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OPINION: Bobrisky’s Masque, Yahaya Bello’s Boa

Published

2 years ago

April 22, 2024

By Lasisi Olagunju

“When you reach home, tell my mother,
Say it was a boa that his son transformed into
And never returned home.”
The actor comes on the stage singing and dancing, his troupe festive around him. He invokes his powers and turns into this and that. Everything he fancies, he becomes.
Then he goes back to man.
The world applauds him.
The man becomes a roof-climbing, banana-eating monkey.
The applaud gets louder.
He turns to a woman – like Bobrisky- complete with all the charm of the seductress; he beckons on men who could dare but none comes forward. He gets no suitor. Then, his drummers warn him: Ilè nsú / T’óbá burú tan/ Ìwo nìkan ní ó kù (it is getting dark; you will be alone if things get bad).

If you are warned, listen to what the world is saying. In his ‘The Poetry of the Yoruba Masque Theatre’, Professor J.A. Adedeji (1978) says better what the bata drums say: “Don’t be careless, evening is approaching/ Aiyelabola; If the worst comes/ You will be left alone to your devices.” The tragedy of man, of all of us, is that we always deny the advent of dusk. The masked one hears the beats and ignores the beats. He takes one more step and turns to a boa – and darkness descends on his performance.

The boa-man struggles with himself. He tries every trick in his bag of charms. He chants every incantation in his pouch; he bellows every shout. He draws blank; nothing works again for the influencer. The world has hacked into the actor’s act; life’s principal coders have changed his password. The boa cannot shed the snake skin and adorn the human costume he came with. Aiyelabola will die a boa.

His troupe sings his dirge; his audience his elegy: “Aiyelabola d’ere, o b’ere lo.”

Defeated, Adedeji writes, the boa sings:

“When you reach home, tell my mother,

Say it was a boa that his son transformed into

And never returned home.”

Tell the world, Aiyelabola d’ere, o ti b’ere lo.

When the ‘world’ is involved in someone’s case, what is customarily ignored attracts global opprobrium; even the ordinarily routine becomes problematic, song becomes abuse, and the key that used to open doors stops working. One day, we will know why the young man called Bobrisky was suddenly taken too seriously by drama-loving Nigeria.

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The pioneer of Yoruba waka music, Batile Alake, invokes chants in her evergreen songs. In a particular album, she sings about entering the farm through the furrow and escaping the whips of the farm owner by not stepping on his (yam) heaps – poro ni mo gbà/ kí olóko má nà mí/ mo ti dá ebeè kojá. In another song, Batile sings about the unusual and the attention which bigness attracts: “B’érin bá w’ojà á j’ogún àpéjowò omo aráyé (when ponderous elephant saunters into the market square, he inherits the world as his audience).” It is possible that Bobrisky, the actor, got that sense from the quaint world of the spirit of money and fame. On social media and in the social sphere, he was/is news – bad and good news – many times not exactly good. But he enjoyed it and sought to live it in defiance of whatever his world thought. He saw the world as a festival of sort and dressed himself up for it in coarse cottons of disgusting shock. Listening to strange beats, the man danced his way into the moral marketplace as a woman and stepped on the toes of his world.

For breaking a pot of water, the child who repeatedly spilt drums of palm oil without consequences was docked in a court in Lagos some days ago. Bobrisky is in jail for doing what Duro Ladipo calls “ritual theatre”, that which many do impulsively as a cultural practice – spraying money at social parties. In the times of our fathers, ‘spraying’ was not the word; money meant for the forehead never touched the ground. If it did, it was a taboo broken. But, today, àkàrà has become bones in the mouth of the toothless. Money-miss road nouveau riche dudes dance on a canvass of cash to proclaim their success. What autumn does to leafy trees is what they do with the naira. They carpet the ground with careless currency notes, plod rough-shod and record their misbehaviour for us to sorrow about. They incite the poor to query the poverty in their destiny.

I read a piece on “Ritual Killing, 419, and Fast Wealth in Southeastern Nigeria” published in the ‘American Ethnologist’ of November 2001. The author, Daniel Jordan Smith, marvels at what we do here with paper money on foreheads at social parties. He explores the drama of our doing it, how we do it and why we do it: “The act of spraying itself has become a performance, and those who do the spraying are often drawing public attention to themselves as much as to those they are supporting. In the act of spraying, the dance of the sprayer is watched and admired, but most importantly, the quantity and denomination of the bills pasted to the foreheads of the sprayee is closely monitored. People who spray large sums of money are roundly applauded by the crowd…” The paradox (and the lesson) here is what Smith admits: “such ostentation is resented even as it is admired.”

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Singer Portable’s ‘brother’ who claims ‘sisterhood’ is a goat immolated to make other goats stop misbehaving. Won pa iji han iji. But, he is just an actor, a masquerader monetizing his mime of our unserious world. And we are really unserious. Of all the inmates in our house of sin; of all the sicknesses in our sick body, Bobrisky is what takes our precious time and judgment. Locking him up is our loss.

A perfect Aristotelian tragic protagonist, he will be in solitary misery for six months at our expense. Everyone thinks he deserves to be where he is. Even those of us who accept that he is just an alárìnjó (itinerant, walk-and-dance masquerade) insist that his choice of style is dirty. But there is neither disgust nor ugliness in drama. It is either a tragedy or a comedy or the concoction in the middle. Everything is about costuming and packaging and marketing. If my good old literature teacher, Professor Oyin Ogunba (God bless his soul), were around and he watched this spectacle, he would describe the man as drama. Read Ogunba in Oyekan Owomoyela’s ‘Give me Drama Or…’ I did. “A masked figure at a festival,” Ogunba argues, “whether he dances or speaks or does neither, has, by his mere appearance, created a situation of potential dramatic value.” The jailed young man has the mask; he has the chant; he has the gait, the dance. He has the drama and an excitable audience. His face and costume are just life-mimicry gone awry. He shouldn’t have suffered an overkill.

In the grove of life’s principals, there are many masks of varying potency. It appears that Bobrisky entered the grove without paying his dues. It is ìbà that saves goat from being tied down as sacrificial lamb. He didn’t do that and lost control of his panel. There is no system the world cannot hack into; the principalities of this plane are code-crackers. They reduced the cross-dresser to a helpless influencer who could not influence the winds from blowing him into jail. It happened to Aiyelabola, the powerful masque-actor who turned himself into a boa for effect but could not go back to the human he was.

The world overtook Bobrisky and locked him up. He thought he could recreate himself to a woman and be crowned queen of the covens. He didn’t learn from Aiyelabola who moved from man to boa and slithered off forever as boa. May we not step on the eye of the earth.

Bobrisky is a metaphor for the hypocrisy of this society of masked men and specialists. He is also a metaphor for self-violation. In court, he disowned his feminine costume and pronounced himself man. He is, in significant ways, a metaphor for a politician called Yahaya Bello. What happened to the cross-dresser is exactly what is happening to the former Kogi State governor. He is being asked by his troupe mates – the igneous caste of his cast – to come out and account for his years in power. There is a big lesson here: An Egungun that is conscious of life out of the mask will behave well, will limit his performance to dance and songs; will carry no whips, and will whip not the helpless.

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Andu is the name of one Egúngún (eégún) in a Yoruba town which enjoys the throne with the king. Ulli Beier in his ‘The Egungun Cult Among the Yoruba’ (Presence Africaine, 1958: 34) says “Andu enjoys great power and privileges. He may, for example, sit on the king’s throne when the king is not present.” What do you think would happen if this Egungun extends his privileges and starts contesting the stool with the king, the Timi of Ede? The storm and the drama that we saw around Bello last week were what normally happens to temporary men who think themselves permanent. When ‘big’ men eat food meant for the gods and step on sacred toes and the world takes note, they are condemned to run kitikiti katakata as Bello did last week. The consequence he suffers is the fate of the bird called agbe: his feathers got dyed in indigo. The aluko bird was not created henna, his colour was made so by an angry world. When the world felt offended enough by the egret’s unacceptable ways, it dipped the bird in a pot of snow-white chalk. The world is sufficiently angry with the actor called Yahaya Bello; it is cooking a pot of bile for him to feast on.

One Muslim cleric waxed a record in the 1970s with a line that made a lot of sense. I can’t remember the cleric’s name but I can’t forget that he sings about the powerful who think themselves faster than life. But, he says, the world is not that cheap; it storms their sail and sinks their ship. “Won ro pe won le aye won ba/ Aye o je bee/aye da won nu.” The Titanic, its competent crew and its arrogant builders come to mind here.

My people would look at Yahaya Bello and see the opposite of careful chameleon who walks gingerly through life. Chameleon is asked why his feet rarely touch the ground. He says it is in deference to the earth; he says the ground must not cave in under his weight. “This world (aye) is a dangerous and difficult place; it is full of negative forces that hinder, even destroy, one’s life.” Benjamin C. Ray was of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, United States, when in 1993 he wrote the above quote in a research article on ‘Aladura Christianity: A Yoruba Religion’. The quote, peeled from Ray’s 27-page piece on ‘aye’ and its forces, summarizes what I am saying here about moderation, about doing right and stepping away from wrong even if you have the grit of a lion. Ray is not alone. Professor Karin Barber’s scholarship is on Yoruba’s ways and means. Her mental visage on man and precarious power, published in a journal called ‘Africa’ in 1981, sees the solitary worldly ‘man’ who is “picking his way …between a variety of forces, some benign, some hostile, many ambivalent.”

Did Shakespeare not say justice whirls in equal measure? Today’s eegun, our ensemble of powers and principalities, can also learn from the fate of Bello, a whitened lion in flight. Their own festival of immunity will end one day, and the children of the grove will no longer have free balls of bean cakes. Listen. The antidote to darkness is light. If you don’t want to die a boa, don’t live a boa. What is happening to Bello tells even deities that they are not immune from (and to) the ravages of an incensed world. When the forces of life face and fight a rogue masquerade, they tear off his mask and call women to come and watch. And, of course, an Egungun dies the day he is paraded naked before a coven of weird beings who piss from behind.

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Otuaro: Baseless Allegations, Disregard Them, Group Urges Public

Published

18 hours ago

May 17, 2026

Editor

The Ijaw People’s Development Initiative, IPDI has reacted to a statement circulating online regarding the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), describing it as baseless.

The statement under the disguise ‘Niger Delta Stakeholders Forum and Niger Delta Ethnic Nationalities,’ had demanded accountability regarding the management of the Programme and its administrator, Dr Dennis Otuaro.

Reacting to the statement, National President, IPDI, Comrade Austin Ozobo, said: “We consider it necessary to respond point by point to correct misconceptions, reject unsubstantiated claims, and keep the record straight in the interest of PAP beneficiaries, stakeholders, and the general public.

“It is worthy of note that the PAP operates under strict federal financial regulations and is subject to routine audits by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation, the Ministry of Finance, and other oversight bodies.

“All disbursements, including stipends, vocational training, education support, and third-party contracts, are processed through the Treasury Single Account, TSA, with verifiable records”, the statement read.

According to the IPDI, the Programme welcomes lawful criticism and scrutiny at any time. However, linking such a call to specific individuals without evidence amounts to trial by the media and undermines due process.

“Dr Dennis Otuaro, administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme has maintained a good record of financial management, hence no formal petition with verifiable evidence has been submitted to any anti-graft agency till date”.

“It may interest you to know that the N65,000 monthly stipend is fixed by the Appropriation Act and can only be reviewed through a budgetary process approved by the National Assembly and the Presidency.

‘The PAP management has consistently conveyed beneficiaries’ concerns on cost of living to relevant authorities”.

“Again, claims that allocations to the Programme have risen significantly while stipends remain unchanged misrepresents the budget structure.

“Note, increased allocations in recent years have been tied to expanded reintegration programs, education sponsorships, skills acquisition, and infrastructure support for training centers, not solely to stipend payments”.

The group reiterated that the allegation that the Amnesty Programme Office “kidnaps and detains delegates” is false, reckless, and defamatory, adding that the PAP has no paramilitary or law enforcement mandate, nor does it operate detention facilities and that any incident involving law enforcement is outside the control and purview of the Programme.

“We challenge the authors to provide verifiable details of time, place, and persons involved so the matter can be addressed through appropriate legal channels,” the group said

On Claims of Selective Empowerment and 500% Payment Increases, the group maintained that payments to contractors, ex-agitator leaders, and service providers were governed by existing contracts and agreements predating the current administration.

“No individual or camp has received unilateral increases without contractual basis or due process. Allegations of 500% increases are unsubstantiated and designed to stoke division among beneficiaries,” it added.

“The current administration has maintained a policy of transparency in engagement with leaders and has expanded inclusion by verifying and capturing previously omitted beneficiaries where due“, IPDI added.

The group further said, “The PAP remains a neutral, peace-building institution established under the 2009 Amnesty Declaration. Its mandate is to coordinate disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration. The Office does not engage in political victimization, intimidation, or exclusion of stakeholders. Engagement with ex-agitator leaders and community structures is conducted based on their role in maintaining peace and facilitating reintegration, not political alignment”.

“The PAP under Chief Denis Otuaro’s leadership remains committed to transparency, fairness, and the original mandate of the Amnesty Programme. Constructive criticism is welcome and has informed policy adjustments in the past. However, campaigns of calumny, unverified allegations, and attempts to drag the Programme into commercial or political disputes do not serve the interest of peace in the Niger Delta”, IPDI said.

“We urge all stakeholders to channel grievances through the established engagement channels of the Programme and to avoid statements that threaten the fragile stability we have worked to sustain”.

Consequently, the IPDI urges members of the public to disregard what its described as “flimsy and unsubstantiated allegations, misconception, and missives by faceless groups above“.

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[OPINION] Olukoyede’s EFCC: Taming The ‘Fantastically-Corrupt’

Published

19 hours ago

May 17, 2026

Editor

Since its creation 23 years ago, by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, as president of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous and influential country, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), had apparently not gotten a head, who had piloted the affairs of the commission, like Mr. Olanipekun Olukoyede, its Executive Chairman, a chief-operations-officer of the Commission.

It could be said that Olukoyede, the Czar thief catcher and arrestor of economic saboteurs, has given the EFCC’s enemies such a tough time as he has taking the anti-graft fight to the doorsteps of the high-profile individuals across the country. These range from former state governors, serving and former ministers, retired and serving civil servants, businessmen, clergies, traditional rulers, cyber-influencer, entertainers, professionals and numerous others.

Olukoyede brings years of experience in law, fraud management, and business intelligence to bear on the position. Before him, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu was EFCC’s inaugural chair; succeeded by the first and only female, Mrs. Farida Waziri; Ibrahim Lamorde, Ibrahim Magu, and Abdul Rasheed Bawa.

The anti-graft agency has its hands full with massive financial fraud and money laundering cases. In the clause of “physicians, look at thyself”, EFCC in its resolve is known to have been flushing out officers within the body, who run foul to the law.

In the past, before Olukoyede’s appointment, it was widely believed that it was only the “fries and not the big fishes”, who the Commission could summon the courage to prosecute; and that most culprits were also left from the hook, because of compromise by some corrupt officers of the Commission, and feeble litigation processes.

Mr. Godwin Emefiele, former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), happened to have opened to Olukoyede’s a deluge of “big-men and women”, who have been arrested, investigated and cooling their feet in detention or those bailed, that are facing severe court trials. There is the biggest 19-count charge at the Ikeja Special Offences Court, involving an alleged $4.5 billion fraud.
Immediate-paste governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, faces two massive, but separate legal battles totalling over N190 billion on fraud allegation. EFCC secured from the Court of Appeal, forfeiture of 14 properties and huge money linked to him.

Abubakar Malami (former Attorney-General of the Federation), with his son, Abdulaziz and his wife, is currently charged on a-16-count of money laundering. The court has stayed interim forfeiture of 57 properties valued at over N213 billion.

EFCC had also secured the arrest of Sadiya Umar-Farouq, a female former Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, and a former Permanent Secretary, through a Federal High Court, on a 21-point alleged fraud and corruption charge, involving $1.3 million and N746.6m and others amounting to 37.1 billion.

Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, also female and former Minister of Women Affairs, was removed from office by President Bola Tinubu, over alleged misappropriation and diversion of N138.4 million, and had been under EFCC questioning.

A recent discovery, which startled Nigerians and the world, the Commission (EFCC) had reportedly arrested a serving Director-General of the Energy Commission of Nigeria, Dr. Mustapha Abdullahi, over alleged money laundering involving about ₦500 billion.

Somewhat, this had deflated the claim that those arrested and persecuted are political opponents and not serving officers of the Tinubu’s government.

EFCC is a “Nigerian law enforcement and anti-graft agency that investigates financial crimes, such as advance fee fraud (419 Fraud) and money laundering. It was also set up to fight against corruption and to protect the country from economic saboteurs”.

The Commission, whilst responding to pressures from the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), that named Nigeria as one of 23 countries not cooperating in the international community’s efforts to fight money laundering, had revved in performance, in a bid to roll back the blights.

And so, it is a strenuous goal for EFCC, as entrenched in the ‘EFCC Establishment Act 2004’, which gives it specialist jurisdiction against severe financial and commercial crime – covering multiple high and lower levels.

Born on 14 October 1969, Olukoyede, a civil servant, has had a clear break from past, where past executive chairmen of the Commission had left the Commission, where all serving officers were drafted from the Nigerian Police Force (NPF). However, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is widely commended for Olukoyede’s appointment to the position, with the Senate also eulogized for screening him.

Whilst briefing the Press in Abuja, on his two-year activities in office, on October 23, 2025, the Commission’s boss certainly made unprecedented progress in the fight against economic and financial crimes. He spoke through the Director of Public Affairs of the Commission, Wilson Uwujaren, as he listed the recovery of N566 billion, alongside other currencies and assets, among the achievements of the Commission.

He further revealed that the Commission received over 19,000 petitions, conducted 29,240 investigations, filed 10,525 cases in court, and secured 7,503 convictions.

Olukoyede asserted that the Commission recovered ₦566,319,820,343.40, $411,566,192.32, £71,306.25, €182,877.10, and other foreign currencies from proceeds of financial and economic crimes. Added to this was the recovery of 1,502 non-monetary assets, comprising 402 properties in 2023, 975 in 2024, and 125 so far in 2025.

“Among these recovered assets are two notable landmarks: the final forfeiture of 753 units of duplexes in Lokogoma, Abuja, and the forfeiture of Nok University, now the Federal University of Applied Sciences, Kachia, Kaduna State,” he said.

He listed several high-profile cases prosecuted within the period, including those involving former governors Willie Obiano, Abdulfatah Ahmed, Darius Ishaku, Theodore Orji, and Yahaya Bello. Others are former ministers Olu Agunloye, Mamman Saleh, Hadi Sirika, Charles Ugwu, and former Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele.

EFCC was also said to have reentered and invigorated some longstanding fraud cases, such as ones linking Fred Ajudua, former People Democratic Party, PDP National Chairman Haliru Bello Mohammed, ex-National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki, and former Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund, NSITF boss, Ngozi Olojeme.

The EFCC said it arrested 792 suspects involved in asset and cryptocurrency frauds in Lagos, among who were 192 foreigners who were prosecuted and deported.

A Task Force on Naira Abuse and Dollarisation of the Economy was established by EFCC, which accordingly, had notable impacts in sanitizing money actions countrywide. “The campaign against naira abuse, racketeering, and speculative currency trading has helped reduce pressure on the naira and complemented the Central Bank’s efforts in stabilizing the economy,” he said.

Olukoyede also spoke on the Commission’s strengthened partnerships with foreign law enforcement agencies, including the Korean Police, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Spanish Police, and German Police.

He also mention benefitting synergy with the FBI, the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), INTERPOL, and Japan’s JICA, in subsequent joint investigations and the repatriation of stolen assets to victims from Spain, Canada, and the United States.

Strengthening EFFC’s mandate at the regional level, and in Africa, Olukoyede and the Commission are said to be up and doing. For instance, a thing that had never happened to EFFC, he had been twice elected as President of the Network of National Anti-Corruption Institutions in West Africa (NACIWA), which led to the founding of a permanent secretariat in Abuja.

A strong media presence is needed to successfully inform the public of the ideals of EFCC and its update activities. And so, ‘EFCC Radio 97.3FM’, Nigeria’s first anti-corruption radio station, was established Olukoyede. EFCC should count itself very lucky for having in its fold, tested, diligent and veteran journalists who are ostensibly seasoned in the ideals and watchdog principles of the Commission.

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APC Primaries: Johnny Rallies Support For Senator Thomas’ Re-election Bid

Published

20 hours ago

May 17, 2026

Editor

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress in Delta State, Chief Michael Johnny, has called on Delta South Senatorial District’s party faithful to come out in large tomorrow and vote for Senator Joel-Onowakpo Thomas (JOT) in the party senatorial primary election.

Johnny, widely regarded as a leader par excellence within the APC, described the primary election as a critical moment that will determine the political stability, unity, and future direction of Delta South.

According to him, Delta South needs a detribalized leader with the capacity to unite people beyond ethnic sentiments and political divisions.

He warned against leaders whose style of politics promotes ethnic division and unnecessary tension within the region.

Chief Johnny stated that Senator Thomas has continued to distinguish himself as a leader who carries everyone along, irrespective of tribe, political background, or local government affiliation.

He noted that JOT’s leadership style has strengthened cooperation, peace, fairness, and political inclusion across Delta South.

Speaking further, Chief Johnny declared that the Ijaw people have resolved to stand firmly behind Thomas because fairness, justice, and political balance must prevail in Delta South.

“As Ijaw people, we have decided to support Senator Joel because this is the turn of the Isoko nation, and Ijaw stands for truth. That is our position,” he stated.

He also appreciated what he described as “genuine Itsekiri sons and daughters” who believe in fairness, equity, and peaceful coexistence, adding that Delta South can only move forward when the various ethnic nationalities work together in unity and mutual respect.

Chief Johnny maintained that the senatorial district must not be dragged backward by divisive politics or ethnic interests capable of weakening the collective strength of the region.

He stressed that all APC members in Delta South must remain united in their support for Senator Joel-Onowakpo Thomas.

“Delta South is bigger than personal interests. This election is about unity, stability, fairness, and the future of our people. Senator JOT represents continuity, experience, and inclusive leadership for all ethnic groups in Delta South,” Chief Johnny added.