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Letter To Governor Ademola Adeleke

Published

2 years ago

November 24, 2023

Tunde Odesola

Your Excellency,

At the risk of being accused of ‘famzing’ the Osun State First Family, I will, nonetheless, stand at the Aisu Junction, off the Gbongan-Osogbo Road, which leads to a stretch of houses belonging to the Adelekes, open my mouth yakata and proudly declare myself a friend of the illustrious Adeleke clan of Ede.

My esteemed Governor, I have no relationship with you, but your eldest brother, the great Serubawon of Osun politics, Alhaji Isiaka Adetunji Adeleke, even in death, remains an unforgettable friend, who humbly related with me, despite his towering political height.

Having friends in equal measures within the Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress in Osun State, I’m like the swivel door that sees indoor and outdoor secrets, but which remains dispassionate because I’m sworn to the journalism creeds of fairness and balance called s’òtún, s’òsí, ma ba ‘bìkanjé.

Permit me to clear the insinuation that the brouhaha drowning common sense in the State of the Living Spring, following your unwise sacking of the Osun State Chief Judge, Justice Adepele Ojo, is related to your relationship with Chief Ramon Adedoyin, the proprietor of Hilton Hotel in Ile-Ife, where a postgraduate student of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Timothy Adegoke, was killed in November 2021.

My investigation shows you have no such relationship with Adedoyin to warrant sticking your neck out for a murderer. I know that the son of a late Balogun of Ede, Chief Raji Ayoola Adeleke, can’t eat anything harder than plantain. Your round cheeks, chubby physique and break-dancing prowess should’ve told the perpetrators of the allegation that your passion doesn’t include murder.

If they allege that you danced on water or rolled on your head with your legs oscillating faster than a colonial ceiling fan, Osun people wouldn’t have doubted it. But it’s a lie that you want Ojo out as CJ because she jailed Adedoyin.

Going by the judgment of the Osun State High Court, and as the Lord lives, Adedoyin will die by hanging, a method designed to break the neck and choke a person to death as efficiently as possible. To get his comeuppance, the hangman’s noose will first encircle Adedoyin’s neck. He will be dropped a distance higher than his height through a trapdoor and the rope will hold his body in sudden fatal suspension, as the noose snaps the cervical spine that connects his head to his neck. He will die like a cockroach within a minute or two.

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Your Excellency, I wish to tell you the truth in a way that Serubawon wouldn’t see me as being too harsh or not respecting our relationship. I’m torn between the devil and the deep blue sea. But I won’t sell my soul to the devil nor jump into the sea. I’ll tell the truth in a palatable way and keep under lock and key the horsewhip I used on that hemp-smoking monarch who banned Oro worshippers from practising their religion.

By birth and residency, I’m a citizen of Lagos but by ancestry, I’m an Osun indigene. I deliberately stay away from Osun politics and seldom comment on statecraft except on highly unignorable issues like when the immediate past Speaker of the Osun State House of Assembly, Rt. Honourable Timothy Owoeye, bathed with blood in public. Owoweye is my friend but I couldn’t overlook his indiscretion. I wasn’t as miffed with Owoeye as I was miffed with the APC leadership that made him Speaker despite the bath in a pool of blood. Even if Owoeye was a victim of swindlers, the APC shouldn’t have made him Speaker.

Baba Bayo, I’ll give a few instances to show how differently Serubawon ran his show. He had given a car to the late highlife maestro, Ede-born Pa Fatai Olagunju aka Rolling Dollar, and had kept quiet about it. I was at the country house one day for an interview when he told me about the gift to Rolling Dollar. First, I was shocked that Dollar had no car. Second, I told Serubawon that the gift was newsworthy. “Tunde, shey o feel pe ka publish e?” he asked. I said yes. “Ok, let’s publish it,” he agreed.

The story made such a good read in PUNCH that Adeleke invited me to the permanent orientation camp of the National Youth Service Corps in Ede, where he donated cars, buses, motorcycles, sewing machines, grinding machines, deep freezers, etc to his constituents because Baba Dollar was present at the event. I had a lengthy interview with the octogenarian Dollar at the event.

Boda Nuru, you didn’t handle the CJ issue well at all. I’ll give you another example of how Serubawon handled a tricky case. While on a governorship campaign tour shortly after Osun State was created out of Oyo State in 1991 by ruthless ruler, General Ibrahim Babangida, Serubawon’s convoy was halted by some supporters at a stream in a town (name forgotten). Serubawon, who had returned from the US to contest the election, said, “They told me to step out of the convoy and come into the stream to drink water so I could feel their plight. Tunde, I had to alight o. The road divided the stream into two. On one side of the road was the ‘good’ water from the stream while on the other side of the road was murky water in which people washed cars, motorcycles and clothes. I walked to the ‘good’ side, cleared the water with my hands and drank o, Tunde.”

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He asked, “Do you know what happened after I entered my car? We moved away from the stream and I quickly told my people to get me antibiotics from the First Aid Box in one of our vehicles in the convoy.” “Did you have stomach upset thereafter?” I asked. “No, I was fine,” he replied, smiling.

Mr Governor, the political empire you inherited from your late charismatic egbon was united, with the whole of Ede-North and Ede-South local government councils always behind him. Today, Ede, the home of professors, SANs, technocrats, business moguls and military generals, is not as united as it was during the time of Serubawon. For instance, Nigeria’s Ambassador to Mexico, Chief Adejare Bello; Brigadier General Abiodun Adewimbi (retd.), Fellow, Nigerian Academy of Letters, Prof Siyan Oyeweso, among others, are some of Ede indigenes who were part of the Serubawon political family but who are not with you today.

Last born, you will recall that the father of Chief Justice Ojo, Balogun Osungbade, became the Balogun of Ede after your father, who became Balogun in 1976, passed onto eternity in 1993. However, Ojo’s purported removal was as shoddy as the removal of the Rector, Osun State Polytechnic, Iree, Dr Tajudeen Odetayo, on July 11, 2023, and the removal of the Head, O-Ambulance, Dr Segun Babatunde, both of which started with unsubstantiated allegations of fraud.

Baba B-Red, Serubawon, who was older than his immediate younger brother, the father of superstar singer Davido, Mr Adedeji Adeleke; his younger sister, Yeyeluwa Modupe Adeleke; and yourself, with a gap of two years between each sibling, wouldn’t have replaced Odetayo, who has a PhD with an Ede indigene, Mr Kehinde Alabi, who is less qualified than the rector, deputy rector and many other lecturers of the institution.

Mr Jackson, I pray your administration wouldn’t be remembered only for àlùjó, shaku-shaku and fàájì repete because your government appears lethargic to deep thinking. How do you explain, Your Excellency, that the petition written by one Comrade Damilola Esekpe, a director of communications of a faceless agency in Abuja, was what the Rt Hon. Adewale Egbedun-led Osun State House of Assembly used to decide the fate of Ojo? How? Also, the statement containing the allegations for which you suspended Ojo didn’t mention the agency that Esekpe works for in Abuja. And this was the statement used in deciding the fate of the CJ!? How more childish can a government be? The PUNCH correspondent in Osun State, Mr Bola Boladale, corroborated my investigation that the statement containing the allegations against Ojo, signed by Esekpe, and circulated by OSHA, didn’t say the agency Esekpe works for. How infantile!

This shoddiness strengthens the claim of victimisation against the CJ just as it raises an eyebrow at other sackings by the Adeleke government.

After he lost re-election into the Senate in 2011, Serubawon still went ahead to distribute hundreds of cars, buses, refrigerators, sewing machines, etc to his constituents. I asked him why he went ahead to distribute the largesse instead of returning them to the sellers and asking for refunds. He said, “Many of these people you see, their hopes depend on these things. I have promised them, I must fulfil my promise, win or lose.” That’s the largeness of Serubawon’s heart. He wasn’t petty and narrow-minded.

Justice Ojo isn’t a saint. If Adeleke wants to catch the annoying monkey, he should come with clean hands. Knee-jerk reactions to issues show immaturity and unpreparedness.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @Tunde_Odesola

News

JAMB Releases Results Of Mop-up Examination

Published

7 hours ago

July 6, 2025

Editor

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has released the results of the mop-up Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) held on Saturday, June 28, 2025.
According to a statement issued on Sunday evening by JAMB’s spokesperson, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, results have been released for 11,161 candidates who sat for the exam out of the 96,838 candidates scheduled for the mop-up exercise.

The board, however, noted that some candidates who are unable to access their results failed to comply with the prescribed instructions.

“Candidates who are not able to access their results have been found not to have fully complied with the instruction to send ‘UTMERESULT’ (as one word text) to 55019 or 66019 using the same phone number (SIM) used during registration for the UTME,” the statement read.

JAMB urged all affected candidates to follow the correct procedure in order to access their results.

News

FG Lists Two Presidential Jet For Sale In Switzerland

Published

8 hours ago

July 6, 2025

Editor

The Federal Government has place on sale about two-decade-old Boeing 737‑700 Business Jet (BBJ) with the listing hosted by AMAC Aerospace in Basel, Switzerland.

The Presidency source said with over 19 years in service, the BBJ has become increasingly expensive to maintain and subject to safety scrutiny, particularly after a mechanical incident during an official trip to Saudi Arabia in April 2024.

This disclosure for the sale of the Boeing 737‑700 Business Jet (BBJ) was made via a US-based aircraft listing site, The Controller: https://www.controller.com/listing/for-sale/244434099/2005-boeing-bbj-jet-aircraft

The aircraft, used during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, and acquired for $43m in 2005, is being sold months after President Bola Tinubu transitioned to a refurbished Airbus A330-200 last August amid economic concerns and public scrutiny.

The plane had undergone inspections and maintenance in preparation for sale, according to aviation marketplace Controller.com.

Nigeria’s presidential air fleet, overseen by the Nigerian Air Force and the Office of the National Security Adviser, has about 10 aircraft.

These include fixed wings such as a 13-year-old Gulfstream Aerospace G550, Gulfstream G500, two Falcon 7Xs, a Hawker 4000, and a Challenger 605.

Three of the seven fixed wings are reportedly unserviceable.

The rotor-wing fleet includes two Agusta 139s and two Agusta 101s, all operated by the Nigerian Air Force but supervised by the Office of the National Security Adviser.

Both the Muhammadu Buhari and Tinubu administrations had earlier pledged to streamline the PAF for cost-efficiency.

Until August 2024, the BBJ-737 with tail number 5N-FGT, ferried the President until the administration acquired the refurbished Airbus A330-200, registered 5N‑FGA.

The aircraft, acquired for roughly $100 million (approx. ₦150bn) from a repossessed German bank asset, arrived in France for initial maintenance and reconfiguration in mid-2024.

However, since February 2025, the President has been using a San Marino-registered BBJ (REG: T7-NAS).

Sources in early May 2025 confirmed that the new A330-200 had been flown to South Africa to change its livery to reflect the Nigerian colours and the office of the President.

“The last I heard is that they took it abroad, I think to South Africa, to change the body design. You know it doesn’t have the green white green,” one source had said, asking to remain anonymous.

“It’s not only the body paint. I learned they are doing some refurbishment on it,” a second official stated.

The Swiss private aviation firm which facilitated the acquisition of the Airbus A330, it was gathered is also preparing the BBJ-737 for sale.

With over 19 years in service, the Presidency said the BBJ became increasingly expensive to maintain and subject to safety scrutiny, particularly after a mechanical incident during an official trip to Saudi Arabia in April 2024.

Despite a partial refurbishment in July 2024, including upgrades to its first-class seating, new carpeting, and completion of C1-C2 inspections, the presidency is retiring the jet and listing it for sale.

Also, the aircraft is not enrolled in any engine maintenance programme, while both of its CFM56-7BE engines remain “on condition” that is, they are not subject to guaranteed performance coverage.

According to the listing, interested buyers may contact AMAC Aerospace for the asking price privately.

Configured to carry 33 passengers and 8 crew, the listing said the aircraft offers a 5-zone seating layout.

Zone 1 is dedicated to crew rest, including two crew rest seats and two cabin attendant seats. Zone 2 features a VIP stateroom equipped with a bed, a two-place divan, and a private lavatory. Zone 3 includes a VIP lounge configured as a four-seat conference room.

In Zone 4, passengers will find nine forward-facing first-class seats. Finally, Zone 5 offers eighteen forward-facing business-class seats.

The aircraft underwent a partial interior refurbishment in July 2024, including new carpeting through 90 per cent of the cabin and a full refurbishment of the first-class seating area.

Full-service galleys are located both forward and aft, featuring a steam oven, microwave, chilled compartments, storage areas, and warming drawers.

Other features include four enclosed lavatories—one for crew use, one within the VIP stateroom, one serving the first-class cabin, and another in the business-class section.

Connectivity is provided via Ka-Band Wi-Fi powered by the Honeywell MCS-7000 system.

Entertainment options include a 32-inch monitor in the master bedroom, another in the VIP lounge, one more in the first-class cabin, and two 21-inch monitors in the business-class cabin.

The BBJ is equipped with cutting-edge avionics systems. It includes three VHF communication radios by Gables Engineering, two VHF navigation radios by Rockwell Collins, and two HF transceivers. Safety and situational awareness are enhanced by an L3 Comms DFDR, a CVR, and Honeywell’s EGPWS.

The aircraft is fitted with two ATC transponders, a pair of DME units, and Rockwell Collins radio altimeters.

Additional avionics include three Thales ADC/ADM units, two Honeywell ADIRUs, and Rockwell Collins weather radar and TCAS systems.

Emergency equipment includes an Artex ELT with interface unit. The flight control and guidance systems comprise two Rockwell Collins FCCs, a Flight Dynamics HGS computer, and two Smith Industries FMS units.

Navigation aids include two ADFs and two Rockwell Collins MMR(GLU) units. Cabin pressurisation is managed by two Nord-Micro CPCs.

The aircraft also carries integrated flight and engine monitoring systems, with components by BAE Systems, Hamilton Sundstrand, Oeco, Honeywell, Teledyne Controls, Vibro-Meter, and Avtech.

Controller.com says the aircraft is fully compliant with ADS-B, CPDLC, FANS-1/A, and RVSM requirements.

The Boeing BBJ is powered by two CFM56-7BE engines, each with 3,821 hours since new and 1,881 cycles.

The engines are on-condition and not enrolled in a maintenance programme.

The auxiliary power unit, a Honeywell 131-9B, has logged 5,982 hours and 3,622 cycles.

It says the aircraft is capable of intercontinental range, thanks to eight auxiliary fuel tanks that boost total capacity to 70,000 pounds.

This includes standard tanks of 45,000 pounds, plus auxiliary tanks split between the left wing (8,500 lbs), right wing (8,500 lbs), center (28,000 lbs), forward aux (10,000 lbs), and aft aux (15,000 lbs).

Currently, the BBJ is undergoing B1-B2 inspections at AMAC Aerospace in Basel.

The C1-C2 inspections were completed in July 2024. Maintenance is tracked using the Veyron system.

On the outside, the aircraft retains its original 2005 exterior paint scheme, featuring a white base accented with green highlights to portray the Nigerian colours.
(VANGUARD)

News

NDPC Fines MultiChoice ₦766m For Data Privacy Violations

Published

9 hours ago

July 6, 2025

Editor

The Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) has fined MultiChoice Nigeria ₦766,242,500 for breaching the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA).

NDPC is a public institution that processes data in furtherance of its mandate as Nigeria’s data protection authority and relies on recognised lawful bases for data processing, such as consent, legal obligation, and contract.

The commission’s Head of Legal, Enforcement and Regulations, Mr Babatunde Bamigboye, disclosed this in a statement issued on Sunday in Abuja.

According to Bamigboye, the fine followed an investigation launched in the second quarter of 2024 into suspected violations of subscribers’ privacy rights and the unlawful cross-border transfer of Nigerians’ data.

“NDPC found, among other things, that MultiChoice violated the data privacy rights of its subscribers and individuals associated with them who are not necessarily subscribers.

“The commission also discovered that MultiChoice engaged in the illegal cross-border transfer of personal data belonging to Nigerian data subjects.

“The depth of data processing by Multichoice is patently intrusive, unfair, unnecessary and disproportionate.

“This is a grave affront to fundamental right to privacy as enshrined in section 37 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” Bamigboye said.

According to him, Nigeria is entitled to protect its citizens and data sovereignty under both international and existing municipal laws, as these have far-reaching implications for the rule of law, national security, and economic growth.

Bamigboye added that, in the course of the investigation, in line with the NDPA standard remediation procedure, the commission directed Multichoice to undertake appropriate remedial measures.

“However, the commission found the measures undertaken by Multichoice in this regard unsatisfactory.

“For want of cooperation, the commission has directed multichoice to pay N766,242,500 for violating the Nigeria Data Protection Act.l,” he added.

The NDPC’s National Commissioner, Dr. Vincent Olatunji, was also quoted as directing that all channels through which Multichoice collects the personal data of Nigerian citizens be investigated for non-compliance.

According to him, any outlet that processes personal data in violation of the NDPA is liable to a penalty under the Act.

NDPC is a public institution that processes data in furtherance of its mandate as Nigeria’s Data Protection Authority and relies on recognised lawful bases for data processing, such as consent, legal obligation, and contract.
(VANGUARD)