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OPINION: Tinubu’s Lifejacket And A Deer’s Sacred Skin

Published

2 months ago

May 25, 2025

By Festus Adedayo

What hunters see in the forest is enough to make children of men without balls blind. Ọláníyì Ọládèj̣ọ Yáwóọ̣ré had gone hunting one day and came face to face with a deer breastfeeding her young. Stupefied by this weird sight, an unusual dizziness pounced upon the hunter. But «an animal is pursuing me» is a disgraceful song that must never be sung by a man born to hunt. Yáwóọ̣ré quickly picked himself up and fought back with a dose of potent Ọfọ (incantation), one of the priceless assets he inherited from his father: “The ladybird beetle does not suffer from sight impairment…”

Hunter dipped his hand into his cloak and brought out a phial, the content of which he then used to wipe his face. Now he can see! Now that he could see, he had very little difficulty making sumptuous meat of the deer. At home, hunter skinned his game and hung its hide to dry in the open. This is where the story starts to be sweet like a soup of deer meat.

The second day, a mysterious woman visited Yáwóọ̣ré and a conversation ensued. The above was the product of an ethnographic study of hunters in a wild called Ìgbẹ Alágogo conducted by Ayo Adeduntan, a scholar at the University of Ibadan. Adeduntan’s research gave birth to the above narrative. The mysterious woman then told the hunter: “I know you killed a deer. But you did because we wanted you to. Now, why do you show off with its skin? Why did you spread it out, pegged to the ground outside? You sure want to show the whole world that it was you that killed the animal. Were you the one who actually killed the animal or we gave it to you? Don’t you know spreading out the hide in the open that way is exposing our clothing to the mundane world?” Yawoore got the message. He made amends.

At the APC Renewed Hope Agenda Summit held at the State House last Thursday, Tinubu was Yáwóọ̣ré, the ostentatious hunter. The sniper had just killed a sacred deer with his sharp-shooting skills. Like the hunter, it was time for Tinubu to gloat. Trust our president, he was at his best turf. Armed with his ancient Cockney, the president, who had just killed an elephantine game, said “nothing (is) wrong with a one party state.” He asked his people to «wipe them clean.» You would think that he was talking about a bowl of pounded yam accompanied by a plate of Ileya ram meat.

I looked at his face. The whole world was like a colony of ants before the president. APC, he boasted, was “one party ruling and carrying on with the aspirations of Nigerians,” in what actually came in an incoherent waffle. “You don’t expect people to remain in a sinking ship without a life jacket. I am happy with what we have accomplished and expecting more people to come; that’s the game.”

Yáwóọ̣ré then told the Old Woman, “Old one, it was Ògún (the god of iron) that killed it.” The mysterious woman would not have that claim and promptly interjected. “Not Ògún, we allowed you to kill it.” Sobered, the hunter accepted his guilt, soberly retorting that, “I did not know that it (the skin) is your cloth.” Yáwóọ̣ré then reported the encounter to Ọlaifa Adigun, the Olúòdẹ, head of hunters, proceeded home and removed the deer skin. His open advertisement of conquest against the unseen forces was going to be his nemesis. The hunter must have known that, to dare Witches by counting their nine-finger arm in their presence had repercussions. It was a declaration of war with women Yoruba call Ẹlẹyẹ.

Unlike Yáwóọ̣ré, on Thursday, Tinubu was not sober. He had similarly spread a sacred deer hide in the open to dry. He was even unconscionable. In what appeared an account of his 730 days in office as the Nigerian president, Tinubu gloated about what he called his government’s economic reforms. Echoing musician, Bongos Ikwue’s line in his evergreen track, ‘Searching for True Love,’ the president hid behind the ancient wisdom of “Nothing good comes easy” in life to justify the people’s suffering under his government. He maintained that, “sometimes, only hard decisions can make things easy in the future.” Leading an administration which, while campaigning for Nigerians’ votes in 2023, carried the heftiest baggage of anticipated elasticity of corruption, Tinubu’s testimony on Thursday of fighting corruption in 730 days was the imponderous, “You could see EFCC recover over seven hundred and fifty-something houses from one person”. He also claimed that life had become better and the future assured for the people of Nigeria. But, is it?

At that State House gathering, a picture was raised for all to see. It was that of Tinubu and his coterie of palace jesters, having written a national qualification examination, marking their own scripts and awarding themselves pass marks. Take the National Security Adviser (NSA) Nuhu Ribadu for example. Ribadu regaled Nigerians with statistics of a Nigerian security Eldorado under Tinubu. A few days earlier, Babagana Zulum, governor of Borno State, had punctured his deceptively inflated balloon. Persuaded that Ribadu’s fawning statistics of securing Nigeria was an embarrassing fallacy that cannot save his people, Zulum asked Borno to look heavenwards for salvation. He declared last Monday a fasting period to seek God’s intervention. This came on the heels of another revelation by the Chief Whip of the Senate, Mohammed Tahir Monguno who, last Wednesday, disclosed that 63 residents of two communities in Borno North were killed in a clash between Boko Haram insurgents and ISWAP insurgents. So, what was Ribadu blabbing about?

Like one watching a surreal film, then slid Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, unto the stage. Borrowing from Godswill Akpabio who asked a female legislator if she thought the parliament was a nightclub, I was tempted to ask if everyone at the State House that Thursday was drunk. Akume’s words sounded bombastic, high sounding but lacking grounding in reality. “Mr President’s leadership reminds us of the legendary Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore — the man whose foresight, discipline, and tenacity transformed a small nation into a global model of prosperity and order. This is the quality of leadership Nigeria is privileged to have today,” Akume waffled shamelessly. I had to race for my book of history. Were there two Yews? Did Akume truly liken this same Tinubu to the father of modern Singapore or he was on a junket of figures of speech? The Yew of Singapore transformed his country from a struggling port city into about the most prosperous and efficient worldwide. His countrymen were not recorded to have died in droves during this period. I have heard of the words, ‘bootlicking,’ ‘sycophancy’ and ‘grovelling before power’ before now but I had never felt its coarse texture as this. Akume brought its feel and colour to me vividly.

Then entered Akpabio, a major cast at the State House circus. In the last two years as Nigeria’s Senate President, Godswill will seem to have triumphed more in wordplay and legislative buffoonery than lawmaking. Like one primed to play in an orchestra, Akpabio was at it again last Thursday. He lauded what he called “Tinubu’s political sagacity,” submitting that “Nigerians are grassroots people, they are very excited” basing this on “the fact that even the members of the national assembly and senators said they have never had it this good.” Why won’t they, legislators who now collect N1billion and N2billion for constituency projects? After this stellar buffoonery, Akpabio now mimicked the same uncritical legislative showmanship for which the Nigerian parliament has a notorious renown. He then “move(d), and let it be moved, that not only President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will be a sole candidate for the presidency in 2027, but he will also be a sole candidate for the whole Nigerian population.” That is a recipe for disaster.

Nigerians will know that Akpabio doesn’t disappoint. He didn’t last Thursday. He is a known serial groveler by the feet of power. In 2015 as Chairman of PDP Governors’ Forum and governor of Akwa-Ibom State, this same Akpabio, on July 15, 2024, announced his endorsement of Goodluck Jonathan and projected victory for him in 2015. He preceded his endorsement with same longish hogwash as this. Like they do at the bioscope, everything for Akpabio is in the superlatives, garnished with theatrics. Both collided at that State House event, as he said, “other political parties have been turned into shreds.. and (he saw) the umbrella of the PDP (with) over 100 holes” and “everything in the south-south has collapsed for you (Tinubu)… same thing that is happening in the nation.”

I am sure Mr. President enjoyed the circus. But I know he is too steeped in the waters of Nigerian politics not to know that the likes of Akume, Akpabio and Uzodinma were merely playing the politics of the stomach and recycling the usual Nigeria’s tree-falls-bird-flies politics.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Tinubu’s Àjàntálá Son

We are the only ones who can tell our president the naked truth. If the president can look out through the windows, he will see how Nigerians deride him. Not because of his tribe but because he has allowed himself to be captive of unrealistic statistics. Yes, apart from the Ibrahim Babangida military government, there doesn’t seem to be any other government that has midwifed policies as much as the present administration. The reality however is that those policies fall face flat on their faces, without corresponding positive effect on the people. Nigerians are hurting; they have been since May, 2023. Halfway through his first term, I stand to be corrected, Tinubu is the most hated Nigerian today.

Rather than the PDP being a faulty aircraft and passengers stranded with no life-jacket, Nigerians under Tinubu are the ones marooned in the cloudy sky of Tinubu administration’s malfunctioning leadership. They have no life-jacket. It is simply because they are not better of than they were almost two years ago. Electricity tariffs keep castrating the people. Cost of fuel is prohibitive. Nigerians are dying because they cannot afford drugs. Insecurity is sending hundreds of Nigerians to their deaths. Joblessness has become a pestilence while our young ones still find it a comparatively better succour to perish in the Mediterranean. In the last two years of being in office, the president, his family and political lackeys have quadrupled their wealth and comfort, at the expense of the Nigerian state. Like Yáwóọ̣ré, they now flauntingly spread the sacred deer’s skin in the glare of the public.

Forget Tinubu and his cohorts’ misleading doublespeak, the prospect of a de facto one-party state is possible. This is so especially when you realize that funny legislative characters like Akpabio are Tinubu’s consorts. While Akpabio won’t have any qualms about licking the president’s spittle and stamping APC as Nigeria’s constitutionally recognized sole party and Tinubu, sole candidate, in exchange for a life tenancy in the senate, Nigerians will make this impossible. A de jure one-party state is however possible. Its prospect is ripe in an APC where all Nigerian forces and absolute powers are fusing inside one party under Tinubu’s “sweep them clean” triumphalism. In a de jure one-party state, other parties would exist but the APC and the president will certainly be so lawlessly authoritarian that they would criminalize public smile.

Yes, as Tinubu said, “freedom of movement and association is not a criminally punishable, (sic).” However, with this gale of defection sweeping all and sundry inside his party’s pouch, it may be a recipe for tyranny of the majority. By either hook or crook, the president has killed the sacred deer. His audacity of choosing to spread the deer skin for all to see may eventually court the disaffection of the Old One, the Nigerian people. Like the urchin who cursed the Iroko tree and persistently looked backwards in fear of immediate repercussion, does the president think the Oluwere ghormid resident inside the bowel of the Iroko strikes with immediacy?

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[OPINION] Buhari: The Good, t The Bad, And The Terrible

Published

4 hours ago

July 18, 2025

Editor

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.

READ MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: BAT Rejects Trump’s Amazing Offer

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.

—-//—-

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @Tunde_Odesola

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One Year, Big Impact: Otuaro’s Silent Revolution in the Niger Delta

Published

5 hours ago

July 18, 2025

Editor

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.

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.

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.

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.

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More Trouble At Benin GSM Village As Igbineweka Warns Ojiezele To Stop Parading Himself As Chairman

Published

7 hours ago

July 18, 2025

Editor

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.

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.

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.