News

OPINION: HID Awolowo And The Yoruba Woman

Published

3 months ago

September 15, 2025

By Lasisi Olagunju

I was an undergraduate in Ife on Friday, 23 January, 1987 when the statue of Oduduwa was commissioned at the Oduduwa Hall. Several of us, students, were at the venue not because a statue was to be inaugurated but because Chief Obafemi Awolowo would be there with his wife, Chief (Mrs) HID Awolowo. And they came in a blaze of glory; husband and wife locked in heavenly calmness. I should still have their photo of that occasion. The university orator, Dr Niyi Oladeji, who compered the event, described the couple as people who had been preeminent long before many in the gathering were born. He asked his audience to look at the statue and look at Awolowo. What he pointed at was an artistic representation of reincarnation. I looked at husband and wife; they exchanged glances and smiled. Less than four months after that event, Awo was gone, forever. By Friday this week (19th September, 2025), it will be ten long years since HID, the matriarch, transited to eternity. This piece celebrates her and her essence.

Chief (Mrs) HID Awolowo was Yeye Oba of Ile Ife; she moved up and became Yeye Oodua (mother of all children of Oduduwa). Yeye Oba, in some kingdoms, is called Iya Oba (the king’s official mother); but, Yeye Oodua is a custom-made title which HID pioneered and, since her exit ten years ago, no one has tried stepping into that shoe. The title talks to “the archetypal mother who guided the collective lived experience of the Yoruba nation,” to use Professor Jacob Oluponna’s description of Chief (Mrs) Awolowo. At a point in the 1980s, all obas and chiefs in Remoland sat and pronounced her as their Iyalode. I saw in David Hinderer’s ‘Seventeen Years in the Yoruba Country’ that Iyalode is the “Mother of the town.” In Samuel Johnson’s ‘The History of the Yorubas’, she is the “Queen of the ladies,” the “most distinguished lady in the town.”

Semonides of Amorgos was a Greek poet who lived during the 7th century BC. One of his poems is translated in literature as ‘Types of Women.’ From Mary R. Lefkowitz’s ‘Wives and Husbands’ (April 1983), I got what I wanted from that poem, a celebration of the best in womanhood: “Another is from a bee; the man who gets her is fortunate, for on her alone blame does not settle. She causes his property to grow and increase, and she grows old with a husband whom she loves and who loves her, the mother of a handsome and reputable family. She stands out among all women, and a godlike beauty plays about her…Women like her are the best and most sensible…”

A sole soul who defied all odds in her parents’ home, HID was an Idowu without Taiwo and Kehinde. The twins left as soon as they came; same with all others from her mum – before and after her. Survivors are confirmed record breakers. What does it mean to be a record breaker? HID told an interviewer: “You see, I am the only surviving child of my mother, and my mother on her part was the only surviving child of her mother. Incidentally again, my grandmother was the only surviving child of her mother; so that all along in my lineage, it’s been only one child down the line up to me.” She survived and proved wrong those who held that one child was “simply not a family.” She used her life to show the world that one lone one can, ultimately, be abundance.

Some 98 years ago (1927), two American psychologists, Florence Goodenough and Alice Leahy, did a study of children who were their parent’s only child. They found them to be “more self-confident, more fond of physical demonstrations of affection, and more gregarious in their social interests.” In the book, ‘My Early Life’, Chief Awolowo said his wife “has courage of a rare kind.” And, to emphasise how sterner the stuff HID was made of, Awo compared the steely courage he was generally known to have with his wife’s and submitted that he was “no match for her at all in her exercise of infinite patience and forbearance under all manner of circumstances.” She was the quintessential Yoruba strong woman, every inch a leader.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: On El-Rufai, Aláròká And Terrorists

Professor J. K. Oluponna of Harvard Divinity School, in the Foreword to ‘In the Radiance of the Sage: The Life and Times of H.I.D. Awolowo’ authored by Professor Wale Adebanwi, gives a personal, graphic description of the hard stuff that was HID Awolowo. Oluponna wrote: “I first saw Chief (Mrs.) H.I.D. Awolowo in 1965 when I was fourteen years old. She was presiding over a political rally in Ile-Oluji, a town in Ondo State where I grew up. Her image is transfixed in my memory even now. A young woman of great conviction, she was holding a broom aloft, as one would wield a political symbol or a weapon. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, her husband, was noticeably absent from the rally, having been taken political prisoner. But she stood valiantly in his stead before the people, keeping the momentum of the party ablaze. Indeed, it was clear from the command in her voice that she handily took up the mantle of greatness so suddenly thrust upon her. Equal to the task of leadership, she assumed the pivotal role in those difficult years that later played so prominently in her husband’s political career.”

Oluponna describes her as “a symbol of honour for her generation.” He sees a “gorgeously attired…accomplished Yoruba woman in iro and buba, her signature ceremonial saki, the iborun, draped dramatically over one shoulder..” He could still hear her voice defiantly giving the other side a notice of defeat: “We shall use this broom I am holding to sweep away the dirt and filth that the opposition party has brought to this land.” Oluponna quotes her here as declaring “emphatically to the applause of her sympathetic audience.”

With two biographies and an autobiography, she is one of the most documented persons in Nigeria’s history.

There is her autobiography ‘A memoir of the Jewel’ published in 2003; before that one, there had been ‘The Jewel: The Biography of Chief (Mrs.) H.I.D. Awolowo’ written by Chief Tola Adeniyi. In preparation for her 100th birthday, the family commissioned a scholarly account of her life. It came out as ‘In the Radiance of the Sage: The Life and Times of H.I.D. Awolowo’ authored by Professor Wale Adebanwi. She left as the book was about to go into print. It was launched on 18th November, 2015 as part of her funeral rites. These texts are apart from her husband’s many books in which her story complements completely the author’s.

In November 2003, the Nigerian Tribune published what it headlined ‘Testimonies of the Sage’s Jewel’. It is HID’s story of survival in the face of near tragedies. The first was in the 1960s. She learnt her son, Segun, had passed his Cambridge University law exam and was overwhelmed with joy. She hired a flying boat from Lekki to take her across the waters for a quick dash to Ibadan “to send something important to him.”

They “were right in the middle of the sea when the engine of the boat ceased.” She panicked but prayed and “by some miracle of God,” she said she and the boat handler “finally made the shore.” The second was with her husband in a helicopter while on a political campaign to Okitipupa. “The helicopter was high in the air when we noticed that all the palm trees underneath the helicopter were on fire.” There was nowhere to land the chopper and time was running out for everyone. “As I wondered if this was going to be the end, by the special grace, the good Lord taught the pilot how to manoeuver the helicopter and somehow we landed at Okitipupa.” The third near escape was in a canoe during a campaign to Igbonla in present Ondo State. The canoe took in water and was about to sink. She said: “Papa asked the canoe handlers to divert to the nearest point at which we could disembark. With God’s grace, we docked somewhere and got another canoe to continue our journey to Igbonla.” The fourth was more scary. Five grandchildren who paid the family a visit were involved in a ghastly car crash on their way back to Lagos. “They were all in one car and Papa and I rode in another car that followed theirs. Suddenly, their car veered off the road into the bush, crashed into some obstacle and turned on its side. The windscreen and windows of the car were broken. I was dazed and afraid, gripped by panic. How do we explain five grandchildren in one car? How could we have put so many eggs in one basket? I was fearful and jittery but Papa tried to calm me down, assuring me that all would be well in the name of God. And, indeed, all was well. One by one, the children emerged from the crashed car. All five of them unhurt.” Testimonies of God’s mercy.

There is nothing you and I write about or on any subject in the Yoruba space that has not been written before. Writing about the Yoruba strong woman, I checked and saw LaRay Denzer’s ‘Yoruba Women: A Historiographical Study’ published in 1994. Before this one, there had been several studies and texts. But, for this paragraph and the next, I stick to Denzer and its content. It is there that I found the reinforcement I needed that Yoruba traditions record strong women playing central roles at crucial moments in the life of their society. They would not stop there; they would translate their influence into political power. In doing that, they founded dynasties and shaped kingdoms. The historian, Samuel Johnson, wrote that Oduduwa had two granddaughters whose descendants established the Owu and Ketu kingdoms. In Ondo, there are oral traditions which trace the kingdom’s origins to a woman of steel. In Ile-Ife, the spiritual nucleus of the Yoruba, two women served as Oonis. The first, Luwo, is remembered as a “strict disciplinarian” credited with constructing a network of roads around shrines and public buildings. She was later succeeded by another female Ooni, Bebooye. For details, Denzer asks us to read F.A. Fabunmi’s ‘Ife Shrines’, published in 1969.

Beyond king and kingship, the Yoruba woman has been a freedom fighter throughout history. Denzer writes that “In the late 1930s when John Blair, the district officer for Abeokuta, compiled the Intelligence Report for Abeokuta, he reported that the women told him that ‘in the old days they were concerned with war’ and kept their menfolk supplied with food, guns, and ammunition. Enlarging on this, they went on to boast that ‘A rich woman title-holder would do more than this. She would ensure that all the warriors of her township had the best guns that Lagos could produce and plenty of powder and shots, or even like (Efunroye) Tinubu, the whole army.’” Read Professor Oluponna again.

When HID was about to turn 80 in 1995, I was part of a three-man team put together by the Nigerian Tribune to make a special publication on her. In that publication was (is) a part written by me with me translating her middle name ‘Dideolu’ to mean “the arrival of the great.” I think my translation was apt just as the prophecy of her parents in giving her that name. She grew up great and married a man who answered meaningful names including the Christian name Jeremiah. And, you remember this verse in the Bible: “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jeremiah 1 verse 5).

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: ‘ADC Is A Mere Distraction’

She married Chief Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo and became a prophet herself – complete with all the implications and consequences. The Biblical Jeremiah suffered the betrayal of friends and rejection from kings and religious leaders. They all hated his ministry and his message but he was not daunted. He was not alone in the suffering of rejection. Read Hebrew 11: 32-38. It is there I saw a list and I read accounts of prophets, great men who “were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” They stood their course. These two Nigerian prophets, husband and wife, knew the meaning and properties of love, and with that knowledge, they conquered hate and rejection. I read in William Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ that “The course of true love never did run smooth” (Act I, Scene 1). It was so with this couple who experienced all the shades of life and triumphed over all. Indeed, “all is well that ends well.” William Shakespeare again!

Juju musician, Ebenezer Obey, sang that the most beautiful wife is the one who serenades her husband, understands him and accommodates his interest (Aya to mo yayi lo nseke oko re). Mama HID said she initially resisted her husband going into politics. But he persisted and she gave her consent. “Genuinely, I didn’t like him entering politics. But because I loved him and he was insistent, I agreed.” She said in a newspaper interview. In the same interview, she was asked how she transited from “ordinary family life” into a life of politics and politicking when her husband became the secretary of the Nigerian Youth Movement. There is more than something in her answer for the benefit of wives of politicians and political persons: “It was strange. People who hadn’t been coming to our house suddenly began to flock in; people who were not our friends, you know, just acquaintances. They would come in sometimes in the morning to see my husband who was the secretary of the movement and would talk on and on till evening. I didn’t like that at all! But because I loved my husband, I adjusted to our new life.”

A good wife makes a good home (ìyàwó rere, ìdílé rere). Papa Awo summed up his life with his wife in these words: “With my wife on my side, it has been possible for us to weather all financial storms. Due to her charm, humility, generosity and ever-ready sympathy and helpfulness for others in distress, she is beloved and respected by all our friends and acquaintances…She absorbs without a word of complaint all my occasional acts of irritability. By her unique virtues, she has been of immeasurable assistance to me in the duties attached to my career as a public man. She has taken more interviews: and listened to far more representations from the members of the public than I have times or sometimes patience for. I do not hesitate to confess that I owe my success in life to three factors: the Grace of God, a spartan, self- discipline, and a good wife. Our home is to all of us (us and our children) a true haven: a place of happiness and of imperturbable seclusion from the buffetings of life.”

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: APC And Lessons From Oyo By-election

I was lucky to be on the management team of her newspaper during the last three years of her earthly existence. That position gave me priceless opportunities to read and study one of the most remarkable women of the 20th and early 21st century Nigeria. She was considerate and compassionate; she was a great host who feted her visiting staff after every meeting. She was meticulous and alert throughout. Her mental strength defeated old age and its gnawing war on cognition. She was firm and businesslike in the face of business. Imagine a 99-year-old presiding over a meeting; she saw the meeting becoming needlessly prolonged, she sat up and applied the break by saying the Christian Grace: “Oore ofe Jesu Kristi Oluwa wa…” Everyone there took a cue, joined the chorus and had the prolonged meeting ended.

Two weeks before the late Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade joined his ancestors in July 2015, he told Adebanwi, her biographer, that H.I.D. “is just unbeatable…she is almost 100 and her brain is still intact. She still does everything. She will remind you of what you have forgotten. I have never witnessed this kind of thing before. Papa Awolowo was very lucky to have married Mama.”

What else is there to say other than to congratulate her on her life of success? It is ten years this week that the music stopped; but the melody of her priceless existence lingers. She lived strong; she died well and strong; she handed over to worthy children in whose hands the banner flies endlessly on without stain.

News

OPINION: Man-of-the-people, Man-of-himself

Published

53 minutes ago

December 16, 2025

Editor

By Suyi Ayodele

Whatever Comrade Adams Oshiomhole lacks in height and body volume, he makes up for in mischief. If you are not prepared for the mud, don’t engage the pint-size Edo senator in any combat.

His greatest weapon is his tongue. This is why he prefers to be called ‘Comrade’ – just an appellation he acquired in his hey days in the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), when the masses thought that he was fighting their battles. His public persona tilts towards that of the man-of-the-people. But on a scrutiny, the man is a man-of-himself.

Comrade’s best strategy in any argumentation is sheer sophistry! His eloquence is top-notch, his argumentative prowess arresting and his rhetoric captivating. He can be sarcastic and can also be deadly acerbic! He speaks and gyrates at the same time. Give him a microphone stand a bit lower than his height; Oshiomhole still leaps forward to emit incomprehensible verbiage. He is a dramatist par excellence. No. He is the drama itself! He combines all the characterisation of a folklore as he quadruples as heroic, non-heroic; anti heroic and A-heroic figure – beating the trinity to a distant second place!

Oshiomhole is a man one cannot afford to hate. He is equally a man too dangerous to love. His basket of mischief remains inexhaustible, his repertoire of goodwill also bottomless! He disappoints when one expects wisdom; and equally excels just when one gives up on him. A master of confusion while he remains unperturbed, Comrade is a summary of the dysfunctionality of the Nigerian political system! He displayed that in good measure last week.

I would have made a huge cash-out last week if the childhood experience I had over gambling had not taken the better part of me. Someone, who was ready to put anything to it that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s ambassadorial nominees like Reno Omokri, Fani-Kayode and Mahmood Yakubu, the former Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would not make it through the senate, had staked a huge amount of money. I held a different opinion. He asked us to bet, not like the small finger-thrust displayed by Governor Monday Okpebholo on national television recently. This was real-time betting.

I was tempted to enter the ring especially when he was willing to double his stake while mine remained static. But I remembered that I must honour the solemn pledge I made to my late father. I assured the old man that I would never gamble again in my life. I had used the two Kobo he gave to me to buy Phensic, a type of analgesic medicine of those days, to play kàlòkàlò. It was an experience I never hoped for again. As the offer came, my father’s voice rang in my head: É s’ómo kèé hì ta tété kì ha jalè (a child who gambles will eventually steal). I declined and I lost what would have been a Christmas bonus!

Alas, the screening turned out to be a hollow ritual; a drama of the absurd with Oshiomhole playing the lead villainous character! The former governor of Edo State was at his sophistry best at the screening of the 68 rotten tomatoes and sweet potatoes President Tinubu packaged as ambassadorial nominees and sent to the Senate for screening and approval. Many of us were entertained by the charade the National Assembly displayed at the ‘screening’. The only people who were disappointed were those who expected the senators to ‘skin’ the nominees.

As it turned out, all the 68 nominees were cleared. Any moment from now, Reno Omokri will be presenting his letter of credence endorsed by Tinubu, to the president of his ambassadorial post. By then, Tinubu would no longer be a “drug Lord” and certificate forger as Omokri alleged when he ‘was in the world’! It was Omokri’s screening that provoked Comrade Oshiomhole to tackle one of the oldest senators in this political dispensation, Ali Ndume of Borno State.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: Nigerian Soldiers In Benin Republic

For Oshiomhole, who, in one of his numerous campaign frenzies, had once opined that once a politician decamped to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), all his sins are forgiven, one cannot put anything past the Iyamoh-born politician. No cause is too dirty for him to defend, no candidate is too unpopular for him to support, project and vow for.

A short voyage to the Comrade’s political shenanigans. In 2016, as the out-going governor of Edo State, Oshiomhole, while projecting the chairman of his economic team, Godwin Obaseki, as the governorship candidate of the APC, said that Obaseki was the “compressor” of the air conditioning of the state economic successes under his watch. He told the people to vote for Obaseki because Obaseki was the one who brought all the funds the government used in achieving feats for the people.

Then he went after the jugular of Obaseki’s opponent and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu. Comrade Oshiomhole said that in his entire life, I quote him: “I have never seen a pastor who lies effortlessly like Ize-Iyamu.” He went further to label Ize-Iyamu as a violent pastor “who carries Bible in the day and gun at night.” The crowd cheered. He added so many other unprintable expletives and Ize-Iyamu lost the election.

Four years later in 2020, Obaseki and Oshiomhole fell apart. As the National Chairman of the APC, Oshiomhole denied Obaseki a second term ticket. Obaseki, who had earlier got Oshiomhole suspended from the APC, changed to the PDP and picked the party’s gubernatorial ticket.

On the other side, Ize-Iyamu left the PDP and picked the APC ticket. Edo people waited to see what Oshiomhole, who had been disgraced out of the APC national chairmanship office, would do. Brazenly, Comrade took over the campaign machinery of Ize-Iyamu. Oshiomhole on several occasions knelt to beg the people to vote for Ize-Iyamu!

Oshiomhole told bewildered audiences from town to town that he was misinformed of Ize-Iyamu’s character! He said so, jumping from one end of the podium to another without any modicum of remorse! According to him, after the practice of dipping Agege bread into a hot beverage, the next best thing that has ever happened to humanity is Ize-Iyamu! Fortunately, the people could see through the Comrade’s hypocrisy! His candidate was beaten blue-black at the count of the ballot.

That was the Oshiomhole that spoke last week in defense of Omokri’s nomination as an ambassador. In his warped reasoning, now that Omokri had weaned himself of his infantile perennial attacks on the character of President Tinubu, ‘all his sins are forgiven’ and he is worthy to be an ambassador! His argument, if projected further, is that once a man becomes transformed, his past would no longer count!

That argument did not sit down well with Senator Ndume, and possibly some others who would rather get Omokri to explain how he saw the light and heard the voice on his way to Damascus to persecute Tinubu! Oshiomhole’s response was his sophistry of “when I talk, those who have not been governors should listen”, as if we have not seen governors and former governors as witless as the next-door fatuous Gardner in this dispensation.

The elders of my place said when a song is bad, nobody justifies it as being a palace song. That is exactly what Oshiomhole did in his defence of the irritation that Omokri and his ambassadorial nomination have constituted. Who would ever think that a day would come when a once fascinating character like Comrade would rise to defend a figure like Omokri!

The response by Ndume that he had been senator before Oshiomhole ever dreamed of becoming one took the argument to the highest buffoonery! What has been the impact of the decades Ndume has spent in the senate on his people? How many of his constituents are in captivity? How many of the people he represents are working as slaves on the farms of bandits so that they can live? Beyond the numeric of his years in the senate who Ndume epp?

Things happen. One of the things that have happened to Nigeria is the current senate – a dump site for former governors. No sane mind will not be scandalised by the conduct of the senate under Godswill Akpabio! The upper chamber has turned into a stinking chamber pot of anything goes. Last week, the chamber took the perfidy of “bow and go” to another annoying level when virtually all the ambassadorial nominees were cleared without any serious questions asked.

What, for instance, are the wives of former governors nominated as ambassadors bringing to the table? What are their pedigrees? Are they not the same peacocks we saw when their husbands were governors? Beyond rubbing pancakes and spending our patrimony as non-state actors, how else can we assess those ex-first ladies?

Without sounding pessimistic, except for the career diplomats among them, the rest of Tinubu’s ambassadors are disasters packaged in golden wrappers. The qualities of the figures nominated by the president and endorsed by the senate speak to the quality of those in power today. Sure, no man gives what he does not have. President Tinubu has given us his best men and women as our ambassadors. We wish them diplomatic successes!

Adibe Emenyonu and Michael Adeleye: It is hard to say goodbye

We lose those dear to us. That is what nature dictates. Every loss is painful. But when it doubles, it becomes very painful. I experienced double losses this last weekend. Two souls, very dear to me, were lowered to their graves. The reality that I would not see or talk to them again hurts!

I joined a group of other journalists led by Patrick Ochoga of the Leadership Newspapers, who doubles as the Chairman, Edo Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Edo State Council, to Obibiezena community in Owerri, Imo State, for the funeral rites for Adibe Augustine Emenyonu.

Emenyonu, whom I called Adibs, slumped and died on October 18, 2025, at the age of 62. He was – imagine Adibs now being referred to in the past tense – until his death, the Edo State Correspondent of ThisDay Newspapers. Our paths crossed over two decades ago in Benin City where we plied the ‘he-said’ and ‘he-emphasised’ trade of journalism together. Adibs was a fearless and colourful writer.

Even when I left journalism for the corporate world, we continued to bond. On my return to the pen fraternity after 16 years, Adibs received me warmly, opening his contacts to me like many others did. We became closer, turning friendship to brotherhood!

I was devastated, when on the morning of Saturday, October 18, 2025, Ochoga called to announce: “Leader, I have bad news for you. We have lost Adibe!” The news was hurtful and seeing Adibs, naked in the morgue when I visited alongside the Edo State NUJ Chairman, Festus Alenkhe, and others, broke me.

Talk of a man who laboured and did not eat the fruits thereof; talk of Adibs. He was a good father to his four beautiful daughters. Three of them are university graduates today and the last baby of the house is a sophomore. Two of the three graduates attended private universities, and the last girl is also in a private university. But the man who toiled to ensure the girls got good education is no more. This is a tragedy!

Travelling to Obibiezena to pay my last respect to a wonderful friend was an eye opener. I saw Adibs’ modest country home bungalow. I saw his bust, commissioned by Genevieve, his first daughter, with Adibs’ traditional ishiagwu cap. I dared him on several occasions to wear the cap to Igbo land, and I felt sad. I became sadder with the reality that Adibs’ 93-year-old mother was inside a room in the house while the rites of passage were being performed for the son who travelled home every month to attend to her!

The entire Obibiezena mourned Adibs! The wailing, when his body arrived for the traditional lying-in-state was infectious. The old, walking with the aid of walking sticks turned up. Everyone spoke well of the departed. When I was asked to talk to his Obibiezena Development Union (ODU) executive, I gave a new name to Adibs – Adáraníléadáraníta. It means he who is good both at home and outside. Adibs was. His people testified to his goodness, his kindness, his generosity and his commitment to the community. He was, for many years, the Secretary General of ODU!

Adibs was a devout Catholic. He never joked with his creator and faith. In his ‘mischief’ whenever we talked about our religious inclinations, he would ask: “Are you sure you are a Pentecostal or a penterascal?” Adibs had a deep voice, and he equally had a deep character. Like all humans, he had his flaws. But his greatest strength was his inability to betray a trust. He was dependable, he was reliable!

I could not bring myself to go near his grave as Adibs’ remains were lowered. Coincidentally, Adibs was buried under the same avocado tree he used to taunt his friends, anytime he was in the village saying: “I am sitting under the avocado tree.” Now, Adibs sits no more, he rests, permanently, under the avocado tree! Fare thee well, Adibs!

As we journeyed back to Benin, my mind was in far away Canada, where another friend and brother, Michael Adeleye, simply Mike, was being committed to mother earth.

The news of Mike’s demise was broken to me by another friend, Tunde Laniyan. I met the duo during my voyage to the corporate world. Mike adopted me as his elder brother and all through, he called me “Oga Suyi”. His respect for age and experience remain inimitable. There was no time of the day Mike could not call to ask: ‘Oga Suyi, ki ni kin se’ (Oga Suyi, what should I do?). Mike resigned and left for Canada with his family. I was in the know of the plan to relocate from incubation to fruition. And while over there, we maintained that line of communication.

On October 9, 2025, at about 3.09 pm Nigerian time, I sent a message to him thus: “Hello. How are my people? Can you get this book for me: “For One More Day”, a novel by Mitch Albom.” Six minutes later, Mike responded with a screenshot of the book and asked for confirmation, which I did. “Okay, I will order it now. I should get it latest tomorrow. Then we shall discuss how to send it to you.” He responded and the following day, he had the book.

After the initial plan of sending the book by hand through someone travelling to Benin failed, Mike put the book in the mail on November 1, 2025. At my last tracking shortly before I dropped off this piece, the information on the tracking platform was to the effect that the book is with the Nigeria Customs having been presented to the agency on November 20, 2025, at 11.04 am! The country we live in!

We kept chatting and then the news came. Mike is dead! How? What killed him? Just like that! Mike, gone like vapour! Mid this year, Mike called to announce that he had completed his house in Lagos. “Oga Suyi, it is your project o”, he gleefully announced. I answered by saying that I was looking forward to being hosted to a meal of pounded yam whenever his family visited Nigeria. Now, Mike is gone and gone forever! What is this life!

As I penned this, my mind raced to Mummy Oyin, Mike’s wife. The two were inseparable; they were more than a husband and wife. How is she coping, herself? What about the two beautiful daughters? Why should nature be this cruel! Mike was industrious. He had hopes and aspirations.

They caution us in Christendom not to mourn as unbelievers. I will keep to that doctrine.

Rest on Mike; sleep from all your labour! May the good Lord comfort your wife and children. Good night, Mike, fare thee well!

News

Okpebholo Presents ₦939.85bn ‘Budget Of Hope, Growth’ To Edo Assembly

Published

1 hour ago

December 16, 2025

Editor

Governor Monday Okpebholo of Edo State on Tuesday presented a ₦939.85 billion 2026 Appropriation Bill christened ‘Budget of Hope and Growth,’ to the state House of Assembly.

Presenting the budget, Okpebholo said the 2026 fiscal plan was carefully designed to build on the foundation laid in 2025, while expanding the reach of government programmes to directly impact the lives of Edo people across all sectors of the economy.

The governor said the budget prioritises critical areas of sustainable development, including security, infrastructure, agriculture, education, job creation and healthcare.

He stressed that his administration remains committed to delivering “development the people can see and feel.”the governor, the budget prioritises critical areas of sustainable development, including security, infrastructure, agriculture, education, job creation and healthcare, stressing that his administration remains committed to delivering “development the people can see and feel.”

A breakdown of the proposal shows a total expenditure of ₦939.85 billion, with capital expenditure standing at ₦637 billion, representing 68 percent of the budget, while recurrent expenditure is pegged at ₦302 billion, accounting for 32 per cent.

Okpebholo explained that the strong emphasis on capital spending reflects his administration’s determination to fast-track development through strategic investments in roads, schools, hospitals, water supply, housing and other high-impact economic projects across the state.

He disclosed that the 2026 budget would be funded through Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) estimated at ₦160 billion, Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) allocations projected at ₦480 billion, capital receipts and grants of ₦153 billion, ₦146 billion from Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), as well as other viable revenue windows available to the state.

The governor, who assured Edo residents that his government would not impose unnecessary financial burdens on citizens, noted that the administration would instead intensify efforts to strengthen revenue systems, block leakages and improve public finance management.

Under sectoral allocation, the economic sector received the largest share with ₦614.2 billion earmarked for agriculture, roads, transport, urban development and energy. Priority areas include rural and urban road construction, completion of two flyovers, drainage works, urban renewal, and expansion of farm estates and irrigation facilities.

The social sector was allocated ₦148.9 billion to cater for education, healthcare, youth development, women affairs and social welfare.

Planned interventions include extensive school renovations, recruitment and training of teachers, expansion of primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities, as well as investments in youth skills, sports and entrepreneurship programmes.

For governance and service delivery, the administration sector received ₦157.7 billion to drive civil service reforms, staff training, deployment of digital tools, improved revenue collection systems, support for ministries, departments and agencies, and the full rollout of e-governance platforms.

The justice sector was allocated ₦19 billion to strengthen the courts, improve justice delivery and support legal reforms and access-to-justice programmes, while regional development and local government support will focus on grassroots empowerment, community road construction, rural electrification, water and sanitation projects, and security outposts in border communities.

Governor Okpebholo said the 2026 Budget of Hope and Growth is anchored on his SHINE Agenda, built on five pillars—Security, Health, Infrastructure, Natural Resources/Agriculture and Education—with the overarching vision of creating a prosperous and united Edo State where every citizen feels the impact of governance.

News

UNICEF, Bauchi Govt. Vaccinate 127,550 Children In Toro LGA

Published

2 hours ago

December 16, 2025

Editor

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Bauchi state government have flagged off a 7-day immunisation exercise to vaccinate 127,550 children in Toro local government area of the state.

Musa Danladi, Local Immunisation Officer (LIO), Toro LGA, stated this in an interview with newsmen in Toro on Tuesday.

According to him, the goal was to reach the children to further tackle polio related diseases, child mortality and all vaccine preventable diseases as well as to improve child health in the LGA.

He said with the collaborative efforts of UNICEF, Bauchi state government and the World Health Organization (WHO), 32 ward focal persons and Field Volunteers had been trained at the LGA level for the exercise.

Danladi explained that the exercise was flagged off in Tilde Ward due to its little history of vaccine non-compliance.

“We have a team of vaccinators that are also going street by street to immunise the children outside their houses.

“We have the Novel Oral Polio Vaccines which our house to house team carry along with them to ensure that all the eligible children from zero months to 59 months are immunized.

“We also have a fixed post, stationed in one location in each of the 17 wards where they get children from zero to 23 months and give them all the vaccine antigen like the NOPV, BCG, Hepatitis B, IVV, PCV among others,” he said.

The LIO, who said that there was 99 per cent vaccine compliance in the local government, added that the feat was achievable due to the utmost support received from the LGA chairman to complement UNICEF and the state government.

“UNICEF is also supporting our community leaders, vaccine campaign mobilizers, and our town announcers.

“It was UNICEF and other development partners that facilitated the supply of all the vaccines and if there are no vaccines, the vaccination of these 127,550 eligible children wouldn’t be possible,” said Danladi.

He called on the people to redouble their efforts in complying with all the vaccination campaigns and ensure that all the eligible children were vaccinated in order for the LGA to be free from vaccine preventable diseases.

Also speaking, Dr Nuzhat Rafique, UNICEF Chief of Field Office, Bauchi, explained that UNICEF over 1.7 million eligible children had been reached and vaccinated in the state.

She said one of UNICEF’s strategies in saving children’s life, keeping them healthy and making them reach their potential is immunisation.

“There were thousands of children with zero dose vaccines in UNICEF’s intervention states who have now been reached and immunised.

“There have been so many children in the most vulnerable, most deprived and most remote areas where UNICEF teams have reached and immunised,” she boasted.

Ahmed Suleiman, Consultant with Magama Primary Healthcare Centre, Toro, said a lot of parents have taken their eligible children to the centre for vaccination as team had been mobilised to senstitise them on the importance of the vaccine.

Dr Rilwanu Mohammed, the Executive Chairman, Bauchi State Primary Healthcare Development Board (BSPHDB) said there were still few rejection cases across the state which he assured, would be tackled.

He ascribed frequent conduction of vaccination exercises to the rejection as people were feeling there would be an overdose in the children’s body due to ignorance.

“Like in this year, this is the third one and we have been doing it over years so they think there is an overdose and they are getting tired of it because of ignorance,” he said.