News
OPINION: Amaechi, el-Rufai And Alákedun

When I read the common position the former governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi and his counterpart from Kaduna, Nasir el-Rufai, pushed in Abuja last week about the government of President Bola Tinubu, the first thing that came to mind was the curse of instability Obàtálá placed on Alákedun. Indeed, there is no stability for the betrayer because it was pronounced: Àti ‘gi dí’gi ni ti Ìjímèrè (From one tree to the other is the lot of Ijimere-monkey)!
Rìkísí is Yoruba word for conspiracy. When two hitherto enemies suddenly find a common ground, my people say of them: Rìkísí pa wón pò wón di òré (united in friendship by conspiracy). Rìkísí has a forerunner. Before two enemies come together to pursue a common goal, both, or either of them, must have betrayed a cause. Betrayal comes before conspiracy (Ilè dídà ní sáájú òtè). Again, no betrayer goes unpunished according to Yoruba belief.
Thanks be to those who nurtured us from our cradle with moral teachings. The various moonlight tales that dominated our informal education in the days of yore are not in vain after all. One of such tales is the story of the small brown monkey, Alákedun, otherwise known as Ìjímèrè. Our elders told us the tale to show why monkeys remain ambulant to this day, jumping from one tree to the other.
Alákedun, the fable says, was a close friend to Obàtálá, the Yoruba god of creativity. One of the delicacies Obatala would not miss is palm wine. The deity was said to relish palm wine to the extent of being addicted to it. And being a generous god, Obatala always invited all other deities and his friends to share his palm wine with him.
Of all the friends, the closest to Obàtálá was Alákedun, whom the deity employed to work for him and paid him handsomely. The only secret Obatala probably kept away from Alakedun was the very minute the god of creativity would go into the inner recesses with his wife for due benevolence! They were that close.
One day, the other deities and friends, jealous of Obàtálá’s progress in life, decided to conspire against him. They went to a fake Babalawo, who made a false divination and pronounced that Ifa had banned the consumption of palm wine. Obàtálá knew that the plot was against him, and he devised a means to beat them at their game.
Obàtálá got a new pot and asked his wife to fill it with ògí (pap). When the formation got fermented, he poured the whitish water into another pot and began to drink it. Alákedun noticed that Obàtálá used to drink a whitish substance from the pot. He opened the pot and saw the whitish water inside. Without having a taste of the content, he dashed to his co-conspirators to inform them that Obàtálá had defied the instruction from Ifa as he continued to drink palm wine.
MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Obasa, His Mouth And Wild Pigeon
Obàtálá was summoned and the allegation laid before him. The deity did not utter a word. He simply brought out the pot and asked everyone to taste the content. They all did. Yes, the content was whitish, but it did not taste like palm wine, nor did it have the scent of palm wine. Alákedun was ashamed.
As a punishment, Obàtálá disengaged him from his employ and placed a curse on him to wit: Alákedun will not have a stable lifestyle but will hop from one tree to the other. Whenever you see a monkey, know the source of its perpetual ambulant lifestyle. There is no stability for a betrayer!
The duo of Amaechi and el-Rufai spoke at a national conference on strengthening democracy in Nigeria, organised by the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development in Abuja. At the conference, Amaechi for instance, asked the younger generation of Nigerians to be ready to fight very hard and wrest power from the incumbent President Tinubu.
The former Minister of Transportation under the lethargic government of General Muhammadu Buhari, warned that: “The politician is there in Nigeria to steal, maim, and kill to remain in power. If you think Tinubu will give it to you, you are wasting your time.” He added that for Tinubu to be shown the way out of power in the next round of general elections, “The people should be angry. There should be protests. Not even protests against anybody but against the politicians that ‘we won’t vote.” Unless the people demonstrated that they would do the unthinkable to defend their votes, they should perish the thought of chasing the present power wielders out of power.
To be honest, there is nothing the former Rivers State governor said at that event that is not true. Even his account of how the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) intimidated former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) out of power is also correct. The only snag in his submissions is why Rotimi Amaechi is bitter about the Tinubu administration. Why did he, for the terrible eight wasteful years of the Buhari administration, not come out forcefully to encourage Nigerians to ‘rescue’ their country?
MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: [OPINION] Alaafin and Ifa: Nothing Is Left
The answer to the above posers is also in the tale of the Hyena and the mangoes. Hyena, by nature, is not gifted with the talent of jumping heights. So, the tale has it that one day, the Hyena was hungry. It appeared that all the lesser animals in the jungle that could have served as good lunch were holding a prayer session. The Hyena eventually got to a mango tree with ripe fruits. It decided to have some to keep its belly warm pending when any animal would stray to its path.
Hyena made several unsuccessful attempts to pluck the ripe mangoes. When it dawned on it that it was a mission impossible, it looked up at the mangoes, hissed and intoned: “Why am I even wasting my time over these unripe mangoes” That is exactly the frustration Amaechi is suffering over the Presidency he sought and did several rounds of sprinting at the Port Harcourt Stadium in 2023 to show that he is fit, but failed to accomplish!
Nobody can successfully defend the cluelessness in the Tinubu administration without sounding witless. Be that as it may, it is equally not in the place of Amaechi to criticise this government if he could tolerate the vapid administration of Buhari for eight years without a mewl from him!
The Buhari government under which Amaechi served as a minister and the current docile Tinubu administration are like leprosy and third-degree scabies. Both destroy the skin of the afflicted. It is an insult to our sensibilities if Amaechi is now projecting himself as our moral compass to judge anyone in power. From the time he left the university till he left government in 2023, Amaechi has remained an over-pampered child of government (Akebaje omo Ijoba). If there is any protest in the league of the one he advocated in Abuja, the former governor should be told that he will not escape the wrath of the people. It is better that he knows the fire he intends to kindle with his call to action!
The same applies to el-Rufai and his sanctimonious propensity, when he said that: “You cannot afford to have illiterates, semi-illiterates, and cunning people as your leaders. This is why we end up with the poor leadership we have today.” The question to ask is: who assisted the “illiterates, semi-illiterates, and cunning people” to get to power in the first instance?
If el-Rufai is so concerned about the quality of leadership Nigeria deserves, was Tinubu the best among the lots that contested the APC presidential primaries? Why, for instance, did he rally all northern elite in the APC, and blackmailed the Presidency then into supporting the Tinubu agenda? At what point did he realise the ‘illiteracy’ and ‘semi-illiteracy’ in this administration? After his failed attempt at becoming a minister?
And talking about the non-existent stance of opposition, or attempt to cripple the opposition by the APC, who will help us to tell el-Rufai that he is the chief architect of the death of opposition in the current dispensation? Why would he not realise that he joined forces with others to decapitate the PDP when he abandoned the party to join the current “illiterates and semi-illiterates” to form the APC all in a bid to wrest power at all costs!
MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Yuletide Horror
If it is true that “The problems that led to the creation of the APC remain unresolved” and he “…no longer believe the APC is interested in addressing them”, as he claimed, why is it difficult for el-Rufai to understand that APC is a child of conspiracy and that the party only came to wrest power and nothing more?
Is el-Rufai not old enough to know that whatever is established on the quicksand of conspiracy would not last? That conspiracy does not birth any good child? This is why his romance with Amaechi, and other politicians in the PDP, to ally will also not stand. There is nothing altruistic about the whole gang-up!
It is most unfortunate that President Tinubu is not giving one the opportunity to defend him. How I wish that the man who was said to have “built Lagos” was living up to his billing as a ‘builder’! One would have used some unkind words to qualify the el-Rufais and Amaechis of this era!
The only takeaway from the rantings of these two folks is that there is nothing conspiracy cannot, sadly, breed! When Rotimi Amaechi indicated interest to become president in 2023, el-Rufai was at the forefront, leading the foot soldiers of President Tinubu. Today, Amaechi and el-Rufai have found a common ground in the lacklustre performance of Tinubu to sermonise on good governance; the same they could not offer the people of Rivers and Kaduna States, when they held sway as governors. Pity!
If one’s masquerade dances well at the arena, one cannot but be elated. But how does one chant the praise names of this Tinubu’s Egúngún that is missing every step of the choreography at the arena? Why won’t the frogs of Amaechi and el-Rufai urinate on the white costume of Tinubu’s masquerade when the only visible achievement of the 20-month-old administration is the pain it inflicted on the people at its inception?
Unfortunately for the hapless masses, with the way the PDP is standing today, and the back-and-forth locomotion from Peter Obi and his Labour Party, the tendency that Tinubu would refine his 2023 winning ‘strategies’ and foist another term on us all is very high! Sad, and at the same time terrifying, but the Rìkísí from Amaechi and el-Rufai is not strong enough to dislodge Tinubu from Aso Rock Villa. I wonder how many Nigerians would pay attention to the duo with their tendency to jump into any political bed as long as their insatiable personal interests are concerned! It appears that Òjé (lead) has been fixed on the chief priest’s finger. Who will remove it?
News
OPINION: Ofala: Glo And An Invite From Agbogidi

By Lasisi Olagunju
‘Teacher of Light’ is the title of a biography of Chinua Achebe written by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Tijan Sallah. What does it mean to teach light? Or, rather, what is light? If you know what darkness does, you would know what light means and the value it holds.
“When the moon is shining, the cripple becomes hungry for a walk.” With that proverb and its moon metaphor, Chinua Achebe established himself as a true teacher of light. My muse pushed the proverb to my presence as I read through an invitation to me from the Obi of Onitsha asking that I be part of this year’s Ofala Festival. It occurred to me that moment that it is not only the moon that gives light; culture is an illuminator, it also gives light, especially to people like me who routinely forget how to dance to ancestral summons.
I had the very rare privilege of being honoured by the Nigerian Academy of Letters with its Honorary Fellowship in August this year. From the North to the South, only three Nigerians were so honoured: I was one; my brother, culture scholar and media icon, Jahman Anikulapo, was one; the deeply intellectual Obi of Onitsha, His Majesty Igwe Nnaemeka Alfred Ugochukwu Achebe (Agbogidi), was the third, the biggest of us. At that ceremony, the Obi, who said he had looked forward to meeting me, met me, held me and has kept me close as a son.
So, his invite to the Ofala Festival came. The festival holds this week. I wish I could be there as the king’s guest; but wishes are not horses. Because the mountain here is blocking the view of the mountain over there, I cannot honour the invitation. So I prayed for the success of the festival. The Obi answered with a thunderous ‘Amen’.
Ofala? I checked and found that the word “Ofala” is an enduring offspring of the Igbo words ọfọ (authority) and ala (land). Ofala is history retold in performance; it is also culture renewed. It relives the Obi’s authority over the land and its people.
Ofala is Obi’s return from sacred silence. The festival celebrates royalty’s reborn, and the Ndichie’s renewal of loyalty to the king. In Iru Ofala and Azu Ofala, the king returns from ancestral presence to repossess his warriors with their red caps.
MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: ‘Federal Highways of Horror’
Etymologists say the word ‘festival’ derives from the Latin ‘festum’. Anthropologists have followed the word through centuries and civilisations as its meaning evolved across cultures and disciplines. Émile Durkheim and James George Frazer were influential figures in early anthropology. Scholars, in summaries, say that to Durkheim and Frazer, festivals are communal expressions of belief and solidarity. They say that with festivals, people renew their social and spiritual bonds. In Ofala, we see that they are right.
Leo Frobenius, German ethnologist and archaeologist, was in Africa on multiple occasions between 1904 and 1935. In the 1910s, Frobenius observed festivals in diverse places; he documented them and saw in them vital celebrations of familial, tribal, and religious life deeply rooted in ancestral history and beliefs.
The German observed right. Ofala and similar festivals bind communities; they celebrate social cohesion and keep sacred traditions alive. They fuse communal history with spiritual renewal and survival. In them, the rhythm of everyday life comes alive.
Ofala has grown to attract great brands. Its major sponsor is telecoms giant, Globacom, which has been there since 2011. I have very solid people in Globacom, which makes me an envoy of its greenery and deepens my interest in everything, particularly, festivals in which the company is involved.
The Yoruba tell their children: When you behold greatness, honour it with reverence. Tí o bá ri olá, pón olá lé. That is what I am doing here. It is what Globacom’s long partnership with the Obi and Ofala does; an act of reverence to the greatness of the culture that birthed them.
From Lisabi in Abeokuta to Ojude Oba in Ijebu-Ode, and from Ofala in Onitsha to other vibrant festivals across the land, Globacom’s partnerships reflect a philosophy rooted in understanding that just as a zebra is defined by its stripes, a people are defined by their culture. In other words, a person without culture is like a zebra without stripes. Sustaining culture is sustaining the people.
That is what corporate sponsorship does to cultural events. Obi’s people say in a proverb, “Nku di na mba na-eghere mba nri (The firewood of a community cooks for that community).” Globacom’s firewood has kept the flame of the festivals it supports alive, warming the hearts of millions who gather yearly to honour tradition.
MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION Generals, Marabouts And Boko Haram
To sponsor a festival is one thing; but to nurture its essence and future is another. Through resources and resourcefulness, community engagement, and cultural reverence, Globacom has redefined what corporate responsibility can mean. That is what I gleened from the firm. I agree with those words. Shakespeare writes in Hamlet that “The purpose of playing… is to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature.” The playwright suggests that the aim of acting and theater is to reflect reality, showing “virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure”.
By supporting these festivals, the company, Glo, holds up a mirror to our shared identity, allowing us to see ourselves, our beauty, our resilience, our history.
Globacom became a major sponsor of the Ofala Festival in 2011 and has sustained the sponsorship yearly since then. Fourteen years on, like the Ekwe and the Udu, two Igbo drums beating the same rhythm, the company’s unwavering support has demonstrated that corporate success and cultural preservation can walk (and work) together. I read this out and my friend, the Igbo man, chipped in: “Egbe bere, ugo bere” (let the kite perch and let the eagle perch). When business and tradition walk together, culture gains.
The Yoruba routinely remind us that it is when we walk in the rain that we know who truly walks with us. Companies get involved in arts and culture for various reasons. Some, like leeches, place their names beside great traditions so as to benefit from the greatness. But what I see with Glo here is much more than profit in cash and kind. I see a telecoms giant, wholly indigenous, that has chosen to walk tall with the ancestors, deploying its enormous muscle to connect the past and their history to the world of the modern. One word defines this; it is renewal.
The rich who spend on their people’s historical and cultural essence are not frivolous; neither are they stupid. It is patriotism; if you like, call it cultural nationalism. The wealth of culture, like all wealth, grows when shared.
MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: Every democracy ‘Murders Itself’
Cultural promotion yields dividends that confound account books. It stitches the torn fabric of community; it keeps the hearth of local enterprise burning, and rekindles pride in who we are and where we come from. It renews pride in our shared heritage. It makes us all richer.
If you do well the society notes and records all you do for posterity. The Alake and paramount ruler of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo said in 2017 that “Glo is number one in culture and support for the people. The company pioneered per second billing and others followed.” The Alake wrote that admirable testimonial eight years ago. The flag of patriotism is still there on the mountain top, flying.
In Ofala, the king dances the dance of joy of a fresh start. In the drumbeats and dance steps, the king delights that yam is harvested as proof of life, not of death. The beats retell a people’s story as told by the ancestors. A people are as strong as the stories they tell of themselves.
This weekend (Friday and Saturday), Onitsha will be draped in Globacom’s green, the colour of growth and renewal. Colour green in French is vert, the Italian call it verde, the Spanish, in Castilian voice, say it is verde. They all draw their source from the Latin word for green which is viridis, a word that denotes freshness and vitality. History is an endless rope. English words, verdant and viridian, have this same Roman ancestry. To viridis again belongs “a large family of other words that evoke vigor, growth, and life: virere (to be green, to be vigorous), vis (strength), vir (man, masculine singular), ver (spring), virga (stem, rod), perhaps even virtus (courage, virtue).” For those insights, check French professor of medieval history, Michel Pastoureau’s ‘Green: The History of a Color’ as translated by Jody Gladding.
Whenever I meet Globacom chairman, Dr Mike Adenuga Jr, I intend to ask him the specific reason he chose colour green for his giant.
I congratulate the Obi and Glo as the moon glows on Ofala. In the dance of that festival, drums speak, colours sing, and heritage dances. In perfect rhythm, the people breathe, act and rejoice as tradition bathes in innovation. With the moon shining brighter, Obi’s land is renewed this weekend. Congratulations, Agbogidi.
News
OPINION: ‘Federal Highways of Horror’

By Lasisi Olagunju
You know where the latest anti-government journalists are in Lagos? Kirikiri. On a day that Nigerians were celebrating an additional spur of 100 kilometres to the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road, the killjoys of Kirikiri struck. They took a happy, joyous people of 200 million on a gruelling, bumpy ride across the country. They ran painful stories of craters and potholes and headlined them: ‘Federal Highways of Horror.’
It is a miracle that our Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, has not pummeled the Lagos newspaper called Vanguard. It ran the bad stories. It is still unclear why the minister has not rebuked its owner and spanked its journalists for publishing what they were not supposed to publish. Not once, but twice, last week they allowed the devil to use them to tell stories of collapsed federal roads from the north to the south. Their stories portrayed hardworking Umahi as a failure in monumental proportions.
Those journalists, injected with an overdose of impudence, said they did an investigation. They painted a grim picture of federal highways across multiple Nigerian states suffering severe neglect. They said the neglect has made travel dangerous, expensive, and time-consuming. They wrote as if they were sent to pull down a house built by God.
In the South, they came up with a long list of bad roads. They said northern states shared the same story of pain. They described some roads as crater-filled horror scenes; some as barely passable, others as sites long abandoned by contractors. On the few ones harbouring contractors, the signs they displayed showed slow men at work.
It does not rain; it pours. Amid narratives of millions of bad federal roads, Umahi made himself professor last week. “I am a professor of Engineering,” he announced on national television. Professor Umahi? I pray he is not asked to name the king who blessed him with that chieftaincy title. Some Arise News television journalists, whose eyes lack lashes, forced him to make himself professor. They habitually tug at the hem of Umahi’s professorial gown. They pelt him with questions that should never be asked. They remind our working Minister of Works that a river that is not dirty does not hide its depth. Last week, they demanded the cost of federal roads per kilometre. Who does that? And, I am happy, Minister Umahi gave it back to them. He said they are illiterates. Yeah. Don’t they know that for our federal government, spirits decide the total costs of projects? If they were truly not illiterates, they would know that this government is a wholesale seller and buyer; it is too rich to do retail business measured with short tape rules and elementary school rulers.
READ ALSO:OPINION Generals, Marabouts And Boko Haram
Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde, thought because he was governor and engineer he could join the talk and say that calculating the average cost per kilometre was possible in road construction. He was similarly told by our minister to shut up or he would be summoned to a debate on the very difficult mathematics of road construction. Umahi said he is Makinde’s senior in engineering. Senior Prefect Umahi described electrical electronics engineers as ‘technicians’ who must not speak on project costs.
Now, what we are told to hold as knowledge from Professor Umahi is that it is impossible to know how much a kilometre of road costs in Nigeria until such projects are completed. God is great. The World Bank must have missed that wisdom back in 1999 when it created the Road Costs Knowledge System (ROCKS), a database that calmly lists what it costs to build or fix a kilometre of road from Umahi’s village in Ebonyi to Makinde’s Ajia in Ibadan. A key feature of the World Bank’s ROCKS is its record of actual and estimated road work costs, clearly defined per kilometre and per square metre. Apparently, only in Nigeria do roads and their costs defy mathematics and logic.
In utter helplessness, we watch the roads and their costs stretch and shrink like chewing gum depending on whose fingers are working the calculator. While other countries classify their roads by type and cost per kilometre, we prefer a more spiritual approach – if you are an enemy, call it faith-based budgeting.
Clarity is the father of all openness. Why is it missing here? Again, that is not a question or a proverb that we must hear again from anyone, especially professional troublemakers called journalists. What is the problem of Nigerian journalists? Because their eyes have no skin, they query power. Where a cup is half-full, what our journalists see all their lives is a half-empty cup. They didn’t start today. They are historically insolent. What they do to this government, they did to even our ancestor, Lord Lugard, in 1913, one full year before Amalgamation. On 8 March, 1913, one rude journalist working with a newspaper called Lagos Weekly Record wrote that Lugard was a wicked, ruthless character, “a man whose walking stick is a pistol and whose thoughts by day and dreams at night are punitive expeditions and military patrols.”
And what was Lugard’s reaction to such attacks? He fought them with laws and knocks. At a point, he documented their impudence with a letter to his wife, Flora. In the letter, he bunched the journalist with all the other “educated native” who deserved no sympathy. He wrote about the native enemy of the state: “His loud and arrogant conceit are distasteful to me, his lack of natural dignity and of courtesy antagonise me.” Lugard’s biographer, Margery Perham, graciously remembered to put this in the book: ‘Lugard: The Years of Authority’ on page 585. If you can’t get Perham but are fortunate to get Jonathan Derrick’s ‘Africa, Empire and Fleet Street’, check the details there. They are on page 115.
MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: Hobbes, Nigeria, And Sarkozy
So, as Lugard, the creator of Nigeria rightly wrote, the Nigerian journalist is arrogant and lacks courtesy. Such are called alárífín in Yoruba. In the days of old, the crime of àrífín carried capital punishment. Aróbafín l’oba npa. But today’s journalists are lucky that they are in a republican democracy. Even then, someone should pay for their bad behaviour. The slap they get from ministers like Umahi is the first tranche of the cost of their bad manners.
What should the state do to the conceited who won’t let expressway contracts be awarded expressly in peace? I have a solution to their problem: Like the Vanguard, they should all be relocated to Kirikiri; all of them, from Lagos to Ibadan; from Ibadan to Lagos. And, if I had my way, I would tip off Umahi and all his harangued hardworking colleagues to award contracts this week for more cells for enemies of the president’s coastal elephant and other projects of renewal. Their new accommodation should enjoy maximum security. They deserve Kirikiri, Kirikiri deserves them.
What comes fast cannot be delayed again. It happened to cricket. Cricket set his wedding day and simultaneously asked his doctor to start preparing for child delivery. The contracts for a safe house for Nigerian journalists can be awarded today, or, latest tomorrow. There is no need for formalities. Exactly like the Coastal Road contract, this is another no for competitive bidding. We already know contractors with proven track records of expertise in casting beams and building cells. We select and hit the site digging. We can fix the contract cost after the job is done.
From this point, we see long shadows over the country; there is no clarity about important things government do. But, one day soon, like sun rays, clarity will force its way in; it is the father of openness.
Now, beyond the scaffold of satire, I wish I could just tear the mask and tell Minister Umahi that what we have today under his watch is road transportation without roads. And he is Minister of Works in charge of roads. It is a shame.
MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: Every democracy ‘Murders Itself’
In May this year (2025), I wrote ‘The shame of Ibadan-Ife-Ilesa road.’ The first two paragraphs of the piece read:
“Mr Dele Alake represents Ekiti State in the Federal Executive Council. Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola represents Osun State in the Federal Executive Council. Mr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo represents Ondo State in the Federal Executive Council. All three of them are the president’s core men. Each time the council sits and approves federal roads for reconstruction in states other than theirs, what goes on in their minds? They are very powerful ministers but all federal roads that lead to their states are decrepit and abandoned. And they know. So, what is the problem?
“The Ibadan-Ife-Ilesa road that links these ministers’ states to Lagos and to the North is the worst in Nigeria. Senate leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, is from Ekiti State. He belongs to the president’s inner caucus. Tough-talking PDP Senator Francis Fadahunsi represents Ife-Ijesa senatorial district. There are seven other senators and several Reps of APC and PDP from those three states. Has anyone heard them say or do anything to make that road well again? Do these people go home and how do they get home whenever they go home? Nigerians of all states lose lives and limbs on that road daily. Death by installments on the road is harrowing and it is a daily experience. It is a fitting tribute to the attention we pay to our people’s welfare.”
That was on May 12, 2025 (five months ago). If the road was “going, going” when I wrote that piece, it is gone now. Gone. An ex-senator told a columnist in May this year that N20 billion had been “released for repairs” of that road. In August 2025, Umahi announced the release of 30 percent of the contract sum. How much is the contract sum? Don’t even go there. If you go there, the minister will be angry. He will remind you that you are not a road professor. If you must ask any question at all, ask what has happened to what Umahi said was released, his 30 percent. Ask, because, nothing that is worth one kobo has happened on that road this year.
But the total collapse of the road did not come to me as a surprise. By the noon of May 12, 2025 when I published the article, one of the senators I called out in the piece called me.
“They have just read to me what you wrote.” He told me. Big men don’t read newspapers; newspapers are read to big men. Senator said he laughed at my naivety. He wondered why I was disturbing myself writing rubbish about a contract that may never be executed.
MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: A Minister’s Message To Me
“Do you think Nigeria can ever be better than it is? (Sé ìwo rò wípé Nigeria lè dára jù báyìí lo ni?)” He asked and proceeded to shame me with names, facts and figures all of which answered his question with a no. He said I should record and publish all he said. I laughed at the audacity of his directive. An orphan like me will never dare court a wound on the back.
Besides, I was taught early in life to make my eyes flexible enough for them to see the nose. That was the wisdom that eluded Partridge who claimed to know it all, and because he made that claim, he blocked his own opportunity to learn Ifá from the pigeon. ‘Mo m’Obàrà, mo m’Ofún,’ tí kò j e kí ẹyẹlé k’ àparò n’Ífá (I know Obàrà, I know Ofún’ made the pigeon not to teach Ifá to the partridge).
So, my pigeon listened attentively to the incantation from the hawk. This senator ended his long, windy speech with a submission that the Ibadan-Ife-Ilesa road, and other federal roads in the South-West were decrepit and abandoned because the Works Minister “does not like hearing South-West at all.” I heard him and sighed.
When the outspoken gentleman spoke with me five months ago, he was a PDP senator. He has since moved to Dave Umahi’s party. Now, I wonder if he will still say what he said now that he is in APC.
Author and literary critic, Robert M. Wren (1928-1989), in 1982 wrote “The Last Bridge on ‘The Road’: Soyinka’s Rage and Compassion.” He tells us that in 1962, Wole Soyinka, in a Lagos Daily Express essay entitled ‘Bad Roads, Bad Users, Bad Deaths’ captured Nigeria’s enduring road crisis. Writing with outrage and in satire, Soyinka lamented the deadly state of the highways. He agonised over the state of the Lagos–Ibadan road (Mile 34); there was what he called “the death-trap at Ife”, and “the last bridge on Ikorodu Road.” Soyinka recalled and deplored a senator’s refusal to carry a crash victim with a spinal cord injury to Ibadan. More than six decades later, the roads are still bad, very bad; they still kill; senators are still cold-blooded; they still wonder why anyone bothers to care that the roads are bad.
News
Edo GIS Denies Report Of 17-year-old Purchasing 14 Hectares Of Land

The Edo Geographic Information Systems (Edo GIS) has debunked reports circulating on social media that a 17-year-old boy purchased 14 hectares of land in Edo State and was subsequently denied a Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) by Governor Monday Okpebholo.
In a statement released by the Director of Press, Tunde Egbiremonlen, the agency clarified that no such transaction exists in its records.
According to the statement, a 17-year-old is legally considered a minor and, as such, is not eligible to register land ownership under Edo State law.
“The Edo GIS system will automatically reject such applications due to age restrictions,” the statement read
READ ALSO:Edo Promises Effective PHCs In 192 Wards
“In the first place, a 17-year-old cannot apply for registration of land in Edo state because that age bracket is assumed to be a minor; the Edo GIS system will automatically reject the application.
“To compound the objective of the rumour-mongers, the peddlers of the story did not explain where in Edo state, such 14,000 hectares were purchased by the minor.
READ ALSO:Edo Gov Sacks Education Board Chair, Names Replacement
Egbiremonlen also pointed out inconsistencies in the viral report, noting that it failed to mention the specific location of the alleged 14 hectares and described the story as “deliberately mischievous and fabricated.”
He accused the originators of the false information of attempting to cause disaffection and blackmail the government, saying significant funds were spent to circulate the fake news.
Edo GIS urged the public to disregard the claims and remain vigilant against disinformation aimed at undermining the government’s credibility.
- Politics5 days ago
JUST IN: Council Of State Meets As Tinubu Presents Nominees For INEC Chair
- Politics4 days ago
Makinde Calls Out Umahi Over Coastal Highway Cost Analysis
- News5 days ago
Activists Push For Popularisation Of ‘Ogonize’, ‘Sarowiwize’ In Climate, Other Campaigns
- News20 hours ago
BREAKING: Rev Uma Ukpai Is Dead
- Metro5 days ago
Reason Benin Oba Market Was Gutted By Fire Revealed
- News5 days ago
BREAKING: Council Of State Approves New INEC Chairman
- News5 days ago
Meet New INEC Chairman, Joash Amupitan
- News2 days ago
FULL LIST: Newly Released Subject Combinations For WAEC 2026 Examination WAEC
- News5 days ago
Why I Picked Amupitan As INEC Chair – Tinubu
- News4 days ago
AGILE Leads 200 Girls On Road Walk To Create Awareness In Bauchi