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OPINION: Tinubu’s Chicago Certificate As Afó’kéèmù

Published

2 months ago

June 29, 2025

By Festus Adedayo

Last Monday, as noiselessly as a phantom, President Bola Tinubu brought home his strange friend. While an Igbo proverb says the footsteps of a man cannot create a stampede, Alexander Zingman, the president’s Belarusian friend’s sloppy footsteps created more than a stampede. It was as though the great South African poet, Mazisi Kunene’s lines were being chanted to scare us. They reverberated round the length and breadth of Nigeria. “The madman has entered our house with violence/Defiling our sacred grounds/…Bending down our high priests with iron…” Kunene wrote. We could have kept silent at the appearance of the man who entered our own house. It should be the High Priest’s wahala that a stranger could bend him so shamelessly. After all, Yoruba say, a mother who gives birth to a demonic child (Omo òràn) has the sole burden of backing her imp.

In Abuja, at the official inauguration of 2000 tractors for distribution nationwide by his administration, Tinubu openly acknowledged the contractor who handled the tractor purchase, Zingman, as his former schoolmate at the Chicago State University (CSU). “Alex was my very good neighbour and schoolmate in Chicago. Never did we dream that I would become President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Alex, a successful businessman from Belarus—working together to promote the prosperity of our two countries. I believe our university will be very proud that we are doing this here today,” he said.

By the way, you don’t know the Ìkéèmù? You probably then wouldn’t know the Afó’kéèmù. The Ìkéèmù is one of the relics of traditional Yoruba society that didn’t survive into the now. Its most relatable equivalent is the western society’s pitcher. Ìkéèmù is a broken pottery crushed and reused into a container for drawing water from the pot. However, while the pitcher has a lip or spout and a handle, the Ìkéèmù doesn’t. Virtually all homes which owned a central clay pot, reputed to be an ancient water cooling technology, had the Ìkéèmù for drawing its water. Many epigrammatic imagery got made to support this African pitcher. Two of such were projected in two songs of Yoruba Apala music singer, Ayinla Omowura. One was in an elegy to the fallen Nigerian Head of State, General Murtala Muhammed and the other, a tribute to Shuaib Ayinde Bakare, a Juju musician who was murdered on October 1, 1972. Muhammed had fallen to the irreverent bullets of Colonel Bukar Suka Dimka and his coup plotters on February 13, 1976.

In a tear-inducing dirge garnished with Abeokuta, Egba dialect, Omowura mourned Muhammed with an infectious solemnity.“General, (Balogun) fare thee well,” he sang. “We can only meet when we chance into your lookalike or in the dream. Even one on horseback cannot now outpace you in your race to the hereafter.” The musician then veered into lamentation. Wickedness had taken over the face of the earth, he wailed. It had so flourished that the wicked (Ìkà) never wish that the one who shoulders a heavy load ever gets respite from their heavy laden. Regardless of their wishes, however, sang Omowura, one’s destiny (orí) will always intervene. Now deploying the Ìkéèmù imagery to ram home his message, Omowura wondered why the world is so implacable that, the normal routine of fetching water to drink from the pot with the Ìkéèmù and dropping it on the pot’s small lid at the completion of the task, attracts the world’s frown. “Ayé ò fé ká mu’mi, k’á sò’kéèmù sí’lè, l’ayé fi ńjo mí l’ójú”, he lamented. Omowura compared General Muhammed’s gruelling fate in the hands of unknown assailants to the above fate of this traditional pitcher, the Ìkéèmù.

The singer was not done with the pitcher imagery. In an earlier immediate post-civil war album he did, rather than use the Ìkéèmù, Omowura chose to deploy same image of a cup, with a different but deeper name, “Ìmumi.” At the murder of his musical contemporary, Ayinde Bakare, Omowura did another very moving elegy for this Lafiaji, Lagos-born talented musician. Murdered by a God-knows-who, Bakare’s headless corpse was discovered by the Lagos State government inside the lagoon after days of search. He was subsequently given anonymous burial by the state. However, his name, ‘Bakare’, inscribed on his arm at birth, alerted the search party when it stumbled on it inside government’s hospital file. Bakare’s remains were eventually exhumed and properly reburied by his contemporaries like Sunny Ade, Ebenezer Obey, IK Dairo and Adeolu Akinsanya, alias Baba Ètò. In his elegy to the departed Bakare, Omowura also wondered why the people of the world always want to break one’s pitcher, an imagery for existence. He sang this as, “Ìmumi èdá l’ayé ńfé fó…” He however besought God never to allow them.

Around Ìkéèmù were conjured many other epigrammatic myths, lore, wise sayings and practices. For instance, woe betides the child who breaks this traditional pitcher. On top of being demonized for this malfeasance, the pitcher-breaker is continuously made the butt of inelegant descriptions at home. No matter how long after the Ìkéèmù had been broken, the ‘sin’ of the child’s temerity of breaking the family pitcher is exhumed and referenced, either in momentary jokes, for attribution or as reminder of how not to maltreat family property. The ceaseless reference to this pitcher-breaking infraction birthed the aphorism, “Enu kìí sìn l’ára afó’kéèmù. The most similar repetitive conjuration of the sin of the breaker of the pitcher can be found in Wole Soyinka or John Pepper Clark’s Abiku poems. They both treat the concept of irritating repetition. For Soyinka, the resembling line is, “I am Abiku, calling for the first/And repeated time” while Pepper-Clark’s is “Coming and going these several seasons/Do you stay on baobab tree?” The two poems are both dismissive of the Yoruba Abiku mythical child who is possessed by the stubborn spirit of dying and rebirth in its mother’s womb, in a continuous process.

The greatest calamity that could befall a communication team of a politically exposed person is to have a flippant boss. Immediately after his unconscionable remark at the commissioning of the 2000 tractors, Tinubu’s communication team must have been hit by a seismic upheaval equivalent in proportion to the Hiroshima and Nagazaki bomb. At that event, apparently feeling the need to bolster the narrative that he indeed possessed the highly-disputed CSU certificate, Tinubu flippantly descended into a needless Zingman narrative. In the process, he did his disputatious certificate reputation another fatal blow.

In 2023, in an operation similar to Donald Trump’s Midnight Hammer strikes on Iran, fearless Nigerian journalist, David Hundeyin, bombed the Tinubu’s nuclear sites bunker. The bunker was where he hid the facts and fictions of his CSU certificate. Hundeyin bombed Tinubu’s bunkers with equivalents of America’s B-2 bombers and cruise missiles. His aim was to penetrate the secrets therein. Thereafter, all went quiet on the home front as the Tinubu camp claimed the bombers merely scratched the surface of his nukes. However, last week, the president’s penchant for superlatives exhumed the Chicago certificate corpse buried in a shallow grave. His self-thrown bomb hit his guarded nukes sight. By this, the president and his certificate, the latter of which has been in the news since 2000 when the scandal broke, became the center of discourse again. This is making it the proverbial pitcher-breaker, the Afo’kéèmù, whose sin is subject of repeated innuendos, mockeries and discussions.

Doubtless, we live in a world that reggae music superstar, Bob Marley, described as “light as feather and heavy as lead”. Immediately the president mentioned Zingman as his friend, national curiosity over this strange man inflated like a penny balloon. Zingman’s dossier became a hot search sport. In a jiffy, his resume was on the radar and his details landed on the palms of every Nigerian. In May 2023, Kenyans were similarly upbeat about Zingman. This was when his name was announced as delegation of the country’s Minister of Commerce’s visit to Quatar. He and another Belarusian buddy of his, Oleg Vodchits, were listed as “advisers for the Gulf countries” to the Kenyan minister event. Aged 56 in 2023, Vodchits was 36 at the time. More than this, Kenyans’ check revealed that the duo had earlier been detained for two weeks in the DR Congo on allegation of ties with war veteran, Joseph Kabila.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: June 12 And Its Casualties, 32 Years After

Other information revealed that Zingman had close ties to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, one of the most despotic leaders in Europe. Through this tie, he strikes quid pro quo deals with tremendous backing of Lukashenko. After a state visit by Lukashenko, Zingman once landed a $66 million contract in Zimbabwe for the supply of about 3,500 tractors. Vodchits, his ally’s photo-op with the Zambian president, with both men holding wine glasses in a scintillating manner, drew flak from Zambians. This was after investigations revealed that official corruption deals might have been the twine binding them together. Reports also had it that Zingman has close ties to top officials in about a dozen African and Middle Eastern countries. When the Pandora Papers were released on October 3, 2021 by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), Zingman’s name was linked to documents which alleged that he and an unnamed partner made use of offshore shell companies to hide their interests in a Zimbabwean gold deal.

In the national frenzy to situate Tinubu’s most recent strange friend, respected online newspaper, TheCable’s Fact Check burst the bubble. Its forensic scan put a lie to the president’s claim that “Alex was my very good neighbour and schoolmate in Chicago.” Born on November 26, 1966 in Minsk, Belarus, not only will Zingman be 59 years old by November 2025, he attended University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC), United States, from 1991 to 1995, two decades after the president left university. More instructively, while Zingman attended UIC, Tinubu claimed he attended the CSU in 1979. So, why did Tinubu conflate the universities? Was this a deliberate lie, misrepresentation, falsification of fact or fabrication of relationship; what Yoruba call “tan’ná w’ébí”?

What ulterior motive was that lie put to? Was the president genuinely misled about Zingman; or was the untruth made in the quest to further make the corpse of his CSU claim walk? Or, is the president suffering from momentary amnesia? Or, is such barefaced lying the way of life of the man who is our president? The whole Zingman episode stinks and, in the words of Olatunji Dare, gets “curiouser and curiouser”.

If you saw how fluidly Zingman genuflected on that day, smiling from ear to ear like a lost tabby, your hunch should tell you that something was just not right. As Tinubu bathed him with unearned encomiums, the Belarusian twiddled his frame like a tadpole which my people call légbénlègbé. Anyone familiar with the dramatics of Smart Alecs would see something similar in the Belarusian’s mannerism. My take is that, Alec has spent considerable time studying the psyche of African leaders. He found out that grovelling, pandering to their vanity, is the key that unlocks their country’s vaults. It is opaque characters, with heavy roaches in their wardrobes, that African leaders find convenient to deal with. Another hunch I have is that Zingman, hunting for scandals as ladder into the hearts of African leaders, found Tinubu’s Achilles heel to be that he needed foreign validation for his unending Afó’kéèmù Chicago University scandal. Smart Alec then opted to feed the president the bait of his attendance of same university with him. The president would be just too eager to award a multi-million-dollar contract to a fawner.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: Tinubu, Sanwo-Olu And The Fish God

The need for interrogation of this obvious ad-lib presidential lie got further compounded. The Cable Fact Check’s methodic drilling then revealed that, not only didn’t both men – Tinubu and Zingman – never attended same university, the period of their attendance of university was decades apart. Zingman must have been about eleven years old at the time Tinubu enrolled at the CSI in 1977 and age 13 at the time of his graduation. Zingman’s profile even further indicated that he hadn’t moved to the US as at the time Tinubu was a student of CSU.

Nigerians should be genuinely bothered about Tinubu’s new strange friend. Such serpentine associations raise questions about the boundaries between personal and public interests. Tinubu is however not alone in acquisition of questionable friends and associates. Slovak Prime Minister, Robert Fico’s relationship with Marian Kocner similarly raised eyebrows. The question on the lips of Slovanians was why Fico would get involved with Kocner, a businessman notorious for several high-profile corruption scandals. Fico’s government was embroiled in scalding criticisms over its handling of corruption cases with his relationship with Kocner as a bad advertisement. The same moral measure was used to weigh former Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych’s relationship with Oleksandr Yanukovych. Yanukovych’s son, Oleksandr’s had already acquired a notorious renown for living a lavish lifestyle and was implicated in several corruption scandals. These examples not only illustrate the complex tar-brushing relationships that could exist between world leaders and their associates, they often point at off-the-table dubious deals.

An ancient English aphorism argues that, when you show me your friend, I will tell you who you are. When the Nigerian president has as friend a Zingman, with such a disputatious past and present, it tells onlookers not to look too far to see who he himself is. The Zingman pattern of sidling into African presidents was replayed prior to now. First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu had reportedly visited Lukashenko on a shuttle diplomacy in 2023 to express appreciation to the Belarusian president for scholarships awarded to Nigerian students on her “Renewed Hope Initiative” programme. Thereafter, the contract, running into millions of dollars, was awarded to Zingman’s firm for supply of 2000 tractors.

My advice to our president is to heed the imperishable advice of American performer, actor and humorous social commentator, William Rogers (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935). Rogers’ words to him is, ‹When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging.› It is obvious that, on the matter of his CSU certificate, against Rogers’ counsel, the president is trapped inside a deep trench and is yet digging. It not only makes him susceptible to unconscionable scammers, makes him vulnerable to baits, the type he just swallowed, it ensures he is vulnerable in all material particular.

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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

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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.

News

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.