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OPINION: Ahmadu Bello Children’s Territorial Politics

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By Festus Adedayo

There was territorial tension in Nigeria last week. Like in the famous fable where animals gathered in the forest to delineate their individual boundaries, last Tuesday, Northern Nigeria regrouped in Kaduna in aid of its territory. Western Nigeria Awurebe music lord, Late Ibadan, Oyo State-born Dauda Epo Akara, has the patent of a folklore that captures this fictional animal gathering. Epo sang about a quartet of animals comprising Lion, Fox, Cobra and Tortoise which can be extrapolated into a human gathering. It was a power show and territorial delineation. The animals did not only gather to flex muscles but to have a mutual understanding of the power in their pouches. In a July 17, 1995 article published in the Nigerian Tribune, authored by late Dr. Omololu Olunloyo, ex-governor of Oyo State, the famous mathematician and politician looked at that same fable from a power calculus prism. Ace columnist, Dr. Lasisi Olagunju, in an Olunloyo memorial symposium recently, uprooted the folklore from the archive and situated its essence.

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Each of the animals was embittered by past territorial usurpation. As they complained, they also criminalized any further attempt to take one another for granted. This they curated in form of taboos, the irreducible minimum of their tempers’ elasticity, a violation of which would bring the beast out of them.

For Cobra, he could tolerate his head or even the back being stepped upon in elementary power duel. However, anyone who trod on his tail in power contestation should be ready to meet Asarailu, Muslims’ angel of death. Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) Board Chairman, Bashir Dalhatu, would seem to represent the Cobra in the folklore. Like a reptile ready to sting with its deadly venom, Dalhatu spat out the north’s grouse. President Bola Tinubu, he said, had underdeveloped the north. Rising insecurity, poor infrastructure, declining agricultural support, neglect of education and healthcare of the children of Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, were the president’s 26-month infractions.

In territorial politics, the north has always been unexampled of the two old Nigerian regions. Highly savvy and purposeful in its romance of power, the North acts like the proverbial hollow-eyed whose tears stream out in a long course. The north’s entitlement, said Dalhatu, was its demographic contribution to Tinubu’s emergence. What gave Tinubu the temerity to trifle with Ahmadu Bello’s progeny who gave him 64 per cent of the total votes that crowned him?

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Convened at the instance of Uba Sani, Kaduna state governor and one of Tinubu’s political sidekicks, the undisguised raison d’être of the gathering was to dissolve mounting perceived undercurrents of the north’s dissatisfaction with the Tinubu government. In the last 26 months, the children of the Sardauna of Sokoto have bickered in ones and groups. The North, they claimed, has been severely marginalized in federal allocations, project execution, and key appointments. Of greater fundament, they complain, is the ravaging pestilence of insurgency. Don’t our fathers say, before the Sòbìyà, a guinea worm parasitic infectious disease, becomes a painful wound is the appropriate time to call for its doctor, the Olúgànbe?

Fox, Lion and Tortoise were also at The Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation (SABMF)-organized event which drew participants from across the 19 Northern states and the FCT. For these three animals, their anger and prognosis for stopping further territorial hurt was without equivocation. Fox spoke next. It was abominable for his deadly face to be looked at by anyone, he said. It was then the turn of the Lion to speak. If anyone impugned this animal’s dignity, reputed for scarifying his victims without a scalpel (akom’oní’làláìl’abe), the recompense was bloodbath for the transgressor, he spelled the word audibly. Tortoise told the conferees that he was aware of his own bitchy ugliness, especially the amoebic shape of his splintered carapace, but it was not the remit of anyone to mock him. Anyone who engaged in such body-shaming would have to endure a “very lethal punishment” from him.

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Chairman of the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF), Prof. AngoAbdullahi, for that moment, became one of the animals. He was angry about recent relocation of key Central Bank departments from Abuja to Lagos, a move he condemned as “suspicious and divisive”. He equaled the so-called marginalization of Northern Nigeria as a threat to Nigeria’s unity and development. Abdullahi told the president that there was a growing number of out-of-school children in the north, a figure he put at 80 per cent of Nigeria’s estimated 20 million out-of-school children. As the animals proposed conditions for armistice, Abdullahi also proposed the allocation of N7.5 trillion each to education and roads in the North.

Amity reigned in the animal kingdom after this “Memorandum of Association”. It was the same peace that reigned after, I reckon, this same northern bloc met Tinubu before the 2023 election. What must have given the Abdullahis and Dalhatus of the north the weapon to show this kind of entitlement? My guess is that there must have been a breakdown of agreement between them and Tinubu. Not long after the animals signed their own Memorandum, a rupture soon came. One fateful day, Tortoise, with his wobbly weight and unsightly limbs, walked into the gathering of his colleagues. His gait immediately provoked laughter among them.

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Miffed by this rank rupture of a gentlemanly agreement, Tortoise, notorious for his trickster traits, reached for his pouch of trickery. He immediately hid himself behind a twig of trees not too far from the animals. From there, he dug his limb into the soil and spattered loose soil on the fur coat of Fox. Angered, Fox spat on the Lion whom he wrongly believed was responsible for this. Lion roared, his mane fluffing in indescribable fury as the whole forest shook in a seismic burst. He then charged at Fox who he assumed was responsible for breaking this taboo. In the pandemonium that ensued, Lion and Fox mistakenly stomped on the tail of the Cobra, breaking his spinal cord. As a last minute revenge, Cobra spat his venom which immediately temporarily blinded the two. The fight was so intense that both Fox and Lion inflicted fatal wounds on each other’s jugular. In no long a time, the bodies of the three giants of the forest lay in a heap, in a mutually assured destruction.

In the folklore told by the trio of Epo Akara, Olunloyo and Olagunju, the eventual tragedy of the quartet was similar. Olagunju explains the tragedy thus: “As to cause of death, Lion died from a fatal snake bite, Fox from being torn to pieces by His Royal Majesty, the Lion, whilst Cobra had his vital backbone crushed in the scuffle. The battered tortoise hobbled away quite amused but not before having his back shell broken when the lion squashed it, in a mad rush after receiving a snake bite.”

Since the 1914 amalgamation of the Southern and Northern protectorates by Lord Lugard, the two regions have worn their fatal flaws on their lapels. While the south, first port of call of white colonialists, took its Westernism to the extreme, the north prides itself in how it weaponizes its magisterial understanding of the calculus of power.

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Why did Dalhatu, Abdullahi and other sons of Ahmadu Bello who railed at Tinubu last Tuesday feel they were entitled to their bile? The north always feels it holds the ace in Nigeria’s murky and voodoo demographic politics. The crisis from the 1962 census was part of what eventually led to the military putsch of January 1966.

The territorial politics that happened in Kaduna last week is the type the north has always used to transform ethnicity into an identity. It does this for the sake of aiming to gain political power. The weapon of actualizing this is demographics. This was hoisted a few weeks ago when the rump of CPC in the APC hoisted a nebulous 12 million votes with which it hoped to whip Tinubu into line. Since the British began attempts at a nationwide population census, it had always faced the accusation that it planned to favour its northern quisling ahead of the south. The south claims that the whole population exercises in the north is a sham, buoyed by the amorphous Purdah system where enumerators are forbidden from entering delineated harem homes wherein is written “Baa siga, gidanaore ne” – entrance barred because it is inhabited by married women.

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Accusation of sudden inflow into Nigeria of nationals of Niger, Chad and contiguous countries surrounding the north is also rife in enumeration time. The aim of doing this is to bloat population numbers for the sake of securing more government funding and political representation.

Since 1999 when the 4th Republic commenced, as each election cycle is afoot, the north takes Nigeria into inter-ethnic tensions while hoisting the primacy of its ethnicity. This politicized ethnicity made Goodluck Jonathan run from pillar to post to satisfy the region in 2015. It was all to no avail. Jonathan flew to Sokoto to establish the nomadic school. I doubt if that school ever functioned till today. His fatal nudge was to think education was the problem of the North. He was wrong. Continuation of a feudal hold on the Talakawas is it. Jonathan brought on board his government elites of the Ahmadu Bello’s progeny. It failed to rouse the region in his support. The north was rather obsessed with bringing its most vacant-minded son to administer Nigeria. From 2015 to 2023 of Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, he kept on nourishing that same barren path of prejudicing northern elite ahead of rescuing northern children from ignorance of Almajiri. The result is the metastasis we have today of insurgency. The roam-abouts of yesterday have come of age, equipped with burning fury against their elite captors.

I agree absolutely with Kaduna State governor, Uba Sanni, that it will be unfair for the north to blame its backwardness on Tinubu. From July 28, 1966 when it took over power, except for the accident of history that produced Olusegun Obasanjo in 1976, northern leaders have consistently and woefully failed to provide a future for the north. It was the lack of the will to combat the vermin of roam-about, born-trowey children – apologies to Mrs. Patience Jonathan – that birthed and energized the incubus of Boko Haram and allied insurgent activities in the north. How can Tinubu be victimized for this? On this violence affliction which the north brought upon Nigeria, this country has spent trillions of Naira of annual budgetary allocations, as well as martyred thousands of its soldier children, in service of decades of this elite fatal flaw.

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I am interested in knowing how northern son, Buhari, fared in taming insecurity in his eight years rule, as compared to Tinubu’s two years, to warrant Dalhatu’s blame. Dalhatu’s allegation is that, under this government, “the North remains under siege, with insurgent groups multiplying and attacks becoming increasingly deadly.” How much of Dalhatu’s “widespread violence — including massacres, bombings, kidnappings and cattle rustling” which he said “has crippled economic and social progress across the region” did Buhari tackle? What was the percentage of Buhari government’s funding of agriculture, education, infrastructure and healthcare, and implementation of policies that promote equitable development across the country? When Buhari sat in Aso Rock for eight years picking his teeth, how much of this territorial politics did the north play? Only statistics can trump the mashed potato of rhetoric and impassioned arguments of the north.

Like the intense fight of Fox, Lion, Cobra and Tortoise and its attendant mutual infliction of fatal wounds, the north’s card of politicized ethnicity has a potential of a mutually assured destruction. As the bodies of the three giants of the forest lay in a heap, the moment Tinubu finds a way round the north’s territorial politics, he will, like Tortoise, though bruised, walk away from its self-inflicted wounds. When some of Ahmadu Bello’s progeny’s brown-noses argue that since 1999, the north has spent less years in the Villa than the south, as rationalization for the region to again be in office in 2027, they make one want to puke. It is a self-serving argument. The question to ask is, is the period from 1966 to 1999 no longer part of Nigeria’s history? In other words, did Nigeria start in 1999?

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7 Essential Blood Tests Every Adult Should Take Regularly

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Many diseases don’t show clear symptoms until it’s too late. That’s why routine health checks, especially blood tests, are important. They help catch silent problems early so you can treat them before they get serious.

There are specific blood tests every adult should take, even if you feel perfectly healthy. In this article are blood tests adults need, and what they reveal about your body.

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1. Complete Blood Count (CBC)

The CBC test checks your red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. It helps detect things like anemia (low red blood cells), infections, and immune system issues.

READ ALSO:Why We’re Spending N712bn To Renovate Lagos Airport — Kayamo

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2. Fasting Blood Sugar Test (Glucose Test)

This test measures the amount of sugar in your blood. It helps detect prediabetes and Type 2 diabetes. High blood sugar can silently damage your nerves, eyes, and kidneys without you noticing.

3. Lipid Panel (Cholesterol Test)

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This test checks your LDL (bad cholesterol), HDL (good cholesterol), and Triglycerides. High cholesterol increases your risk of heart disease and stroke.

4. Liver Function Test (LFT)
The liver helps filter toxins from your blood. This test checks for hepatitis, fatty liver disease, and liver damage from alcohol or medication.

5. Kidney Function Test (Creatinine and BUN Test)

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Your kidneys clean your blood. This test helps detect chronic kidney disease, kidney infections, and kidney failure risks

READ ALSO:Malaria Kills 9 Nigerians Every Hour – SFH

6. Thyroid Test (TSH, T3, T4)

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Your thyroid controls your metabolism, weight, mood, and energy. This test detects hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid) and hyperthyroidism (overactive thyroid)

7. Vitamin D and B12 Tests

These tests check your nutrient levels. Low Vitamin D can cause bone weakness. Low Vitamin B12 can cause tiredness, nerve problems, and memory issues.

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Don’t wait for symptoms before you get tested. Your health is your greatest asset, and blood tests are one of the smartest, simplest ways to protect it.
(TRIBUNE)

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5 Common Causes Of Plane Crashes

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The main causes of plane crashes are due to negligence, errors, lack of maintenance, and so on. Understanding the root of every crash is a way to improve safety measures and standards. Over the years, in Nigeria, plane crashes have been a cause for concern. The Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau continues to inform the public on efforts to improve the aviation industry through safety measures.

1. Pilot’s Errors

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One of the common causes of plane crashes is pilots’ errors. It is expected of every pilot to think ahead by checking the weather and be alert to changes. A pilot must understand the mechanical components of an aircraft and the skills that would enable him or her to handle an aircraft. When a pilot loses focus or is confused about what to do, it can lead to a crash. That is why piloting an aircraft requires lengthy training.

2. Negligence of the Air Traffic Controller

In the aspect of ensuring the aircraft is safe, air traffic controllers are very crucial. They have to separate and guide aircraft through the airspace. But if a controller fails to do this or feeds the pilot the wrong information, a collision can occur, and if there is no swift adjustment, a crash would happen. So, communicating accurate information and ensuring safety are vital in preventing a crash.

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READ ALSO:49 Feared Dead As Passenger Plane Crashes In Russia

3. Weather Conditions

The weather conditions must be known before an aircraft takes off. Pilots and air traffic controllers must understand the weather conditions. In the course of the flight, the air traffic controllers are expected to give more accurate information to the pilots. Not being cognizant of bad weather conditions enough can, of course, lead to a crash.

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4. Lack of proper maintenance

Another common cause of a plane crash is a lack of maintenance, which is very crucial. It is expected of airplane mechanics to uphold inspection requirements or guidelines because there are rules and regulations governing aeroplanes. If an accident occurs, it is also important to know what caused it so that measures can be taken.

5. Relying on the GPS

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The GPS (Global Positioning System) is a navigation system for aircraft. It can be programmed to follow what the pilot is doing. But when it is not done professionally or the pilots get carried away by the help of this tool, this can cause an aeroplane to get off the assigned altitude. The GPS also gives pilots the information on how to land safely. But over-reliance on this system can lead to havoc.
(TRIBUNE)

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Why Only Virgins Deserve Bride Price — Reno Omokri

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Former presidential aide, Reno Omokri, has said that only virgins should be considered eligible for bride price, arguing that any financial demand for a non-virgin in marriage is not only untraditional but constitutes extortion.

In a post shared via his official Facebook account on Sunday, Omokri addressed what he described as a widespread misconception in African societies between the concepts of dowry and bride price.

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There is a huge difference between a dowry and a bride price. But in this part of the world (Sub-Saharan Africa), we use them interchangeably. But they are not interchangeable,” he stated.

He explained that dowry refers to the property a bride receives from her parents, which becomes joint property with her husband after marriage.

A dowry is the money and property given to a female child on her wedding day, by her parents, to take to her husband’s home to become the joint property of both her and her husband. It is practised in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. This is in line with the Biblical injunction that a wife is a helper to her husband, not a burden—Genesis 2:18,” he wrote.

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READ ALSO:Ambassadors: FG Screens Femi Fani-Kayode, Others, Reno Omokri Copiously Missing

In contrast, Omokri described bride price as a separate tradition, rooted in both African and Jewish customs, which applies only when the bride is a virgin.

A bride price, however, is different. In African culture, and Jewish traditions and law, it is the property or money demanded by a bride’s family to give her away in marriage to her intended husband, on the grounds that she is a virgin,” he wrote, citing Exodus 22:17 and Yoruba customs.

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According to him, biblical law supports this tradition: “If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the bride-price for virgins.”

He referenced the Lukumi Yoruba tradition where virginity is confirmed by a white cloth used during consummation.

If the bride’s virginity is not proven by the aso funfun (white cloth on which the marriage is consummated on the bridal night), being stained, the marriage is not valid and the bride price will be returned.”

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Omokri criticised practices where large sums of money or property are demanded in marriages involving non-virgins.

READ ALSO:MohBad: Seven Takeaways From Naira Marley’s Interview With Reno Omokri

The exorbitant demand for property and money by some Sub-Saharan African ethnicities, who I will not identify, for a woman who is not a virgin is not legally and technically a bride price. It is extortion!”

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He backed his argument with scriptural references, saying the Bible consistently associates the term “bride” with virginity.

If you read Scripture, the term ‘bride’ is never used for a woman who is not a virgin,” he said. “For example, Isaiah 62:5 is very clear on the matter. That verse says: ‘For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons shall marry you; and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you.’”

He added, “Also, Jeremiah 2:32 says: ‘Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?’ These verses prove that bridehood is synonymous with virginity. Song of Solomon 4:12 is even more explicit. That verse says: ‘A locked up garden is my sister, my bride; a locked up spring, a sealed fountain.’”

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Although he acknowledged that men can marry non-virgins, Omokri argued that such unions should not attract bride price.

READ ALSO:MohBad: Seven Takeaways From Naira Marley’s Interview With Reno Omokri

As a man, by African tradition and Scriptural law, you can marry a woman who is not a virgin. But such a woman is not a bride. And you should not pay any bride price for her.”

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He cited examples from the Bible to support his claim. “You will notice that David paid a bride price for King Saul’s daughter in 1 Samuel 18:20-27. However, he did not pay a bride price for Abigail—1 Samuel 25:40-42.”

Warning of societal consequences, he added, “If we in Africa do not return to these traditions and continue the moral decadence in our society, where sex and sensuality are not curtailed, we will continue to be the dregs of the world, with high rates of sexually transmitted diseases.”

Omokri also condemned the widespread practice of white weddings in Africa, arguing they are neither Christian nor African in origin.

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A White wedding is not our culture in Africa, and it is not a Christian wedding. It is purely a European traditional wedding.”

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