Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been declared the winner of the 2023 presidential election.
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Tuesday 28 February 2023
INEC Declares Tinubu Winner Of 2023 Presidential Election
Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been declared the winner of the 2023 presidential election.
PDP, LP, ADC Demand Fresh Election, Want INEC Chair To Step Aside
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Labour Party (LP) and African Democratic Congress (ADC) have demanded a fresh election, saying the February 25 presidential election has been “irretrievably compromised”.
LP National, Julius Abure; the PDP chairman, Iyorchia Ayu; as well as their ADC counterpart, Ralph Nwosu, made this known at a joint press conference in Abuja on Tuesday.
They alleged that Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections were manipulated by officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) at polling units by their failure to upload results electronically on the commission’s Results Viewing Portal (IReV).
Abure, who spoke on behalf of the LP, PDP and the ADC, said, “This election is not free and far from being fair”, adding that there are “ongoing cancellation of results from areas of strength of the opposition parties”.
They declared a vote of no confidence on INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu and asked him to immediately step aside for an unbiased person to take over and conduct a fresh election.
The LP, PDP and ADC said the deliberate refusal of the INEC chairman to respect the upload of results electronically as stipulated by Section 60 of the Electoral Act 2022 is unacceptable.
The three parties said the result so far by INEC showed “monumental disparities” between what the party agents signed and what INEC officials announced in Abuja.
They said the manual transmission of results compromised the integrity of the election process.
Drama At Collation Centre
Channels Television had reported that agents of the PDP and the LP stormed out of the National Collation Centre for the presidential election results at the International Conference Centre in Abuja on Monday.
Melaye, Ihedioha, as well as the agents of the Labour Party and others, had complained that the results presented by INEC SCOPs weren’t uploaded on IReV as repeatedly promised by the electoral umpire before the February 25 presidential poll.
Melaye argued strongly that without the upload of results electronically on IReV, this year’s election is not in any way different from the manual transmission of results done in 2015.
Melaye and others fiercely insisted that the INEC chairman must not accept the results of Ekiti, alleging that there were incidents of over voting and electoral irregularities. They contended that the collation of results at the centre is at variance with provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 and that they do not believe in the results presented by the SCOPs.
However, the INEC chairman maintained that there was no over voting in Ekiti and that the results presented by the SCOPs stand. Yakubu also said the process must continue.
In reaction, Melaye, Ihedioha and others stormed out of the national collation centre.
Mahmood had on Monday cautioned Melaye not to be “disruptive” of the collation process at the insistence of the PDP chieftain that the results announced by the SCOPs should first have been uploaded on IReV for transparency and accountability.
The collation for Day 2 continued in their absence. The collation for Day 3 is scheduled for 2pm on Tuesday.
Already, results have been released for about 13 states with the top parties sharing the wins. PDP’s Atiku Abubakar, LP’s Peter Obi and Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have won some of the states.
Many party leaders have bitterly complained that INEC officials at the polling units were unable to upload election results to the IReV. The IReV and the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) are new technologies introduced by the electoral body for the accreditation and electronic transmission of votes for this year’s polls.
Elections for the office of the President, 360 House of Representatives and 109 Senatorial seats were held in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory on Saturday and Nigerians expect the declaration of results by the electoral umpire.
Credit: Channelstv
Monday 27 February 2023
Call Dino Malaye, Momodu to Other - APC PCC Tells DSS, Police
The APC Presidential Campaign Council and our Presidential Candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, have called on security agencies to stop some members of opposition political parties from inciting violence in the country.
Post Election Violence: Sanwo-Olu Calls For Calm
Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu has called on Lagosians to remain calm. Saying that there is no need for violence, as it is not part of Yoruba culture.
Popular Auto Dealer, Lanre Shittu Dies At 65
Alhaji Olanrewaju Shittu, MD/CEO Lanre Shittu Motors, is dead.
Sunday 26 February 2023
Labour Party Calls For Cancellation Of Presidential Election
Labour Party, LP, has called for the cancellation of the ongoing presidential election as the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, cannot upload results into its server from the polling units.
The national chairman of the party, Julius Abure made the call in a statement saying that INEC has given room for doubt in the credibility of the process.
Abure, said the inability of INEC to upload results after over 12 hours is worrisome and called it electoral robbery.
He said: "Labour Party is shocked by the revelations emanating from Rivers state after the presidential and national assembly elections which held on Saturday; where thugs believed to be agents of the state government invaded various polling units and collation centres, took away election materials including the results sheets, manipulated the BVAS machines and uploaded fake results in to the Central portal.
“We took particular note of incidences in places like Obio/Akpor, Khana, Eleme, Obigbo, Rumukoro and several other areas where Labour Party was clearly leading in virtually all the polling units with very wide margins.”
Abure also mentioned Lagos and Delta as some of the states where results are allegedly manipulated.
Winning The Presidency: The Path To Victory! | By Temitope Ajayi
They took a flight of fancy hoping to win the presidency of Nigeria with Igbo votes in Lagos. Such grand delusion. You can't win a presidential election in Nigeria just because you think harvesting the anger of few hate-propelled young people, including sexual deviants and luminaries of the cybercrime community, who congregated at Lekki Toll gate, in a choreographed exhibition of derangement is all it takes.
You're well advised to perish the thought of anyone being rigged out. This is the most peaceful, transparent, credible, free and fair election in Nigeria, all thanks to BVAS and Buhari's demonetisation policy. You can't allege vote buying because you all said Buhari was dealing with Tinubu and wanted his party candidate to lose. Your candidates, Atiku and Obi, praised Buhari and CBN lavishly over a poorly implemented policy that has traumatised Nigerians. It will be foolhardy of you now to come around to allege rigging and manipulation.
So, Nigerians voted their conscience without monetary inducement in this election and did so overwhelmingly for Tinubu in the regions that matter most.
Your candidate can't be getting zero in all polling units in North West and North East and expect him to win a presidential election in Nigeria just because he had some good showing at polling units in Amuwo Odofin, Festac, Statelite Town, parts of Oshodi and few places along Lekki-Ajah axis of Lagos. That performance is too spotty to win a national election. Your candidate is polling poorly in the Bible belt part of the North Central where the slanted and skewed opinion polls projected him to win. Tinubu is posting good numbers in Benue and Plateau far more than pollsters had projected.
They told you Obi will win Rivers and entire South South, right? On the basis of that you started jumping around like chimpanzees on LSD. That set you up for failure and disappointment. Winning South East and entire South South 100% will still not make Obi President. Remember APC didn't poll 200,000 votes in the whole of South East in 2015 election. APC posted less than 15% of the total votes cast from the South South in 2015 and Buhari still won the presidential election with over 3million votes. In 2019, the electoral fortune of APC only improved marginally in South East and South South. Even at that, PDP won the two regions handsomely. At the end Buhari still won re-election.
Now, take note that APC is primed to win Rivers State in this election. It is posting good result from Delta, Edo, Cross Rivers, Ebonyi, Imo, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Abia, Edo far far better than it did in 2015 and 2019. With the electoral map largely redrawn, where will Peter Obi’s winning votes come from? OK, the only seismic shift or electoral upset to crown Obi as Number 16 is winning in parts of Surulere, Ladipo, Alaba market and Trade Fair in Lagos.
I think there should be limit to wishful thinking and getting high on the fumes of our own self-importance.
You can now begin to get accustomed to a Bola Ahmed Tinubu presidency. It's the way to go. Otherwise, you will live a grief-laden life for the next four years, if not eight.
Consequences Of Our Votes | By Festus Adedayo
It's the day after. Fogs are gradually clearing (or not clearing) from the face of the firmament. Though we may not see as clearly as American singer-songwriter, pop star and reggae musician, Johnny Nash, saw when he magisterially pronounced that “I can see clearly now,” we can at least see beyond the ridges of our noses.
Whichever way, there are consequences. In philosophizing consequences, Yoruba go into the thrills and frills of the Egungun festival to explain what was and what is. Masquerade festivals – E’gun Odun – are moments of plenty, wild frenzy and flexing of muscles. For the son of the village Masquerades Chief Priest – the Alagbaa – the masquerade festival season is particularly a momentous period. Aside the plenty that the period offers, it is also a period to ride roughshod over everyone and anyone in the village. His father has plenty of Egba Osunsun – cudgels carved out of Osunsun tree branches – which are kept inside a closet. Masquerades deploy the cudgels to terrorize inhabitants during the festival. So, the day after the Egungun festival, for the son of the Alagbaa, is consequential and sobering. He returns to status quo of want and, like every other person, scrounges for what to eat at the market square. From this narrative of the transit of the Alagbaa’s son, the Yoruba took their philosophy of consequences. They say that the E’gun Odun has its expiry and the son of Alagbaa will also go out to buy bean cake with which to eat his eko – solid pap – just like the rest of humanity. They sum this up to say, titan l’egun odun, omo Alagbaa nbo wa r’akara je’ko.
For Nigerian politicians, their hirelings, surrogates and obsessive fanatics, the E’gun Odun has indeed just witnessed its expiry. And the reality has crept in. In a few hours time when the election results may be announced, we will all face the consequences of where we stood. Not only the politicians and their accomplices; those who sat on the fence, who refused to lend a voice, who saw evil and shrouded it in shawls of lies, as well as those who harangued those who stood where they were, will all face the nemesis of our respective choices.
So, who will be the next president of Nigeria? The political huffing and puffing have subsided. Anxiety and apprehension have taken over. Is it judgment day for political barons who over-estimate their relevance? Or Providence’s own way of saying all power belongs to Him? Is it time for this set of people to face the recompenses of their actions? Is it time for the light of truth to beam into darkness of vacuous grandstanding, muscle-flexing?
The period of the electioneering was indeed deeply harrowing, though with its own tinge of excitement as well. There were exaggerated presences which were pumped up by naïve party supporters. Science was relegated to the background and un-science took over postulations. Voodoo became the god to whom vain propitiations were made. Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar and Bola Tinubu’s supporters went berserk in their partisanship.
Arrogant and perfunctory analyses, followed by belief in the sanctity and supremacy of where each person stood, reigned supreme. None of them was honest enough to acknowledge their failings. Or, their limitations. Yesterday however, the aisle of a farmland which the Yoruba say will surely demarcate the farmstead of the lazy farmer showed where the politicians stood. Atiku, Obi and Tinubu must by now have known where their political brawns could take them. We will however not forget the cheap propaganda, lame political prowess taken to unrealistic levels and puffed up political mileages by political hirelings.
For us all, as I said earlier, we must be getting ready to reap the consequences of where we stood. I will reap mine, you will yours. Each of the candidates we support, whether they win or lose, also have consequences to bear. This reminds me of an audio interview I listened to some days ago. Conducted in 2011, it was ace broadcaster, Dele Adeyanju of the Agbaletu fame’s encounter with the enfant terrible of Ijesa traditional African music, Chief Adedara Ar’unralojaoba. He was an Odofin, chief of Iperindo, a suburb of Ilesa. Ijesa are a sub-ethnicity of Yorubaland with Ilesa, in current Osun State, being its largest town and historic cultural capital. If you read British professor, J.D.Y. Peel’s Ijeshas and Nigerians: The Incorporation of a Yoruba Kingdom, 1890-1970s, you will know the worth of this kingdom.
By the time Ar'unralojaoba died in 2022, he was 92 years, having been born in 1930. He took Adamo music off from the pioneering efforts of Ojo Oluwasokedile, Leye, Ayandokun and Bisileko who sang Adamo music before him, as well as his contemporary. Ige Adubi’s. This Ijesa bard, Ar'unralojaoba, took the genre of music to a noticeable level in Ijesaland, popularizing it even beyond its shores, to Ekiti, a kingdom that bears tonal dialect similarities with Ijesa’s.
In the interview, Ar’unralojaoba narrated how he humbled another enfant terrible in the musical firmament, Ayinla Omowura, clearly making him suffer the consequences of his haughtiness. Talking about consequences, the Adamo musician, in trying to stave off allegations that he was highly steeped in traditional mysticism, said that, rather than traditional African medicine, what appeared like talisman was his Maker in action. “If anyone stands up to me today, in a week’s time, the person will see the wrath of my Maker.” Contrary to this however, self-effacing, self-underscoring and boastful Ar’unralojaoba was reputed to be a member of the Ogboni fraternity and was dreaded for the awesome powers of his traditional medicine. In one of his albums, after singing the panegyrics of Obeisun, a rich entrepreneur from Ijebu-Jesa, he heaped curses on whoever nursed evil against him. With their family, they will dash into and get lost in the forest – Abinu eni lo sekeji aroni pin/Eni binu mi laiese, \se la k’omo k’aya re a binu wo’gbo o.
In the case of Omowura, however, the wrath of Ar’unralojaoba’s “Maker” was instant. While singing praises of King Sunny Ade for how he treated him with humility and respect, as well as Haruna Ishola, who he said related to him with affectionately, he narrated how he once had a spat with Omowura. Ar’unralojaoba said his contact with the Apala lord was by reason of the spat. A burial ceremony which held in the Ikoti area of Ilesa had him and Omowura as musicians contracted for the afternoon and night sessions respectively. While the elder child of the deceased invited Ar’unralojaoba, Ayinla’s invitation was from the younger brother and both were programmed for afternoon and evening sessions. He said in the interview that he had however been forewarned that Ayinla was combative and pugnacious but he had prepared for him “with prayers.”
So after he finished his show by around 10pm, Ar’unralojaoba waited Omowura’s arrival. Then at about 10.30pm, Omowura entered with so much uproar and storm. Bouncers, with brawns and deadly gaits, took over the whole place. In his words, Ayinla walked in with huge self confidence and looked down on everyone else. He was clutching a huge pipe of marijuana which Ar’unralojaoba nicknamed Kelebu, that he smoked with a terrifying relish. The Apala music petrel had always been a harbinger of strife. In one of his tracks, he had boasted that any musician who underrated him on the bandstand had signed his death warrant. Virtually all the crowd in Ar’unralojaoba’s show then migrated to Ayinla’s bandstand. The Adamo musician was clinically prepared and parceled for shame in his own Ijesa kingdom. So, according to him, he looked up to the sky and had a dialogue with “God.” When asked to go and do obeisance to Ar’unralojaoba, the Adamo musician said Ayinla retorted, “Aree! Who is so called!” So, Ar’unralojaoba said he murmured to himself, “they said so and you did exactly what they said about you!” Then, in what he called a conversation, he looked up to God again, and in his Ijesa dialect, said “Iwo Olorun Olodumare, o mo hii me gbon, o a dami lare be e?” God, you know I lack wisdom; will you vindicate me, please?
Then, “God” began to avenge for Ar’unralojaoba instantly. In subsequence, four of Ayinla’s Gangan drums got torn as his lead drummer hit them with the drum stick. Bowed and bruised, said Ar’unralojaoba, Ayinla then crawled up to him to do obeisance. Not only did he prostrate to the Adamo lord, he gave him the sum of N500 and drinks. “I gave him two Gangan drums and assured him they will not get torn again,” Ar’unralojaoba concluded, still insisting that it was not the power of mysticism but God’s intervention – Me l’ogun sughon mo l’Olorun – he said in Ijesa dialect.
In the elections conducted on Saturday, there will be consequences, both for us and the candidates themselves. For the latter, the aisle is about now showing the farmstead of the lazy farmer who sold dud worth to the world. The brawns and the sinews of their muscles must have headed for recess now, after the real measurement of their political worth was determined. For Ayinla, who thought he approximated the beginning and ending of traditional African power and brawns, prefacing his haughtiness on his fame, wealth and brawns of traditional African medicine, the consequence for him was being humbled by a person he thought was a provincial musician, who he grossly underrated. He faced the consequences of his arrogance; an arrogance not matched by what was on ground.
For us too as Nigerians, there are consequences for our last Saturday’s decision or indecision. We will either begin our sessions of national tribulations all over again or enter the phase of national redemption. This latter rationalization doesn’t look plausible on account of what is on ground. Nigeria and Nigerians do not seem to possess that innate mechanism for self-redemption. We are like Sisyphus, the mythic Greek god who, for his punishment in the underworld, was condemned to roll a rock up to the top of a mountain; roll the rock backwards again, down to the bottom every time it reaches the top, all the days of his life. We are always engaged in an eternity of futile efforts at choosing good leaders, perhaps a hideous retribution from God for some infractions we committed against Him.
There is virtually nothing in human behavior that has no consequences. This was what consequentialism, an ethical school of theory, is about. It judges whether an action is right or wrong by what its consequences are. There is no way the elections of last Saturday won’t have consequences. The consequences can either be good or bad. While the utilitarianism school judges an action by its consequences of whether it is for the “greatest good for the greatest number” standard, the hedonism school sees an action as good or bad if its consequence produces pleasure or avoids pain in the life of man. The tragedy of consequentialism is however that it is always post-mortem and not ante-mortem. It occurs only after the action has been committed and not before it.
We had the votes in our hands to vote otherwise than we voted last Saturday. We chose this path that we took. In rationalizing where they stood, some even biblicize what was not a problematic situation. They said they voted for the thief on either the right or left hand of Jesus. Let’s then begin to stew in the broth of those votes. No one should complain. There was no consequence of our choices that was not adequately laid on the table. Let’s live with it.
Saturday 25 February 2023
University Don, Cletus Tyokyaa Arrested For Alleged Votes Buying In Makurdi
Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, monitoring the presidential and national assembly polls made some arrests of suspected vote buyers. One Dr. Cletus Tyokyaa, a lecturer with the Sarwuan Tarka University (formerly known as the University of Agriculture), Makurdi, Benue State, was arrested at the RCM Polling Unit in Daudu, Guma Local Government Area of the state with the sum of N306, 700 in various denominations stashed in his car.
Luck ran out on the suspect when he drove to the voting centre which was different from his polling unit and tried to run upon sighting operatives of the Commission.
When asked about his mission at the center, Dr. Tyokyaa could not provide a coherent explanation, leading to arrest, and the search of his car revealed the money in various denominations.
He was released after volunteering a statement to the Commission.
The EFCC also arrested a man for alleged vote buying with N194,000 at Gidan Zakka polling unit, Goron Dutse area of Kano Municipal Local Government, Kano State.
A party agent buying votes through bank transfers was also arrested in Abaji in the Federal Capital Territory, while two persons, Stanley Nsemo and Eno Amponsah were arrested in Calabar, Cross River State with the sum of $450 (Four Hundred and Fifty United States Dollars) and N156, 800 on suspicion of alleged votes buying.
Earlier in the day, a woman with 18 voter cards was intercepted in a sting operation at Badarwa area of Kaduna, Kaduna State.
The woman, one Maryam Mamman Alhaji, who is a member of the support group of one of the leading political parties, also had in her possession, a 17-page list containing names of eligible voters, their bank details and phone numbers as accredited under Badarwa/Malali Ward 01 and 08, Kaduna North Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
She was nabbed after undercover operatives pretended they had voter cards and were desperate to sell them.
She is currently being grilled by operatives of the Kaduna Zonal Command of the EFCC, with a view to unravelling other members of her syndicate whom she claimed are also collecting voters’ cards and paying monies through PoS or direct bank transfers.
EFCC Intercepts Woman With 18 Voter Cards In Kaduna, Another In Kano, FCT
Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, in the early hours of today, February 25, 2023 intercepted a woman with 18 voter cards in a sting operation at Badarwa area of Kaduna, Kaduna State.
The woman, one Maryam Mamman Alhaji, who is a member of the support group of one of the leading political parties, also had in her possession, a 17-page list containing names of eligible voters, their bank details and phone numbers as accredited under Badarwa/Malali Ward 01 and 08, Kaduna North Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
She was nabbed after undercover operatives pretended they had voter cards and were desperate to sell them.
She is currently being grilled by operatives of the Kaduna Zonal Command of the EFCC, with a view to unravelling other members of her syndicate whom she claimed are also collecting voters’ cards and paying monies through PoS or direct bank transfers
The EFCC also arrested a man for alleged vote buying with N194,000 at Gidan Zakka polling unit, Goron Dutse area of Kano Municipal Local Government.
A party agents buying votes through bank transfers to voters was also arrested in Abaji FCT.
Friday 24 February 2023
House Of Reps Member Nabbed With $500,000, Admits Atiku Game Him For Election
A member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Chinyere Igwe has been arrested with over Five Hundred Thousand US dollar ($500,0000) in Port Harcourt.
Monday 20 February 2023
Fear Grips Oyo PDP National Assembly Candidates Over Makinde's Face-off With Party Leadership
Candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) contesting National Assembly seats in the 3 senatorial districts and 14 federal constituencies in Oyo State are presently at the crossroads. Reason for this is not far-fetched.
Sunday 19 February 2023
Anambra State Governor, Soludo Speaks On 3 Police Officers Accused Of Extra-judicial Killings
The governor of Anambra State, Professor Charles Soludo has that the three police officers allegedly involved in extra-judicial killings in the state should be thoroughly investigated.
Soludo stated this while commenting on a story published by a Nigerian blog, accusing the officers of engaging in the illegal arrest, torture, extortion, and extra-judicial killings of their victims.
The governor also assures that the accused officers will face the full wrath of the law if found guilty.
This was contained in a statement by the governor’s spokesperson, Christian Aburime, on Saturday.
The affected officers are Patrick Agbazue, Nkeiruka Nwode, and Harrison Akama.
Mr. Agbazue, a chief superintendent of police, serves as officer-in-charge of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) Unit of the police in Anambra State, while Ms. Nwode, a superintendent of police, is the spokesperson in Zone 13 Headquarters of the police.
Mr. Akama, an inspector, is attached to the RRS unit of the police in Anambra State.
The blog claimed that the officers “illegally arrested their victims, labeled them as “unknown gunmen” and then tortured them to accept the labeling before killing them and taking possession of their vehicles and other valuables.
Nigerians on various social media platforms, Friday, after the publication by the blog, began calling for the arrest and prosecution of the officers.
In response, the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali (IGP) ordered an investigation of three officers over the “weighty allegations” against them, the police spokesperson, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, said on Friday.
Mr. Soludo commended the IGP for ordering the investigation of the officers, saying his intervention in the matter was “timely.”
“Consequently, it has become imperative in the light of the above to await the outcome of the investigations which is expected soonest,” he said.
He assured residents of the state that his administration was “closely monitoring the situation” and would ensure that justice was done at the end of the day on whoever was found culpable.
The governor requested the attorney-general of Anambra State to immediately call for and review all the files of cases handled by the RSS unit of the police being investigated.
“This will enable the attorney-general (to) give such directions or take necessary legal actions in line with Section 211 of the constitution and Sections 148, 149, and 150 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law of Anambra State 2022,” Mr. Soludo stated.
The governor appealed to the residents of the state to remain patient and “allow the law to take its due course.”
He assured that his administration has zero tolerance for criminality, and would always allow the rule of law to reign supreme at all times for justice to be given to those who deserve it.
Of Coup, Interim Government And Allied Nonsense | By Festus Adedayo
At times like this, two works of literature are my abiding refuge. One, written over a century ago, speaks to the melee both in the APC and Nigeria as a whole. It is a poem entitled ‘The Second Coming’ by William Butler Yeats. It was written at a time similar to that of present Nigeria. It was a time when it looked like the world was coming to an end. The casualties of the First World War were benumbing and overwhelmingly high. The deaths of millions from the pangs of the flu pandemic that also occurred at this time were suffocating. The flu also infected Yeats’s pregnant wife, Georgie Hyde-Lees. In reply to this vexing time, Yeats wrote the poem in November 1920. Its lines are still very relevant to our situation in Nigeria today. He had written: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, / The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere / The ceremony of innocence is drowned; / The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity”.
The second work is from that tactful thespian, Alagba Adebayo Faleti; more precisely, his warning in the epic film, ‘Saworoide’. ‘Saworoide’ is a 1999 satirized movie from the stable of Mainframe Productions. In the movie, Faleti was Baba Opalanba, an elderly palace staff, who combined the taciturnity and attentiveness of a community sage to periscope the state of things. Baba Opalanba had a futuristic warning of an impending calamity for misuse of power by the king in Jogbo land. This, he succinctly put in a song he rendered as: “Ko iye won,/Y’o ye won l’ola,” meaning, it is obvious that they haven’t come to the full realisation of the situation but by the time they do, it will be too late. He also sang: “Y’o ma leyin,/oro yii y’o ma l’eyin, ajantiele“. The latter too is a warning of impending doom.
Now, we are at that troubling spot which Bob Marley, in his ‘Want More’ track, called “the valley of decision”. The Yoruba paint the canvass of that valley far more scaringly. Scholar and playwright, Ola Rotimi, deployed language to fittingly situate a confluence of three pathways and the dilemma that comes with where to go of the three. In his ‘The gods are not to blame’, borrowing from the Yoruba pantheon of discourse, he called that troubling spot a juncture where three footpaths meet. Yoruba call it the intersection where three footpaths meet that troubles a stranger in an alien neighbourhood. Where does the stranger turn: to the left, right or simply continue walking down the centre?
By this time next week, if the presidential election holds, the results must have started pouring in. No one needs to tell Nigerians that they are truly at the valley of decision. No one needs to remind us that this Saturday is a make-or-mar day for us. If we get it wrong – which I think we will – our situation will become more sardonic. By then, our rats that have ceased to squeak as they used to do and the birds of our jungles whose usual chirps have receded, will now go into far more scaring somnolence.
Right now, Nigeria is rudderless. As the billowing smoke and booming anger of All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftains exploded in the air like gunpowder last week, people like us sought refuge in a corner, enjoying the macabre exchanges; something like late Chief Bola Ige’s Sidon Look. Nigeria today is a theatre of the absurd. You have to possess a heart of steel to enjoy the blood-dripping theatrics. Fathers no longer hear the voices of their children; the symphony has lost its harmony and discord is here to stay.
It is interesting to hear the disjointed voices of the Kano and Kaduna state governors as they pelted their Khalifa with stones last week. As the stones landed on the rooftop of Aso Rock, I drew my chair closer and drenched my guts with multiple cups of coffee. I needed the caffeine to deaden the tissues of my empathy.
In our very before, as one of my friends used to say, Muhammadu Buhari has effectively transited from an epic hero into an anti-hero; if you like, a tragic hero. The walls that shielded his Byronic heroism have collapsed. In transition politics, a sitting executive becomes a lame duck post the election that ushers in their successor. In Buhari’s equation, he lost the shine and bite of office long before the election. And it gets worse by the day.
For almost eight years now, virtually all those manifestations for which the APC’s newfound warlords are demonizing Buhari today – name them: nepotism, cronyism, wickedness, selfishness, aloofness etc – were consistently and unrelentingly highlighted on this page. We were harangued as bigoted, spiteful, hateful, and disdainful of other ethnicities. When we repeatedly warned Bola Tinubu that Buhari’s acute sense of self and his un-leader-like obsession with his ethnic group, coupled with his narrow moral compass, will never allow him to hand over power willingly to anyone other than from his ethnicity, our profiling as inundated with bile went a notch higher. But listen to Governors Ganduje and El-Rufai last week and you will wonder if we were sired by Nostradamus.
For Abdullahi Ganduje, Buhari is selfish, stiff-necked and luxuriates in his own self-misunderstanding. While meeting with a group of former national assembly members from the northwest last Wednesday, the Kano governor said that Buhari, by sticking to implementing the Naira redesign policy this close to the general elections, in spite of various opinions to the contrary, the president will destroy the same party under which he became president for two consecutive terms. How else do you describe aloofness, selfishness and wickedness in a leader?
“When you look at what’s happening, it can make you weep. Look at this person (that is Buhari!) who had contested several times without winning. No sooner than a merger took place, he won an election. After four years, he got re-elected. Now he is going after his tenure but there is nothing he is doing than to destroy the same party that helped him to power. How could anybody be like that? For God, just imagine these things. You’re a leader and you’re seeing a bank goes(sic) in flames,” said Ganduje. You would imagine that this was excerpted from the weekly column of that “ethnic irredentist”!
What Ganduje couldn’t verbalize was that the same people Buhari says are corrupt and wouldn’t want to hand over power to, mobilised proceeds of corruption to make him president in 2015. He laughed in appreciation. One of them who, since he left the university, was never known to engage even in simple trading outside of government, gave him his private jet to cruise the length and breadth of Nigeria on campaign hustle. I have it on good authority that the then ACN governors were mandated to contribute money for Buhari’s 2015 election. This same Tinubu contributed immensely, financially and strategically, to that election. What kind of sense of self will make you demonize your benefactors, no matter how ill-gotten their wealth is? What moral avatars do is reject such money. To ram home this kind of moral somersault, the song that comes to my mind is that of Yoruba Waka music queen, Salawa Abeni. She situated this in her epic track: “Mo je ninu owo re, mi o je ba won bu e” – I partook of the proceeds of your money, and I am thus morally bound not to join inveighers against you,
El-Rufai’s has dosages of treason and flavours of rebellion saucing it. In a broadcast to his Kaduna state people, audacious and self-righteous as ever, he urged the people to rebel. In the broadcast, he alleged that because Godwin Emefiele lost out in the presidential election primary of June 2022, he is using the Naira redesign policy to get back at those who caused his electoral failure. He also alleged that the twin crises of naira and fuel shortages were targeted at Tinubu, with the aim of ensuring “that the 2023 elections do not hold at all, leading to an interim national government to be led by a retired army general and sustain the climate of shortage of fuel, food and other necessities, leading to mass protests, violence and breakdown of law and order that would provide a fertile foundation for a military take-over”.
Typical of insurrectionists, he urged the people not to allow “artificial and illegal deadline frighten you” and they should “not feel stampeded to deposit your old notes in the banks” but “hold on to them; continue to use them as legal tender… No deadline can render them worthless, ever” and “all the old and new notes shall remain in use as legal tender in Kaduna state”.
In the same week, Femi Fani-Kayode, former minister of aviation and currently a spokesman of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, was invited by the Department of State Services (DSS). The DSS claimed that Fani-Kayode’s coup statement was inimical to national security. At his voluble best, Fani-Kayode claimed that some presidential candidates, in cahoots with some military generals, were plotting a coup against the government. By the way, how come the same DSS is not inviting El-Rufai? They both made the same allegation of military generals conspiring with politicians to plan a coup.
The DSS’ invitation to Fani-Kayode is the typical institutional hypocrisy that Nigerian security organisations are known for. The DSS especially, from its days as NSO and SSS, has had this nebulous and minimalist conception of what national security is. Today, Nigeria has erupted in a ball of fire, set alight by the duo of Buhari and Godwin Emefiele. As I often say, if the DSS does its job properly, it should constantly give Buhari updates on coup speeches that are read daily at petrol station queues and long-winding queues for scarce Naira by ordinary Nigerians. Let the Buhari who magisterially flaunted his fame with the Talakawa walk today on Nigerian streets. I will not say what will happen. Suffice it to say that he has become an anti-hero, a Byronic one at that, in the hearts of Nigerians today.
The truth is, not only are coups unfashionable all over the world, they are retrogressive and an effeminate, back-door walk into government and prominence by soldiers who are not better than the politicians they oust. Our experience in Nigeria since 1966 has shown this. Military men with plenty epaulettes on their shoulders but scant garlands upstairs exploited the people’s misbelief that in military takeover lies redemption as an opportunity to amass sickening wealth and undeserved Messianism. It was this same coup-plotting that inflicted Buhari on Nigeria, with his obvious leadership limitations.
Back to El-Rufai and Ganduje, something tells me that their howling is a grim pointer to the calamity ahead of the APC this weekend, a veiled reference to how Buhari has already descended into the arena to help his kin win the election. The APC and its newfound parrots have nobody but themselves to blame. As the Yoruba say, the APC, Tinubu and others now lamenting the sadism of Buhari against them knew that the farmland they ploughed and planted groundnut seeds on in 2015 was squirrel-infested, ab initio; so why howl now when squirrels have made mincemeat of their groundnuts? There is none of Buhari’s traits now coming to the national reckoning that they didn’t know when they chose to inflict him on Nigeria in 2015. Their blind ambition for power won’t deter them from taking such potentially disastrous steps. The Yoruba compare the situation of this group to that of the proverbial big rat – Okete – which refused to raise alarm within the system from the beginning. Caught pants down, de-bowelled, its flesh dried and openly advertised for sale as venison, the Okete now raises its hands up, howling.
Buhari’s reply to El-Rufai and Ganduje also says a lot about the centre that cannot hold and things that have fallen apart. Garba Shehu, his spokesman, upbraided both governors for what he called another dangerous dimension “by people who are afraid that they might lose their elections” and that this weekend, Nigerians will vote the APC “and any others if they so wish, on the basis of their choice” and that “our people want progress, good governance, law and order and will not be swayed by the negative energy that is being expended against a well-meaning currency change”. Pray, who are the people afraid that they might lose the election? And, is what is happening today on the streets of Nigeria Buhari’s idea of “progress, good governance”? The palpable state of anomie in Nigeria is apparently Buhari’s definition of good governance and the anarchy in the land that will surely worsen by the weekend at the polls is his “free and fair” election.
Today, a few days before the presidential election, let me conveniently sit in a corner like Baba Opalanba and watch as the falcon is unable to hear the falconer. An eerie feeling has wrapped itself around the stratosphere. I have a clear feeling of foreboding, of dejavu; something that tells me we have been here before.
Saturday 18 February 2023
He Paid My School Fees Till I Graduated -Craze Clown Mourns Late Ghanian Footballer, Atsu
Nigerian comedian, Emmanuel Iwueke, popularly known as Craze Clown, has revealed that the late Ghanaian footballer, Christian Atsu, paid his school fees until he graduated from school when he lost his father.
Friday 17 February 2023
Cash Scarcity: CBN Directs Banks To Collect Old N500, N1000 Notes
The Central Bank of Nigeria has directed Deposit Money Banks to collect old N500, and N1,000 notes from customers with reference code generated from its website
Sunday 12 February 2023
Tinubu Is Not Taking A New Wife, Media Office Reacts
All Progressives Congress Presidential Candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has denied the news making the rounds on his purported plans to take a new wife.
This was contained in a press statement signed and made available to journalists by the former Lagos State governor's media office.
The statement reads: "We have seen a fake news that has gone viral on social media purporting that the All Progressives Congress Presidential Candidates, AsÃwájú Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is set to take a new wife.
This is what it is: a fake and groundless news.
HE AsÃwájú is enjoying his marriage to his wife, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, which is blessed with excellent children. He is not ready to take an additional wife, whether a Christian or a Muslim.
We know the intention of those behind those peddling a new Muslim wife is not only to cause discord within the extremely peaceful family of AsÃwájú Tinubu but to also create disaffection within the Christian community.
Their intention has failed. It will not cut a dice anywhere.
We enjoin our people to completely disregard the unfounded news.
AsÃwájú Tinubu is at present focused on his campaign to emerge the president of this country come February 25, 2023 in order to rekindle the hope of our people in a better, stronger, more secure and prosperous Nigeria.
Senator Oluremi Tinubu is also busy traversing the length and breadth of the country canvassing support for her husband.
They will not be distracted by this baseless news."
Buhari's New Naira Notes And Death Of Penkelemes' Musician | By Festus Adedayo
In 1984, Nigeria happened to Ayanyemi Atokowagbowonle. Atokowagbowonle was a musician whose style was unique, his delivery peculiar and he was the official musician of the stormy petrel of Ibadan politics, Adelabu Adegoke, a.k.a. Penkelemes, of the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroon (NCNC). The then-new head of state, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, had just violently seized the reins of power in Nigeria. That year April, Buhari had ordered the colours of all banknotes in circulation to be changed. The currency trafficking prevalent at the time and stolen funds by politicians must be repatriated, he said. The Naira’s official exchange rate was $1.30 but was worth only 33 cents in the black market.
These destructive politicians were the same set of people he had just overthrown. Buhari had tar-brushed Umaru Dikko, Adisa Meredith Akinloye (A.M.A) and others as enemies of the people. He needed to halt them from repatriating stolen loot into the country. His propaganda army circulated to the world champagne bottles which had labels of A.M.A Akinloye’s name and photograph emblazoned on them as evidence of the ostentatious and profligate lives lived by the Second Republic politicians with our commonwealth. It was later we realised that such fancies were achieved with a farthing.
Excitement lit the firmament. Nigerians had had enough of their corrupt politicians and their ill-gotten wealth. The excitement was to later turn crimson as anguish, exploitation inside banking halls, kickbacks and deaths hallmarked this policy. Buhari granted just two weeks after the policy commencement date of April 1, 1984, for changing the old notes. The amount an individual could legally exchange was pegged. The new head of state sealed land borders and passengers leaving or coming into the country by air or sea got thoroughly frisked. The gangling general with a no-smiling face declined every entreaty for an extension of the deadline.
The harrowing experiences that followed this sudden change of Nigeria’s legal tender were palpable. Ordinary Nigerians, rather than these politicians, eventually became direct victims of the new policy. Many people died of frustration and social dislocation. Petty traders slid into humongous debts and many who were frustrated about their inability to change their money and meet their social obligations resorted to the nihilistic thought encapsulated in the quip “death is preferable to shame”. They took their own lives. The gangling general was blind to the deaths and pain. He drank his fura inside his Dodan Barracks base and planned how to crate Dikko back into the country from England.
Atokowagbowonle’s real name was Ayanyemi Ayinla and his long alias, Atokowagbowonle, literally translated, meant one who comes from the village in order to earn money in the city. He hailed from Bankole village in Ibadan and his matrilineal family home was Akinajo, very close to Arulogun village, also in Ibadan. I was told he picked up the sobriquet, Atokowagbowonle to stave off his mis-christening as Atokowabaleje – one who comes from the village to foul up the town – by musical traducers who, pissed off by how he could come from the village to Ibadan and seize the musical stratosphere, wanted to drag him down. Incidentally, that quest for the money of the city, believed to reside in urbanity, as against the purity of the life of the village, was to be the death of Atokowagbowonle. He was one of Ibadan, then Western Nigerian headquarters’ most valuable bards who sauced his poetic renditions with the symphony of an ensemble of Sekere, dundun and Iya Ilu drums. The Sekere, a group of coral beads entangled by tiny cords wrapped around a big calabash gourd provided accompanying conspiratorial melodies for the drums. Together, the drums and the Sekere produced a medley that women wagged their buttocks to at gigs.
Atokowagbowonle was unusual among musicians of his time. He communicated with his drum. He was a deft drummer whose voice was remarkably penetrating with unusual messages of war to the family compounds of “enemies” who wanted a fight and philosophy of existence laced with proverbs and aphorisms. His Sekere gourd twisters and backup vocalists surrounding him effortlessly vocalised, by way of interpretation, the messages of his drum. Scholars who study the Yoruba nonverbal channel of communication hold Atokowagbowonle’s musical model as unique for its highly specialised form of expression.
In one of his songs, Ayanyemi went the route of his usual philosophising. The shrew, that species of rat which the Yoruba call asin, in the words of Atokowagbowonle, was not a rat of mean or ordinary pedigree. “Yepere k’eku asin o,” he began and compared asin’s motherly qualities with that of witches who he said nurse their own children as well as children of unknown townfolk – “Aje ni wo’mo re, ti wo’mo olomo, yepere k’eku asin”. Moving forward in the track, Atokowagbowonle called on these witches to help him attain wealth and stardom, which he drummed as, “Bamise o, iya mi agba, ba mi se, ipa mi o da se, ba mi se o…” And as if foretelling his imminent death, he drummed, “Eni o ku, t’oluwa re lo gbe” (struggle not to die as, if you do, you dissolve into emptiness). Then weaving the panegyrics of his parents to the need for him to maintain the family name and pedigree, he drummed, “Ilu o gbodo ya lowo Ayanyemi” – literally, the drum must not burst in my hands because he is the correct descendant of his father – Ayanyemi baba mi lo bi mi. Inaolaji baba mi lo bi mi, being a correct replica of his parents – B’omode o jo sokoto, yi o jo kijipa, Baba mi lo bi mi; Mo dupe mo jo’ya mi, b’omode o jo sokoto, yio jo kijipa…
Yet, in Yorubaland, Atokowagbowonle’s unique communicative style was not unexampled. The drummer held same importance as the musician. Drummers hold their audiences spellbound even more than the singers. Though only people who “have the ear of the drum” and those who hail from drummers’ ancestry can penetrate the messages of these drums, the rhythm of the drum is enough admiration for non-initiates. Adewole Oniluola, the lead drummer of the late Apala music lord, Ayinla Omowura, had told me in an interview in 2019 that he owned the band which later transmuted into a global brand and only invited Omowura to be the lead singer. Ibadan’s Amuda Agboluaje’s musical group was also formed and led by Amuda, the talking drummer whose band bore his name. Even among other Yoruba musicians like Sikiru Ayinde Barrister and Kollington Ayinla, drummers carved out remarkable renown for themselves. So, you had drummers like Ojubanire for the late Apala prodigy, Haruna Ishola, Ayansola for Barrister, Adio Olalere for Dauda Epo Akara and Orikanbodi and Ayelegan for Kollington Ayinla.
A very potent story surrounded Atokowagbowonle’s eventual passage at age 65. On May 4, 1984, at the University College Hospital (UCH) Ibadan, the bard died. Though his son, who is also a musician of the hue of his late father, told me in an interview that he could not confirm the story, not having been in Ibadan at the time of his father’s passage, he claimed that his father had “a mere fever” when he was taken to the UCH. As said earlier, a month before Atokowagbowonle’s death, Nigeria’s General Buhari had frozen the old notes and redesigned new Naira notes. The story that gained currency was that the musician had also queued to have his old notes changed to Buhari’s new Naira. So this day, so goes the story, as Ayanyemi Atokowagbowonle joined the queue for an exchange of his Naira notes for the new currency, armed policemen, who were the insignia of the authoritarian military rule of the time, came in their beastly best to rally the rowdy crowd to order. Their baton reportedly landed on Atokowagbowonle which immobilized the old man. Ayanyemi, it was said, never recovered from this.
I spoke to Agba Akin Olubadan of Ibadanland and cultural ambassador of the National Museum, Ile-Ife, Oloye Lekan Alabi who met Atokowagbowonle in 1971 while he was a teacher at St. John’s Primary School, Akinajo. On his impression of the bard, he said he was a lover of the countryside and deeply intelligent. He recollected how the musician attempted to lure him from his pastime of going to Ibadan city at weekends with a musical gig he invited him to in the village. This event eventually became one of the most enjoyable and memorable local parties he ever attended. As Atokowagbowonle was Adelabu’s official musician, Ilorin Dadakuwada exponent, Odolaye Aremu, was Ladoke Akintola’s and Hubert Ogunde was Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s.
On Friday, as I walked around the Nigerian city of my domicile, I remembered Atokowagbowonle. Nigerians looked like war refugees queuing to collect their rations. For those who were old enough to witness what happened immediately after the “no victor, no vanquished” Biafran-Nigerian war, that was how the crowd queued to exchange their Biafran currency for Nigeria’s. The crowd coiled for upwards of two kilometres around banks to access amounts as paltry as N2,000. They were like conquered people. You could see frustration lacing their visors. If you stopped by their midst, insurrection was their lingua franca. They freely pelted Muhammadu Buhari and Godwin Emefiele with stones with their incendiary tongues. When these incandescent conversations reached their zenith, one of them suddenly comes forward – still on the queue – to thaw the ice with rib-cracking jokes which momentarily sends the crowd laughing like hyenas, in spite of themselves. At that moment, the crowd, for a moment, forgets its lamentable suffering in the hands of the Nigerian state. The same atmosphere is replicable at fuel queues.
As Ayanyemi Atokowagbowonle reportedly met his death in the hands of Buhari in 1984, so many others have met theirs since the duo of Buhari and Emefiele began their currency redesign roulette. Were we a statistical country, we would have graphically seen how some people’s fancy has landed their countrymen and women weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. So many people have died unsung due to the inability to access cash to buy essential drugs while patients in hospitals, unable to pay their bills, are disconnected from treatment. Hunger of the status of war is wracking the bellies of many Nigerians because of this haphazardly thought-through policy. Psychologists and psychoanalysts would need to help examine what lies inside the orifice of Buhari’s mind. I tend to think he enjoys inflicting pain on people.
Being a country where every systemic loophole is a cash cow for a tiny few, many must be profiting from this policy doom of currency redesign. Nigeria is a country which mirrors that shrill aquatic reality of fishes devouring their mates for supper. My people render this as “eja l’eja nje”. Eddie Iroh painted its canvass as the thematic preoccupation of his The Toads of War where soldiers developed big fat bellies from the Nigerian civil war. As their accounts swelled, cadavers bloated on Biafran streets, men and women killed by merciless soldiers’ bullets had their hapless bodies wheeled in sacks to their sepulchres.
The same happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. As wailings erupted in homes, children were orphaned and homes lost their breadwinners to the alien killer disease, many Nigerians exploited the weakness and failures of their system, squeezing huge blood money into their famished purses. The same must be taking place now with the Emefiele doomed policy. Yet, the Buhari government is too remiss, too laid back to intervene on the side of the people who are in pain. To worsen it all, you cannot find empathy from the seat of power. The so-called leaders strut about in their inconsiderately turgid and stiff babanriga, as if nothing is amiss.
The gale of court cases against Buhari and Emefiele speaks volumes of the general consensus of the policy’s wicked undertone. How do you conceive a policy that has no human face as this? Of all of them so far, the joinder of the Ondo state government to an earlier suit by Zamfara, Kaduna and Kogi states at the Supreme Court to stop these two men from implementing the reduction of daily cash withdrawal limits by banks is, to me, the most profound. In its averment, Ondo said the policy had totally paralysed and brought the state to a standstill, adversely affecting economic and commercial activities as citizens spend precious hours at banks’ ATMs.
In the midst of this chaos, Buhari, last week announced a transition council to brainstorm on his vacation of office. To me, this bears all the imprimaturs of escapism. Announcing the president’s departure at this time appears a very wicked thing to do. You can compare it to a general deserting the war front at the apogee of war. Or a genocide accused of committing suicide in the midst of the accusation. The president’s seven-day demand from Nigerians so that he could bring order into national anarchy which he and Emefiele caused has expired, yet Nigerians are still wailing and weeping.
While it is a bold relief that Buhari is leaving at last, this last-minute CBN killer policy of his reminds me of the wisecrack of Yoruba’s b’oyinbo o lo, yi o su s’aga of Nigeria’s immediate post-colony. Literally translated, it means that when the white man is about to exit, he defecates on his seat. It was coined to reflect the post-office mess that the colonisers left upon their departure from Nigeria. Buhari is leaving a similar huge odious smell, compared only to the smell usually puffed out to foul the atmosphere by Atokowagbowonle’s asin rat, the shrew.
Friday 10 February 2023
How I Hit It Big In Foodstuff Business - US-based Bizwoman, Alhaja Olubunmi Lawal Speaks
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