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[OPINION]Petrol War: Let The Prince Walk Naked

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By Suyi Ayodele

Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Oba Ehengbuda reigned as Benin monarch between 1578 and 1606. Benin throne, as we all know, is purely patriarchal and primogeniture; a system of royal succession that passes the baton from the father to the first son. By practice, every Omo N’Oba is expected to have a son, the Crown Prince, who will succeed him after joining his ancestors.

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The Benin crown prince, known as Edaiken, is always trained in royal virtues and carriage. He is the oba-in-waiting. Oba Ehengbuda was no exception to the Benin culture. He had a son named Odogbo. According to the legend, Odogbo, rather than being handsome like any male child, was beautiful like a girl. He was a damsel! The prince was said to have had all the attributes of a girl such that the people then believed that their king was trying to deceive them by presenting a female child as the crown prince.

The people were worried, and their worries were not misplaced. Immediately Oba Ehengbuda, through the traditional means, announced to the people that he had a son, their future king, all rights due for such an announcement were performed. So, it was a great embarrassment for the people to discover their future king was a woman. Benin would not have such!

While the trepidation was on about the sex of Prince Odogbo, the Omo N’Oba, Oba Ehengbuda insisted that his child was indeed a male irrespective of the feminine features he exhibited; and or, his beauty. There appeared to be a stalemate. The Omo N’Oba, as the throne was in ancient times, and even now, is the deity of the Benin people. Nobody questions him; nobody disputes his claims. But there must be a solution to the riddle of Odogbo’s gender.

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One day, the people summoned up courage and confronted their Oba. The Benin asked Oba Ehengbuda to prove to them that their future king was a man and not a woman. The monarch knew that there would be a problem if he failed to accede to the demand of the people. Besides, he knew that he had nothing to hide because he had a son and not a woman in Odogbo. He asked his people what they wanted him to do to convince them that he had given them an Edaiken.

The response from the Benin to their oba was shocking. They told the Omo N’Oba that if indeed Odogbo was a man and not a woman, the oba should ask his child to walk naked from the palace to Uselu, the ancestral home where every Oba of Benin is first crowned Edaiken N’Uselu before moving to the palace as the Omo N’Oba. What an outrageous demand!

Oba Ehengbuda was equally shocked like his palace courtiers. But the monarch knew that once one is sure of the potency of one’s Ogun (god of iron and object of oath), using it to strike one’s forehead while taking an oath should not be a problem. He agreed to do what his people wanted. Oba Ehengbuda knew that he remained an Omo N’Oba only to the extent that he had a peaceful kingdom to preside over. He chose a date for the traditional ‘catwalk’ from the palace to Uselu.

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On the appointed date, the monarch asked his son and some of his agemates to be in their birthday suits. The order was obeyed. Then, the monarch asked the boys to file out of the inner recesses of the palace to the full glare of the public and embark on the walk to Uselu.

The Benin emptied to the streets. Many climbed trees, walls and other elevated platforms to see their future king and his sex. Odogbo led the train, displaying his genitals. Satisfied that indeed the heir apparent was a man, Prince Odogbo was proclaimed the Edaiken N’Uselu. And at the passing of Oba Ehengbuda in 1606, Odogbo was crowned the Omo N’Oba with the name Oba Ohuan.

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To commemorate the historic event of the naked walk from the Oba’s Palace to Uselu, Oba Ehengbuda instituted the Benin Ifieto group and recorded the event by causing statues of three naked lads to be carved and kept in the palace.

In the New Year controversy between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) over the status of the Port Harcourt and Warri Refineries, I think the ideal thing the NNPC should do is what Omo N’Oba Ehengbuda did centuries ago. That is ancient wisdom

If the Port Harcourt and the Warri refineries are working, the Corporation should just make the prince walk naked. We don’t need a private visit of Obasanjo on a guided tour of the refineries to prove that whatever the government had expended fixing the refineries is not another fraud.

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The Benin legend stated above settles the issue of public trust, accountability and truthfulness from those in authority. Known as Ifieto, the Benin people long established that when the subjects doubt the sex of the heir apparent, all the king needs to do is to strip the prince for his would-be subjects to see his genitals and be convinced about his sexuality.

President Obasanjo courts controversy the way a young man goes after a damsel. But the man is not necessarily controversial. Don’t mind the seeming contrast here. The problem with the retired General is the fact that, like a typical Owu man, he does not know how to keep quiet in the face of perfidy. The Yoruba say the Owu man may not fight you, but he will not keep quiet (Ará Òwu kii raánró, àwíi ménu kúrò ni t’Òwu). Besides, he is bold and pathologically confrontational.

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The man called Ebora Owu, (the deity of Owu) started the new year with the refinery controversy. Speaking during an interview with Channels Television last Wednesday, Obasanjo hit the perennially non-performing NNPCL below the belt. The former president accused the NNPCL of misleading Nigerians about the operational status of the Port Harcourt and Warri Refineries.

According to him, contrary to the claims by the NNPCL that it had rehabilitated the said refineries and put them in good stead, the Corporation merely wasted public funds. He was logical in his presentation which he supported with the antecedents of the refineries. Here is how he put it:

“I was told not too long ago that since that time, more than two billion dollars have been squandered on the refineries, and they still will not work. If anyone tells you now that it is working, why are they still with Aliko? Aliko will not only make his refinery work but also make it deliver.”

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Take it or leave it, if there is any Nigerian who is in a better position to talk about the refineries, it is Obasanjo. The old Owu man did not only establish the refineries during his stint as Head of State between 1976 and 1979, but he also came back 20 years later in 1999 to inherit a moribund refinery that did not undergo a single Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) in two decades.

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His first reaction when he became President in 1999 was to give out the refineries to the private sector to manage. During the interview, Obasanjo said that when approached to manage the refineries, the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) declined on the ground that corruption had ruined the refineries. The advice was that the structures should be sold off as scraps.

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Again, Obasanjo listed another litany of woes that had been the lot of the refineries to include the $750 million offered by Aliko Dangote to manage both the Warri and Port Harcourt refineries which the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), as it was then known, rejected. Putting everything together, Obasanjo concluded that the NNPCL was merely playing to the gallery with its claims that the refineries were working.

The response from the NNPCL has confirmed the dearth of the communication strategy at the Corporation. The best the NNPCL felt it could do with the dismissal of its claims by Obasanjo was, according to the Corporation’s Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Olufemi Soneye, to “warmly invite President Obasanjo to tour the rehabilitated refineries.”

That response from the NNPCL is not just too base and terse, but it is most inappropriate. What Obasanjo said during the Channels Television interview is in the public domain. In the last 19 months, or even from the time of the immediate administration of General Muhammadu Buhari, Nigerians have been serenaded with the news of Port Harcourt Refinery coming on board.

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At a time, the same NNPCL lined up dignitaries to commission the refinery and did photo ops with tankers laden with nothing! Days after the official commissioning of the refinery, not a single filling station in Port Harcourt and its environs had a drop of petrol from the refinery to sell. So, adding Warri refinery to the list of “rehabilitated” refineries by the NNPCL raises suspicion of not just President Obasanjo, but all Nigerians of good conscience. Nobody trusts this government which tells itself lies every minute and wants Nigerians to swallow those shallow lies

And, in case the NNPCL is confused about what to do to shut all the doubting Thomases like the Obasanjos of this world up over the functionality of its refineries, I leave the Corporation with the wisdom of the ancient Bini Ifieto legend as narrated above. Omo N’Oba Ehengbuda, demonstrated through the legend that matters of public doubt should not be legislated about but must be demonstrated by empirical evidence.

Refineries are established to perform one function: refining crude oil. All the NNPCL needs to do in this circumstance is to put the products of the two refineries in the filling stations across Nigeria for the citizens to buy. Nobody needs the turenchi of how highly the NNPCL holds Obasanjo. No! Nigerians need petrol at affordable prices, not the prevailing cut-throat price, and nothing more! When the people doubt the gender of the Crown Prince, the monarch should make him walk naked. Is that too much for the NNPCL to do?

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Arson: Man To Pay N150m For Burning FRSC Patrol Vehicle In Bauchi

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A man, Nasiru Gwallaga has been found guilty of committing a crime of burning down a patrol vehicle of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) in Bara village of Kirfi Local Government Area of Bauchi state in 2023.

The Sector Commander of FRSC in the state, Istifanus Ibrahim who disclosed the development in an interview with newsmen on Friday, said that the convict was charged to pay the sum of N150 million representing the value of the burnt vehicle to FRSC in the state.

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According to him, Gwallaga and two other accomplices were also sentenced to one year imprisonment or a fine of N15,000 respectively for conspiracy to commit obstruction, obstruction of civil servants and assault of public servants while on duty.

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He explained that the trio were convicted and sentenced by Justice Safiya Doma, at the Chief Magistrate Court, Fadama Mada, Bauchi State on June 23, 2025.

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The FRSC boss added that Gwallaga was also found guilty of causing bodily harm to FRSC staff and was to pay the sum of N170,000 for damaging samsung galaxy phone of the then Acting Unit Commander (UC).

“All the convicts were ordered to pay N50,000 representing the cost spent in prosecuting the case by the nominal complainant.

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“The Judge ruled that they have a right of appeal to the High Court of Justice within 30 days of the Judgement.

“This will serve as a deterrent to those who take the law into their own hands.

“Members of the motoring public are advised to be law abiding as we are not enemies, but compatriots on the road to save lives and property,” said the Sector Commander.

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OPINION: Fufeyin The Compound Food

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Tunde Odesola

When two or more words combine to form a new word, what you get is a compound word, which is also called a portmanteau. An example of a compound/portmanteau word is brunch – a combination of ‘breakfast’ and ‘lunch’; motel: ‘motor’ and ‘hotel’ – a roadside lodging where motorists park directly outside the rooms to rest; podcast is a word coined from ‘iPod’ and ‘broadcast’, just as sunlight is forged from ‘sun’ and ‘light’. Even the word ‘portmanteau’ itself is a portmanteau word, combining ‘porter’ (to carry) and ‘manteau’ (a cloak).

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Did you know there’s a compound side to food? Come take a bite. A balanced diet is a healthy meal that nourishes the body with essential nutrients in the right proportions. Adalu is a Yoruba delicacy consisting of corn, beans, and palm oil, popular in Benin and Togo. Abula is a classic Yoruba soup of ewedu and gbegiri that caresses amala on the descent journey to the belly. Oyinbo people, too, have their own compound/portmanteau meals. They have croffle – a combination of croissant dough and waffle; meatza – a pizza crust made from meat; turducken – a roast dish consisting of a boned chicken inside a boned duck, which is placed inside a partially boned turkey.

Is my tale getting more delicious? Good! “Give me second base, jare,” Fela Anikulapo-Kuti would say when he diminuendoes his tune to change musical notes. I’m just about to change to the second base of this literary offering and enter into the underground spiritual game. Hahaha! Just sit back and enjoy, please.

Here we go. There’s a new compound meal in town. The new meal is a portmanteau of madness. It’s as disgusting as it’s disturbing. It’s crazy, irritating and sickening. It’s a food combination that the brainless are guzzling with gusto right now. It is Fufeyin, a meal of fufu and eyin. Eyin is a Yoruba word for egg – protein-rich, formerly a food on common plates, but now a permanent resident on the exclusive menu for executive plates. Fufu is the long-lasting starchy staple famous among the masses on 0-0-1 unsquared meal, enduring in the stomach from a.m. to p.m.

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Fufeyin is the new opium for the brainless. It’s an unhygienic food combination that leads to acidic farts and watery gastronomic leaks. Fufeyin is a metaphor for moral rot – a symbolic dish served hot by deceivers to the devoutly daft. It’s the burnt offering rejected by God, but guzzled by the gullible, eyes shut, wallets open. The ‘fufu’ in Fufeyin symbolises a poverty background, the ‘eyin’ in it symbolises craze for wealth. Fufeyin is evil. Fufeyin is a meal made for the ignorant and the stupid by an irritating chef who doesn’t know how to light a stove.

Can we spare 60 seconds to talk about brains, please? It could be less. Let’s place a grown man on a spot marked ‘A’ and place an ant on a spot marked ‘B’. In the heads of the man and the ant, the brains are of different sizes. Having studied ants for more than five decades, the moniker, “Ant Man,” perches fittingly on the laurels of James Traniello, a professor of biology at Boston University. A 2023 publication, “BU’s ‘Ant Man’ studies Ant Brains,” published in Boston University’s digital research journal, The Brink, says Traniello’s work ‘raises questions about how both insect and mammalian brain sizes evolved and about the relationship between the size of the brain and how much energy it requires’.

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In a 2020 publication in The Brink, “From Ant Brains, Seeking New Lessons about Human Behaviour and Society,” Traniello says, “Human brains weigh only about 3 pounds, but use about 20 per cent of our energy. Brains are also metabolically selfish, potentially capable of demanding energy dedicated to other organs.”

Science says an ant’s brain is remarkably large in proportion to its body size and sophisticated enough for navigation, swarm intelligence, efficiency, chemical communication, memory and colony coordination. The size of an ant’s brain is 0.01mm, which is 15 per cent of the body mass, with an estimated neuron count of 250,000.

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The human brain is about 2 per cent of total body mass, with an 86 billion neuron count and measuring 1,200 – 1,400 cm in size. The human brain has faculties for reasoning, language, memory, creativity, emotion and consciousness.

Traniello, whose research attracted a $1.5m grant, says, “Some types of ants even work together to cultivate and harvest mushrooms for food,” adding that, “Like humans, ants are known for their extraordinary collective intelligence. Cooperating groups are better at problem-solving than individuals in both human and ant societies.”

Although the human brain is far more complex than the ant’s brain, the actions of some people show that a human brain not put to proper use cannot compare with the brain of an ant. Indeed, the irritable way many Nigerians worship glaringly deceitful religious and political leaders, fawning over fake miracles and political promises, shows that an ant’s brain is far superior to some humans’ brains.

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Probably the vacuity in humans was what King Solomon noticed when he offered that timeless piece of advice in the Book of Proverbs, chapter 6: verses 6-11: “6. Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! 7. It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, 8. yet it stores its provisions in summer, and gathers its food at harvest. 9. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? 10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—11
And poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.”

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The Jewish Virtual Library says Solomon became the King of Israel in approximately 967 B.C.E, that is 2,991 years ago, yet he talks about the ants ‘gathering its food at harvest’, and Professor Traniello, in a 2020 research corroborates King Solomon, saying, “Some types of ants even work together to cultivate and HARVEST mushrooms for food.”

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Because I’m not as wise as King Solomon and because I live in the digital age, I’ll depart from the ant metaphor and go after the spider and its web. The spider web holds a fascination for me because of its intriguing comparability with digital technology. So, watch me as I step onto the spider’s intricate web, gingerly avoiding the pitfalls of sticky strands.

Ssshhh! Silence! I’m on the cobweb now, trying to get my balance; it’s bouncy and shaky here, like walking on the slippery terrain of Nigeria. Ha! God, abeg o. Can you believe what I’m seeing? Ha!? So, spiders too write graffiti? Ise eniyan ni ise eranko o – humans behave like animals. Or perhaps worse. Wow, how lovely the spider writes! Can I read out some of the graffiti? OK. Here we go. “While ants build colonies and spiders design cobwebs, humans flock to charlatans selling spiritual fufu and eggs.” Wow! Word!

I can see more graffiti on the wobbly cobwebs. I’ll read them: “Fufeyin and co are a curse on humanity.” “Fufeyin will perish soon.” “There are a million Fufeyins littering different altars in Nigeria.”

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Ise eniyan ni ise eranko o – humans and animals behave alike. That’s why life, like a cobweb, is a delicate weave – spun from dreams, sweat, fears, and faith. Like life, the cobweb glistens at its peak, masking its trap in its fragile form, lurking for the next victim. Wise up, brethren; Fufeyin is the trap, stop falling mugun.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

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Full List Of Schengen Countries Offering 5-yr Visa Programme

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Nigerians with a strong travel history now have more incentive to explore European countries, thanks to the five-year multiple entry Schengen visa.

This long-term visa offers travelers the freedom to enter any of the 29 Schengen countries multiple times over five years: provided no stay exceeds 90 days within any 180-day window.

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Designed primarily for frequent travelers, business professionals, and individuals with consistent international travel records, the visa eliminates the hassle of reapplying for short-term permits.

It reduces visa processing time, lowers application costs, and simplifies the documentation and interview requirements.

Approval for the five-year visa is still subject to the discretion of the issuing embassy or consulate.

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However, applicants with a higher likelihood of success typically meet one or more of the following criteria:

Previously held a multiple entry Schengen visa valid for at least two years within the past three years

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Travel to Schengen countries at least two to three times a year

Demonstrated compliance with visa regulations, including no overstays and proper documentation

To boost their chances, applicants are expected to submit a compelling cover letter stating the purpose and need for long-term travel, show proof of financial stability, and provide valid long-term Schengen travel insurance.

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Eligible Countries under the Five-Year Schengen Visa
Holders of this visa can travel freely to the following 29 Schengen member states:

Austria
Belgium
Bulgaria
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Italy
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland

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