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OPINION: Crowns Of Crime And Shame

By Suyi Ayodele
When a man says, ‘Here is where my friend was disgraced yesterday,’ our elders ask us to remind him that the disgrace has become a communal one. No sensible man derives joy from the shameful conduct of his kinsman. Does that philosophy still hold water in Yorubaland today?
A big Yoruba king was jailed in the faraway United States of America last week. He was arraigned, tried and found guilty of blood profiteering. The Apetu of Ipetumodu, Osun State, Oba Joseph Oloyede, was sentenced to four-and-a-half-year imprisonment by Justice Christopher Boyko of the North District of Ohio, US, for stealing COVID-19 relief funds running into millions of dollars.
Oba Oloyede was portrayed as a blood-sucking demon who took delight in the blood of the victims of the pandemic, COVID-19. He stole $4.2 million meant for the relief programme for the victims. In addition to the jail term, the monarch will also refund the sum of $4,408,543.38 to the US Government.
He will add his home on Foote Road, Medina, Ohio, to the restitution. Oba Oloyede’s bank account with a balance of $96,006.89 will be taken over by the government. The troubled monarch is not entitled to a Cent of the money in the account. The court said the money therein was the proceeds of fraud! That is not the end of his troubles.
When eventually released, the jailed Ipetumodu monarch will be on the watch-list for three good years. The devil helps him if he misbehaves during his suspended release. He goes back to jail, summarily!
The saddest aspect of the tragedy is that while the trial lasted, Oba Oloyede did not put up any defence, no alibi. He admitted committing the crime. When the charges were read to him, Oba Oloyede simply pleaded guilty to the crimes he committed between April 2020 and February 2022. Kabiyesi was arrested on May 4, 2024, when he travelled to the US. He was sentenced on August 26, 2025!
This is a sad development for the entire Yoruba Race. It is a sad development that we would not want to tell our children. But not the Yoruba of our time. If we were to be the true products of the Omoluabi ethos handed over to us by our forebears, Yorubaland would have been in mourning over the Apetumodu shameful outing in the US. But what do we have now?
Instead of showing remorse, the elders and elites of the land are busy exchanging words over inanities. Hot exchanges are being traded over unimportant matters. Words that, like the proverbial egg which breaks when thrown on the floor, have been uttered. When the storm calms, the scars will be visible for us to see. Outsiders alike will also see the relics of this current useless war over a non-issue. We left leprosy to treat ringworms!
We are in ruins in this land. The entire Yoruba race is dancing naked in the market square. Those who have no ancestry have come to the open to deride a race that is acknowledged worldwide as the most civilised and most cosmopolitan. The entire Kaaro Oojire is in shambles, dressed in garments of shame because our monarchs are behaving badly!
I sighed in sadness after reading the Apetumodu’s ordeals, I tried to reflect on how Yorubaland arrived at this turning point. Whom did we offend? Has what happened to the children of Oduduwa had anything to do with the curse placed on the race by Alaafin Aole Arogangan? Why are most Yoruba thrones occupied by the dregs of humanity nowadays? Why do we have charlatans and other undesirable elements occupying Yoruba palaces? At the point of my confusion, history beckoned. Yoruba thrones and nitwits, history says, predates this era. How?
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Years ago, when the ant could carry the tortoise on its head, a rich man died. Though the man had two sons, he bequeathed his estate to the extended family members. He left nothing for his sons! Nobody knew why he did that. But the two boys were not stupid. They knew where their father kept his most valuable possession, a giant box of precious stones. The boys, at the cover of the night, stole the box. When the time came for the family to share the rich man’s estate, the box was discovered missing.
From time to time, the boys were selling the gold and other precious stones in the box. They had a mutual understanding until one day, the older boy got greedy. He wondered why his younger one would share the proceeds of their heist with him equally. He decided to have the entire stuff to himself. The older brother stole the remaining items and told his younger one that they had been robbed of them.
Stealing the king’s flute is not the problem; where to blow it is the issue. The younger brother, suspecting that his older brother was up to something, decided to keep him under close monitoring. With no moment of respite, the older brother used the only available opportunity he had to be alone and carried the box to the palace for their king to keep for him.
Our elders say the third generation of greed will be a burglar (ipele keta okanjuwa, ile lo unko). The king saw the gold and decided to keep it to himself. He called his sorcerer and got the deadliest poison from him. He planned to kill the one who asked him to keep the precious stones. While at it, an incident occurred that required the attention of the king’s diviner.
The diviner, Àsèsèdà Ifá (The one who is new at divination), cast his Opele. But rather than address the issue that brought him to the palace, he told the king that he (the king) was about to do something that would bring eternal shame to him and the throne. He asked the king not to mix gold with poison because the hereafter would spell doom for the king’s lineage. The Oracle, Àsèsèdà Ifá said, directed that the king should return what was kept in his custody to the owner.
Àsèsèdà Ifá was still on the divination mat when a commotion was heard within the palace precincts. Who had the audacity to fight before Kabiyesi? The parties were brought before the king, and lo, they were the two brothers. The younger one, who suspected that the older brother wanted to cheat him, resorted to violence. When the combatants became inseparable, their family members dragged them before the king.
The king asked what the matter was. The two brothers reported how they stole the box containing their father’s precious stones and how they sold some of the items, and the remaining items went missing. Everyone present was shocked that the boys could steal what their father gave to the entire extended family. But the king had a better understanding of what happened.
The king sent for the box he kept in his room. When brought, he removed the poison on top and emptied the contents on the floor. There were the missing pieces of gold. The king went ahead to share the items between the two brothers and ordered that all the other property the family had taken over be returned to the boys.
Diviners of old who narrated this story said it is from Ifa Corpus (Odu Ifa) known as Ogunda Ofun, named after the king (Ogunda), who wanted to appropriate what Ofun (name of the older brother) kept in his care. To date, in Yorubaland, one of the divinations done for a would-be oba is Ogunda Ofun with the admonition that he, the would-be oba, must never covet that which belongs to another man- Ogunda Ofun, ogbe mohun folohun (Ogunda Ofun, let the king return that which belongs to another to the owner). Did the Ipetumodu people take Oba Oloyede through this Ifa divination?
Yet another story to buttress that Yoruba thrones have been under siege for a long time.
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A group of alájàpá (itinerant traders) market women set out early in the morning. The destination was Ibadan, Gbagi Market to be precise. They were cramped at the back of the Bedford vehicle, sitting on the wooden benches that were rammed to the floor, and holding on to the wooden body of the vehicle for stability.
Their monies were tied around their waists inside their yèrì and òpóò (long cloth purses). Those purses would not be untied until they got to Gbagi Market, where they would buy the wares they traded in.
The Bedford vehicle, on top speed, suddenly ran into a pothole. The passengers were thrown at one another, knocking heads. The vehicle came to a sudden halt. The driver cursed! He was familiar with the road. It had no pothole on that spot. He could swear to that; the driver knew where the potholes were. And those were not as deep as the one that halted the vehicle.
His instincts instantly came alive. Danger! This must be the handiwork of some adigunjalè (armed robbers), he muttered to himself. But nobody emerged from the bush to attack them. Shocked! What could have happened then? He asked no one in particular.
A woman asked what happened. The driver remained silent. He manoeuvred the vehicle out of the pothole. He dared not check if he had lost a tyre. Experience taught him never to do that on that spot. Yes, he must move a distance before he can check the state of the vehicle. Then he remembered. The pothole could have been dug to slow the vehicle down. “Òràn dé” (danger looms), he whispered loudly. The tension in the vehicle became intense.
He steadied the vehicle back on the road. Moved a distance, engaged the gear for acceleration. His headlamp picked up the objects ahead. Logs of wood, they were. Someone had barricaded the road. Nobody needed anyone to say who did that. Armed robbers were at work!
The driver applied the brake and jumped off before the vehicle came to a complete halt. His motor boy did the same. The duo dashed into the bush. Only the women were trapped. It was a case of olórí d’orí è mú (everyone for himself).
Running was useless for the women. Before the first of them could jump out of the vehicle, the armed robbers were already on them. They were ordered out of the vehicle. One after the other, their attackers dispossessed them of their money. Then the unthinkable happened.
One of the women recognised a figure among the armed robbers. She could not be mistaken. It was a figure she would identify among a million men! Sure of her vision, the woman saluted: “Alayé (owner of the world), Kábíyèsí (he who no one can question) Àdìmúlà” (the one you hold to survive).
Two other women turned to look at the man. They recognised him to be the Kábíyèsí (king) of one of the biggest towns in that axis. Ah! What was Orí Adé (the head that wears the crown) doing among armed robbers? They wondered as they made to pay obeisance as tradition demands. What they got shocked them.
Kábíyèsí raised his cutlass and dealt the first matchet blow on the head of the first woman who identified him. A chilling cry, and she went down. Alayé moved to hit the next woman. She ducked, but not before she got a bow to her arm. The other women took to flight. The party scattered. Àdìmúlà and his gang also took off. They did not forget their loot, anyway!
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The next vehicle carrying another set of traders came to the scene. The driver and the passengers began a rescue operation. The first woman was stone dead. They simply packed her corpse by the roadside; attention focused on the wounded but living. Those who ran away were attracted by the accompanying wailing and came out of hiding.
The day broke with the news of the armed robbery incident. The two women who identified kábíyèsí could only tell their husbands. They were sternly cautioned not to tell any other person. Their husbands then volunteered the information to the elders of the town, who, in turn, also maintained the oath of secrecy.
Later in the day, Kábíyèsí summoned a meeting of his chiefs. He called neighbouring kings too. A company of the esoteric was dispatched to the robbery incident to go and do what tradition stipulates. Curses were laid, and the gods of the land were asked to avenge the sacrilege instantly. Then everyone went home. Did the curses work?
Yes, they did. Days later, it was discovered that all the trees around the spot withered; they all shed their leaves in the rainy season! What happened? It was gathered that after the esoteric team had performed their rites and left, Kábíyèsí led another team of traditional experts to the spot. Being the king, nobody could question him for the second traditional journey. He was not just Kábíyèsí for fun.
According to the story, on the second trip, kábíyèsí asked that a pig (elédè) be sacrificed. He alone did the ìwúre (royal pronouncement) on that occasion. He simply told the party that he wanted to commune with his ancestors in silence. They responded: Kábíyèsí! Nobody heard what he said. They only noticed that his lips moved. The pig was slaughtered, its blood sprinkled on both sides of the road, and the party headed home. End of ritual! The result was the withering of the trees.
Any adult from Ayebode Ekiti up to the then Arigidi Ekiti (now Ayedogbon Ekiti) in the mid-70s would remember this ugly incident. The Ekiti-ethno-music icon, the late Elemure Ogunyemi, later in one of his albums, alluded to the incident when he sang: Ha ti m’òrí elédè rúbo (we have sacrificed the head of a pig)/ùgbàyí á dèrò kooko (this season will be peaceful).
But that incident did not go without repercussions for the erring Kábíyèsí. Conscious of the shame that an open reprimand would bring to the town, the elders came together and confronted their king. Of course, when in ìgbàlè (traditional coven) with the elders, Àdìmúlà owned up to the crime.
The elders did what they needed to do and sealed it with a traditional pronouncement. No blood descendant of the kábíyèsí would ever ascend the throne again! They sealed that with Olugbohun. Whoever attempted it would pay with his entire sires. Kábíyèsí was asked to pass the message to his children for onward transmission to the generations to come. He also paid a heavy fine couched as etutu (appeasement items).
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Àdìmúlà thereafter lived and died at an old age. His remaining days on the throne witnessed a lot of crises, though. Other members of his gang died miserable deaths. Another kábíyèsí is on the throne in that town. The people await whether that secret seal will be broken! This story was told in hushed tones, as I tell you today!
Before the above ugly incident, another Yoruba king was once executed for murder. The king was hanged in 1949. He was said to have used a 15-month-old baby girl, Adediwura, for rituals.
The trial of the oba was a huge sensation. The advocacy in the court was the best anyone could imagine. But that could not save him and his accomplices. The trio were executed by hanging. What did the people, his subjects, do to the family of the executed king? Would they ever allow any of his offspring to ascend the throne of the rocky town? But more importantly, what was the Ifa prediction before the oba was enthroned?
This is where we are missing it in Yorubaland. A lot of misfits are today wearing crowns in the land because they were chosen by other external forces apart from Ifa. The modern-day civilisation has robbed us of our heritage. No would-be oba who spent an average of three weeks in Ipebi (seclusion) would misbehave on the throne.
But that is no more. A would-be oba was once asked to go into seclusion for seven days. He got to the door of Ipebi and put one of his legs inside seven times. He told the people that each step into the Ipebi represented a day. Guess what? He was still crowned king. It happened because the influential members of the community were behind him; he was their candidate! With good money and connections in high places, anyone can become an oba today. Ifa, Yoruba religion, has been shifted and shoved to the background.
Today’s Yoruba foremost kings are at loggerheads. Others are queuing behind them, forming camps. While the fire rages, the farmlands their ancestors left for them are in ruins. The subjects Edumare put under their care are daily killed, kidnapped, maimed and rendered homeless! Obas are going to jail, some fight in public, and many are facing trial for rape and other misdemeanours.
The Daily Mail of UK on May 19, 2024, ran a story about another king who was “twice deported from America with a lengthy criminal record and a distinct murky past. The paper described the oba as “a conman”, stating that he tried to “cash stolen £247k cheque.” Interestingly, the king has not contested the report as he pontificates on virtually every issue of Yoruba ancestry! The circle of shame has gone round!
Ascending the thrones of Oduduwa is no child’s play. It comes with responsibilities; it comes with self-worth and dignity. If we cannot question these kings’ misbehaving because they are kábíyèsí, they should know that Alálé (progenitors) will ask them; Èsìdá (owners of the land) will judge them on our behalf. Enough should be enough. Our Yoruba obas should allow us to walk the streets with our heads raised. Ìtìjú yi ti ún pò jù (This shame is becoming too much)!
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Otuaro Thanks Tinubu As PAP Deploys 161 For Foreign Post-graduate Scholarship

•••Urges Niger Deltans to Support President’s 2027 Reelection Bid
The Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Dr Dennis Otuaro, has expressed deep appreciation to President Bola Tinubu for strongly supporting the agency’s recent deployment of its foreign post-graduate scholarship beneficiaries.
This was contained in a statement issued on Tuesday by Mr Igoniko Oduma,
Special Assistant on Media to the PAP administration.
Otuaro said the PAP had, as at the last count, sent 161 post-graduate scholarship beneficiaries to universities in the U.K. for the 2025/2026 academic year.
He also expressed gratitude to the National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, for his invaluable input and guidance in the exercise.
READ ALSO: PAP Seeks NCC Partnership On Beneficiaries’ Empowerment
He attributed the huge number of beneficiaries so far deployed abroad for studies in various industry-relevant programmes to the backing and generosity of the President.
He urged stakeholders of the Niger Delta to stand with President Tinubu and support his reelection bid in 2027.
Otuaro stressed that the president has demonstrated good intentions for the region and deserved reciprocal action in 2027.
Recall that the PAP office had penultimate week organised pre-departure briefing for two batches of the beneficiaries on the foreign post-graduate sponsorship in Abuja.
Otuaro noted that the PAP’s “decision for the massive deployment aligns with Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda and his genuine love for the people of the Niger Delta.”
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He said the President was aware of the region’s challenge of human capacity development gap and the need to close it, empower the people, and galvanize socio-economic growth and development in the area.
According to him, the region’s human capital development gap can be increasingly closed if the huge deployment of scholarship beneficiaries within and outside the country is sustained.
Otuaro further said, “I am eternally grateful to His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR, for graciously supporting the Presidential Amnesty Programme as we deploy foreign scholarship beneficiaries for the academic session.
“But for the President’s magnanimity, it would not have been possible for us to send 161 beneficiaries to universities in the U.K. The number is huge and it aligns with His Excellency’s Renewed Hope Agenda and reflects his undying love for the Niger Delta.
READ ALSO: Otuaro Lauds Tinubu For Backing PAP’s Peacebuilding Process In Niger Delta
“I am equally immensely thankful to the National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, for his usual incredible guidance and supervision, which helps us a great deal.
“I am highly encouraged by the President’s backing of our formal education and vocational training initiatives, and his strong desire for the socio-economic growth and development of our region.
“I believe that if we sustain the high number of scholarship deployments within and outside the country, the issue of human capacity development gap in our region will be decisively tackled.”
The PAP’s helmsman restated his call on all scholarship beneficiaries to make good use of the opportunity, complete their programmes successfully, and return home to add value to the development of the region and indeed the country.
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OPINION: Befriending Bandits

By Suyi Ayodele
The photograph is graphic. The message is obvious. The semiotics are unmistaken. A bandit in military fatigue sits comfortably. On his lap is an AK-47 assault rifle. Around his neck are various communication gadgets. His look betrays his hubris. He is a man of power! His confidence shows who is in charge. It is audacity in its illiterate form!
Another man in a native attire bends towards the bandit. He smiles sheepishly. He holds a handset, in a very suggestive manner. The caption tells the entire story: “Nigerian Government Official ‘Exchange Contact’ with Bandits After a ‘Peace Deal’ Meeting in Subuwa LGA in Katsina State.”
When the junior rival wife to one’s mother is older and more powerful, one is advised to call her mother (tí orogún ìyá eni bá ju ìyá eni lo, ìyá làá pèé). This ancient wisdom is to ensure a peaceful coexistence within the family. And the peace here goes beyond the idea of a crisis-free environment; it is a comprehensive one that ensures that one lives and is alive, too!
Nigerians, especially our brothers and sisters up North, are tapping into this wisdom. They need to live and be alive simultaneously. They recognise those who have the capacity to cut short their lives. Then they took the most reasonable steps towards survival. Nigerians now go cap in hand begging the new ‘givers-of-life’ in town. We now appease bandits, terrorists and other felons who hold the power to kill and make alive! What impudence!
Our elders say once you recognise the one that will not allow you to eat and be filled, it is better you add his portion while preparing the food. That is what is happening in the various ‘peace deals’ being sealed with bandits in the North. The peasants of the region have recognised that the State is incapacitated.
They have come to the bitter reality that the Nigerian nation lacks the capacity or the willpower to protect them from bandits and terrorists. They have elected to take their collective destiny in their own hands. The new normal is negotiation. This is because the State is completely absent with the terrible leadership truancy syndrome afflicting us!
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It is happening in the North today. The rest of us read about it and shake our heads in incredulity. Many of us feel that it is their problem over there. We feel that the North should find enough bananas for its troublesome monkeys. Majority believe that the problem of banditry is self-inflicted and those in the affected region should carry their burden. But I think otherwise.
I hope nobody, by any stretch of the imagination, thinks that the madness will not go round. Very soon, and this is not being pessimistic, what our northern kith and kins are experiencing at the hands of bandits will be replicated down South and in every part of the nation. The ill wind will soon blow in every part of Nigeria. It is just a matter of time. When those bandits have no more people to kill or maim up North, they will look down South! That is if they are not already in our midst, down here!
Those who feel secure today will have to negotiate with bandits very soon. Kwara State is almost doing that. The bandits operating in the Kwara South Senatorial District have just two more local governments, Offa and Oyun, to overrun, and they will be in Osun State! Ekiti, Ifin, Oke Ero, Ifelodun and Irepodun Local Government Areas of Kwara are already under the control of bandits.
While penning this piece, information filtered in that a prominent member of Sagbe town in Ifelodun Local Government Area was kidnapped! Offa and Oyun, my contact said, “are relatively peaceful for now!” Once they break through those two “relatively peaceful” council areas, Osun State will be next. Osun will affect Ekiti State, which shares boundaries with Ondo, Kogi and Kwara States. All of us will chop breakfast
Even the biblical blind Bartimaeus can see clearly that Nigeria is already a failed State! The government and its apologists can deny it as many times as they want. The reality is too obvious; only the locusts in power cannot feel it. And we won’t blame them. Those in power don’t feel what the ordinary man on the street goes through. That itself is one of the indicators of a failed nation; a situation where the leaders are detached from the led. When you see a country where leaders travel around in armoured cars and the masses are left at the mercy of felons who are constantly on the prowl, look no further for a failed State!
If Nigeria were not a failed nation, how come ‘government officials’ sit on the negotiation table with bandits? What do we call a situation where a supposed government functionary, elected or selected to protect the people, is the one grovelling to have the contact of a bandit who is armed to the teeth to a ‘peace deal meeting’? Where in the sane world would bandits armed with Rocket-Propelled Grenades (RPGs), General Machine Guns (GMGs), and AK-47 rifles, be allowed to walk in and out of a ‘peace meeting’ leisurely? After the ‘peace accord’, where do the bandits retire to? Yet, they say Nigeria is working!
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Residents of Matazu Local Government Area, where the ‘peace deal meeting’ took place in Katsina State, expressed shock at the audacity of the bandits to display all those sophisticated weapons without any consequence! One of the residents who witnessed the peace accord was quoted to have quipped: “You came to a peace talk with AK-47 rifles, RPGs, and GMGs, and you return to the bush with the same weapons. How can this be called a peace deal?” That is the type of ‘peace deal’ you get when there is total leadership failure. Imagine that ‘security’ was also provided at the venue!
The attendance of the bandits taken at the Katsina State ‘peace deal’ listed Idi Muwage, Alhaji Kabiru, Kachalla Rusku, Kachalla Murtala, Kachalla Mai Saje, Kachalla Dawa, Ardo Abdulsalam Fatika, and Alhaji Labi as leaders who represented their various bandit groups! These are known figures in the killing and maiming of thousands of innocent Nigerians in the state!
In all, a total of nine LGAs: Sabuwa, Dandume, Batsari, Kankara, Kurfi, Musawa, Danmusa, Jibia, and Faskari in Katsina State had at various times entered ‘peace deals’ with bandits, where “it was agreed that there should be a ceasefire, with the bandits agreeing to stop attacking or harming the local communities.
The report of the ‘peace deal’ stated that: “It was also agreed that there should be free movement, with the bandits allowed to enter towns or communities for trade and commerce without being harmed by the local communities. Another issue agreed upon at the meeting is the release of abducted victims by the bandits, while the bandits, on their part, requested the government to release their captured members. Furthermore, it was agreed that both bandits and community members would work towards maintaining peace and stability in the region.” To cap it all, the bandits were “assured of their safety and welcomed them to continue their business activities in the local markets!”
Katsina State is not the only state in the North negotiating with bandits. Kaduna State, for instance, was said to have negotiated with the bandits operating along the Birnin Gwari axis of the state so that the people in the area could go back to their farms. In the entire seven states of the North-West geo-political zone, only Zamfara and Kebbi States were said to have insisted that they would not strike any deal with the bandits.
The North-East and the North-Central zones are not faring better. And gradually, the malady is approaching the southern part of the country. While the late governor of Ondo State, Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), mobilised the states in the South-West to form the Western Nigeria Security Network (WNSN), otherwise known as Amotekun, to combat the menace of bandits and killer herdsmen in the region, the novel security outfit appears dead with the demise of Akeredolu.
Safe for Oyo and Osun States where Governors Seyi Makinde and Ademola Adeleke, respectively, significantly hold the Amotekun banner flying, the outfit is moribund in the other states of the zone. Interestingly, Lagos State, the home state of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, never for one day lifted any finger to support the creation of the security outfit in the first instance. Lagos is aloof from Amotekun because the security outfit does not sit well with the sole proprietor of the state!
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That itself speaks volumes of why the Federal Government under the leadership of President Tinubu is flat-footed in the fight against banditry and terrorism. The government can only deceive itself into thinking it is winning the war. Those who are directly at the receiving end of the security crisis are already in talks with the bandits and the terrorists. We are already befriending bandits!
This is Nigeria of this era. A government that places politics far above the wellbeing of the people cannot but be lethargic in situations where decisive actions are needed! The only reason why bandits would come for a ‘peace deal’ armed and suffer no consequences is politics. The only reason why Sheikh Ahmad Gumi would openly ask for amnesty for bandits, and nobody would bring him in for questioning is the same compromised politics of appeasement!
How on earth, Gumi, with all his acclaimed education, could not differentiate between the militants of the Niger Delta and the compulsive killers called bandits of the North beats one’s imagination. The Niger Delta militants, though condemnable in their approach, had a clear agitation. They took up arms against the State because of the environmental degradation of the region which is the nation’s hen that lays the golden eggs. They were angry because even though the Niger Delta produces the wealth of the nation, the region has nothing to show for it.
Again, those Niger Delta militants did not target individuals. They went after State wealth like oil installations and blew them up. If there were human casualties, they were insignificant, very punny and largely inconsequential. But what do we have in the North with the bandits? Can Gumi explain to us what the agitations by his bandit friends are? What are they fighting for? What exactly do they want? What is the essence of wiping out a whole village? What are the unmet demands of the bandits that necessitated them killing villagers in their sleep!?
And if we may ask, why is Gumi concerned about the welfare of the bandits, and he is not bothered about the calamities suffered by the victims of the bandits’ operations in the North? Can he, in his sober moment, imagine the number of orphans, widows and widowers that the bandits he loves to protect so much and defend have donated to the North? Where in the Holy Quran is it written that one must kill others for a living?
Has Gumi, in his erudition, ever come across the works of great Islamic scholars such as Muhammad Ali (December 1874- October 13, 1951), Maulana Sadr-ud-Din, Basharat Ahmad (1876-1943) and the British Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner (October 14, 1840-March 22, 1899)? Is he familiar with their incontrovertible position that “the Quran forbids initial aggression, and allows fighting only in self-defence?”
For as long as Nigeria continues to tolerate curmudgeonly figures like Ahmad Gumi to dictate the pace without commensurable consequences, bandits and other felons would continue to hold the tilt of the sword while the masses would be at the receiving end. The danger here is that when the killers of the common men have no more common man to kill, they will turn to the protected elite! That is how nature balances societal equations.
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Court Bars CCETC From Entering Ossiomo Land, Using Its Property

An Edo State High Court in Benin has restrained Jiangsu Communication Clean Energy Technology Company Limited (CCETC) from entering the land of Ossiomo Power and Infrastructure Company
Limited pending the hearing and determination of motion of notice.
Hon. Justice Mary Itsueli—vacation judge, gave the restraining order in an ex-perte motion filed before the Honourable Court by Emmanuel Usoh, counsel to Ossiomo Power and Infrastructure Company
Limited.
In the suit marked: B/242/2025, Ossiomo Investment Limited, Ossiomo Power and Infrastructure Company
Limited, Ossiomo Offsites and Utility Limited, Quadrant Gas Development Company Limited are the claimants while Jiangsu Communication Clean Energy Technology Company Limited (CCETC) stands as defendant.
Usoh had, on behalf of Ossiomo Ossiomo Power and Infrastructure Company
Limited, approached the court, sought an interim injunction restraining CCETC from gaining access to the land or utilising any property belonging to the claimant.
READ ALSO:Ossiomo Restores Power To Customers After Barely Two Weeks Outage
Usoh sought an interim order restraining “the Defendant whether by itself, agents, representatives, Directors, staff, privies assigns, or anyone directly or otherwise and howsoever described from parading itself as a member or a shareholder of the 2nd Claimant or relying o using the Joint Venture Agreement pending the hearing and determination o the Motion on Notice.”
In the enrollment of order dated September 11, 2025, Justice Itsueli, said having “given a most careful consideration to the application, supporting affidavit and annexures, I am minded to grant the interim order of injunction.”
The vacation judge, therefore, ordered that, “The Defendant whether by itself, privies, assigns and anyone directly or otherwise and howsoever described are restrained from accessing, utilizing the infrastructure of the Claimants including the 33KVA lines, gas engines and gas infrastructure built by the Claimants to supply gas to the power plant and generate electricity supply whether by bulk sales or transmission to corporate entities or individuals in Edo State pending the hearing and determination of the Motion on Notice already filed.”
Hon. Itsueli also ordered “the Defendant whether by itself, agents, representatives, Directors, staff, privies, assigns, or anyone directly or otherwise and howsoever described are restrained from parading themselves member or shareholder of the 2nd Claimant or relying or using the Joint Venture Agreement pending the pending the hearing and determination of the Motion on Notice already filed.”
READ ALSO:Ossiomo, Chinese Impasse: This Is Our Story — Management
Recall that Ossiomo Power and Infrastructure Company
Limited and CCETC have been in ownership tussle which led to the power plant being shut down on September 1, 2025.
Speaking during a press briefing on the latest in the power tussle between Ossiomo and its investment partners, Usoh said, CCETC, having aware of the restraining order, had so far approached the arbitrary panel in Singapore.
He said: “CCETC, being aware of the restraining order, also immediately approached the arbitrary panel for arbitration in Singapore. The rationale behind this update is for the whole world to know that Singapore, being the seat of economics arbitration globally, is aware of the issues happening between Ossiomo and CCETC. We had the opportunity of seeing the copy of the arbitration, and we are replying accordingly.”
On Ossiomo and Edo State Government, Usoh disclosed: “Our relationship with the Edo State Government is what we call Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). Ossiomo develops power and sells to Edo State Government at market value. They are our landlord, we cannot owe grudge against the government. My appeal to the government is to do business with us so that everyone in Edo will benefit.”
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