The governments of Ondo, Osun and Ekiti states have embarked on flood mapping as a proactive measure against flooding in their respective states.

This involves identifying flood-prone areas and investigating the factors contributing to vulnerability.

The initiative is a response to the anticipated heavy rainfall and potential flooding across the country predicted by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency.

Speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria in Akure, the Ondo State Commissioner for Environment, Mr Tob Loko, said a comprehensive flood mapping exercise would safeguard vulnerable communities from recurring flood disasters.

Loko said the initiative reflected the state government’s commitment to adopting a preventive and data-driven approach to flood management.

“We are not just identifying flood-prone zones, we are also investigating the underlying environmental and structural factors contributing to their vulnerability.

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“While we are working to stay ahead of potential disasters, provisions are also being made to support residents who may be affected by unexpected flooding.

“Perfection isn’t humanly possible. If any area is inadvertently missed during the mapping and later experiences flooding, we are considering emergency measures such as temporary relocation and distribution of relief materials,” he said.

The commissioner urged residents of the state, especially those in high-risk areas, to cooperate fully with the state government officials as assessments and interventions commenced.

Also, the Administrative Secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Mr Olumide Kinga, said that since the beginning of the year, the ministry had sustained aggressive mechanical channelisation across the state.

“We have three amphibious excavators that are placed in the three senatorial districts, working round the clock to make sure that we give our people a befitting environment, particularly during this rainy season.

“Actions are at top gear to make sure that we dissuade people blocking drainages and we have written to all the 18 local government chairmen to come up with length and dimension of drainages to be taken care of in the next one week,” he said.

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The administrative secretary stated that residents of the state must embrace proper disposal of their waste, saying the government was trying to provide an effective system of collection and disposal of waste across the state.

The Senior Special Assistant on Volunteer Service, Mr Adeolu Iwakun, said the state government had launched sensitisation programmes across multiple platforms to educate the public and guide them on response measures.

According to him, all local governments are also addressing flooding in their various council areas within their capacity through a good drainage system.

Iwakun, also the state Coordinator of the Nigerian National Volunteer Service, said several relevant organisations were collaborating with the state government to provide technical advice and support that would avert flooding.

Also speaking with NAN in Osogbo, the General Manager, Osun Emergency Management Agency, Mr Deola Oni, said the state government had deployed three swamp buggies across the state to dredge and clear waterways for flood prevention.

Oni said the three swamp buggies, operating permanently in Osun waterways, had helped in averting flood disasters in the state by clearing the way for the passage of water.

“The swamp buggies keep dredging most of the waterways to make them wider for the passage of water.

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“It is a positive move on the part of the state government to prevent flood disasters, and we are always on the ground to give relief materials to any victim of such a disaster,” he said.

According to him, the agency has been sensitising the public on the need to avoid throwing refuse in the drainage systems to prevent flooding.

“We are not relenting on our campaign to Osun residents on the need to embrace flood preventive measures.

“Also, we are ready to respond to any emergency and to give relief materials to any victims of flood disaster in the state,” he said.

The OSEMA GM further explained that a lot had been done to educate and inform residents in the state on the consequences of not abiding by flood preventive measures.

NAN Correspondent also visited some locations in the state, including the Osun River, where the swamp buggies had already cleared for free flow of water.

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Similarly, the State Commissioner for Environment and Sanitation, Mayowa Adejoorin, said the state embarked on continuous clearing of waterways and channels every year to prevent flood disasters.

According to him, Gov. Ademola Adeleke graciously approved the clearing of waterways and channels across the state at the beginning of every year as a proactive measure.

“Due to the proactiveness of the state, Osun has not experienced any flood cases, either minor or major, in recent years.

“We started clearing our waterways and water channels in November 2024, based on the Nigerian Meteorological Agency’s prediction that some riverine states will experience flooding, and Osun is one of them.

“We also put mechanisms in place to ensure that our people do not block the waterways with refuse. We continue to enlighten and sensitise them through media coverage on the dangers of blocking water channels.

“We also removed some structures that were erected on the waterways. To the glory of God, we have not experienced any flooding this year, even as we are experiencing heavy rainfall,” he said.

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NAN reports that a swamp buggy excavator was seen at the Gbonmi area in Osogbo and Ita-Olookan end of the Osun River, clearing the waterways, just as concrete barriers were being constructed along the waterways.

In Ekiti, the State Deputy Governor, Mrs Monisade Afuye, while speaking with NAN, said the Ministry of Urban and Physical Planning had started marking illegal structures obstructing waterways for possible demolition across the state to further prevent flooding, and safeguard lives and property.

Afuye expressed regret that Ekiti witnessed repeated and devastating cases of flooding, fire and thunder disasters that wreaked havoc in some towns in 2024 and 2025.

She said NiMet had predicted Ekiti as one of the possible flashpoints for flooding in 2025, which also made it expedient for all local government chairmen in the state to begin taking decisive actions.

According to her, the actions will prevent desertification, ensure regular desilting of waterways, encourage tree planting, avoid building on flood-prone axes, and encourage community-based disaster strategies.

She also asked the local government chairmen to continue to spread the anti-flooding campaign across the state in view of NiMet’s prediction and to further avert occurrences that could throw the state into an avoidable crisis.

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Also, the National Emergency Management Agency, Head of Operations in Ekiti, Dr Kofoworola Soleye, said the agency has constantly issued warning notices on how to avert flood disasters.

“We have identified flood-prone areas in Ekiti, and we are collaborating with the state government in ensuring that Ekiti don’t experience flooding.

“We also had a flag-off of stakeholders engagement on flood by the National Disasters and Response Campaign (NPRC) recently in Ekiti to prepare against flooding,” he said.

The NEMA boss also said the agency was collaborating with other relevant stakeholders in ensuring that Ekiti is safe from flooding.

The Commissioner for Environment, Mrs Tosin Ajisafe-Aluko, said the drains and gutters in the state were now cleaned and constantly monitored to ensure free flow of water.

“The state government has provided bins at strategic areas of the state to trash waste, and we do sensitise the general public on waste disposal and management,” she said.

Mr Adesina Abogunrin, Head, Search and Rescue Unit, Ado-Ekiti Operations Office, advised people in flood-prone areas to relocate to higher grounds as part of preventive measures.

NAN

By Lasisi Olagunju

Who killed Dele Giwa? Who was Gloria Okon and where is she today? How did David Mark accurately predict in 1994 that Sani Abacha would spend five years in power and would attempt to contest a multi-party presidential election with only himself as candidate? Why did M. K.O. Abiola contest the 1993 election even after he had been told eight years earlier that he would one day successfully gun for the nation’s top job but would have the crown blown away by a storm at his crowning ceremony?

A book that contains those details (with even more ghastly ones) is certain to stir up a hurricane across the nation. That is what Mr. Yakubu Mohammed, Dele Giwa’s friend and colleague at the Concord and Newswatch, has written. He gave the autobiography the title: ‘Beyond Expectations’. The old media entrepreneur graciously last week ushered me into the locked room of his soon-to-be-released book of stories. He gave me an advance copy for a preview which this piece is all about.

Good books are a compass to the past and a guide to the future. If not for a book as this, how many of us would recollect that in April 1994, Brigadier-General David Mark in exile in London told Dan Agbese, editor-in-chief of Newswatch, in an interview that General Sani Abacha was determined to stay put, at least for five years, and thereafter, transmute into a civilian president through an election in which he would be the only contestant? That was five months after Abacha sacked Ernest Shonekan and gullible Nigerians were waiting on him to cede power after six months to M.K.O. Abiola. It turned out that David Mark was right; pro-June 12 Nigerians who enthroned Abacha were dead wrong.

Was it David Mark’s party or the party of NADECO that eventually deposed Abacha? This question is a knot in the untangling hands of time. But the same David Mark who saw tomorrow in 1994 is in charge of a democratic onslaught against the incumbent president today. Mark is a trained marksman. It would be scary to have a reticent sniper gentleman officer leading a coalition against a self-sure president and his over-confident party. My dictionary says a sniper is a marksman. It says a sniper is a dead shot with uncommon skills. His missile is long-range, his position concealed. He employs stealth and camouflage techniques to remain undetected, and he is rarely detected. His training is specialised, his tools are high-precision; and his sight telescopic. The marksman’s engagement of targets is with pin-point accuracy. God help those at the receiving end of his shots.

Yakubu Mohammed complains loudly in his book that he suffered several arrests and detentions from the government and its agents. But it is always better to lose one’s cap than to lose one’s head. Hubert Ogunde sings in an album that a man that is beaten by the rains but escapes the withering celts of Sango should learn to thank God (eni òjò pa tí Sàngó ò pa, opé l’ó ye é). Mohammed is lucky that he lives to write his story. His friend, Dele Giwa, was not that lucky; he died before his time.

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Giwa’s author-friend has ample space for an interrogation of the nagging question: Who killed Dele Giwa? He asks that question and raises posers which only he, Ray Ekpu and Dan Agbese could raise. Then he provides insights. Was Newswatch doing a story on a certain Gloria Okon? Who really was she? Yakubu’s book answers the questions in a manner that may activate many more people to write their own books or update existing ones on the case.

Given the stories we’ve read on their bitter-sweet relationship, I expected to see David Mark and M.K.O Abiola appearing in the same sentence or paragraph; I couldn’t find that in the book. But there are several MKO surprises that should extract gasps from the reader. Imagine Abiola as a reporter pursuing a story with his editor in the dead of the night. As editor of Abiola’s National Concord, Yakubu Mohammed says “one night, I was going to meet a news contact in Surulere. He (Abiola) had an idea of the story I was pursuing and he inserted himself into the investigation team. He offered to accompany me. We took off from his residence in my car. Only three of us; he, in the passenger’s seat and I, in the driver’s seat with one security detail at the back seat. We did not return to Ikeja until about 4.00 the following morning, mission accomplished” (Page 168). Accounts of several escapades like this make the book a thriller. Or how should I describe a scene that has billionaire Abiola stranded in a motor park one midnight in Benin? The money man finally got bailed out by the police and on the way to Lagos that night, Abiola entertained his boys in the police car with good music – a fork and a plate supplying the percussion.

When the book is out, readers will confirm that a time there was in Nigeria when a newspaper financed a bank. It is difficult to believe but that is what I read in Yakubu Mohammed’s autobiography. Hear the author: “Abiola’s initial contribution to the establishment of Habib Bank which he co-founded with his friend, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, was paid from the Concord purse. I knew it because I signed the cheque”.” (Page 176).

As Concord journalists, Dele Giwa, Yakubu Mohammed and Ray Ekpu were famous for the unconventional work they did; they were even more famous for the flamboyance of their social life and engagements. They were brilliant, hardworking and rich. They lived big. A columnist with the rival New Nigerian newspaper based in Kaduna went with the pseudonym Candido (someone said he was Malam Mamman Daura). One day, the columnist turned his musket on the trio and called them “the Benzy journalists in Lagos who wear Gucci shoes.”

A journalist, even if an editor, riding a Mercedes Benz in Nigeria of the early 1980s was a big deal. But Yakubu Mohammed does not think it should be a big deal. He has a space for a confirmatory rebuttal of that charge in his book: “That was when the famous Candido column of the New Nigerian, the man behind the mask, who claimed to see all and everything from afar, referred to the trio of Dele Giwa, Ray Ekpu and Yakubu Mohammed as Benzy journalists wearing Gucci shoes. The column did not mean to be offensive but it helped to add something to the amour of our potential detractors. Yes, we were riding Mercedes Benz cars, but we were not the first journalists or editors to do so. I don’t know about Gucci shoes but we were frequent visitors to New Bond Street and Oxford Street, the high-end shopping areas of London. If we were the envy of colleagues, it was thanks largely to (MKO) Abiola’s large-heartedness…” (Page 199).

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In the 1970s through early/mid 80s, the Lagos/Ibadan powerhouse of the Nigerian media had “The Three Musketeers.” That was the honorific tag hung on Messrs Felix Adenaike, Peter Ajayi and Olusegun Osoba who were at the helm of the Nigerian Tribune, Daily Times/Daily Sketch, and Nigerian Herald. They were the reigning big boys of that period. Then came the three “Benzy journalists” in imported, expensive shoes. Professor Olatunji Dare in the Foreword to this book drops a positive line on the “quiet elegance” of Yakubu’s wardrobe.

Before their time, a time there was when the Nigerian journalist lived poor and sore. They lived solely for work, booze, cigarettes and sex. The males among them worked hard during the day and retired in the evening to the NUJ Press Centre loosening up into an orgy of excesses. The newsman of that era was a church rat; he commanded neither genuine respect nor genuine pity. The society simply accommodated him as a gesture of tolerance, a necessary evil.

It was a period of derision, a black phase which journalists in other climes also passed through. In the United Kingdom of the 1800s, a Scottish nobleman described journalism as a job fit only for the “thorough-going blackguard.” Blackguard? Check the meaning: someone who behaves in a dishonourable or contemptible way. Sir Walter Scott (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), novelist, poet, and historian, used that description for the newspaper journalist. It would appear that he didn’t really coin the insult. Charles Abbot, who later became Speaker of the British House of Commons, wrote in his diary that he was going to the Cockpit on I9 December I798, then he found the room nearly full of strangers and “blackguard news-writers.” Again in the same Britain, a certain Thomas Grenville told his brother, Lord Grenville, the Prime Minister, that “his aversion to all editors was such that he had never had and never would have any communication with them.” Thomas Barnes (11 September 1785 – 7 May 1841) was famous and hugely successful as the editor of The Times of London, yet a powerful gentleman could only compliment him as “an insolent, vulgar fellow.” There was Sir Robert Peel, British conservative statesman who was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1834–1835, 1841–1846), and simultaneously Chancellor of the Exchequer (1834–1835). Before getting into all those big offices, he was Irish Chief Secretary during which time he described Irish journalists as “vile and degraded beings.”

In 1807, the Benchers of Lincoln’s Inn made a rule to the effect that no one who had ever been a newspaper journalist should be entitled to be called to the Bar. It took a 23 February 1810 petition to the House of Commons by journalist George Farquharson to defeat that prejudice. Read ‘The Social Status of Journalists at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century’ (1945) by A. Aspinall. It harbours all these UK cases I cited above, and more. Across the borders in Germany, we meet in Arthur Schnitzler’s satiric comedy ‘Fink und Fliederbusch’ (1917) the journalist as essentially “a man without substance and without conviction.’ Statesman and Chancellor of the German Reich, Otto von Bismarck in 1862 was quoted as describing journalism as a “dumping ground for those who had failed to find their calling in life.”

It was as bad in Nigeria. Read Alhaji Ismai’l Babatunde Jose’s ‘Walking Tight Rope: Power Play in Daily Times’ (1987). Read Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s ‘Awo: An Autobiography’ (1960). Chapter 7 of Chief Awolowo’s autobiography is an interesting read on the life of the Nigerian journalist in the 1930s, especially. The very second paragraph of that chapter says journalism “was an unprofitable, frustrating and soul-depressing career at that time in Nigeria.” The third paragraph says “there was a general but inarticulate contempt for newspapermen, particularly, the reporters. They were regarded as the flotsam and jetsam of the growing community of Nigerian intelligentsia: people who took to journalism because they were no good at anything else…” Chief Awolowo joined the Nigerian Daily Times in September 1934 as a reporter-in-training; three months later, he became the newspaper’s resident correspondent in Ibadan. Then he saw journalism in its abject, stark nakedness. He jumped out of it after just eight months. He writes that it was clear to him that he “would never succeed in raising enough money to become a lawyer from the reporting business.” He was in journalism because he needed money to study law.

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“That time offer’d sorrow;/ This, general joy”, Shakespeare writes in Henry VIII; Act 4, Scene 1. Every night must yield to the compulsory break of dawn. One of the concluding clauses in Aspinall’s 1945 piece cited earlier above is a reference to John Lord Campbell’s ‘The lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England’ (1848). In it, the author holds that “whereas half a century earlier, newspapers had been in the lowest state of degradation, they were now conducted by men of education and honour.”

Some fifty, forty years ago, debauchery was not a negative word in the life of the average Nigerian journalist. But today, if he has excesses, he does not wear them on his sleeves. This is 2025, almost 100 years after the Awolowo experience with the poverty of the press. As with other professions, the story has changed substantially positively for the Nigerian journalist. If the journalist is the town, he competes competently today with the gown. A contest for intellectual and resource success is ongoing across newsrooms. The Benzy journalists of the 1980s were the pioneers in modern Nigerian journalists becoming entrepreneurs. Today’s journalists learnt from them and are living well. They write great books, do business, make good money and amass wads of certificates. The Nigerian Guild of Editors celebrates new PhDs with the regularity of new arrivals in busy maternity wards. When the Nigerian Tribune clocked 75 last year, a former colleague wrote that the Tribune had more PhDs than some university faculties. That is a fact that has remained very true. Unfortunately, we lost one of us two weeks ago. Dr Leon Usigbe, highly resourceful gentleman, was our Bureau Chief in Abuja. Death took him two Fridays ago and impoverished us. May God repose his soul and look after his family.

Yakubu Mohammed’s autobiography is a bare-it-all history of the journalism of his era. I told him he has written a monumental book: brisk, breezy, smooth and sweet like bitterleaf soup. I asked him when and where the book would be presented to the public, he replied that he did “not have the capacity to do public launching.” I wish it is done the way it should, so that it will turn out the way it normally does.

The media is a long suffering entity. The same with its operatives. When it is out, you will find Yakubu Mohammed’s ‘Beyond Expectations’ a book of tribulations, of a few ups and many downs. It is in there, how people of power use and dump journalists, and how journalists disgracefully undermine journalists for patronage, positions and privileges. You also see and feel accounts of the journalist’s patriotic actions, many times unappreciated by the beneficiary-society. German playwright and novelist, Gustav Freytag, in 1854 published his famous play, ‘Die Jouralisten’ (The Journalists), a comedy in four acts. A voice in that play describes journalists as “worthless fellows, these gentlemen of the quill! Cowardly, malicious, deceitful in their irresponsibility” (Act 3, Scene 1). At a point in the plot, one of the characters, in utter mockery and despair exclaims: “The evil spirit of journalism has caused all this mischief! The whole world complains of him, yet everyone would like to use him for his own benefit.” Yakubu experienced this many times and it is there in the book. His partner, Dan Agbese, puts this starkly in the Preface: “He expects no rewards and receives none. Some pay him back with the coins of ingratitude. That should make a lesser man bitter but not Yakubu. He takes it in his strides.”

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‘They’ asked orò (masquerade) to stop throwing stones, he countered that the one in his hand, what should he do with it? This is a preview, it is not a review and so, I should put a stop to spoilers here. But like orò did, can I take the liberty of my having read the book to drop this last paragraph? In the first paragraph of this piece, I said Abiola was told of the annulment of his election eight years before the June 12 tragedy. How? Yakubu Mohammed writes: “It happened in 1985, not quite one year after I had left Abiola’s Concord. At about 2.00 o’clock after midnight, I was startled out of bed by a dream that left me shaking and sweating. I dreamt that the government conducted a presidential election and MKO Abiola won it fair and square. The country went wild with jubilation. We trooped to the National Stadium where he was scheduled to be crowned. As we all gathered for the ceremony and before the crown could be placed on his head, there was an unprecedented storm that swept the crown off and scattered the crowd away from the arena. The storm thus brought the inauguration ceremony to an abrupt end. Then, I woke up with a start. The following morning, I began to contemplate how to handle this development. One option was to call MKO and tell him. I demurred because, knowing him very well, I did not want Abiola to regard me as Joseph the dreamer looking for a way to get back to him, having resigned as his editor. I then decided to invite Femi Abbas to my residence. When I asked him if our boss was back in politics, he was taken aback. He then asked: “Where is the politics? You guys succeeded in persuading him out of it and even now the military is in power.” Then I told him about the dream. He promised to do something. But strangely enough, as soon as he stepped out of my house, I had completely forgotten all about the dream. Up to the time the publisher went back into the presidential contest and until the election was annulled; even until Abbas narrated the whole experience in the Sunday Vanguard which I read with absolute amazement and some trepidation, nothing reminded me of the dream. In the article, Abbas recounted my discussion with him way back in 1985, leaving out no details. He revealed all the measures they (he and Abiola) took including prayers in Abiola’s Ikeja residence, followed by another series of prayers in Saudi Arabia and the advice Abiola was given concerning constant prayers to ward off disappointment. He ended his piece with the same conclusion: that it was all divine, something that was destined to happen.”

National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity) has provided free medical services to more than 800 residents of the Orogwe community in the Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State as part of the association’s humanitarian service.

The medical mission, held at the National Primary Healthcare Centre, was part of the association’s 49th National Konverge and Annual General Meeting in Owerri.

The event offered diagnosis, treatment, and essential medications to hundreds of community members, many of whom had been unable to access healthcare due to financial hardship.

NAS Cap’n, Dr Joseph Oteri, said the initiative was part of the confraternity’s broader vision to support vulnerable communities and bring healthcare directly to those most in need.

“This programme targets those who ordinarily cannot afford basic healthcare, especially treatment for non-communicable diseases,” Oteri said.

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“Today, we attended to a child with a serious condition. Thankfully, we had a paediatrician on the ground who stabilised her and referred her to the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri. We’ve also identified a few cases that will require surgery, and we plan to support their hospital bills.”

He emphasised that NAS, formed in 1952 by seven young idealists including Imo-born Ralph Opara, has evolved into a formidable force for social advocacy, committed to humanitarian and civic interventions.

Dispelling common misconceptions about the association, Oteri said: “We are not a cult group. We exist to protect the downtrodden and drive positive societal change.”

The association’s Chief Programme Officer, Chief Bart Akelemor, echoed this commitment, stressing that the NAS legacy is one of access, equity, and community service.

“Our mission is to promote a just society where citizens can access resources such as healthcare, education, and employment,” Akelemor said.

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“With Nigeria’s growing population and the acute shortage of doctors and functioning medical facilities in rural areas, bringing this medical outreach to Orogwe is both timely and necessary.”

According to him, 41 volunteer doctors, drawn from across Nigeria and the diaspora, participated in the programme, attending to hundreds of patients with ailments ranging from malaria and hypertension to vision and dental issues.

One of the beneficiaries, Mrs Chizoba Igwe, who received treatment for malaria, described the initiative as a “life-saving intervention.”

“With the way things are in the country now, I couldn’t afford hospital bills or medication,” she said.

“This free treatment is a big relief. Many people here share the same feeling.”

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Another resident, Mrs Mmesoma Njoku, received medicated glasses after undergoing an eye test.

“I’ve been struggling with my sight for a while, but couldn’t go to the hospital because of money. Today, I not only got tested, but they gave me glasses that now help me read tiny print. I am truly grateful,” she said.

NAS Medical Pyrate, Dr Chiazor Odoemene, confirmed that over 800 residents were treated during the outreach, with critical cases referred to public hospitals for further management.

Beyond healthcare, the association also launched an arts exhibition aimed at promoting awareness around good governance, security, poverty alleviation, and Nigeria’s path to a more prosperous future.

The medical outreach has been lauded as a meaningful complement to the efforts of the Imo State Government in improving healthcare access and delivery, particularly in underserved areas.