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OPINION: Yuletide Horror

Published

10 months ago

December 24, 2024

By Suyi Ayodele

The yuletide is a season of merriment. Traditionally, a season of merriment and joy. It is a period of hope because it is the month that the Saviour was born. In Old English, Yuletide, as depicted by Norsemen, celebrates warmth, merriment and fellowship. Why is it now a period of blood and tears in Nigeria? What is our sin? We will employ a folktale to explain our present predicament.

Ikú (Death) once challenged Òrúnmìlà to a duel. Whoever won would eliminate the other alongside his household. Orunmila, the wise one, knew that no one could kill Ikú . Baba Àgbonnìrègún knew he had a big problem to solve. But there is always a solution to every problem.

Òrúnmìlà devised a means. He asked one of his wives, Òsúnlèyò, to befriend Àrùn (Disease), the wife of Iku. At that time, Àrùn had a contagious disease that made everyone avoid her. Therefore, it was a welcoming development that Òsúnlèyò, would want to be her friend.

After many days of interaction, Òsúnlèyò, broached the idea of the contest between Ikú and Òrúnmìlà, and Arun asked her to relax. “I know my husband, Ikú. He is a trickster. He will bring three strange objects concealed in three different pots. If your husband cannot name the objects, Iku will kill your husband and his entire household. But I will help you”, Àrùn assured Òsúnlèyò, She further instructed Òrúnmìlà’s wife that on the day of the contest, Òrúnmìlà should nominate his wife, Osunleyo, to solve the riddle of the mystery pots.

On the D-day, Ikú came with his pots. Òrúnmìlà and other deities gathered with bated breath. When the time was due, Ikú with his club raised, asked Òrúnmìlà to name the items in the pots. Majestically, Òrúnmìlà adjusted his divination bag and boasted that he, being an Òmòràn tíí mo aboyún ìgbín (the one who knows all things including a pregnant snail), would not condescend to name objects that an apprentice initiate could easily decipher. Rather, Òrúnmìlà said he would ask his wife, Osunleyo, to name the objects.

Pronto, Òsúnlèyò, stepped forward and named the objects in the three pots of Ikú to be the legs of a lame man, the head of a madman and the corpse of a hunchback. Ikú was dazed. He accepted defeat. But he added a caveat. Since his assignment from the Creator is to cut short people’s lives, he would not deviate from that. But rather than being brazen about it, he would ensure that humanity would, through their follies, look for death.

Like Ikú (death), President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came on May 29, 2023, with three mysterious pots. Each pot contains a strange item that Nigerians must decipher correctly if they are to live to tell the story of the untold hardship the new government will unleash on them.

In one of the pots, Tinubu deposited the legs of a lame man. Inside the second, he had the head of a madman and the third pot was the corpse of a hunchback. These three strange items have grave significance: spiritually and otherwise.

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This is not an esoteric exercise; so, we will not categorically say what each item represents. But we will adopt the Yoruba philosophy Ààbò òrò (half word). During our discourse, the Ààbò òrò will turn to “Odindi” (full word). This, however, will be on the understanding that those who will rise to defend President Tinubu in the present calamities that have befallen the entire country will imbibe the ethos of Omolúàbí and have the wisdom to turn Ààbò òròto Odindi.

This is exactly what happened to Nigerians in 2023 Ikú was standing by the wayside. Nigerians willingly invited him to their abodes. It began in 2015. Through the error of judgments, Nigerians voluntarily invited Ikú (Death) to their closets. Not even the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has records of how many Nigerians have died sheepishly and cheaply since the current locust of leaders took over the administration of this country in 2015.

For the eight ruinous years General Muhammadu Buhari spent picking his teeth while the nation drifted to the bottomless pit, Nigerians died in their thousands in the hands of killer herdsmen, Boko Haram insurgents, kidnappers and other felons who visited “sorrow, tears and blood” upon the people.

In the current administration of Tinubu, the contents of the strange pots the Jagaban Borgu came along with at his inauguration have continued to hunt and hurt us. The wicked and rudderless economic policies of the administration, which like the legs of a lame and the head of a madman, have led many Nigerians to their untimely death. The pain of directionless economic permutations is like the one associated with hunchback; there is no folding it, there is no bending it! The NBS released damning statistics, which the Bureau was forced to recant as a product of a hacked platform, last week. But are we all deceived? If the government pretends not to know its own lies, don’t we, as a people know the truth?

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The Yuletide brings good tidings in sane climes. In the Nigeria of the locust leaders, as we have now, the Yuletide is a bloody season! We are different from others in many ways. Nothing works for us; nothing works in our favour, and we question nothing. We are too unfortunate not to have Àrùn, who could tell us about the secrets in Tinubu’s strange pots. This is why when one ugly event occurs, all we do is mourn. The next minute, we behave like nothing had happened. We resign to fate and ‘faith’ so easily. Nigerians are a pummelled people, always at the mercy of callous leadership!

Here, life is cheap. But death is much cheaper in our clime. For a measure of rice, a pack of noodles and fingertips-counted seeds of beans, Nigerians die in their scores because an unfeeling leadership has imposed on the nation a strangulating economic policy that leads to nowhere but the shallow graves of the victims!

From Ibadan, Oyo State, to Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, and Okija in Ihiala Local Government Area of Anambra State, and to the next unknown destination, death hovers over us like the proverbial sword of Damocles. We can only count the number of known victims. Many more are there unaccounted for, just as many are lurking in the corners, waiting to take their spots in the shallow graves where we bury our victims.

And we are all victims, though we are not all dead yet. We don’t even have to have relations among the dead. As long as we read about their news and feel sorrowful about it, we are all victims. Victims of inept leadership; victims of wickedness that those we entrust our future daily dish out from their cosy offices and homes.

It started in Ibadan on Wednesday, December 18. A ‘philanthropist’, that is the narrative they want us to project, and former queen of Oba Enitan Ogunwusi, the Ooni of Ife, Prophetess Naomi Silekunola, in conjunction with a popular radio presenter, Oriyomi Hamzat, promoted a freebies programme that would give N5,000 to 5,000 children from the age of 18 downwards. That was what Ikú in the Tinubu administration needed to strike. A freebie that targeted children in the cast has its spiritual implications. But we shall not dwell on that here.

For a programme slated for 10 am, Nigerians in their thousands thronged the Islamic High School, Bashorun, Ibadan, playfield, the venue of the proposed programme as early as 5 am. Many were said to have slept overnight at the venue to be among the “first 5,000″. Parents threw toddlers over the fence while they scaled the high fence to get a common N5,000. Ikú waited. Like it promised Òrúnmìlà, he would not strike brazenly again but would allow human beings to seek him through their follies.

The ensuing stampede led to the death of 35 children. Many of the children were not up to two years old. Hamzat, in one of the reactions to the incident, said while the rescue operation was ongoing, he encountered women who came with their babies for gifts. A woman was said to be looking for her four-month-old baby among the over 10,000 people who had gathered for the freebies. Pray, why would a nursing mother venture out of her house with a four-month-old baby strapped to her back? Poverty!

Poverty is what this government sells in abundance. The tragedy spares no one. Everything that gives hope has disappeared. When there is hunger, wisdom is always in short supply. That is what Ibadan experienced last Wednesday, the flight of wisdom in the face of acute hunger! What will N5,000 buy in the Nigeria of Tinubu? But it would not matter. Nigerians have gotten to that level that if another freebies programme is organised at Bashorun High School, people would travel all the way from Alakia to partake. That is what deliberate poverty does. The government knows this; those in power know that it is a veritable instrument to keep the masses subjugated.

I have read comments about the faults of Prophetess Silekunola and the Agidigbo FM, organisers of the Ibadan programme of death. I agree that the organisers should have been more thorough and put measures in place to avoid the disaster. Their failure to do that makes them liable.

But beyond that, can we ask why Nigerians would sleep in an open field overnight just to collect N5,000 at daybreak? This is where those exonerating President Tinubu and his economic policies of death are getting it wrong. If there is any culprit for this disaster, it is President Tinubu! It is not enough that the President cancelled the Lagos boat regatta to honour the dead. The greatest honour President Tinubu can give to the dead and those who will still be victims is for him to begin to think outside the box.

President Tinubu must know or must be told that none of his economic policies has worked, is working or likely going to work. The President must be told that his government, like the immediate past Buhari government, has eliminated the middle class. He must be told in clear terms that Nigerians are hungry. When a man experiences the pang of hunger the way Nigerians are now, wisdom and discretion become irrelevant. There is no deity like hunger; it kills faster than death itself.

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Olóbòbòtiribò in Yoruba cosmology, is the god of the throat and stomach. It is a deity that requires daily sacrifice. The sacrificial items are the same edibles that this administration has taken away from the people. Before these present gangs took over in 2015, Nigerians could get a bag of rice for as cheap as N3,500. That was why nobody had time to organise rice palliative distribution in Abuja or Okija. Nigerians had no reason to die while scrambling for bags of rice at an unorganised distribution centre because a bag of 50kg of foreign rice was sold at N7,500 in 2015.

Just 19 months ago when President Tinubu came into the saddle, a bag of rice was still sold for N35,000. Today, that same quantity and less quality of rice goes for N120,000. This is why despite the much publicity the Ibadan tragedy attracted, Nigerians still gathered in Abuja and Okija to receive their slots of death! This is sad! But more sadly, it will happen again!

The people in Orunmila’s time were lucky. They had Àrùn, the compassionate wife of Ikú, to save them by leaking the secrets of the mystery pots to them. Who is that compassionate Àrùn in the Tinubu government, in Tinubu’s household, and among his kitchen cabinet? Who is that man or woman with the milk of kindness?

Hours after the Ibadan tragedy, the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, was all over Abuja, canvassing for how the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) would help him ‘capture’ Oyo State in 2027! That is how unfeeling our leaders are. Ikú said he would not kill unless the people, through their follies, invited him. This is a lesson for us all. We are at liberty to invite Ikú again in 2027!

Most of the calamities of the last 19 months are self-inflicted because we refused to scrutinise the gifts of the legs of a lame, the head of a madman and the corpse of hunchback Tinubu gave to us at his inauguration. President Tinubu must know that the ancient greeting for the Yuletide is: “Compliments of the Season.” History will not be kind to him if he should turn it into “Bloodiness of the Season! This is sad enough!

News

Why We Expanded Presidential Amnesty Scholarship Scheme — Otuaro

Published

3 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

Otuaro (middle) in a group photograph with the PAP foreign scholarship students in the United Kingdom after an interactive session in London on Saturday, 25 October, 2025.

The Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Dr Dennis Otuaro, has expressed his unwavering commitment to ensuring that more indigent students and communities of the Niger Delta benefit from the PAP scholarship scheme.

He stated this while explaining what informed his decision to expand the scheme and increase formal education opportunities for poor students, and to build a huge manpower base in the region.

A statement issued by Mr Igoniko Oduma, Special Assistant on Media to the PAP boss said Otuaro spoke during an interactive session in London on Saturday with the beneficiaries of the scholarship initiative deployed for undergraduate and post-graduate programmes in universities across the United Kingdom.

The engagement, which was at the instance of the PAP boss, provided an opportunity for the Office and the scholarship students to discuss issues pertaining to their welfare and challenges with a view to addressing them.

Otuaro said that while in-country scholarship deployment was 3800 in the 2024/2025 academic year, the figure increased to 3900 in the 2025/2026 and foreign scholarships were about 200.

He attributed the increase in deployment to the massive support of President Bola Tinubu and the Office of the National Security Adviser.

Otuaro stressed that he was greatly encouraged by the President and the NSA, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, and that he knows how impressed both of them are concerning the PAP initiatives, which align with the Renewed Hope Agenda.

He reiterated his call on the students to justify the huge investment in their education by the Federal Government by studying hard to make good grades.

He also urged them to conduct themselves and be responsible ambassadors of Nigeria while in the U.K, stressing that “you will be adding value to your families and communities when you complete your programmes successfully.”

The PAP helmsman said, “We want the scholarship programme to impact more students and communities in the Niger Delta. That’s why we have expanded it and increased formal education opportunities.

“We want you to take this opportunity very seriously so that the government, too, will be encouraged. I know how much support His Excellency, President Bola Tinubu GCFR, gives to the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

“Mr President and the National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, are very impressed with what we are doing. On your behalf I would like to, once again , thank His Excellency and the NSA for giving you this life-changing opportunity. We are confident that Mr President and the NSA will continue to support us.

“The knowledge you are receiving in your institutions today is to enable you plan yourself and prepare for the future. Whatever knowledge you gain cannot be taken from you.

“So as PAP scholarship students, we expect responsible and good behaviour from you. Government is investing heavily in you and you have the obligation to justify the investment. Be agents of change and avoid acts of mischief while in the U.K.”

News

OPINION: A ‘Crazy’ African Nation, Where Citizens Eat And Drink Football

Published

5 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

By Tony Erha

It was in October, a semi-summer-month and twilight of the year that ushers in the chilling and extreme winter. A nonagenarian woman gave me a friendly smile that revealed cheeky dimples. As I bowed respectfully to her ripened age, she offered a leathery hand for a handshake, which I received warmly, returning her infectious smile. For a youth who prays for longevity shouldn’t deprive the elderly of the walking stick. I had helped her, carrying a furred handbag to our seats on a night-long intercity bus, from Istanbul to Ankara, in Turkey, the Balkan nation, where we stopped over, in year 2004.

She spoke Turkish rapidly, whilst I retorted in a passable and incoherent Turkish language that ‘I don’t speak the official language of the only country of the world that is located on two continents; Europe and Asia. “You American?” She asked in English. It was obvious that my jeans, necklace and a fez cap that I upturned, in the manner of the Yankees, might have portrayed me as one. “No. I am a Nigerian”, I said, dragging the words. “You Nee-jay-rian!” she exclaimed, whilst I nodded confidently. Then she was elated; “Okocha Jay-Jay!” She spoke to others in the bus that clapped and hailed. I wondered why a 91 years-old-woman, was so passionate about football and one of its heroes, as if she was a youth.

At her request, an old video of a football match showed the mesmerising display of Austin ‘Jay Jay’ Okocha, viewed on a television set affixed to the bus. There were instantaneous excitement and catcalls each time Okocha, the great football ‘talisman’ from Nigeria, did his ball flips and dribble-runs that displaced his opponents, earning him one of the few (if not the greatest) football entertainers in football’s history. It was as if the video tape, recorded in his notable plays in Besiktas, a Turkish club side, was a live match. So great was Okocha’s global fame that the old woman relived again; “Jay Jay Okocha is a dangerous footballer, who’s full of tricks on the field of play. The only trick he didn’t do with the ball from his bag of football artistry was to play on top the swimming pool”. In Mustafa Ataturk’s nation, footballers of Nigeria’s decent had and still make their soccer very eventful.

Victor Osimhen, the leggy playmaker and striker with a dye-hair like the white mushroom head, who recently renewed his contract with Galatasaray, a Turkish top team, is also a Nigerian, who has received the applause in the peninsula country and across the globe like Jay Jay Okocha. Candidly, Oshimen, the goal mechine, who is a tonic to the Turks and football fans across the world, also does the unimaginative with the round leather, but certainly not with the same fascinating skills of Jay Jay! But the Turkish fans are readily tilted to football fanaticism.

Victor Osimhen

If it’s ‘fanatic-fans’ in Turkish football, it’s certainly ‘supporters hooliganism’ in the United Kingdom (UK), where association soccer (football) was founded in 1863, with similar kicking games played in Greece, China and Rome since 2,000 years. In UK, football is played with fanfares, pool betting and media vuvuzela. English soccer is a gainful entertainment industry raking in huge gate fees from plays, promotions, television and media razzmatazz, which is often imitated in Nigeria, with passions and ‘occult’ following. So worrisome was the ‘social hype and lawlessness’ youths and others attach to English soccer that security operatives have constant migraine fighting soccer addiction and frequent street brawls.

Jay Jay Okocha, Nwankwo Kanu, Dan Amokachi, Taribo West and other Nigerian stars, that once dominated and currently rule other foreign clubs, opened the floodlight of extremist football following into the country. Once upon a time, the then Prince Charles (now the king of England), was spotted (with young boys) playing the game, inside the Buckingham Palace, all wearing jersey number ’10’ with Jay Jay Okocha’s name inscribed). That the number-one-global-royalty adored soccer by wearing the jersey of a footballer from a third-world African nation, somewhat illustrates that which is often said about soccer being more than a mere sport. ‘Football Tripper’, a British online news porter, describes soccer as “oxygen” to numerous men and women. In Brazil, the South American nation, there is a deity called “Soccer”, as well as it’s a vivacious Reggae, a unique music genre in Jamaica.

Still, it is food and sups in Nigeria. In this Africa’s most populous nation, with plentiful viewing centres and liquor spots, there are live television football tournaments and soccer video games, with consumable food, alcoholics, carbonated drinks and some ‘unlawful substances’ that are at the behest of business owners and ‘intoxicated’ fans.

In what soccer dramatics came to know as ‘the Dammam Miracle’, viewing centres, beer parlours and restaurants were instantly sold out in the country, in 1989, after ‘footbocrazy’ Nigerians, stormed the streets in prolonged wild celebrations. For the Nigerian U-20 football team, at the FIFA World Youth Championship, held in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, came back from a four-goal deficit to level up and defeat the Russian counterpart, making the Nigerian team the first to come back from a semi-final to win a FIFA tournament. Soccer, indeed, is a crazy sport in Nigeria. Once upon a time, a man had shattered the screen of his expensive television, because Austin Jay Jay Okocha, his favourite star, had lost a penalty in a continental match!

It’s said that football, especially when the Nigerian national teams of men and woman play, tends to unite Nigerians than other national blights that turn them apart. Now, the current national fanaticism is for the Victor Osimhen-inspired Super Eagles, to qualify for the 2026 World Cup gala, even though it has to go the extra obstacles of playing more legs, whereas the team had frittered the early opportunities to qualify.

And sensing that most Nigerians care less of the economic woes that plagued them, but for the football fad, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the nation’s President, would cash-in to feed their ago awarding huge cash to high profile football tournaments and wins, like he recently accorded the Super Falcons, the female national team, for achieving a similitude of the Dammam miracle, to bring home a coveted African Cup of Nations (AFCON) trophy!

News

Ex-soldiers Fume Over Lifetime Benefits For Sacked Service Chiefs

Published

9 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

The sacked Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, and two other service chiefs, Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Hasan Abubakar, and Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla, are set to receive generous retirement benefits.

The benefits include bulletproof vehicles, domestic aides, and lifetime medical care.

Their exit follows President Bola Tinubu’s appointment of new service chiefs on Friday.

General Olufemi Oluyede has been named the new Chief of Defence Staff, while Major-General W. Shaibu takes over as Chief of Army Staff.

Air Vice Marshal Sunday Kelvin Aneke becomes the new Chief of Air Staff, and Rear Admiral I. Abbas the Chief of Naval Staff. The Chief of Defence Intelligence, Major-General E.A.P. Undiendeye, retains his position.

The President’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Communication, Sunday Dare, said in a statement on Friday that the removal of the service chiefs was in furtherance of the Federal Government’s ongoing efforts to strengthen Nigeria’s national security architecture.

According to the Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service for Officers and Enlisted Personnel in the Nigerian Armed Forces, signed by President Tinubu on December 14, 2024, the service chiefs are entitled to substantial retirement packages upon disengagement.

The document stipulates that each retiring service chief will receive a bulletproof SUV or an equivalent vehicle, to be maintained and replaced every four years by the military.

They are also entitled to a Peugeot 508 or an equivalent backup vehicle.

Beyond the vehicles, the package includes five domestic aides — two service cooks, two stewards, and one civilian gardener — along with an aide-de-camp or security officer, and a personal assistant or special assistant.

They will also retain three service drivers, a service orderly, and a standard guard unit comprising nine soldiers.

The benefits extend to free medical treatment both in Nigeria and abroad, as well as the retention of personal firearms to be retrieved upon their demise.

However, while officers of lieutenant-general rank and equivalents are entitled to international and local medical care worth up to $20,000 annually, the benefits for the service chiefs, though not stated in the document, are believed to be considerably higher.

The HTCOS reads, “Retirement benefits for CDS and Service Chiefs: The following benefits shall be applicable: one bulletproof SUV or equivalent vehicle to be maintained by the Service and to be replaced every four years. One Peugeot 508 or equivalent backup vehicle.

‘’Retention of all military uniforms and accoutrement to be worn for appropriate ceremonies; five domestic aides (two service cooks, two stewards, and one civilian gardener); one Aide-de-Camp/security officer; one Special Assistant (Lt/Capt or equivalents) or one Personal Assistant (Warrant Officer or equivalents); standard guard (nine soldiers).

“Three service drivers; one service orderly; escorts (to be provided by appropriate military units/formation as the need arises); retention of personal firearms (on his demise, the personal firearm(s) shall be retrieved by the relevant service); and free medical cover in Nigeria and abroad.”

However, the policy specifies that such entitlements apply only if the retired officers have not accepted any other appointment funded from public resources — except when such an appointment is made by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

In such cases, the officers, according to the document, will only receive allowances commensurate with the new role rather than a full salary.

Retired soldiers protest lavish perks

Reacting, some retired soldiers decried what they described as the luxurious benefits and entitlements reserved for service chiefs and senior military officers.

They lamented that junior personnel continued to suffer neglect and unpaid entitlements despite years of service to the nation.

The retired officers expressed frustration over the disparity in welfare and treatment between senior and junior ranks within the military.

One of the leaders of the discharged soldiers demanding their owed entitlements, Sgt. Zaki Williams, expressed frustration over the entitlements reserved for the service chiefs.

Speaking in an emotional tone, Williams, who claimed to be speaking for more than 700 soldiers in his group, said many retired non-commissioned officers had been abandoned despite dedicating their lives to defending the country.

He said, “I don’t really understand how our people in Nigeria do things. The people at the top always do things to favour only themselves. They don’t care about the poor or the junior ones who sacrificed everything.”

The retired sergeant recalled that government officials had made several promises to improve their welfare, but none had been fulfilled.

“Since the day they made those promises to us, we went back home and didn’t hear anything again. Everything just ended there. We’ve been waiting till now, but nothing has happened,” he added.

Williams said the situation had left many of his colleagues demoralised and divided over whether to continue pressing for their entitlements.

“Some of us said we should protest again, but others refused. We told them that day that we were not going for another protest. If the government wants to help us, they should help us. If not, we’re done,” he said.

He also accused senior military officers of frustrating efforts by the defence ministry to address the concerns of retired personnel.

According to Williams, life after service has been extremely difficult for most of them who retired voluntarily or were discharged without compensation.

“How can someone retire after years of service and still not get their entitlement? Many of us can’t even build a house. The senior officers have houses, cars, and everything good, but the rest of us have nothing,” he said.

He added that the little compensation given to some was not enough to rebuild their lives.

“If they give you N2m today, what can you really start with it in this country? You have children, family, and responsibilities, yet you can’t even afford a plot of land,” he said.

Expressing disappointment, he said most junior officers had lost faith in the system.

“We’ve handed everything over to God,” he said quietly. “We’ve cried and done our best. They promised us, but in the end, it’s still zero. We haven’t seen anything. That’s why many of us are now silent.”

Another retired soldier, Abdul Isiak, lamented that promises made to retired personnel had remained unfulfilled, leaving many struggling to survive.

He said, “All you said they would give to them would be done promptly, and they are more than what we need to sustain our lives. This is very unfair. We have suffered a lot, and they’re yet to give us our entitlements after leaving the service. What is our offence? Is it because we are junior officers?”

The former sergeant said the senior officers continued to enjoy generous retirement packages while lower ranks were denied their due benefits.

“We are preparing for another protest for them to pay us. This is very bad,” he said.

(PUNCH)