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OPINION: Awolowo And The North’s Latest Warning [Monday Lines]

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By Lasisi Olagunju

When vultures surround you, stay awake so that you do not die stupid death. Whether you are in business or you are in politics or you are anything of value, stay alive and stay alert. People shave people’s heads in their absence. In 1938, Britain was rumoured to have toyed with the idea of donating Nigeria to Germany as one of its several offerings of appeasement to Hitler. I read of the “strong rumour” in Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s first book, ‘Path to Nigerian Freedom’, published in 1947 – page 38.

Hitler, two years earlier (September 11, 1936), insisted on “Germany’s right to colonies.” Nine months before Hitler’s insistence, his minister of propaganda, Goebbels, served a notice that “the time will come when we must demand colonies from the world.” In June 1938, Mary E. Townsend published her ‘The German Colonies and the Third Reich.’ She cited two successive editions of the London Times of October 1936 which reported that Hitler had “gained concessions in Africa.”

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The German cup, as it turned out, passed from Nigeria. The rumoured offer to Hitler was eventually not consummated but the mere thought of it tells how ‘valued’ our country and its people were in the heart of those who possessed it. But it is needless to run from fate. You put destiny in a sheath, it destroys the sheath; you put it in a scabbard, it ruins the scabbard. If Nigeria missed being possessed by Germany’s Hitler in 1938, the country’s subsequent history of abduction and rape up to this moment is proof that our fathers were right with their theory of inevitability of fate. A snake swallowing its tail, and swallowing it hard is Nigeria. It is a pool of water-snakes feasting on hapless fishes.

On Friday this week, it will be 38 years since Chief Awolowo died. Two months before he died on 9 May, 1987, Awo spoke rather cryptically of his “continuing to serve even after death.” Almost 40 years after his transition, his views of Nigeria, his analyses of the systemic problems of the country and his solutions to them have remained the main issues of discussion.

Awolowo’s ‘Path to Nigerian Freedom’ has proved a worthy carrier of its title. But the path it shows has remained not taken. The late Pius Adesanmi once, at an Awolowo Foundation event, questioned the choice we make as a country. He spoke on what he called “Igbo ree; Ona ree (the bush is here; the path is here).” The choice was – and is – for us to make. We’ve consistently chosen the bush.

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I read the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF)’s boast of last week that the North had the muscle and the number to choose the next president for the other parts of the country. It reminded us that: “The North has 19 out of the 36 states. We also have the FCT as a veritable component. We have a majority in the Senate, the House of Representatives, the National Economic Council as well as the Council of State. The North occupies close to 75 percent of Nigeria’s land area and about 60 percent of the population. An area that is this big and this strong can never be subdued by any opponent…For the moment, it will suffice to say that Northern Nigeria is watching and auditing the actions of the elected and appointed officials, especially at the federal level.”

Northern leaders always flaunt their population and land mass to intimidate the South. Assets when not harnessed to profitability become liabilities. We say here that vulture may be a large bird, but what it feeds on is rotten flesh. The elephant in its ponderous majesty is as clumsy as they come. Àwòdì tí ń gbé adìẹ lọ́sàn-án ò sanra tó igún. I wonder why it did not occur to the ACF that kites that snatch chicks in broad daylight do not have vulture’s large frame. It is not by size.

Everything the ACF said was a threat directed at President Bola Tinubu on his second term ambition. Of course, the Tinubu pigeon got the full import of the incantations from the Northern raptor. He rushed to Katsina on Friday – two days after the warning shot was fired. He was there for two days, he even slept there. Tinubu should clap for himself. Did Buhari sleep one night anywhere in Southern Nigeria in his eight years? The visit was Tinubu’s appeasement offering to Hitler to avoid a ‘world war’. Let us hope the aggrieved are pacified now.

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MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: A Nation Of Defectors [Monday Lines]

Unlike what our teachers taught us, sovereignty is no longer the supreme will of the state; its locus is with any set of human beings “sufficiently strong to compel obedience” to their whims. The North self-assuredly thinks it is the Nigerian sovereign. It said so through the ACF and the president got the message.

The North thought Goodluck Jonathan was its problem; it got its traditional enemies in Benue and Plateau and the West to join it in removing Jonathan. The North thought having a northern president would solve its existential problems. It brought in Muhammadu Buhari. Under Buhari, the North’s problems multiplied in geometric proportions. It thought a Muslim Muslim ticket was what it needed to be safe and feed well. It brought in a ‘Muslim’ government in May 2023. Less than two years into the tenure of that government of faith, the North is grunting and grumbling very loudly; it shouts marginalization. A million change of government won’t help the north. It must help itself.

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The ACF also expressed concern over insecurity in the North. It said the security challenges in the North were worsening by the day. It then called on the federal government to act swiftly “before it becomes too late.” I will be happy and dance if I find out that it is not already too late.

By now, it should be clear to the wise that the problem of the North is not, strictly, Bola Tinubu and his ways. The problem wasn’t Jonathan; neither was it Buhari. The problem of the North is the North – its bad ways. Why would a region not have problems of mass poverty when it spurns mass education of its mass children, youths who own tomorrow? Mass procreation plus mass illiteracy must equal mass misery. It is simple arithmetic. Why will there not be blistering insecurity where mass poverty reigns? If you turn your back to where the world faces, you won’t see what the world sees. How will a president relate with a people that take offence when asked to position their eyes towards the future? The best rules the rest in that country called Saudi Arabia. The elite there have used education to elevate their country and their faith. China’s huge population is a huge economic blessing to it. But, the key to northern Nigeria is in the hands of a band of clerics and dark elites who exploit their people’s unquestioning faith in their region and religion, warts and all.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: For the Yoruba Of Northern Nigeria [Monday Line]

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I read a beautiful piece on Saturday from a gentleman from the North, Idris Muhammed Abdullahi. He wanted a deliverer for northern Nigeria. Like the ACF and its leaders, Abdullahi didn’t write for Nigeria; his interest was the North. He lamented the decay and disappointment that rules his region. He cited the establishment of the Northwest Development Commission (NWDC). He said it was supposed to mark a turning point in the development of the region. “What then happened?” he asked and added that: “One man handpicked all its executives. The commission has now become a personal ATM, hemorrhaging funds meant for schools, irrigation, rural roads, and youth empowerment. It has transformed from a symbol of hope into yet another playground for elite looting.”

What the gentleman wrote of the North is true of everywhere in the country. And it is historical. Nigeria is an elite PoS – or the soup pot of the powerful. How each of our people reacts to it has also historically made the difference. Wrong, when accommodated, festers. Chief Awolowo said it in a more elegant and profound way 46 years ago. He told ‘Africa’ magazine in April 1979 that “since independence, our governments have been a matter of a few holding the cow for the strongest and most cunning to milk. Under the circumstances, everybody runs over everybody to make good at the expense of others.”

The most popular page in Awo’s ‘Path to Nigerian Freedom’ is page 47. That is where you find the famous quote: “Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical expression.” Seventy-seven years after that book was published, to be called Nigerian has remained “merely a distinctive appellation” distinguishing “those who live within the boundaries of Nigeria from those who do not.” Each constituent part of the country has held tight to its gene. When we talk or act, it is for where each of us comes from. Read the ACF statement again. It speaks about ‘us’ and ‘them’ and boasts of assets without discussing the liabilities.

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The groups in the South think the North a pampered, pompous parasite. Think of why Max Siollun, author of ‘What Britain Did to Nigeria’, described Nigeria as “just a page in a colonial accounting ledger” and why the British officially took the 1914 amalgamation to be a marriage between a poor, hapless husband and a helpless “southern lady of means.”

Check the tone of the ACF complaints; the challenges of governance have been reduced to a North versus South battle. Now, I ask: For how long shall we remain so “tightly fragmented” and have our growth stunted?

In the 1947 book above, Chief Awolowo observed that the various nations that make up Nigeria cannot progress and prosper together unless they are properly organized in a federation. “The languages differ…Their cultural backgrounds and social outlooks differ widely; and their indigenous political institutions have little in common. Their present stages of development vary.” It is in that book that you read how, 77 years ago, the ethnic groups in the South readily embraced Western civilisation while “the extremely conservative” Hausas and Fulanis took “very reluctantly to Western civilization.” As it was in 1947, so it is in 2025. If thrown up a hundred years from now, the northern hand fan will land side down.

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MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: The President Is My Brother, I Shall Not Talk…

A copius quote from Chief Awolowo here: “All these incompatibilities among the various peoples in the country militate against unification. For one thing, they are bound to slow down progress in certain sections, and on the other hand they tend to engender unfriendly feelings among the diverse elements thus forced together.” Chief Awolowo warned that “incompatibilities such as we have enumerated are barriers which cannot be overcome by glossing over them, They are real, not imaginary obstacles. Those who place these groups under the same constitution ignore them at their peril – more so, as it appears that these incompatibilities tend to grow in size as those concerned become more educated and civilized.”

If you can find time to read the book, check what the author wrote while citing the Welsh and the Scottish peoples’ experiences and agitation for self-rule. Check his words on other positive examples and the reason some of us say we are postponing the evil day if we think elite looting facilitated by a unitarised Nigeria will ever bring peace and plenty. Listen to Chief Awolowo: “For upwards of seven hundred years, the Irish people struggled to, and eventually did break away from England in spite of the fact that the latter did everything possible to give the former equal status within the British Constitution.” When you read him, you discover that, indeed, two of the three other examples he cited, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, have already unravelled as he predicted; the third, the Dutch-speaking Flemings of Belgium, despite several constitutional interventions, still demand degrees of autonomy. Some of them, in fact, have not stopped chanting “Let My People Go.”

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So, what is the solution?

The solution is knowing that there is no regeneration in spring water flowing towards the desert. Tell the North, tell the South. “Whatever would direct itself after the setting sun, an ashen death lies in wait for it” (Ayi Kwei Armah). Chief Awolowo pointed at the empirical facts of history which he said “are enough to guide us.” He posited that it had been shown beyond all doubts “that the best constitution for… diverse peoples is a federal constitution.” He pointed at the Constitution of Switzerland, which he said “is acclaimed to be the best and the most democratic in the world since it gives complete autonomy to every racial group within the framework.”

In a truly federal Nigeria, there won’t be allegations of Muhammadu Buhari regime marginalising the South; neither will there be a Bola Tinubu government suffering the stigma of being a Yoruba government. A weak centre will be too unattractive to attract do-or-die politics; neither will it serve as a fetter holding down any part that wants to run. It will serve any one content with crawling to continue to crawl – as we compulsorily do today.

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But can we take a redemptive bend? The wise would say we are too far gone to retrace our steps. “No spring changes the desert. The desert remains” – that, again, is from Armah. Creating a workable system – a system that works – is what we have refused to come up with. We know what it is and how it will serve us, but we just won’t go for it. For us, the bush is the way.

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Oba of Benin Renews Bond With Ancestral Relations, Nigerians During Emorhọ Feast

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The palace of the Oba of Benin was agog with activities during the 2025 Emorhọ fest, declared by Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku, Uku Akpolokpolo, Ewuare II, Oba of Benin as part of activities to mark the ancient Emorhọ, otherwise known as the ‘New Yam Festival’.

Oba of Benin, who reenacted the age-long festival, renewed the bond that exist between him and his ancestral relations from Issele-Uku in Aniocha North Local Government Area of Delta State at the event, which attracted dignitaries, including Benin people, indigenes and non-indigenes across Edo State.

Members of the Benin Royal family, Edionwere (village heads), youth leaders across the various communities in Benin, market women group, palace chiefs, traditional priests and priestesses in Benin, were also in attendance.

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READ ALSO:Oba Of Benin Declares Two-week Fasting, Prayer For Edo

A special prayer offered on behalf of the palace by Chief Enorense Ozigbo-Esere, the Osuma of Benin, paved the way for the commencement of the feast, where Secretary to the Benin Traditional Council, Frank Irabor, welcomed guests and highlighted the essence of the gathering.

Speaking in an interview, Oba Ewuare younger ancestral relations from Issele-Uku led by Chief Michael Odiakosa, expressed delight for the privilege to be part of the historic celebration.

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He explained the relationship between Benin and Issele-Uku, reaffirming that, “Issele-Uku is an extension of Benin Kingdom. We are all descendants of Benin. So, we are at home”.

READ ALSO:Oba Of Benin Ushers In ‘Emorọ’

We are in a safe place. We came to celebrate the festival with our father, the Omo N’ Oba, and we are happy to be here”, Odiakosa said.

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On his part, 99-year-old Pa. Paul Osarumwense Oyemwen, the Odionwere of Orior-Ozolua community in Uhunmwode LGA who thanked the Oba for the gesture, said the festival is not new in Benin and it’s devoid of sacrifices.

Expressing her appreciation to the Oba of Benin, the ‘Edo markets leader’, Pastor (Mrs) Josephine Ibhaguezejele, noted that members of the group have been waiting anxiously for the opportunity to partake in the yearly festival, while praying God that the blessings of the festival to transform lives.

Also speaking, Pa. Daniel Osunde, the Odionwere of Idumwun-owina, N’ Iyeke-orhiomwon, also prayed for the Oba and thanked the first Class traditional ruler for his foresight.

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Excited guests in their numbers were fed with African delicacy, amid dancing and jubilation, while members of Isikhian women group who gave a good account of their stewardship, were not left out in the celebration by the Oba who rewarded them with cash gift and other items in acknowledgement their duties in Benin.

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Okpebholo Poised To Surpassing People’s Expectations — Edo Deputy Gov

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Edo deputy governor, Hon Dennis Idahosa has assured that the Governor Monday Okpebholo-led administration is poised to surpass the expectations of the people of the state in terms of campaign promises fulfilment.

Idahosa said that the administration had hit the grand running right from the day of inauguration by identifying and prioritising the key areas of the SHINE agenda for implementation.

A statement by Mr Friday Aghedo, Chief Press Secretary to the deputy governor, said Idahosa spoke when he received the prestigious Peace Ambassador Award from the International Association of World Peace Advocates (IAWPA).

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The award ceremony held at the deputy governor’s office during a courtesy visit by the leadership of the IAWPA led by the President, Amb. Per Stafsen, the South-South Coordinator/Edo state Director, Amb. Amos Areloegbe, and other zonal representatives.

READ ALSO:Okpebholo Warns Companies Against Fuelling Edo–Delta Boundary Dispute

“We pray, by the grace of God, Edo State will surpass the expectations of the people when we are through with our tenure,” he declared.

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Idahosa described the recognition as a source of pride, not just for him, but for the Governor Monday Okpebholo-led administration.

Governor Okpebholo is a man of peace, and his government stands firmly for peace. This award is a validation of his unwavering commitment to building a safe and harmonious Edo State,” he said.

The Deputy Governor emphasized that peace and security remain central pillars of the government’s five-point SHINE agenda, noting that collaboration with traditional institutions, religious leaders, and civil society organizations has been vital in sustaining stability across the state.

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Peace is extremely important in any society. Where there is peace, there is security; where insecurity prevails, peace cannot exist.

“This recognition today strengthens our resolve to continue being ambassadors of peace,” Idahosa stated.

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On his part, Amb. Amos Areloegbe noted that IAWPA, a United Nations–certified body aligned with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), deliberately chose Edo State to commemorate the International Day of Non-Violence on October 2.

According to him, “Edo State remains one of the most peaceful states in the federation, hence our choice to celebrate here.”

The investiture was hailed by observers as not only an honour to Idahosa but also as an acknowledgment of Edo’s growing reputation as a bastion of peace under Governor Okpebholo’s leadership.

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Ogoni Women Protest Resumption Of Oil Production, Demand Accountability In $1Bn Cleanup Funds

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Ogoni women drawn from all works of life have come out to protest against the resumption of oil production in the area without proper negotiation.

The women expressed anger over the non-transparent nature of the entire oil resumption exercise, accusing the government of attempting to manipulate them into giving up on their demands as expressed in the Ogoni Bill of Rights (OBR).

The women further demanded that the Nigerian government account for $300million Ogoni infrastructure development fund which is alleged to have been diverted by some key government personalities in alliance with some Ogoni leaders.

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They further demanded accountability for the $1Billion Ogoni cleanup funds which they said is a failed project.

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The women, who marched on the streets of Bori, the traditional headquarters of Ogoni, accused the government of neglecting the core demands of the Ogoni people including the demand for the creation of a Bori State and compensation for livelihood losses due to decades of devastating oil spills in the lands.

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“We lost everything, crops, drinking water sources, food and farming lands and we now live with strange illnesses which ultimately will lead to our death. No one is interested in all that. The only thing the government is interested in is our oil resources. We reject the insensitivity of the government and we want to be heard”; one of the protesters who pleaded anonymity told Ogoninews.

Another speaker, Mrs Helen Huoma said the plot to resume oil production in Ogoni is deceptive.

“The oil industry people are always lying. They will tell us something and do another. When we ask our MOSOP leaders, they tell us they know nothing about what the government and the oil industry are doing. It’s all a bunch of confusion and deceit. We will resist this move because we paid heavily to give Ogoni a name and the pride it has today”

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A woman identified as Janet from Gokana Local Government Area alleged that the Nigerian government has never been interested in the welfare of the Ogoni people.

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She alleged that the government had only been interested in the oil and after that, they appeased political leaders with contracts to suppress local residents.

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“All they do is deceive the Ogoni people and we continue to suffer in the midst of abundant natural resources. If they can divert $300million, then how can we trust them? Before we start, let them account for the $300 million and the cleanup program which, at least, should have solved some basic problems.”

The Nigerian President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu had recently directed the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu to engage the NNPC Limited and work out modalities for the resumption of oil production in Ogoni. This directive followed a meeting with some Ogoni leaders in Aso Rock, Presidential Villa.

The president had also recently granted pardon to the Ogoni nine including Ken Saro-Wiwa and to four Ogoni leaders who were murdered on May 21, 1995. The Abacha regime had blamed Ken Saro-Wiwa for the murders and executed him along with 8 others on November 10, 1995 despite global outcry acknowledging their innocence.

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Following the executions, a United Nations fact finding team visited Nigeria. The team acknowledged that the entire trial process was flawed and noted that Nigeria did not even follow the minimal prescription of its own laws in the conduct of the trial.

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