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OPINION: Petrol Price As Slow Poison [Monday Lines]

Published

10 months ago

October 14, 2024

By Lasisi Olagunju

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd of Minneapolis repeatedly pleaded for reprieve. “I can’t breathe,” he groaned while police officer, Derek Chauvin, smashed his knee on Floyd’s neck and back. A bystander saw what was happening and exclaimed “let him breathe.” No. The officer was killing Floyd slowly. For every plea for breath, Derek Chauvin pressed harder the back of George Floyd’s neck. The law enforcer kept his knee there – one minute, two minutes, three minutes….ten minutes. Then there was quiet. The bell tolled for Floyd. And then the war – Black Lives Matter. This government’s economic policies feel like Derek Chauvin’s knees on George Floyd’s neck. The more we plead for life, the harder the pressure from their knees.

Northern Nigerian politician and Borno South Senator, Ali Ndume, rushed out a warning to President Bola Tinubu last Friday. He said he was in Maiduguri and was alarmed by what he saw and at what was coming. He said so many eerie stuff in that short note: He asked the president to do something about the hardship in the country, before it is too late. He said that around the president are wicked advisers “who don’t mean well for the people of this country.” He said they “give him wrong advice.” He begged that Nigerians “can’t afford the things that are being pushed on them every day by enemies of (the) state.” He was afraid to name the enemies.

Before this government came into our lives last year, petrol sold for less than N200. Last week, I bought a litre for N1,200. Friends and foes of the president are now united in misery. Someone said the president is talk-and-do. They cynically said the man contested to be “pressdent.” Now that he has become what he wanted to become, shouldn’t he do what he said he would do? The ‘pressdent’ is pressing and denting. Loafers around power, and government defenders used to personify W.B. Yeats’ “the worst”. They used to be loud and “full of passionate intensity.” Now, they sound silent, they talk and write sober. What I meet in petrol stations is what they meet there. They plead for life too, but the knee is there, going down harder.

Petrol must be very expensive for our economy to be healthy. That is what the government says. It is the elixir as prescribed by the powers behind the throne. Shouldn’t they know that whatever is worth being called medicine could be poison as well? ‘Pharmakon’ is the Greek word for medicine; it is also the Greek word for poison. Medicine is Oògùn in Yoruba. Poison is also Oògùn in Yoruba when it is encased with appropriate parts of speech. A similar expression in Hebrew is ‘sam’, the use and meaning of which hint us of the very thin line between what cures and what kills. Another dividing line between what kills and what cures is how a drug is taken. That which is for external use only, what is it doing in our mouth? Haruna Ishola, deeply witted, foremost Yoruba musician, in an album said his enemies were in trouble because they drank what they were asked to bathe with. “Má dà wá l’órí rú Oluwa (May God not inflict us with madness)”.

Implicated in our case is the IMF. One official mission of the IMF is to discourage “policies that would harm prosperity.” Whose prosperity? Why has no sick nation ever been cured of poverty by that Fund’s prescriptions? Or do we take it that the problem lies with the patient and not with the physician? What this government force-feeds us with is a drug we took before. Almost forty years ago, the prescription was labeled Structural Adjustment Programme. It didn’t work for our health; it deformed our country and stunted its growth. Those who professed it that time are in our control room today, testing anew the old drugs. Now, we all can’t breathe.

The Nigerian vase of survival is broken and every one declares their innocence. The president’s wife was in Ile Ife last week where she posted a disclaimer: my husband is not the cause of this hardship. She didn’t name who caused the hardship. Ndume blamed not the president, but his nameless bad advisers for the poisonous prescriptions. “The tempter and the tempted, who sins most?” Shakespeare asks in ‘Measure for Measure’. But it does not look like the president is being misled by any tempter. He knows what he is doing. He tells us to calm down as he hammers out tooth after tooth. A giant using his strength like a giant, the man does his thing spraying pain as anesthesia. The closest persons to him impress it on us that he is a physician committed to healing the nation and its sick people. His party vowed last Friday that the pain in town notwithstanding, their man wouldn’t change the drug dosage regimen. So, whose knee is suffocating us?

The president and his clan are the only ones who see life at the end of today’s tunnel of pain. For us, their victims, the way the regime injects petrol price increments, almost monthly, into our lives makes it look like Doctor Death. They are very professional about it. They know what dose to drop and when to drop it. Professional poisoners do what they do. They remind one of France’s ‘L’affaire des Poisons’ (Affair of the Poisons) and the case that triggered it.

Almost two centuries ago, Dr James Johnstone was a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics at the Queen’s College, Birmingham, United Kingdom. On October 5, 1847, Johnstone delivered a lecture at the college on what he themed ‘The Accumulative Action of Medicines, with Some Remarks on Slow Poison’. Midway into the lecture, the professor told the story of Marie-Madeleine-Marguérite d’Aubray, marquise de Brinvilliers, a French noblewoman who was found guilty of several murders, and was executed in Paris in 1676.

Jonestone told the woman’s story to illustrate the lethality of slow poison. Several authors, playwrights and filmmakers have used her life to teach the consequences of wickedness. The ‘Marquise of Darkness’, a 2010 TV movie, is one. I use it here as a metaphor for the fatal effects of killer policies, greed and wickedness, and how populist palliatives can kill.

The woman in the story was wealthy but she wanted more. She was the kind who would be queen, yet invest in money ritual. She wanted everything around her to be hers only. Madame Marie wanted all of her rich father’s wealth for herself but she had two brothers and a sister whose claim to the wealth was as strong as hers. It was a difficult wish but where there is a will there must always be a way. She romanced a man called Sainte-Croix. Apparently an expert at preparing lethal substances, Sainte-Croix designed a scheme for Madame that would help her take out her ‘rivals’ one by one. Dr. Jonestone said the woman’s father was the first to go. He “was without hesitation sacrificed…The first dose of poison was given to him in soup. The man suffered so much pain after it…and in the space of a few days he expired.”

Madame Marie’s father was dead but her two brothers and a sister still lived to share the wealth with her. Those ones must die too. She agreed with her accomplice that what would kill her siblings must not look like what killed her dad. The murderous resolution was that “to avoid suspicion, it was necessary to employ a poison less rapid in its action than that which had killed the father.” They procured their substance but, first, they must test its efficacy. The wicked did not use animals for their experiments. They used human beings. And who? Poor patients in a public hospital.

Madame Marie had a reputation for piety, charity and philanthropy. She had repeatedly been to that hospital before with wine and medicine “to relieve the distressed.” Now, she went there with biscuits and fruits and other food items. The hungry, poor, and sick ate her food with much relish and thanks. A month later, Madame went to check on her patients. Their conditions had worsened; they suffered now a disease they did not have before. No one suspected Marie and her pan of palliatives. Doctors told her that “the disease was unknown, and defied their utmost skill.” Madame left. Two weeks later, she was back to check the result again. The story teller said “some of the patients were dead, others still lingered in hopeless agony – animated skeletons, whose only signs of life were the voice, sight, and breath.”

So, it happened that all who took Madame’s palliatives died within two months. Every expert inquiry as to what killed them drew blank. “Encouraged by this success,” Johnstone continues the story, Madame “commenced operations upon her brothers and sister. The sister escaped by leaving Paris, but one of the brothers expired in two months, and the other about five months after they had been subject to the influence of poison….”

Nigeria has become a nation of “animated skeletons.” The land is poisoned. Ndume spoke about “enemies of the state” advising the president. Who are they or can’t we ask who they are? Are we victims of some experiments by those governing our president? The way petrol price daily moves up the spiral staircase feels like Madame Marie’s poison. And just like her palliatives – the biscuits and fruits she graciously gave the needy at that Paris hospital – the kindness of the wicked here kills in devastating installments.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: ‘I am Here to Plunder’ [Monday Lines]

Yet, it doesn’t look like we’ve seen enough. The sad are many but they are past weeping. Shouldn’t there be an end to human suffering? Cornelius Lucey in his ‘The Mystery of Suffering’ (1931:401) writes about life, its constitution and how it handles pain and suffering. He says life sets “limits of time and of degree to the endurance of suffering” so much so that “when pain reaches a certain intensity, nature comes to the rescue. Self-consciousness is suspended, the patient faints off, and the pain ceases to be felt…” The passage you just read euphemises death. Mass suffering, administered in unremitting doses, kills massively.

Yet, in Nigeria, those who daily bake loaves of pain preach endurance. They say we will thank and worship them after this tenure. How many will be alive by the time these times are over? Is it not there in the Christian Bible that only the living strike up the tunes as “fiddles and mandolins.”? The dead don’t bite, yes. They also don’t praise. We beg those who minister pain to please read their Bible; Isaiah 38: 18-20: “The dead don’t thank you, and choirs don’t sing praises from the morgue. Those buried six feet under don’t witness to your faithful ways. It’s the living—live men, live women—who thank you, just as I’m doing right now…”

How many will be around when this government leaves power? Already the country is being emptied, one by one by starvation; en masse by emigration. Japa is no longer a southern Nigerian solution to destitution; resilient northern Nigerian middle class members are bailing out too. That is how forests lose their verdure and cities get abandoned. Look inside the houses around you; the buildings are either empty nests of lonely aged persons or or they are completely abandoned sepulchers.

Alfred Joyce Kilmer (1886 – 1918) wrote ‘The House with Nobody In It’ – a poem about emptiness, about lost glory, about abandonment, about aborted promise. The poet looks at a poor old farmhouse. It hurts to gaze at this house with its crumbling roof and falling shutters. It hurts to think that this house has seen golden years when it sheltered life and hugged man and wife and echoed a baby’s laugh. It hurts to look at the poor old house and feel the pulse of its broken heart. It stands empty, it looks idle. It is stupid.

This poet talks to himself. He says this empty house needs somebody to weed the compound and cleanse the kitchen and the rooms upstairs and downstairs; it deserves some persons of courage and knowledge who would kill the snakes in the crevices, and the scorpions in the cracks. But nobody cares about the dirt and death stalking the stairs. The house needs people in its life. Even if they are ghosts, humming the right tunes. A country is a house.

The Nigerian house is damp and dank. Its hearth needs embers of care. Who will light the wood? The one holding the matches is holidaying somewhere on the moon, transiting from the infirmary of King George IV to the sanatorium of Napoleon Bonaparte. While he does that, this big house is left alone to drift in cold, mournful loneliness, broken hearted. Nigeria should not be that house. Or is it that house? I ask because it hasn’t been this dreary for it all its life. There was a fleeting past of warmth and hope.

It is in some records that this country showed some promise before the terrible crash of less than ten years ago. A World Bank study revealed that between 2003 and 2013, “the size of the middle class in Nigeria increased from 13 per cent to 19 percent while poverty reduced from 45 percent to 33 per cent.” But, by mid-2015, the bank had started asking where the Nigerian middle class was. “Nigeria, where is your bourgeoisie?”, it asked in a blog article in May 2015. Where growth grew yesterday, decay thrives there today. And, that is not the end of the horror. The worst is that those in charge are insisting that what is killing us will eventually give us life. Poison is remedy. Government by oxymoron.

We hope the president will listen to his friend, Ndume, and release us from his chokehold. If he is the thoughtful person they say he is, he will do the right thing on time and give life back to our country. If he refuses to do so, that day will still come when we will inhale and exhale like Philonise Floyd did after a guilty verdict on his brother’s killer. Survivors of this moment will chant: “Today, we are able to breathe again.” That day will come.

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Bayelsa Education Ministry Denies Alleged Deductions From Contractors’ Payments

Published

3 hours ago

August 16, 2025

Editor

The Bayelsa State Ministry of Education has debunked allegations of arbitrary deductions from contractors’ payments, describing the claims as false, unfounded, and misleading.

The clarification follows a report published in the Niger Delta Herald between July 16 and 22, 2025, with the headline “Contractors Lament Alleged Deductions by Ministry Officials in Bayelsa.”

According to the Ministry, all payments to contractors are executed strictly in line with contractual terms, financial regulations, and due process.

It added that deductions, where applicable, are limited to statutory obligations such as taxes, pension contributions, and contractually agreed retentions.

The Ministry emphasised that it operates a transparent and accountable system with multiple oversight layers to ensure fairness, insisting that no official is empowered to make arbitrary deductions.

In response to the Ministry’s position, the Niger Delta Herald has acknowledged the clarification, expressing regret over any misinterpretation the earlier report may have caused.

Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper, Mr. Francis Dufugha, tendered an unreserved apology to the state government and Governor Douye Diri, reaffirming the paper’s commitment to fairness, balance, and accuracy in its reportage.

“We remain dedicated to providing all stakeholders the opportunity to present their side of any story,” Dufugha said.

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[OPINION] Wasiu Ayinde: Shame Of A Nation (1)

Published

12 hours ago

August 15, 2025

Editor

Tunde Odesola

Unenviable bee life. Despite buzzing from pillar to post in the field, transporting tonnes of nectar sugar to its hive for honey, the bee, like the Value Jet aircraft passenger, is ultimately deboarded from its hive in an extractive process to yield nature’s sweetest and goldiest liquid, honey; a perfect example of the product outvaluing the producer.

As a youth looking forward to sitting the secondary school-leaving certificate examination, the release of the album, Talazo’84, by the new kid on the Fuji music bloc, Wasiu Ayinde Barrister, presented to me an opportunity for defiance, self-belief and entertainment.

But my admiration for Wasiu had to be in secret because my no-nonsense parents preferred the rich and instructive music of Tunde Nightingale, Adeolu Akinsanya, Haruna Ishola, Jim Reeves, Jim Rex Lawson, I.K. Dairo, Victor Olaiya, Osita Osadebe; Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey, King Sunny Ade, Victor Uwaifo, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Orlando Owoh, Ofege, etc, to the originality-lacking music of Wasiu of those days.

In my father’s home, there was an unwritten, but effective law. If you’re watching a programme on TV or listening to the radio, and a Fuji song wafts in, you must change the channel or frown, stand up and walk away. That was the disdain my family had for Fuji, a music genre considered vulgar and lowlife.

And, if you pretend as if you didn’t notice the Fuji song on the radio or TV, my father, Pa Adebisi Odesola, of blessed memory, in the most sarcastic of voices, would twist a sentence in the music, like, “Wese Boy ko, Wese girl ni; o ti gbe rubbish yen kuro ki n to wa gba eti e! Will you turn off the rubbish music before I slap you!?”

But in the eyes of a teenager born on Lagos Island and bred in Mushin, Wasiu was a symbol of possibility. He felt like a big brother and folk hero, whose musical breakthrough whispered to me, “This is Wasiu, young and successful; if Wasiu can achieve musically, you too can, academically.”

Well, 41 years after the release of Talazo’84, I remain a fan of Wese Boy, but now with a better understanding of what enduring music is, an example of which is the music of Fuji Oracle, the late Chief Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, whose songs are truly timeless.

Although I still love Wasiu Ayinde, I hate his lifestyle. The ambivalence between his life and music takes me back to the bee and the honey metaphor – the creation and the creator. This ambivalence prompts the questions: Can the artist be separated from his art, and should fans appreciate and enjoy the music of a morally deficient artist?

While he lived, King of Pop, Michael Jackson, was a matchless talent in voice and dance. Though not convicted, Jackson faced longstanding allegations of child sexual abuse, making many feel uncomfortable supporting his work, and raising the question: Can the powerful messages in his songs like “Man in the Mirror” or “Heal the World” be separated from the allegations against him?

“Mute R. Kelly” became a widespread movement after American R&B god, Robert Sylvester Kelly, was convicted of multiple sex crimes, including against minors. His conviction caused a sharp drop in public support, with many refusing to stream his music. Unlike the music of Jackson, however, R Kelly’s music brims with autobiographical themes, making the separation of the artist from his art more difficult.

Back home in Nigeria, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti needs no introduction. Though celebrated for his fight against corruption and government highhandedness, Fela was criticised for ruling his Kalakuta Republic with the same highhandedness he criticised public officials for. While some believe his personal flaws shouldn’t be magnified to overshadow his socio-political relevance, others say his activism was no excuse for extremism.

After 41 years in Fuji limelight, controversy is no stranger to the son of Anifowose, who has made a fortune by ingratiating himself with high-end politicians such as ministers, senators, governors and incumbent President Bola Tinubu, singing their praises for a fee.

However, his lack of discretion and unbecoming arrogance, two flaws many blame on the absence of adequate formal education, saw him record a personal phone call with President Tinubu and put the audio call online, breaching the protocol of the Office of the Nigerian President. Sadly and quite worrisomely, the Office of the President did not sanction Wasiu’s recklessness on that particular occasion.

A few days after thoughtlessly exposing President Tinubu’s phone conversation with him, Wasiu grew wings and perched on the roof of his Ijebu-Ode home, looking down on Islamic alfas, who graced his mother’s burial, describing them as interlopers who opened their mouths like an umbrella when there was no rain or sunshine. “Ile baba mi ni Fidipote, awon alfa, won lo be. Ibi ni gbogbo won wa se kinni, ni won wa ganu si,” Wasiu said.

In an attempt to douse the heat generated by his numerous controversies, including the allegations of maltreatment levelled by his former drummer, Kunle Ayanlowo, and the President’s phone call leak, KWAM 1 granted an interview to online TV, Agbaletu, owned by multitalented journalist and music aficionado, Dele Adeyanju, in April 2025.

In the interview, Igi Jegede, clad in a Yoruba attire, with a purple and beige colour thinking cap to match, gave a good account of himself as he denied the allegations of maltreatment, arrogance, highhandedness, vindictiveness and ruthlessness levelled against him. Interspersing the Yoruba interview with some unilluminating English grammatical expressions, Omogbolahan cut the picture of a man sinned against, rather than he sinned.

However, he shot himself in the foot when he highlighted to Agbaletu TV the virtues someone of his social status is expected to possess. His words, “At this juncture in my life, the responsibilities I carry are so many. Wasiu Ayinde is the one you know (but) Wasiu Ayinde has different meanings in various communities, especially in Yorubaland and Nigeria as a whole. Wasiu Ayinde is the Oluomo of Lagos – a very prestigious title and responsibility. This will constrain me from saying some things the way I should, but I won’t be able to say them the way I should. So, also, Wasiu Ayinde is the Mayegun of Yorubaland. Someone who is Mayegun is a peacemaker; no one hears foul words from the mouth of Mayegun.”

With the thinking cap still firmly on his head, the Oluaye Fuji continued, “Mayegun should not talk, and people go asking, ‘Was it the Mayegun that said such?’ The greatest of the greatest honour (is my title) as Olori Omoba of Ijebuland; that’s also so big, the society must not hear bad things from my mouth. There are many things I will overlook or choose not to hear or respond to. It’s not that I overlook or wave such things off, but because no one hears foul words from the mouth of Abore (the chief priest). I have two more years to turn 70. Imagine someone who has all these titles, and the things you hear from him are still controversial.”

I wonder where K1 De Ultimate put the thinking cap he wore while granting the Agbaletu interview when, on Tuesday, August 5, 2025, he exhibited a behaviour unbefitting of an Omoluabi, a Mayegun and an Olori Omoba, at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, where he stood in the path of an aeroplane – boasting and threatening – trying to prevent it from taking off, like NURTW members would threaten yellow buses in Lagos. Arabambi became grumpy and baptised the members of Value Jet airline’s cabin crew with w(h)ate(ve)r was the content of his flask, prompting the airline to bar him from travelling, even as he moved the battle to the front tyre of the plane, blocking it from moving.

Until the clips of his shameful airport saga went viral, Wasiu, shortly after dodging the wing of the fast-moving plane in an ‘ariku yeri’ fashion, played the victim, claiming he was in the right, and threatening the owner of Value Jet airline, Kunle Soname, his fellow Ijebu tribesman, saying, “Soname will feel me.” Oniyeye. Ironically, the Wasiu, who, in a song, warns a mother about her child climbing the branchless pawpaw tree, is the one engaging in eregele in front of a plane.

Ayinde’s mentee, Kunle Alabi Pasuma, aka Lagata, likens ere ’gele to the dangerous play by a young boy, Ade, who recklessly rides his bicycle along the road where an egg seller displays her wares, upturning crates of eggs and incurring a huge debt. Pasuma, also known as Iba Wasi, stretches the recklessness metaphor a bit further by likening Ade’s tale to a drunk, who also convulses, saying it is a double whammy for a drunk to convulse, “Ade ma n sere ’gele, Ade n gun keke, nibiti iya eleyin joko…”

According to a leaked audio, Arabambi said he needed water ‘every second’, yes, ‘every second’, and I quote, “I need water. I am dehydrated, I constantly take water…I am a patient. I needed this water, every second, I needed it. You don’t want to see me shut down.”

To ensure fairness and clarity, I placed Wasiu’s claim of needing water ‘every second’ on the table of medical doctors. A medical doctor and associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Adeoye Oyewole, said, “It is a lie. No dehydration would be on that level. If dehydration gets to that level, the patient would be placed on IV fluid to prevent renal failure. It is a lie.” Speaking on anonymous condition, another medical doctor, who owns a hospital in Lagos State, said, “If Wasiu claims to need water constantly, the question to ask is, ‘Does he not sleep at night?’ Does he not play for hours without drinking? If he needs water constantly, as he claims, such water must be ORS containing sugar and salt; it can’t be ordinary water. He’s lying.” Yet another medical doctor in the service of Osun State dismissed Wasiu’s claim. The doctor, nicknamed BJ, said, “Wasiu was just looking for an excuse. His claim lacks medical backing if subjected to medical analysis. He’s a joker.”

Hours after Wasiu’s blowup, Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo (SAN), acting like he was in a just and serious country, swiftly condemned the bad action of the bard as ‘totally unacceptable’, and placed him on a no-fly list, an action that drew a resounding applause from Nigerians. Following Keyamo’s action, a jittery Wasiu quickly clambered down his high horse and ate the humble pie, making a public apology in which he begged Tinubu, Keyamo, NCAA, and FAAN for forgiveness. But, in what he called an apology, the haughty way Olasunkanmi Ayinde described himself as an ambassador of the country in the past 50 years, highlights a refrain in his Talazo’84 album, ‘ko seni to le na mi lore, loju tani, Asiwaju Ahmeda o….’ Wasiu’s limited knowledge precluded him from knowing that nobody appoints themselves an ambassador – an authority needs to appoint someone an ambassador.

It appears the scales of utopia were to later fall off Keyamo’s eyes as he soon realised the minstrel in the eye of the storm was the canary ‘son’ of Tinubu, whose privileged position defies justice and defiles integrity. As an intelligent politician, Keyamo probably took a cue from the fate that befell some Lagos elders, who gathered under the aegis of the Governor’s Advisory Council, and advised Tinubu on the need not to meddle in the removal of Lagos State Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa, by Lagos State House of Assembly members. Bourdillon refused the counsel of the elders and facilitated the reinstatement of Mudashiru in a brazen manner, which echoes a line from Wasiu’s song, “E mo egbé e yín ke jòkó jé…”

To underscore Ayinde’s arrogance, I reproduce basically the viral phone conversation he had with Tinubu when he lost his mother early this year: How can you (Tinubu) be in power and I (Wasiu) will suffer tribulation. You (Tinubu) can’t be in power, and I (Wasiu) will suffer. That is impossible in the Nigeria that you (Tinubu) are president; the Nigeria that you (Tinubu) have in your hands.

At this point, it is pertinent to peep into the mind of Wasiu and psychoanalyse what constitutes the keys to success for him. This exercise will give an idea of why he behaves the way he does.

Giving what looks like a pep talk in a viral video, Wasiu enumerates three fundamental keys to success in life. According to him, these keys are ‘money, boldness and connection’. Simple! In the short video clip, Baba Sultan was actually referring to Baddo, Nigeria’s hip-hop sensation. For a man close to 70 to assert that ‘money, boldness and connection’ are his three key recipes for success, it goes to say that the power show at the Abuja airport reveals a man whose id dominates his ego and superego. If a man dominated by moral conscience were to give such a pep talk, he would list integrity, hard work, kindness, morality, patience, fairness, commitment and justice as keys to success.

When people describe Nigeria as a puppet on a string controlled by the powerful, the administrations of Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Tinubu readily come to mind, not forgetting those of Olusegun Obasanjo, Musa Ya’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan. Do you still remember the indicted cop, DCP Abba Kyari, who was heard on a recorded phone conversation negotiating access to the cocaine seized from two criminal suspects? Hahaha, that’s Naija for you.

A sane mind would think Kyari would have been brought to justice. But is Nigeria a sane country? Kyari’s indictment for drug crime came on the heels of his indictment by the US in the multinational fraud involving Ramon Abbas, aka Hushpuppi, currently serving an 11-year jail term for international wire fraud after he was arrested in Dubai by the FBI in 2020 and consequently sentenced.

The Buhari administration turned down the request by US authorities for the extradition of Kyari to face criminal charges, maintaining the disgraced cop was on trial in Nigeria, already. Subsequently, the court barred journalists from covering Kyari’s trial, which began in March 2022, saying the identities of witnesses needed to be protected. However, journalists have yet to resume covering the case even as Kyari has been released on bail for not escaping when the gates of the Kuje prison were flung open during an attack on July 5, 2022. Chibunna Patrick Omebi and Emeka Ezenwa, the suspects in possession of 21.25kg of cocaine, have since been released after serving their time in prison, but Kyari is still on trial in Naija. Hahahaha!

Kyari is a northerner like Buhari. Wasiu is a south-westerner like Tinubu. Ushie Rita Uguamaye, aka Raye, is from the south-south creek of Cross River State. She is the National Youth Service Corps member, whose certificate of national service is being withheld by the NYSC in controversial circumstances – after she described President Tinubu as a ‘terrible leader’ overseeing a worsening national economy.

For Raya to receive a pardon like Wasiu, she might need to wait till 2060 when her kinsman might emerge Nigerian president. By then, the foundation of the ethnic bias laid by Jonathan, built by Buhari and cemented by Tinubu would have long become an enduring law in the Nigerian Constitution.

But Raya is not as lucky as Comfort Emmanson, the Air Ibom female passenger, who let all hell loose in a fit of rage that saw her wig, bag, shoes, and all flying in different directions during a free-for-all with cabin crew members inside a plane that arrived in Lagos from Uyo. Unlike Raya, Wasiu and Emmanson have reportedly been appointed as ambassadors by various organisations, but a mass protest led by human rights activist, Omoyele Sowore, to enforce Raya’s rights, was overlooked by Tinubu while Wasiu, his ‘son’, got his hand raised in triumph as if he just won a Grammy.

Emmanson should thank her stars that the timing of her fight coincided with the time when the overpampered ‘son’ of Tinubu was showing the world that this is the best time to be a Yoruba.

To be continued.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

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Bumper Harvest: Foundation Distributes 6,000 Fertilizers To Farmers In Bauchi

Published

2 days ago

August 14, 2025

Editor

A group, Wunti Al-Khair Foundation has donated 6,000 50kg bags of fertilizer to farmers in Bauchi state in order to have a bumper harvest.

Speaking during the flag off ceremony of the distribution of the fertilizers on Thursday, Mr Abubakar Mohammed, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Wunti Al-Khair Foundation, said the distribution was only for the indigent farmers in the state.

He said the fertilizers would be distributed to farmers in underserved communities across the three Senatorial Districts of the state.

“We are gathered here to flag off the free distribution of fertilizers to farmers, especially the indigent farmers that don’t have the means to buy fertilizer for their farms.

“That is the reason why the founder of this foundation bought the fertilizers and distributed them to the low income farmers in the state.

“We have gone round the nooks and crannies of the state to identify the underserved communities and those that deserve this particular gesture.

“We planned to distribute about 6,000 bags of fertilizer and due to the populous nature of the Bauchi LGA, they have the largest share but some other local governments too have hundreds of beneficiaries which we divided into Senatorial zones,” he said.

According to him, today was the flagging off of the Bauchi South Senatorial District, adding that the extension of the gesture would commence in Bauchi North and Bauchi Central Senatorial Districts tomorrow.

Mohammed explained that the only criteria used in selecting the beneficiaries were underserved communities and low income farmers, adding that “we know that a large number of the farmers in Bauchi state are low income farmers.

“Those are the people that we identified, verified and they are our beneficiaries and we have warned the general public about the activities of some unscrupulous elements that go round to impersonate our foundation.

“Wunti Al-Khair Foundation is not charging a kobo for every part of its activities, be it education, healthcare, economic empowerment and community development”.

Responding, one of the beneficiaries, Emmanuel Samson, described the support as a timely intervention that would greatly enhance his farming activities and appreciated the foundation for the intervention.

Another beneficiary, Salisu Maidawa, who was short of words for the gesture, said the gesture came at a time when he was in dire need of it.