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OPINION: The Bile In Oshiomhole’s Heart

Published

2 years ago

September 6, 2024

Tunde Odesola

Former Governor of Edo State, Senator Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole, was born on April 4, 1952. If baby Adams had come into the world three days earlier, he would have been born on April Fools’ Day. Adams is now 72 years old, long past 40, the popular age society set as the bar for fools to sink or swim. Oshiomhole is not a fool, he was only born on April 4, the same day and month all hell broke loose in 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. April 4, unto us a baby is born.

Old age doesn’t always beget wisdom, though experience is its forte. This fact is lost on Nigeria’s President, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s National Assembly, and education policymakers, whose aversion to genius and scholarship informed the barring of under-18 students from accessing tertiary education.

Dressed in the robes of fake leaders, Nigeria’s blind visioners in Asso Rock and beyond bark, ‘Kill them before they grow’, at young admission seekers milling around the almighty gates of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, with Bob Marley’s song, “I Shot the Sheriff,” playing in the background.

Oshiomhole loves dancing. As a comrade in the trenches of the Nigeria Labour Congress, he must have danced to Fela Anikulapo’s Beasts of No Nation, in which the Abami Eda describes himself as Basketmouth. Basketmouth is the street slang for the big-mouthed. When Oshiomhole talks, baskets overflow. But a Yoruba proverb warns, òpò òrò ò ká’gbòn, aféfé ló ń gbe lo, a basket full of words is worthless. Whenever he feels strongly about an issue, the force of his oration appears compelling even if what he belches is just hot air, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Adam was the name of the first human created by God, so say the Holy Bible and the Holy Quran. Adam means ‘Son of the Red Earth’. Aliyu is one of the 99 names of Allah. It means ‘The Most High’ or The Exalted One’. As ‘the Son of the Red Earth’, Oshiomhole’s thoughts and actions are expected to be deep-rooted in the soil of wisdom. As ‘The Exalted One’, his words are expected to typify dignity.

But Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole, while on a campaign trail in Edo State a few days ago, defiled his two names. Without regard to wisdom or civility, Oshiomhole threw decency to the dogs as he pronounced his former begotten son and incumbent Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, and his wife, Betsy, childless. A Muslim reportedly converted to Christianity by his late wife, Clara, Oshiomhole’s characteristic aggression is typical of converts.

When caught midair in the breaking light of dawn, witches become confused and they drop to the ground. They also confess. Oshiomhole said, “I was shock (sic) yesterday to see Mrs Obaseki, the First Lady, saying that our candidate has no wife; I’m sorry that she has to say that because here’s a woman who has no child. Between him (sic) and Obaseki, they have no child, they’re childless. They are even not ready to adopt. I mean, I don’t blame anybody shouldn’t (sic) have a child but people who have love for children, they go to motherless home(s) and adopt children, they have not adopted, they are both in their 60s.

“So, you married, I don’t know whether it’s a contract one, but whatever it is, but they have no child. Now, our candidate not only have (sic) children, he has invested in the education of those children, such that you watch them on live television, covered by your media stations where the first that spoke is a lawyer, the second one is a medical doctor, and they addressed the crowd in Edo-South, in Edo-Central, in Edo-North, and their mother was there.”

I can’t tell why witches are repetitive but I suspect the electoral whipping Obaseki gave Oshiomhole in the 2020 governorship election in Edo has created a hatred in Oshiomhole’s heart large enough to accommodate 10 wounded lions as he described Obaseki and his wife as childless four times in a one-minute video clip. Osho Baba, na wetin?

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The tirade quoted above was what Betsy Obaseki got for declaring at a rally that only the Peoples Democratic Party candidate in the Edo governorship election, Asue Ighodalo, was married. Though she didn’t specifically mention any candidate as being unmarried, the undertone of her message wasn’t lost on her audience. The Betsy innuendo was what Oshiomhole, a former national chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, couldn’t take, and he decided to run the errand meant for media aides and party roughnecks, all for his political son, Monday Okpebholo, the APC governorship candidate. What a great national leader Oshiomhole is!

Betsy could have done the more involving breaststroke swimming style in the sewage of Edo’s political bitterness but she didn’t, she chose the stylish backstroke, maybe for its steaze or womanishness. But Oshiomhole would drag anyone, male or female, without a child, to the bottom of the sewage for child-ish baptism because he’s the god of Edo who gives children.

According to the University of California San Francisco’s Memory and Ageing Center – Weill Institute of Neurosciences – there are three major areas of the brain responsible for speech and language. They are the Bocca’s area, Wernicke’s area and the Angular gyrus.

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In a research, “Speech and Language,” published on its website, the university says, “When someone has trouble understanding other people (receptive language) or explaining thoughts, ideas and feelings (expressive language), that is a language disorder.”

UCSF, a world-class citadel of knowledge, added, “When someone cannot produce speech sounds correctly or fluently or has voice problems, that is a speech disorder.”

In a society where pettiness is a virtue within the ruling class, Betsy’s preoccupation with marriage and Oshiomhole’s fixation with childlessness reflect the shallowness of the characters who populate Nigeria’s corridors of power.

The lack of roadmaps by Presidents Goodluck Jonathan, Muhamadu Buhari, Bola Tinubu, and governorship, legislative and local government council candidates standing election entrenches us firmly at the bottom of global development. The silence that greets misgovernance in Nigeria concretises our national doom.

At election times, the Nigerian electorate bickers over frivolities and expects candidates who had no manifestos to wave the magic wand after snatching and robbing like mafiosos.

In our electoral childishness, childlessness was a talking point in the Edo governorship election in 2020 when Oshiomhole was accused of not fathering a child with his Cape Verde wife, Iara. Oshiomhole, who has children with his late wife, Clara, could choose not to have children anymore. In Nigerian politics, the shoe is always on the wrong foot. The PDP threw the first stone in 2020, and now the APC is casting a rock.

It’s ironic that Oshiomhole who is kicking against Betsy’s remarks today, had in 2016, accused then-Senator Dino Melaye of not capable of ‘maintaining a decent matrimonial home’ after Melaye said on the floor of the Senate that there was the need to enact a law that would stop Nigerians marrying foreigners from paying dowries in dollars – in a veiled reference to Oshiomhole.

The former Edo governor thundered in a statement, “It’s an open secret that Senatoe Melaye cannot maintain a decent matrimonial home hence he could descend to this pedestrian level of using the hallowed chambers to categorise women as if they were pieces of items for purchase.”

In Africa, children are viewed as inheritances from God. It’s wrong to needle anyone with children or lack of them. When I was a child, I remember I was occasionally taken to the house of my father’s childhood friend, the late Mr Jacob Asha Afainiya, because his wife, the late Mrs Olajumoke Comfort Afainiya, who was my mom’s childhood friend, had not conceived, despite the two couples marrying about the same time.

The Afainiya couple got their firstborn, Seun, when my parents had their third, Florence, now deceased. I occasionally stayed with the Afainiya family, who lived a stone’s throw from us in Mushin, in the belief that my ‘head’ would call from heaven children for the Afainiya couple – ori omo lo ma n pe omo waye. That’s the African belief. It also shows the importance which Africans attach to children. And I enjoyed going to the Afainiyas because mummy Afainiya made okra soup like no other mother.

One day, in the presence of both couples, I told my mom to cook her okra like mummy Afainiya’s, and everyone present laughed. When I got home, I cried for my basket-mouthedness as my mom descended on me.

Nigeria, it’s high time we based our campaigns on developmental issues and stop running our mouths like torn baskets, please.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @Tunde_Odesola

News

Xenophobic Attacks: Oshiomhole Tells FG To Retaliate Against South African Companies In Nigeria

Published

4 hours ago

May 5, 2026

Editor

Senator Adams Oshiomhole has called on the Federal Government to retaliate against South African businesses operating in Nigeria following the recent attacks on Nigerians in South Africa.

Speaking during plenary on Tuesday, Oshiomhole said the Federal Government should consider revoking the working license of South African owned companies such as MTN and DSTV.

He argued that Nigeria must respond firmly to what he described as persistent hostility against its citizens.

“I am not going to shed tears. If you hit me, I hit you. I think it is appropriate in diplomacy. It is an economic struggle,” Oshiomhole said.

He argued that while some South Africans accuse Nigerians of taking their jobs, Nigerians should return home and take over employment opportunities created by major South African companies operating in the country, including MTN and DSTV.

“When we hit back, the President of South Africa will not only talk but will also go on his knees to recognise that Nigeria cannot be intimidated.

“We will not condone any life being lost. If a crime has been committed under the South African law they have the right to bring any such person to justice, but to kill our people as if we are helpless, we will not allow that,” Oshiomhole added.

DAILY POST reports that several Nigerians in South Africa have reportedly been attacked, and their businesses destroyed, in ongoing xenophobic attacks in the country.

News

IGP Orders Officers Display Name Tag On Uniform, Gives Update On State Police

Published

4 hours ago

May 5, 2026

Editor

The Inspector General of Police, IGP, Tunji Disu, has ordered all police personnel to always have their name tags on their uniforms for easy identification.

Disu disclosed that only police personnel who are undercover are exempted from displaying their name tags.

Speaking on Tuesday, Disu said: “All police officers should have their name tags. All of us on the high table have our names apart from the undercover among us so if you look at all the Commissioners of Police we have our name tags, so it’s not our standard.

News

Court Orders SERAP To Pay DSS Operatives N100m For Defamation

Published

9 hours ago

May 5, 2026

Editor

The High Court of the Federal Capital Territory has ordered a non-governmental organization, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, to pay N100 million as damaged to two operatives of the Department of the State Services, DSS, for unjustly defaming them in some publications.

The court also ordered SERAP to tender public apologies to the defamed officers,
Sarah John and Gabriel Ogundele, in two national newspapers, two television stations and its website.

Besides, the organization was also ordered to pay the two operatives N1 million as cost of litigation and 10 percent post-judgment interest annually on the judgment sum until it’s fully liquidated.

Justice Yusuf Halilu of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory gave the order on Tuesday while delivering judgment in a N5.5 billion defamation suit instituted against SERAP by the DSS operatives.

The judge found SERAP liable for unjustly defaming the two DSS operatives with allegations that they unlawfully invaded its Abuja office, harassed and intimidated its staff, in September 2024.

In the offending publication on its website and Twitter handle, SERAP alleged that the two operatives unlawfully invaded and occupied its office with sinister motives.

The judge held that the publication was in bad taste especially from an organization established to promote transparency and accountability, as nothing in the publication was found to be truthful.

The DSS staff had listed SERAP as 1st defendant in the suit marked CV/4547/2024. SERAP’s Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, was listed as the 2nd defendant.

In the suit, the claimants – Sarah John and Gabriel Ogundele – accused the two defendants of making false claims that they invaded SERAP’s Abuja office on September 9, 2024..

Counsel to the DSS, Oluwagbemileke Samuel Kehinde, had while adopting his final address in the mater urged the judge to grant all the reliefs sought by his client in the interest of justice.

He admitted that although the names of the two claimants were not mentioned in the defamation materials, they had however established substantial circumstances that they are the ones referred to in the published defamation article by SERAP on its website.

The counsel submitted that all ingredients of defamation have been clearly established and the offending publication referred to the two officials of the secret police.

However, SERAP, through its counsel, Victoria Bassey from Tayo Oyetibo, SAN, law firm, asked the court to dismiss the suit on the ground that the two claimants did not establish that they were the ones referred to in the alleged defamation materials.

She said that SERAP used “DSS officials” in the alleged offending publication, adding that the two claimants must establish that they are the ones referred to before their case can succeed.

Similar arguments were canvassed by Oluwatosin Adefioye who stood for the second defendant, adding that there was no dispute in the September 9, 2024 operation of DSS in SERAP’s office.

He said that since SERAP in the publication did not name any particular person, the claimants must plead special circumstances that they were the ones referred to as the DSS officials.

Besides, he said that there is no organization by name Department of State Services in law, hence, DSS cannot claim being defamed adding that the only entity known to law is National Security Agency.

The claimants had in the suit stated that the alleged false claim by SERAP has negatively impacted on their reputation.

The DSS also stated, in the statement of claim, that, in line with the agency’s practice of engaging with officials of non-governmental organisations operating in the FCT to establish a relationship with their new leadership, it directed the two officials – John and Ogunleye – to visit SERAP’s office and invite them for a familiarization meeting.

The claimants added that in carrying out the directive, John and Ogunleye paid a friendly visit to SERAP’s office at 18 Bamako Street, Wuse Zone 1, Abuja on September 9 and met with one Ruth, who upon being informed about the purpose of the visit, claimed that none of SERAP’s management staff was in the country and advised that a formal letter of invitation be written by the DSS.

John and Ogundele, who claimed that their interactions with Ruth were recorded, said before they immediately exited SERAP’s office, Ruth promised to inform her organisation’s management about the visit and volunteered a phone number – 08160537202.

They said it was surprising that, shortly after their visit, SERAP posted on its X (Twitter) handle – @SERAPNigeria – that officers of the DSS are presently unlawfully occupying its office.

The claimant added, “On the same day, the defendants also published a statement on SERAP’s website, which was widely reported by several media outfits, falsely alleging that some officers from the DSS, described as “a tall, large, dark-skinned woman” and “a slim, dark skinned man,” invaded their Abuja office and interrogated the staff of the first defendant (SERAP).

John and Ogundele stated that “due to the false statements published by the defendants, the DSS has been ridiculed and criticised by international agencies such as the Amnesty International and prominent members of the Nigerian society, such as Femi Falana (SAN)”.

“Due to the false statements published by the defendants, members of the public and the international community formed the opinion that the Federal Government is using the DSS to harass the defendants.”

They added that the defendants’ statements caused harm to their reputation because the staff and management of the DSS have formed the opinion that the claimants did not follow orders and carried out an unsanctioned operation and are therefore, incompetent and unprofessional.

The claimants therefore prayed the court for the following reliefs: “An order directing the defendants to tender an apology to the claimants via the first defendant’s (SERAP’s) website, X (twitter) handle, two national daily newspapers (Punch and Vanguard) and two national news television stations (Arise Television and Channels Television) for falsely accusing the claimants of unlawfully invading the first defendant’s office and interrogating the first defendant’s staff.

“An order directing the defendants to pay the claimants the sum of N5 billion as damages for the libellous statements published about the claimants.

“Interest on the sum of N5b at the rate of 10 percent per annum from the date of judgment until the judgment sum is realised or liquidated.

“An order directing the defendants to pay the claimants the sum of N50 million as costs of this action.”