Opinion

The agonies of Buhari and Oshiomhole

Published

5 years ago

September 28, 2020

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH on Monday, September 28, 2020)

For the All Progressives Congress, it’s not raining, it’s pouring but the umbrella is with the hot-chasing rival, the Peoples Democratic Party.

Each time Nigerian President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), boots a penalty kick into throw-in, I begin to ponder the importance of secondary school education as a useful tool for political leadership.

Whenever I imagine how former comrade, Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole, hid his tragic flaws, and led labour unions out against governments, only to now fall face down to the very ills of hypocrisy and highhandedness for which he had countlessly grounded the country back in the day, I take heed of the idiom, which says character, like smoke, can’t be trapped in a fist.

The illogicality of some self-indicting pronouncements by Buhari leaves so much bile in the stomach and provokes the mouth to snarl the Igbo proverb, “If the oracle asserts too much power, it will be shown the tree it was carved from.”

Last week, Oshiomhole’s rootless invincibility was dragged naked to the Ovia River by his ruthless ex-godson, Godwin Obaseki, who decimated the godfather and set Edo electorate agog.

Devastatingly, the Interstate Ballistic Missiles deployed by the coalition of enemies-turned-friends in the Edo electoral blitzkrieg also hit the chief priest of godfather politics in Nigeria, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, ripping apart his political carapace while the song, “Edo no be Lagos,” erupted in the camp of the prodigally famous PDP.

Aside from demystifying Buhari’s APC and disgracing the Lagos-Edo godfathers, the battle for the soul of Edo between the two major political parties reveals that lust for power was the superglue that binds Nigeria’s political elite, and not the love of the masses because the countdown to the election was totally bereft of masses-oriented issues but abusive rants by both parties.

I, hereby, invite Nigeria-loving comrades, not labour union-exploiting, brown khaki-wearing ‘come-raids’, into the world of Yoruba mythology as I tell the story of Ifa and Okete.

Every land has a name for the okete. Among the Yoruba, okete is the pouched rat with the famed white-tipped tail. Long before it was demystified and became a choice delicacy in earthen pot soups, okete was a bosom friend of Orunmila, the grand priest of Ifa – Yoruba’s traditional religion and system of divination. Okete was also an adherent of Ifa.

According to the Araba of Osogbo, Ifayemi Elebuibon, Orunmila grew suspicious when the secrets of his divination became subjects of discussion in the marketplace. Thus, Orunmila consulted Ifa, who told him what to do.

On the third day, as commanded by Ifa, Orunmila stood before his shrine and looked skywards, chanting some incantations and suddenly brought down his spear, driving it hard into the earth in one fell swoop. There was a violent vibration within the earth as the spear pierced an unseen creature. The creature had burrowed a tunnel from its house through to Orunmila’s shrine, where it daily listened to Ifa divinations from under the ground.

Orunmila yanked out the spear together with its kill from inside the ground and okete was seen at the long end, bleeding from a cracked skull with spilled brains. Disappointed, Orunmila lamented the treachery of Okete in these very words, “Okete, ba yi ni iwa re, o ba Ifa mu’le, o da Ifa.”

Without jibber-jabbering, the oath President Buhari swore to, on behalf of Nigerians, is to protect the Constitution of the Federal Republic. And the Constitution guarantees the inalienable right of Nigerians to aspire to any post in the land, among many other rights being more honoured in breach than in observance by the Major General Buhari regime.

The Nigerian Constitution guarantees equitable representation in appointments at the federal level – in line with the dictates of the country’s federal character policy which seeks to build national unity and foster a sense of belonging among the geopolitical zones of the country.

Buhari’s unsurpassable kith-and-kin governance, however, has consistently negated this constitutional provision with ALL key security headships, except one, going to northerners. Similarly, the heads of more than 80 percent of critical non-security agencies are from the North with Buhari hand-picking junior northerners above their far more competent southern superiors – to head the organisations.

Last week, I read with mouth agape, the strident call of a president with an unenviable track record of nepotism, demanding from the United Nations an equitable representation on the Security Council. Major General Buhari who comes to equity, mustn’t come with bloodied hands.

In a video sent to a virtual meeting by world leaders to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the UN, Buhari said there was the need for fair and equitable representation in the Security Council ‘if we must achieve the United Nations we need’.

By his penchant for clannishness, unjust distribution of appointments and projects, I’m strongly persuaded to believe that Buhari never made that equity-demanding statement credited to him by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina. That could never have been Buhari talking because equity won’t rehabilitate Boko Haram members while their homeless Christian victims are still in sackcloths, gnashing their teeth and mourning dead relatives. Equity won’t support Fulani herdsmen usurpation of southern territories while the Buhari government comes up with various policies seeking to legitimise their criminal activities.

Like okete, Buhari has clearly not stayed true to his oath to the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the citizenry.

What about Oshiomhole? For some days, Oshiomhole went incommunicado from the public after the crushing defeat in Edo only to find his voice in a gym, where he futilely attempted to downplay the PDP victory by trying very hard to appear strong, unperturbed and sportsmanly.

In the same manner that okete was eventually subdued and exposed, the one minute, forty-seven seconds video exposes a subdued Oshiomhole painfully swallowing his pride and putting up a show, pretending to be oblivious that Obaseki now stands astride a certain coffin with a sledgehammer and nails in hand.

A hitherto tough-talking, no-nonsense, almighty Oshiomhole caught a pitiable sight as he sweated and clasped his hands like a defrauded merchant, prevaricating on the electoral loss.

Oshiomhole tried very hard to gloss over the loss but he failed. Without mentioning the nightmarish loss, Oshiomhole, in the video, also didn’t mention the name of his party, his party’s candidate, the PDP or Obaseki – all screaming telltales of living in denial.

If he was as strong, sportsmanly and undisturbed as he tried to evince in the video, Oshiomhole should’ve commended the electorate and the Independent National Electoral Commission for the conduct of the largely peaceful election. Also, he should’ve praised the standard bearer of his party, Osagie Ize-Iyamu, for putting up a good fight, and spared Obaseki and the PDP a word of congratulation.

But Oshiomhiole appeared devastated by the loss that put paid to a golden opportunity to reinvent himself in his Edo home base after he was sacked in Abuja as national chairman of the APC.

In retrospect, I think Oshiomhole would probably have wished he had tolerated Obaseki and retained the Edo Government House. Ize-Iyamu too would likely have fancied his political prospect if he had remained in the PDP. May the Lord direct my steps, lest I mismove in life.

Unwanted in Abuja, rejected in Edo, it’s now Oshiomole’s turn to taste the bitter pills he served his predecessor and former National Chairman of the APC, John Odigie-Oyegun; a former Edo governor, Lucky Igbinedion, and the late Chairman, PDP Board of Trustees, Tony Anenih, whom Oshiomole boastfully declared he retired.

In the next four years, it will take political mismanagement on the path of Obaseki for Oshiomhole to bounce back in Edo, a state intolerant of godfathers who shout hosanna in the morning and chorus, kill him at night.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Opinion

AFCON 2025: Flipping Content Creation From Coverage to Strategy

Published

3 hours ago

February 11, 2026

Trends Admin

AFCON 2025: Flipping Content Creation From Coverage to Strategy

By Toluwalope Shodunke

The beautiful and enchanting butterfly called the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) emerged from its chrysalis in Khartoum, Sudan, under the presidency of Abdelaziz Abdallah Salem, an Egyptian, with three countries—Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia—participating, and Egypt emerging as the eventual winner.

The reason for this limited participation is not far-fetched. At the time, only nine African countries were independent. The remaining 45 countries that now make up CAF’s 54 member nations were either pushing Queen Elizabeth’s dogsled made unique with the Union Jack, making supplications at the Eiffel Tower, or knocking at the doors of the Palácio de Belém, the Quirinal Palace, and the Royal Palace of Brussels—seeking the mercies of their colonial masters who, without regard for cultures, sub-cultures, or primordial affinities, divided Africa among the colonial gods.

From then until now, CAF has had seven presidents, including Patrice Motsepe, who was elected as the seventh president in 2021. With more countries gaining independence and under various CAF leaderships, AFCON has undergone several reforms—transforming from a “backyard event” involving only three nations into competitions featuring 8, 16, and now 24 teams. It has evolved into a global spectacle consumed by millions worldwide.

Looking back, I can trace my personal connection to AFCON to table soccer, which I played alone on concrete in our balcony at Olafimihan Street—between Mushin and Ilasamaja—adjacent to Alafia Oluwa Primary School, close to Alfa Nda and Akanro Street, all in Lagos State.

Zygmunt Bauman, the Polish-British sociologist who developed the concept of “liquid modernity,” argues that the world is in constant flux rather than static, among other themes in his revelatory works.

For the benefit of Millennials (Generation Y) and Generation Z—who are accustomed to high-tech pads, iPhones, AI technologies, and chat boxes—table soccer is a replica of football played with bottle corks (often from carbonated drinks or beer) as players, cassette hubs as the ball, and “Bic” biro covers for engagement. The game can be played by two people, each controlling eleven players.

I, however, enjoyed playing alone in a secluded area, running my own commentary like the great Ernest Okonkwo, Yinka Craig, and Fabio Lanipekun, who are all late. At the time, I knew next to nothing about the Africa Cup of Nations. Yet, I named my cork players after Nigerian legends such as Segun Odegbami, Godwin Odiye, Aloysius Atuegbu, Tunji Banjo, Muda Lawal, Felix Owolabi, and Adokiye Amiesimaka, among others, as I must have taken to heart their names from commentary and utterances of my uncles resulting from sporadic and wild celebrations of Nigeria winning the Cup of Nations on home soil for the first time.

While my connection to AFCON remained somewhat ephemeral until Libya 1982, my AFCON anecdotes became deeply rooted in Abidjan 1984, where Cameroon defeated Nigeria 3–1. The name Théophile Abéga was etched into my youthful memory.

Even as I write this, I remember the silence that enveloped our compound after the final whistle.

It felt similar to how Ukrainians experienced the Battle of Mariupol against Russia—where resolute resistance eventually succumbed to overwhelming force.

The Indomitable Lions were better and superior in every aspect. The lion not only caged the Eagles, they cooked pepper soup with the Green Eagles.

In Maroc ’88, I again tasted defeat with the Green Eagles (now Super Eagles), coached by the German Manfred Höner. Players like Henry Nwosu, Stephen Keshi, Sunday Eboigbe, Bright Omolara, Rashidi Yekini, Austin Eguavoen, Peter Rufai, Folorunsho Okenla, Ademola Adeshina, Yisa Sofoluwe, and others featured prominently. A beautiful goal by Henry Nwosu—then a diminutive ACB Lagos player—was controversially disallowed.

This sparked outrage among Nigerians, many of whom believed the referee acted under the influence of Issa Hayatou, the Cameroonian who served as CAF president from 1988 to 2017.

This stroll down memory lane illustrates that controversy and allegations of biased officiating have long been part of AFCON’s history.

The 2025 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco, held from December 21, 2025, to January 18, 2026, will be discussed for a long time by football historians, raconteurs, and aficionados—for both positive and negative reasons.

These include Morocco’s world-class facilities, the ravenous hunger of ball boys and players (superstars included) for the towels of opposing goalkeepers—popularly dubbed TowelGate—allegations of biased officiating, strained relations among Arab African nations (Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco), CAF President Patrice Motsepe’s curt “keep quiet” response to veteran journalist Osasu Obayiuwana regarding the proposed four-year AFCON cycle post-2028, and the “Oga Patapata” incident, where Senegalese players walked off the pitch after a legitimate goal was chalked off and a penalty awarded against them by DR Congo referee Jean-Jacques Ndala.

While these narratives dominated global discourse, another critical issue—less prominent but equally important—emerged within Nigeria’s media and content-creation landscape.

Following Nigeria’s qualification from the group stage, the Super Eagles were scheduled to face Mozambique in the Round of 16. Between January 1 and January 3, Coach Eric Chelle instituted closed-door training sessions, denying journalists and content creators access, with media interaction limited to pre-match press conferences.

According to Chelle, the knockout stage demanded “maximum concentration,” and privacy was necessary to protect players from distractions.

This decision sparked mixed reactions on social media.

Twitter user @QualityQuadry wrote:

“What Eric Chelle is doing to journalists is bad.

Journalists were subjected to a media parley under cold weather in an open field for the first time in Super Eagles history.

Journalists were beaten by rain because Chelle doesn’t want journalists around the camp.

Locking down training sessions for three days is unprofessional.

I wish him well against Mozambique.”

Another user, @PoojaMedia, stated:

“Again, Eric Chelle has closed the Super Eagles’ training today.

That means journalists in Morocco won’t have access to the team for three straight days ahead of the Round of 16.

This is serious and sad for journalists who spent millions to get content around the team.

We move.”

Conversely, @sportsdokitor wrote:

“I’m not Eric Chelle’s biggest supporter, but on this issue, I support him 110%.

There’s a time to speak and a time to train.

Let the boys focus on why they’re in Morocco—they’re not here for your content creation.”

From these three tweets, one can see accessibility being clothed in beautiful garments. Two of the tweets suggest that there is only one way to get to the zenith of Mount Kilimanjaro, when indeed there are many routes—if we think within the box, not outside the box as we’ve not exhausted the content inside the box.

In the past, when the economy was buoyant, media organisations sponsored reporters to cover the World Cup, Olympics, Commonwealth Games, and other international competitions.

Today, with financial pressures mounting, many journalists and content creators seek collaborations and sponsorships from corporations and tech startups to cover sporting events, who in turn get awareness, brand visibility, and other intangibles.

As Gary Vaynerchuk famously said, “Every company is a media company.” Yet most creators covering AFCON 2025 followed the same playbook.

At AFCON 2025, most Nigerian journalists and content creators pitched similar offerings: on-the-ground coverage, press conferences, team updates, behind-the-scenes footage, analysis, cuisine, fan interactions, and Moroccan cultural experiences.

If they were not interviewing Victor Osimhen, they were showcasing the stand-up comedy talents of Samuel Chukwueze and other forms of entertainment.

What was missing was differentiation. No clear Unique Selling Proposition (USP). The result was generic, repetitive content with little strategic distinction. Everyone appeared to be deploying the same “Jab, Jab, Jab, Hook” formula—throwing multiple jabs of access-driven content in the hope that one hook would land.

The lesson is simple: when everyone is jabbing the same way, the hook becomes predictable and loses its power.

As J. P. Clark wrote in the poem “The Casualties”, “We are all casualties,” casualties of sameness—content without differentiation. The audience consumes shallow content, sponsors lose return on investment, and creators return home bearing the “weight of paper” from disappointed benefactors.

On November 23, 1963, a shining light was dimmed in America when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

As with AFCON today, media organisations sent their best hands to cover the funeral, as the who’s who of the planet—and if possible, the stratosphere—would attend. Unconfirmed reports suggested that over 220 VVIPs were expected.

While every newspaper, radio, and television station covered the spectacle and grandeur of the event, one man, Jimmy Breslin, swam against the tide. He chose instead to interview Clifton Pollard, the foreman of gravediggers at Arlington National Cemetery—the man who dug John F. Kennedy’s grave.

This act of upended thinking differentiated Jimmy Breslin from the odds and sods, and he went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1986.

Until journalists and content creators stop following the motley and begin swimming against the tide, access will continue to be treated as king—when in reality, differentiation, aided by strategy, is king.

When every journalist and content creator is using Gary Vaynerchuk’s “Jab, Jab, Jab, Hook” template while covering major sporting events, thinkers among them must learn to replace one jab with a counterpunch—and a bit of head movement—to stay ahead of the herd.

Toluwalope Shodunke can be reached via tolushodunke@yahoo.com

Opinion

“Christian Genocidization” of the Kaiama massacre, By Farooq Kperogi

Published

5 days ago

February 6, 2026

Trends Admin

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

Farooq Kperogi

“Christian Genocidization” of the Kaiama massacre, By Farooq Kperogi

When I ended my update on the heartrending mass murder and abductions of the people of Woro in Kaiama LGA by calling attention to the Muslim identity of the victims, just so some screwdriver salesman won’t use “Google” to “verify” that they are Christians in the service of advancing a tendentious “Christian genocide” narrative, I came across to some people as being needlessly overdramatic. But I knew what I was doing.

Now, look at this headline from BarristerNG, a well-regarded, law-focused Nigerian news site: “Kwara Tragedy: Terrorists Kill Villagers for Refusing to Change Their Faith, 78 Buried in Mass Graves.”

It is based on Gov. Abdulrazaq Abdulrahman’s disclosure that the people, whom the governor was careful to identify as Muslims, were murdered because they resisted the extremist version of Islam the terrorists preach.

The headline is a devious, sinister, underhanded but nonetheless visible rhetorical maneuver to give the impression that even in a communal mass slaughter where both the villains and the victims are Muslims, it was a “Christian genocide.”

When you pair “terrorists,” which invariably evokes the imagery of Muslim extremists, with murder as punishment for refusal to “change their faith,” you can’t help but conclude that the victims are Christians.

Faith is a synonym for religion. Since there are two major faiths in Nigeria, and since there has been a tyrannical, well-oiled, carefully choreographed, even if factually impoverished, amplification of a “Christian genocide” narrative that suggests that only Christians are being murdered in Nigeria, that Muslims are not only spared from this but are, in fact, complicit in this “genocide,” the headline basically implies that the mass murders in Woro were just another evidence of “Christian genocide.”

If the screwdriver salesman or his ilk come across this sort of story in a Google search, they will present it as yet another “evidence” of “Christian genocide.”

“Christian Genocidization” of the Kaiama massacre, By Farooq Kperogi

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

Opinion

Descending from Fela’s Afrobeat to Wizkid’s Afrobeats

Published

2 weeks ago

January 30, 2026

Trends Admin

Ayodeji Balogun popularly known as Wizkid and Fela Anikulapo-Kuti

Descending from Fela’s Afrobeat to Wizkid’s Afrobeats

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, January 30, 2026)

Three occupants of a black Mercedes-Benz were heading to work on a good Friday morning. One was the driver, another was the aide, and their oga patapata. They came to crawling traffic on George Street in Ikoyi, Lagos, en route to Obalende, their office. The Federal Secretariat was at a touching distance.

Suddenly, a hail of gunshots rained on the black Benz like a hundred stones from the devil’s sling. Then the tyres screeched away. Then silence. Rivulets of hot blood trickled from the heads and torsos of the driver, the aide and General Murtala Ramat Mohammed. This was February 13, 1976, the first bad Friday I knew.

The second bad Friday was on February 18 of the following year. I had bounced off to St Paul’s Anglican Primary School, Idi-Oro, Lagos, in the morning, having celebrated a quiet birthday a day before. Except for the khaki-wearing planners of sorrows, tears and blood, no one else had a foreboding of what lay ahead in the day.

My class was in full session on the middle floor of the school’s two-storey wing when the news broke and shattered peace and learning. “Soldiers are attacking Fela’s house! Lagos is on fire!”

Yeepa! Fela’s house was a stone’s throw from my school. Before the teacher finished passing the information to the class, she had grabbed her bag, just as the school bell sounded, summoning everyone to the assembly ground. Exhibiting no emotion, a fair-complexioned, slim and fatherly teacher, Mr Mayungbe, disclosed the reason why the school was closing abruptly, strictly warning pupils to head straight home.

He said pupils whose homes were around Fela’s house in the Moshalashi area should wait behind for their parents and guardians to come and pick them up. Subsequently, our class teachers brought out the registers containing pupils’ addresses, calling those whose houses were not around Fela’s house to head home. My name was called. I jumped out, my bag slung across my back and headed towards the gate.