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OPINION: The Judicial Adultery In Kano

Published

2 years ago

November 27, 2023

Editor

By Lasisi Olagunju

The falcon no longer hears the falconer. A commercial flight landed in Asaba on Sunday but its cabin crew welcomed passengers to Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja. A certified true copy of an Appeal Court judgment last week gave victory to both the respondents and the appellants. Nigeria of today is the textbook definition of confusion.

I seek to describe what the Court of Appeal did with the Kano governorship case as judicial adultery. I also seek to call it an adulteration of justice. I write with the help of my dictionary which has pointed it out to me that ‘adulterate’ and ‘adultery’ come from the same Latin root, adulterare, meaning “to falsify, corrupt.” Rodents of karma peed into the soup pot of the absolute monarchs in our court halls last week. A court that chops knuckles with parties before it is sure to deliver hybrid judgments – a little to the right, a little to the left; a salad of poisonous confusion. Fuji megastar, Kollington Ayinla, sang decades ago about indecorous mating in music-sphere. The product, he says, will have the face of the lead singer; the arms and legs of the child will belong to the drummer; the head will go to the gong man (Oju l’oju Kola/Apa l’apa Social/Ese l’ese Aromire/Ori l’ori Jimoh Agogo/Eti l’eti Marcus…).

Scholars after scholars have stressed, repeatedly, that the role of a judge in a case is to “transform the uncertainty about the facts into the certainty of the verdict.” A judge that leaves parties before it uncertain and confused after judgement has failed at doing his work. He deserves neither his pay nor a pat nor the usual allowances of reverence. Like the hybrid child in Kollington Ayinla’s ‘Ta ni o jo’ song, the Kano governorship judgement birthed a shapeshifter; a certified true copy that carved the verdict’s trunk in the image of the APC respondents while the gavel head of the bull goes to the NNPP appellants. It is the first hybrid judgment in the history of the world and the court system.

Every reasonable Nigerian was shocked to know of this case. The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja heard and decided an appeal on the governorship of Kano State. It read its judgement in the open court sacking the incumbent governor who was the appellant in the case. Five days later, the party that lost got a certified true copy (CTC) of the judgement but saw that the decision and orders of the court on the document actually gave them the crown of victory. On the face of the CTC of the judgment signed by the chairman of the panel, the court resolved “live issues” in the case in favour of the respondents (APC) and dismissed the Appeal. It then scandalously proceeded to resolve “all issues” in favour of the appellants (NNPP) – the party it had earlier pronounced losers. The court went further on that route of confusion setting aside the judgement of the tribunal that had earlier sacked the governor and which it had earlier affirmed. It went farther further awarding costs against the APC, the party it had earlier pronounced winners: “The sum of N1,000,000.00 (one million naira only) is hereby awarded as costs in favour of the appellant and against the 1st respondent,” the CTC read. Was that an error or two parallel judgements of the same case, one grafted onto the other by karma?

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Judges are traditionally like eagles – they are not expected to flock and join the crowd to make silly mistakes. That is perhaps the reason why the Romans said an Eagle does not catch flies. When a court judgement has the type of ‘mistakes’ you find in exam scripts of below-average pupils, know that the Eagle of the nation now flies down to hunt flies. The poet is a prophet. William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939) saw this Kano conundrum over 100 years ago. His poet-persona speaks in ‘The Second Coming’ of “a shape with lion body and the head of a man…” That is a monster – the image of a judgement that says both parties have won.

Cynthia Gray was the director of the Centre for Judicial Ethics of the American Judicature Society. In 2004, she published in the Hofstra Law Review an article on ‘The line between legal error and judicial misconduct: balancing judicial independence and accountability.’ A Nigerian judge reading the piece would be happy to cite it as a proof that misbehaviour in the temple of justice is not copyrighted for Nigeria. There are cases cited there that leaves mouths unclosed – like more than one judge caught deciding cases by lot in the open court. One judge decided a child custody case by flipping a coin; another asked the courtroom to vote on the guilt or otherwise of a man charged with battery: “If you think I ought to find him not guilty, will you stand up?” When that judge was charged with misconduct, his defence was that he called for an audience vote to “involve the public in the judicial process.” Some of those errant judges argued that they were right; some said they did not know it was wrong to be wrong. If a judge has no clue as to which is the way between the bush and the road, we should know that the society is in trouble. As Gray argues “it would be incongruous if the principle: ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse’ applies to everyone but those charged with interpreting and applying the law to others.”

The day the Kano CTC scandal broke, I sat down with my Nigerian-American friend for a sad chat on the Kano fiasco. What is this? The court explained it as a “clerical error” but my friend said: “That’s neither a faux pas nor a slip of judgement. That’s a revelation!” A revelation?! I thought that was deep. W.B. Yeats probably saw this too and also told us how it may end: “Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely, the Second Coming is at hand.” Even non-Christians know the implication of the ‘second coming’. It signposts, first, the coming of the “rough beast” slouching “towards Bethlehem”, then the end of the world.

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A convulsing world denies its terminal illness. It is not true that if you find yourself in a hole you should stop digging. If you dig horizontally you may escape the enemy’s snare at the end of your tunnel. The appeal court appeared to have done exactly that. It doubled down, boring a tunnel of explanations on how its cock turned to a bull within five days. It said the sin it committed was a mere “clerical error.” Could three whole paragraphs carefully written with words correctly spelt be called a ‘clerical error’. The World Law Dictionary defines ‘clerical error’ as “a small mistake (eg a spelling mistake) made by accident in a document.” No one, apart from the judges who sat in that court, knows exactly what happened. We can only guess. The court should just go quietly into the night. It is a very bad, low moment for Nigeria itself.
Where else can this “clerical error” be found in the history of court judgements? I spent the weekend doing some searches for similar errors in history and around the world. The nearest I could find was the 1941 Bastajian v Brown case decided by the United States Supreme Court. On May 14, 1936, a trial judge made a decision entry in the court records. It was his conclusion on a real estate case. He wrote: “395524. Blanche H. Comstock v. James E. Brown, et al. Cause heretofore tried and submitted, the court now orders judgement for defendants.” Court records showed that “a year expired during which time no findings of fact and conclusions of law were submitted to the court. On about May 11, 1937, findings of fact and conclusions of law and a judgment prepared by C. P. Von Herzen, one of plaintiff’s attorneys, were filed by him with the clerk to be presented to the judge; they were signed by the judge and filed on June 4, 1937.” It turned out that what the judge signed was the direct opposite of his May 1936 decision and entry. The cheated side read what was signed and complained to the judge. They called his attention to what the decision truly was. On September 29, 1937, the judge issued a corrective order agreeing with the complainant/defendants that the said judgment was signed by his court “inadvertently and by mistake, and did not express the intent of this court nor the true judgment rendered herein, and that the signing of the same by said court constituted a clerical mistake.” The judge further held that the plaintiffs’ “presentation of said Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law and said Judgment to this Court for signature constituted a fraud and deception practiced upon this Court in misrepresenting and misstating the true decision of the court after the lapse of a long period of time…” The case became a very controversial one that went up to the Supreme Court. On December 19, 1941, the Supreme Court ruled that the judge properly exercised his powers by “vacating the judgement and the finding of fact and conclusions of law upon which the judgement was rested.” Friends and beneficiaries of the Nigerian Appeal Court would read this case and say: “you see, there is no new thing under the sun.” They would refer us to the author of the book of Ecclesiastes: “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”

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But I think they should wait: A layman like me will easily see that the contentious judgement in the US case was drafted by the counsel of the plaintiffs for the judge to sign. And he signed. Anyone in Nigeria who would seek to benefit from that case should prepare to explain how judges of the second highest court in the land wrote ‘yes’ when they meant to write ‘no’. The Court of Appeal has not disowned the authorship of the judgement; it wrote and signed it. It even, after its delivery, dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s for more than four days before releasing the CTC The court has not told us how the “error” crept into its spick and span work.

It is so nice that this case has moved up to the Supreme Court. We should all look forward to reading how the apex court will “transform the uncertainty” of the case to the certainty of untainted reasoning. One thing, however, appears true here: The poet is a prophet. Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’ derives its title from the poetic prescience of W. B. Yeats. It foretells the horrific “error” that was certified by the Court of Appeal last week. I will be surprised if anyone says things are alright with the Nigerian system. With every passing day, sheets of darkness unfurl. The innocent have long lost their innocence; an epidemic of guilt without shame distresses the land. That is why you would hear the unclad Court of Appeal, while sacking Bauchi State Speaker on Friday accusing INEC of “dancing naked in the market”. Before “the Second Coming”, Yeats says the falcon will no longer hear the falconer. Where succour used to be, what you see is anarchy. The poet foretells all that. As the gyre widens, we feel the silence of philosophers and the ignorant chatter of promoters of vile excuses. The best in Nigeria today “lack all conviction”; the worst is “full of passionate intensity.”

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

Published

4 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

1 day 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.

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IYC Urges Tinubu To Sack NCDMB Boss

Published

1 day ago

August 14, 2025

Editor

Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), Western Zone, has urged President Bola Tinubu to immediately sack Engr. Felix Omatsola Ogbe, the Executive Secretary of Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) for allegedly not “keeping up to the fundamental mandate,” upon which the agency was established.

This was contained in a statement jointly signed by Comrade Nicholas Igarama, Comrade Ebi Joshua Olowolayemo, and Comrade Tare Magbei, Western Zone
Chairman, Secretary, and Information Officer respectively, and made available to newsmen in Warri on Thursday, August 14, 2015.

According to the IYC, the call for Ogbe’s sack becomes necessary following his incompetence and ethnic bias, adding that Ogbe has turned the agency meant for the whole Niger Delta to his Itsekiri ethnic group alone.

The IYC, while noting that efforts to meet the NCDMB Executive Secretary to discuss critical issues as they affect the region and its people have proved abortive, said it can no longer fold it arms and watch while things go from bad to worse.

“As Executive Secretary of the NCDMB, Ogbe has consistently failed to input his supposed industry track record in the advancement of the mandate upon which the agency was founded.

“He has continually had a sectional engagement with his fellow Itsekiri Kits and Kin, thereby shutting all other ethnic nationalites in the Niger Delta region out.

“Repeatedly, he avoided critical youth engagement in the region while sponsoring that of his Itsekiri ethnicity through different human capacity development initiatives, while other ethnic nationalites are left unattended.

“As Ijaw, mostly from the western flank where Engr. Ogbe also hails from, we will not sit and watch others benefit from the resources that we produce without our practical involvement to better the lives of our people as well.

“It is on record that the leadership of Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) Western Zone has tried to establish communication with Engr. Ogbe, for the last ten months, but every medium of communication to get his attention has fundamentally proven to be abortive.

“As youths, we can no longer have leaders in office who have now equated themselves to demi-god and have refused to attend to most significantly youthful issues in the Niger Delta Region.

“To this end, we therefore call on President Bola Ahmed Tinibu to immediately sack Engr. Felix Omatsola Ogbe, who has consistently displayed disregard for critical actors in the Niger Delta and has also exhibited the highest level of gross inefficiency by not keeping up to the fundamental mandate upon which NCDMB was founded,” the statement reads.

The IYC also called for the probe Ogbe as Executive Secretary after his sack.

Efforts to reach Dr. Obinna Ezeobi, the General Manager, Corporate Communications, NCDMB, for reaction proved abortive.