Opinion

Between the devil and the deep blue sea

Published

5 years ago

December 7, 2020

By Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH on Monday, December 7, 2020)

The molue is a bizarre bus. It’s a bucket of bolts with the loud noise of a helicopter. Indeed, the 49-sitting-99-standing-passenger bus is renowned in Lagos, Africa’s largest capital city, as a mobile coffin.

With the clanking sound of an engine about to knock, this particular molue, painted in green-white-green colours, jangled to a jerky stop as the driver squished the failing brake pedal to the floorboard, causing a collision of passengers against the unblunted metal edges of the shabby interior body work.

In a three-part choreographic sequence, human noise erupted from inside the molue after the deafening engine noise died down and a thick smoke enveloped the jagged metal contraption.

Cursing and coughing, Lucky, the driver of the molue, and his conductor, Sambi, were the first to emerge from the eye-peppering smoke of the bus. Swearing and sweating, passengers of the fully loaded bus emerged from within the smoke like displaced cockroaches, coughing and furious.

Purchased since 1960, this molue had not been serviced by subsequent drivers who only fed fuel to the grumpy bus despite ceaseless complaints by passengers calling for a total overhaul of the vehicle.

At different times in the accident-ridden life of this molue, subsequent negligent drivers had ignored the demand for a turnaround maintenance by passengers whose flesh, clothes and goods were daily ripped by the sharp metal edges inside the bus.

After the cloud of smoke had cleared and the black oil dripping from under the vehicle had stopped, Lucky pinched a dripping hole in a sachet of ‘Sledgehammer’ with his teeth, and in one belching gulp, drained the alcoholic content.

However, all hell broke loose when Lucky implored the passengers to go back into the bus to commence their journey to Abuja.

Lucky: Let’s go inside the bus and pray so that we can commence our journey in earnest.

Passenger 1: What kind of stupid and clueless driver is this? So, you can call for prayer after drinking ogogoro, abi? Are you supposed to call for prayer or fix your cursed bus?

Passenger 2: You kari bus komot for house, you no gauge oil, you no gauge tyre, brake no good, no whipper, no horn, no pointer, yet you collect money from us, and your motor come pafuka on top Third Mainland Bridge. Me, I no sabi swim o. I don warn you o, ehn-ehn!

Lucky: Don’t come and insult me here o. I’m not an ordinary driver, I am a graduate and I have my degrees, including a PhD. I’m here to serve the masses. So, don’t talk to me anyhow.

Sambi: (Appealing to the passengers) I’m also a graduate but I’ll speak pidgin so that everyone can understand. Na because make we no delay una for road here, das why my oga say make we pray and manage the bus to Abuja. Na small thing dey worry the bus o; na just to change the crankshaft, gearbox and carburetor, then we go make it to Abuja in 24 hours; we can still manage the brake to Abuja, my oga sabi pump failing brake well, well.

Passenger 2: You must be mad, you this stupid conductor! You want to manage faulty brakes from Lagos to Abuja, abi? It’s you that will not see 2021, you murderer!

Just then, a sparkly bus parked in front of Lucky’s shambly molue. Written boldly on it was, “Integrity Airbus.” The bus owner, Eko, came out with his garage mob, and together, they poached passengers from Lucky’s bus. A tired old man called Baba Integrity was the driver of the bus.

Eko: (Appealing to the stranded passengers on Lucky’s bus) Abuja straight! Abuja straaaaight!! No stopping for road o. Fully air-conditioned bus at affordable price. Free wi-fi, free food, maximum security of life and property, peace and enjoyment guaranteed during the journey. Abuja sttraaaaaightt! You guys know I won’t lead you astray, this bus is heading to the Promised Land straight!

(The ensuing surge for space on the bus almost led to a stampede. All the passengers, except one, abandoned Lucky’s bus and went on to board Baba’s ‘Integrity Bus’. Three passengers, Johnbull, Paine and Iya Aburo spoke freely on Integrity Bus)

Paine: Ha, see Chief Eko himself vouchsafing for this bus, it must be reliable.

Other Passengers: It must surely be.

Baba: (Speaking over the intercom) Trust me, I’m a tested and trusted driver. You know I’ve done it before. I’ll give you a trip you will live to remember for the rest of your lives.

Passengers: (Roar in applause)

Eko: You guys are very lucky Baba graciously agreed to drive you to Abuja by himself. No force in the world can stop this bus.

Paine: (Effusing joy) Yes, we sabi. Na God say make Baba show up to rescue us from the dangers on the Third Mainland Bridge and the sea under. For my life, I no go ever enter any motor driven by Lucky and his PindiPi company.

Johnbull: Na true, we all dey very lucky.

(Everyone was in amazement of the Integrity Bus – its sheen and perfect body work. But as Baba attempted to start the engine, the paints began to peel off. The engine failed to crank.)

Passengers: Haaaaa!

Paine: Wetin bi dis? Lucky’s bus still dey move small-small, dis one no even move at all. Na from frying pan to fire be dis o.

Johnbull: But why dem come build special cabin for Baba for driver seat nah? I mean, why we no fit see Baba face nah?

Eko: To drive the Integrity Bus no easy. All of us sabi Abuja road very well – armed robbers full everywhere, Boko Haram dey yanfu-yanfu, kidnappers dey berekete. So, Baba need concentration to drive and crush all the robbers, Boko Haram and kidnappers on the road.

Paine: Drive and crush Boko Haram, robbers and kidnappers at the same time? Baba na James Bond or Formula 1 driver, uhmm?

Johnbull: Abeg, wetin be di bus wi-fi password?

Garage boy: It’s not advisable to use wi-fi now because Boko Haram can use wi-fi signal to locate and blow up this bus.

Paine: Ha?! But we never even comot Third Mainland Bridge nah?

Garage boy: Yes, I know, but Boko Haram dey everywhere o.

(A baby lets out a shriek)

Garage girl: Make im mama give am breastmilk nah. Abi you no want make Baba concentrate ni?

Iya Aburo: It’s the hotness here that’s making my baby cry, not hunger. Please, switch on your full air-conditioner.

Eko: Iya Aburo, so you no sabi say air-conditioner no dey good for small pikin? Air-conditioner is a very dangerous thing o.

Johnbull: Wey the food una promise passengers?

Eko: When embarking on this type of dangerous journey, you need fasting and prayers.

Iya Aburo: Please, come and help me open the window by my seat so that my baby can get some fresh air.

Garage boy: Dat na very big security risk o; you want to expose other passengers to danger? Passengers mustn’t even touch the window blinds. Everybody should just put their trust in Baba, he’s doing a fantastic job, we are moving so fast.

Iya Aburo: But I can’t hear the sound of the engine.

Paine: I can’t hear any engine sound, too. Is this bus flying or are we not riding on Nigerian roads full of potholes?

Eko: Baba is trained to dodge potholes.

A passenger angrily yanked off the blind from the window, alas!, the vehicle hadn’t moved from the same spot it picked the passengers.

Passengers: Whaaaaat!!! Why haven’t we moved from the same spot since?

Baba: You lazy passengers can’t understand. I’m trying to make a choice between staying with the devil, that is, the Third Mainland Bridge, or plunging you into the deep blue sea below!

Passengers: Haaaaaaa!

ENDS

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @tunde odesola

Twitter: @tunde_odesola

Opinion

The world dislikes the weak, by Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

Published

1 week ago

March 3, 2026

Trends Admin

Former Northern Elders Forum spokesperson, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

The world dislikes the weak, by Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

You just knew they would not turn tail and get back to the US empty-handed. All those ships and planes and everything else that can destroy a country’s critical infrastructure and terminate its leadership massed against a country, Iran. Still, Iran negotiated between being beheaded or being disarmed.

Whether it ‘negotiated’ for a humiliating reprieve out of fear or out of ignorance will be sorted out by historians of chaos. What was beyond doubt was the certainty that Trump and Israel would hit Iran very badly. A virtual and seemingly popular uprising against a regime with its head still bowed from the last foray by the US/ Israel had been active against leaders and agents of a brutal state.

Iran’s leadership had been swamped by encircling hostility and crippled by poverty of ideas on getting out of tight corners. Still, it went through the motions of discussing with the US/Israel over demands that it dismantle its strategic assets and plans and submit to a regime of intense scrutiny reserved only for the conquered. Even as it was being surrounded by an assemblage of weaponry rarely seen in history, the Iranian leadership was negotiating through third parties, apparently hoping for a miracle.

US/Israel struck at a time and place of their choice. Iran may have misread Trump. Perhaps it thought it could buy time while he involved the US Congress before embarking on an adventure that would make the entire region immensely more unstable. Not Trump. He does not go by the book. Especially not after the last humiliating pummelling Iran received at the hands of Trump/Israel and its thunderous applause from his base.

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Perhaps Iran thought it had friends in influential places, enough of them to rein in a US/Israel virtually on the loose. If it did, it was a poor reader of the international context: the world has little sympathy for the weak, and has even less leverage over Trump/Israel. It may even have exaggerated its circles of friends and allies. Modern warfare makes it difficult to reach friends when the threat is overhead and can cause more damage than a year of ground fights. Actually, Iran should have known a long while back that it lacks friends and allies, the type that will make Trump/Israel think twice. Surrogates and proxies, yes, but friends with muscle and enough interests to scare away threats or stand with you in battle? No.

Actually, if Iran had read the world well, it would have known that only the strong make real friends and allies. The weak has no friends. If you are Israel and you exist to keep an entire part of the world in line so that you and your allies can establish their hegemony over it, you can get away with hundreds of thousands of murders. Iran forgot Gaza. Iran missed the key lesson in US positions over Ukraine, an abdication of historic magnitude. Europe is coming to terms with the futility of getting Trump to stand up to Russia over Ukraine.

Europe could have taught Iran a lesson or two on the fallacy of collective regional security and destiny, if Iran had been disposed towards building alliances. For a country that had acquired a place of note in the manner it related with the world with an identity that stepped on toes, Iran should know the global community has no power over strong nations like US/Israel. It had built a formidable military, developed advanced technology and exported its interests at great cost to itself and other countries, but it is a poor judge of reading the deeply unimpeachable relationship between the US and Israel. It thought it could exist in a neighbourhood where it is one of two sworn enemies. It saw Israel and failed to read US.

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Well, the world will now count another casualty of power. Iran will expend a few more missiles before it submits to the power of US/Israel. This will not necessarily be a victory for US/Israel. Iran will go through the torture represented, on one hand, by attempts at preserving remnants of the leadership of a regime severely damaged by its stubborn failures to accept some changes in its basic character and disposition to the world around it. On the other hand, it will battle resistance to forces that will seek wholesale capitulation and radical change that will please US/Israel.

This tussle will involve a lot of sweat and blood, such is the depth and spread of the regime in the Middle East and parts of the world. Either way, Iran will not easily settle what it represents without a fight. Iranians who want radical change will not find a world waiting for them with open arms. US/Israel are not seeking regime change for the liberal Iranian, for the oppressed, the frustrated and poor Iranian. These have to fight their battles, and they will have to take on other Iranians who will fight to recapture the basic character of the regime US/Israel think they have dislodged.

Iran’s neighbours will pay a steep price for the activities of US/Israel. The entire question of Palestinian rights will now become more complicated as proxies and surrogates chart their own courses with greater autonomy. Arab surrogates of the US who tip-toe around Israel will submit even deeper to the protection and dictates of US/Israel. The entire region will go through massive turbulence as forces fight to preserve what is left of the defiance against US/Israel, or decide over the cost of capitulation. Israel will keep at least one eye open for old, wounded or new enemies.

The world dislikes the weak, by Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

Opinion

Our children must be kept away from Obi’s mob

Published

2 weeks ago

February 28, 2026

Trends Admin

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.

Our children must be kept away from Obi’s mob

Opinion

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

Published

2 weeks ago

February 28, 2026

Trends Admin

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.”