News

OPINION: Nigeria’s Children Of Sweet Power

Published

12 months ago

September 24, 2024

By Suyi Ayodele

Isabel dos Santos is the first daughter of Angola’s longest serving president, José Eduardo dos Santos, who died on July 8, 2022. The late Angolan president ruled the country for 38 years (1997-2017). Isabel grew up in the presidential palace. She became influential in government circles. That transformed her to become rich, not just rich, but wealthy. At a time, Forbes recorded her as the richest woman in Africa. She leveraged on her father’s presidency to corner good business deals. She sat atop Boards of the nation’s biggest companies from telecommunications to oil, prospecting for precious stones and other thriving enterprises.

But now, the ‘Daddy’s Girl’ is in trouble. Forbes, for instance, has deleted her from the hall of fame of the richest in Africa. Why? Shortly after her father left power, the truth of how she became wealthy started coming to light. All over the world, where Isabel has her assets, there are plans to have them frozen. The reason is simple. The ex-first daughter is said to have acquired her wealth through underhand dealings during the 38 years her father ruled Angola.

This is how Forbes, in a May 27, 2022, article, describes her: “As best as we can trace, every major Angolan investment held by Dos Santos stems either from taking a chunk of a company that wants to do business in the country or from a stroke of the president’s pen that cut her into the action. Her story is a rare window into the same, tragic kleptocratic narrative that grips resource-rich countries around the world.” The summary of Isabel is that of a lady who became wealthy without any antecedent of good business in the enterprise world. Her father, the late president Santos of Angola, was the proverbial squirrel that cracked her financial palm kernel.

At home here, we have more than enough shares of our own Isabel dos Santos. Never in the history of Nigeria have we been assailed by the impunity and affluence of the children of our leaders. That ugly trend started with General Muhammadu Buhari, who, as our husband between 2015 and 2023, could not impose the simple discipline of discretion on her children.

In this current political dispensation, we have had an Olusegun Obasanjo as our president. The most noticeable of his children, while he presided over our affairs (1999-2003), happened to be his first daughter, Iyabo. While one may find it difficult to defend the claim that Obasanjo was instrumental to Iyabo becoming a commissioner in Ogun State and later a senator, we cannot deny the fact that the woman, on her own, has all the credentials required for those positions. And, on a general note, besides her foray into politics, Iyabo remained lowkey all through her father’s presidency. I cannot recall here, any inanity she engaged in.

The late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s children did not come across as children who were over-indulged when their father was president between May 29, 2007, and May 5, 2010. The best we knew of his children while he was in office is the fact that his daughters, Zainab, Nafisa and Maryam, all married into homes of affluence. His successor, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ), is unarguably the only president in this dispensation with no known indulgence of children. Apart from his wife, Madam Patience, who was loud and frivolous like other First Ladies of this era, GEJ succeeded in reining in her children. Majority of Nigerians don’t even know the names of President Jonathan’s children. They were shielded, and still shielded from public glare. “Clueless”, as they labelled the Otuoke-born politician, Jonathan has demonstrated to us that he has full and adequate control of his children.

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In contrast, the one they said is the Mai Gaskiya, and epitome of discipline of our era, General Buhari, is the one who first subjected our sensibilities to serious attack with the way and manner he used the State resources to pamper his children. Hanan, one of Buhari’s daughters, took advantage of her father’s position to fly about in Presidential jets to attend the most frivolous of all functions like flying to Bauchi to go and take photographs of the traditional Durbar and the architectural designs in the city!

The Presidency later explained to us that the president’s daughter needed the Bauchi photographs for her fieldwork in her Master’s programme at one of the universities in the United Kingdom. Bunkum! Needless to say, when Hanan touched down in Bauchi with the Presidential jet and the insignia of the president, Bauchi State Government officials were at the airport to receive her.

If we felt that we have seen it all in Buhari’s case, Nigerians have new tales to tell in the attitudes of the children of our current husband, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. From the first daughter of the president, Folasade Tinubu-Ojo, to her two brothers, Seyi and Yinka, it has been one indulgence to the other. Seyi, until his father was prevailed upon, was said to be attending the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting in the Presidential Villa. While Yinka has been relatively self-effacing, Seyi remains loud and ubiquitous! At one time, he was spotted in the Presidential jet enroute to Kano to go and play polo!

The president’s son was present ‘officially’ when the new Chief Justice of Nigeria was being sworn in. Someone said the big boy was learning the rope, that one day may come when the young shall grow and he will swear in his own CJN. Someone please say Amen!

The most recent of the explorations and exploits was the trip by Seyi and Yinka to Maiduguri, Borno State, last week. They were said to have gone to the flood-ravaged state to commiserate with the victims of the self-inflicted pains caused by the failure of government to do what is right. In the one-minute and 18-second video of the visit in circulation, not less than 20 Borno State Government officials received the duo at the airport. And before you ask if the Office of Sons of the President is part of our government structure, Seyi and Yinka were driven straight to the Government House to see Governor Babagana Umara Zulum; and from there, they were moved to the Palace of the Sheu of Borno, Alhaji Ibn Umar Garba, in a state-visit style. On that trip were a handful of aides, whose duty was to attend to the nation’s First and Second Son!

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I tried to rationalise that trip. Someone, however, said that my attention should be on the kindness Seyi Tinubu demonstrated in Maiduguri. The president’s son was said to have donated N500 million to the victims of the Borno flood, in addition to other items. Wao! I think, like it was suggested to me, Seyi deserves our accolades. He is such a generous son of our husband. His mum, (or, step-mum), Mrs. Remi Tinubu, also donated the same amount (N500m) to the flood victims, days before Seyi breezed into Maiduguri. Nigerians are fortunate to have such a generous First Family. We should not ask how Seyi made his money. That will amount to what my people call etanu (malicious envy)!

When you have a father who was once a senator, who once ruled Lagos for eight years, and still appoints who rules the state to date, you cannot but be rich. When the man who sired you transformed from being a kingmaker, National Leader of an opposition-turned-ruling party, and becoming the president of the most populous Black nation, N500 million is nothing. Why? The elders of my place say that when the madman is given a hoe, he makes the heaps in between his two legs.

Nobody begrudges a child who resembles the father (Omo ò lè jo baba ká máa bínú omo). Seyi cannot have a father like Daddy Tinubu, who does not know the tribal marks money has, the Ninalowo (Money is meant to be spent), and be stingy! “What is money? Money is nothing. Premium or Nothing.” Those are lyrics of Flavour the Afro pop star in his Big Baller Single. The aides and officials who were on that trip would also ‘lick’ their fingers; I take a bet on that! My friends, Seyi’s fans, told me that he is a “self-made man”, and I agreed with them. Most children of our politicians are “self-made.”

One of the “self-made” children of our leaders was also in the news last week. His name is Abdulaziz Abubakar Malami, son of the immediate past Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami. If the video is real and its content true and correct, Abdulaziz is just 29 years old, but he already has a conglomerate that runs into billions of Naira. The narrator in the video, where Abdulaziz’s wealth is flaunted, said that the young man has in his employ, over 2,000 staff. The narrator added that besides being a lawyer with a law firm located at Sani Abacha Road, Birnin-Kebbi, Kebbi State, there was nothing else about the one described as “the third youngest Nigerian” managing one of the richest conglomerates in Nigeria.

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The junior Malami is said to own a secondary school, a university, a clothing line, hotels, a rice mill, supermarket and others. His father, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), and former AGF is just 57 years old. Before the senior Malami became a minister under Buhari, he was not known as old money. But the God of transformation smiled on his family. There is nothing God cannot do. Today, his son, who is not 30 years yet, is said to sit atop a conglomerate that employs over 2,000 Nigerians. All we are required to do is to praise the boy’s ‘industry’ and his sense of ‘patriotism’ in establishing companies that have taken away a full 2,000 people off the job market. Some children came to this world with the star of fortune! Juxtapose the aforementioned against this story from the days of my childhood.

We were three little primary two pupils of Local Authority Primary School East (LA East), Ikole Ekiti. The first is a cousin. He will not be reading this because of his present circumstances. The second, my childhood friend, and twin brother, is an officer in our state’s local government service commission. Then, yours sincerely was the leader of the ‘gang’ that day.

Our Eskisi ma, (teacher), had a presence. We knew her as Eye Pelu (Pelu’s mother), that’s what the locals called her. Pelu, her son, was our classmate too. It was harvesting time. The older pupils in the higher classes worked on the school farm and harvested groundnuts. A basket of the groundnuts was kept in our class. We had the mid-day break, called “long break”, and Eskisi ma stepped out of the class. Pelu took the advantage. He went to the basket of groundnuts, took a handful, and beckoned on us to come forward for our ‘shares’. He attached a condition. He took the mother’s cane and announced that anyone who accepted to be flogged by him would partake in the groundnuts.

In my little head, I knew that taking the groundnuts in the first instance without permission was wrong. I was taught that early in life. Besides, I could not reconcile why Pelu should flog me first before giving out the groundnuts; we are of the same age bracket. Then, something also told me that the items belonged to all of us, and Pelu was just an Omo Tisha (the teacher’s son).

I stayed back. My cousin and my friend likewise. The three of us shared the same bench in the class. When Pelu was through with those who volunteered to be flogged, he came to us. He asked why we didn’t get up to collect groundnuts. Trust yours sincerely, I was the spokesman for the ‘rebels’. I answered by saying that the groundnuts were not his’ and he had no right to take them or flog anyone. The devil took over Pelu. He landed the cane on me. Mine was a natural reflex. I leapt on him like a leopard. The two other rebels joined. It was a commotion. Sacrilege! Nobody would dare touch an Omo Tisha those days! A classmate once told me that he nearly fainted the day he saw his teacher answering the call of nature! Teachers, then, were regarded as deities, not mortals. Pelu’s yell attracted those in the adjoining classes.

Eskisi ma and two others rushed in. They saw the ‘abomination’. The fight stopped. The three of us stood up, we knew we were in trouble. One of the Eskisi mas that followed Eye Pelu wanted to descend on us. Eye Pelu restrained her. Our Eskisi ma asked what happened. We explained. She confirmed from one or two other pupils if Pelu indeed took the groundnuts, and she got an affirmative answer.

It was like a flash. The next thing we saw was that Pelu was on the floor. The mother, with her heavy presence on top of him. She was beating, pinching and kicking the son. Then she burst into tears. We were alarmed. Other Eskisi mas and sirs came and took her off the boy. The three of us, musketeers, lost colour. We were shaking like a virgin seeing ‘it’ for the first time. We knew we were finished. If Eskisi ma could handle her son, Pelu, the way she did, there was nothing she would not do to us. We waited with bated breath.

Normalcy was restored. Eskisi ma simply went back to her table without looking in our direction. She ordered everyone back to their desks. The three of us stood where we were. She looked at us and asked us to go back to our seats. We obeyed her. Minutes later, class resumed, and Eskisi ma taught us as if nothing happened. That session ended and we moved to a higher class. Eskisi ma did not change her attitude towards us, she never mentioned that we once beat her son. No other teacher reprimanded us for beating an Omo Tisha (teacher’s child).

The lesson registered in my heart in an indelible manner. I got to know from that cradle incident that it is the responsibility of every parent to teach his or her children ethics, morals and good discipline. Pelu’s mum felt bad that her son would go and touch the groundnuts kept on her watch. She knew it was wrong to use the community’s patrimony to indulge her son! No leader should do that! She felt she had failed; that was why she cried while beating Pelu. Wonderful woman, our Eskisi ma, Eye Pelu! While on this script, I asked my friend about Eye Pelu. He answered that our Eskisi ma is healthy and kicking. I owe her a visit; I intend to make that happen as soon as possible. Such a treasure must be honoured! Do we still have leaders like her around?

Seyi and his other “self-made” siblings are lucky. They did not grow up when we had many teachers like my old Eye Pelu. He did not sit under the tutelage of a no-nonsense Eskisi ma, who had the orientation that State property is different from one’s personal effects. Seyi and his siblings don’t have the picture of their school Eskisi mas or sirs, beating up their children for daring to touch what belonged to the entire school without permission.

He and his other folks did not grow up under a mother, like Eye Pelu, whose philosophy is, ohun tí a fi ńké omo wà lórí àte Òyó (what one uses to over-indulge a child is only gotten in the wares of an Oyo trader). Growing up, they were probably not told to differentiate between government property and assets and family belongings. From the State House in Lagos to Aso Rock Villa in Abuja, the philosophy is, gbogbo ejò ni jíje (all snakes are edible). So, leaping to Kano from Abuja in the presidential jet for a polo game is no big deal. Donating N500 million from an inexhaustible bank account is as easy as A B C!

As for those who think that Seyi and his siblings are like Angola’s Isabel dos Santos and would want to interrogate their wealth and the tax or taxes they pay, I have one piece of advice: Tell your own old man to join politics and conquer the world like Alexander the Great, Napoleon and yes, Bola Tinubu!

News

OPINION: The Clappers They Want In Us

Published

9 hours ago

September 16, 2025

Editor

By Suyi Ayodele

Edo State Migration Agency last Thursday paraded two female minors who were rescued in Zaria, Kaduna State, on their way to Libya. The two girls, aged 13 and 14, were lured from their Textile Mill Road residence in Benin City by a ‘trolley’, a euphemism for human trafficker, who is now at large.

One of the girls, the 13-year-old, is a sickle cell patient! A Junior Secondary School 2 student, the victim said that the ‘trolley’ promised her a “maid job” in Libya! But for the quick alarm her mother raised when, on returning from the market, she couldn’t find her daughter, the girl would have been in Libya now on sex slavery!

How many of our children have been trafficked through the desert to sex slavery in Libya and other countries of the world? If the venture had succeeded, how would that sickle cell victim have survived the ordeal of the journey through the desert to Libya?

The Agency also rescued yet another minor from Mali! Her case was most pathetic. Worms were oozing out of her body when she was brought back to Nigeria. It was a sorry and gory case!

When a man of means detests noise-making while his pounded yam is being prepared, our elders counsel that the yam should not be bought on credit (Eni tí a kò bá ní sòrò lórí iyán è, kìí ra isu àwìn). Reason is that the creditor reserves the right to pop in anytime to collect his money.

This aged wisdom applies to anyone in public office who savours only praises and worship from the masses. The antidote to acerbic critique of his outings in power, governance and government, is good policies that are humane and masses-oriented. A leader whose pastime is to inflict untold hardship on the masses should not expect to sleep peacefully anytime.

Save for the very few who have access to our patrimony because the ‘boss man’ gave them long ladles to scoop from the deep cookie jar, the rest of us who bear the brunt of the cruel plutomania of the leader and his acolytes, cannot but shout!

And our shouting is not unfounded. Ancient wisdom of our forebears says: no matter how one shouts at the woman with goitre, she will not swallow the lumps in her throat (Bó ti wù ká kígbe mó onígègè tó, kò ní gbé ti òfun è mì). This administration has given us more than a huge lump in our throats. We are in pain, we are palpitating, we are breathless and are exhibiting the last kicks of a dying horse! Keeping quiet, or joining the ruiner’s clappers club is self-immolation, a suicide without any hope of resurrection!

African wisdom dictates that it is wrong to beat a child and at the same time forbid him from crying. Our leaders are not only beating us, but they also have the Rehoboam’s Biblical scorpions with which they scourge us mercilessly daily (1Kings 12:11). Every government since independence had its own scorpion whips, but the present administration and the immediate one before it, appear to be contesting for the trophy in turpitude.

What stands out in the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration is the proclivity of the administration’s hallelujah boys to expect us to keep smiling while their master rapes us on rooftops! How they fail to realise that the profiteering propensity of their master comes with untold hardship on the struggling masses beats one’s imagination. Devil itself, I take a bet, winks at the expectation of smiles when the masses haemorrhage!

Tí omodé bá dáràn oòrùn, ó ye kí ó rí ibòji sá sí (when a child finds himself on the wrong side of the scorching, he should have the succour of shade for shelter). Again, tí òde bá sì na omo, ilé lomo ma ún wá (when the outside becomes uncomfortable for the child, he runs home). Our elders posit thus because they believe the home should be a place of comfort. But if the house is on fire, where will the child run to?

The streets of London, United Kingdom, were alive on Saturday, September 13, 2025. A set of people described as “Far-right anti-immigration protesters” were out to demand that immigrants in the UK find their ways back to their countries of origin. The leaders of the 110,000 protesters, a “Robison, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon”, the Cable Network News (CNN), reported was videoed saying: “Britain has finally awoken. We’ve been waiting decades. Patriotism is the future, borders are the future, and we want our free speech”, among others.

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I read the CNN reports of the incident and other commentaries and all I could do was to shake my head. How many Nigerian immigrants in the UK would be affected when the dust finally settles? How many of our relations, mostly university graduates, trained in specialised disciplines, have shipped themselves to the UK and other European countries because Nigeria is made hard and almost ‘uninhabitable’ by the ruiners of our today and our children’s tomorrow?

Where in the entire globe are Nigerians safe? Where are we spared the humiliation of deportation because our nationals are regarded as illegal immigrants? The United States (US), as early as January this year listed about 3,690 Nigerians to be deported from the country because the man in charge there, Donald Trump, has started a ‘crackdown’ on illegal immigrants in the US! When did the fad to migrate illegally to other countries start in Nigeria?

When a man is thrown off balance by a major issue, the less inconsequential ones make a mockery of him by climbing him (Bí ìyà ńlá bá gbé ni sánlè, kékeré a máa gorí eni). When did the UK become a country that Nigerians must run to for succour when, up to the mid-80s, we had British citizens as secondary school teachers in Nigeria?

How did we get here; who pushed our canoe to the troubled waters and collected the paddles from us? Would the old Nigerians, who sailed to the UK in the early 60s and late 70s to study and rushed back home after the completion of their academic voyages, have imagined that a day would come when “Far-right anti-immigration protesters” would hit the streets of London doing the rubbish they did last Saturday?

I know a family, a couple, to be precise. They had four children. The first two of the children were born in the UK. The third child came shortly after the couple arrived in Nigeria and the last followed a few years later.

In one of my interactions with the old wife, I asked why she and her husband rushed back home; why they did not wait to have all their children in the UK. The old woman looked at me and said: “We actually left the UK after our final examinations, before the results were out. The institutions mailed our certificates to us in Nigeria.” I asked what happened. Her response was that there was nothing for them to do in a foreign land because Nigeria was better than the UK economically then.

That was the early 70s. The fad then was for Nigerians to travel overseas for schooling and return to Nigeria on the completion of their studies. Job opportunities abounded here. The Nigerian currency was almost at par with the UK Pound, and at a time, stronger. Of course, security was top-notch; social life was at its frenzy. Life was good and jolly here. Then the locusts came in and everything turned upside down!

The current pitiable situation of Nigeria is something those in power and their lickspittles would not want us to talk about. They say we are not patriotic to our ethnicity because we have the courage to talk about the failings of our kinsmen in power. And these are supposedly well-read individuals, with training in the act and art of writing. Many of them were once vitriolic writers, holding those in power then accountable! What has changed?

As a Yoruba man, you are not expected to say anything ‘negative’ about the porous economic policies of the current administration. You are to be like the proverbial monkey which sees no evil, says no evil and hears no evil. Why? A Yoruba man is the President and as such, everyone down South-West must hail and praise the obvious ineptitude of the President. It doesn’t matter the level of suffering in the land. We are expected to be in the cold and complain of excruciating heat! They appointed gatekeepers in the media to ‘arrest’ or ‘doctor’ or water down any opinion considered ‘negative’ to their paymaster.

A senior colleague once told me how a media aide of a top politician once accosted him and boasted: “We are aware of all the negative things you write about Oga. But we have our men in your paper to help us manage them!” I asked what the senior colleague did. He said that he stopped filing scoops because of that incident. Sad! There is no aspect of the mass media you will not find them in. To them, money answers all things. But in their extended families are the wretched of the earth impoverished by the same plutomania they serve or defend!

In their quest to recruit everyone into the ungodly army of power-clappers, they query: how many Hausa criticised Buhari when he was there? Because the President is a Yoruba man, we all must join the unholy league of conspiracy of silence. That is what is known as àrí àìgbodòwí tíí mú baálé ilé yokun lémú (conspiracy of silence that births the dirty habit of the man of the house). Check those households where the man of the house is filthy, members of his household die of diseases. That is what we are going through right now in Nigeria.

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General Muhammadu Buhari spent eight years as President picking his teeth. The only strenuous job he did for those eight wasteful years was to take occasional strolls to his farm to count his non-producing herds! His kith and kin up North saw nothing bad in that. Security dipped to the lowest level under him. Mute was the response from the North. The economy nosedived, and Buhari’s kinsmen were on holiday. The Naira weakened against all currencies of the world; nothing was heard from the North.

The few voices that spoke against the lethargic administration were labelled “wailing wailers!” The opinions they expressed were tagged “hate speech!” And guess who coined those appellations: a senior journalist cum columnist! The government hired a hallelujah orchestra to shout on rooftops that Buhari was the second-best thing to happen to humanity after sliced bread. The third-party advocacy to project Buhari and his inorganic administration as the best was damning. Today, we all know better. Both the “wailing wailers” and the ‘hailing hailers’ suffered untold hardship. But the Nigerian spirit, our resilience, wedged in and we moved on.

Then came the man with the biggest entitlement mentality. The ‘Èmilókân crooner, President Tinubu, to the saddle. His Presidential campaign was about hope and renewed hope. We warned, we shouted. We said that nothing tangible would come out of the venture; that Nigeria and Nigerians would be worse off under Tinubu. Nobody listened; nobody paid any attention. For any dissenting voice, especially from Tinubu’s Yoruba enclave, the ones behind the voice were called names. They said “all Yoruba free born” must support Tinubu’s ambition irrespective of his antecedents of anti-Yoruba posturing!

The man did his magic and his permutations. He won, was declared the winner, and was sworn in as President. The very day he took over, and in a rare display of braggadocio, President Tinubu bared his fangs. In what would go down in history as the most reckless and thoughtless policy formation, he removed the oil subsidy in his infamous “subsidy is gone” haphazard declaration.

The spiral effects were worse than what one gets during a whirlwind. The economy collapsed instantly and has not recovered since because there are no corresponding measures put in place to cushion the effects of the removal of subsidy.

Today, Nigerians wallow in abject poverty. Crimes surged just as insecurity deepened. We are back to the Hobbesian State, where life is “nasty, brutish and short.” Every problem Tinubu inherited from Buhari has doubled or tripled. The government relies more on propaganda which often results in self-contradictions. In all this, they still tell us that we should be ‘patriotic’ because our man is on the throne!

How do nations fail? The slavish tendency must be high up there. As a Yoruba man, you are either in support of Tinubu or you are tagged ‘obsessed’ or worse, a ‘bastard’. Now, the campaign has gone beyond supporting the administration; everyone must queue behind the President in his bid for his second term!

The government and its henchmen treat Nigerians like conquered people. Tell them about the parlous state of things in the country, they tell you ‘Tinubu did not start it.’ Yes, they are right. Our misfortune did not start with Tinubu. The President has simply compounded it with his numerous neo-liberal and anti-people policies. His agbàlòwómérìí tax regimes have telling tales on the masses more than any government before him. This we say without forgetting the fact that the President has always been part of the rot, ab initio!

This is September. Schools have resumed for a new academic session across the nation. Many parents have relocated to other parts of the country for whatever reason. Many children have moved to new schools or higher classes. Bills are coming in their torrents. This paper, in its Monday, September 15, 2025, led with the heart-rending headline: “Parents groan as schools resume 2025/2026 academic years.” There is nothing palatable in that report!

Due to the almost total collapse of public schools, private institutions are going for the kill. School fees have doubled or tripled in some cases. There are other ancillary payments. Parents groan under the weight of the heavy school bills., and there is no respite anywhere. At bus stops and on the streets, agony is written all over the masses. But the locusts feeding fat on our vegetation would not have us talk about it.

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Nigerians have gone back to the old method of pawn. Older children now drop out of school for their younger ones to be educated. Children who wrote and cleared their school certificate examinations at one sitting and did very well in the matriculation examinations are being asked to ‘go and work’ so that their younger ones can be in school! And which jobs are we talking about here? Our young men and women, supposed leaders of our tomorrow, have been turned to hotel receptionists, supermarket attendants, fuel dispensers and other menial crafts including rummaging through piles of refuse for used bottles and iron scraps thereby exposing those young ones to all manners of abuse.

Yet the ones who captained our ship to these rudderless shores have their children in choice institutions of the world. They travel on holidays. They have the luxury of taking their paramours on tours of continents on our bills, depleting our treasury! We are doomed, condemned to perpetuate deprivation, while the caterpillars and palmerworms in power feed fat.

But, again, and sadly too, they would not have us talk about it. Virtually every nation of the world treats Nigerians as pariahs. Ghana is sending us packing, Libya enslaves our nationals. Why? Because our home is on fire here. Our fire emanated from the shrine of osanyin deity, the Yoruba god of healing and combustion. Who do we call upon to combat the inferno!

Terrible situation that we find ourselves in because the worst of humanity are in charge of our affairs! So, how does one keep quiet in a situation like this? Just because one’s kinsman is the President. If half of the population is wasted, we should bring out vuvuzelas and blow to high octanes just because our brother is in power?

Imagine if nobody is talking at all. Imagine if all of us have subordinated our humanity to the crumps from the master’s table. Just imagine our situation if all of us keep vigil waiting for when ‘Baba sope’ (the old man said) would throw the bones of his delicacy at us! Consider our situation if we all join the tiwa ntiwa, tàkísamà ni tààtàn (ours is ours; the rag belongs to the dunghill) lullaby for an absentee President who happens to be our kinsman!

By all means, I have no problem praising any leader provided he is doing the right thing. If our lives are better off today, we will celebrate the one responsible for that. If the Naira appreciates against any currency of the world, we shall roll out the drums in honour of who made it happen. If Nigerians are no longer kidnapped, farmers don’t pay bandits before they could harvest their farm produce and Nigerians can drink water and put the cups down peacefully, we shall holler the praises of such a wonderful leader who achieved that for us. His tribe would not matter. His creed would be inconsequential. His political affiliation would not be foregrounded. We would only recognise and appreciate his competence and his sense of loyalty to people above self.

That is the burden of an opinion writer. Nobody is called to the game of column writing to be a praise singer, except the self-serving individuals who rode on the train of public defenders to power defenders! Adidi Uyo our celebrated Professor of Journalism and Mass communication, said in an article: “The Art of Column Writing”, that a columnist who is keeping fidelity with the “salient guideline of SOS of Column writing”, where “SOS” means “Spectrum Of Style”, must “operate somewhere along certain stylistic continuums, simultaneously. Prominent among such continuums are the following three: Serious-Playful, Angry-Compassionate, Plain-Sarcastic (SPPACS).

The writer, Uyo further posits in what he calls The Salient Dozen, must: “… (2) Take sides. Make your viewpoint very clear. (3) Be consistent in your views…over time that is. (4) Support your position with sound arguments and /or solid facts. … (7) Worship Truth and Public Interest…” (See: Nigerian Columnists and Their Art, pgs 2-15, by Lanre Idowu). Reading the erudite scholar, one begins to wonder which school of journalism the senior editors in power today attended, where they were taught that the art and act of opinion writing is about hailing the taskmaster! Phew!

The message should be clear; as long as lice remains in the head, the fingers will always be stained with blood (bí iná ò bá tán lórí, èjè kò ní tán l’èékáná). In any case, not everyone has the slave mentality that has conditioned many not to see anything wrong with those who, on a broad day, defile our sensibilities! The elders say when a music is bad, nobody justifies it as being of the palace because the palace is not supposed to sing disjointedly (orin ò daa, a pe l’òrin ààfin; sé ààfin ló ye ká ti ma ko orin burúkú ni?).

A man who hates his kinsman being criticised should first tell his relation to act within the walls of propriety. This is what the friends of the President should ask him to do rather than projecting the ethnicity of the President as measurements of support for him.

Why not, if President Tinubu turns out to give Nigerians the best, should we not hail him? And why should we worship him like a bloated deity when his failings and incompetence stare us all in the face? When only the minority live in opulence to the detriment of the downtrodden majority, the noise in the marketplace will be loud. And one day, it may become audacious, a la Nepal!

News

Tinubu Approves Portfolios For 5 NCDC Executive Directors

Published

21 hours ago

September 15, 2025

Editor

President Bola Tinubu has approved portfolios for five executive directors on the board of the North Central Development Commission (NCDC).

Mr Segun Imohiosen, Director, Information and Public Relations, Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), made the announcement in a statement issued on Monday in Abuja.

The appointees and their portfolios are: Hajiya Biliquis Jumoke- Administration and Human Resources, Mrs Aisha Rufai Ibrahim-Commercial and Industrial Development.

Others are, Mr James Abel Uloko-Corporate Services, Prof. Muhammad Bashar-Finance and Atika Ajanah-Projects.

The president urged the executive directors to work closely with the governing board of the commission to promote and coordinate sustainable development of the North-Central geopolitical zone.”

News

Court Orders Arrest Of 2 Lawyers Over Alleged Forgery, Impersonation

Published

22 hours ago

September 15, 2025

Editor

A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, sitting at Apo, on Monday, issued a bench warrant against two lawyers charged with forgery and impersonation.

Justice Jude Onwuegbuzie made the arrest order following repeated failure of the defendants- Victor Giwa, and Ibitade Bukola- to appear before the court to enter their plea to the charge that was preferred against them by the Inspector General of Police.

In the charge marked: CR/150/25, the duo were accused of conspiring to forge a legal document purportedly issued by the chambers of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Prof. Awa U. Kalu, with the intent to mislead the Attorney General of the Federation, AGF.

According to the three-count charge, the alleged offence occurred on June 28, 2024.

The prosecution alleged that the defendants forged and signed a letter on the official letterhead of the SAN, requesting the AGF to suspend a scheduled arraignment.

The contentious letter, titled “Urgent and Solemn Appeal to Suspend the Arraignment of Our Colleague Victor Giwa on Charge Number: CR/222/2023”, was allegedly addressed to the AGF.

It allegedly sought intervention of the AGF to halt an arraignment that was scheduled before trial Justice Samira Bature of the high court.

The IGP, in the charge, maintained that the two lawyers committed offences punishable under Section 97, 179 and 364 of the Penal Code Act, 2004.

At the resumed proceeding of the court on Monday, the prosecution counsel, Mr. Eristo Asaph, noted that the defence lawyer told the court that the 1st defendant was bereaved, hence his absence for the scheduled arraignment.

The prosecution counsel further noted that it was on the strength of an application by the defendant that the case was adjourned.

He, therefore, wondered why the duo were also absent in court for the case to proceed.

Responding, the defence counsel, Mr. Ogbu Aboje, told the court that the 1st defendant, Giwa, wrote a letter that was accompanied with a medical report dated September 3, indicating that he had a health challenge he described as “Degenerative disorder of the lumber vertebrae,” in addition to his hypertensive condition.

He added that the 2nd defendant equally went to the hospital on Monday morning to keep to a routine appointment for the immunisation of her daughter.

More so, he drew attention of the court to an application the defendants earlier filed to challenge its jurisdiction to entertain the case.

Dissatisfied with the developments, the prosecution counsel urged the court to issue a warrant for the defendants to be arrested y security agencies and produced for their trial.

In his ruling, Justice Onwuegbuzie held that having listened to both parties, he was minded to accede to the prosecution’s request.

He court stressed that the medical report did indicate that the 1st defendant would not be able to attend court, adding that the 2nd defendant did not adduce any material to justify her absence.

Consequently, relying on the provision of section 266 (2) and 352 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), Justice Onwuegbuzie issued a bench warrant for the defendants to be arrested and produced before the court on October 8.
(VANGUARD)