Tunde Odesola

With tonnes of turmoil – the weight of Olumo Rock – pressing down on my soul, I sit at my desk and stare at my scroll, feather and inkwell, lost in thought. My mind is foggy and full of sorrow: the Olubadan is dead; the Awujale is dead; former President Muhammadu Buhari is dead. How are the mighty fallen!

In Nigeria, death is harvesting lilliputs and giants. The Earth sheds tears. The clouds stood still. The sun bolts its door because the land is sodden with grief. Is it not said that the ailment that afflicts the Chief Priest, Aboyade, afflicts all the initiates of Oya? Human tears fall for Olubadan Owolabi Olakulehin and Awujale Sikiru Adetona; crocodile tears fall for General Muhammadu Buhari, the biased grand patron of gun-shooting Miyetti Allah Herdsmen of Nigeria.

Twice, I put my feather to my scroll to pen tributes to the two-and-a-half departed souls. Twice, the quill of my feather broke. Now, I lift my voice to ye ancestors of our dear native land, though tribe and tongue may differ. I call on thee to stand by me in this third attempt to unmask hypocrisy, call a spade by its name, and stop professional mourners from wrapping jèbè in àkísà (rag) for Nigerians.

What is jèbè? I went to an elder who knows. Historian and Ifa priest, Professor Wande Abimbola, said, “Jèbè is menstrual flow.” Stunned, I said to him, “If I had a hundred years to decode the meaning of jèbè, I would never have been successful.” I thanked Baba Abimbola and came back to my feather and scroll.

The progenitors of this land, it is you I call unto! This is my third attempt at writing this piece; twice my quill has broken, probably broken by corrupt elements wrapping menstrual flow in rags and showing it off to Nigerians as a priceless gift, when it should have been buried in a shallow grave in Daura.

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As I launch forward again to unfurl the turmoil in my mind and mourn the departed monarchs and the herdsman, I beseech thee to stand firmly by me as the ears stand firmly by the head. Pray, let my feather not break the third time because àrò méta kìí d’obè nù: the tripod doesn’t spill the soup.

The day the elephant breathes its last, knives and swords surge into the forest. The day a man dies, he becomes a graven image of admiration, ojo a ba ku la a dere, eyan o suwon laaye. Barefaced, Death stormed Oluyole in the morning of Monday, July 7, 2025, – Ojó Ajé, the Yoruba day of profit, and heaved the Olubadan of Ibadan, Oba Owolabi Olákùléhìn, on his shoulders, en route to òrun alákeji, the afterlife. Sadly, the weevil never lets the mouth munch mature kola: kokoro buruku o je ka je obi to gbo. Oba Olákùléhìn was enthroned at 89; he joined his ancestors at 90.

Amid a torrent of tears, Death left Ibadan for Ijebu-Ode and headed straight to the palace of Ajagbalura, where, without knocking or invitation, he barged in and met the Ogbagba Agbotewole seated in splendour. Oba Adetona looked Death in the eye, unafraid and unflinching. Death nodded; it was time to go. Adetona rose and struck his sceptre on the ground, gbam! He was never a coward. He once looked into the barrel of the smoking gun held by Sani Abacha. That was the era when serving military generals peed in their pants, prostrating at the feet of a mistrained and manipulative maniac called Major HARMzat. In his autobiography, Awujale, Adetona called the Ebora Owu Judas to his face in Aso Rock – when the Ebora Owu was allegedly scheming for a third term.

Like the immediate past Oba of Lagos, Kabiyesi Adeyinka Oyekan, nicknamed Baba Kola, who smoked cigarettes and lived for 91 years, Adetona too smoked and lived for 91 years. Does their longevity mean royal lungs are immune to lung cancer, heart diseases, emphysema and other cigarette-smoking induced diseases? Or is it a case of àyànmò – destiny? I’ll advise you not to smoke if you have never started, and try to quit if you have already started. Quitting cigarettes was the biggest personal victory of self-control over self-indulgence I ever achieved.

The late Oyekan and Adetona were honourable obas on whose heads crowns sat with dignity. Oyekan was a pharmacist who studied at Edinburgh. Adetona was an accountant who studied in the UK. Neither of them was ever videoed rolling ‘igbo’ with a ‘risler’, like my ex-friend, Emir Adewale Abdulrasheed.

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The same day death knocked on the Ijebu-Ode palace door, it crept behind a door in one of the biggest and most exclusive private hospitals in London. Inside this super-expensive hospital, wired to machines, lay General Muhammadu Buhari, who left decrepit public hospitals back at home to enjoy first-class medical treatment in London.

A long time ago, while drinking from the fountain of knowledge of the Orangun of Oke-Ila, Oba Adedokun Abolarin, the monarch dropped a nugget of historical wisdom, which I have kept in my left hand ever since. “Tunde,” he said. “Kabiyesi,” I responded. “Do you know which universities the children of Nigeria’s leaders at independence went to? Go and find out.”

My findings were shocking. From the West to the East, the North and the South-South, I discovered that the children of premiers, ministers, state governors, federal parliamentarians, state legislators and top civil servants, schooled abroad when Nigeria had the University College, London, right in Ibadan. Nigeria had been prodigal since birth.

Before independence in 1960, Nigeria had, in the heart of Ibadan, the College of the University of London, established in 1948. It later became the University of Ibadan in 1962, just as the University of Nigeria was established in 1955, while the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), the University of Lagos and the Ahmadu Bello University were all established in 1962. That was when there was a country.

Unfortunately, Nigerian leaders before and after independence felt that the country they professed to be building was inferior to the countries of their slave masters. The sense of greed, elitism, status symbol and inferiority complex later metastasised into corruption in governance as economic fortunes dwindled and the naira lost its power. But our leaders have tasted the forbidden fruit; they can’t do without the apple.

In 1962, at the age of 19, Buhari was recruited into the Nigerian Army. By January 1963, at the age of 20, he was commissioned a second lieutenant of the Nigerian Army. Today, it takes five years to become a second lieutenant in the Nigerian Army. From the outset of his adult life, Buhari lived on favour and avowed allegiance to Fulani oligarchy and Nigeria’s (dis)unity.

On December 31, 1983, Buhari toppled the democratically elected government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari and promised to turn Nigeria into heaven on earth. He bore his ethnic fangs on the night of the coup. Shagari was put under house arrest where all amenities were provided for him while Dr Alex Ekweueme, Shagari’s deputy, was clamped in prison. Shagari, a fellow Fulani, was unscathed while the Buhari junta sentenced politicians from other regions of the country to jail terms, ranging from 100 years to 200 years or more.

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That was when Nigerians should have seen Buhari as a snake in the grass, but we were swayed by his gaunt looks, and felt his flat stomach was a symbol of honesty and integrity, not realising that no matter the amount of blood the mosquito sucks, its neck, legs and proboscis will still be skinny.

With a horse tail, the duplicitous Buhari and his deputy, Tunde Idiagbon, whipped every Nigerian into the line of War Against Indiscipline, ordering public servants not to take their children to hajj, but the underage son of Idiagbon, Kunle, went to hajj with Idiagbon. The secret was let out of the bag when another terrible military leader, Ibrahim Babangida, overthrew the Buhari-Idiagbon regime in 1985 while Idiagbon was away with his son on hajj.

A certain kleptomania called Sani Abacha found his way into power in 1998 and gave the plum Petroleum Task (Fraud) Fund to Buhari to oversee. Despite foreign countries’ remittance of billions of dollars stashed away by Abacha while he ruined Nigeria, Angel Buhari opened his mouth, ‘gbagada’, to say Abacha wasn’t corrupt.

Buhari later became a civilian president, and there was COVID. In the global lockdown, however, Abba Kyari, Buhari’s Chief of Staff, died, and the stringent law against mass gathering was violated by Buhari’s government for Kyari, as government officials trooped out en masse to bury Kyari. Meanwhile, Nigerian Nollywood star Funke Akindele was prosecuted and found guilty of violating the law against mass gathering.

Talk no go ever finish for Buhari head. During a nationwide fuel scarcity, Yusuff, the son of Buhari, fed the massive tank of his multi-million naira motorbike to the brim, and zoom, he went off on a personal grand prix race on the roads of Abuja and crashed like Humpty Dumpty. That was when Nigerians knew Mr WAI could allow his son to own many motorbikes and roam Abuja without adhering to the speed limit. If Yusuff had rammed into a motorist and was clearly at fault, Buhari would most likely have personally skinned the motorist alive.

It was the same Mr Integrity who opened the presidential hangar to his daughter, Hanan, to fly presidential jets to photoshoots and do personal chores. Meanwhile, Buhari had warned Nigerians, “If we do not kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria”, yet failed to keep his promise of asset declaration, which he made during campaigns.

I have read syrupy tributes by various Nigerian leaders and even the opposition Peoples Democratic Party. In a statement, the PDP said Buhari dedicated his life to service, describing him as a ‘disciplined leader’. This is the same PDP that had described Buhari as brain-dead.

Goodnight, Muhammadu Buhari: Nigeria’s greatest leader.

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Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

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By Julius Ogunro

It is barely over a year since Dennis Otauro, PhD, was appointed as the Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme. Still, in that short time, his impact as the region’s strong voice, advocate, and the president’s outreach arm, bringing hope and development to the Niger Delta, has grown significantly.

When he was appointed in March 2024 by President Bola Tinubu, his designated beat was the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), which was established in 2009 to manage the disarmament, rehabilitation, and reintegration of frustrated Niger Delta activists, some of whom had taken up arms against the government to protest the region’ economic marginalization and the degradation of its environment by oil exploration.

From 2009 until March 2024, the amnesty programme was led by several administrators, who bore different titles and did their best to achieve its mandate of peace and security in the Niger Delta through the payment of stipends to ex-agitators and the provision of vocational and formal education opportunities to members of the communities impacted by the militancy.

Then enter Otuaro. His vision for the Programme is bold, transformative, and inclusive. Apart from the agitators who are on the government payroll, he has refocused the amnesty programme to capture the next generation of Niger Delta leaders, expanding its frontiers to cater to the interests of a range of stakeholders, especially women and young people.

His strategy centres around a broad range of initiatives designed by him and his team to foster enduring peace and prevent any resurgence of militancy in the Niger Delta region. One of these is the Programme’s intervention in expanding education opportunities, especially the scholarship scheme for undergraduates from the Niger Delta.

Although Otuaro did not initiate the undergraduate scholarships scheme, which had existed for many years before his appointment, he has so reinvigorated it that the award, to use a metaphor, has been given a new lease of life.

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Before Otuaro, only a few hundred Niger Delta students managed to get the annual scholarships through a cumbersome process, as it was opaque and many had criticised it for being unfair and lacking integrity. Perhaps this was because the previous administrators did not consider education a top priority and viewed the scholarships as not central to their role at Amnesty.

But Otuaro’s vision is different. In his first year as administrator, the undergraduate scholarship scheme has increased from a few hundred students to over 3000. Even more, the award process is now more open and inclusive, starting with a media announcement for interested Niger Delta youth to apply, with assurance that merit will play a significant role in the process.

And merit did play a role in the grant of the scholarships for the current session. Many prospective students applied, did the aptitude tests, and were awarded the multi-year scholarship, which covers tuition, accommodation, and living expenses, with little or no influence from the amnesty office, a far cry from what used to happen in the past, when there were complaints that money had exchanged hands.

In addition, the overseas postgraduate scholarship, suspended by the previous administrators, has been reinstated and broadened. For this current academic session, about 70 Niger Delta postgraduate students were awarded foreign scholarships to universities in the US, Canada, Britain, and other overseas countries. Otuaro made sure that the awardees are pursuing courses that are development-focused and relevant to the material needs of the Niger Delta people.

Otuaro’s footprints are also visible in vocational training. With 98 delegates deployed for maritime-related skills training, including refresher courses at Joemarine Institute for Officer of the Watch (OOW) certification; 40 Niger Delta youth trained as aircraft maintenance engineers; another 39 deployed for on-the-job training at organisations like Seven Star Global Hangar and Aero Contractors; and four cadet pilots sent to South Africa for type-rating training, with successful graduation and return to Nigeria.

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The focus on human development and young people appears to be a genius move by the administrator of the amnesty programme, and a strategy to stop future militancy before it even happens. In the mid-1990s and early 2000s, the Niger Delta boiled as several groups took up arms against the government and oil companies to protest the neglect of the region, which is the goose that lays Nigeria’s golden egg, as nearly all the oil exploration and production take place there.

Pipelines were destroyed, workers kidnapped, and oil production was significantly disrupted, leading to huge economic losses for Nigeria and the oil companies operating in the region. The militancy also led to a humanitarian crisis, with many communities suffering from the effects of oil spills, environmental degradation, and violence. The dire situation drew global attention and concern, which highlighted the need for a comprehensive approach to addressing the root causes of the conflict and promoting sustainable peace and development in the Niger Delta region.

The federal government’s response was the amnesty programme in June 2009. Over three years, up to 2012, three phases of the programme were declared to reintegrate thousands of armed militants and pacify the region. It has been over a decade and a half since the first phase of the amnesty scheme began, and many of the beneficiaries are thus getting old and have probably lost the appetite for armed struggle.

Yet the conditions that gave rise to the uprising still exist, despite the government’s efforts over the years. The fear is that those challenges may breed the next generation of militants, angry over the prevalence of poverty and underdevelopment of the Niger Delta.

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That is why Otuaro’s strong intervention in human development in the Niger Delta, through various initiatives in formal and non-formal education, is brilliant and commendable. That he has implemented the schemes openly and transparently, thus giving the son of a fisherman and the daughter of a boat-maker in the creeks a chance to make something of themselves, is nothing short of transformative, providing hope and opportunities to the overlooked voices.

And he has done all this while not neglecting the original agitators on the government payroll, ensuring they are paid promptly, resolving challenges related to payment delays, offering suitable training to wean them off government handouts, and advocating for qualified beneficiaries’ placement in jobs in the public service.

Otuaro’s impact in just one year is visible and enduring. An asset to the current administration, he is proof that government in its purest form is not merely an idea or an institution on paper but a living presence, something that can be seen, heard, and felt in the everyday lives of the people.

There seems to be no solution on sight yet in the leadership crisis rocking the Great GSM Village Association, Benin, as chairman of the association, Mr. Odion Jerry Igbineweka, has warned Mr. Michael Ojiezele to stop parading himself as chairman, saying there is no faction in the association.

INFO DAILY had reported that the association held parallel elections few months ago which produced two exco respectively.

But reacting to a recent
event that took place at the GSM Village where Obinna “Obi” Iyiegbu popularly known as Obi Cubana, a Nigerian businessman, socialite, entertainer was hosted by Ojiezele who claimed to be the chairman of the village, Igbineweka described it as impersonation, saying he is the authentic chairman.

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Mr. Igbineweka said he has no business with the presence of Cubana at the village but the person who invited him to the event.

Igbineweka added that the said Ojiezele is not the authentic chairman of the Great GSM Village but himself.

According to him, an election was conducted at the Great GSM Village and he was duly elected and sworn in as the chairman of the association this year.

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He said the idea of Ojiezele introducing himself to Cubana as the chairman of the GSM Village is criminal and it must not be tolerated in any guise.

He said the current members of the Great GSM Village association are law abiding citizens and will not want to take the law into their own hands with what they witnessed yesterday.

He called on Ojiezele to stop parading and introducing himself as the chairman of the association in any fora.

He further called on the security agencies in the state to wade in and call him to order.