The Arole Oduduwa & Ooni of Ife, Ooni Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi Ojaja II, played host to the Ovie of Ozoro kingdom, Delta State, Ovietobore Ogbogbo, on Saturday at his Ile Oodua Palace, Ile-Ife.
While receiving the monarch who was flanked by his queen, chiefs and other dignitaries from the Delta kingdom, Ooni Ogunwusi admonished that Africans and indeed Nigerians should not dispose their cultural heritage on the basis of confliction with religion.
The Ooni who is the Spiritual head of the Yoruba race explained that there are distinctions between religion and culture and they must be carefully studied and practiced with one not encroaching on the other.
“How can you be sitting on honey and milk and not enjoying? Something is not adding up and what you need to do is to visit your history. I am aware of your rich cultural heritage, please do not throw them away for civilization or religion.
“You need to know the difference between cultural heritage and spirituality. Visit your history and look into those things your ancestors used to do, do not think you are worshipping idols.
“I am the spiritual head of the Yoruba people and I am saying it with all authority. When you get home, gather your elders and speak to your ancestors, they will hear you. Don’t fight, just speak to the land of Uzoro and it’ll hear you.” The Ooni advised.
On the South-South kingdom’s relationship with their Yoruba counterpart in the Southwest part of Nigeria, Ooni Ogunwusi revealed that they belong to Oluyare Compound in Ife and their lineage remain unambiguously known to all.
“Oranmiyan who was an Ife Prince left home to establish the Benin kingdom from which Ozoro emanated from, now you see we are one. I want you to visit the Orun Oba Ado groove, Oduduwa groove, Oranmiyan groove and other places of significance to help you get the clear picture of what I am saying.
Earlier in his speech, the Ovie of Ozoro Kingdom, Ovietobore Ogbogbo, described the Ooni as a wonderful monarch whose leadership knacks are immeasurable.
“I decided to come here to have a feel of home and I am convinced that this is home, this is root. I am so happy and excited to tap from the grace and I pray that this shall be the beginning of good things in Ife and Ozoro kingdoms.
Guests at the event including the Oore of Otun Ekiti, Oba Adekunle Adeagbo, were thrilled with performances of palace cultural dancers, drummers and the Princesses from Ozoro Kingdom who made the big day colourful.
tHe management of Oyo State College of Agriculture, Igboora has made it kwnown to the public that the school has not been shut down contrary to the report that the school has been closed indefinitely. This was made known today in a release made available by the Register to the newsmen by which reads in part:
“The general public are hereby notified that Oyo State College of Agriculture and Technology, Igboora has not been shut, the School is still in session but academic activities was only disrupted by student.
” Similarly, the management express surprise at the hasty decision of the Students Union Government of the institution to disrupt academic activities without first presenting its agitations to the management of the institution.
“According to the Students Union president Comrade Salahudeen Hameed Olasunkanmi who spoke with the Acting Registrar of the institution said, “the protest was aimed at drawing the attention of stakeholders to the poor funding of education.”
“It is however, worrisome that some individuals for reasons best known to them decided to mislead members of the public by distorting the facts under whatever guise in order to bring the good name of the management of the institution to a disrepute.
“It should be noted that the Management has never turned deaf hears to the needs of Students and other materials that would make the stay of students on campus an enjoyable one.
” For the records, Students of Oyo State College of” Agriculture and Technology, Igboora can attest to the fact that they are usually treated as very important personalities, while students’ matters are giving priority attention within the available resources.
“It is therefore not true that poor treatment was meted out to students of the institution or that the students were protesting as a result of neglect in the hand of the school management.
” With respect to amenities, it is no gainsaying that the institution has state of the art facilities for teaching and learning, while some are due for upgrading, but efforts are underway to fix such.”
The Management said the institution has up to 10 boreholes that supply water to the various departments in the college, while the health centre of the institution which was donated by the Ibarapa Central Local Government, has experienced personnel that provide medical assistance to ailing students.
“Also, the institution is connected to the national grid and generators are available at the various departments for power supply.”
Ibadan Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Monday secured the conviction of one Oluwatoyin Henry before Justice Sherifat Adeyemi of the Oyo State High Court, sitting in Ibadan, Oyo State on one count of obtaining by false pretences.
According to the commission’s spokesperson, Wilson Square, on Monday, the suspect is a student of Ladothe ke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso.
The charge reads: “That you Oluwatoyin Henry sometime in 2019, at Ogbomoso, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, with intent to defraud, obtained the sum of one thousand two hundred United States of America dollars ($1,200) from one Betty Mosley, when you falsely presented to him that you are a citizen of United States of America by name Amanda, who is in love with him, which representations you knew to be false and thereby committed an offence.”
The convict pleaded guilty to the amended charge after a plea bargain agreement with the prosecution and was convicted and sentenced to six months in prison.
However, he was also ordered to restitute the sum of $1,200 to his victim, and forfeit his iPhone 11, one Infinix Hot 5 and a Nokia phone to the Nigerian government.
The Government and people of Ekiti State has today mourned the passage of its citizen, Flight Sergeant Olasunkanmi Olawunmi (ATOS specialist), who died in the Beechcraft Kingair B350i plane crash while returning to the Abuja Airport after a technical difficulty enroute Minna, Niger State on Sunday.
Late FS Olawunmi, an indigene of Ogotun Ekiti, was a competent, courageous, and worthy NAF personnel. He was a true Nigerian hero who won the respect and admiration of both his peers and his commanding officer throughout the war against insurgency.
The Amalgamated Union of Foodstuff and Cattle Dealers of Nigeria (AUFCDN) says it will withdraw its services nationwide if the Federal Government fails to respond to its demands within seven days over the Shasa and #EndSARS crises.
AUFCDN, an affiliate of Nigeria Labour Congress, is demanding protection of its members, payment of N475bn compensation for lives of members and properties lost during the #EndSARS protest and the Shasa market chaos.
Its Secretary-General, Ahmed Alarama, at a press conference in Abuja on Sunday, said the union had notified President Muhammadu Buhari and the security agencies over its planned actions.
Ikubabayeye, the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi III has advised political leaders to embark on restructuring to solve rising challenges of insecurity and menace of banditry in Nigeria.
The monarch, in a statement on Sunday, likened the current situation to the 1967 crisis during the early period of military interregnum.
He said the current situation requires that all Yoruba leaders should come together irrespective of political differences and speak with one voice as done in the days of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
Oba Adeyemi said restructuring of Nigeria is a major solution, which Yoruba should push further this time.
The statement, which he personally signed, reads: “If there is anytime the Yoruba should come together and speak with one voice, this really is the time.
“Whether in terms of security or human welfare including safety of lives and property, I make bold to say that things have never been so bad in the country. This time is really an era of ethno-religious suspicion among our various communities.
“The present state of national uncertainty can best be compared with the situation in 1967 during the political crisis during the leadership of General Gowon.
“I recall with pleasant nostalgia that during the time, Yoruba leaders across different political parties sank their political differences and met in Ibadan under the governorship of General Adeyinka Adebayo.
“On that occasion, Yoruba unanimously chose the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo not only as leader but as the authentic spokesman of the Yoruba. It was the success of Awolowo leadership that kept the Yoruba away from any kind of civil war in spite of all temptations.
“Coming back to the present, suffice to say that the word restructuring, which we are all demanding now is not a new phenomenon in our national polity; only that it has changed its name.
“Thanks to the political foresight of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo who, at all constitutional conferences in the pre-independence years, insisted on true federalism as the bedrock of political survival and stability of the country.
A Lagos State Mobile Court over the weekend convicted and sentenced a fake soldier arrested by the operatives of the Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences (Enforcement) Unit (Taskforce) for assault and impersonation to six weeks jail term.
Speaking on the arrest and arraignment, the Chairman of the Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences (Enforcement) Unit (Taskforce), CSP Shola Jejeloye, disclosed that the convicted fake soldier was apprehended after he collaborated with some miscreants to assault members of the enforcement team of the Agency at Airport Bus-Stop, along Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway.
He said that the operatives of the Agency were coming from monitoring and enforcement operation with over 150 impounded motorcycles loaded into three of the Agency’s trucks before the fake soldier, whose commercial motorcycle was also among those impounded while plying restricted routes, mobilised hoodlums to attack the team with dangerous weapons.
“The fake soldier was subsequently arrested after the attack was quelled. However, it was during preliminary investigations that it was discovered that he was not a member of the Nigerian Armed Forces but an impersonator”, Jejeloye said.
“The man later confessed to having only claimed to be a soldier in order to retrieve his impounded commercial motorcycle and that he painted his motorcycle with Nigerian Army camouflage colour in order to evade arrest from security agents while engaging in commercial activities on restricted routes”, he added.
CSP Jejeloye urged members of the public to stop impersonating security agents to commit crimes as anyone caught would be seriously dealt with in accordance with the Law.
The Chairman, however, confirmed that the arraignment of the fake soldier at the Lagos Mobile Court was in compliance with the directive of the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Hakeem Odumosu.
Magistrate Oyebimbola Israel Adelakun, who presided over the matter, sentenced the accused Kabiru Mohammed (25 years) to six weeks in jail with N40,000 as an option of fine after he had pleaded guilty to the three-count charge of Assault, Conduct Likely to Cause Breach of Peace and Impersonation levelled against him.
The Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere and the Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Iba Gani Adams, an elder statesman, Pa Adebanjo have berated Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, over his comments indicting South-West governors for the recent mayhem in Sasa community, we Ibadan, in the Akinyele Local Government Area of Oyo State.
Lawan, in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service on Saturday, claimed that ‘unguarded statements’ by some governors in the South-West incited people in the area to take up arms against fellow citizens.
He also blamed what he called the failure of governments in the region for the crisis which led to property destruction in the area.
Lawan stated, “What happened in Oyo State and other things that kept happening in the South-western states are caused by leadership failures in the region. Some utterances by some governors also went a long way in inciting the citizens to take up arms against other ethnic groups settling in their states. The governors’ utterances emboldened the criminals to unleash violence against the northerners.”
Saying the incident happened while the National Assembly was on recess, he noted that it was one of the first issues deliberated upon when the assembly resumed legislative activities.
Lawan said, “Sasa killing was one of the things we deliberated upon at the plenary when we resumed. We condemned the violence and even moved against any kind of inciting comments or utterances by some government officials. We equally condemned the eviction order by one ethnic group on the other, or indigene-settle claims, just as we called for the compensation of all the victims of herder/farmer clashes in the country.’’
“Withdraw your provocative statement”
Reacting to Lawan’s comments in an interview with Sunday PUNCH, Adebanjo asked the Senate President to withdraw his provocative statement against governors in the South-West.
Adebanjo said, “It is an insult brought to us by those who aligned with the All Progressives Congress to force the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) on us as a nation. It is a tragedy that someone called the President of the Senate could make such a statement about South-West governors. In fact, it is Lawan that just made an unguarded statement.
“He has failed in his duty. He never had anything to say about the killings of farmers, raping of our women and massive destruction of our farmlands by killer Fulani herdsmen.
“His language is unguarded. I am sure that his language is that of President Muhammadu Buhari himself who has refused to caution the herdsmen.
When someone is part of a government that negotiates with bandits and criminals, what do you expect? It is people like Lawan who are behind the herdsmen and even own the cows. The statement by the President of the Senate is insulting, derogatory, shows lack of manners and a sign of improper training. It is condemnable and should be withdrawn.
“Are the governors in charge of security in their states or the one controlling the police? They have to resort to Abuja before the commissioner of police will even pick their calls. The Federal Government has refused to even allow Amotekun to bear arms but unconcerned when herdsmen carry sophisticated arms such as AK-47 and others.”
Also, speaking with one of our correspondents on Saturday, the Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Iba Gani Adams, described Lawan’s statement as ‘highly condemnable,’ asking him to withdraw it forthwith.
He said, “His comments are untrue. The information available to us indicated that the incident was caused by provocation. A Hausa porter beat a Yoruba pregnant woman. Talking about leadership failure, is leadership failure responsible for banditry in the North-West, North-Central or in the North-East where there’s insurgency? Then, it’s leadership failure that is responsible for the insecurity in the country?”
Adams also expressed worry that such a statement was uttered by the president of the country’s upper legislative chamber.
The Aare Ona Kakanfo added, “As a Senate President, he ought to detach himself from nepotism and appear like a statesman and not a sectional leader. The statement from him is highly condemnable and I will advise him to retract it. He will be bias if he’s asked to say anything concerning the Yoruba.’’
Speaking in a similar vein, Afenifere said ‘unwarranted provocations’ against the South-West were becoming too many.
Speaking through its Publicity Secretary, Yinka Odumakin, the group said, “So it’s not the unguarded statements of Buhari’s henchmen? It’s the leadership failure in Nigeria that is keeping people like him in office.’’
Lawan in the interview with the BBC demanded the arrest and prosecution of those involved in the Sasa mayhem.
He added, “Recently, President Muhammadu Buhari also invited the state governors and told them that the Federal Government would not condone any governor calling for the eviction of any ethnic group from his state. He said that no governor should incite his citizens to unleash terror or violence on the non-indigene members of the communities.”
On February 12, 2021, a disagreement between a Hausa porter and Yoruba female trader in Sasa market, Ibadan, degenerated into bedlam and claimed lives including multimillion naira investments.
A Yoruba cobbler, Shakirudeen Adeola, reportedly challenged the porter for beating the woman and in a fit of rage, the porter was said to have brought out a charm and hit Adeola who was rushed to a hospital and died thereafter. The news of Adeola’s death sparked off violence which shattered the peace in the area.
On sighting the headline of her piece entitled Nigerian Media: Let’s Stop Ethnic Profiling!, I initially thought well-respected media mogul, Kadaria Ahmed, was set to confront a media orthodoxy. Though it was plain, unambiguous and self-explanatory, in a moment, I imagined that that piece was about to collapse ancient established theses about the Nigerian media dominance and vain hold on power. This is because I love anyone who audaciously perforates the majesty of principalities and powers, persons, objects or places.
This was what carved a special place of regards in my heart for late Egba-born bard, Sakara music exponent and poet, Kelani Yesufu. Before his very unorthodox thinking, packaged into a line of poetry in his album entitled Atosi, at least among the Yoruba-speaking people of the then Western State, gonorrhea was an ailment that was believed to afflict only society’s greats. It was why the euphemistic acronym for it was arun gbajumo, translated: disease of the notable. But Kelani, in these very dense Egba dialect lyrics of his which sounded like an ululation, reversed that existing, very ancient perception. Atosi (gonorrhea) could not have been a disease of the notable, he vehemently argued in that vinyl. Why? And Kelani began his narrative. He chanted the disease’s long cognomen – atosi atoha – and many other attributes of its, paying unmatchable tribute to the destructive prowess of the then pestilence of this venereal disease. Men are afflicted by gonorrhea due to their multiple dalliances and careless libido, he said. Gonorrhea had killed so many people in those dark days of its affliction before the advent of the white man who readily provided a remedy for it. Kelani also dramatized how this venereal disease perforated the mouth of the sufferer’s midriff member, necessitating the victim regularly swallowing inscrutable potions like potassium called kanhun bilala as its remedy. For an affliction that takes its victim on such painful merry-go-rounds and the inconveniences it brings, asked Kelani, was it then right for gonorrhea to be labeled a disease of the notable?
The Kelani thesis momentarily unsettled existing narrative of the clubbing society and notables of the 1970s. Society apparently didn’t look at gonorrhea from that perspective before then. Those who labeled it a social disease ostensibly did that, placing it side by side the affliction of impotency, with the shame and societal ridicule which the afflicted victim went through. For a chauvinistic and charismatic African society like ours, the strength of manhood carried with it a conceit that men wore on their garments like a lapel. So, when comparatively estimated, the African society believed that the man who had multiple women liaisons and who, in the process, was afflicted by gonorrhea, was more desirable than an impotent man. Such challenge of existing order and narrative was what I thought Kadaria was about. By the way, Ahmed is a Nigerian journalist, media entrepreneur and television host who began her career in London BBC. Her media forays span print, radio, television, online and social media platforms. I was damn wrong on what I thought Kadaria was about after all. In the piece, she shared a sense of foreboding, of doom and war which she said the Nigerian media was spearheading. Offered as rhetorical interrogation of what she said was the media’s guilt in this grisly drum of war, Kadaria asked, “What exactly will we (media) gain if Nigeria descends into war? How does it advance us, if our fellow citizens turn on each other and begin large scale ethnic killings, against each other? Let me even assume that a few of us don’t believe in Nigeria anymore and want to see it broken into its constituent parts. How does enabling ethnic strife help achieve this objective in a way that guarantees the outcome you want?” The questions were targeted at whetting the ground for a more sweeping accusation: Media reporting of today, alleged Kadaria, has thrown away “the book on ethical reporting” and is now “propelled by emotions” and betrayal of “every moral consideration.”
Kadaria then lapsed into the ready-made typology of media complicity in war in Africa – Rwandan. The Nigerian media had failed woefully to learn a lifelong experience from media involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide and yielded its platform as “a tool that enables hate” Kadaria alleged. “We have given platforms to the worst among us, the extremists and the bloodthirsty. We have turned militia leaders and criminals into champions. Instead of us to lead calm and rational discourse on the existential challenges we face, with a view to promoting actionable solutions, we have succumbed to hysteria and the next exciting click bait headline. And yet for many of us, especially media owners, this place called Nigeria has been relatively good. This country has given many of us more opportunity than the majority of our fellow citizens. We have reaped a bountiful harvest from this place. We have done so well that if, God forbid, this country is consumed and chaos reigns, many of us will hop on a plane and bugger off to the many different countries abroad where our families live in peace, even though they are not native to those places,” she said. And then, the well-known journalist, who anchored that notorious interview with President Muhammadu Buhari, shortly before the 2019 election, where the president physically and clearly confirmed President Donald Trump’s alleged claim of his being lifeless, chose to bring out scary imageries of war. Said Kadara: “There will be killings in the thousands, limbs will be chopped off with machetes, women and girls will be raped, food will be scarce, fear will reign. The most brutal among us will take charge. And their word will be law. They will not tolerate journalists who try to hold them accountable.” In the piece under review, Kadaria exhibited a very uncritical mind that is everything but the hallmark of good journalism. If you remove her byline from it, you would imagine that a Federal Government demagogue had penned that piece. It brimmed with cants, assumptions, sophistries and ill-logics that can only be provoked by a poisoned mind. If you were not in Nigeria and not abreast of the narratives of cow that have engaged the polity in the last five years or so, you would think that Nigerian journalists were in a combat of strife and hatred against Nigeria. Or that the practice of the profession in Nigeria is done with a mind to incinerate Nigeria. Throughout the piece, Kadaria never apportioned any blame to the man her 2019 interview irritatintgly buoyed into presidential office for a second term, in spite of his manifest mental and governmental failings. Not for a minute in that interview did Kadaria communicate, either via innuendo or literally, that Nigeria was, with the Buhari she saw in that interview, going to be burdened by an impaired president.
Now, to the gravamen of Kadaria’s claim. I have been to Rwanda, where, between April and June 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were murdered within the space of 100 days, after the death on April 6, 1994 of President Juvenal Habyarimana. Habyarimana, a Hutu, had his plane shot down while about to land at the Kigali airport. I was at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Park; saw the mangled bones, tombs of reburied carcasses assembled from all parts of Rwanda and the eerie atmosphere of bloodletting in the park. I spoke with victims and victimizers of the genocide. Yes, the narrative of “mosquito” constantly used by Hutu Power, a private radio station which was established by extremists surrounding Habyarimana and echoing their tribe’s extremist narratives, contributed to the genocide, but Habyarimana, as well as men and women of both Hutu and Tutsi tribes had taken the hatred narrative to the cusp, merely having it amplified by the radio. But let me ask, did Kadaria anticipate a media that should blind its eyes to the ethnic-driven perfidy of the Buhari government or one that should not communicate the different queer narratives of what is happening under Buhari today? Further interrogation of Kadaria is apposite at this juncture. One: does she think the media is making up claims of Fulani herdsmen’s notorious criminal activities or that the media should have blurted out such reports? Second: Perhaps because Kadaria can conveniently be said to have medially helped to brew this Buhari broth, the government was then doing the right thing by looking the other way while the killing, maiming and raping of southerners is going on? Again, does she think that those who are recipients of this violence should have kept quiet? If they are narrating their gory experiences in the hands of Fulani herdsmen, does Kadaria think that the media should have turned its back on the victims? The honest truth is that, if you conduct a comparative analysis of Habyarimana’s guilt in the Rwandan genocide, it may only be a little higher than the war that Buhari is silently provoking by his inexplicable governmental cronyism and silence at the killing of innocent Southerners by Fulani herdsmen. Those who Kadaria wanted to impress with that piece, or those she intended the piece to earn their kudos or her further retainership, are Nigeria’s jailers. They are those who she ought to have concentrated her expletives and condemnation on. When Kadaria took to penning that piece which she said was borne of her distaste for her media constituency’s alleged recently acquired penchant for baiting blood and beating saber-rattling gongs of war, Bukola Elemide’s Jailer crept up my mind. Elemide, better known as Asa, is a Nigerian-French singer, songwriter and recording artist whose hit, Jailer holds a lot of refreshing narrative of both the current Nigerian situation and Kadaria’s misdirected bayonet. In Jailer, Asa levels every hill of suffering separating both the oppressed and their oppressors and removes all boundaries hitherto celebrated. Unbeknown to those who believed they occupied some level of ascriptions which insulate them from the Nigerian problems, Jailertells them that the calamities are layered. According to her, the man who holds the fire-brimming burner to the bum of the oppressed and the oppressed are operating on the same wavelength. I’m in chains, you’re in chains too//I wear uniforms and you wear uniforms too//I’m a prisoner//You’re a prisoner too, Mr. Jailer//Oh I have fears, you have fears too//I will die, but yourself will die too//Life is beautiful//Don’t you think so too, Mr. Jailer?
Unfortunately, there is a raging pestilence of minds which think uncritically like Kadaria’s in present day Nigeria. They afflict the rest of us with the impurity of their infectiously dangerous thoughts, in the name of defending the Kingdom of Cow that Nigeria is furiously turning into. Kadaria and her fellow travelers should know that, like the Jailer, we are all in this together and the earlier we got a resolution, the better for all of us. Last week, we examined the vacuous claim of the Bauchi State governor, Bala Mohammed, that since southerners who had been living in the north for decades were not expelled by their states of domicile, it was unconscionable for northern Fulani herdsmen living in the south to be expelled. Mohammed also justified Fulani herdsmen carrying that deadly weapon, the AK-47. We let him know that that reasoning was fallacious because, whereas the north had no reason to expel southerners. apparenty on the basis of their good behavior, the south had reasons to expel northerners living with them because their existence in their own land because of their recently acquired marauding inclinations. Now, Zamfara State governor, Bello Matawalle, has joined this race of impure thoughts. After meeting Buhari in the Villa last Thursday, Matawalle told the press that, not all bandits who terrorize some parts of Zamfara and other neighbouring states were criminals. First is that, that statement is a violent attack on language and logical semantics. A la semantics, banditry is “a type of organized crime committed by outlaws typically involving the threat or use of violence.” So, in the name of the twelve angels, how can tigers be described outside of their tigritude, or outlaws, outside of outlawry? And this was a governor who is faced with a violent affliction of hundreds of Zamfara people being killed or kidnapped by bandits, as well as in neighbouringKaduna, Zamfara, Nasarawa, Katsina, Niger and Sokoto, for many years now. Earlier, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, who has recently began a weird forest evangelism, harvesting bandits whose hands are brimming with blood of innocent souls, had joined in the chorus as well. These deadly criminals and bloodthirsty hounds who make the forest their hibernation were offended by the Nigerian state and deserve not only federal armistice but amnesty, said Gumi. “The Federal government should give them blanket amnesty,” he said last week. Gumi belonged tothe same set of people who canvassed that Boko Haram insurgents, who have killed thousands of Nigerians and on account of whom the federal budget, earmarked for procurement of armament, is yearly depleted by billions of Naira, be granted amnesty, rehabilitated and given sumptuous financial grants. After meeting violent outlaws inhabiting the forest of Niger State on his latest intervention to rescue the 27 students of Government Science College, Kagara, Gumi had said: “The outcome (of his visit) is very positive. We have many factions and each faction is saying ‘I have complaints and grievances – we are persecuted, we are arrested, we are lynched,’” citing the bandits’ claim.
If we trace the filament that links all these tendentious statements, from Kadaria’s to Muhammed, Matawalle, Gumi and the likes, you will find an identifier, to wit a campaign for a world for the tyranny of Fulani herdsmen and bandits. The campaigners’ ultimate goal is to get carved out for them a Ministry of Banditry or Cattle Matters and a generous state negotiation, in the mould of Niger Delta militants’. If one may ask, why would anyone in their right senses compare the criminality of militants to that of bandits? As said last week, while the former is criminality buoyed by ethnic nationalism, the latter is engendered by undiluted criminality. It is no hidden fact that banditry in the Northwest isfallout of illegal and criminal artisanal mining of lead, gold, as well as other mineral resources. Does Kadaria know all these?
EXIT OF EWART BECKFORD, U-ROY
The reggae world lost a pioneering icon last week. He is Ewart Beckford, better known as U-Roy. Beckford was a king of the microphone, beginning his career as a disc jockey in 1961. It is almost impossible for anyone who had anything to do with this Jamaican-popularized music in the 1970s, 80s and 90s not to have had U-Roy barge into them. He was said to have passed on on February 17, 2021 after undergoing surgery in a hospital in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital city amid suffering from diabetes, blood pressure and a kidney disease. Born on September 21, 1942, one of U-Roy’s most famous offerings to the reggae world was Dread in a Babylon and Natty Dread (1976), the latter spiced up Mighty Diamonds’ Have Mercy.U-Roy also voiced the ‘Version Galore’ album and was known for bringing bravura and uniqueness to reggae rap, atop the blaring of rhythmic songs underneath. He was renowned for popularising this vocal style which was popularly known as “toasting.” He produced further albums, some of which are, Rasta Ambassador (1977), Jah Son of Africa (1978) and Pray Fi Di People which was released in 2012. U-Roy also featured on the album True Love done by Jamaican iconic old group called Toots and the Maytals. The album, in 2004, won the Grammy in the Best Reggae Album category, No one could duel with U-Roy in this “toasting” singing, pretty and mellifluous conversational chatter genre as he successfully overturned the paradigm of Jamaican music. The uniqueness of U-Roy’s contribution to reggae ranged from the cadence of his rapping voice, his shimmering howl mid-singing and his lyrical audacity. He was known to shout in the midst of his lyrical sessions and such shouts added huge difference to his music. U-Roy was a great Rastafarian who, like biblical Nazarenes, adhered to the injunction of keeping their hairs, which grow in locks, sacred. U-Roy will be sorely missed by the reggae world.
As Osun Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Police Brutality Human Rights Violations and Related Extra Judicial Killings resumed sitting on Saturday, three of the petitioners have appealed to it to prevail on the Government and the Nigeria Police Force to award them N125million compensation for the gruesome killing of one Mr. Rafiu Ajani.
The petitioners have approached the panel to seek compensation on account of different forms of brutality meted out to them by the overzealous police officers on 17th February, 2001.
According to them, the incident occurred at Obeira police check point, Okene area of Kogi State, where three armed police officers gruesomely killed eight out of 10 occupants in the vehicle.
Narrating the ordeal while being led in evidence by his counsel on how he narrowly escaped death, one of the petitioners, Mr. Sulaimon Badmus, said he escaped when the officers ran after one of the victims that wanted to run away.
He said the three fully armed police officers killed eight out 10 passengers in the vehicle that conveyed him on the fateful day.
The petitioner said the erring police officers were met at the check point along Okene road, and were allowed to check the vehicle after which they started grumbling because of the cash they saw in the vehicle.
“On that fateful day, I chartered a bus from Osogbo to Benue, but the driver took another eight passengers along the way who were going to Katsina State to buy rams because it was during Salah festival.
“But when we got to Obeira, Okene axis of Kogi State, we met three fully-armed police officers on our way. The driver stopped and they accosted us, but when the officers saw huge amount of money in our possession to purchase rams, they started misbehaving and asked us to follow them.
“We were deceived by the erring officers because we were told that they were taking us to station, not knowing they were taking us to the forest. They tied our hands and one of the passengers that attempted to escape was gunned down immediately.
“They poured petrol on us with an intention to set us ablaze. But when they ran after one of us that attempted to run, it was in that instance that I struggled to escape with one other passenger. Unfortunately, the remaining passengers were burnt to death, including the driver.
“When the matter was reported in the news and the police started the investigation, then I showed up to follow up the matter and gave evidence. I assisted the police to arrest the three officers and they were charged to court.
“The three erring officers were Benjamin Oyekhire; Jimoh Michael and Gershon Soba.
“The case was taken to Lokoja High Court where the three erring officers were sentenced to death by hanging.
“Although I didn’t follow up the matter, I later learnt that the officers went to Court of Appeal and Supreme courts where the lower court judgment was upheld.
“I can’t say if the three condemned officers were eventually sentenced as ordered by the hierarchy of the Courts. However, I was not too satisfied with the judgement because killing them was not enough as justice. None of the victims was compensated since the incident occurred twenty years ago. That is why I approached the panel for due compensation”, he added.
Corroborating the testimony, one Mr. Mustapha Muideen, the owner of the burnt Toyota Liteace with registration No Osun XB 104 SGB and a younger brother of the deceased driver, Mr. Dauda Ajani, told the panel the number of times they travelled down to Kogi State because of the case to give credence to the evidence tendered before the panel.
The counsel for the petitioners, Barrister J.O. Babalola, prayed the court to award his clients a total sum of N125million as compensation to cushion the negative effect of all they had suffered to the incident.
According to him, N100million was requested as compensation for the family of the late Rafiu Ajani, the driver of the bus that was burnt, saying the deceased was the sole bread winner of his family and was survived by dependants which include aged mother, three wives and five children.
He further appealed to the panel to award the second petitioner, Mr. Sulaimon Badmus, who escaped from the police a total sum of N20million as compensation for losing all his capital aimed to purchase rams, just as he also urged the panel to award a sum of N5million to one Mr. Mustapha Muideen, the owner of the bus that was burnt.
Ruling in the case, the Chairman of the Panel, Justice Akin Oladimeji (rtd), asked the petitioners’ counsel to prepare his final address for adoption and adjourned the case to March 5th, 2021.
