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OPINION: The Python And Tinubu-North’s Matrimony

Published

1 year ago

August 11, 2024

Festus Adedayo

Undoubtedly, the political matrimony between President Bola Tinubu and Northern Nigeria is at Talaq stage. Talaq is the Islamic unilateral repudiation of a marital union. There are no sobs, no wails. No dabbing of the face with a handkerchief. But, the dusts provoked by the matrimonial dislocation hang notoriously in the sky. Even bystanders miles away can see them. The marriage is only 15 months old but the couple’s patience for each other is rope-thin. As our elders say, right in the presence of the kolanut seller, irreverent worms slide inside his pods. A matrimony celebrated with pomp and ceremony is now a chaotic market row. The gluttonous cat has eaten the poisonous meat of a toad. A post on X late last week even claimed that “Northerners have (begun) Al-Qunut prayers against Tinubu…Al-Qunut prayers (are) done…to eliminate evil.” There is a litany of allegations hung on the neck of the seismic marriage. It ranges from prostitution, abandonment, betrayal to battery. While the world sees the palm fronds, (mariwo) the egungun of the matrimony would seem to have been long gone.

Well, as the saying goes, a household of misbehaving children is a reflection that it is devoid of elders with wisdom – (T’ómodé ilé bá ńse réderède, àgbà ibè ni ò ní làákàyè). Elders then summoned the couple and demanded the reason for their tiff. Flaunting patriarchal righteousness, the husband has kept mum, dragging smoke off his burning cigarette intermittently. The Northern wife however did the narration, tears coursing down her cheeks. On her knees, she tells the story of Lagere, the cripple and Python, a huge heavy-bodied reptile which kills its prey by constriction. Lagere was a prince crippled from birth. At his turn to succeed his father, Kingmakers bucked, citing an existing tradition forbidding disabled on traditional stools. Downcast, Lagere hopped down river road to commit suicide. As he folded his deformed leg to jump into the river, a huge python emerged from nowhere and demanded why he contemplated suicide. Moved, Python promised to help him. The snake jumped up, wrapped himself round Lagere and constricted him. Upon unwrapping self from the cripple, the deformed leg received strength. Overexcited, Lagere swore to show gratitude to Python.

Before he was crowned king, continued the Northern Wife, the Ifa Oracle summoned to divine Lagere’s reign muttered a saying, the purport of which was cryptic to all at the time. The Oracle said, “Oore tán, asiwèrè gbàgbé” meaning, at the fullness of time, the foolish will forget a kindness of the past. Lagere then ordered that a groove be earmarked in the palace for the worship of the mysterious reptile. He indeed worshipped Python for months. One day, however, having smoked alien weeds, the king’s head exploded with pride. Lagere reasoned that His Imperial Majesty shouldn’t be seen groveling before an ordinary reptile. He then ordered that the animal be brought to the palace to be sacrificed to him. On seeing what King Lagere was about to do with him, Python cried passionately and asked for mercy. Lagere would not listen. But as he was being dragged down for propitiation, Python suddenly pounced on Lagere, twined self round him. Instantly, he returned to his old cripple state. The town then dethroned Lagere. “That, elders of the land, is my story,” narrated the Northerner wife.

Being a student of Nigeria’s political history and one right inside its vortex, from its beginning, it should have occurred to Tinubu and his Northern bride that their matrimony would be short-lived. As the one who holds an umbrella all-day long would find out only later at sunset that they carry a heavy object, only at dusk would an Oko Ìyàwó Elépòn Búlúù (a vulgar Yoruba folksy appellation for a newly-wedded groom) realize that wedlock is the least of matrimonial rituals. Meeting responsibilities of matrimony is the toughest nut to crack. So long as there is a colony of lice on clothe, the fingernail cannot be devoid of blood. While narrating her ordeals and betrayal of trust from Lagere, the Northerner wife had lapsed into a Yoruba proverb which says that if a monkey is uncertain about the danger upon a tree, it should not be found climbing it (Bi oju alakedun o da igi, kii gun) to which the elders nodded in unison.

Before the End Bad Governance protests which began on August 1, the depth of the matrimonial discord between Tinubu and the North was, at best, at the level of guesswork. For instance, we knew that it is almost an impossibility that tantrums won’t follow a stubborn child given a knock on the head. When the Tinubu government thus disgraced Nasir el-Rufai last year, tantrums were expected. So when the Tinubu government, for which he pulled critical chestnuts off the fire, rewarded him with a non-ministerial clearance by the Senate, many could swear by their mothers’ graves that the northern Eliri, the minutest of all rats, will become one of the rebellious faggots that will upset the fire. And that, whenever the North was reorganizing for an Araba, Eliri would play a prominent role. Araba should remind any student of Nigerian history of the historical Northern Nigerian cry of disaffection with the Nigerian state of affairs immediately Aguiyi Ironsi promulgated the highly objectionable Decree 34 which rendered Nigeria’s federalism unitarist. The North had earlier visited midless pogrom on eastern Nigeria. I got a whiff of the heartlessness of the bloodletting from a live play of Yoruba Apala music lord, Ayinla Omowura, recently. He sang, “wón ńpa yíbò bí eni p’eran alápatà…” – they butchered Igbo people as though killing cows in a meat shop.

In June, Northern politicians began coalescing around Muhammadu Buhari. They advertised this in a visit which anyone familiar with the colour, tone and tenor of historical serpentine regrouping of the north would know was the beginning of a call to put spanner in the works. Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and Aminu Tambuwal, Sokoto state’s ex-governor, kicked off the visit. It was to Buhari in his Daura hometown. Within 24 hours, el-Rufai followed suit. Photograph of the former governor’s legendary stoops to shake hands, similar to Iscariot’s kiss of Jesus, a notorious signature tune heralding betrayal, was amply advertised. Packaged as “Sallah homage,” political watchers claim the visits were the beginning of a packaged northern tempest against the Yarbawa who the north was wedded to in a matrimony that has now gone sour. Shehu Sani, Afro-haired ex-senator said this much in a release and attributed it to an attempt to build a strong northern alliance using Buhari as a rallying point to challenge and evict Tinubu in 2027. On the comedic scene, a Bello Galandachi satirizes the rot in the Tinubu government almost weekly.

The End Bad Governance protest was the strongest alibi for Northern Nigeria to ventilate its 15-month accumulated angst. It has been said that the protest, which kicked off on August 1, was a reflection of the geographical and ethnic politics that Nigeria had practiced from pre-colonial times. While the southeast, in a bid to stamp its disavowal with its typecast as a bellicose race, signed off from the protest, the southwest, which goes on protests, whether it is convenient for it or otherwise, marched out, while the north, often pacifist in matters that doesn’t personally concern it, was at the height of its hostility. The social reality of protest against the status quo in Nigeria is that, outside of university campuses, protests are a rarity on the streets of the Muslim North. For the eight years of Buhari’s non-governance, the north was as constantly docile as the northern star. But in this protest against bad governance, not only did northern protesters go to the Hobbesian state of nature, inflicting nasty, brutish jabs on sanity, some protesters even waved Russian flags, shouting “Putin!”

There is no denying the fact that the current Tinubu government has made life very excruciating for the people of Nigeria. Perhaps, like no other government in recent history. The pain is such that, as the elders will say, it is only a child who has not beheld the sight of a lion’s devoured carcass in the forest who will pray to be killed by a leopard (Bí omodé ò rí àjekù kìnìhún nínú igbó, á ní kí eran bí ekùn ó pa òhun).The truth is also that, the government has democratized sufferings across board in Nigeria. Tinubu dishes out pains, death, escalating food inflation and hopelessness to Nigerians without any ethnic, religious or social discrimination. As the poor of Kaura-Namoda feels the cluelessness of Aso Rock, the poor of Nchatancha and Telemu equally feel it. But the way the North has taken the lead in escalating the protest this murderously, the question that begs for answer is, what exactly is that region beefing Tinubu about? Hunger? Certainly not. Since we have agreed that no part of Nigeria is spared Tinubu’s merciless, slavish Bretton Woods economic policies, why then is the north crying so vociferously as if it is the only bereaved?

After his announcement as winner of the 2023 presidential election, one of the victorious thoughts that must have crossed Tinubu’s mind was that the ground Chief Obafemi Awolowo wobbled while treading, he gallantly stomped on it. Awolowo’s famous 1959 election campaign round the north, which roused Ahmadu Bello from his slumber, culminating in a Sardauna embarking on a political campaign which got his royal face caked with dusts in the process, opened Awolowo’s eyes to the myth of a monolithic north. Awolowo then came to the conclusion that an alliance of Southern Nigeria with the Middle Belt and Christian North holds the key to a southerner’s presidency of Nigeria. An alliance of his AG with NCNC to form UPGA had Michael Okpara, Eastern Premier, campaigning on the streets of Ibadan. This model still didn’t work during the Second Republic. Citing S. L. Akintola in his book, House of War (2003) Dare Babarinsa said Akintola, Western Nigeria Premier, rationalized his romance with the feudal north in that, the economic, educational and commercial aggressiveness of the Igbo was a greater danger to the Yoruba than the political hegemony of the Hausa/Fulani. An alliance with the NPC, he believed, was the surest way of rescuing the Yoruba from political annihilation. MKO Abiola lapped up the Akintola power model. From his alliance with Muhammadu Buhari in 2014, Tinubu also dusted the Akintola and Abiola handbook hook, line and sinker. On a superficial level, the trio of Akintola, Abiola and Tinubu would seem to be right and Awolowo wrong, right?

The above, however, cannot elicit a QED (quod erat demonstrandum) answer. The northern establishment’s political pedigree hoists it as a typical African witch. Of the many symbols and attributes of the witch, she holds tightly to her ferocious mystic power, using it as bait. She is also reputed with the upside-down symbolism. Among the Akan tribe of Ghana, the witch is literally “inverted.” Hans Werner Debrunner, in his Witchcraft in Ghana: A Study on the Belief in Destructive Witches and Its Effect on the Akan Tribes (1961) said of witches, “Before they leave the body, they turn themselves upside… They walk with their feet in the air, that is, with the head down, and have their eyes at the back of the ankle joints.” The Ewe in same Ghana also believe that witches walk backwards and, in walking upright, have their feet turned backwards. The witch is represented by such animals like snakes, owls, hyenas, and leopards, characteristically nocturnal animals.

As it romances political power like the witch, the Northern establishment has an inverted thinking as well. Awolowo’s welfarist philosophy futuristically foretold that a feudal north not weaned of its weaponization of the large population of its Talakawa and roam-about Almajiri children would pose huge danger to the rest of Nigeria. That prophecy has made him a Nostradamus today. In a 1978 presidential speech, Awolowo had said, “For the North, I have three things, Education, Education and Education.” He also maintained that, “The children of the poor you failed to train will never let your children have peace”. The bulk of Nigeria’s social malaises today – insecurity, bloated population, renteer system of overdependence on the lean purse of the federal – come from the north. This has bred multidimensional poverty, misery and anger in the region. Governor Uba Sani recently said the region has over 70% out-of-school children and same number living in grueling poverty. You cannot solely blame Tinubu for all these as the north’s vulture has been suffering the merciless trouncing of rainfall strokes for more than a century. From Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Mohammed, Shehu Shagari, Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha, Abdulsalami Abubakar to Musa Yar’Adua, as well as their northern accomplices, successive northern leaders share huge slices of the hopelessness that the north is today. Not minding the multidimensional poverty, the northern establishment still frantically shuts the door against education of this crop of persons, lest they be liberated from its chokehold.

At the turn of Lagere to narrate the root cause of the tiff, the elders were aghast. Rather than him being an ingrate, the python is almost the equivalent of Omolokun, he said. Omolokun is a Yoruba Ifa deity scholar and practitioner, Araba Ifáyẹmi Ọ̀ṣúndàgbonù Elebuibon’s drama series that ran on western Nigerian television in the 1980s. A couple, suffering decades of bareness, besought a deity for a child it named Omolokun. A spoilt brat who demanded the impossible at every point, when Omolokun one day demanded a human being to be propitiated to him, it dawned on the couple that it had a misbegotten ghormid in its household. Lagere reminded the elders that but for him, their son, Buhari, could not have won the presidency. Like Omolokun’s parents, the Lagere in Aso Rock has bent over backwards to please his Python, allocating consequential federal ministries to the North and in many cases, devoting junior and senior ministries to it. Recently, Lagere even established a Federal Ministry of Maalu as sacrifice to Omolokun. Yet, the northern establishment is steeped in roiling anger and cannot be pacified.

Lagere compared the excesses of his Northern wife to an excessive liquour that intoxicates; excessive sun that runs a child mad; excessive stronghold that begets madness and a spinach vegetable which, if it grows in excess by the stream, is rendered a common weed (Bí otí bá kúnnú, otí á p’omo; bí òòrùn bá pò l’ápòjù, á s’omo di wèrè; bí a bá l’óba l’ánìíjù, á sínni n’íwin; bí tètè ègún bá pò á di òleri). Lagere concluded that he had reverenced the cow enough and even went overboard to call it “Brother.”

The target of the Northern Witch is to stop Lagere’s reign. By now, Tinubu must have realized that the Awolowo who divined education and welfare as antidote to the tyranny of the Northern Witch was no fool. The Witch cannot be appeased. It is insatiable. Like Omolokun, this Witch will demand flesh and blood. Suffusing Nigeria with plenty and Northern Talakawa with education is the only route to rescue Lagere from the chokehold of his Python captor.

News

Obiano’s Ex-aide Opens Up On Rumoured Former Anambra Gov’s Death

Published

4 hours ago

November 14, 2025

Editor

The former Anambra State Commissioner for Information under Governor Willie Obiano, Mr C-Don Adinuba, has debunked rumours of the ex-governor’s death, confirming that Obiano is hale and hearty in Houston, United States, where he currently resides.

Claims had circulated on social media suggesting that Obiano, who served as governor of Anambra State from 2014 to 2022, had died in London.

Adinuba, in a telephone interview with our correspondent on Friday, described the reports as “provocative” and “unfounded,” insisting that the former governor is alive and well with his family in the US.

He said, “I have been asked some probing questions by journalists and have heard a provocative rumour about the death of former Governor Willie Obiano. The rumour is not true. I just spoke with the former governor and members of his family a few minutes ago. He is hale and hearty in Houston, United States, where he resides.

“Contrary to the reports, Obiano is not in London and has not been hospitalised. He is strong, hale, and hearty, and bouncing in the US. Ignore the rumour—it is not from a credible source. Please, the report is fake; Obiano is still alive.”

Adinuba urged the public to disregard the claims.

Obiano’s personal publicist, Tony Nezianya, also told The PUNCH that he had not received any information confirming the rumours.

He said, “I can’t confirm this; I am not aware of such news.”

Obiano served as governor of Anambra State from 2014 to 2022, succeeding Peter Obi, and handed over to the incumbent governor, Prof. Chukwuma Charles Soludo, in March 2022.

He hails from Aguleri in Anambra East Local Government Area and was born on August 8, 1955.

Obiano is currently under investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over an alleged N4 billion fraud.

News

OPINION: The ‘Fool’ Who Stopped Wike

Published

9 hours ago

November 14, 2025

Editor

Tunde Odesola

The bully in me met its match in my primary school classmate, Lukman Oluwuyi, on our way back home one afternoon. In the eyes of a schoolkid, St Paul Anglican School, Idi-Oro, Lagos, was a couple of giant two-storey buildings on an expansive compound which served as an assembly ground in the morning and a football field during break. That was in the 70s when any elder on the street could fetch a cane, flog a wayward child, and march the culprit home to the applause of the entire neighbourhood. In those days, an erring child preferred a quick, anonymous beating to the humiliation of being beaten and escorted home by a Good Samaritan stranger.

Caramel-complexioned and restless, Lukman was a wiry boy with wavy, matted hair that glistened. Were he white, he’d have passed for a brunette; I, in my childish rascality, thought him an Arab. Lukman was ‘my boy’ until one day when a tiff broke out between us. Time has blunted the exact cause of our disagreement, but I remember it was on Ojowere Street, near Alli Lane, Mushin – two streets I learnt have been swallowed by the Lagos railway projects of the Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration.

On the fateful day, Ojowere Street was a long stretch of clay, having just been graded, as my friend and I plodded along in the simmering heat. Clad in a green khaki shirt and shorts, I was heading home to Lawanson Crescent, while Lukman was going to their house off Kayode Street, before the Deity at Crossroads, Èsù Láàlú Onile Orita, decided to meddle in our affairs.

I was democratic in my bullying. “I’ll beat you, Lukman,” I warned. Lukman did not retort; he merely struck a Kung-fu pose, evidence of the Indian and Chinese films he had been watching lately. I was livid, “Is this not Lukman, my bo-i? Lukman!! Lukman, who I’m bigger and stronger than? Lukman, whom I would tell to shut up, and dared not say a word, now turning against me?” I lunged at him, throwing the combinations I had learnt watching the Great Muhammed Alli on TV. But Luku, clever and resilient, found a way below my blows, scooped me halfway up, and slammed the pot of my rump (ikokodi) hard on the new road.

That act of gross rebellion got me madder. I sprang up, chased and quickly caught up with him. Probably out of fear, or not wanting to rub salt in injury, Lukman seemed unwilling to fight, but I was determined to avenge the insult. I knew I was the tiger. Lukman was the lamb. So, still on Ojowere Street, I engaged him in another round of fighting. I was bigger and stronger, but in no time, I found myself under Lukman the second time. Each time he slammed me, he quickly got up, like someone afraid, picked hup is bag, and walked away as if nothing had happened.

In our time, to cement your victory over a vanquished, the victor fed his victim with soil. In my opinion, Lukman’s failure to do that meant he wasn’t victorious yet; ìjà sèsè bèrè ni’.

“Mi o ni gba, Lukman won’t get away with this sacrilege,” I sprang up and went after him. He struck his Kung-fu pose while I squared up in my boxer’s pose. Gbangan! I found myself on the ground again. I got up, chased and caught up with him for the fourth time, warning, “Lukman, ma na e, I will beat you.” That was the moment an old trader, who sold keys, padlocks, nails and hoes, etc, along the road, shouted, “Ma na e, ma na e, o ti la o mole ni emeta, o je kori sile, yio kan na o pa. Ole!” (You keep shouting ‘I’ll beat you’, yet he has floored you thrice; you’d better head home before he kills you, lazy boy!)

Quietly, I picked up my bag and headed homeward, seething and determined that Lukman would get his comeuppance before we departed that day. But, somehow, we didn’t get to fight again that day as Èsù Òdàrà had left Ojowere for another assignment. I can’t remember if we ever fought again in primary school, though we fought once in secondary school, when I thought he was caressing my sword with his bare palm. Honestly, I didn’t know how I came to think so highly of myself. Could it be the Mushin spirit at work?

After secondary school, we lost touch. Decades passed before I saw him again on October 1, 2016, during the reunion of the Old Students Association of Archbishop Aggey Memorial Secondary School, Mushin. I recounted his victory in primary school and the rematch in secondary school; he had forgotten both, but he laughed like a drunken sweepstake winner. Lukman travelled out to France in search of greener pastures in 2008 and came back to Nigeria for the first time in 2016, attending the reunion during the visit.

A few days after returning to France, Lukman died in a hospital. Shhhhhh! It’s not the wicked people of Aye Akamara that killed Luku. It was mosquitoes. My dear Elukumede died of malaria fever, which he took from Nigeria to France. Malaria is strange to France.

Faction is a literary style that combines fact and fiction. The Lukman story you just read is a fact. What you’re about to read next is an invented myth, a fiction.

Here it goes. Once upon a time, there lived in Eripa, Osun State, a farmer named Arije, whose compound was next to that of Abanikanda, a fisherman. One night, Abanikanda fell asleep while cooking his fish for the next day’s market. Soon, the cooking fire became a ball of billowy red throat of fury.

It was Abanikanda’s daughter who saw the inferno. She screamed, “Fire, fire, neighbours, fire, help!” Arije heard the shout and turned in his bed, curling up behind his wife, saying, “It’s their fire, let them quench it. I’m unavailable. Dem no dey see me.”

The fire raged and crackled. Arije snuggled. “Abanikanda cooks too much fish every day; he brought fire upon himself,” he said.

Leaping in tongues, the fire consumed the grass and roots used in making Abanikanda’s thatched roof, releasing into the air flares, which jumped on Arije’s roof, burning ferociously. Farmer Arije woke up to sorrow and tears, learning an eternal lesson.

The Lukman and Arije stories illustrate, on the surface, the shameful clash between the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nyesom Wike, and one misoriented lieutenant in the Nigerian Navy, A. M. Yerima, a Kaduna indigene, who led a group of misguided, gun-clutching soldiers to secure a parcel of land for a retired Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Awwal Zubairu Gambo, who left service at the age of 57, and plunged into a life of luxury, which afforded him a multi-billion naira block of several buildings in Abuja.

On a deeper level, the clash highlights the crushing power game in the shithole we call Nigeria, our own dear native land, where though tribes and tongues may differ, in gangsterism we stand. It exposes to the ridicule of the international community, an inefficient, ill-equipped, ragtag and oppressive military which always places self-interest and clan above the Constitution and national interest. It shows a country of power-drunk, corrupt and immoral leadership being hailed by an ignorant public, who, having eaten the Stockholm Syndrome apple, grew to love their oppressors both in the ruling party and the opposition.

For his antecedents, if you called Wike talkative, belligerent, a spoiler, mischievous and arrogant, you are 100% right. But in his clash against the colluding military leadership, Wike was dead right, 200%. The backlash against Wike, however, arose from the poetic justice that saw him steaming in the stew of the victimisation and impunity, which the government he represents serves to the citizenry daily. Wike thus represents the spider caught in its own web. I do not pity him.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:[OPINION] Wasiu Ayinde: Shame Of A Nation (1)

At all levels, Nigeria’s problem is systemic failure, a medical term for heart failure, needing urgent surgery, and as such, there’s a need to analyse the Wike-Military saga in proper perspective. We must shear the meat of this matter from the bones, abattoir-fashion.

Before this saga, I had never written a word, sentence or paragraph in favour of Wike. However, beyond the God-don-catch-Wike cacophony renting the press, airwaves and social media, I urge reasonable Nigerians to run a fine-tooth comb through the issue and dismount from the APC-Opposition fence.

To aid deconstruction and discernment, I hereby present two sequences to the story, illustrating reportage from traditional media and online posts.

Sequence 1
From a land-selling outfit, Gambo bought a sprawling swath of land in Abuja. He embarked on erecting many buildings on the land. Officials of the Federal Capital Territory Administration visited the site and alleged that there was no government approval for the land. The visiting officials told the builders to provide proof of ownership, government approval for the land and building approval plan. Thus, they told the owner to stop building.

Sequence 2
Gambo continued to build and refused to present any proof to FCTA. Instead, gun-wielding soldiers were drafted to the site. Officials of the FCTA who visited the site again were turned back, and they went to their office to report their findings. On the 11th day of the 11th month of 2025, at probably the 11th hour, Wike called the Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, and the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Idi Abass, before embarking on a visit to the site, telling them the situation at hand.

Before we get to what happened on the site when Wike visited, I’ll ask some questions. What stopped Gambo from presenting the papers of the land and building approval plan to FCTA when asked to do so? Is Gambo not answerable to the constituted authorities’ inquiry because he was a soldier? Is he above the law because he retired as a CNS? Who ordered the drafting of soldiers to the site, because as a retired officer, who no longer has even a troop under his command, Gambo cannot legally order armed soldiers to guard his private estate when Nigeria is suffering from a manpower shortage in the ongoing battle with terrorists and bandits. Why did Musa and Abass not order the Yerima-led soldiers on maiguard duty to allow Wike and FCTA officials to do their inspection job and leave in peace? Why has the band of retired generals come after Wike while they are silent on the infractions of Gambo? Did Gambo get the money to buy such an expanse of land from his meagre military earnings? The answers to most of the questions are impunity and official corruption.

I daresay that aside from the ceaseless arrogance and oppression of the Nigerian military against the masses, I saw in the Abuja saga the fangs of the oppressive Fulani hegemony in the military and politics of Nigeria unbare. I dare to say that no Yoruba or Igbo officer would dare do what Kano-born Gambo and his gambolling soldiers did in Abuja.

As they say, you can’t build something on nothing. Singling Wike’s action out for condemnation without seeing through the tribal guile of a cabal in the Nigerian military, whose mantra had long been ‘born to rule’, is to fall cheaply to their ancient deception of divide and rule.

As for Wike’s multitude of antagonists sitting on the opposition fence, I’ll urge caution and wish they ponder on the lessons behind the action of Farmer Arije from Eripa. I hope this multitude know that in countries with serious military, like the US, China, Germany, France Britain, etc, where soldiers know their responsibilities, officers and men are under the laws of the land, not above it – unlike Nigerian soldiers – burning down Fela’s house, throwing his mother through an upstairs window, killing hundreds of innocent civilians in Odi, harassing MKO Abiola and his wife in the 80s, killing Dele Giwa, Ken Saro-Wiwa, the list is endless. Our monstrous military must be tamed and made to bow to the Constitution.

A ‘repentant’ Boko Haram or secondary school dropout who joins the military today as a recruit believes only his military superiors are those he can obey, not any constituted authority. This was why one low-ranking idiot in army uniform, some years ago, while driving against traffic in Lagos, dared to confront Governor Sanwo-Olu, saying he was a soldier. In 2012, Governor Babatunde Fashola arrested a colonel and a staff sergeant for driving on the restricted BRT Lane in separate vehicles. If not a governor, in some cases, or the President, no law-enforcement official in Nigeria can stop an erring soldier, not the police, not the DSS. Nigerian soldiers fear no law; they only fear the military, Boko Haram, terrorists, IPOB and Trump. Nigeria must stop their impunity for us to have a country.

I think everyone is talking tongue-in-cheek on this matter, as it now appears, because of the fear of a military coup. In that case, it is not wrong to draw a conclusion that President Bola Tinubu truly needs the prayers of Nigerians.

Each time soldiers’ ‘asemáse’ impunity rears its head in Nigeria, I always remember former police spokesperson, Alozie Ogugbuaja, who, while in service, described the Nigerian military as a bunch of ‘peppersouping’ and ‘beering’ generals who only excel at coup planning and execution. God bless Ogugbuaja.

The excesses of the Nigerian military predate Ogugbuaja’s outburst. It goes even beyond independence and the post-Civil War era when Nigerians, showing courtesy, allowed soldiers to board public transport for free. Soon, soldiers began to deboard passengers from the front seats of public transportation buses, even as they wouldn’t pay a dime to vehicle conductors.

The Lukman Oluwuyi metaphor speaks to the Goliath which the Nigerian military represents, while insurgency, banditry, etc, have become David defeating Goliath. Yerima’s disrespect came before Wike’s because, by arrogantly being in the place he was not supposed to be, he disrespected the Constitution and the Oath he had sworn. Yerima condescendingly expressed shock that a policeman was talking to him, saying, “Look at a policeman talking to me”, as if he, Yerima, gave God the clay with which Adam and Eve were created.

LDRSHIP is the acronym for the seven core values of the U.S. Army. L means Loyalty to the Constitution. D stands for Duty of Fulfilling obligations by completing tasks and accomplishing assigned missions as part of a team. R means treating people with dignity and respect, recognising the value of every individual. S means Put the welfare of the nation, the Army, and your subordinates before your own personal interests. H means Live up to and embody all the Army values in every action. I means Integrity: Do what is right, both legally and morally, ensuring honesty and trustworthiness. P stands for Personal Courage: Face fear, danger, and adversity, whether physical or moral. How many Nigerian soldiers can tick all the boxes of the acronym? I don’t know. But I know how many who are good at peppersouping and beering.

In the US, civilians can walk into stores to buy military camouflage, which they proudly wear in support and solidarity with their soldiers. In Nigeria, soldiers will beat you to a pulp and lock you up if you wear any dress they consider ‘army green’ in colour. They will seize your car if its colour is too green. What an upside-down country!

I’ll leave you with the words of some three wise men. I’ll start with Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States. He says, “Force can protect in emergency, but only justice, fairness, consideration, and cooperation can finally lead men to peace.” Are Nigerian big-for-number soldiers listening?

Albert Einstein is my second wise man. He says, “Force always attracts men of low morality.” I’ll expatiate by adding ‘unnecessary’ to Einstein’s force.

My third and final wise man is Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet and Islamic scholar. He bequeaths these eternal words to humanity: “Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” This advice is for Wike, who needs to improve his public attitude. He should have been gracious at the scene. But the attitude of Yerima was so nauseating, to say the least. I am a commissioned officer, my foot!

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

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News

Edo-Delta Oil Well Dispute: Tinubu Urged To Halt Drilling In Disputed Oil Rigs

Published

9 hours ago

November 14, 2025

Editor

Edo State Government has called on President Bola Tinubu to halt further drilling of crude in the disputed oil wells between Edo and Delta states until resolution of the matter.

Deputy Governor of the state, Hon. Dennis Idahosa, made the call in Benin on Friday when he received members of the National Boundary Commission (NBC) led by its Director General, Adamu Adaji.

Idahosa, who also called for the freezing of the accounts of the Delta state based oil firms, noted that this step will ensure fairness and justice in the disputed oil rigs.

“I want to use this opportunity to appeal to the President to stop or instruct the regulatory agencies to also stop all the benefits accruing to Delta State pending when this matter is resolved.

“It is clear that Delta State is playing games with us and also the National Boundary Commission.

“It is clear that they don’t want this matter to be resolved, knowing fully well that those assets belong to Edo State,” he stated.

Idahosa also urged the NBC to also critically examine all the documents relating to the disputed oil wells that are before them to ensure true ownership of the oil wells.

He, however, emphasised that in spite of the seemingly provocation from its neighboring state, the communities where these rigs are located have remained peaceful and law abiding.

He pointed out, “A lot of communities are affected – the Orogho and Urhonigbe Communities.”

“We told the NBC Director General that we will no longer wait, as the documents required have since been provided to them as far back as July. We also understand that Delta state is yet to submit the same to the commission.

“Our people are suffering from things they are supposed to be benefitting from.

“God has given them all these opportunities for them to use to develop their community and their state, instead, the NBC is allowing these opportunities to go to Delta State.

“This issue has to be resolved and within a specific timeline. That is my plea,” Idahosa declared.

He said there was a need to urgently resolve the issue in an effort to reduce the tension between the two neighboring states.

While noting that this issue could escalate to potential hostilities between the two states if not urgently resolved.

According to him, “There is so much tension and pressure in the affected communities, and, if the state government cannot give them something substantive, to work with, it might lead to internal or communal crises.

“We don’t want that, that is why we want this issue resolved as soon as possible.”

Responding, the NBC boss, Adamu Adaji reaffirmed the commission’s position that urgently resolves the matter.

He noted that it was the need to resolve the issue that necessitated the commission’s visit.

He stated, “We cannot allow a party to delay the process. There must be an end to it.

“We have come to an extent, perhaps, where we will personally interface with the two sides, on individual bases, where we need clarity and identification to make sure this issue is resolved once and for all.

“This will be done in accordance with available delineation documents and other ground rule methods to identify and make recommendations to the federal government for adoption.”