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OPINION: Uromi Killings And Sandalili Nursery Rhyme

Published

6 months ago

April 8, 2025

By Suyi Ayodele

Uromi, nay, the entire Edo Central and Edo North Senatorial Districts, have been under the siege of Fulani herders and kidnappers for a long time. The locality has been on the edge as farmers are attacked without any help from the State. Not a few women have suffered rape in the presence of their husbands. Daughters too have been molested while their parents watched helplessly. Going to the farm is more difficult for Uromi people and their neighbours than making the right hand of the judgement throne! The people over there are daily pummelled by killer herdsmen and kidnappers.

The town was a combustion waiting to be ignited before the penultimate Thursday killings in the area. Were the victims of Uromi killings victims of mere suspicion or were they what their assailants called them, kidnappers? Why would a group of hunters be mistaken for kidnappers in the first instance? A nursery rhyme played up in my head as I pondered over this.

I am a journalist in my country (Oh yes!)

Everybody knows me well

If you look me up and down

You will know that it’s true

Chorus:

Standard living/Standard living (Sandalili/sandalili)

Standard living/Standard Question

Only a very few of my agemates had the opportunity of attending a nursery and primary school, where the “A for Apple” alphabetical rhymes were the order of the day. But my generation missed nothing! God bless the Iya Pelus (my primary school teacher) of this world who took their time and energy to teach us our local rhymes.

Though we attended what was derisively called ‘gaari schools’ of that time, our Eskisi sirs and Eskisi mas gave us their very best. Instead of the modern-day Standard Living nursery rhyme corrupted as ‘Standalili’, our teachers of yore taught us the affirmative rhymes of eyin egbe mi, agbejoro le mi o se (My classmates, I will be a lawyer). Kin nro’jo (2ice), ki ngb’owo (2ice); kin l’aya, ki nbi’mo, agbejoro lemi o se (I will advocate, I will collect money, I will marry and have children; I will be a lawyer). Depending on the profession we chose, a symbol of that calling would form part of our costume for the stage act.

One grew old before the import of those affirmative rhymes set in. Why for instance would a child be made to wear the Anglican Church choir robe with the accompanying hat to depict a professor? Or why would the old wig of that era be placed on a child’s head to show him or her as either a lawyer or a judge? Those who formulated the educational policies of the early days were the best career planners of their era.

The significance of the costume is to the effect that a practitioner of any profession must be known by the insignia he or she puts on. Nobody needs any further explanation to be identified as a medical doctor for instance, when such a person puts on a white laboratory coat and has the stethoscope hanging on his or her neck. This is exactly what modern-day schools demonstrate during their career days when the pupils are made to be decked in the apparels associated with their intended careers.

The same way with traditional trades like hunting, farming, blacksmithing and the rest. A man carrying a Dane gun, with a chain of amulets hanging on his neck and waist and a carrier bag soaked in blood-like substance will definitely pass for a hunter. When such a man is confronted by an inquisitive being, the paraphernalia of his trade will easily betray his profession.

The elders of my place say people don’t regard the cat as a hunter because it comes home empty-handed (A pa imudele ni ko je ka mo pe ologbo nse ode). This is where the curiosity of the 16 northerners killed in Uromi, Edo State, penultimate Thursday begins for me.

Variously described as ‘travelling hunters from the North’, the deceased were accosted by a group of vigilantes on guard duty at Uromi axis of Edo State. Information available in the public space is to the effect that the unfortunate victims were suspected to be kidnappers terrorising the locality. They were summarily executed most viciously by their assailants. Besides killing them, the deceased had their bodies set ablaze alongside the truck conveying them.

There is no way any rational mind would be able to justify the killings of those 16 Nigerians. Even if it were to be true that they were kidnappers, there is no provision in our statutes which allows an individual or a group of individuals to take the laws into their own hands and execute fellow Nigerians. Killing the deceased and setting their corpses on fire is pure barbarism! Such an act, one would have thought, ended with the cavemen of centuries gone.

It is unfathomable, and highly condemnable that in the year 2025, some felons in Uromi would apprehend fellow human beings and have them murdered and cremated on the mere suspicion of being kidnappers! Little wonder that nobody, not even the kith and kins of the arrested suspects of the dastardly act, has come out to defend the killings. This shows, to a greater extent, that the people of Esanland, where the inhuman act took place, take exception to such animalistic behaviour.

Esan Descendant Assembly (EDA), a socio-cultural group of the people of Edo Central Senatorial District, while condemning the act noted that it was at variance with the civilisation of an average Esan man or woman. The killings, EDAN further noted, “is one that has shaken the soul of Esanland and brought sorrow to many homes beyond our borders.” The group tagged the act as “madness” and the perpetrators as “a mob”, stressing that “It is an abomination. An unspeakable tragedy. And though the deed was done by a few hands, the shame falls upon all of us like harmattan dust.”

Governor Monday Okpebholo, who incidentally hails from Esanland, wasted no time in also condemning the act. Within 24 hours of the dastardly act, Okpebholo was in Kano State, the home state of the victims, where he commiserated with the families of the deceased, and assured that those fingered in the act would be brought to justice. That leadership move by the governor, to a larger extent, calmed frayed nerves.

But beyond the condemnation of the killings of those 16 men, many questions are begging for answers. One of the questions informed the nursery rhyme above. Who were those 16 men killed in Uromi? What was their mission? Were they hunters in deed, and indeed? I am particularly curious about the identity of those 16 victims of Uromi killings.

One, I find it extremely difficult to believe that a group of 16 hunters would be travelling all the way from Port Harcourt, Rivers State, where they were said to have gone to hunt for games, and at Uromi, not a single game was found on them! That sounds strange to me. I will explain that.

The argument is that those ‘travelling hunters’ were going home for the Eid celebration. How come that in the vehicle conveying them, not a lap of grasscutter, a leg of an antelope and the chest of a deer were found on them? If they had left Kano to hunt in Port Harcourt and were returning home to their families for the Sallah celebration, what were they taking home to show their loved ones as gains of their ventures in the forests?

That we are no hunters does not mean we cannot recognise the path a game never takes. We also know the ways of hunters. We have seen them in their trade before. How rational is it for us to argue that those hunters were going back home for a festivity, and they did not have a single game on them, or with them? Hunters?

In one of the hunter’s chants (Ijala), it is said that a hunter who returns home without a game will eat his soup without meat (Olode to regbe ti o m’eran bo, yi o je orunlasanpaga obe). What would have been the appropriate time for hunters to preserve parts of their games for consumption if not for the festive period? How plausible will it sound that a yam farmer, for instance, travels home empty handed to his family during Easter? Are we saying that such a farmer will go and buy yam from other people or farmers? Does that sound logical?

Let us go to the act and art of hunting itself. Pray, when has Ak-47 rifles become the approved gun for hunting in Nigeria? Which animals were the 16 victims using Ak-47 to hunt? We know we have licensed hunters who are allowed into our reserved forests to hunt. The question we should ask is: which rifles do hunters carry? Are assault rifles like AK-47, for instance, something that individuals could purchase, own and use at his liberty? Who licensed those unfortunate Nigerians to carry Ak-47 rifles for hunting?

While we are searching for answers to the above, can we also ask ourselves the type of adventure that propelled a group of hunters to leave Kano State to come to Port Harcourt to hunt. Which games were they looking for: Buffalos, the Niger Delta pythons, or the proverbial three-legged animals of our mothers? Actually, no law says that hunters cannot travel from Maiduguri to Iyanfoworogi in Ile-Ife to hunt game. But there are some arguments that one will put up and one will sound dull-witted. This, no doubt, is one of such arguments given the fact that those 16 victims were completely illiterate, who did not speak any other language besides their mother tongue, Fulfulde! The greatest worry here is: how were they communicating with the local hunters they encountered while hunting in the forest? Or are we also to believe that while their hunting expedition lasted, they never had reason to interact with anybody until they got to Uromi?

Like we said earlier, nothing justifies the murder of those men. Nigeria is still a decent nation, the behaviours of our leaders and those raping the nation with reckless abandon notwithstanding. Just as President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in his hypocritical element, said, there is no room for jungle justice in Nigeria. This is why I believe, and strongly recommend, that the law should not spare all those involved in the killings of those 16 Nigerians.

While at that, we must also not allow the underpinning issues that could have warranted the Uromi killings to be swept off by the euphoria of the dastardly act. The entire Nigerian landscape is a killing field! There is no single state in the Federation that is not experiencing one bloodletting or the other. Bokkos, Plateau State, a few days ago had its share of the mindless killings happening in Nigeria as over 50 residents were murdered. The response so far is the usual condemnation and empty promise to fish out the culprits!

The eight rudderless years of the tooth-picking lethargic General Muhammadu Buhari witnessed unprecedented cases of killings by Fulani herders and other felons. The Daura-born General, like the President-do-nothing he was, remained unperturbed. Nigerians had high hopes that President Tinubu would stem the tide. But, alas, the situation has gone from bad to worse under him.

When people are pushed to that level, as we had in Uromi before the ugly incident, we cannot but have the type of unfortunate incident that took place in Uromi. That Nigeria has totally become a failed nation in terms of security is no longer contestable. Kidnappers, especially in the urban areas, have left the highways, and moved into people’s homes to take them into captivity. The response from the State is the usual refrain of ‘enough is enough’, or ‘we will go after the perpetrator’.

To underscore the level we have sunk, retired Generals and other security personnel are also victims of this nefarious act. In all this, the State appears lost on what to do to arrest the situation. The feeling one gets is that after the security of the locusts in power, the rest of us can seek refuge in the Almighty!

When a situation gets to that level, bestiality, the type we had in Uromi, will become the order of the day! This is why the government must rise above the tide, drop the ineffective rhetoric and get more practical. Those who think they are safe today must watch it. We cannot continue like this and think that there will not be consequences. The safety of those who live in the fortresses serviced by the State will be in jeopardy the day the people feel completely unsafe in their homes! We are closer to that stage!

News

Police Warn Against Protest In Aso Rock, Environs

Published

2 hours ago

October 19, 2025

Editor

The Nigeria Police Force has warned intending protesters, agitating for the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kalu, against any form of protest around the Aso Rock and its environs.

A statement by the Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Benjamin Hundeyin, in Abuja, said the warning followed an order of a Federal High Court, Abuja.

He said the court, in a suit between the Federal Republic of Nigeria v. Omoyele Sowore & 4 others, on Oct. 17, restrained any form of protest around the Aso Rock and its environs.

“The order restrains the respondents and any other persons or groups acting under their instruction from staging protests within and around Aso Rock Villa and its environs.

“Other areas are the National Assembly Complex, Force Headquarters, the Court of Appeal, Eagle Square and Shehu Shagari Way.

“Accordingly, all intending protesters and counter-protest groups are strongly advised to avoid restricted areas and to refrain from any act capable of provoking confrontation or disturbing public order,” he said.

The police spokesman said the force would ensure the free flow of traffic, protection of lives and property, and security of all law-abiding citizens.

According to him, any person or group that uses protests as cover to incite violence, carry or use offensive weapons, vandalise public or private property, kidnap, or engage in acts likely to cause loss of life or serious injury will be dealt with decisively.

He said offenders would be arrested, subjected to full investigation, and prosecuted under relevant criminal laws, including laws relating to public order, violent conduct and terrorism where applicable.

Hundeyin said those who incite others via social media or other platforms would be investigated and prosecuted, using digital evidence.

He said the Inspector-General of Police (I-G), Mr Kayode Egbetokun, had directed the Commissioner of Police (CP) in charge of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and relevant operational commands to ensure strict enforcement of the court’s order.

Hundeyin said the I-G had directed the CP to maintain visible and strategic deployments across vulnerable locations, and ensure the safety of residents and lawful activities in the FCT.

He urged organisers of the protest and participants to avoid the restricted areas specified by the court and refrain from carrying weapons, engaging in provocative conduct, or encouraging others to breach the law.

Hundeyin also urged the protesters to channel their grievances through the courts and other lawful avenues rather than the streets.

The police spokesman said adequate security arrangements had been made to protect lives and property of law-abiding Nigerians.

He enjoined those, not engaging in the protest to go about their lawful businesses without fear as anyone found to be in breach of the court’s order or in contempt of the law and be arrested and prosecuted.

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OPINION: Amupitan’s Magical Marriage To A Buffalo

Published

3 hours ago

October 19, 2025

Editor

By Festus Adedayo

While growing up, I went on hunting expedition with elderly men. From it, I found out that the forest, as an ecosystem, is diametrically opposed to the human world. In the forest, the hunter exists with “other beings”- animals of different shades and character, plants – whose existences bear similarity with man’s. One of such beings is an unseen spirit whose existence the hunter can take for granted only at his own peril. In the forest, the hunter is in a continuous struggle with these beings but is seen as an interloper. In this forest community, every member of the ecosystem contests for primacy, sometimes in a mortal and fatal manner.

Whenever human arguments begin to sound like claptrap to me, I bail out to avoid going mad. My refuge is always among animals, in the wild. It is a place Yoruba curiously call ìgbé. Ìgbé is, literally, excreta. I find greater logic in excrement than sweet-smelling human contraptions. To explain Professor Joash Amupitan’s recent appointment as the Chairman of the Independent Nigerian Electoral Commission (INEC) and the forebodings that line the sky, I had to go in search of animals whose lives could give explanations of the weird life of man. Whether in the sullen murmur of bees, the cruel humour of monkeys, the deafening roar of lions, the ugly beauty of hyenas or the artistry in the skin of zebras, the wild is a better place to find peace of mind. Or don’t you think so?

In Ayo Adeduntan’s seminal work, What the forest told me: Yoruba hunter, culture and narrative performance (2019), the author conducted an interview with Ògúnkúnlé Òjó of Agúnrege village in Oyo State. Adeduntan narrated how Òjó’s hunter master, Ògúnòṣun, married an efòn, the buffalo. In description, the African buffalo is one of Africa’s ‘big five’ safari animals, alongside rhinoceros, elephant, leopard and lion. Living only in Africa and Asia, the buffalo is reputed for its huge horns. Though a herbivore like cows, feeding only on plants, the animal often falls prey to predators like hunters, lions, leopards, hyenas and wild dogs. It can also be vicious; in order to defend herself, the buffalo strikes its prey with her horns.

According to Ògúnkúnlé Òjó, this particular day, he and another colleague on hunting expedition had shot the buffalo in the Agúnrege village forest. The animal immediately fell. Apparently frightened by the monstrosity of their kill, one of them had to run home to fetch their master, Ògúnòṣun. As they were about to get to the spot where the animal was felled, narrated Ògúnkúnlé, they suddenly saw a very pretty woman walking towards them. I remember Odolaye Aremu, Ilorin Dadakuada music lord, comparing the suddenness of the death of Western Region Premier, S. L. Akintola, to the instantaneous blow of a calamity when he sang, “…pèkílàá ko èèmò.” Said Ògúnkúnlé, “we ran into the animal, that is, the wife. She was a very beautiful woman” which in Yoruba is, “àfipẹ̀kí n l’abápàdéẹranl’ọ́nà, èyuùnìyàwó. Arẹwaobinrinni”. What Ògúnkúnlé implied was that the woman they met on the road to the buffalo’s remains was the same buffalo who had now transformed into a beautiful woman. It reminds one of Fagunwa’s Igbo Olódùmarè and how Olówóayé, swept off his feet by the sultry beauty of a woman named àjẹ́, was oblivious that he was making advances to a spirit woman.

What eventually transpired between Ògúnòṣun and the buffalo-turned-beautiful woman is instructive. “Our master exchanged greetings with her (the animal). She greeted our master, kneeling down in respect. This is no hearsay; I, Òjó the hunter, was present there that day. Our master wooed her and they both agreed to marry each other. She (however) warned: ‘Now that you have decided to marry me, be informed that the day you, out of anger, call me an animal, that day would be your last. It would not offend me as much if you hit me so much that I am wounded and bleeding.’

“So they got married. She became pregnant and had the first child, the second and the third child. There was a quarrel between her and my master one day. As they quarreled, my master angrily insulted her: ‘Àb’órí ì rẹ burúni, ìwọ ọmọ ẹrankoyìí’ – ‘You good-for-nothing unlucky daughter of an animal.’ ‘Oh!’ the woman said, ‘You are done for.’ That was where the trouble started.”

Ògúnkúnlé Òjó then ended the story, stating that the buffalo woman then turned into her pre-marital animal state. “Yes. It is no hearsay. She transformed into an animal by Ademọla’s father’s house beside Igbadi Hill. That was when the two of them started to fight. Our master tried all his power and failed. That was how the woman ran away forever. One of the children is dead. The remaining two are still in my master’s house,” Ògúnkúnlé said.

The forest is a realm that is implicitly uncertain. Those who claim that forest conversations between the hunter and other beings who live in the wild are purely African fantasy underrate our reality. The truth is that the hunter shares the forest cosmos with other beings. While the hunter believes he possesses some superiority over animals and other beings in the forest, the truth is that it is a shared world. Indeed, the Yoruba worldview does not approve of man’s superordinate status claim in relation to other earthly creations. He is thus in constant war against these forest antagonists whom he cannot pacify and who also see him as a usurper. This reminds me of a childhood fairy tale we were told about Segbe, a boy who veered into the wild on a festival day to hunt game. The animals descended on him and made a barbecue of his flesh. When the search party scoured the forest for him the second day, the birds sang, “Who is there searching for Segbe? Human beings were celebrating in their homes. We, animals, were having ours in the forest. We have made a meal of Segbe’s flesh.”

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: The Madman Sermon On Mapo Hill

In animals, there is no hypocrisy, no pretension. Victims and victimizers are aware of their naturally ordained roles and do not pull any shroud over this. In their wild habitat, these mammal forebears of man seem to explain better the contradictions of human life and the illogicality of the life of man. It prompted my disagreement with Fela Anikulapo’s concept of “animal talk”. While excoriating the Muhammadu Buhari military government’s War Against Indiscipline philosophy of openly beating offending Nigerians, Fela called that philosophy a talk of animals. My disagreement is that animals’ lives speak to man, but man is too deaf to listen.

In Yoruba hunters’ narratives, while there is always a hunter, animal and spirit relationship, this symbiosis often ends up in calamity. While D. O. Fagunwa’s narrative of the relationship between the trio of man, animal and spirits in the wild was fabulism, he took it out of the real-life man-animal forest ecosystem relations and encounters. Fagunwa’s books opened our eyes to the symbiosis of this relationship. You can see this relationship in the encounter between Olówóayé, Fagunwa’s hunter and protagonist, and the one-eyed elf called Èsù-kékeré-òde, in the book he entitled, The Forest of God, Igbó Olódùmarè. In another of his book, Ogbójúọdẹ Nínú Igbó Irúnmalè, this contest for supremacy between man and the spirit was illustrated by how a character called Tèmbèlẹ̀kun, a flesh-eating spirit, devoured Lamọrin, a hunter. Such is the nature of the dog-eat-dog relationship in the wild. ̣

So, last Thursday, as Professor Amupitan appeared in the Nigerian senate for screening, he suddenly pounced on my mind like a rampaging leopard. Whenever a hunter encounters an animal in the wild, his discerning mind tells him whether she is indeed an animal or an animal-turned-man. Putting on that same lens, what I saw last Thursday was an incestuous relationship between a hunter and a buffalo that would soon go awry. The hunter-buffalo’s love-turned-sour narrated above tells me I wasn’t mistaken. My reading is that of a tragic relationship that will soon come full throttle between Aso Rock, Amupitan and the Nigerian people.

History is Amupitan’s first nemesis. It holds that, like Ògúnòṣun, the hunter who got married to a buffalo-human, the new INEC boss is entering a graveyard of history where he would be so badly gored that he might emerge therefrom with a permanent scar. Since Sir Hugh Clifford’s Legislative Council election of 1920, Nigeria’s elections have been the graveyard of their electoral umpires. Since then, Nigeria has had electoral chiefs whose tenures ended in fiasco and, or ignominy.

Enters Amupitan. His first shot in the Senate last week was to confront the unpalatable graveyard image of electoral umpire bosses with comely semiotics. In semiotic theory, users deploy signs and symbols to create meanings. This they do through language, gestures and images. As he appeared at the senate screening exercise, the professor of law and Senior Advocate of Nigeria appeared with his family. Probably a student of linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and philosopher, Charles Sanders Pierce, who founded this study of symbols, Amupitan knew that a semiotic portrayal of the presence of his children on his first interface with Nigerians has the power of convincing the people that, as a family man, he would be humane. However, the reality of what he is about to begin far transcends the tender-heartedness of the family.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: Fubara And The Witches

Amupitan spoke very well. Just like his predecessors. The professor from the sleepy town of Ayetoro Gbede said his life is influenced by a tripod of God, hard work and mentorship.

Soon, Amupitan will realize that he is in the same boat with persons for whom God exists only as a political slogan or refrain. Beyond their lips, there is no one so-called. In this God thing, he is alone. Again, more than ever before, Amupitan, whose literal rendition of his name means a history maker, will indeed make history. He will also tell a story. What story he will tell and the history he will make are part of the omen of a gathering cloud in the sky I see. Vultures are already hovering, signifying that the story the professor will tell will not only not be significantly different from his predecessors’, it could be worse. First is that, unlike many previous elections, Nigerians have the painful belief that the winner of the 2027 elections, especially the presidential election, is already known. This will leave Amupitan to contend with his own ambiguities.

Second is the gale of defections that has rocked Nigerian politics in the last few months. The defections render party politics no different from the petty business of market square transactions. They thus make Amupitan’s job a potential failure. The belief is that the Senators/House of Representatives members and governors changing parties like chameleon changes colour, are driven by the quest to have the party at the federal lip-frog them into victory. How would Amupitan deny the party of his appointor victory in 2027?

Already, Amupitan’s ambivalent heritage may also sound the death knell on his electoral umpire role. While the presidency gleefully flaunted him as having “hailed from the North Central,” everyone knows that putting Ayetoro Gbede as northern Nigeria is one of those geographical mis-ascriptions of today’s Nigeria. A town in Okunland, in Kogi West Senatorial District of Kogi State, Amupitan hails from this town, founded in 1927 by early Christian converts. The truth is, Ayetoro Gbede is Yorubaland. So, if northern Nigeria, which is today embroiled in a fight with the avatar of Nigeria, on allegation of under-developing the North, loses the 2027 election to Amupitan’s perceived brother, there cannot but be wahala.

Pardon my pessimism. What I see is Amupitan, with his lustering credentials, ending up brutally bruised. This liaison with a buffalo-turned-pretty woman will not likely end well.

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Remain Apolitical – NAF Warns Personnel

Published

16 hours ago

October 18, 2025

Editor

The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has called on all personnel not to involve themselves in any political activities in the discharge of their professional responsibilities.

Air Vice Marshal (AVM) Usman Abdullahi, the Air Officer Commanding, Special Operations Command, Bauchi, made the call during the 2025 annual 10-kilometer walk and jog exercise organised by the Nigerian Air Force.

He also called on the personnel not to involve themselves in activity that is inimical to the calling of the military profession.

“You must remain apolitical. Don’t involve yourselves in any political activities and do not involve yourselves in activity that is inimical to the calling of our military profession.

“I urge you to remain loyal to the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the President and the Commander in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” he said.

Abdullahi, who emphasised that the NAF pays serious attention to physical fitness for all its personnel, said that the exercise was to increase their cohesion, keep their mental fitness as well as for them to be on the alert at all times.

He commended the Bauchi state government for their cooperation and synergy as well as the creation of an enabling environment.

Also speaking shortly after the 10-kilometer walk and jog, governor Mohammed said the participants’ outstanding performances were the result of discipline, consistency and determination to succeed.

These qualities, he said, were central not only to physical fitness but also to succeed in every area of life, adding that they had demonstrated team work, endurance and commitment to the values that made the Nigerian Air Force a model institution.

Represented by his Deputy, Alh. Auwal Jatau, the governor, said the exercise was more than just a fitness exercise but a celebration of unity and shared purpose.

“Seeing officers comprising airmen, airwomen, sister security services, paramilitary agencies, and NYSC members come together in such a lively atmosphere reminds us that sports and fitness can be powerful tools for strengthening peace and solidarity.

“Here in Bauchi State, we take pride in the harmonious relationship between the government, the Nigerian Air Force and all security agencies operating within the State.

“The Special Operations Command and other military and paramilitary formations have played a vital role in maintaining the relative peace and security that our people enjoy today,” he said.

Nothing less than 32 people received different prizes for their outstanding performances during the exercise which included Airmen, Airwomen, Nigeria Immigration Service, Customs Service and civilians among others.