Communications specialist, Busola Dakolo, has underscored the cultural and economic significance of Africa’s trees during the virtual launch of Baobab & Marula, New Solutions to Global Warming and Food Security, held on September 17, 2025.
In her opening remarks, Dakolo described the book as “a seed of knowledge and possibility” at a time when the world is grappling with climate change, food insecurity, and the urgent need to preserve indigenous wisdom.
“Under the shade of a tree, stories are told, children learn, and elders pass down wisdom,” she said. “If the marula tree today can put school fees in a mother’s hand and food on the table, we can only imagine the opportunities that unfold with greater investment.”
She stressed that beyond their nutritional and economic value, baobab and marula also represent heritage, wisdom, and community.
The event drew scholars, writers, environmental experts, and policymakers from across the world into a wide-ranging dialogue on how baobab and marula can contribute to tackling climate change, food insecurity, and the preservation of indigenous knowledge.
Delivering the keynote address, Finnish writer Risto Isomäki argued that Africa’s indigenous trees could play a decisive role in shaping a greener future, while Professor Arinola Adefila of Buckinghamshire New University described the baobab as a place of learning and inspiration.
Other contributors, including Professor Ahmad Cheikhyoussef (University of Namibia) and Professor Joyce Lepetu (Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources), highlighted the nutritional, medicinal, and ecological importance of the species.
Dakolo framed the book as “a seed of knowledge and possibility” planted in response to today’s urgent challenges: climate change, food insecurity, and the preservation of indigenous wisdom. She linked the practical benefits of the marula tree to everyday realities, such as providing school fees and food for families. She grounded the conversation in lived African experience and possibility.
Published by Into Publishing in collaboration with the Baorula Network, the book showcases perspectives from 35 contributors across academia and practice.
Singer Timi Dakolo’s wife, Busola, is celebrating her 40th birthday today with a message of reflection.
Sharing a stunning birthday video on Instagram, she said she has learnt from her four decades.on earth.
“It’s my birthday. 40 years around the sun, and I’ve learned that true strength lies in accepting who you are; the flaws, dreams, and everything in between.
“I’m learning to accept my vulnerabilities, and in doing that, I’ve found my strength. Today, I’m just grateful. Grateful for the ups and downs, the love and the lessons, and for the courage to keep being myself.
“Like the song says “voila”, here I am. I’m imperfect, but authentic. I’m brave enough to be seen, and strong enough to keep evolving. Thanks for being part of my journey.
“Pray for me, wish me well and don’t forget to send me gifts ( I accept transfers too).”
Seeking well-wishes and prayers, Busola optimistically affirmed: “This fourth level will yield a bountiful harvest of good things for me in Jesus name”.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has urged the public to allow the investigating team of its elders to make public its findings on the rape allegation against the Senior Pastor of Commonwealth of Zion Assembly (COZA), Biodun Fatoyinbo.
In a statement yesterday by its Acting General Secretary, Joseph Daramola, CAN said it resisted the temptation of jumping into any conclusion since the truth will soon be uncovered.
It said: “Since both Pastor Fatoyinbo and Mrs. Timi Dakolo are Christians, the leadership of CAN is already seeking ways to address the issues in order to heal every wound already inflicted on the parties concerned and the body of Christ in general. It is our hope that steps which will exacerbate the current damages already done will be avoided. As we seek the help of CAN Elders and the Holy Spirit in resolving the current problem, it is our prayer that both parties will sheathe their swords and stop the media war in the interest of the Church and for the greater glory of God.”
The statement reads: “The leadership of CAN is seriously concerned about the disturbing situation concerning Pastor Fatoyinbo, the General Overseer of COZA, one of our leading pastors in the country, on whom allegations of rape has been levelled by one of our daughters, Mrs Timi Dakolo.
“It is disheartening how some commentators and columnists have been insulting the Body of Christ in Nigeria as a result of this incident. Like we have earlier stated, it doesn’t matter who is involved, rape is ungodly and reprehensible. But we have resisted the temptation to jump into any conclusion since a body like ours will be expected to have uncovered the truth about any matter before making public statements and not base its position merely upon media reports. Although we have disclosed that Pastor Fatoyinbo’s church has not been an active member of CAN, that does not put the church outside the spiritual watch-care of CAN.
“CAN is the umbrella body for every Christian and Church in Nigeria. Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, does not turn back anyone that comes to Him and CAN also does not. The Ministry of the Church, according to Jesus Christ, is the Ministry of Reconciliation, which is centred on true love and forgiveness of those who repent.”
“The Bible states it clearly that ‘God demonstrates His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’ (Romans 5:8, 11). Having reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, God has committed to us the ministry of reconciling the world unto Himself and to one another (2 Corinthians 5:19-21).”
Questions will linger, even when it seems the cause celebre is over. No affair of the heart, especially where sex roils, ever fades into the grave. Even when it is only suggested, without a scintilla of proof, it overruns the human imagination. Hence writers and movie directors have steamed movie screens and pages with the forbidden romance between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Why? Because sex is the only deity without a shrine. The shrine, however, is not tactile. You cannot touch. It lurks and frisks in the heart, eluding even the owner of the heart.
In its name, war theatres have burned, bullies roared, mansions erected, kingdoms rose and fell, dictators trembled, patriarchs bowed, families atrophied, fathers betrayed son and daughter, father defiled daughter, father cuckolded son, son overthrew father. Sex stalked the best tales of history. Josephine and Napoleon and the Napoleonic wars. Anthony and Cleopatra and the Roman epics. Gowon and Edith, Ojukwu and his re-enactments of David and Bathsheba, all in the Nigerian civil war. Even the birth of the holy of holies, the Church of England, was powered by the fiery loins of Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn. Many suicide bombers would be earthly saints if they didn’t fantasize about the many virgins swirling in the hereafter. Even MKO Abiola, our great June 12 hero, was nothing without his pacts with his flesh.
Even in literature, tales fail where sex does not perspire. Homer’s The Iliad was all about Penelope, Okonkwo’s machismo would fall limp without his escapades, Soyinka’s Death and King’s Horseman will faint if the protagonist did not rethink the lush loins he was vacating. The great writers, Flaubert, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Conrad, Dostoyevsky, Sophocles, Euripides, all paid homage to sex.
So, when Busola Dakolo added to this human obsession, it only proved that the shrine was all well and good in our country. Some say they believe her. Some say she made it up. Those who believe say her story says it is not only hers but also of others, all those who have erupted into the public space with personal accounts of Pastor Fatoyinbo’s sizzles in the dark. Why, some said, did she set him up? Why did she come down in her night gown with all its prompts and temptation? Why did she drink the Krest? Why did she go to her home after the corruption? Why did she wait for two decades before blabbing? Why give him another opportunity for pelvic explosion on a car bonnet?
Whatever happened in that alleged dawn of rape and Krest, what her doubters must realise is the pedagogy of the oppressed. That is the education of Busola. A defiled person is not a normal person after the fact. If she was raped, why did she not scream at the time? Remember that this was the man she held in awe, a sort of divine rescuer. He came to replace a deadbeat dad, who was never around. He came as God’s messenger to her life. She also knew the man was a “redeemed cultist” with all the fear and trembling.
She was not only cowed in body, but also in spirit. She was therefore a dazed person. How was she to confront this defiler? How was it not her fault, she would tell herself. She would, in that subjugated cast of mind, want to seek validation even with her conqueror. She would want him to tell her she was not a bad person. That way she would keep going to him, and not only him but other men. Maybe, somehow, she would realize that it was not her fault.
That is what her traducers don’t know. Humans bond with their oppressors. They go back for comfort. It is the tyranny of oppression that the oppressor’s greatest asset is not the conquest of the body but of the spirit. According to Busola’s account, the man first conquered her spirit, therefore earning her trust. Conquering her flesh was a forgone conclusion. So, once the spirit submitted, rape was easy, even in the cosy intimacy of her home that he apparently frequented. He knew the comings and goings in the household, so he also plotted his comings and goings. This also happens in marriages, where spousal abuse is routine, but the victim remains trying to redeem themselves with the abuser, hoping they would find absolution. Singer Tina Turner suffered for many years under her husband, and she did not know she had great legs until she was free. It is such freedom that Busola sought and found elusive.
Her sort of oppression is commonplace in the realm of politics. Donald Trump is a great modern example. He would not have won, if he did not have the support of women, including suburban and educated ones. They saw protection in a man who has shown open contempt for women in word and deed. In the patriarchal age, who delayed suffrage for women, was it men? NO. it was women in the United States who fought against women’s rights icons like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
The man, who would soon be United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, or BoJo, has never had a reputation for treating women with respect. Recently, he had a row with his girlfriend and his neighbour had to call the cops. Not long after, he posed on a lawn with the same woman, two of them feigning a smile.
The Russians have for about a century lived happily under one tyranny after another, but they would go to war to defend their oppressor. Is Kim’s North Korea not an instance of such power of one man over a people for generations? Same applies to Filipino leader Duterte, who jeered, ‘’so long as there are many beautiful women, there will be many rapes, too. Or Brazillian leader Bolsonaro, who mocked a woman that ‘’I would never tape you because you dont deserve it’’.
Father bequeaths it to son. In Nigeria, have we not seen people vote for the same person over and over even with no example of progress. They weave myths about the personages, and they believe everything they hear and dismiss facts evident before them.
Eventually such powers fade, but before then, they bow before their oppressors until the light comes. It happens in politics as with the men of God. The men of God use miracles, as though miracles are the real evidence of God’s presence, when the devil also can do miracles. Even Jesus dismissed them as workers of iniquity. If they focus on the weightier matters of the law, they would distinguish the phony from the true.
The people who suffer avidly under such politicians and prophets are the political and pious equivalents of Busola Dakolo. But like Prometheus in Aeschylus’ play, Prometheus Bound, suffering is for a while. In the Greek sequel, the man seeks freedom by reconciling with Zeus. But centuries later, an English poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, rewrote Prometheus Unbound, making the man obtain freedom by rebelling against the gods. That is the recipe Busola is seeking, to rebel against the man who played God in her life, for decades.
Rousseau had an answer that resonated in the French revolution. He exclaimed, “force them to be free.” That, perhaps, is what Busola is doing for herself.
Roach of democracy
The last time I wrote about Rochas Okorocha, I described him as seeking to be a post-governor, his own version of a dual mandate, apologies Lord Lugard. Hence, he is still running ads on television about his heroics, as though the baton has not changed hands. If you go to Imo State, you will wonder how the man governed a state with such lack of restraint. Forget about the university he built for himself while in office that looks better than any in the state or region, even though almost completed. Forget about the statue of a failed South Africa leader he erected on the same pedestal with Ojukwu, the Igbo preeminent hero. Also forget a secondary school he called Rochas College of Africa he carted away from the state’s broadcasting corp., or the estate he built or his wife built while he was in office, the poshest in the state. And forget that he erected a hand statue, named Akachi, pointing to heaven beside the estate. Forget that the exco chamber is like a civil war relic, cobwebs and cracks, from neglect and he held his exco in a place that looks like a beer parlour.
One of the endangered roads
What I could not get over were some roadworks that endangered his fellow citizens. A few of them had shown deep craters as though bombed. They were built without due process and without proper blocks and rods. I saw two bridges in Owerri that Governor Emeka Ihedioha has shut off awaiting proper investigation. On one bridge, I met staff of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) who had warned Okorocha not to toy with Imo lives. Parts of the bridge have dipped under pressure, the hole not revealing any proper rods.
The man said he had finished the work in Imo State, maybe for himself. And he eyes our presidency. Those who coined the phrase delusion of grandeur had not seen his type. He also built tunnels that many road users are avoiding, because they look like disasters waiting to happen. If the roads and bridges are restored, Gov. Ihedioha would have been saved Okorocha the spiritual consequences of disastrous blood guilt. He confirmed we have Roaches of democracy in this land.
Celebrity photographer, Busola Dakolo, who accused founder of Commonwealth of Zion Assembly (COZA) Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo of rape has finally filed a formal complaint to the police.
With her complaint, the Police has commenced investigation into the allegation.
Alternative music superstar, Simisola Ogunleye aka Simi has called for better protection of Nigerian women and girls from physical abuse and rape.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that in an emotional post on Wednesday, Simi decried the unsafety of women in Nigeria and the lack of action from family and society when they are assaulted.
She wrote @simplysimi on Instagram, “Women, even little girls are not safe in this country. First, there is oppression, abuse.
“When something does happen to you, nobody fights for you. The family says ‘Protect our name’, the church says ‘touch not my anointed’.
“The government just does not give. So men, please when people are fighting for women, say they are feminists and want equality rights for women, I hope you remember how unprotected they are and fight with them.
“Women, when you see another woman fighting for you and your rights, if you dont like the approach because you think everything is all about submission.
“Your life is constantly at stake, if it hasn’t touched you yet, count your blessings. Open your eyes, the world does not favour you. Fight back.
“As for these animals, you can only slap and rape for so long. One by one, judgement will find you and drag you down. I know men go through sexual assault too!
“I acknowledge it but women and children are more vulnerable. Let’s fight for and protect the most vulnerable in the society,” Simi said.
NAN reports that her statement comes on the heels of two high profile alleged abuse, among others that have flooded social media in the last couple of days.
Recently, Busola Dakolo accused Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo of Commonwealth of Zion Assembly (COZA) of raping her when she was a teenager, in a now-viral interview.
Also, on Tuesday, surveillance footage showed Senator Elisha Abbo physically assaulting a woman in an Abuja shop with the assistance of a police man.
The events and others like it, have prompted several social media calls for more justice for women, especially when they have been raped or physically assaulted.
