BATA Fuji exponent, General Kollington Ayinla, better known as Kebe-N-Kwara has said that he would be thrilling guests and other fun seekers at the Lifestyle Hotel, Opeloyeru Bus stop, Alakuko, Lagos. The show, he said, is being held as part of activities to mark this year Ileya festival.
The show is expected to commence as from 4pm till the day break.
A statement signed by the artiste’s publicist, Mr. Remi Aderibigbe, says that the show will feature pockets of side attraction such as acrobatic display, comedy, fashion display etc. are also lined up, as part of efforts to add more pep to the occasion. The show, he also said, will be anchored by some prominent radio and T.V personalities, around.
The statement also confirmed that Ayinla’s fans will once again, be treated with songs like Ijo Yoyo, Lakukulala, Ropopo, among others, even as security for all the guests was assured.
Madam Bolajoko Falore is brimming with contentment as you read this. Although there are numerous paths to happiness, many will agree that true happiness comes from being selfless and generous in spirit. There is a kind of satisfaction that comes from positively impacting lives in a world filled with hate and greed rules.
Madam Bolajoko Falore has since chosen to walk in the true path to happiness by not living for herself alone but also living to change the lives of others. The Director of Mind Builders School recently clocked 60 and her birthday was not celebrated in the manner many expected. Rather than throw a lavish party, the woman of means has chosen this Sunday to celebrate with friends and family members with hymns and musical presentations at All Saints Anglican Church, Ikosi, Ketu, Lagos, with the Bishop of Lagos Diocese of the Anglican Communion, Rt. Rev. Olusola Odedeji, presiding.
In addition to this , she will be empowering 50 widows through her Victoria Thompson Foundation, named after her late mother. Mrs. Falore was born in Ilesa in 1956 to the family of the Thompsons. She is an alumnus of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife and the University of Lagos. Over the years, she has had the pleasure of teaching at prestigious schools like Government College, Ikoyi, Queen’s College Yaba and Atlantic Hall before joining the service of the Lagos State Government where she retired as a Senior Inspector of Education.
She moved on to start Mind Builders School in 1998. She is blessed with a husband and three daughters, namely Olawumi, Olamide and Olatomi, who actively participated in the empowerment ceremony to mark her 60th birthday.
Time stood still on Wednesday last week as Mr Ajibade Peters, Director-General, Administrative Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON), Badagry took a bow from the college after two terms of eight years in the saddle and total of 35 in the institution.
The downpour did not dampen the spirits of workers, friends, and well wishers who trooped to the college to felicitate with Peters and his better half, Rebecca.
There was dancing, presentation of gifts as well as choreography and cultural dance by pupils of ASCON Staff Schools, among others.
Many workers shared how Peters transformed ASCON which they said was almost moribund before his tenure.
ASCON Director of Studies/HOD Computer Information and Management Studies, Adebayo Alabi, noted that in his eight years as DG, Peters resolved the epileptic power supply, upgraded students’ rooms and chalets, ensure the college retrieved the Phase 2 part of ASCON once ceded to NASA under former President Obasanjo, and constructed an international 60-room guest house which now awaits furnishing.
“I want to say categorically that under Peters’, we have it on record that this college produced the highest number of PhD holders since its inception in 1972,” he said.
ASCON Director of Administration Mrs Joy Achoba, said aside regular staff training and promotion, Peters ensured the college now has liaison offices across the six geo-political zones as against the only one in Abuja before he came in.
To make ASCON live up to its mandate as a global player in human capacity development, Achoba said Peters further exposed ASCON globally via a number of local and international linkages.
“This is why we have all decided to honour him while he is alive rather than the usual Nigerian tradition of honouring their heroes in death,” she said.
Director-General, Nigerian French Language Village, Prof Rauf Adebisi, recounted his undergraduates days as a younger brother to Peters in Ahmadu Bello University Zaria.
“He (Peters) graduated ahead of me in ABU, though I never knew we would reunite again here. He got here (Badagry) ahead of me. In fact he was the inspiration behind our staff school which we modelled after ASCON Staff School.
“The last time I was here, I told him I would be coming along with toothpicks because I was enthusiastic of his hosting me. And when I arrived he asked if my toothpicks were with me and I said yes,” Adebisi said amid laughter.
Expressing his appreciation to the guests, Peters said he owes his success to God and unflinching support of staff, appealing to them to accord same solidarity to whoever succeeds him.
Going down memory lane, Peters recalled that when he joined ASCON in 1981, he only wanted to spend two years; nonetheless, providence made him stay back, a decision he says he never regretted.
Similarly, Peters also reflected on 2012 which he considered one of the most trying moments in his career.
“I can never forget that year (2012). Some group of conspirators ganged up against me and started sending series of petitions to the Office of the Head of Service in Abuja. I became so worried because it got to a stage we were all expecting a letter from Abuja directing me to hand over prematurely. But I only told God that if you still wanted me here, let your will be done. Eventually the latter arrived clearing me of all allegations and directing me to continue. Not long after, I received another letter from Abuja renewing my appointment for another four year term.”
Esu sleeps in the courtyard; the courtyard is too small for him. Esu sleeps in the bedroom; the bedroom is still too small for him. Esu sleeps inside the kernel of a palm nut; now he has room large enough in which to sleep.
First of all, I must acknowledge my profoundly humbling and pleasing delight, for nothing prepared me for the scale and the depth of the outpouring of good wishes and tributes. Though I normally never celebrate my birthdays, the only one I’d ever celebrated – my 60th – had not prepared me at all for this second one, my 70th. I suppose that this was why it took me quite some time to absorb the meanings behind my surprise and my delight. But once I did so, I allowed myself to carefully register and store in my consciousness and memory these meanings for I know only too well that by this time next week, all the wishes and tributes will be over and life for me will resume its normal course…
I don’t know if all celebrations qualify for this particular “meaning”, but I know now that birthday anniversaries constitute a personal and collective rededication to the small and great values that sustain life and at least for a while keep the worst of its fears, anxieties and terrors at bay. This is true as much for he or she that is honoured as for those bestowing the honour.For in sum, this is what both the celebration itself and those that organize and participate in it are saying: for as long as the celebration lasts, we will concentrate only on the achievements, the good qualities, the things considered admirable or memorable in the life and person of the honoured one. In other words, this is what the community of friends, family, acquaintances and sundry well wishers are saying to the one honoured:we are not only happy that you are (still) alive, we hope that henceforth it is all the things we consider wonderful and special about you that we will experience from you; and for our part, we shall rededicate ourselves to reciprocating all the pleasing and wonderful things that we have experienced from you in the course of your life.
I think that this mutual pact is the ritual side of birthday celebrations. The essence of social and cultural rituals is the fact that it is an emotional or psychic passage through which all those who participate in it come out renewed and made stronger in the bonds that both connect them and make life potentially richer for them. If that is the case, what I and those who have participated one way or another in this thing that was dubbed “BJ@70” is a ritual process in the most profound meanings of the phenomenon. At Ibadan on January 5 in my beloved alma mater, the University of Ibadan, this ritual process reached its climactic, numinous moment when Kongi presented me with some gifts whose meanings were at the same time deeply symbolic and transcendently generous; at Ife-Ife on January 21, at the equally beloved institution where I became the kind of teacher and person I had always tried to become – the Obafemi Awolowo University – the ritual climax came with the entrancing performance of dance, singing and oral poetry by the schoolchildren of the Sunshine Nursery and Primary and Primary School, Ile-Ife…
I acknowledge and accept the implications and demands of this mutual pact of rededication. After all, these past few weeks I have been the chief celebrant and communicant at this ritual process of “BJ@70” events. In this present context of these first or initial reflections after the events, I cannot, indeed should not name all those who made this possible because as the list is very long, I am sure to leave out some names. Moreover, there will be time enough to express my thanks and appreciations all around.Nonetheless, at the very least I can say to them – I thank you; I hear you; I cherish your affection and I am deeply humbled by the honour you have bestowed on me. I shall try to live up to your expectations and prayers – to the extent that some of your wishes lie in my power and willingness to meet, while some could be said to be subject to happenstance and ayanmoare subject to the benevolence of forces beyond my control…
This talk of ayanmo or fate will no doubt surprise many reading this piece, definitely many among my readers who know of my intellectual adherence to the historical materialist view of human life and the history of our species. For this reason, I admit that I have invoked the principle of ayanmo in these reflections quite deliberately. I do not know what my ultimate fate or ayanmo is and quite frankly and sincerely, I neither worry nor think much about it. This is not only because ayanmo seems to have such fascination, such grip on people because its power lies in the fact that it rather unfairly has the last word on human life after a person has died and has no say in the matter anymore, but also because ayanmo is very often extended to aspects of personal and collective human life for which it has nothing of value to add and from which, in my opinion, it should be rigorously excluded. For instance, it is not our collective fate or ayanmo as a people, as a nation, to be so badly and heartlessly governed that in a land blessed with vast human and natural resources, seven out of every ten Nigerians live below the poverty line, with specters of bleak and insecure futures staring at the vast majority of our young people, the largest and fastest growing demographic group in our society…
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The deepest intimations of celebration as collective rededication to sustaining human life in and with justice, peace and dignity that I have had at the “BJ@70” events have all come from this radical anti-ayanmo dimension of my philosophical beliefs and – I hope – of my work as a teacher and activist. Against the discursive backdrop of this assertion, let me now admit that nothing has pleased and deeply inspired me more at the events in Ibadan and Ife marking my 70th birthday celebrations than the acknowledgement of this dimension of my life, my work, my person. Let me restate this carefully: for all of my adult intellectual, professional and activist life, I have been motivated by this belief that there is absolutely nothing in our destiny, in our ayanmo that condemns us to being ruled by drove after drove of looters, with their entrenched ramparts of legal and juridical self-protection from justice and the anger of the people. I knew that many who read this column know and appreciate this aspect of my work but it has been enormously pleasing and humbling for me for this fact to be acknowledged and publicly expressed by my teachers, colleagues, friends, family and students.
It is of course not enough to be radically anti-ayanmo in our thoughts, feelings and actions as citizens, activists, progressives, patriots; we must tirelessly organize and strategize to find the best means available to us for wresting control of our lives and our natural resources from the looters and their minions. In this regard, I must here make a special declaration. Here it is: I never personally mark my birthdays because I am quite frankly not sentimental about the matter at all. In the two times when my birthday anniversary has been celebrated – my 60th ten years ago and now my 70th – it has been others who have taken up the initiative and the burden of making them happen. During that earlier 60th birthday celebration ten years ago, my anti-ayanmo and Talakawa liberation philosophy and activism did not go unrecognized, but neither were they made central and defining to the celebrations as in the more recent “BJ@70” events. I am not only deeply gratified by this, I in fact take it as a portent: the forces of progress, justice, peace, unity and dignity for the vast majority of the peoples of our country, our continent and the world are massing in their hundreds of millions, their billions to take their destiny in their own hands. This is the dimension of rededication that has been most present in my mind and my projections beyond the aftermath of the recent celebrations. With all the eloquence I can muster, I wish to state here that the celebration of one life, or of one’s life can only and truly be an act of rededication if the one becomes the many, if beyond the person, beyond individual merit or achievement, there is cause for collective liberation from the forces that degrade and impoverish human life in our society and in our world…
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In the epigraph to this piece, these reflections, Esu, the trickster god finds capacious space in which to sleep not in the vastness of a courtyard or a bedroom but in the more infinitesimally small space of the kernel of a palm. This riddle, this enigma is easily explained: in the kernel in which Esu sleeps, his being will be sown in new spaces in which they will bear fruit and multiply. All who are fortunate enough to have their one single, individual life celebrated communally must hope that their beings, their life’s work will find the kernel in which to bear new fruit across diverse times and spaces.
Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson yesterday thanked the electorate for their gallantry in ensuring his re-election. He said there would be no celebration because of the number of lives that were lost.
In a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Daniel Iworiso-Markson, Dickson vowed to do everything possible to identify the perpetrators of violence and bring them to justice.
He promised to work tirelessly to justify the mandate given to him “as we tried to do in the first four years to almost universal acknowledgement and approbation.”
While extending a hand of fellowship to his political opponents, Dickson said since election had been won and lost, the needs of Bayelsans, the challenge of improving their material condition remains more urgent.
Also last night, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) congratulated the people of Bayelsa State for supporting Governor Dickson’s reelection.
The party described the victory as painful because of the number of those killed.
“It’s painful that this victory has come with so much pain because we lost dear ones. Those who died are our brothers. Many others are in the hospitals nursing life-threatening injuries. We wish to express our deepest condolences once again and to assure them that their death will not be in vain”, the statement by the party’s position was contained in a statement by its Director of Publicity, Restoration Campaign Organisation, Jonathan Obuebite, after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Dickson the winner.
He said, ”We want to use this opportunity to sincerely thank all Bayelsans for their doggedness and patriotism because even in the face of such terrible intimidation and violence decided, out of their own volition, they came out to re-elect and return the Countryman Governor to office for the next four years.
“The people have spoken and we are indeed grateful. It’s your victory, you the good people of Bayelsa State. Without doubt, a new dawn is here. Bayelsans, through their uncommon courage have defeated tyranny and oppression by voting for the continuation of the restoration of our dignity and pride as amply demonstrated through their votes.”
Philanthropist and Christ Royal Family Church General Overseer, Bishop Tom Samson, and his wife, Lanre, are set to celebrate their 50th birthday in grand style come Saturday, December 12.
Already, preparations are in top gear for the much-awaited week-long celebration that will kick off on Sunday, December 6 with a birthday lecture “The Role of the Church in Nation-Building” at the Oranmiyan Hall, Airport Hotel Ikeja, by Barr. Segun Odubela.
This will be followed on Monday with the flamboyant man of God’s visit to Ijamido Orphanage Home, Sango Otta and on Tuesday, Little Saints Orphanage, Egbeda.
On Wednesday, all roads lead to the 100-hectare Royal City, Iyesi Otta for Camp Meeting, while on Thursday there will a novelty match between Royal Men and Women at Royal City Stadium, Iyesi Otta. Music festival will hold on Thursday by 4pm at Monarch Hall as notable gospel acts Paul Nwokocha and Evangelist Ebenezer Obey dish out their lyrics. On Saturday, it will be the birthday celebration and official inauguration of Monarch University’s faculty of Humanity and Library.
“Bishop Tom Samson came to Lagos as nobody but held onto Christ, but today the world is celebrating him. His life has been one amazing inspirational tale that will definitely give hope and we are leaving no stone unturned in making it a good avenue to touch lives and showcase God’s wonder.”
The older a man gets, the more he appreciates quietude and privacy. Jerry M. Wright noted that much when he said that the first sign of maturity is the discovery that the volume knob also turns to the left. With maturity, shindigs are sometimes substituted with intimate family reunion and introspection.
Although Mrs Moji Dokpesi, wife of the Chairman of DAAR Communications, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, is still armed with elegance and grace younger ladies can rarely boast of, she no longer struts around with the strength of an overzealous youth. She turned 60 recently, but rather than bring the roof down with an over-the-top party, her family arranged for her a private get together.
This, no doubt, came as a surprise to many, considering that her 50th birthday was celebrated in grand style. But others have simply attributed the move to the mellow disposition that often comes with age.
Every September 21, family members, friends and associates join Dr. Seinye O. B. Lulu-Briggs to thank God for keeping her life for another year. While they celebrate, dance, praise and worship God together for her, she is busy celebrating the old people who she and her husband, High Chief O.B.Lulu-Briggs, carter for, under their “Care For Life” programme, of the O.B. Lulu-Briggs Foundation.
Mrs. Lulu-Briggs, a pastor, while speaking on her 57th birthday celebration and 14th year anniversary of the foundation held in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital , said: “I normally do not celebrate my birthday, I started celebrating my birthday when I had these wonderful senior citizens, who became so attached to me and it is like a new life is giving to them when we signed them on.
“Every year on my birthday, I will say I celebrate them; so I look forward to my birthday every year when I will gather old people, those from 70 and above, bring them, see them dressed very cleanly, we praise, worship God and danced together and I see joy in their faces, by this they know that truly there is God in heaven that cares for the affairs of His people down here on earth.”
O.B.Lulu-Briggs Foundation, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), was inaugurated on September 21, 2001, her 43rd birthday. The vision has since then been active and making impacts across states and in communities.
Mrs Lulu-Briggs said the Foundation started very small in their living room with just one programme, “Care for Life” and 10 old people (beneficiaries) to cater for.
Fourteen years after, the Foundation has expanded to five programmes comprising Care for Life, in which over 200 indigent elderly people are registered and are being taking care of by the foundation.
The quarterly five-day rural free medical care mission of the foundation has become a house hold name across states and communities of the Niger Delta, especially Rivers State where almost all the 23 local government areas, have been visited. Several community dwellers have benefitted from this gesture that cannot be repaid by human.
The Foundation also runs a scholarship scheme through which it offers opportunities for both local and overseas studies. It also carries out water purification and access to good water programme, as well as skill acquisition/ empowerment programme, all for the indigent members of rural communities.
The celebrant, who desires to love more, care more and give more to the old people and humanity at large, said her joy is always complete each time they are around her in any occasion.
This claim clearly played out at the event on Monday, when she directed that the birthday/vision day celebration service be delayed for a while to allow the beneficiaries arrive from their various communities.
She had earlier sent vehicles to convey them to the new building of Chapel of God International Worship Centre in Port Harcourt, venue of the event.
Speaking on her 14 years of service to humanity, the celebrant was not fully satisfied with the time she has so far spent on serving humanity when compared with the number of years she has spent on earth. She wished the foundation had started earlier and more grounds already covered.
“Today I am very happy, but the way I feel now, if I have to think of using 14 years out of 57 years to start a foundation and keep it running till today, serving humanity, I will say one could have done more because 14/57, I don’t think that is a pass mark; in all however, I give God the glory.”
She called for people to partner with the foundation to provid more care, hope and health to more persons.
At the thanksgiving service, the guest minister, Apostle Zilly Aggrey, speaking on the topic entitled, “Grace for purpose”, said obedience of the celebrant to the call of God on her life attracted the grace of God upon her for that purpose.
•Apostle Aggrey and others praying for the celebrant
Apostle Aggrey noted that without the incredible grace of God it is impossible for anyone to do good. According to him, God created everybody with purpose and the earlier each person discovered and runs with his/ her purpose in life while there is yet time, the better for him and humanity.
Speaking about the celebrant, the preacher, described her as a gift from God, a woman of great passion in good doing.
“Pastor Mrs. Seinye O.B. Lulu-Briggs is a gift from God, to her husband, children and humanity. From the little I know about her is that she lives her life, working and praying every day to figure out what she can do to make someone happy.
Also speaking on how the giving lifestyle of his boss, Mrs. O.B.Lulu-Briggs and her husband has impacted his life and that of his other colleagues in the last 14 years, the programme Director of the Foundation, Miebaka Nabiebu, a lawyer, said: “I have learnt life transforming lessons over this years, one of the very crucial one being the ability and willingness to give. I have learnt through my mentor in the school of giving and boss in service, the Executive Director of the Foundation whom we are celebrating today, to give, give and always give, without any afterthought.
The idyllic countryside of Arigidi-Akodo is a town that moves at its own pace. Here, life is not lived in haste. The people, outside their traditional trading, depend on nature to nurture them through farming. Since nature does things at its own pace, they, over the years, have learnt to be patient.
However, the month of July is different. It is the month Arigidi-Akoko rolls out the drums in festivity. The month is for the celebration of the Okota Festival.
The festival was initially low key, however, within the last few years it has grown to become perhaps one of the great festivals in Ondo State. It has become an avenue to showcase hitherto unpublicised rich culture of the people in an effort to attract in-bound tourists to the town.
It is organised for the town through the Olokun Festival Foundation that has been championing cultural rebirth in Yoruba land.
The Okota River, where the festival got its name, is located at the foot of the hills of Ede-Uyo in Ijaja quarters of Arigidi-Akoko. The festival is held annually in honour of the river goddess.
The town shed its toga of serenity as gaily dressed indigenes trooped to the venue of the celebration to witness cultural dance, traditional games and displays.
•Otunba Adams (middle) with some traditional rulers
The chief promoter of the Olokun Festival Foundation, Otunba Gani Adams, said the festivity was in honour of the goddess of the river for her benevolence.
“She is ascribed to possess great potent supernatural powers. Our commitment to annual celebration of this festival is informed by the numerous benefits we derive from its presence here in Arigidi-Akoko.
“It should be understood that the strategic location of this river is a boost to agricultural production of the people.
“The celebration of the Okota Festival is also a boost to the development of tourism and economic sustenance of our people.
“As you can see, this festival has drawn people from far and near. Along with the presence of the crowd, this celebration has drawn the brisk business they are doing.”
Adams said the celebration of the festival was the people’s way of thanking the benevolent deity, seeking forgiveness for their sins in past years and praying for favour and blessings of the goddess.
He said his organisation’s investment to put together the annual festival was also an opportunity for the town to showcase the event as an important tourist attraction to the world.
“One of the ways the Olokun FestivaI Foundation continues to contribute to individual and governmental economic development efforts is through identification and exploration of prosperity potential that is inherent in the development of religious and cultural tourism.
“Annually, these two areas of tourism have been a boundless and inexhaustible source of economic growth for some countries,”he said.
Adams said in the light of the current economic reality, there is the need for the government to look at tourism as the alternative source of income for the country.
House of Representatives member (Owo/Ose Federal Constituency, Ondo State) Hon. Bode Ayorinde marked his 55th birthday and the 30th remembrance anniversary of his mother. He also inaugurated his constituency office, reports LEKE AKEREDOLU.
Bode Ayorinde, the Pro-Chancellor of Achievers University in Owo Local Government Area of Ondo State, has celebrated his 55th birthday and the 30th anniversary of the death of his mother, Mama Alago Ijanrensola Ayorinde.
The day also featured the grand opening of his constituency office on Aruwajoye Street, Owo.
The simplicity of the birthday ‘boy’ was the major attraction, pulling politicians from across parties to the two-day event.
Though Ayorinde’s birthday was on June 22, it was held the weekend after.
The events began with members of the Governing Council led by the Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Tunji Ibiyemi, who visited the School of the Blind in Owo to donate to the less-privileged.
Then they proceeded to the expansive hall of Achievers’ University for Ayorinde’s birthday lecture. Students of the university ushered him in with loud chants and praise.
The lecture titled: Politics and economic development in Nigeria:The change phenomenon,was delivered by Dr James Oladunjoye of the Department of English, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State. It was well attended by tradition rulers, and academicians.
Dr. Oladunjoye is one of Ayorinde’s old students, he described him as one from whose milk of knowledge he benefitted tremendously.
A Professor of Law, Demola Popoola, who taught Ayorinde at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) chaired the event.
The event was attended by the Ondo State Chairman of All Progressives Congress(APC), Mr. Isaac Kekemeke;Mr Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN); Senator Titus Olupitan; Chief Olusola Oke, Chief Alaba Isijola, the Owo Local Government Women leader, Mrs. Akinrogbe, among others.
Kekemeke, who inaugurated the constituency office, praised Ayorinde for not diverting from the ideology of the party, which is to make government responsible to the masses noting that the office will serve as link between the people and the lawmaker.
The celebration continued at Christ Apostolic Church (CAC), Igboroko-Nla Street, Owo.
Ayorinde decked in ofi attire was ushered into the church with his wife, by members of the Man O’war in a parade.
The expansive church hall could not contain all the guests who graced the occasion, so additional canopies were erected.
