President Bola Tinubu: Is this Mandate Still Standing?
This is the question I think President Bola Tinubu should be asking himself right now. The country is on fire, and calls for his resignation have started ringing true. I don’t know if I support those calls just yet, but the way Nigerians are losing their lives is now reaching epidemic proportions. The sad thing is not only in the way they are losing their lives but in the seeming helplessness the authorities are displaying in tackling the grave situation.
It is now a national embarrassment because all we see as responses are press releases, presidential orders, condolence visits and very tepid arrests here and there. So, bandits will raid a whole village, kill almost everybody and cart away the rest, and the next thing we see is the government celebrating the arrest of one pick-pocket with headlines screaming ‘Bandit Kingpin Arrested.’ The next day, the whole local government will be desecrated.
My Commander-in-Chief, are we chiefly commanding well? Are you sure this mandate is still strong enough for us to stand on? Are we overwhelmed? If we are overwhelmed, it is not a problem o, the problem will now be our refusal to ask for “help”
There is nothing wrong with asking for help from those who have faced this kind of problem before and successfully stamped it out. By this time, we should be building an international coalition to tackle this thing because of its risk to subregional stability. But all we see are just press releases and instructions to the Army to stamp the thing out, instructions that are entering one ear and coming out of the other ear.
Daddy, they are not stamping out anything ooo, they just killed a General ooo, they just attacked a Church in Kwara ooo, they have carried our girls in Kebbi ooo, and the country is on fire ooo. Show me that mandate, let me tear it ooo. Nigerians are in pain, and there is blood flowing all over the place, and you just can’t be sleeping well. You can’t, Oga. Wake up, Sir.
Segun Awolowo: A Good Man Has Left Us
Many people didn’t meet Segun at his prime. He was the best of the best – jovial, personable and a people’s person. Suddenly he just left us, just like that? This is very sad.
I was busy doing what we all do in Lagos last Thursday when my phone started getting hot with calls, messages and chats: “Edgar, is it true? Edgar, did oga just die? Edgar, was he ill?”
You may wonder why they were calling me for confirmation before some of you will start thinking that maybe I am now an Awolowo, or maybe I now come from Ikenne.
We had become quite close as a result of my successful play on his grandfather, the great Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
I had met him through his cousin, Ladi Soyode, and since then, had tried to maintain a good relationship with him.
The news was devastating, but I still needed to confirm. So I called Otunba Bimbo Ashiru and could not get him, and then I called Ladi, who asked me to call back. By this time, the news wires had gone amok, and the news was everywhere.
An arrowhead of a receding generation has just left. Segun represented a new lineage of youths who had pushed the levers of social rebellion through music and with the anthem – Asiko awa youth re – with the ebullient Sir Shina Peters as its mouthpiece.
He didn’t stop there but went ahead to build a super career in public service, energising Nigeria’s super-influential trade czar.
Mbok, let me leave it for now, as the pain for his mother, the elegant Abah Folawiyo, can only be imagined.
May his soul will rest in peace. What else can we say?
Nasir El-Rufai: A Strong Point
Mallam El-Rufai made a very strong point in Jos, Plateau recently. He is quoted to have said that 230 million Nigerians will defeat 25 governors at the 2027 polls. These are my fervent prayers. I do not like bullies, and it is looking like what is happening is bullying in the political space.
Anybody who believes that these movements are not orchestrated and voluntary is definitely smoking something. They are very far from voluntary, and history will tell us the true reasons behind these defections.
It is this defection that is making people like me resolve not to support this APC for anything. How can we be moving towards a one-party state at this time in our democracy? Even the military, when they were in power, formed two parties and encouraged a guided multi-party democracy. And now, after over 20 years of democracy, we, like sheep, are being herded towards one party.
This is why El-Rufai’s statement has resonated with me. Let the governors go and let Nigerians come out en masse and speak to fair play, justice and all the freedoms that come with democracy.
Once we can defeat the spirit of apathy amongst Nigerians, a strong message would have been sent to these cowards that weasels have never been made leaders. Thank you.
Justice Kekere-Ekun: The Wig and the Mandate
My dear sister, we all watched with suffocating wonderment at the singing of this APC anthem at your conference with all of your people in firm attention. Well, your spokespeople have come out with a barely acceptable explanation claiming that the anthem was played by the military band, and since they did not want to be pulled into a Wike-Yerima type squabble with the military band, who would have received instructions from a retired COAS, they kept quiet.
That said, Nigerians have remained aghast at this whole thing, which has thrown up once again the debilitating issue of the independence of the judiciary. You will agree with me that your arm of government and indeed your profession is going through a very serious crisis of credibility. I am sure that by now, you would have read Senator Ojodu’s treatise on how judgments are procured even before there is a matter. A crime that will be committed ten years from now already has judgment written and kept in a refrigerator waiting to be defrosted and released when the matter comes up.
My dear Big Aunty, you remain in a high reputation, but I fear that your personal reputation will not be enough to solve this problem. We need bold judicial reforms; we need to restore public confidence in the judiciary, and the judiciary needs to go back to what it was originally designed to be – a separate and independent arm of government and not this one that we are seeing. That is the only mandate you should be standing on, Aunty. Thank you.
Seyi Makinde: Turning Tables
There is something about leadership – vision. You cannot be a true leader without having vision, the power to see far and beyond the ordinary person. As I watched the “attack” on the PDP headquarters in Abuja, I watched Governor Seyi Makinde very intently.
I almost laughed at him as he looked lost and listless. He was pushed, shoved and tear-gassed, and after it all, he sat with the Chairman as that one made his statements.
Governor Seyi Makinde was part of Wike’s comedic group, who wore colourful costumes, danced all over Nigeria like drunken thespians in a gibberish attempt at scuttling the hopes and aspirations of Nigerians who dreamt of leveraging the PDP platform.
Today, he has broken ranks with his leader and is on the other side of the fence and for his efforts, he was tear gassed, shuffled and bullied.
This is what you get when you don’t move with vision in leadership. Just two years ago, he was Wike’s sidekick, and if he had vision, he would have seen the “Nebuchadnezzar” that was leading him in G5. But as the “follow follow” that he was at that time, he joined hands to scuttle democracy and foster on Nigerians the pestilence we now see.
Thankfully, like the biblical Saul, the scales have fallen from his eyes, and he is trying to right the wrongs of his past effort. I truly do wish him well, but he should come and take a masterclass in vision-driven leadership.
Babajide Sanwo-Olu: Let My People Go
As a young Ibibio lad growing up in Shomolu, Lagos, that building that the Lagos State Government, through its LAMATA, just brought down held a lot of significance. It was the rallying point of a very humble and meek tribe. We are Ibibios; we do not look for trouble, we do not control whole markets in another person’s land, we do not own massive real estate, and we have not claimed to have built Lagos. We mind our business, carry on with our jobs, stay in our little ‘face me I face you’ and generally just do what we know best to do – eat afang, pursue witches with prayers, and generally just try to have fun in Lagos.
Now you come and bully us? Because you think we cannot fight. This my brother is shameful. You come and break down our Community Centre and promise us compensation of N11m as reported? What is that amount for? Is it to pay for the fuel we will use to transport ourselves back to Uyo?
A property valued at N250m? And you are offering N11m for a decidedly illegal operation?
The good thing is that it is not only our people that you have flogged, you have kuku flogged your own people and voters in Oworonsoki, leading them to block the Third Mainland Bridge.
That notwithstanding, this bullying is all the more painful and tear-jerking because it is just plain “chancing.”
We do not have the muscle to fight, after all, who are we? Are we not just Ekaette and Udoh? Is it not house boy and house girl that we came to do? We will do what we know best to do, we will take our pain and tears to God in strong supplications, and like He has always done, He will fight this Pharaoh for us. Thank you o for this disgrace and humiliation. Thank you.
Dan Agbese: My Condolences
Newswatch was a “must” for Nigerians in those days, and Dan Agbese’s prose was a must for me. Mbok. The guy can write sha. Kai! I used to walk from my house in Shomolu to Onipanu bus stop to do “free readers association” with Newswatch.
Agbese was my favourite and I would read him and say to myself, one day, I will write like this and voila, today, I am writing like him. You see the power of dreams.
Kai, I have just read that he passed away at the ripe old age of 81. He lived well and fulfilled not only his career goals but also his life goals. I wish his family well and also pray that God accept his soul in heaven.
He was a beautiful writer and a great man. Rest in peace, sir.
Ezra Olubi: What Kind of a Man
Ezra Olubi is the multi-billionaire co-founder of giant Paystack, one of the unicorns in Nigeria’s Fintech space worth trillions of Naira. He is, however, weird in sexual orientation. He once wore lipstick and painted his nails to go and receive national honours from conservative Buhari, who almost choked when he moved forward.
Well, Ezra, as reported, found himself in a unique but very enviable type of relationship. He was dating a pair of lesbians – what will I give to find myself in this kind of situation? Anyway, he also had a not-so-secret life of fantasies.
Mbok, let’s just say fantasies because I don’t believe any human can do those things that he reportedly tweeted. He had, sometime in the past, been tweeting about his sexual attachments to cats – yes, cats, what Yorubas call Ologbo, and minors.
So, one day, he borrowed one of the girls in the circle $55,000 to pay her brother’s school fees. But the lady could not pay back the loan. One thing led to the other, and Ezra said he was no longer interested in the relationship. In retaliation, she retweeted his past tweets, and Nigerians started vomiting all over the place. The tweets are just so revolting that I cannot mention them on this page because Editor will faint.
His company, Paystack, has suspended him; others have called for police investigations to make sure that no cats or minors were abused, and he has scurried off social media in shame.
Mbok, tell me how can a full-grown man be playing with the nipples of a cat? Is that not juju? Kai, Sodom and Gomorrah in Lagos. Na wa.
Chief Evaristus Etim Bassey: Adieu with Garlands
The passing of Chief Bassey has been announced in a letter to the Nigerian Security and Printing Company by his son, the very brilliant Henry Bassey.
You may start to wonder “wetin concern Duke for this one.” Let me tell you. Chief Bassey is a man of history. He was Nigeria’s pioneer bank note security printer. He set up the African Printers Association. He also played a pivotal role in setting up the MINT in 1963 and served there till he retired as Executive Director, just before he set up the Abuja Factory, which was commissioned by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in 2022.
These are the kinds of unsung heroes that we should seize every opportunity to throw up.
His contributions, though not fully in the face of the public, continue to impact the economy and, by extension, our lives, hence my honouring him on the occasion of his glorious passing.
To the family, you all should remain proud that your family gifted Nigeria one of its most principled and vision-driven leaders. May his soul rest in perfect peace. Thank you.
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