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OPINION: Adenuga, Politicians And Lessons In Loyalty

Published

6 months ago

April 29, 2025

By Suyi Ayodele

“Go to the ant, you sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise”, Proverbs 6:6.

The business colossus and owner of Globacom, the nation’s giant telecommunication outfit, Dr. Mike Adenuga Jnr (GCON), is 72 years old today.

In celebrating the giant man of means on his birthday, I have decided to use the ‘thesis’ written about him 12 years ago as a link between the character of the man the entire world has been celebrating in the last two weeks and the characters of the locusts God, in His infinite wisdom, sent to oversee our affairs as a nation.

The ‘thesis’ was written by no other person than the maverick retired General and Military President, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), when Dr. Adenuga turned 60 on April 29, 2013. We shall come to that presently.

The essence of this piece goes beyond celebrating Dr. Adenuga. His life, his character and his attitudes as espoused in the IBB’s thesis of 2013 are referenced here to draw the attention of our ‘ruiners’ and rulers alike to the fact that what is lacking in our polity is character. And not just character, but good character.

The last one week has been very instructive in the history of Nigeria as our politicians set the agenda for the 2027 general elections. Nigeria, we all know by now, is a cruise. We elected, or we were told that we elected President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for a term of four years, with a proviso for renewal after the first four years. Unfortunately for us, and to the damnation of good governance, President Tinubu had hardly taken the oath of office on May 29, 2023, when the race for his second term began.

Thus, the President and his acolytes have spent the last 23 months plotting and ‘strategising’ for the second term ambition. This is one of the reasons why the government has not been able to address any of the litanies of problems confronting us as a people.

Rather, President Tinubu, who in recent times has turned out to be a ‘vising president’ with France as his preferred base, has engaged in all manners of arm-twisting to get everybody on board of his rudderless ship as he ‘consolidates’ his hold on the political landscape.

With the recent gale of defections that hit the half-dead opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) last week, it is crystal clear, even to the blind that the nation is on its path to a one-party State! The beauty of the defections of the opposition key figures to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), is the fact that when the looming calamity of a one-party State in the hands of Tinubu hits, no one will be spared; not the defectors nor the one-leg-in-one-leg-out PDP leaders, like the one who boasted that he would remain in the PDP but work for its downfall from within. Sadder enough, not those APC men and women who today are hailing President Tinubu as the “master strategist”, would escape the ruination!

A few hours after Governor Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State defected to the APC last week with the entire PDP structures in the state, I got a call from an elderly fellow, who was worried about the character of our political leaders.

The old fella expressed disgust that former Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, who was also the vice-presidential candidate of the PDP in the 2023 presidential election, could defect to the APC. He asked: “What is Okowa looking for again?” My interlocutor was equally disturbed that the political class was inadvertently making a dictator of President Tinubu. He asked again: “What is wrong with our politicians?”

While I did not answer the old man’s queries on Okowa or other issues he raised, I nevertheless have no doubt in my mind about what the problems are with our politicians. Someone, long ago told me that “betrayal is the bedrock of our politics.” He could be right, and he could also be wrong.

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But I think that the major flaw is in the character of the political class. Beyond the issue of lack of clear-cut ideological orientation, the major fallacy of the show of shame going on in the name of everyone trying to get on board the ship of the ruling party is pure character deficiency.

While one also has no doubts that the present administration, in its desperate bid to retain power in 2027, would spare nothing, including harassing the opposition to buckle, IBB illustrates what makes a good man in his ‘thesis’ to Dr. Adenuga Jr. at his 60th birthday anniversary in 2013.

Dr. Mike Adenuga Jr. (GCON), I daresay, is a book, a voluminous book and a reader’s delight. He should be studied; he should be read. Our politicians need a lot to learn from the personality of the man many of his associates call the Great Guru (GG) or Mr. Chairman.

It is worthy of note that whatever Mr. Chairman has achieved today, and will also add as he ages, were not dropped on his laps like meteors discharged from the cosmic forces. No! Dr. Adenuga’s character, especially the ethos of an Omoluabi, the Yoruba measurement of good character and upbringing, played vital roles in projecting the business icon to this enviable height.

The first of that Omoluabi ethos is Adenuga’s fidelity to friendship. The man who holds the title of Apesin of Ijebuland has demonstrated that in many ways. But the one that comes easily to mind is his encounter with the monstrous government of retired General Olusegun Obasanjo in late 2005.

For whatever reason, Obasanjo, who then harboured an undisclosed animosity against IBB and was engaged in a battle of trust with his then Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, decided to vent his anger on the common friend of the duo, Adenuga. The man, Ebora Owu, according to feelers, asked Adenuga to admit that both IBB and Atiku had appreciable interests in the Adenuga’s many businesses, especially Globacom.

When the Ijebu man would not play ball, Obasanjo decided to go after him with the government’s attack dog, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Adenuga’s home then at the highbrow Oko Awo Close, Victoria Island, Lagos, was violated by EFCC operatives. The man remained undeterred. He held on to his known dictum of owning Globacom ‘bullet, powder and barrel’.

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When the harassment was becoming unbearable, rather than betray his friends, Adenuga decided to discomfort himself. While Obasanjo was assembling another ‘army of invasion’ in Aso Rock Villa to ship Mr. Chairman to detention, the man decided to surprise everyone. Abandoning the comfort of his home and the growth of his business concerns, Adenuga shipped out of the country on self-exile. He first landed in Accra, Ghana, and then later to Paris, France. For good 18 months, Adenuga remained in exile and did not return to Nigeria until Obasanjo completed his second term and a new President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, took over.

Eighteen months of absence of the ownership in the life of a business like we have in the Mike Adenuga Group means a lot. Anything could have happened. And a lot indeed happened while the man was away. On his return, and in one of the meetings with his top aides, Dr. Adenuga acknowledged that a lot had taken place in his business.

Thus, in his reaction to one of the issues that arose, he intoned: “My absence for 18 months has corrupted all of you. Now that I am back, all that nonsense will stop!” (The Guru’s Memorable Quotes, 2nd Edition- an in-house cartoon-led magazine).

Capturing that singular incident, IBB, in his 2013 tribute to Adenuga at his Diamond birthday celebration wrote: “Mike, truly you epitomize hard-work, perseverance, doggedness, humility, diligence and patriotism. The fact that you treasure the virtue of true friendship and loyalty to any cause you believe in, gives you the cutting edge. I am eternally grateful for all the troubles you had to go through because of me in the hands of a regime that tried to derail our friendship and relationship.”

The smiling General also added these lines: “Even when you came under severe pressure by that same regime which I helped to nurture, to blackmail me in order to hang me, you remained eternally loyal and steadfast. Only a businessman of character, sound upbringing and virtue could choose friendship instead of his economic empire. Only a man of dependable poise, with an open mind and fear of God, would choose to sustain an age-long friendship instead of sacrificing the same on the altar of avarice, greed and economic interest.”

What are the lessons for the Hallelujah orchestra echoing the Tinubu-threatened-us-with-EFCC slogan to justify the mass defections of PDP and other political parties’ members to the APC in droves?

One, Adenuga could have succumbed and played along with his kinsman, Obasanjo, an Egba man. The Ijebu business icon could have placed premium on the economic gains that the enormous government patronage would have accrued to him by betraying IBB or Atiku. But he chose to be noble. He chose to stay committed to friendship and good conscience.

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Rather than betray his friends, he decided to suffer the ignominy of an exile for committing no crime. He abandoned his fame, his wealth, his comfort and family and left Nigeria. He literally swallowed fire so that his friends could drink water!

Beyond that, he risked the government coming after his businesses. He was not ignorant of what the Nigerian Government did to the late Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola’s business concerns. Adenuga never lost sight of the fact that such a fate could also befall him. But he allowed his character to come to play.

He realised that there would be a tomorrow. He opted for self-discomfort. Today, the entire world is celebrating him for who he is and what he stands for. His character delineation is loyalty! He did not shift base; he did not jump ship.

This is what the Nigerian political class which has copiously proven to be lacking in grit and mettle ought to learn. This is why it is possible for a man who contested to be vice-president in an election his party scored over six million votes, to jump ship at the slightest appearance of EFCC uniform by his gate! Ever wonder why our politics has not gone beyond this level of bread-and-akara dinner? Check the characters of those we call leaders, people without scruple!

Further in his 2013 ‘thesis’ on Adenuga, former President Babangida posited again: “Such tribulations are prices we have to pay for true friendship. Your ability to remain focused in the face of pressure coupled with your capacity to identify and nurture talents is the reason why you are MIKE ADENUGA. There can never be another MIKE ADENUGA of your orientation.”

This is another chapter of Adenuga, the Book, which the Nigerian political elite must read. Even those among them who claim to be offspring of the legend, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, are not better off. They, like the Avatar, Awolowo, once said; “Are like a bird of passage that lacks the quality of permanence”, as they keep jumping from one political party to the other! One politician once told me that “the hunger of four years is not a small matter!” Really! So, if we all belong to one political party, who will call out the government for not doing the right thing?

IBB said of Adenuga: “…your capacity to identify and nurture talents is the reason why you are MIKE ADENUGA. There can never be another MIKE ADENUGA of your orientation.” How true is this assertion? Yes, it is true that it is only God that is incomparable. When we take the discussion down to our situation and the improvements that individuals have brought to play in Nigeria, Dr. Mike Adenuga stands out! Will there be another Mike Adenuga Jr.? No doubt, not in this generation!

Mr. Chairman’s tenacity of purpose, “capacity to identify and nurture talents” and his ability to “remain calm, collected and unassuming, with an élan that is symbolic of humility and training, despite many achievements’, especially “when others are losing their heads as a result of unethical conduct and greed”, as penned by IBB 12 years ago, are indeed some of the virtues that stand Dr. Adenuga out in the Nigerian “society whose moral fiber has ebbed considerably.”

And in closing that chapter of the ‘thesis’, IBB, again, expressed gratitude by saying, “I remain grateful for being a true friend indeed.” How I wish that when the time comes and we are to write about these characters dotting our political landscape, we shall be bold to say they are indeed the friends of the people of Nigeria!

In closing this piece and as the world gathers today to celebrate one of the gifts of God to this generation, I wish Dr. Michael Adeniyi Agbolade Ishola Adenuga (GCON), The Book, The Great Guru, many happy returns at 72!

Agba yin a dale, Sir.

News

Why We Expanded Presidential Amnesty Scholarship Scheme — Otuaro

Published

6 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

Otuaro (middle) in a group photograph with the PAP foreign scholarship students in the United Kingdom after an interactive session in London on Saturday, 25 October, 2025.

The Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Dr Dennis Otuaro, has expressed his unwavering commitment to ensuring that more indigent students and communities of the Niger Delta benefit from the PAP scholarship scheme.

He stated this while explaining what informed his decision to expand the scheme and increase formal education opportunities for poor students, and to build a huge manpower base in the region.

A statement issued by Mr Igoniko Oduma, Special Assistant on Media to the PAP boss said Otuaro spoke during an interactive session in London on Saturday with the beneficiaries of the scholarship initiative deployed for undergraduate and post-graduate programmes in universities across the United Kingdom.

The engagement, which was at the instance of the PAP boss, provided an opportunity for the Office and the scholarship students to discuss issues pertaining to their welfare and challenges with a view to addressing them.

Otuaro said that while in-country scholarship deployment was 3800 in the 2024/2025 academic year, the figure increased to 3900 in the 2025/2026 and foreign scholarships were about 200.

He attributed the increase in deployment to the massive support of President Bola Tinubu and the Office of the National Security Adviser.

Otuaro stressed that he was greatly encouraged by the President and the NSA, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, and that he knows how impressed both of them are concerning the PAP initiatives, which align with the Renewed Hope Agenda.

He reiterated his call on the students to justify the huge investment in their education by the Federal Government by studying hard to make good grades.

He also urged them to conduct themselves and be responsible ambassadors of Nigeria while in the U.K, stressing that “you will be adding value to your families and communities when you complete your programmes successfully.”

The PAP helmsman said, “We want the scholarship programme to impact more students and communities in the Niger Delta. That’s why we have expanded it and increased formal education opportunities.

“We want you to take this opportunity very seriously so that the government, too, will be encouraged. I know how much support His Excellency, President Bola Tinubu GCFR, gives to the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

“Mr President and the National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, are very impressed with what we are doing. On your behalf I would like to, once again , thank His Excellency and the NSA for giving you this life-changing opportunity. We are confident that Mr President and the NSA will continue to support us.

“The knowledge you are receiving in your institutions today is to enable you plan yourself and prepare for the future. Whatever knowledge you gain cannot be taken from you.

“So as PAP scholarship students, we expect responsible and good behaviour from you. Government is investing heavily in you and you have the obligation to justify the investment. Be agents of change and avoid acts of mischief while in the U.K.”

News

OPINION: A ‘Crazy’ African Nation, Where Citizens Eat And Drink Football

Published

8 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

By Tony Erha

It was in October, a semi-summer-month and twilight of the year that ushers in the chilling and extreme winter. A nonagenarian woman gave me a friendly smile that revealed cheeky dimples. As I bowed respectfully to her ripened age, she offered a leathery hand for a handshake, which I received warmly, returning her infectious smile. For a youth who prays for longevity shouldn’t deprive the elderly of the walking stick. I had helped her, carrying a furred handbag to our seats on a night-long intercity bus, from Istanbul to Ankara, in Turkey, the Balkan nation, where we stopped over, in year 2004.

She spoke Turkish rapidly, whilst I retorted in a passable and incoherent Turkish language that ‘I don’t speak the official language of the only country of the world that is located on two continents; Europe and Asia. “You American?” She asked in English. It was obvious that my jeans, necklace and a fez cap that I upturned, in the manner of the Yankees, might have portrayed me as one. “No. I am a Nigerian”, I said, dragging the words. “You Nee-jay-rian!” she exclaimed, whilst I nodded confidently. Then she was elated; “Okocha Jay-Jay!” She spoke to others in the bus that clapped and hailed. I wondered why a 91 years-old-woman, was so passionate about football and one of its heroes, as if she was a youth.

At her request, an old video of a football match showed the mesmerising display of Austin ‘Jay Jay’ Okocha, viewed on a television set affixed to the bus. There were instantaneous excitement and catcalls each time Okocha, the great football ‘talisman’ from Nigeria, did his ball flips and dribble-runs that displaced his opponents, earning him one of the few (if not the greatest) football entertainers in football’s history. It was as if the video tape, recorded in his notable plays in Besiktas, a Turkish club side, was a live match. So great was Okocha’s global fame that the old woman relived again; “Jay Jay Okocha is a dangerous footballer, who’s full of tricks on the field of play. The only trick he didn’t do with the ball from his bag of football artistry was to play on top the swimming pool”. In Mustafa Ataturk’s nation, footballers of Nigeria’s decent had and still make their soccer very eventful.

Victor Osimhen, the leggy playmaker and striker with a dye-hair like the white mushroom head, who recently renewed his contract with Galatasaray, a Turkish top team, is also a Nigerian, who has received the applause in the peninsula country and across the globe like Jay Jay Okocha. Candidly, Oshimen, the goal mechine, who is a tonic to the Turks and football fans across the world, also does the unimaginative with the round leather, but certainly not with the same fascinating skills of Jay Jay! But the Turkish fans are readily tilted to football fanaticism.

Victor Osimhen

If it’s ‘fanatic-fans’ in Turkish football, it’s certainly ‘supporters hooliganism’ in the United Kingdom (UK), where association soccer (football) was founded in 1863, with similar kicking games played in Greece, China and Rome since 2,000 years. In UK, football is played with fanfares, pool betting and media vuvuzela. English soccer is a gainful entertainment industry raking in huge gate fees from plays, promotions, television and media razzmatazz, which is often imitated in Nigeria, with passions and ‘occult’ following. So worrisome was the ‘social hype and lawlessness’ youths and others attach to English soccer that security operatives have constant migraine fighting soccer addiction and frequent street brawls.

Jay Jay Okocha, Nwankwo Kanu, Dan Amokachi, Taribo West and other Nigerian stars, that once dominated and currently rule other foreign clubs, opened the floodlight of extremist football following into the country. Once upon a time, the then Prince Charles (now the king of England), was spotted (with young boys) playing the game, inside the Buckingham Palace, all wearing jersey number ’10’ with Jay Jay Okocha’s name inscribed). That the number-one-global-royalty adored soccer by wearing the jersey of a footballer from a third-world African nation, somewhat illustrates that which is often said about soccer being more than a mere sport. ‘Football Tripper’, a British online news porter, describes soccer as “oxygen” to numerous men and women. In Brazil, the South American nation, there is a deity called “Soccer”, as well as it’s a vivacious Reggae, a unique music genre in Jamaica.

Still, it is food and sups in Nigeria. In this Africa’s most populous nation, with plentiful viewing centres and liquor spots, there are live television football tournaments and soccer video games, with consumable food, alcoholics, carbonated drinks and some ‘unlawful substances’ that are at the behest of business owners and ‘intoxicated’ fans.

In what soccer dramatics came to know as ‘the Dammam Miracle’, viewing centres, beer parlours and restaurants were instantly sold out in the country, in 1989, after ‘footbocrazy’ Nigerians, stormed the streets in prolonged wild celebrations. For the Nigerian U-20 football team, at the FIFA World Youth Championship, held in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, came back from a four-goal deficit to level up and defeat the Russian counterpart, making the Nigerian team the first to come back from a semi-final to win a FIFA tournament. Soccer, indeed, is a crazy sport in Nigeria. Once upon a time, a man had shattered the screen of his expensive television, because Austin Jay Jay Okocha, his favourite star, had lost a penalty in a continental match!

It’s said that football, especially when the Nigerian national teams of men and woman play, tends to unite Nigerians than other national blights that turn them apart. Now, the current national fanaticism is for the Victor Osimhen-inspired Super Eagles, to qualify for the 2026 World Cup gala, even though it has to go the extra obstacles of playing more legs, whereas the team had frittered the early opportunities to qualify.

And sensing that most Nigerians care less of the economic woes that plagued them, but for the football fad, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the nation’s President, would cash-in to feed their ago awarding huge cash to high profile football tournaments and wins, like he recently accorded the Super Falcons, the female national team, for achieving a similitude of the Dammam miracle, to bring home a coveted African Cup of Nations (AFCON) trophy!

News

Ex-soldiers Fume Over Lifetime Benefits For Sacked Service Chiefs

Published

13 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

The sacked Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, and two other service chiefs, Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Hasan Abubakar, and Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla, are set to receive generous retirement benefits.

The benefits include bulletproof vehicles, domestic aides, and lifetime medical care.

Their exit follows President Bola Tinubu’s appointment of new service chiefs on Friday.

General Olufemi Oluyede has been named the new Chief of Defence Staff, while Major-General W. Shaibu takes over as Chief of Army Staff.

Air Vice Marshal Sunday Kelvin Aneke becomes the new Chief of Air Staff, and Rear Admiral I. Abbas the Chief of Naval Staff. The Chief of Defence Intelligence, Major-General E.A.P. Undiendeye, retains his position.

The President’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Communication, Sunday Dare, said in a statement on Friday that the removal of the service chiefs was in furtherance of the Federal Government’s ongoing efforts to strengthen Nigeria’s national security architecture.

According to the Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service for Officers and Enlisted Personnel in the Nigerian Armed Forces, signed by President Tinubu on December 14, 2024, the service chiefs are entitled to substantial retirement packages upon disengagement.

The document stipulates that each retiring service chief will receive a bulletproof SUV or an equivalent vehicle, to be maintained and replaced every four years by the military.

They are also entitled to a Peugeot 508 or an equivalent backup vehicle.

Beyond the vehicles, the package includes five domestic aides — two service cooks, two stewards, and one civilian gardener — along with an aide-de-camp or security officer, and a personal assistant or special assistant.

They will also retain three service drivers, a service orderly, and a standard guard unit comprising nine soldiers.

The benefits extend to free medical treatment both in Nigeria and abroad, as well as the retention of personal firearms to be retrieved upon their demise.

However, while officers of lieutenant-general rank and equivalents are entitled to international and local medical care worth up to $20,000 annually, the benefits for the service chiefs, though not stated in the document, are believed to be considerably higher.

The HTCOS reads, “Retirement benefits for CDS and Service Chiefs: The following benefits shall be applicable: one bulletproof SUV or equivalent vehicle to be maintained by the Service and to be replaced every four years. One Peugeot 508 or equivalent backup vehicle.

‘’Retention of all military uniforms and accoutrement to be worn for appropriate ceremonies; five domestic aides (two service cooks, two stewards, and one civilian gardener); one Aide-de-Camp/security officer; one Special Assistant (Lt/Capt or equivalents) or one Personal Assistant (Warrant Officer or equivalents); standard guard (nine soldiers).

“Three service drivers; one service orderly; escorts (to be provided by appropriate military units/formation as the need arises); retention of personal firearms (on his demise, the personal firearm(s) shall be retrieved by the relevant service); and free medical cover in Nigeria and abroad.”

However, the policy specifies that such entitlements apply only if the retired officers have not accepted any other appointment funded from public resources — except when such an appointment is made by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

In such cases, the officers, according to the document, will only receive allowances commensurate with the new role rather than a full salary.

Retired soldiers protest lavish perks

Reacting, some retired soldiers decried what they described as the luxurious benefits and entitlements reserved for service chiefs and senior military officers.

They lamented that junior personnel continued to suffer neglect and unpaid entitlements despite years of service to the nation.

The retired officers expressed frustration over the disparity in welfare and treatment between senior and junior ranks within the military.

One of the leaders of the discharged soldiers demanding their owed entitlements, Sgt. Zaki Williams, expressed frustration over the entitlements reserved for the service chiefs.

Speaking in an emotional tone, Williams, who claimed to be speaking for more than 700 soldiers in his group, said many retired non-commissioned officers had been abandoned despite dedicating their lives to defending the country.

He said, “I don’t really understand how our people in Nigeria do things. The people at the top always do things to favour only themselves. They don’t care about the poor or the junior ones who sacrificed everything.”

The retired sergeant recalled that government officials had made several promises to improve their welfare, but none had been fulfilled.

“Since the day they made those promises to us, we went back home and didn’t hear anything again. Everything just ended there. We’ve been waiting till now, but nothing has happened,” he added.

Williams said the situation had left many of his colleagues demoralised and divided over whether to continue pressing for their entitlements.

“Some of us said we should protest again, but others refused. We told them that day that we were not going for another protest. If the government wants to help us, they should help us. If not, we’re done,” he said.

He also accused senior military officers of frustrating efforts by the defence ministry to address the concerns of retired personnel.

According to Williams, life after service has been extremely difficult for most of them who retired voluntarily or were discharged without compensation.

“How can someone retire after years of service and still not get their entitlement? Many of us can’t even build a house. The senior officers have houses, cars, and everything good, but the rest of us have nothing,” he said.

He added that the little compensation given to some was not enough to rebuild their lives.

“If they give you N2m today, what can you really start with it in this country? You have children, family, and responsibilities, yet you can’t even afford a plot of land,” he said.

Expressing disappointment, he said most junior officers had lost faith in the system.

“We’ve handed everything over to God,” he said quietly. “We’ve cried and done our best. They promised us, but in the end, it’s still zero. We haven’t seen anything. That’s why many of us are now silent.”

Another retired soldier, Abdul Isiak, lamented that promises made to retired personnel had remained unfulfilled, leaving many struggling to survive.

He said, “All you said they would give to them would be done promptly, and they are more than what we need to sustain our lives. This is very unfair. We have suffered a lot, and they’re yet to give us our entitlements after leaving the service. What is our offence? Is it because we are junior officers?”

The former sergeant said the senior officers continued to enjoy generous retirement packages while lower ranks were denied their due benefits.

“We are preparing for another protest for them to pay us. This is very bad,” he said.

(PUNCH)