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OPINION: Nuhu Ribadu’s Hell And Other Hellish Stories

Published

7 months ago

February 16, 2025

Editor

By Festus Adedayo

Nigeria has just had one hell of a week. Like an evil spirit, hell hovered over Nigeria with fraught silence. To stave it off, Muslims will seem to have recited the Quranic verse of the Yaseen to keep the evil away. Christians banned and banished. Hell held on regardless. Hell was first let loose when a hellish temperament of the country’s National Security Adviser, (NSA) Nuhu Ribadu, escaped from its scabbard. Ribadu is ostensibly managing a loose, hellish temperament. In a moment of unguarded, loose hold on his temper, Nuhu declared that Canada could go to hell. Ribadu’s temper escaped while he was reacting to Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa’s open revelation that Canada refused him and some military officers visa. They were billed to attend a remembrance in honour of fallen soldiers. Ribadu was openly miffed by what he termed a “painful, disrespectful” visa denial.

Now, there is hell everywhere. As I said earlier, last week was indeed very hellish for Nigeria. In William Congreve’s 1697 play with the title, The Mourning Bride, one of Congreve’s female characters, Zara, a captive queen, had raised some hell. She told a prison guard, “Heav’n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn’d, Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn’d.” Ondo State got caught in the hell narrative when the counsel of her ex-First Lady got scorned. Betty, wife of late governor Rotimi Akeredolu then stepped out to reify the hell discourse, lest Ondo State be let out of the hell loop. In an interview with a Star News, Betty would seem to have let all hell loose. Like Zara in Congreve’s. This time, however, her hell was reserved for spiritualists who wittingly or unwittingly kill their victims in the name of spirituality. Also, like Ribadu, she reserve a hellish space for those who made the cost of living this unbearable for the common man. A breast cancer survivor, Betty was against-method. She abandoned the African orthodoxy of not speaking uncomplimentary words about the dead. In doing this, Betty burst a closely guarded bubble of her home and in the process, perforating an over-a-century-old fake veneration of religion. Though not overt, orthodox religious belief, especially in Africa, is that diseases like cancer are caused by spiritual attacks.

“What came out of their mountain climbing, ‘blessed handkerchiefs, water, olive oil’, etc., from the G.Os and all the noisy prayers like people possessed by demons? If Aketi had listened to me, I wouldn’t be a widow.” She was obviously mocking the Prophet Jeros who, like a pestilence, suck the nectar of the vulnerable in Nigeria.

Hell was not done with Nigeria. In fact, you would imagine that Nigeria was Hell’s temporary habitation. That same week, one hell of a news crept into the information highway. It was the story of how Starboy Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, got his ladies-centric consultancy bubble burst in the CBN. Said the report, unsettling grunts had recently been reverberating round the apex bank’s 29 departments. Apparently, Starboy took the Yoruba aphorism of ‘the persistent grunts of a pig will inhabit its innards forever’ (hùn-hùn-hùn inú elédè l’ó ńgbé) extra-literally. So, he could not be bothered by CBN pigs’ grunts. He kept on with his Pín-yà job. Apologies to those who do not know the geneology of Pín-yà. Between January 1984 and August 1985 when he administered Ogun State as governor, all hell was let loose as Oladipo Diya reportedly inflicted so much pain on the citizens. It was such that, rather than call him by his ‘Diya’ surname, Ogun people (secretly, of course!) inflected it to an alliterative Pín-yà which literally meant ‘distributor of pain’. Like the biblical Rehoboam, Cardoso had recently doubled down on his peremptory chastising of Nigerians with scorpions. He did this through his new policy of having hapless Nigerians suffer deductions during cash withdrawals with their ATM card.

The hùn-hùn-hùn fuming and grumbling of the Senior staff members of the CBN however refused to reside inside of them. So they raised hell that the CBN was being bankrupted by an over-expenditure of beneficence they suspected was sexual. Hell! In his moment of impudence and audacity, Starboy had reportedly arbitrarily hired three female consultants mockingly christened “the Cardoso Women”. It was to these daughters of discord, apologies to Wole Soyinka, that Cardoso allegedly magisterially allocated “unbelievably high and obscene” salaries and allowances, massive enough to construct another Ibadan’s Cocoa House. The obscene salaries paid the three mystery women range from N50 million and N35 million monthly. The amounts are said to be higher than combined salaries of 10 directors.

The qestion now is, what gave rise to this apex bank’s strange contraption? Was it phallus-driven or taken from the playbook of nepotism, the bug that has bitten Nigeria’s current government? Whenever such unconscionable favouritism occurs, reference is always made to Middle Ages, up to the 17th century, where Catholic Popes and Bishops, because of their vow of celibacy, enthroned their nephews in positions that are usually accorded from fathers to sons. Many Popes of this period, like the Cardoso Women’s unbridled uplift, elevated their nephews and relatives into the Cardinalate, thereby instituting a Papal dynasty. A forerunner of Cardoso in this favouritism regard was Pope Callixtus 111. The Pope made his nephews cardinals, one of whom was Rodrigo who later became Pope Alexander V1. In Britain, nepotism is usually symbolized by the phrase, “Bob’s your uncle”. It became fashionable when the Third Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, promoted Arthur Balfour, his nephew, to the position of Chief Secretary for Ireland. But, we need more information on what drove this variant of nepotism of the Cardoso Women hue. Do we call it phallus-nepotism? It reminds me of a verse in an Ifa poetry chant which begins thus, “When they are favoured by the world, they act unconscionably…” (B’áyé bá ye wón tán, ìwà ìbàjé ni wón ńhù…).

We had hardly dispensed with the phallus-fear hell raised by the “Cardoso Women” when Tigran Gambaryan of the crypto finance firm, Binance raised a huge fireball of the size of the hell anticipated in Armageddon. You recollect that Gambaryan and his colleague were arrested for money laundering by the Nigerian state. Remember also that Gambaryan’s colleague’s escape raised some hell in the polity. A diplomatic compromise eventually got Gambaryan off the hook. Now, the most recent hell is that the American has started singing like the finch canary bird. In an X post last week, Gambaryan alleged that three Nigerian lawmakers demanded a whooping $150 million bribe from him to facilitate his escape, arrest and prosecution. In the X post, Gambaryan also set Ribadu’s feet on the road to hell. So, rather than Canada going to hell, our NSA is in one hell of a trouble. According to the latest canary, Ribadu and some other government officials were part of this well-orchestrated bribery roulette.

Now, let me embark on short responses to the multiple hell I mentioned overleaf. Yoruba Apala music legend, Ayinla Omowura, raising hell about misplacement of temper, had wondered why someone who cooks a soup that loses its savour would blame the plate on which it was served for their culinary misadventure (Bí’yò ò dun’bè, e ó se fì’kanra m’éwé?). Why do we blame those well-organized countries for refusing us visas? Rather than raising hell, the key lies in fixing our own country. Gen. Musa himself hit the nail on its head when he said the Canada visa denial was a clear prompting to Nigeria to “stand on its own, stand strong as a nation.” Many people have posited that unless western countries deny our peripatetic leaders visa to their countries, we would never fix Nigeria. Take for instance the bad example of our president who literally takes his breakfast in Abuja, lunch in Paris and dinner in any part of the world, many of the trips ostensibly to take care of his health. Why doesn’t he clone his Paris or UK hospice here in Nigeria?

And again, why would Ribadu and Musa blame Canada for denying Nigerian military officers visa to observe a social event as mundane as honouring fallen soldiers? Were those fallen soldiers Nigerians? If not, of what importance is the COAS’ attendance of such an event which on the surface looks like a jamboree? Methinks no greater honour could be given to gallant soldier fighters than upholding the cause they died for and keeping the family they left behind. Almost on a yearly basis, retired servicemen cry out due to their neglect by the military high command. How would Musa and his fat-epaulettes, fat-tummied officers’ travelling to Canada on a social junket memorialize these soldiers? I think, rather than ask her to go to hell, we should thank Canada for preserving Nigeria’s scarce forex that would have been immolated on this fanfare. I also think Alozie Ogugbuaja (police PRO during the IBB era’s) pepper soup theory is being inverted here. Ribadu is apparently taking too much pepper soup and its ancillary companion from the Police Officers’ Mess. They are likely responsible for this uncouth hell gaffe.

Now, to Betty Akeredolu’s hell. For once, let’s thank this Imo State-born woman for her against-method view. He who feels it knows it. For fear of raising hell and being accused of going to hell, Nigerians who suffer in the hands of christian and Islamic spiritualists have kept sealed lips on the havoc done them by the charlatans. Many had their loved ones dragged to death. It took Dora Akunyili’s son’s revelation in a viral video a couple of years ago for us to discover how G.Os lured the NAFDAC amazon to her death through their false assurances of healing. Betty is the one nursing the pangs of her husband’s loss and is one who feels the pain. Let us learn from her revelation and stop patronizing fraudulent spiritualists on ailments which science can cure. Betty herself is the best empirical example.

And then, the “Cardoso Women” in the CBN. My question is, why are men of power, at the apogee of their rule, always implicated in the hell that resides between their laps? This moment, I race for a copy of my Ligali Mukaiba vinyl. Mukaiba, another Yoruba Apala musical lord with a uniquely mellifluous and sleepy voice, was Lagos, Epe-born. In one of his 1970s tracks, he speaks to the pervasive influence of women in the lives of men, comparable only to drugs on addicts. Mukaiba sang, “I cannot see what a woman cannot fashion out with a man once she arrests his heart. If she orders him to go to Sokoto or Jos, off the man goes…” (Mi ò wá rí’hun t’óbìnrin ò lè fi’ni se/ t’ó bá ńwu’ni/t’ó bá ńj’àrábà eni/t’ó bá l’ó yá ní Sókótó/kùrù kere o…a ó tèlée l’éyìn ni/T’ó bá l’ó yá ni Jos o, a ó tèlé e lo ni…)

If you want to know the immense power of women and why men in power become captives of their own libido, please read an earlier piece I did with the title Atiku Abubakar and the sexual history of the Nigerian presidency (February 6, 2022). In it, using the story of Zimbabwean former Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, who suffered “a nasty blow from below,” an euphemism for impotency, as well as Nigerian leaders’, (Ibrahim Babangida, Atiku Abubakar, Olusegun Obasanjo) I traced the geography and history of libidinous rascality in Nigeria’s topmost power echelon. I also explored the centrality and virility of power, while attempting to show how men of power, through their libido, use sex as a locus of power. The lesson I came with was given by Prof Wale Adebanwi in a seminal journal article where he stated that, all of us, scholars, lay scholars and society as a whole, “need to pay greater attention to the ways in which obscenity can help explain the nature of power.” I used these men’s awkward exercise of their virile members to explain how libidinous politics and corruption cannot be divorced from Nigeria’s socio-politics.

Now, to the Gambaryan hell. Almost immediately he revealed the stenchy details of the bribe allegations, the Nigerian government attempted to douse the raging hell fire with officialese theatrics. Mohammed Idris, Minister of Information, made very feeble, and I dare say, unconvincing and puerile attempt to douse the bribery conflagration. In saner countries, these allegations are enough to get officials running helter-skelter. But, not to worry, this is Nigeria, home to fantastically corrupt governments notorious for crippling the country with bribery. Idris just needed to fulfill all righteousness. And he did. He obviously didn’t sound convincing and didn’t care. The press release merely went into the archives of similar rebuttals in the past and the playbook of governments’ appeal to patriotism. In the service to the god of cant, the minister merely made use of time-worn officialese which Nigerians know have always been used as diapers to cover government officials’ heists. It was same way a denial was put up to Femi Otedola’s allegation against House of Representatives member, Farouk Lawan, for receiving a $500,000 bribe. What happened in the end? I personally believe Gambaryan and hold that his allegation is consistent with a narrative of the Nigerian bigman in public service. He had a graphic and believable description of the scene of the alleged crime and the alleged dramatis personae. He is to me a witness of truth. We must not lose track of the fact that, whenever it is about corruption, Nigerian government officials’ notoriety for swimming in the puddle is worse than a swine’s.

Isn’t it an oxymoron that the Nigerian government, which should be eager to sacrifice corrupt cogs in the wheels of its progress is the one defending the accused? Nigerians would have expected each of those officials Gambaryan mentioned to be investigated by an impartial panel and not coming out to wax its sanctimony. Not to worry. Nigerians know who to believe over the Gambaryan allegation. The Binance executive’s home country, I am sure, must also be in possession of the hard facts of the transaction. The truths is that, the hun-hun-hun of alleged official and unofficial corruption allegedly traced to this government in the last 21 months is mind-boggling and concerning. If ever the baton changes hand, Nigerians must be ready to be treated to the most putrid display of swimming maggots in the history of Nigerian governance.

Oh, what a hell!

News

OPINION: Befriending Bandits

Published

24 minutes ago

September 23, 2025

Editor

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.

News

Court Bars CCETC From Entering Ossiomo Land, Using Its Property

Published

3 hours ago

September 23, 2025

Editor

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.

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.”

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.”

News

IPF Celebrates Otuaro On His Birthday Anniversary

Published

9 hours ago

September 23, 2025

Editor

The Ijaw Publishers’ Forum (IPF) has felicitated with Chief Dr. Dennis Otuaro, Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, on the occasion of his birthday.

A statement issued by the secretary of the body, Tare Magbei, commended Otuaro for his “steady leadership of the Presidential Amnesty Programme,” which according to the forum has “continued to strengthen peace, rehabilitation, and development in the Niger Delta.”

“Your efforts in providing opportunities for ex-agitators and in advancing stability across the region stand as clear evidence of your dedication to the people and progress of our land.

“As you mark this new year of life, we join your family, friends, and well-wishers in praying for good health, wisdom, and greater success in the service of the Niger Delta and Nigeria.”