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OPINION: Protesters Of The North [Monday Lines]
Published
11 months agoon
By
Editor
By Lasisi Olagunju
They did what locusts do to farms. They spared almost nothing. They ate road slabs, pilfered roofs and stole ceilings. They attacked and looted at least one mosque – and at least one church. They hammered concrete slabs and squeezed out of them iron rods for sale. Well-paved roads suffered their anger because the beauty of the asphalt offended them. In a library, they stole dustbins and spared books. Trash is valuable, book is worthless. They attacked public and private buildings; they looted doors, wrenched windows off their hinges and stole installed tiles. They are the perfect proof of what the unbuilt child will ultimately do to well-built structures.
The sickest, scariest part of the world is our North. In his inaugural address on January 20, 1961, American president, John F. Kennedy, issued a warning which talks directly to today’s Nigeria, particularly the North. He said: “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich”. The out-of-school children in our North are in multiples of millions; they are the death of Nigeria and its elite. Their hunger unleashed a maelstrom of destruction on every part of that region last week, forcing the various states there to declare 24-hour curfews. The round-the-clock curfews remained active at the weekend but the rampaging genies stayed stubbornly out of the bottle. Some of the protesters were said to be with Russian flags on Saturday in Kano. What do they really want?
“The children that came out did not even demand anything other than to break offices and attack police,” Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State told Arise News on Thursday night. I don’t think that truth is the truth. In Daura, they did zanga zanga and massed at General Muhammadu Buhari’s house. They went with a message. In Sokoto, they carried leaves, put their anger on the boil and massed at the palace of Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar. They went there with a message that threatens democracy.
Russia ‘rules’ in Niger Republic and media reports said some protesters in Kano were seen waving Russian flags. What is incongruous in that? Were we not told repeatedly that there is no recognized boundary between Niger Republic and Nigeria’s border communities? The NSCDC in Kano at the weekend complained that aliens, particularly Nigeriens, were among arrested protesters in Kano. I read that and asked what was wrong in citizens of Niger Republic lending a helping hand in bringing down their brother’s Wall of Jericho. Where were the security forces when the government of Niger Republic publicly interfered in our elections in 2019? Or have we forgotten that two governors from that country — Issa Moussa of Zinder and Zakiri Umar of Maradi — were part of those who came and campaigned for Buhari in Kano in January 2019 for his reelection? The alien governors came, wore APC attires, and members of the APC presidential campaign team in Kano celebrated and feted them.
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Today’s president of Nigeria. Bola Tinubu, was the national leader of the APC when that brazen misadventure happened. I can’t remember hearing what he said against it. Abdullahi Ganduje, Tinubu’s party chairman today, was the Kano State governor who hosted those aliens. The Nigerian government celebrated the meddlesome interlopers in photographs wearing Pepsodent smiles. Thoughtful Nigerians loudly complained against that foreign interference; opposition PDP chairman, Uche Secondus, asked INEC to sanction APC and Buhari for that misadventure. “They came with monies and mercenaries to influence elections in Nigeria,” Secondus shouted. INEC promptly replied him: “Their presence does not violate the constitution.” Case closed – that time. Now, the Nigerien chicken has roamed back home to roost. The ruling people and their agents should just shut up and lick their wounds.
The president made a broadcast on Sunday (yesterday). He spoke with the chord of Lizard who fell from the top of the Iroko tree and shook its head: If no one praises me, I praise myself. Did he say anything on the painfully sore soles of Nigerians? If he did, I missed it. He will probably address that in his next broadcast.
Someone should tell the president that what he said on Sunday was what the Hausa man calls dogo turenchi (long grammar). The broadcast showed that Tinubu’s understanding of what Nigerians are going through is zero. He spoke about the #EndBadGovernance protest being some people’s political agenda. If there is indeed an agenda, it must be secondary to the real rebellion of the belly going on. My people say malevolent medicines don’t work unless believable stories are woven round the spell (ejo ni aa ro fun oogun ki o to je). There would not be popular support for the protest if there was no general anguish in town. The hundreds on the street are (were) those who had the strength to go out; the millions who are at home are even more trenchant in their protest. What they say are not prayers. The president needs to go out, feel the street and do another broadcast.
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If what you eat is exhausted, you go for what is classed as taboo. That proverb sounds like what a leader of the French Revolution, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, said about the last option of the hungry: “When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich (Quand le peuple n’aura plus rien à manger, il mangera le riche).” From one end of the street to the other, a scary video shows children of the North blasting slabs fittingly placed on gutters, scavenging for iron rods. They did it with uncommonly calm fury, daring the state.
A government ICT centre in Kano was invaded and stripped of all its assets. Children without basic education can’t appreciate computers and their possibilities. There is a lesson there for our policy makers. First things first.
Kaduna’s Governor Sani said more: “If you look at the developmental indices, I made it clear to everyone last week that as far back as 2016 in the northwest part of Nigeria, there was nothing but kidnappings and banditry. We have found ourselves in this problem because of the lack of seriousness of the leaders, including myself.” That was a very candid admission of complicity in the tragedy that has unfurled in the north. Sani added that everyone in northern Nigeria who held a leadership position, including the business community, should reflect on why over 70 percent of adults are financially excluded, why 65 percent of people are living below the poverty line, and why 70 percent of Nigeria’s 18.3 million out-of-school children are domiciled in the north. “That is why, if you look at the protest today, most of the states that participated are from northern Nigeria…” the governor said.
That Kaduna where Governor Sani sits was where the maker of the North, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, sat and made a very sound difference in the lives of his people. Sardauna’s biographer, John Paden, says when Bello was a mere councillor in charge of the Sokoto districts, he ensured that “education was the key.” When he became the premier, he held on to that conviction that the system must run well in such a way that “there was no resentment from below.” Paden adds: “The Sardauna felt that if this system broke down, the whole of the society would break down.” What the Sardauna feared has happened. The system he built has broken down. Governor Sani said so. The fury on the streets of the North is the confirmation.
On Saturday, Borno State governor, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, expressed shock over what he called the involvement of children in the protests in his state. He said over 95 percent of the protesters were under 14. To him, most of the children were unaware of the reasons behind their actions. He said the situation was “astonishing”. “It’s astonishing to see a six-year-old child carrying a placard. They must have been directed by someone.” Many of the children, he said, were not from Borno State. So, where did they come from? Were the unknown ones from Niger or Chad? The governor needs to tell us.
How many children of Borno do Borno and its governor know? Some people’s blessings are as limitless as the waters of the Atlantic. Children of northern Nigeria compete with the sands of the desert in matters of number. Sometimes you are tempted to ask what music they listen to in that very expansive clime?
Queen of songs, Onyeka Onwenu, died last week; God bless her sweet soul. With King Sunny Ade in 1989, Onyeka did a duet on life and the need to plan it well. They labelled the album ‘Wait For Me.’ The song suggests that if your loin is virile enough to sire a million children, your hands must be strong enough to make billions to feed them. You can’t have “plenty children” and offload their care to society. The duo sings that a nation can’t have sad families and still be a happy country. They sing:
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Having babies, no be joke oh,
You go feed them
You go give them cloth
Bring them up too…
If you never ready to carry the load
Why put am for another person head?…
Plenty children dey, but no food to eat
Oh my friend, this kain life na so so wahala…
King Sunny Ade and Onyeka Onwenu are not done. They also have these lines which are even more national in aim:
Happy parents, na happy children
Happy family na happy country…
If you love life, you go plan am well…
The album is 35 years old. Nothing has changed since it was released. Indeed, if you sing that Sunny Ade/Onyeka Onwenu song in the north, you are not likely to escape the sanctimonious sanctions of the leaders there. The singers sang nonsense, they would say. When families are wracked by hunger and anger, a million presidential broadcasts will not make patriots of them. “Happy family na happy country” The streets of Nigeria, north and south, are full of sad children of hunger and daring kids of anger. It is apparently worse in the North. The Almajirai who used to live on leftovers can’t get leftovers again. Everyone who still can afford some food is sticking to rations that serve their hunger. No excess food for excess children. The problem is real.
Nigerians are very hungry but it appears the North is hungrier. It will be hungry. Because of the choices it made yesterday, it can’t go to the farm today, can’t go to the stream to fetch water; the willing among them can’t go school. When you add mass hunger to mass illiteracy, you get perfect poison. Thunder claps of hunger are celting the stomach of Nigeria and there is no rescuing the afflicted. No country has what we have as street children in northern Nigeria and knows peace. It is not possible.
Like it happened in France of 1793, we’ve just heard a no for the very influential religious authority in northern Nigeria. The North’s feudal hierarchy, its autocracy and the clergy lost the street. The Ulama lost their command; the emirs lost their mane. The two lethal groups failed to convince the hungry that what they were feeling was politics and not hunger. The result, sadly, is the free reign of terror in that realm. If it was pupils of Muslim clerics that raged into a mosque and sacked the worship house from ceiling to floor, then the mallams should beware. Their domesticated lions have matured; the hungry cats want the wild and the food it offers.
There were protests also in the South – particularly in the South-West. Everyone who lives there should thank the protesters for staying the course peacefully. We should thank the state governments, particularly the governors of highly combustible Oyo, Osun, and Lagos, for not sleeping on duty and for fencing off their states from violence. We should also thank the police and other security forces in these states for not craving the taste of blood.
The biggest casualties of the protest in Yoruba land are, however, the pro-government political elite to whom double standards is honourable. They shaved clean the head of Agbe, bird of the creeks; they scraped clean the hairs of Àlùkò, bird of the desert; when it was the turn of their own bird, Àtíòro, they said their blade had lost its sharp edge. There is one word for that behaviour in Yoruba – it is Àgàbàgebè. We wait to see how they will find their vociferous voice again after this era.
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PHOTOS: Esama Of Benin Commissions BRC Ultramodern Lounge, Promises A Phase Lift
Published
1 hour agoon
June 29, 2025By
Editor
The Esama of Benin Kingdom, Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, has promised to give a phase lift to the Benin Recreation Club (BRC) in the next 12 months.
Chief Igbinedion made the promise in Benin on Saturday when he officially visited the BRC to commission a newly remodeled ultramodern ‘Chief Go.O. Igbinedion Bustop Lounge.’
The Esama, who expressed dissatisfaction on how he met the ancient recreation club, said: “This place needs a drastic improvement. I would, therefore, like the committee to see me, and I promise 12 months from now, this place will wear a new look.”
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Chief Igbinedion, however, thanked current and past executives of the club for a job well done, and for sustaining the BRC, saying “many organisations or associations as this have gone into extinction but you have put in your best to keep this going.”
The octogenarian, who thanked the leadership and the board of trustees for the honour done on him through the naming of a lounge, also vowed not to neglect the leadership especially knowing well that he has been a founding member of the BRC.
In his remarks, Special Guest of Honour and Chief Judge of Edo State, Justice Daniel Okungbowa, while describing the BRC as the best place to relax after a stressful day, urged members of the public who are yet to join the BRC to do so.
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Earlier in his welcome speech, president of the BRC, Courage Osamuyi said the lounge was named after Chief Igbinedion in recognition of his great support for the club and his contribution to humanity.

Justice Daniel Okungbowa, Chief Judge of Edo State
The BRC president, who declared that the presence of the Esama in the BRC signifies a new dawn, said “what we are having today is just the beginning. As he has stepped into this place, greater things will start to happen.”
Osamuyi, while noting that the Esama “has been a founding member of the club over the years,” thanked Chief Igbinedion for his good work and for honouring them with his presence.

Osamuyi Courage, President of The BRC

Labour Party leader and former presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has criticised President Bola Tinubu’s planned trip to Saint Lucia, describing it as poorly timed and lacking in sensitivity, especially amid Nigeria’s deepening economic and security challenges.
Tinubu is expected to leave Nigeria on Saturday for Saint Lucia and is also scheduled to attend the upcoming BRICS summit in Brazil.
In a post shared on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday, Obi expressed dismay over the president’s travel, questioning the state of governance in the country.
Obi argued that Tinubu’s trip highlights a pattern of misplaced priorities by the administration, particularly at a time when citizens are grappling with widespread hunger and insecurity.
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“What I have seen and witnessed in the last two years has left me in shock about poor governance delivery and apparent channelling of energy into politics and satisfaction of the elites, while the masses in our midst are languishing in want,” Obi stated.
He lamented the toll of rising insecurity across Nigeria, pointing out the country’s deteriorating safety situation.
“In the past two years, Nigeria has lost more people to all sorts of criminality than a country that is officially at war.
“Without any twilight, Nigeria ranks among the most insecure places in the world. Nigerians are hungrier, and most people do not know where their next meal will come from,” he wrote.
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Obi said he was stunned when he learned of the President’s travel plans, especially following what he described as a recent holiday in Lagos.
“With such a gory picture of one’s country, you can imagine my bewilderment when I saw a news release from the Presidency announcing that President Bola Tinubu is departing Nigeria today for a visit to Saint Lucia in the Caribbean,” he said.
Quoting Saint Lucia’s Prime Minister, Philip J. Pierre, Obi noted that the visit comprises both official and personal segments.
“According to the Prime Minister’s announcement, ‘two of these days, June 30 and July 1, will be dedicated to an official visit, with the remainder of the trip set aside as a personal vacation,” he said.
Obi noted that he initially found the report hard to believe.
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“I told the person who drew my attention to the Caribbean story that it cannot be true and that the President is just coming back from a holiday in Lagos.
“I didn’t want to believe that anybody in the position of authority, more so the President… would contemplate a leisure trip at this time,” Obi said.
He condemned Tinubu’s failure to visit disaster-stricken areas like Minna in Niger State, where over 200 people reportedly died and hundreds remain missing due to flooding.
“This is a President going for leisure when he couldn’t visit Minna, Niger State where over two hundred lives were lost and over 700 persons still missing in a flood natural disaster,” he said.
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Obi also took issue with Tinubu’s recent trip to Benue State, claiming it was politically motivated rather than compassionate.
“The other state in crisis where over two hundred lives were murdered, the President yielded to public pressure and visited Makurdi… for what turned out to be a political jamboree than condolence as public holiday was declared and children made to line up to receive the President who couldn’t even reach the village, the scene of the brutal attack,” he said.
Drawing comparisons between Nigeria and Saint Lucia, Obi questioned the logic of prioritising a visit to the Caribbean nation over addressing pressing domestic issues.
“Makurdi is 937.4 Km², which is over 59% bigger than St Lucia, which is 617 km², and Minna is 6789 square kilometres, which is ten times bigger than St Lucia. St Lucia, with a population of 180,000, is less than half of Makurdi’s 489,839 and Minna, with 532,000 is almost three times the population of St Lucia,” the former Anambra governor said.
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He concluded his post by stressing the urgent need for leadership that is grounded in empathy and focused on addressing the suffering of ordinary Nigerians.
He said, “I don’t think the situation in this country today calls for leisure for anybody in a position of authority, more so the President, on whose desk the buck stops.
“This regime has repeatedly shown its insensitivity and lack of passion for the populace…”
Obi added, “This very obvious indifference of the federal government to the suffering of the Nigerian poor should urgently be reversed.
“One had expected the President to be asking God for extra hours in a day for the challenges, but what we see is a concentration of efforts in the 2027 election and on satisfying the wealthy while the mass poor continues to multiply in number.”
News
World Bank Lists Nigeria Among 39 Nations Facing Rising Poverty, Hunger
Published
4 hours agoon
June 28, 2025By
Editor
The World Bank has listed Nigeria among 39 countries where poverty and hunger are deepening as a result of conflict and instability.
In a report released on Friday, the bank said the economies, a mix of low- and middle-income countries, span all global regions. Among them are Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Sudan, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe.
The report, which assesses the economic impact of conflict and fragility in the post-COVID-19 era, revealed that 21 of the 39 countries are experiencing active conflict.
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According to the findings, extreme poverty is rising more rapidly in these countries, taking a severe toll on economic development, worsening hunger, and derailing progress toward key development goals.
Since 2020, the report noted, the average per capita GDP of these economies has declined by 1.8 per cent annually, in contrast to a 2.9 per cent growth rate recorded in other developing countries.
The report partly reads: “This year, 421 million people are struggling on less than $3 a day in economies afflicted by conflict or instability—more than in the rest of the world combined.
“That number is projected to rise to 435 million, or nearly 60% of the world’s extreme poor, by 2030.”
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