s cousin relives nine months of emotional, physical trauma

    SHE spins her cancer tale like one on a mission, selecting her words in deliberate tone. Each word sinks in to pass a message: that cancer is not a death sentence. That cancer can be beaten. Her message resonates with the 2021 World Cancer Day theme: ‘I am and I will.’ October is also Breast Cancer Awareness month.

    “I want my story to give cancer patients hope and the conviction that though the battle is tough, it is surmountable,” she said.

    By nature, Senanu Ladipo (nee Adadevoh), 49, is gregarious. The banker, mother and wife, is from the well known Adadevoh clan where bravery is not in short supply.

    In 2014, her first cousin, Stella Ameyo Adadevoh, prevented Ebola virus index case to Nigeria, Patrick Sawyer, from leaving the hospital at the time of diagnosis, thereby playing a key role in curbing the spread of the virus. She tested positive for the disease on August 4, 2014 and died on August 19, 2014. She will forever be acknowledged as the savior of over 200 million people and the reason why Ebola was roundly defeated in 93 days in Nigeria.

    Mrs. Ladipo said of her extended family: “Yes, we Adadevohs are very strong, resilient and dogged fighters. We are not afraid of challenges. We take it headlong and are confident and brave. We are a closely knit family.”

    Married to school sweetheart, Yinka Ladipo, and blessed with two children, Senanu did not know this willpower will be tested beyond her will when her world was looking up.

    In early 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was ravaging the world, another endemic disease, breast cancer, began to ravage her body.

     

    Early detection key  

    She said: “Out of habit, I self-examine myself regularly. I believe that a woman should do that once you clock 40, even before 40. I just lie down on my bed and press my breast for lump. Also in my office, we do regular check and I did mammogram around August 2019 and nothing was found.”

    Mammography is the process of using low-energy X-rays for diagnosis and screening for early detection of breast cancer.

    “In January 2020, during self-examination, I felt a lump and told my husband, ‘Check this thing, what do you think it is’, and he said, ‘There is nothing; stop bothering yourself.’ But it kept bothering me because the more I pressed the more painful it was.

    “One day, when I found myself close to the clinic floor in the office, I went in and the doctor checked me out and found two lumps. He now recommended that I go to a diagnostic centre and get a breast scan. By the time the scan was carried out, five were discovered.”

    The reality is that many breast cancer patients don’t know about it until it is too late.

    The Nigeria National Cancer Control Plan (2018 – 2022) advocates screening services and early detection of cancer available for all Nigerians.

    The NCCP posits: “In Nigeria, the absence of well-coordinated national screening programmes has significantly contributed to late presentation of most cancer patients.”

    Mrs. Ladipo continued: “The lumps were removed and sent to South Africa for cancer test. By the time the result came back, I received a test message to come along with my husband.”

    When the news was finally broken that the lumps were cancerous, she found it hard to process. She simply denied the possibility of having cancer.

     

    Denial stage

    “On the appointment day, my husband was with me, thank God. When he (doctor) was saying it, I did not pay attention, even when I heard cancerous and the name of the cancer and that I would start treatment immediately, I could not process the information. I was just saying okay, okay.

    “It was a Saturday, February 1, which coincided with my mum’s birthday and we were already dressed to celebrate with her. I did not want anything to weigh me down so I went about my daily activity like nothing happened. In the night, on getting home, I sent the result to a friend who is a doctor.”

     

    Fears and tears

    The instant her friend’s confirmation came through, the initial denial disappeared and fear took over.

    “I did not get his response that night so I slept soundly still thinking it was no big deal. The following day was thanksgiving Sunday, and as we were getting set for church, my friend’s text message entered my phone.

    “She said: ‘Babe, this is cancer. But the good thing is that you are on Stage One and it is very okay. That was when it dawned on me and fear overwhelmed me. I showed my husband the text but he tried to calm me down.”

    Even that did not work.

    Upon seeing her children that morning, her fear heightened and flood of emotions rushed in, giving way to tears.

    She said: “When my children came into my room to say good morning and I looked at them, I started thinking: ‘so I won’t be around to take care of them.’ I was just crying.

    “I held myself together for church but the moment I got to the entrance, I started seeing myself again in a coffin wheeled into church. I started crying again. And then during the service I cried throughout. People around will think I’m just been emotional but my husband and son knew why.”

    “During thanksgiving we went forward, and on sighting my cousin who is a pastor, I just went to her and broke down totally. I began to see coffin. I was just in pieces. I was devastated. She led me out of the church, prayed for me and counseled me.”

     

    Another kind of tears

    Though her husband had remained calm consoling her, unknowingly, he was facing his own demons. On several occasions, overwhelmed by the situation, he broke down in tears, weeping like a baby. He lost his mother to ovarian cancer nine years ago.

    Mr. Ladipo said: “My initial reaction was of denial that it can’t be and, of course, that came from my past experience. I lost my mum to ovarian cancer in 2012. It was very devastating for me.

    “When the doctor broke the news I couldn’t accept it. When I watched her break down in church, the full impact of what was happening hit me.

    “There were times I was overwhelmed with feelings that I cried. It happened twice in the office. I had to lock my office door to cry and pray.

    “Then at home, one day, I was talking to my sister and I started crying. She pacified me, saying affliction will not arise a second time. She was scared too but she tried to encourage me. Truth is we were all scared.”

    “The reality is that many Nigerians allow fear to cripple them into action and live in denial. Sometimes patients don’t seek medical attention until it is too late,” said Dr. Ademola Adewusi of Broadland Hospital.

    Another fear came to her in the form of treatment.

    She said: “Part of the initial reaction was fear of treatment. You have read and heard all sorts of stuff about cancer treatment and I became afraid of what I would be going through.

    “The fear of chemotherapy and radiation is killing. However, my friend helped me to get through it and told me the kind of questions to ask my doctor, because I was in limbo.

     

    Reality check

    Thereafter, she decided to fight and live. And that decision, she said, saved her life.

    “I got my diagnosis on the 1st of February and started my treatment on the 4th. I did not want to take chances.

    “After the initial shock, I made up my mind that I would be strong. After the whole journey, my husband said something that ‘you made this journey easy for me.’

    “I know what he would have been thinking about his mum dying of cancer and will I lose my wife again to cancer? He had his own fears which he couldn’t tell me.

    “I started doing exercise in the morning and move around so that he would not feel down too. I encouraged myself and resolved to do all it takes to live. I would do the chemo and radiation and fight this battle.

    “I had good support from my husband, children, family, and love ones we had to tell, and that encouraged me. I also had to tell myself that this thing is not going to get me down.

    “After the initial shock, I knew I had to go into motion. I made up my mind to fight. Cancer is not going to get me. Cancer is messing with the wrong babe and this is one battle I must win.”

    The battle against cancer was no joke, she said, yet she persisted.

     

    COVID-19 a blessing

    “Chemotherapy is not a joke. Some of the side effects of it are fatigue, hair loss, nails coming off, darkened nails and skin, diarrhea, vomiting and nausea. But I was lucky it was during COVID-19 lockdown.

    “For me, I would see COVID-19 as a blessing. I did not have to worry about work because after chemotherapy, I can’t go to work because I’m tired. I would eat and throw up and my family was with me to help me.”

    The treatment was intense. She had eight ‘chemo’ sessions every month for four months, and before each had to take blood test to know her blood level.

    “After that I had another surgery to check if the cancer had spread. Thankfully it had not and then, I had to do ‘chemo’ every week and it was that one that knocked me down.

    “Before, I had three weeks to recover, but this time around, I had only few days to recover and that was tough. Then, I had to go for radiation sessions in a public hospital.”

     

    Public hospital, sad commentary

    The public hospital experience almost killed her.

    She said: “I did radiation at Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) because we couldn’t travel out of the country.

    “In-fact, cancer centres were recommended for us in Ghana. The cancer centre in LUTH is run as a public/private partnership, yet the bureaucracy associated with public centres reared its ugly head. The problem of come today, come tomorrow.

    “The process before radiation is that they would mark the place where they’re to expose radiation to so that when they are setting the machine it will not kill active cell.  Somebody that is already traumatized now you make things worse by tossing her round.

    “There is a particular day that I was on appointment. We had called that we were coming, and because we were rushing we had accident on the way only for us to get there and they said they couldn’t attend to me.

    “My husband had to flare up and made lots of noise before the man in charge stepped in to take care of the situation.

    “You find a lot of cutting corners and a lot of patients get delayed for hours for something that normally would not take up to 15 to 30 minutes. The crowd was much.

    “We don’t have a lot of radiation centres in Nigeria. Aside from LUTH and another that just started recently, as of 2020 it was the only one working in the whole of Nigeria.

    “There is one in Abuja, but the one in University Teaching Hospital Ibadan is archaic. There were people coming from Uyo, Enugu and other parts of the country for radiation in Lagos.

    “As early as 6 am, you get there and take a number. Most of the times the numbers you take don’t count because there are a lot of ghost patients they slot in between, so patients that come early are there unattended to.

    “Another aspect is that by the time you are leaving around 9.30 am, that is if you come around 6 am, you will hear them calling No. 120 or more. Please note that it is only cancer patients that are given numbers and this go on, on a daily basis.

    “You will see people on wheel chair. Note that cancer does not know old or young. Breast cancer does not know women or men; it affects both.

    “You are already traumatised. Emotionally, you’re down. You’re going through a lot. Your hair is falling off. The last thing you need is to get to hospital and somebody is tossing you round. That is enough to kill a patient.”

    Her husband couldn’t agree more.

    “What is responsible for that is because Nigeria doesn’t have many facilities. It does not cost much to have one. The cost is nothing compared to what they pay themselves.

    being attended to in LUTH. Cancer is endemic and the least we can do is to ensure that equipment for treatment is readily available in all teaching hospitals.

    “There are Teaching Hospitals scattered all over the country and they have nothing. Look at the fleet of cars that government officials go around with. Nigerians now go to Accra en masse for cancer treatment.

    “I also think the consultants are to blame. They ask you to do tests that you don’t even require. And these tests also have adverse effects on patients. They don’t come cheap and they do it to make money for themselves.

    “Thank God that we were patronising both private and public hospitals. There was a time they asked her to do CT scan and when we called her doctor, he said ‘leave that place right away’; that it was not necessary. What if we did not have the privilege of a private doctor?

    “They subject people to a lot of torture. I will call it torture. These are people, who are down psychologically, worn out physically, and it is not cheap. That is enough to kill a patient. I had to flare up and the head of the centre stepped in and that helped us.”

    The reality is that Nigeria government is paying lip service to cancer treatment and more Nigerians suffer from it than is realised.

    According to Global Cancer Observatory 2018 (Globocan), Nigeria recorded 115,950 cases of cancer. 22.7% of that was diagnosed of breast cancer, 12.9% were diagnosed of cervical cancer, 11.3% were diagnosed of prostate cancer, 5.8% were diagnosed of colorectum cancer, 4.6% were diagnosed of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma and 42.7% were diagnosed of other cancer types.

    Researcher Jacob Stubbs in his 2019 journal titled ‘Cancer Treatment in Nigeria,’ summarized: “The World Health Organization identifies cancer as the second leading cause of death around the world. It is responsible for 70 percent of deaths in low- and middle-income countries. This is more than the number of deaths from AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. In Nigeria, around 72,000 Nigerians die each year from cancer among the more than 100,000 cancer diagnoses. The two most common, and often treatable, forms of cancer in Nigeria are breast and cervical cancer.”

    WHO further informed that breast cancer is now the most common form of cancer in the world. This is according to statistics released by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in December 2020.

    “WHO hosted the first of a series of consultations in order to establish a new global breast cancer initiative which will be launched later. This collaborative effort between WHO, IARC, the International Atomic Energy Agency and other multi-sectoral partners, will reduce deaths from breast cancer by promoting breast health, improving timely cancer detection and ensuring access to quality care.”

    “In the past two decades, the UN health agency said the overall number of people diagnosed with cancer nearly doubled from an estimated 10 million in 2000 to 19.3 million in 2020,” the report read in part.

     

    Spiritual turnaround

    Aside from the support group made up of her hubby, children, siblings, family and close friends that was not lacking during her treatment and healing process, Mrs. Lapido also acknowledged spiritual support that helped her weather the storm of cancer.

    She said: “It was more of God’s grace, really. Prayers helped. I went to the Redemption Camp and had an encounter with Daddy Enoch Adeboye (General Overseer, The Redeemed Christian Church of God). He prayed for me and my husband.

    “Immediately, after that I had peace. I just knew that I would be okay if Pastor Adeboye prayed for me. It is a conviction because I believe in God and have faith in His healing. I was ready to face whatever was coming; fear disappeared.

    “And I think, the week after I met Daddy Adeboye, I slept upstairs and I woke up with some bible verses. It wasn’t because I was reading the bible, or praying before I slept, but I woke up to a bible verse and the Spirit told me that I would ‘overcome by the blood of the lamb and the words of my testimony’.

    “It came to me clearly as someone was in the room with me or beside my bed. I felt that peace and knew I would overcome. That was my turnaround.”

    “Pastor Adeboye, however, told us to continue with the medical treatment and that God would perfect the healing,” Mr Ladipo added.

    The journey lasted nine months from diagnosis in February to November when she was confirmed cancer free after series of medical tests.

     

    Back to normal life

    She said of her recovery: “I’m back to normal, but you cannot go through chemo and radiation and immediately get back to normal. I’m still a work in progress.

    “By the time I finished treatment, I was a lot darker, my hair had fallen off, but a lot of people did not understand. They thought it was my crazy stuff because I’ve done lots of crazy things with my hair.

    “But my attitude was, ‘take the hair, don’t take my life’. You just have to get your priority right. I still have bone pains, but the truth is that I’m better than I was last year.”