By Suyi Ayodele

Everyone has someone he adores. I have many such people; men and women who made or are making meaningful impacts. One of such men was Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Oba Erediauwa, Oba of Benin (22 June 1923 – April 2016). May his soul continue to rest peacefully in the midst of his ancestors. Isee! The Oba was an epitome of what a good leader should be. Diplomatic, humane with a deep milk of kindness running in his veins, Oba Erediauwa was the people’s Oba. He was close to his subjects and drew strangers to himself, too.

People, from time immemorial, do funny things to get closer to their leaders. In some extreme cases, some do weird things to get noticed by their rulers or leaders alike. A woman and a man did something weird and funny to get the attention of Oba Erediauwa a few years ago.

Some years into the reign of Oba Erediauwa (1979-2016), a woman used to come into the palace chanting two sentences to wit: Emwenoba romwonu (I have something to say to the Oba), and Edohia gha hena humwenhe (Benin must hear what they are doing to me). She would target whenever the Oba was within earshot to utter the statements and would leave.

Initially, Oba Erediauwa pretended not to hear. But like the story of the persistent widow in the Bible as recorded Luke 18:1-8, the woman kept coming to the palace until the Omo N’Oba could no longer resist her. So, one day, Oba Erediauwa asked her to be brought forward and asked her what she wanted to tell the king and what she wanted Benin to hear.

The woman, who hailed from Kwale, Delta State, narrated how her husband, also a Kwale man, died and was buried in accordance with Kwale tradition and Benin custom of Igiogbe. Despite those rites of passage fulfilled by the eldest son of the man, the extended family of the deceased wanted to chase her and her children out of the house which the deceased husband built and where he lived, died and was buried. Then she asked Oba Erediauwa if that was right.

Omo N’Oba Erediauwa wasted no time. He settled the matter and assigned some senior palace chiefs to follow the woman home and restore her rights and those of her children to their late father’s estate. Till date, nobody has ever gone to trouble the woman in her matrimonial home. The Oba’s pronouncements, especially on land matters, are final. It is not for fun that the Benin people say: Aiguobasimwin-otor (You don’t drag land with the Oba). But what if that woman had no access to Oba Erediauwa? Think about that while I share the second short story.

Again, a man was brought before Oba Erediauwa by some palace functionaries. The crime the man committed was that he inscribed a chieftaincy title on his car and was in the habit of driving the car frequently around the King’s Square otherwise known as Ring Road. After repeated warnings to the culprit to remove the inscription failed, he was ‘arrested’ and brought before the Omo N’Oba.

After listening to the complaint against the man, Oba Erediauwa asked those who ‘arrested’ him to state which offence the accused had committed. The palace functionaries explained that the title the man claimed did not exist in the Benin Kingdom. But more importantly, he must give the name of the Omo N’Oba who conferred the chieftaincy title on him.

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Turning to the accused, Oba Erediauwa asked him to respond to the issues raised by the palace chiefs. The man, paying obeisance to the Oba simply said in Benin Language: “Ima yegbemwen-yunu vbiayasekenuye sir. ” The simple interpretation is: “If I had not fooled myself, how could I have ever reached your presence sir?”

Omo N’Oba Erediauwa looked at his chiefs and looked back at the man. He asked his chiefs if they heard what the accused man said, and they answered in the affirmative. The Oba asked again if there was still anything the chiefs wanted to know, and they chorused “No”.

Turning to the man again, Oba Erediauwa prayed for him that now that he (the accused) had fulfilled his life ambition of standing in the presence of the Omo N’Oba, may he prosper and live long. The king rose. The man simply went outside and removed the sticker on his car and drove off.

To see his king, the man conferred on himself a non-existent chieftaincy title. Thank God for the wisdom with which Oba Erediauwa handled the message. The monarch was sensitive enough to know that there were many of his subjects out there who longed to see him, but protocols, traditions and custom would not allow them.

The Omo N’Oba was knowledgeable enough to realise that a lot of commoners would do anything from the funny to the weird and the absurd, just to catch a glimpse of him. These two occasions were just a few of how many times the monarch descended from his high throne to meet with those at the bottom of the ladder in his kingdom. Oba Erediauwa knew that without the people, there is no kingdom. He was a monarch with the mantra: the people first!

An incident close to these happened in Kaduna last week when Citizen Mohammed Umar, whom the Kaduna Police called a ‘madman’, attempted to get close to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the podium where the President was addressing the dignitaries that were present in the event the number one man had with Kaduna people.

The narratives that followed the short video of that incident are not complimentary ones for the President. The commentaries show the feelings in the land. The police responded by saying that the narratives were by the enemies of the President. Honestly, I believe the police. President Tinubu himself must believe the police too. With the way Tinubu has handled the lives of Nigerians in the last two years, he has successfully acquired a horde of enemies!

But if I were President Tinubu, I would be wary of those who call themselves my friends. The President is no doubt surrounded by too many friends who don’t tell him the truth. Those are men and women who are members of the Hallelujah orchestra; the máa jó lo mò ún wo èhìn e (keep dancing, I am watching your back) gang. Those are the ones who tell the president how much Nigerians love him and his non-existent or pain-inflicting reforms and how Nigerians wished they had had a Tinubu long before now!

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The President’s friends he should be wary of are the ones who hailed him when he announced, to the embarrassment of the entire nation, that he could not travel to Yelwata, where over 200 Nigerians were slaughtered and roasted last week by bandits because of “the rain, flood and bad road!”

I listened to President Tinubu utter those words; those flimsy excuses from the Commander-in-Chief, and all I could say was sè e ùngbó òrò burúkú lénu eye (hope you can hear terrible chirp from the mouth of the bird)? What did Tinubu go to do in Benue State if he could not get to Yelwata? Who did he go to ‘sympathise’ with? What happened to the road? What is the duty of a government if it cannot fix roads and control erosion? If the President needed to go to Yelwata to canvass for votes, would “the rain, erosion and bad road” be hindrances?

Was it not the same rain that the Benue State Government pushed school children to, to welcome Tinubu? What is the value of a president that could not defy the rain, brace the erosion and suffer bumpy rides to reach Yelwata where those God has put under his watch were slaughtered? How much was spent on the reception for the President in Makurdi, and how much would it have cost to do emergency palliative work on the Yelwata Road? Did the government not clear the bushes on the roads the president would use within Makurdi?

And come to think of it. Are the choppers in the Presidential Air Fleet (PAF) bad? Not a single of the five helicopters “tailored for VIP transport” is functional enough to convey the President to Yelwata and back?

What President Tinubu did in Benue State is a bad example of how a leader should not treat the dead or demean the living. It is also a negative testimony of how distant our leaders are from the people they pretend to lead. This is why we will continue to have the likes of Mohammed Umar of Kaduna who are ready to do anything to catch a glimpse of the president.

Incidentally, President Tinubu is not alone in this malady of distant rulership. Check your neighbourhood and ask how many times you get to see your councillors. How many local government chairmen are accessible to their constituents? Once they have the prefix, “Honourable”, do we get to see our legislators? How many so-called ” Distinguished ” senators walk the same paths with the commoners once they ascend those lofty heights? Here in Nigeria, the convoy of a governor is as long as the entire length of the Niger Bridge in Onitsha!

That is why our leaders don’t feel what we feel. They don’t go to the marketplaces; they don’t attend the shambolic death houses they call hospitals for us commoners. Protocol men and women are there to screen us when we approach them. Overzealous security agents are handy to rough handle the common men that try to get close to ‘His Excellency.

I saw how startled President Tinubu was when Umar made that weird attempt in Kaduna. Nothing wrong in that; the President is a human being. But his gesture sent a strong message to me. I don’t know who shares the same feeling. President Tinubu was momentarily rattled in that video! He was scared; he was fazed! It was written all over him! So, the rich also get scared? Can someone help tell the President that that is the common food of poor Nigerians; we live perpetually in fear!

Seriously, President Tinubu has something to learn from that incident. A good leader needs not fear by the appearance of a mere ‘madman’, especially when he is in the midst of his people. Thank God, Umar, as we were told, was just a fanatical supporter of Tinubu. And he was not armed. So, if the President was that scared seeing one of his own approaching him, what would he do if he were to be in a hostile environment?

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The lesson here is not for President Tinubu alone. Our leaders should learn how to lead well and make life more abundant for the people. The streets are not smiling, as we say in our usual street lingo. Things are not adding up for the common man. The next few months are going to be tough. This is not my prediction; Lasisi Olagunju said so in his Monday Line Column of yesterday (Monday, June 23, 2025)

While concluding the column: “Let Tehran, Tel Aviv bleed, Abuja will pay the price” the columnist wrote: “They pull the trigger, the mugus of the world pay the price.” Olagunju said this with the valid projections that the war in the Middle East would gravely affect the African continent. I could not agree less.

When the pangs of the ongoing madness in the Middle East begin to take its toll on us, our leaders will witness more weird behaviours from the citizens. The poor will get more desperate. And in gatherings like we had in Kaduna last week, more’ mad’ fanatics of our leaders will show up. The security aides will have more work to do. And, who knows, the number of the ‘mad fanatics’ may one day become too large for the security aides to rein in!

But we can avert that. Our leaders can drink water and drop the cups peacefully if only they will do the right thing. What I prescribe here is that the leaders should get close to the people. Feel their pains, share in their agony and stop giving excuses of “the rain, flood and bad road.” It is not an honour for the chief hunter to announce that he was chased out of the forest by a wild animal! Bad road is too cheap an excuse for the President not to visit the victims of a genocide as we had in Yelwata.

It is not too late. Let the President begin to ameliorate the pain in the land. Let Tinubu begin to give human face to his governance. Should the prices of crude go up with the war in the Middle East without corresponding measures to cushion the effects on hapless Nigerians who will be made to buy petrol at higher prices, many ‘mad’ men and women; those who adore and those who hate, will approach presidential and gubernatorial podiums with the vociferous lunacy birthed exclusively by either anger or hunger!

By Lasisi Olagunju

A tree does not fall in the forest and kill someone at home. That proverb may be true one hundred years ago. It has expired; its truth is lost to the ravages of this century’s technology. Check what Iran and Israel are sending to each other from a million kilometres apart. They are pressing buttons, bursting bunkers and cracking skulls. They are felling trees to kill the enemy at home.

Between Iran and Israel is a land distance of 2,308 kilometres. It takes 14 hours, 30 minutes to fly from Tehran to Tel Aviv. Driving distance from Israel to Nigeria is 6,349 kilometers; total straight line flight distance from Nigeria to Iran is 5,223 kilometers or 2,820 nautical miles. These are what the World Wide Web tell me. Yet, I want to say that we should prepare for the heat of that kitchen of misery.

What is going on in the Middle East is a war thousands of kilometres away from our country, so why should Nigeria be worried? Heat from distant fires is a grim reality in modern warfare. The shockwaves will soon wash up on our shores; household economies will be in trouble. Collapsing deckings will sink on wayfarers.

There are no regional wars again. This is a world war, undeclared. Listen to what experts are saying. Ponderously, they tell us that this war is not just about geopolitics. They say it is about budgets, about prices, and about livelihoods. They point at the direct combatants, fighting and bleeding. They add some more elegant lines. They say, as if in elegy, that: Israel bleeds dollars to stay safe; Iran bleeds oil to stay afloat; America bleeds billions to hold the line. And countries like Nigeria, with no direct stake in the conflict, are involuntarily dragged into its economic consequences.

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Those who hold the above views are right. A globalized world has obliterated the local in wars; the canopy is a worldwide foliage of blood and tears. So, as we watch live footages of explosions in Iran and Israel, let it sink in our heads that the financial cost of what is going on is a bell that tolls not just for Tel Aviv and Tehran. Abuja should also brace up. This is also our war.

In this unfair world, missiles flying in the Middle East means misery in Africa. Except a miracle stops Tehran from burning and Tel Aviv ceases bleeding, poor Abuja is sure going to pay part of the price.

Already, the war has pushed global crude oil prices by over 10 percent. Oil prices climbed from about $77 to over $86 per barrel on Sunday. Some forty years ago, this would be good news to oil-rich Nigeria. But it is not so today; a dangerous paradox rules our country: We produce and export crude oil; we import refined fuel from those who buy crude from us. A private refinery here even imports crude. Do the maths and be sorry for us.

The war is spiking global fuel refining costs; shipping costs are rising. Those two items alone will soon impact the price of petrol and diesel on the streets from Lagos to Sokoto. Inflation will worsen, incomes will shrink in value; chants of ebi npa wá will be shrill and widespread; there will be anger on the streets; the people’s belly will rebel; the government will be helpless and in real trouble.

Check from Al Jazeera to the Wall Street Journal; from Oxford Analytica to Reuters, etc etc; a scary story of costs is coming out of this war. We should be worried because we are involved.

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The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) says US$265 billion is needed globally per year to end hunger. That need is largely ignored by countries that have. Instead, the very powerful are expending billions on this avoidable war. For Israel, daily military expenditure is estimated to between $700 million and $800 million. An interceptor costs $700,000; a single missile costs up to $4 million. In one month, Israel would have burnt $12 billion in bombs and missiles.

In a multi million dollar operation, America on Sunday bombed nuclear sites in Iran and congratulated itself. The costs in materials didn’t bother it all.

They will pass the bills to the weak and hike the rate of hunger. Who cares? Before its plunge into the war on Sunday, the United States was already spending billions of dollars on the conflict. It spent on repositioning naval carriers, it spent on enhancing missile defence for allies, it spent on deploying reconnaissance and on logistic support. It has started spending uncommon billions on uncommon bombs bursting Iran.

Burning billions on wars is nothing to the super powers. They profit from their investments in conflicts. The US fought in and prospered from the First World War. Read John Maurice Clark’s ‘The War’s Aftermath in America’, published in Current History (1916-1940). Whenever and wherever you see that country called America in combat, know that it does so for peace and profit, especially for profit. Read Stuart D. Brandes’ ‘Warhogs: A History of War Profits in America.’ They pull the trigger, the mugus of the world pay the price.

By Lasisi Olagunju

Who knows Òkòlò in Oyo? Òkòlò was a Tapa (Nupe) and a slave of the Alaafin of Oyo. His duty was to gather grass to feed the king’s horses.

The man was a slave with freeborn friends, and he had quite many. One day, one of those friends was found to be owing someone a thousand cowries –which was a hefty sum in those early days. Payment was due but Òkòlò’s friend could not find the money to repay the debt.

The debtor, accompanied by Òkòlò, went to the creditor and pleaded for time. He promised to repay the money within three days and asked that his friend, Òkòlò, be held as surety in the meantime. Òkòlò had no problem with that arrangement but the wealthy creditor looked at Òkòlò, head to toe, and hissed. He told the debtor to find someone else, not this one. Then, turning to Òkòlò, the rich man said:

“Ta ní mò Òkòlò l’Ọ̀yọ́, sebi oko esin ni o npa? (Who knows Okolo in Oyo, is he not just a grass cutter, chef for the king’s horse?)” The rich man hissed again.

The statement wounded Òkòlò to the heart. It meant he was a nobody in Oyo.

That night, while everyone slept, Òkòlò went alone to the rich man’s house and set it on fire. He did it and stayed put. He stood where he committed the crime of arson until he was caught.

Òkòlò, the arsonist, was brought before the king. Alaafin asked him why he committed the act. Okolo replied that ever since he arrived in Oyo, no one had regarded him as someone of worth. The climax was the rich man counting his nine toes before his very eyes. He said the insult that no one knew him in Oyo wounded him deeply, and that that was why he burnt the house so that the man and all Oyo people would finally know he was present and able.

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The Alaafin listened attentively and had a deep sigh. He asked the rich man if it was true he uttered those words against the poor slave. The big man looked down and said “Yes, Kabiyesi.” Alaafin rebuked the rich man for not knowing how to talk (kò mo òrò so). The king then ordered his royal workers to rebuild the burnt house of the man who had money but lacked tact and decorum. Òkòlò was not punished; instead, he became a free somebody now known all over the empire.

From that day forward, no one said again: “Ta ní mò Òkòlò l’Ọ̀yọ́, sebi oko esin ni o npa? (Who knows Okolo in Oyo, is he not just a fodder gatherer for the king’s horse?).” Across Yorubaland, the saying changed in tone, form and meaning. It became: “Ta ní mò Òkòlò l’Ọ̀yọ́ kí ó tó ti iná bo ilé? (Who knew Òkòlò in Oyo until he burnt down a house?).” It has become a song line of victory for anyone who was once overlooked or dismissed as insignificant until a bold, dramatic act brought them recognition. Read Okolo’s story in S.O. Bada’s ‘Owe Yoruba ati Isedale Won’ (1973: page 63-64).

Lesson: Whatever we do or say, we should not leave anyone behind or set their esteem on fire. The forgotten and the despised will always force their way into view; they will announce their presence.

A viral video of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s visit to Kaduna last week shows the Commander-in-Chief in the midst of a momentary scare. It is a moment of intense unease that went viral and sparked varied interpretations. The president’s online enemies said the tiger momentarily lost his tigritude. The video clip is from the president’s TVC live coverage of the visit. The Nigeria police said the video was doctored by the president’s enemies to show the breach it depicts.

The story behind the incident: A man broke through security barriers and made a dash for the president where he stood, making a speech and blowing dogo turenchi (big grammar). The video shows neither the intruding man nor his dash. Instead, what announced his drama is the footage of a frozen president and a ruffled, rattled security taking positions. Police later clarified that the man was a certain Umar Mohammed, a native of Anguwan Muazu in Kaduna and “an ardent supporter of both the President and Governor Uba Sani.” Police said the man “acted out of overwhelming excitement” because he loved the president and the governor and wanted to be near them.

We are lucky the Kaduna man did not do what Òkòlò did in Old Oyo. The man merely caused a stir with a dash; he did not set the Nigerian house on fire.

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The police did not stop at saying the unruly was the president’s man. They announced that Umar had a psychiatric disorder but was allowed into the venue like other APC supporters, dressed in party regalia and waving banners of his heroes. All political parties have enthusiastic supporters, the ruling party has, and they came out to receive their president in Kaduna. But, unlike others, the “mad” Òkòlò man of Kaduna did not stay in his lane; he crossed into the protected zone uninvited so that he would be unmissable by his idols. His leap over the protocol barriers at the venue of the presidential event was a symbolic act that echoed louder than any shout, and was shriller than any chant or cheer from his peers. He made a difference.

The man made a splash but the police said no weapon was found on him; what he was longing for was just the recognition by his two heroes and by all of us who would read his ‘heroic’ story. And he got what he wanted – if that was all he wanted.

The police suggested that the ‘innocent’ disruption was weaponised in online spaces by dark forces. It declared that the viral video had been doctored to misrepresent the man’s actions. The police frowned on the “distortion” of the footage into narratives of conspiracy and danger. It warned against such politicisation and announced that a probe was on. We will be happy to report the findings.

“Is that a threat?” asks Henry Ian Schiller in a 1975 article of that title where he interrogates the various categories of threat. It is Schiller’s position that sometimes, the presence of those who should not be present is a threat. Umar’s Kaduna obtrusion was. But I will be shocked if the desperate trespasser and his street mates cared about our concerns. Those in power who should care are also spinning the threat into the echo chambers of nonsense. There may be many more like that man where he leapt out from. I read the intrusion as not merely a disruption; I see in it a desperate performance of visible proximity for whatever reason.

I am an uninvited guest in this matter; now I am about to ask some uninvited questions on this case: If the Kaduna intruder was “mad” as the police claimed, who then gave the insane the party dress he reportedly wore? Chinua Achebe in his ‘The Madman’ parallels a mad man who is dressed up with a sane but naked Nwibe. Exactly like that pair, who should we say is really mad between the Kaduna clothier and the clothed who created a scene? How many more psychiatric patients were in those party dresses and in that crowd?

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The police said the ‘mad’ man simply wanted to see his leaders up close. But in a society where the ill, the ignored, and the socially marginalised often blend into the background, his act of breaking into the elite cordon was a poignant daring demand for restitutory performance by the state. Those at the fringes must, sometimes, disturb and assail order to be seen and to be counted.

To dehumanise is to deprive of positive human qualities. A failed Nigeria has created many Òkòlò and Umar, desperate men of dehumanised existence. They fiddle with match boxes and hold dangerous torches in search of their stolen destiny. Some other mad people in that same North were filmed tearing down the president’s billboards. How bad is their own ‘madness’? What does all this tell about the future and the dreaded, high-stake elections that are coming?

In breaching the protocol in Kaduna, Umar Mohammed became a symbol of the invisible seeking recognition. His story is a reminder that those whom society overlooks, the voiceless, the deprived, have their own ways of announcing their presence. And often, their cries do not come through official microphones which are too far from the reach of their ‘dirty’ beings. Their cries barge in through unfiltered acts of yearning that disrupt polished stability. They always force a second glance by lighting a flare in the dark. Òkòlò did it in Old Oyo; Umar did last week in Kaduna.