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Fashola’s eureka moment at Lekki tollgate

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5 years ago

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By Tunde Odesola
(Published in The PUNCH on Monday, November 9, 2020)
Donkey’s years ago, before greed overtook leadership and snatched the reins of governance, Lagos was a free society without a tollgate.
Doubtlessly, the tollgate was a taboo in Lagos ages ago. This was in the days when history took culture under its wings together with language and tradition, forming a formidable foursome.
This was before government calamitously embarked on the journey to remove history from school curricula, deify foreign cultures, denigrate Nigerian languages and scorn tradition.
Nowadays, the four-pronged society preservers – history, culture, language and tradition – have been rendered as gaping as the four missing incisors in a mouth sentenced to pronouncing, “Surely, every thief stealing seashells by the Lagos seashore shall die by the sword at Tinubu Square.”
This pronunciation task is an impossibility for anyone without the incisors because the  incisors, what the Yoruba call ‘eyin faari’, are needed to pronounce dental sounds.
If you know Lagos very well, you will know its history, culture,  language and tradition. You will know the Eyo. If you know the Eyo, you should know the opambata, the aro and the agbada.
The opambata is the long, fearsome stalk of the palm tree wielded by the Eyo masquerader. The agbada is the white, overflowing regalia and the aro are the panegyrics of the Eyo.
Born at the Lagos Island Maternity Hospital and raised in Mushin, I memorised the ‘omo alagbada tolonga, tolonga’ Eyo panegyrics, a must-know chant among fellow youngsters back in the day.
That was a season when Lagos was sane, bold and unconquered. It was a time when Lagosians boastfully chanted the Eyo praisesong, recalling how their forebears’, in these tuneful lines, vowed never to pay toll at the boundary: “Eyo baba n’tawa, to nfi goolu se’re, awa o ni sanwo onibode, o di’le.”
But Lagosians now pay toll, to and fro, at the Lekki profit gate everyday. Even the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, a true Lagosian, can’t mobilise fellow Lagosians not to pay at the Lekki bondage, sorry, boundary gate. Iyen ma lewu. Odikwa risky. Baba-Baba mustn’t hear that.
I understand the encumbrances of serving and past Lagos governors. I know how gingerly former Lagos governor and incumbent Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, carries the burden of loyalty. But millions of Nigerians don’t. I’ll jog their memory.
When asked at a senate ministerial screening in 2015 about his view on loyalty, Fashola responded, “The concept of loyalty is a strange one. The real answer is that may our loyalties never be tested. I always pray that may my loyalty never be tested.”
He went ahead to narrate the story of two daughters who were unwilling to donate a kidney to their sick mom after the Lagos State government promised to send their mom abroad for transplant, stressing that he never wished his loyalty to be tested because no one knows the cost.
Fashola, at the intense screening, insisted that he had never been disloyal to any cause he has ever ‘signed on to’, stressing that, ‘no one can accuse me fairly of giving my word and going back on it’.
Fashola is fervently loyal, I know. He’s an unfrivolous Lagos poster boy who minds his business, plays his table tennis and smokes his cigarettes.
Fashola was loyal to his godfather, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, first – as chief of staff and later as first term governor. During his second term as governor, his loyalty was seriously tested, and Fashola doesn’t like his loyalty to be tested.
Several days after Nigerian soldiers murdered many youth protesters at the Lekki tollgate plaza last month, Fashola visited the scene after it had been washed clean of innocent blood.
As he stepped out of his vehicle and made a solitary and determinable peregrination at the scene of the public execution, Fashola’s loyalty was on trial. But remember, he had warned that he doesn’t like his loyalty to be tested.
Fashola wore brown plain clothes underscoring the prevailing sombre mood. The plain clothes were also a foretaste of the breakthrough about to happen. He folded his hands behind his back like a wise man while his roving eyes scanned the drainage, road and tollgate pillars.
Like a prophet who takes the cue when his hour has come, Fashola looked up at the tollgate beacon and continued on his solitary mission…then his eureka moment unraveled in broad daylight when he suddenly discovered the crime-scene camcorder!
As he fetched a handy piece of cloth from inside his plain clothes, headlines for the next day’s newspapers probably flirted around his mind, “#ENDSARS: Fashola unearths secret camera,” “Fashola discovers breakthrough lead at Lekki,” “Detective Fashola!”
Brilliant people are gifted with anticipatory thinking. It’s possible that Fashola envisioned himself being swarmed by reporters after his earthquaking finding, falling over themselves in the bid to ask questions while he basked in smiles of triumphal accomplishment.
But killjoy Nigerians felt Fashola was acting a comedy. They weren’t grateful that Fashola didn’t act like the Greek polymath and inventor, Archimedes, who reportedly ran home naked from a public bath, shouting eureka! upon discovering an insight into volumetric displacement.
Shame on fault-finding Nigerians! They descended on Fashola and smeared his reputation on social media. If Nigerians accuse Fashola of owing his allegiance to the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), rather than to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I’m sure they won’t be mistaken as to where the allegiance of the members of the Lagos State House of Assembly lies.
Perpetually in the news for wrong reasons such as staggering corruption allegations, the Lagos legislature is tethered to Tinubu, to whom members of the House publicly pledge their allegiance, always.
By now, former Nollywood actor-turned-lawmaker in Lagos, Desmond Elliot, must’ve seen how his foreign surname has been turned into a rhyme scheme of unprintable adjectives signifying stupidity.
Employing dishonest reasoning, Elliot drew the ire of Nigerians when he called the Lekki protesters ‘children’, warning the Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa, about the need for an urgent clampdown on Nigerians using social media users to demand better governance.
Elliot wasn’t outraged about the merciless killings of innocent youths by Nigerian soldiers at the Lekki tollgate, but was scandalised that protesters, in reaction to the killings, could storm the palace of the Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu, and seize the fleeing king’s staff of office.
Because Elliot must please the gods, he boomed, “When I went through the comments I could not believe it (sic); the curses, the abuses from children, and I asked myself, ‘Is this Nigeria? What is going on?’ Culture is gone!.., Mr Speaker, in the next five years, there will be no Nigeria if we don’t start now!
Start what kwanu? Start a fresh orgy of killings? Elliot’s statement was one of the most horrendous vituperations against the memory of those who lost their lives in the Lekki peaceful protest. The way he feigned annoyance and laboured to string passable sentences in the weirdest accent was dishonorable.
Without living in the Tabon-Tabon area of Agege, the phonetics-speaking Elliot even fired a couple of Chief Zebrudaya bullets, among others. Hear him, “The youth is (sic) not only those who do the peaceful protest!”
Reacting to the fallout of the state-induced riots that greeted the Lekki killings, a colleague of Elliot in the legislature, Mojisola Alli-Macaulay, said most Nigerian youths are on drugs, most of the time. What!?
Alli-Macaulay is a member of the current ninth Assembly that pardoned former Lagos Deputy governor, Femi Pedro, and restored all his outrageous privileges to him while Pedro’s predecessor, Kofoworola Akerele-Bucknor, who committed no offence as Pedro never got her privileges restored.
Shamefully, Alli-Macaulay is a member of a House whose Speaker has a yoke of corruption allegation hanging at his neck.
Which one is it better to be, a drug addict or a chained Assembly?
Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com
Facebook: @tunde odesola
Twitter: @tunde_odesola
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The world dislikes the weak, by Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

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1 day ago

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March 3, 2026

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Former Northern Elders Forum spokesperson, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed
Former Northern Elders Forum spokesperson, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

The world dislikes the weak, by Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

The world dislikes the weak, by Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

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Our children must be kept away from Obi’s mob

Published

4 days ago

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February 28, 2026

By

Vincent Akanmode
Vincent Akanmode

Our children must be kept away from Obi’s mob

Any Nigerian with an iota of conscience would be miffed at the content of a video that trended on the social media during the week. It was the motion picture of three children whose age ranged between 10 and 12 professing to be supporters of former Anambra State governor and presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 presidential election, Mr. Peter Obi. Oblivious in their pristine innocence that they were being initiated into the triple crimes of lying, cheating and forgery by those who contrived the issuance of voter cards to them, they heartily flaunted the cards meant only for adults above 18 years, threatening to vote Obi in the 2027 elections like they did three years ago.

Instructively, it was Obi’s supporters, led by the then Chief Spokesperson for the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, Dr. Yunusa Tanko, who embarked on a peaceful protest in Abuja against alleged registration of underage voters in the build-up to the 2023 elections.

During the campaign rallies that preceded the 2023 elections, the world had watched with bated breath as a 15-year-old boy identified as Alabi Quadri jumped into the road arms outstretched as Obi’s convoy approached during a campaign rally in Lagos. I was personally alarmed at the stupidity of young man’s action, seeing the possibility of him being hit by the advancing convoy of vehicles. But while I thought it was the dumbest act anyone could muster, Obi, rather than rebuke Quadri’s foolery, alighted from his vehicle, walked towards the scallywag and embraced him in the full glare of cameras. Obviously, the Labour Party presidential candidate was in full agreement that the rascal did very well staking his life for his (Obi’s) presidential ambition.

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Obi, who had earlier prided himself with not giving shishi (a dime), reportedly rewarded Quadri’s foolhardiness with an unspecified sum of money, which later put him into trouble with his colleagues and earned him a stay in Kirikiri prison for about three months after an alleged frame-up for armed robbery by some thugs in his Amukoko (Lagos) neighbourhood, who were said to be angry that Quadri did not deem them fit for a slice of Obi’s cake. They handed him over to the police, who kept him in custody until some human rights activists intervened and secured his release.

Not surprisingly, many other admirers of Obi celebrated Quadri’s display of obtuseness as a heroic act worthy of emulation by anyone worth the helm of the presidential aspirant’s black gown. Little wonder the teenager’s example has since caught on among his followers with other dumb actions and utterances. Last week, another youthful follower of the mob took the malady to the precincts of blasphemy, saying that Jesus Christ would lose if he contests an election with Obi in Nigeria. And rather than condemnation, this reckless delivery has enjoyed the approval of many Obidient members in a country where religion is as sensitive as the mimosa plant.

And before the dust generated by the sacrilegious utterance could settle, another teenager identified as Mc Aha from Imo State said he would gladly sacrifice his father and mother if that was all Obi needed to become the President of Nigeria. Commendably, the teenager’s obviously embarrassed father did not allow his son’s misguided utterance to go without a consequence. Convinced that the teenager’s outburst bordered more on crime than insanity, he ignored psychiatrists and psychologists and promptly handed his errant son over to the police.

I felt a sense of vindication on learning about the young man’s utterance, because a day or two earlier, I had been viciously attacked on Facebook for sarcastically posting that I once thought of becoming an Obidient but was discouraged by the long and tortuous process of having to undergo a surgery that would remove my brain and replace it with sawdust!

The question then arises: what exactly is the Obidient movement teaching our youths? What impact do Obi and his followers hope to make on the impressionable minds of innocent young boys and girls with the negative messages being passed to them by their mostly reckless, aggressive and abrasive older colleagues? A group that has turned discourtesy into an art. A group that has no place for the African culture of respect for the elder. A group to which age means nothing but sheer number. They address the elderly the same manner they do their apprentices and attack statesmen and eminent public office holders with the venom of a snake. A group whose leader is making a career of de-marketing his country and presenting his land of birth as the heaviest burden the rest of the world bears. What impact?

Our children must be kept away from Obi’s mob

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History and psychoanalysis of El-Rufai’s troubles with Ribadu – Farooq Kperogi

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4 days ago

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February 28, 2026

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Kperogi is a renowned columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism 
Farooq Kperogi

History and psychoanalysis of El-Rufai’s troubles with Ribadu – Farooq Kperogi

Given the depth and intensity of the friendship they cultivated over decades, many people are befuddled by why the personal conflict between former Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai and National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu has burst into the open with such virulence. As I’ll show, it’s inspired by deep-seated envy, ego trip and bruised self-construal.

Both were born in 1960 (with El-Rufai being about nine months older), graduated from ABU in the 1980s (with El-Rufai graduating three years earlier), have a reputation for boldness and outspokenness, and were stars of the Olusegun Obasanjo administration.

From the outside looking in, it appears to me that although both men had mutual admiration for each other, the scale tilted a little in favor of El-Rufai. I say this for at least two reasons.

One, according to a recent social media post by presidential aide Gimba Kakanda, who appears to be close to both men, Ribadu named his son in honor of El-Rufai. I am not aware that El-Rufai requited Ribadu’s gesture even though he has had boys. If my assumption is wrong, I apologize. If it’s right, that bespeaks a deep, unspoken, but nonetheless significant inequality in admiration.

Second, on page 358 of El-Rufai’s 2013 autobiography titled The Accidental Public Servant, which has made the social media rounds, El-Rufai revealed that when the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua sought Ribadu’s support to be president and said Obasanjo had already endorsed him, Ribadu rebuffed Yar’Adua, saying, “Well, Obasanjo has not told me, and as far as the presidency is concerned, I have my candidate for president, and that is Nasir El-Rufai. I am going to have to speak to Obasanjo about this.”

So, El-Rufai internalized the asymmetry in their admiration for each other. He took for granted that Ribadu thought higher of him than he did of Ribadu. There can be no greater endorsement of this fact than Ribadu’s perception that El-Rufai was the best Nigerian qualified to succeed Obasanjo.

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However, in 2011, when Bola Ahmed Tinubu was shopping for a young northern candidate to fly the flag of the ACN, he commissioned a public opinion poll to determine which northern candidate enjoyed the most national acceptance, according to Akin Osuntokun’s February 20, 2026, Arise News interview.

Osuntokun not only worked with both men during the Obasanjo presidency, he is also friends with them. Plus, I’ve heard this story from several people close to El-Rufai and Ribadu, but this is the first time it’s out in the open.

Osuntokun’s revelation that the national poll showed Nuhu Ribadu with a significantly higher rating (about 45 percent) compared to Nasir El-Rufai (around seven percent) is consistent with what I’ve heard.

Based on that result, Tinubu backed Ribadu’s candidacy within the ACN. It also marked the beginning of Ribadu’s relationship with Tinubu.

El-Rufai’s exaggerated self-construal of his superiority over Ribadu was badly shattered, and he couldn’t take it. But I am not surprised by the outcome of the poll. It occurred at the height of Ribadu’s popularity in the country.

As I pointed out in a past column, my own paternal uncle, a UK-educated health professional, named his son Ribadu, not Nuhu, in honor of Nuhu Ribadu’s exploits at the EFCC. When I told him Ribadu is the name of a town in Adamawa State where Nuhu hails from, he was surprised. We still laugh over it.

El-Rufai’s ego was badly bruised because he had a hard time accepting that Ribadu, who didn’t think of himself as presidential material in 2007 and who instead thought El-Rufai should succeed Obasanjo, should be considered worthier of being president in 2011 by more Nigerians. As a result, the previously impregnable walls of friendship between them began to collapse irretrievably.

By 2015, El-Rufai rode on the coattails of Muhammadu Buhari to become governor of Kaduna State. According to people familiar with the dynamics of their relationship, El-Rufai studiously used his influence in the Buhari government to exclude Ribadu.

But by 2023, when Tinubu became president, Ribadu got his groove back. El-Rufai believes that the rejection of his ministerial nomination by the Senate on “security” grounds was inspired by Ribadu, who was retaliating for El-Rufai’s own underhanded exclusion of Ribadu during the Buhari presidency.

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Most regular people with no hangups would take it in their stride and wait for their “time.” But El-Rufai isn’t a “regular” person. He must be in on the action or everything must be scattered. So, he set out to do at least three things to get at Ribadu: 1. Show that Ribadu is dangerous and vindictive. 2. Show that he is incompetent. 3. Show that he is a craven fellow who can’t return, much less match, El-Rufai’s lethal rhetorical salvos.

These points overlap. If you are vindictive but are afraid of being seen as such, then you’re a coward. If you’re a coward and you control the security of the country, then you’re also incompetent. If you don’t respond to my personal attacks, it’s because you fear that I’ll reveal more damaging information and also lack the rhetorical and intellectual firepower to fight back, which harkens back to your fitness for the job of protecting the country.

Of course, El-Rufai knows that Ribadu is anything but a coward. In The Accidental Public Servant, El-Rufai recounts an incident from their undergraduate days at Ahmadu Bello University to illustrate what he presents as Ribadu’s boldness.

According to El-Rufai, Ribadu was confronted by an armed robber who pointed a gun at him. Instead of complying or retreating, Ribadu slapped the robber and challenged him.

El-Rufai told the anecdote as an example of Ribadu’s fearlessness and impulsive self-confidence during their student years and to sketch Ribadu’s temperament early on, suggesting that Ribadu’s later public persona as an anti-corruption crusader was consistent with traits visible even as an undergraduate.

In his only public reaction to El-Rufai’s constant personal attacks, Ribadu was conciliatory and even-tempered. “Despite the incessant baiting and attacks, I have never spoken ill of Nasir on record anywhere,” he wrote on February 24, 2025. “This is out of respect for our past association and our respective families. I will not start today.”

El-Rufai’s supporters read the statement, whose grace should have disarmed anyone, as evidence of cowardice. But had he attacked El-Rufai back in the fashion that El-Rufai savaged him, the public, which tends to side with the underdog (in this case anyone outside the orbit of the reigning government), would see El-Rufai as the victim and Ribadu as the villain.

This gave El-Rufai the illusion that he was winning the war and led him to dig in even deeper with that self-sabotaging Arise News interview, which overstepped the bounds of reasonableness and landed him in the hot water he is in now.

In spite of people’s natural predilection to sympathize with the underdog, outside of partisan political circles, El-Rufai’s troubles aren’t eliciting the profusion of support, outrage and empathy anyone else would have received. And it’s because he is being given a taste of his own medicine.

For those who want to sympathize with him, which is perfectly legitimate, I leave you with these words he uttered on January 22, 2012, at the Yar’Adua Center, Abuja, at a presentation at the T2T (Transformed To Transform) Nigeria Conference for Youth Corps Members:

“We have no politics of public interest or public good. And you know the politicians proudly tell you that politics is about interest. If they don’t get what they want, they’re ready to collapse the system.

“Every military coup in Nigeria’s history was engineered by civilians. They have lost elections, right or wrongly. If a politician contests for a position and he doesn’t get it, he’ll not support a party member that got the nomination.

“He would rather move to the opposition and ensure that the person that defeated him fair and square loses the election. So, we have a political culture where the primacy of personal interest trumps everything else.

“Now, what is the difference between human beings and animals? So it is with most Nigerian politicians: everyone for himself, no one for the country, no one even for the party. It’s an interesting political culture. And it’s ingrained. Politicians believe that is the way, that is politics, and to change it will take quite an effort. This is a problem.”

History and psychoanalysis of El-Rufai’s troubles with Ribadu – Farooq Kperogi

Kperogi is a renowned Nigerian columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism.

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