Bobrisky, Cubana Chief Priest and Indabosky Bahose

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, April 19, 2024)

Abido Shaker! Life is a widening gyre where women fear cockroaches, cockroaches fear cocks, cocks fear men, and men fear women. A few years ago, Chukwemeka Cyril Ohanaemere was an ordinary name in Nigeria until fakery kissed bombast and vainglory took materialism to bed, birthing ‘The Lion Himself’, ‘The War’. ‘The Fight’, ‘Dabus Kabash’, ‘The Indabosky Bahose’.

Ohanaemere, the unlettered Anambra indigene, more famous for his comic displays than his cleric claims, also calls himself ‘The Liquid Metal’, which is another name for mercury. Ohanaemere aka Odumeje doesn’t call himself ‘The Liquid Metal’ because he understands that mercury is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature. He calls himself ‘The Liquid Metal’ because of the fancy the name carries.

In a viral video, 41-year-old Odumeje boasted to some fans about his numerous spiritual powers that he hasn’t used yet, saying, “…Indabosky Bahose is power, Lebadusi Prelamande is power, Abido Shaker is power, Dabus Kabash is power, Lipase Parrel is power, Gandukah Gandusah is power; those powers, I have not touched them, I’ve never used them, I’m still on Indabosky Bahose!” All na wash (in Nyesome Wike’s voice)

Odumeje’s gung-ho powers are like the sands of the beach. When angry, he can make people go deaf and dumb because he’s the ‘Warlord’, which he pronounces as ‘Worrod’. In 2022, however, when the men of the Anambra State Environmental Task Force pulled down his illegal church in Onitsha, the all-conquering God that Odumeje serves refused to rescue him. Odumeje’s God was probably snoring when the officials of the environmental task force rained slaps on him and kicked him around like a graven image.

Because of their unique adaptability nature, the female gender deserves the ‘Liquid Metal’ title much more than the jester of Onitsha. But the female gender shouldn’t undermine their flexibility and overlook a worrisome development that the case of popular cross-dresser, Idris Olanrewaju Okuneye, presents.

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Ever since Okuneye aka Bobrisky confessed before a Federal High Court in Lagos, to possessing a cock, the calm in the women’s rights community nationwide has been disturbing.

By his confession, it’s not out of place to imply that Bobrisky had seen the nakedness of women in public restrooms. In this light, I had expected Nigerian women’s rights advocacy groups to test the (in)elasticity of our laws by pressing against Bobrisky charges such as invasion capable of causing breach of law and order, intrusion of privacy, and potential sexual threat against children and women, among others. Or, how else can you explain the dangers posed when a man in a woman’s clothing uses the same restroom with unsuspecting females?

In the US, a man or woman who wishes to change their sex must first live the gender they want to change to for a year before undergoing sex-change surgery. They must also undergo a series of psychological and psychotherapy care before they can change their gender. This is to test their resolve.

Both Odumeje and Bobrisky are the creations of a society whose gaping vacuum for icons has been filled by Mammon-seeking pranksters. They are the products of a crippling economy and morally shattered nation unfurling as Paradise Lost. This is why you see the millions of Nigerians seeking guidance from yeyebrities, who themselves are lacking-thought broken spirits.

Many see the prosecution and conviction of Bobrisky for naira mutilation as scapegoating, coupled with the ongoing prosecution of a former shoemaker, Pascal Okechukwukwu aka Cubana Chief Priest, for the same offence. The position of people who hold this belief can’t be impeached because scapegoating, according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is ‘a goat upon whose head are symbolically placed the sins of the people after which he is sent into the wilderness…’. This is the same reason why the Yoruba say the fellow on whose head the community coconut is broken won’t wait to partake in it, ‘eniti won fi ori re fo agbon, ko ni duro je ni be’.

It was former President Goodluck Jonathan who defined the lack of shoes as an index of poverty. I don’t know whether to categorise shoemaking as a mirror reflecting poverty or affluence. But a background search describes Odumeje as a hustler who ‘had his humble days as a struggling leather designer on the streets of buzzing and busy Onitsha City in Anambra State’. I’m not unaware that the dazzle in razzmatazz can polish a shoemaker into a leather designer on the streets of Onitsha. Cubana Chief Priest wasn’t ashamed to reveal life on the streets of Aba, Abia State, as a shoemaker.

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Valid questions are being raised as to the parameters used in singling out Bobrisky and Cubana Chief Priest for prosecution when the children of former President Muhammadu Buhari and their powerful guests ‘sprayed’ and trampled on naira during the wedding of Hanan, one of Buhari’s daughters. I’ll offer free consultation here: the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission can pin the prosecution of the two citizens on their serial abuse of the naira, but for Christ’s sake, Nigerians need an explanation on why a musician like Wasiu Ayinde, who was garlanded by an Ogun State monarch, Oba Kolawole Sowemimo, with taped naira notes, is left of the EFCC hook. Sowemimi, who’s the Olu of Owode, was suspended by the Ogun State Council of Traditional Rulers but Wasiu was not even questioned by the EFCC for his consistent abuse of the naira. Is it because Ayinde is the bard of the ruling All Progressives Congress? For the integrity of its brand, the EFCC should explain lest the crackdown be seen as a witch-hunt.

Instead of picking on Bobrisky for naira abuse, numerous online videos of Bobrisky showing Bobrisky claiming to be a woman and having boyfriends abound. Her nickname name, ‘Mummy of Lagos’, points at homosexual allegations trailing her. In an online video, Bobrisky said, “If you dump me, na another man go kari me. Do you get what I’m saying? If you dump me, if you think you’re done with me, na another man wey dey cherish me, wey wan nack me, go kari me.”

On account of this video alone, and in the light of his confession before a court, to being a man, Bobrisky is guilty of the anti-homosexual laws of the country. Also, the EFCC should know the dangers inherent in leaving Bobrisky’s five million online followers, mostly youths, to manipulation and indoctrination.

If Nigeria had laws against homosexuality, the country should man up to defend the laws and stop hiding behind the naira-spraying fingers of Bobrisky – US position on homosexuality notwithstanding. Nigeria and the US both need each other. The ‘not guilty’ plea of Cubana Chief Priest is expected to expand the frontiers of the laws against naira abuse, and I wait to see how the case unfolds. C-o-u-r-t!

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com
Facebook: @Tunde Odesola
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Bobrisky, Cubana Chief Priest and Indabosky Bahose

The real reason government went after Bobrisky – Reno Omokri

What happened with Bobrisky just shows you the savviness of Nigeria compared to other nations and the intellectual response to governing on display by the current administration.

The Nigerian government obviously wanted to clamp down on the trending cross-dressing culture in Nigeria. But the government was also aware of the fact that any direct move in that regard would earn it the whip of the Western powers.

And being that our economy is only just improving after eight years of General Buhari’s wasteful locust years, Nigeria could not place itself in the position that Ghana now is.

On Wednesday, February 28, 2024, Ghana’s parliament passed legislation cracking down on LGBTQ rights, of which a significant aspect of that law addresses the issue of cross-dressing.

Perhaps the most powerful bloc in liberal America and the UK is the LGBTQ community, and their pushback against Ghana was quick and with a stick. The alacrity of response was not treated with temerity in Ghana. Within days, it was announced that if the Ghanaian President signed that law, the World Bank would have to reconsider a $3.8 billion loan to Ghana.

That announcement made the Ghanaian President turn blind, as Nana Akufo-Addo was quoted as saying that he had not yet seen the law on his desk, therefore, he could not sign it.

Three months after its passage, President Nana Akufo-Addo still has not seen the law. Maybe JAMB sent a Nigerian snake to eat the law!

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In case you ever wondered why President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron moved against then-President Jonathan and, in an unprecedented manner, worked against his re-election in 2015, do note that it was because, on Monday, January 13, 2014, Dr. Jonathan signed a law criminalising same-sex relationships and its appurtenances.

General Buhari’s handlers were competent. They immediately hired the same guy advising both Obama and the LGBTQ movement in America-David Axelrod. They passed the word that if Buhari were supported to be President by the Western powers, he would frustrate the anti gay marriage las that their enemy, Jonathan, signed.

In my book, Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years, I provide proof of this.

So, the Tinubu administration was in a dilemma. How to deal with Bobrisky for being a cross-dresser but not to make it about his being a cross-dresser. And this is where you have to respect the subtlety of the Tinubu administration. They found a way, a creative genius way.

Bobrisky violated a law against the abuse of the Naira. That is why a first-time offender committed an offence that even government officials engaged in during Buhari’s son’s wedding, and, despite pleading guilty, was sentenced to six months in prison.

In fact, there is more video evidence of Naira abuse via spraying at the wedding of no less a person than Abdul Aziz Malami, the son of Abubakar Malami (SAN), Nigeria’s Former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice.

And the scapegoating of Bobrisky has worked. Since his arrest, have you seen any of his ‘colleagues’ prancing about?

We used to see them almost daily on blogs and social media. The traditional media, too, could not have enough of them. They got the memo. They have run for cover since Chairwoman answered to the gender of male in court, when asked to state ‘her’ gender.

The Tinubu administration has just shown that there are more ways than one to skin a cat. And you can choose a way that will not bring you negative attention.

Now, cross-dressing will be on the wane, and Nigeria will not suffer any economic sanctions or diplomatic repercussions, as has happened to Uganda and Hungary.

The real reason government went after Bobrisky – Reno Omokri

Reno Omokri

BBC, Betta Edu, and ministry of corruption – Farooq Kperogi

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) aroused the rage of Nigerians this week when it revealed in its periodic newsletter called “EFCC Alert” (which it shared with news organizations on Monday) that it had recovered up to 30 billion naira of the money allegedly stolen by suspended Humanitarian and Poverty Alleviation minister Betta Edu.

The rage wasn’t directed at the EFCC, of course. It was directed at Betta Edu for the deficiency of morality it must take for her to steal that much money in just six months of being a minister. The rage also comes from people’s extrapolation of how much unconscionable theft of our public wealth must be going on in this administration undetected.

What sort of moral climate conduces to such stratospheric pillaging of the public till without a tinge of compunction or fear of consequences?

Just when Nigerians were roiling in the storm of EFCC’s revelations, Edu’s lawyers denied them and threatened to sue the BBC for publishing them, even though scores of news outlets also published the same story.

Her lawyers allege that the story about the recovery of N30 billion from her and the investigation of 50 banks connected to her, which we read in several legacy and digital-native news outlets, was repurposed from the BBC.

Well, that’s not accurate. As I indicated earlier, EFCC’s bulletin, called the “EFCC Alert,” is the source of the story, and it was shared with multiple news organizations, including the BBC.

If the information about the extortionate amount of money allegedly recovered from Edu is false, the blame for this should go to the EFCC, not the BBC—or, for that matter, any news site.

In order to write this column, I searched for the EFCC Alert to see what exactly it contains. I would have reached the same conclusions about Betta Edu as the BBC and other news organizations did if I were still in the news business.

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Here’s the original, verbatim wording from the “EFCC Alert” that informed the BBC story:

“Update on Betta Edu investigation. We have laws and regulations guiding our investigations. Nigerians will also know that they are already on suspension, and this is based on the investigations we have done, and President Bola Tinubu has proved to Nigerians that he is ready to fight corruption.

“Moreover, concerning this particular case, we have recovered over N30 billion, which is already in the coffers of the Federal Government.

“It takes time to conclude investigations; we started this matter less than six weeks ago. Some cases take years to investigate. There are so many angles to it, and we need to follow through with some of the discoveries that we have seen. Nigerians should give us time on this matter; we have professionals on this case, and they need to do things right. There are so many leads here and there.

“As it is now, we are investigating over 50 bank accounts that we have traced money into. That is no child’s play. That’s a big deal. Then you ask about my staff strength.

“And again, we have thousands of other cases that we are working on. Nigerians have seen the impact of what we have done so far, by way of some people being placed on suspension and by way of the recoveries that we have made. You have seen that the programme itself has been suspended. We are exploring so many discoveries that we have stumbled upon in our investigation.

“If it is about seeing people in jail, well, let them wait. Everything has a process to follow. So Nigerians should wait and give us the benefit of the doubt.”

It’s entirely possible that the EFCC meant that in the past six weeks, it has recovered 30 billion naira from multiple corruption cases of which Betta Edu’s is one. There are many clues to that in the “alert.” Perhaps the EFCC chairman has challenges with articulate, elegant, and clear communication in the English language.

However, in the absence of any countervailing facts, it’s reasonable to assume that the EFCC Alert meant that 30 billion naira was recovered from Betta Edu and that more than 50 bank accounts belonging to her are being investigated.

After all, the title of the bulletin is “Update on Betta Edu.” It also talks of “suspension” (and Edu is the only public official we know of that is on suspension on account of corruption), although it uses the pronoun “they” to refer to the subject of suspension, implying that it could be more than one person.

Nonetheless, in referencing the recovery of 30 billion naira, the EFCC Alert talks about “this particular case”; it doesn’t say “these particular cases.” So, it’s wholly within the bounds of reason to conclude that “this particular case” refers to the title of the news bulletin: “Update on Betta Edu investigation.”

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I hope the EFCC will clarify this issue for us—and, of course, be more careful in its public communication in future.

But it doesn’t really matter if Betta stole 30 billion naira in six months and salted away money in 50 bank accounts. The truth is that the ministry she supervised is a cesspool of some of the most fetid and audacious corruption that Nigeria has ever seen since the restoration of civilian rule in 1999.

Right from its inception, it was conceived as the hotbed of graft, as the featherbed of in-your-face venality. Its origins are traceable to the Muhammadu Buhar regime’s National Social Investment Program (NSIP), which was conceived to putatively contain poverty and deprivation in Nigeria.

NSIP had within it such programs as the N-Power Program, the National Home-Grown School Feeding Program (NHGSFP), the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program, and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Program (GEEP), which is made up of the MarketMoni, FarmerMoni, and TraderMoni schemes.

Former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo headed NSIP. But the Buhari cabal later realized that NSIP was a prolific cash cow that lined several pockets and missed its supposed targets. I was one of the earliest people approached to expose what the cabal was convinced was humongous corruption in the NSIP that ran into tens of billions of naira—complete with what seems like fool-proof documentary evidence.

As I said at the time, I refused to be used to amplify the internal discord of the common oppressors of the Nigerian people. When Osinbajo was using TraderMoni to induce poor people to vote for Buhari, the cabal had no problem. They only discovered his “corruption” after the fact.

So, they reached out to other fringe sources and figures to give publicity to the corruption in NSIP, which caused Osinbajo to threaten to sue a whole bunch of people. They achieved their aim of calling attention to the rot in NSIP, which justified taking it away from the vice president’s office and constituting it as a separate ministry.

Thus, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development was born. The Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration renamed it as the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.

Because it was conceived in corruption, born in more corruption, and nourished in even more corruption, it can’t be anything but corrupt. It has become the poster child for bizarre, eye-watering, consequence-free corruption.

Recall that on April 10, 2020, Maryam Uwais, then Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment, (allegedly) told Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily program that she couldn’t account for the billions that she and the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs putatively gave to weak, poor, and vulnerable Nigerians to ease the hurt of the coronavirus pandemic because, “Those who benefit from the conditional cash transfer of the Federal Government as palliative to cushion the effects of the lockdown caused by the deadly Coronavirus don’t want to be addressed as poor people. That is why we can’t publish their names.”

For her part, Sadiya Umar Farouq, Uwais’ superior, turned heads when she (allegedly) said she expended billions to feed schoolkids who weren’t in school because of COVI-19. Betta Edu was merely walking a well-trodden path in the ministry.

If Tinubu wants to be taken seriously, he should not only outright terminate Edu’s appointment as a minister, but he should also scrap the entire ministry she heads. That ministry has no reason to exist.

BBC, Betta Edu, and ministry of corruption – Farooq Kperogi

Farooq Kperogi is a renowned Nigerian newspaper columnist and United States – based Professor of Media Studies.