The Imo State Government has ordered the immediate closure and withdrawal of approvals and licenses of private schools operating illegally, particularly those located in residential apartments and housing estates across the state.

The directive was contained in a statement issued by the Commissioner for Primary and Secondary Education, Professor B. T. O. Ikegwuoha, who declared the action part of the government’s renewed efforts to sanitize the education sector.

According to the statement, the government has revoked the approvals and licenses of private schools operating in apartments or residential areas, whether or not such institutions were previously approved.

“The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has by this notification revoked and withdrawn the approval and licenses of private schools that are presently housed and operating in apartments in Imo State,” the statement read.

Parents and guardians have been advised to withdraw their children and wards from such illegal schools and re-register them in duly approved private or public schools.

In addition, all schools operating within Federal or Imo State Housing Estates, especially in areas not designated for educational purposes, have also had their approvals revoked.

The government warned that failure to comply with the directive would attract stiff sanctions, including the redistribution of affected students to nearby approved schools.

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“Proprietors of private schools in Imo State should note that failure to comply with the conditions outlined in this notice will result in punitive sanctions, including but not limited to immediate distribution of their pupils and students to nearby schools.”

To ensure full compliance, monitoring and inspection teams from the Universal Basic Education (UBSE) and Quality Assurance (QA) departments of the ministry will begin enforcement visits to affected areas.

The government’s action has sparked debate among education stakeholders, with many calling for clarity on zoning regulations and better support for private education providers.
(VANGUARD)

By Festus Adedayo

Death does not kill alone/Nor does he fight singly/He goes to war with plenty of warriors…/He sends Disease first/He sends Paralysis next/He sends Loss/He sends Curses…/Death finally comes to kill the hunter’s father/Who drinks now of heavenly water.”

The lines above are from Professor Bade Ajuwon’s, ‘Ogun’s Iremoje: A philosophy of Living and Dying’, taken from Sandra Barnes’ ‘Africa’s Ogun: Old World and New’. It is a chant (Ìrèmòje) by one Lamidi in Akeetan, Oyo, Oyo State in 1976 for Ogundele, a deceased hunter.

Ìrèmòje is Yorùbá poetic dirge sung at funerals of hunters. The bards, in total submission, acknowledge that no armour is strong enough to shield fate. They employ the imagery of the hunter’s pouch, the English man calls it the quiver, the Yoruba hunter calls it the apó. Mourning bards lament that Death kills the hunter like one without the apó. Death kills a sick Babalawo like one whose vestry isn’t full of curative barks and roots. To reinforce this, Yoruba again say that what will be the death of the hunter lurks right there inside his apó.

A strong Yorubaman from the hinterland that he is, President Bola Tinubu must have listened to countless lines of Ìrèmòje like the above. Since Wednesday when the African Democratic Congress (ADC) was launched, expropriating the wisdom in those hunters’ dirges, the Nigerian president must have realized that the firm ground upon which the giant, (Ominran) stands could suddenly become slippery, leading to his fatal fall.

The bard in the Ogundele chant above would seem to have compared the ADC warriors warring against Tinubu to Death’s strike. The launch of ADC last Wednesday may be the first battalion that Death, those who want to unseat the president, sent to warn him.

Though oxymoronic, a great man can fall to his own folly and vanity. Irish poet, Oscar Wilde, once brought out this oxymoron in his The Picture of Dorian Gray when he said, “a great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures.” This Wilde saying may be the purport behind a folktale told to children in pre, colonial and even immediate post-colony of Yorubaland. It was the story of a mythical valiant warrior who, either out of excessive power or inability to realize the fault lines of his prowess, transformed into a crocodile.

Powerful and dreaded, the warrior, who had magical ability to transform into an animal, one day decided to repeat this magical wizardry. He asked that a traditional mat be brought out. As he laid on it, with a white cloth spread over him, by the time the cloth was unwrapped, he had transformed into a huge crocodile. Since, in the words of same Oscar Wilde, no man can be too careful in the choice of his enemies, the warrior’s friends immediately turned against him. Having found out that the only taboo against that animal transformation wizardry was raindrops, the warrior’s friends ganged up and decided to invoke a torrent of rain.

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The Delesolu compound in Oje, Ibadan North East Local Government of Oyo State, parades this same mythical narration of their ancestry. History has it that the great grandfather of the Delesolus did almost like the warrior in the above crocodile mythology. He, too, transformed into a crocodile. Then rain began to fall on the huge animal. Unable to return to his human form as a result of the raindrops, the distressed crocodile walked helplessly into the bush and into the nearest river. He never returned. Till today, anytime a child is born into the Delesolu family, a live crocodile is placed beside the baby. In 1944, a giant crocodile was brought into the compound as a totem, a reminder to the crocodile progeny that wisdom can kill the wise.

But those who have followed the Nigerian president’s political trajectory compare him to the Onikoyi, a renowned war general in the Oyo empire who lived around the 16th to 17th centuries. So many epithets have been used to describe Tinubu, one of which is that he is a ‘Master strategist.’ Onikoyi too was. Tinubu is so politically fearsome, so they say, that he possesses a mind of his own. Describing him further, they say he is a man who, in the words of award-winning Nigerian author, Chigozie Obioma, in his The Fisherman (2015), is “not the kind of man who would dip his foot in another shoe because his own was damp; he would rather trek the earth on barefoot.”

Onikoyi held command over 1469 men who were famous for fighting to death. They never turned their backs to the enemy. Onikoyi’s war prowess was such that nobody could defeat him.

Like a whirlwind gathers dirt into its concentric circle, erstwhile Tinubu friends gathered at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Center last Wednesday. Virtually all of them were once friends and associates of the Onikoyi. From Atiku Abubakar, Nasir El-Rufai, Rauf Aregbesola, Rotimi Amaechi etc, the list is endless. It includes David Mark, a man who, as military general, derisively told Nigerians that they were banished forever to a life of impoverishment. And Judas Iscariot Aregbesola. Onikoyi, too, was betrayed by one of his friends whom he favoured severally.

Envious of his valour, other warriors attempted to cut Onikoyi to size, to no avail. They then courted this friend who they paid handsomely to trigger a fight between Onikoyi and a best friend of his. In the battle, Onikoyi killed his friend and the warrior turned into a bush rat, thereafter making the forest his home. The middle friend who betrayed him had a huge tree fall over him, killing him instantly.

Since Wednesday when the ADC unfolded, it will appear that the president and the APC have been losing the messaging war. From far away beautiful Caribbean island Sea of Saint Lucia where he and his principal were ensconced, the message of Death seemed to have hit the presidential team badly. So, Bayo Onanuga sought to remind us that the ADC is an assembly of grousers. While lifting the veil off its leaders one by one and their political sins, he even predicted their waterloo.

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Onanuga needed to rewind the clip of his words to hear his own grumpy voice. Nigerians are aware already that right there in the ADC assemblage are political sinners; but, is the APC any better? If he says ADC lacks ideology, what is APC’s ideology? A minister was clearly accused of corruption, of filching billions of the people’s money in collusion with some star boys in the federal executive council. The president sacked her. Till date, she has not been tried. Corruption is said to sit in its imperial glory, just as maggots do on a decomposing meat, in Aso Rock as we speak. A cavalierly looting of Nigerian patrimony, perhaps unprecedented in Nigerian history, is the credo.

So, is political party about sainthood? If sainthood was the qualification for assembling to form a party, the crew that came into federal power in 2015 would not be there. Muhammadu Buhari was a despot who had his hands bespattered with the blood of Bartholomew Owoh, Bernard Ogedengbe and Lawal Ojuolape.

In 2023, Tinubu himself was one of the most unfit persons to be Nigeria’s president if a leader’s past was an index for voters’ consideration. I am not aware of any presidential candidate in the history of Nigeria’s electoral politics who heaved as hefty a baggage into the polls as the ex-Lagos State governor. He however got off into Aso Rock because many Nigerians believed he had the capacity to change their lives. Two years down the line, the reverse is the case. Nigerians crunch suffering as you eat crunchy nuts. All we hear are Marabout statistics of betterment whereas when we go to markets, we are faced with the tyranny of existence under a government in whose veins blood doesn’t seem to flow. So, reminding us of the past of the ADC coalition members is hogwash. It won’t wash.

But the Atiku ADC seems to be getting the messaging right. And Nigerians are listening to it. Though we know its members do not have any redemptive DNA and will also betray us if they ever get into government, their messaging resonates. Is life better for Nigerians now than it was in 2023? To imagine Aregbesola, whose government pauperized the poor Osun State civil servants as he paid them half salary while wasting billions of Naira on a needless airport project, now claiming that ADC is coming to “rescue the poor”! Though he is one of the greatest dis-advertisements of the ADC coalition, notorious for his dunce-like dances (ijó dìndìnrìn) and maladministration, Aregbesola asked an apt question: “Is today better than yesterday, or yesterday was better than today?”

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Let suffering Nigerians answer that question. It is a question personal to them. Tinubu has spent two grim years that lacerate Nigerians. The next two years do not seem to offer any hope that life would be better. The people’s sorrow daily remarries them to God as they tend to be more religious these days. It is so bad that, in the words of Wilde, Nigerians, majority of whom are lords of language, lack words to describe their anguish and suffering.

Yet, still in the same words of Wilde, the president and his people “(fill their lives) to the very brim with a life of pleasure, as one might fill a cup to the very brim with wine”. It reminds me of a line in Fuji music lord, Ayinde Marshal’s song. He sang that, the Nigerian life that is so difficult and painful to chew or swallow, is same world some Nigerians at the top eat crushingly like one eating hot yam (Ayé t’énìkan ńyó je, l’àwon kan ńje súà bí eni ńje isu.)

For almost one whole week, the presidency literally relocated and hibernated in Saint Lucia, with no decipherable outcome for Nigerian people. Someday, the real fact of what took the presidency to this tiny island and the amount of the Nigerian wealth incinerated on the jamboree would be revealed. Was our wealth secretly tethered by the feet of Dionysus, Greek god of wine, pleasure and revelry, in Saint Lucia? From Saint Lucia, the presidency is junketing to Brazil for the 17th BRICS Summit. It would be its 18th country to visit in two years.

It is however too early in the day to come to a conclusion of what the coming days will be. Both the ADC and the APC are gathering missiles of war. While I agree with FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, that none of the coalition crew is competent to articulate the anger and hunger of the Nigerian people, the Tinubu government inflicts hunger on the people. In this case, both Tinubu and the coalition group are like the proverbial bedwetter who is incompetent to haggle the price of aro, used by local drycleaners to curtail urine smell. The Nigerian people are capable of articulating their anger. In 2027, it will be evil politicians against the people.

On the surface, Tinubu’s famed wizardry would win him another four years in office. He is Onikoyi reincarnate, isn’t he? However, history tells us of an Onikoyi reincarnate who died on the battlefield where three trees met overhead. His corpse was not discovered until several days after. By this time, his decomposing corpse had been mercilessly half eaten, in the words of Beier, by vultures and “child of the eagle sitting on the silk cotton tree” and “child of the hawk waiting on the camwood tree”.

The braggadocio of the APC group is getting muffled now. The voice of the fawning Senate President who said the president would win 99.5% in the 2027 votes is receding too, no thanks to the coalition. The APC, ADC and the PDP will have to deal with Nigerians’ current reality of hopelessness in the midst of plenty. And tell us why we have to vote for them again. Or else, political Death will kill the Onikoyi like a hunter who lost his apó.

The International Human Rights Commission, Nigeria, has thrown its weight behind the renewed push by the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, for a comprehensive reform of the Contributory Pension Scheme, as it affects retired officers of the Nigeria Police Force.

This is contained in a diplomatic memo addressed to President Bola Tinubu and titled “A Diplomatic Appeal for Police Pension Welfare Reform in Line with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

In a statement signed on Saturday by IHRC’s Head of Media and Strategic Communications, Fidelis Onakpoma, the commission said the current pension arrangement for police personnel amounts to a constitutional breach and urged the President to take urgent corrective action.

The Head of Mission, IHRC , Ambassador Duru Hezekiah, was quoted in the statement as saying, “The commission firmly supports the Inspector-General of Police’s ongoing advocacy for a just and equitable pension scheme for retired police officers.

“We call on President Tinubu to urgently address the systemic flaws in the Contributory Pension Scheme, which violate constitutional provisions guaranteeing dignity and adequate social support for public officers.”

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Citing Sections 17(3)(f) and 34(1)(a) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), IHRC said the Nigerian state is legally bound to ensure the welfare and dignity of its retired officers, a responsibility it is currently failing in.

According to the commission, thousands of retired police officers are living in hardship under a pension system that disregards the realities of law enforcement service.

“The Constitution mandates the state to ensure the wellbeing of retired officers, not to abandon them to a broken system.

“The current structure of the CPS as applied to the police is inadequate, unfair, and incompatible with Nigeria’s constitutional values. These officers spent their lives in service—often in the face of extreme danger—yet they retire into poverty and indignity,” the IHRC stated.

The commission’s intervention follows a high-level meeting convened by the IGP on July 1, 2025, at the Force Headquarters in Abuja.

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The meeting brought together delegations from the National Association of Retired Police Officers of Nigeria, led by AIG Paul O. Ochonu (retd.), and the Coalition of CPS Retirees, led by CP Henry Njoku (retd.), to address mounting concerns over pension inadequacies.

During the meeting, Egbetokun reiterated his resolve to push for a more just and practical pension structure, describing the current system as a gross injustice.

“Our retirees deserve dignity, support, and a structure that reflects their sacrifice and service to Nigeria.

“We cannot continue to subject our heroes to a pension scheme that is clearly unfit for the nature of their work and the risks they bore,” the IG declared.

Egbetokun’s comments echoed sentiments he had expressed earlier in February during an interactive session with retired officers at the Police Resource Centre in Abuja, where he criticized the CPS as “deeply flawed and unfit for the realities of Police service.”

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The IHRC amplified this concern, highlighting what it described as an unjust disparity between Police and military retirees.

While the latter are exempted from the CPS and benefit from a more suitable pension arrangement, police retirees, the commission said, continue to suffer from a scheme that fails to provide basic security in old age.

“The military has rightly been removed from the CPS because of the peculiar nature of their job. The same logic applies—if not more so—to police personnel.

“Our police officers risk their lives daily, and they deserve a pension structure that reflects that reality. Anything less is an affront to justice, equity, and national security,” said Hezekiah.

In line with Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, the IHRC urged the Presidency to act decisively in addressing the disparity and upholding the constitutional and moral obligations of the state to its law enforcement agents.

“Reforming the police pension structure is not merely a policy issue—it is a constitutional and moral obligation. We believe this government has the opportunity to right this historical wrong and restore dignity to our Police retirees,” the statement read.
(PUNCH)