Opinion

Tinubu: Overfed father of starving children, By Farooq Kperogi

Published

2 years ago

August 24, 2024

Farooq Kperogi

Tinubu: Overfed father of starving children, By Farooq Kperogi

The unfailingly abiding emotional investment I have in the wellbeing of common people springs forth from my experiential and mediated identification with the twinge of hunger and misery that poverty breeds.

As people who read my columns know, my father, who died on December 31, 2016, was an Arabic/Islamic Studies teacher at a government-owned primary school for almost four decades. His salary was modest and often not guaranteed both during military regimes and civilian administrations. So, my siblings and I grew up in relative deprivation.

But there were choices he made as a father that earned him our unalloyed filial respect, loyalty, and love in spite of our lack. He never ever ate outside for any reason. Even when he was invited to preside over naming or wedding ceremonies, as Malams of his stature often were, he didn’t eat the food he was offered at the venues of the ceremonies. He would always bring it home to us.

When his colleagues would ask him why he didn’t eat outside, he would tell them that he couldn’t bear to luxuriate in outside culinary treats when the children for whom he lived stayed hungry at home or ate inferior food. He thought it was unjustifiably selfish.

He also never had more meat on his plate than we had when we had lunch or dinner. Each time our stepmother gave him more pieces of meat than she gave us children, like clockwork, he would consistently share the extra pieces with us and would watch us like a protective mother hen as we ate.

If he didn’t have enough money to buy new clothes for us, he never bought for himself. In fact, he would often buy clothes for us at the expense of donning threadbare clothes. His fellow Malams were often better dressed than he—because of us.

And he always ensured that, no matter the circumstance, our school fees were paid—even if we couldn’t afford to buy all required textbooks.

We didn’t need to be told that he loved us with the entire fiber of his being. We could feel, even touch, his pure, total affection.

So, on days we had no food, or had food but without meat, and on festive occasions when we didn’t have new clothes like our agemates did, we were never resentful. We knew we would have anything if he could afford it.

And even when he disciplined us severely—and he was a strict, stick-wielding, no-nonsense disciplinarian—for our youthful transgressions and indiscretions, we forgave him easily. As young as we were, he made us understand the concept of tough love without articulating it.

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That’s why I miss my father sorely every single day, and why he continues to be my most important role model.

There is a parallel between being the father—or mother—of children and being the president of a country. Just as selfless, responsible parenting automatically inspires filial respect and love, compassionate, responsible governance engenders patriotism and makes possible national self-sacrifice from citizens.

The more I read stories of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s profligate expenditures and vain acquisitions amid the once-in-a-generation cost-of-living crisis that ordinary Nigerians are going through as a direct consequence of his economic policies, the more I think of my late father.

If my father had splurged on himself while his children starved, would we have been as emotionally attached to him as we were—and still are posthumously? Would he have been able to persuade us that we didn’t have the fine things of life because he lacked the means to buy them for us?

Nigeria has one of the world’s highest poverty rates. Most Nigerians now live in way worse poverty than I lived in when I was growing up. Yet Tinubu’s economic reforms consist basically in denuding citizens of some of the subsidies we had taken for granted—relatively cheap petrol (which leads to affordable transportation and food costs), subsidized education (which allows the son of a primary school teacher like me to go to university), etc.

The justification for these “reforms” is that Nigeria is too poor to be able to sustain programs that help the poor to survive and thrive. So, sacrifice is required to rejig the economy. Money saved from the (temporary) withdrawal of the state from the lives of the people will be invested to ensure a greater, brighter, more prosperous tomorrow. Untrue, but fair enough.

But why is the sacrifice a one-way traffic? At the time that everyday folks have been told to contend with unsustainably extortionate petrol and electricity prices, which have had a domino effect on all aspects of life, President Tinubu bought for himself a new presidential jet worth $150 million, which is the equivalent of more than N150 billion!

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This is aside from the fact that the sum of N12.7 billion has been allocated in the 2023 supplementary budget for the maintenance of the presidential air fleet. A country too poor to provide much-needed subsidies for its poor shouldn’t have a president who flies in an expensive plane or an air fleet that guzzles that much money to maintain.

The UK is a much wealthier country than Nigeria. It gives its citizens the sorts of subsidies that Nigerians have been blackmailed into accepting that they are unworthy of, but the UK Prime Minister had no dedicated aircraft until 2016 when a plane was purchased for the Prime Minister (and “other ministers and senior members of the royal family when they travel on official engagements”) at the cost of $15 million.

UK government officials, including the Prime Minister, used to charter commercial jets for official travels. Until 2016, the “United Kingdom was, in fact, the only one among the Group of Seven industrialized countries without a dedicated government VIP jet,” according to the Points Guy website.

Recall that Tinubu caused a well-deserved national stir when he ordered the purchase of a presidential yacht worth N5 billion sometime in 2023. It also came to light that he bought for himself a bulletproof Escalade SUV worth N1.5 billion, among other examples of indefensible epicurean lavishness.

In response to my last week’s column, a government apologist (who knows if he is a government appointee?) pointed out to me that, “The price of petroleum [in Nigeria] was the second lowest in the world (in dollar terms) by the time the subsidy was (partially) removed.”

He said this as an indictment. He is miffed that Nigeria had the second lowest petrol price in the world. I doubt this is even true, but even if it were true, what’s wrong with that? It’s like a wealthy but stingy father who splurges on himself telling his starving children that they don’t deserve the crumbs he throws their way because there are poorer neighbors with way hungrier children than they.

So, the rich but penny-pinching father stops the crumbs to the children but continues to luxuriate in conspicuous opulence while telling his children to learn to sacrifice for a greater tomorrow. That’s not a father worth respecting or obeying.

A president who indulges in the kind of primitive acquisitiveness and conspicuous consumption that are becoming the trademark of President Tinubu at the expense of subjecting the broad masses of the people to the most extreme deprivation that Nigeria has witnessed in living memory has no moral right to expect patriotism or willing sacrifice.

If President Tinubu and members of this government are serious about “sacrificing,” in light of the fact that Nigeria is “broke,” they should first give up their own “subsidies.” There is neither honor nor dignity in being the overfed father of starving children.

Tinubu: Overfed father of starving children, By Farooq Kperogi

Farooq Kperogi is a renowned newspaper columnist and United States-based Professor of journalism.

Opinion

Five days in Salvador, Brazil’s Yoruba city, By Farooq Kperogi

Published

2 days ago

August 1, 2026

Trends Admin

Five days in Salvador, Brazil’s Yoruba city, By Farooq Kperogi

For the past couple of years, my wife and I have instituted a yearly self-care ritual of taking at least one vacation in a part of the world we have not visited before. This year, I suggested Brazil for two reasons.

One, my interest in recreational genetics has led me to join Facebook groups where people from all over the world share their DNA results and invite conversation. I was struck by the number of phenotypically white Brazilians who show significant Central and West African ancestry. Although the Brazilians who share their DNA results on social media groups are not representative of the entire population, their results nonetheless signaled to me that African filiation in the country is higher and deeper than most people assume.

Second, I have had a faint familiarity with the surviving vestiges of African, particularly Yoruba, cultural and linguistic influences in Brazilian culture and wanted to deepen my knowledge experientially.

So, we planned a 10-day, three-city vacation. We would visit Salvador, Brazil’s Blackest and fifth-largest city, which has the distinction of being the country’s first capital and is now the capital of the northeastern state of Bahia; São Paulo, Brazil’s commercial nerve center and the most populous city in the Americas; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second-largest city and its federal capital until 1960, which is also home to the Christ the Redeemer statue, one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

Because of Salvador’s historical and cultural significance to us, we chose to spend half of our stay there. In this remarkable city, we repeatedly encountered West Africa speaking Portuguese. The resemblance was not always visible in faces. Sometimes it announced itself in food, gesture, rhythm and words whose African ancestry had survived even when their speakers no longer remembered it.

In more ways than I can express, driving and walking through Salvador was redolent of the sights, sounds, occasional smells and rhythms of Lagos.

Except for its exquisitely hilly landscape and its mixed-race and white populations, almost everything else about it reminded me of Lagos. The sight of helmeted “Okada” riders competing with motorists for the road, vulcanizer shops, street vendors, occasional unsolicited car windshield cleaners during traffic jams, bus conductors shouting destinations to attract passengers, open-air markets and the architecture of the buildings could have made me momentarily lose awareness of where I was. Only the phenotypic diversity of the people around us kept reminding us that we were not in West Africa.

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Although Salvador is Brazil’s Blackest city, and the northeastern region is the country’s Black Belt, Black people who look like me are no longer the numerical majority there. They now constitute about 34 percent of the city’s population. Mixed-race people, classified as pardos in Brazil, are the majority, with more than 49 percent of the population. White Brazilians constitute a little more than 16 percent of the city’s population.

Salvador’s demographic changes reflect a broader national trend in Brazil. Brazil’s population went from predominantly Black in 1872 to predominantly white in subsequent censuses and then, for the first time in its census history, to predominantly mixed-race in the 2022 census. According to that census, mixed-race Brazilians now constitute about 45 percent of the country’s population. Whites constitute a little over 43 percent and Blacks a little over 10 percent.

However, although Salvador is now only a little over 30 percent Black, the Yoruba influence in the city is unmistakable. The people depicted in murals are predominantly Black. Representations of traditional attire reflect unmistakably West African aesthetics.

The most recognizable monument to the city’s Yoruba heritage can be found near its center. There stands a historic urban lagoon called Dique do Tororó, distinguished by eight monumental sculptures of Yoruba and Fon-Gbe deities standing in the water.

Designed by the Bahian artist Tatti Moreno, the sculptures represent Oxalá, or Òrìṣà-ńlá; Iemanjá, or Yemọja; Oxum, or Ọ̀ṣun; Ogum, or Ògún; Oxóssi, or Ọ̀ṣọ́ọ̀sì; Xangô, or Ṣàngó; Nanã, or Nàná Bùrùkúù; and Iansã, or Ọya.

Four smaller sculptures on the surrounding land represent Oxumaré, or Òṣùmàrè; Ossain, or Ọ̀sanyìn; Logun-Edé, or Lógun Ẹ̀dẹ; and Ewá, or Yewa. The works were created during the 1990s and have become internationally recognizable symbols of Salvador’s African religious and cultural identity.

We visited the city’s historic Pelourinho neighborhood, where Michael Jackson performed with Olodum, the Afro-Brazilian percussion group whose name recalls Olódùmarè, the Yoruba name for the Supreme Being, and shot his iconic music video for “They Don’t Really Care About Us.”

Pelourinho was once a place where enslaved Africans and others were publicly punished during the colonial period. Today, it is known for its cobblestone streets, brightly painted colonial buildings, churches and strong Afro-Brazilian cultural presence.

There, we also visited the Afro-Brazilian Museum, where we found street vendors selling everything from food and clothing to artwork amid the familiar sounds and movements of African open-air markets.

We explored Salvador’s cuisine, which reminded us of West Africa in several ways. In Salvador, you cannot miss acarajé, which anyone with even a faint familiarity with Yoruba would recognize as deriving from “àkàrà jẹ,” that is, “eat akara.”

Like Nigerian akara, acarajé is made from beans, although the Bahian version is fried in palm oil. Salvador’s acarajé is then sliced open and filled with sautéed shrimp, diced onions and peppers, with chopped okra sometimes added. The acarajé we ate in São Paulo, however, looked and tasted almost exactly like Nigerian akara.

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The women who traditionally fry and sell acarajé are called baianas. They dress in white or other brightly colored dresses with matching headwraps, resembling exaggerated forms of modern West African dress. They could easily pass for our mothers and sisters in almost any part of West Africa.

We also found that Brazilian cuisine is full of something that looked and tasted to us like garri. They call it farofa, a toasted cassava flour prepared in many varieties and often mixed with palm oil. It is served alongside stews, incorporated into other dishes or sprinkled dry as a garnish.

My wife initially thought it was something else. When she tasted it and discovered that it was essentially garri by another name, she remarked that she would not pay good money to fly from the United States to Brazil to eat garri in expensive restaurants.

It turned out that cassava, from which garri is made, came to us in Nigeria by way of Brazil. The Portuguese who introduced cassava to Africa first encountered it in Brazil.

But the similarities in our cuisines did not stop there. On Salvador’s beaches, which have an elaborate nightlife, we sampled several kinds of street food. One that stood out was queijo coalho, often translated simply as coalho cheese, which tasted exactly like wàrà to us. It is a firm, mildly salty Brazilian cheese made from cow’s milk. You buy it ungrilled and beach vendors roast it for you on skewers.

Perhaps the most surprising gastronomic discovery for us on the beaches was the sight of vendors selling what looked, and even tasted, like tsire, the Hausa-style skewered meat, usually beef, coated with a spicy groundnut-based seasoning and grilled over an open fire.

Brazilians call their version espetinho. Although it is not coated in the distinctive groundnut-and-spice mixture used for tsire, it looks every bit like tsire nonetheless. It is served with farofa, vinaigrette-style salad or hot sauce.

Seeing tsire-like meat being sold alongside people hawking sugarcane made me do a double take. Was I suddenly in Kano?

By far the most mind-blowing experience for us was attending two Candomblé ritual ceremonies. Candomblé is an Afro-Brazilian religion rooted in Yoruba and other African traditions. Much of its ritual liturgy is preserved in Yoruba.

I have a working knowledge of Yoruba, and my wife, who attended high school in Ogbomoso for three years, speaks Yoruba even better than I do.

It was a surreal experience seeing Portuguese-speaking Brazilians beating drums and dancing like Yoruba people while reciting incantations, prayers and songs in Yoruba, a language they did not speak conversationally and whose literal meanings many of them did not appear to understand.

Because the ceremonies were not open to everyone, we had to gain access through a tour guide who was an adherent of the faith.

He had given his business a Yoruba name, and because he was as dark-skinned as any regular Nigerian, I assumed he spoke some Yoruba. He did not. But, like the worshippers we encountered at Ilê Asé Opô Aganju, as the shrine is called, he had memorized inherited prayers, chants and songs in Yoruba, much as non-Arabic-speaking Muslims use Arabic in worship.

The ritual language, of course, often preserves older Yoruba forms and pronunciations shaped by centuries of transmission in Brazil.

We encountered an Egúngún, a Yoruba ancestral masquerade preserved in Bahia. Completely concealed beneath an elaborate cascade of brightly colored cloth, the masquerader is regarded as the temporary embodiment of a departed ancestor returning to counsel, bless or discipline the living.

As it danced and lunged through the gathering, a cane or ritual staff enforced a respectful distance, threatening men who obstructed its path and sending spectators scrambling aside.

After the Egúngún ceremony was over and the crowd was dispersing, we heard someone say in accentless Yoruba, “Kí ló dé?” That stopped us in our tracks.

We did not know the context in which he said it, but it fascinated us. Could this be a native Yoruba speaker visiting from Nigeria or the Benin Republic? Could it be a Brazilian who had learned and understood the language?

So, I asked, in my limited Yoruba, who there spoke Yoruba. The person looked in our direction with great surprise and enthusiasm, but we had to leave because it was late and our guide had other commitments.

I will conclude this travelogue next week.

Five days in Salvador, Brazil’s Yoruba city, By Farooq Kperogi

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

Opinion

Stop, CBN! The baby is in the bathwater

Published

3 days ago

July 31, 2026

Trends Admin

Tunde Odesola

Stop, CBN! The baby is in the bathwater

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, July 31, 2026)

I invite you to join me on this journey to the Central Bank of Nigeria headquarters in Abuja, where I shall be meeting with the CBN Governor, Mr Olayemi Michael Cardoso. The meeting is neither official nor scheduled, but its importance highlights the potential harm a recent CBN directive portends for the nation’s banking sector.

The trip will be long and windy; I will be driving in my rugged BMW, which can only take a few passengers. So, the privilege to be on the trip will be on a ‘first come, first served’ basis. The journey is a rescue mission! The CBN is about to disrupt the equilibrium in the banking sector over advertisement fines, giving no room for feedback or consultation with stakeholders. Even the itinerant thrift collector, Bàbá AlájọṢómólú, talks with stakeholders.
Having traversed the nation’s banking corridors for forty-four years, with nearly three of those years as the helmsman at CBN, it is not too much to expect Cardoso, at 69, to possess the wisdom of an elephant.

I looked up Cardoso’s name half‑expecting to find “Solomon” tucked in the middle; instead, I found “Michael.” And the more I weighed both names, the clearer it became that Michael suits him better. Archangel Michael stands for protection and justice, flaming sword in hand, while Solomon’s famed judgment has long been questioned by ethicists who argue that no ruler should threaten or appear willing to endanger an innocent child, insisting that the outcome of Solomon’s judgment depended on emotional reaction, which could have been mistaken.

Instructively, the case I’m discussing with Cardoso rests more on protection and justice than wisdom, though justice rarely walks without wisdom in its shadow.

It was in the groundbreaking book, “Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences,” written by Harvard professor Howard Gardner and published in 1983, that I discovered why I always muddle up music notes whenever I sing. It was Gardner’s book that told me music intelligence was among the eight types of intelligences there are. Gardner’s work opened my eyes to a moment of epiphany when I realised that no matter what I do, I can never sing according to notes because I do not possess music intelligence. Just look in my direction if you’re looking for the king of ‘off-beat’ singing. You won’t have to mock me for too long though, as I shall enrol in a music school soon.

But Bob Marley wasn’t beset with my “off-key” fate. Still the greatest reggae music band after 45 years of dissolution, Bob Marley and the Wailers bequeathed to humanity timeless songs such as ‘One Love’, ‘No Woman, No Cry’, ‘War’, ‘Buffalo Soldier’, ‘Exodus’, ‘Could You Be Loved’, ‘Three Little Birds’, and many more. The acronym of Marley’s evergreen band is BMW.

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If you ask me which I prefer between going down on bended knees before a cheering crowd in the street, engagement ring in hand, asking my beloved, “Will you marry me?” and holding my partner in high esteem at all times? I would choose the latter. What is the essence of public display of affection when the man is a King Kong at home?

Anyway, the whole essence of dating and courting becomes promising when the man proposes and tells the lady to “Be My Wife”: BMW.

Germany produced Adolf Hitler, the mass murderer. It also gave the world great men like Karl Marx, Beethoven, Goethe, Kant, Nietzsche, Engels, and Bismarck, even as the auto world owes gratitude to Germany’s genius, which produced Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Maybach, Volkswagen, Audi, Opel, etc.

Germany is also the home of Bayerische Motoren Werke, the makers of my very first car, a three-series BMW. Is there someone who didn’t like their first car? I was besotted by my darling BMW. Young and dashing, with a dream job in hand, my silver BMW represented the five stars on the epaulette of a bachelor ready to explore possibilities, promise and passion.

One day, I took my BMW to my panel beater, whose shack flanked the Central Bank of Nigeria, Akure branch. I had just bought a stereo and the gadget wasn’t sitting properly in the radio cavity. The stereo jutted out a jot from the cavity, and I felt the panel beater would have a device to slightly expand the cavity for the radio to sit smugly.

“I’ll be back soon,” I told the guy as I trekked to my bank across the road. When I got back from the bank, the panel beater sprouted from under a car; a big smile spread on his face. “I have finished your work,” he beamed. I joked with him as I paid him his charge, and we both walked to my BMW. I got into my car and froze as I looked at the radio.

The stereo was right there sitting in the cavity. But the panel beater had gouged a big hollow under the cavity to allow the stereo to fit in, leaving an unsightly gash, like missing incisors. I looked at him for an explanation. Heartily, he sprinted from my side to the passenger’s side, got into the car and regaled me about the genius he employed to perform the magic.

I felt like punching him right in the face. But the close range he was to me in the car wouldn’t allow me to deliver the type of punches I wanted. I was too angry to talk as I watched him fiddling with the stereo and telling me the wisdom that produced his act of vandalism. So, I got out of the car, paced about as I wrestled with the thoughts of how best to avenge the wanton destruction.

When other craftsmen saw my state, they abandoned what they were doing and came over to me, asking, “Ọ̀gá, kíló ṣẹlẹ̀. Wetin happen?” It was the panel beater who answered the questions. “Ọ̀gá ń bínú nítorí iṣẹ́kékeré tí mo ṣe ni,” he announced, smiling, “Ọ̀gá is angry because of the little job I did.” So, his colleagues went to the car to see the little job he did. Everyone was aghast, vehemently condemning his stupidity and calling him names.

I got into my car and drove off with my stereo. I didn’t even remember to collect the money I paid him. That was about 30 years ago.

The panel beater’s reckless solution – a crude fix that destroys what it intends to improve – is exactly what the CBN is about to inflict on Nigeria’s banking sector. A badly worded directive that threatens to deduct from the Cash Reserve Ratio kept with the CBN, following a five-day ultimatum, is not regulation. It is panel beaters at work at the CBN

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Now, let’s unbare the issues. In a July 24, 2026, circular to all commercial banks aka Deposit Money Banks (DMBs), the CBN recalled a November 27, 2025, circular, alleging that many banks had failed to comply “with regulatory provisions on advertisement,” thereby ordering “immediate withdrawal of non-compliant advertisements”.

The latest circular entitled “Imposition of Regulatory Sanctions For Breaches of Advertising Requirement,” goes on to say that the CBN had conducted a review of non-compliant advertisements, promotions and related communications by affected commercial banks, adding that “continued circulation of non-compliant advertisements and promotional materials after the November 27, 2025, circular” has attracted fines that run into billions of naira across the banks. My investigation revealed that over 95% of commercial banks are affected in a wave of fines that range between N250m and N500m.

Accusing the affected commercial banks of unprofessionalism in their advertisements, the CBN alleged that, “Misleading claims, omitted conditions and prohibited inducements distort consumer decisions, cause avoidable harm and give non-compliant institutions an unfair advantage over those that observe the rules.” The apex bank added that “penalties are imposed pursuant to Section 95(f) and (g) of BOFIA 2020,” stressing that “the sanctions reflect the nature, severity and persistence of the breach, as well as the consumer protection risks arising therefrom”. BOFIA is the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act. It encourages sound banking practices and the prevention of misleading representations in promotions and gambling-like advertisements.

To put the scenario in perspective, a layman’s explanation would suffice. The CBN is frowning on advertisements and promotional materials that say bank customers can win a certain amount of money if they participate in a promotion. In the wisdom of the CBN, such a promotion is unethical because not all bank customers can win the promised package.

As good as CBN’s oversight appears in this context, it will amount to cutting off the nose to spite the face if Cardoso does not take a critical look at the whole process holistically. For example, the banks coming under the hammer of the CBN obtained approvals from relevant statutory regulators such as the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) and the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC). Does this mean that the alleged breaches the CBN is complaining about are different from the laws of the nation’s apex regulatory bodies for advertising and consumer protection? Are there two sets of advertising and consumer protection laws in the country? Should there not be a consultative meeting among the CBN, the affected banks and the nation’s advertising and consumer protection bodies so that a proper perspective of all the issues could be unfurled before commercial banks’ balances with the CBN are deducted?

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Given the interconnected nature of the banking system in Nigeria, as is the case in most jurisdictions around the world, the practice of deducting regulatory penalties directly from commercial banks’ accounts maintained with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) carries the risk of creating unintended disruptions. Such deductions can adversely affect the liquidity reserves of Deposit Money Banks (DMBs), funds that ultimately underpin customer deposits and financial obligations. Consequently, while regulatory sanctions are an important tool for enforcing compliance, care must be taken to ensure that their implementation does not inadvertently undermine the very financial stability and depositor interests that the CBN is mandated to protect. This concern becomes particularly relevant for several reasons.

Except the CBN takes the role of another panel beater, it should be crystal clear that if substantial penalties are debited directly from a bank’s balances maintained with it, the following industry implications may arise:

Firstly, deductions may temporarily reduce the affected bank’s liquidity position, particularly where the sanction is significant and applied without prior provisioning.

Also, the penalties may negatively impact profitability by reducing earnings available to shareholders and limiting resources that could otherwise be deployed for lending, technology investments, branch expansion or customer service improvements.

It should be noted that widespread industry sanctions can create operational pressure on banks, prompting emergency compliance reviews, forensic audits and the diversion of management attention from business growth initiatives to regulatory remediation efforts.

If the sanctions are imposed simultaneously on a large number of banks, the cumulative effect could tighten liquidity within the banking sector, albeit temporarily, depending on the magnitude of the deductions and prevailing market conditions.

Such actions may increase regulatory risk perceptions among investors, potentially affecting market sentiment, valuation metrics and confidence in the stability of the operating environment.

And there may be reputational consequences for affected institutions, particularly where sanctions receive extensive media coverage. Customers and counterparties may seek explanations regarding the nature of the breaches, even where the infractions relate to historical marketing materials rather than prudential or solvency concerns.

However, arguing from a regulatory perspective, the CBN may contend that enforcement actions are necessary to preserve market discipline, promote consumer protection, ensure compliance with BOFIA, and maintain confidence in the banking system. Sound argument!

But what is the motive behind a punitive circular that does not state the particular infractions committed by respective banks – in the face of the fact that most of the alleged infractions had been corrected by some of the banks? Why issue sanctions without allowing affected banks to respond and present their cases? By holding affected commercial banks by the jugular, without giving room for fair hearing, the CBN has chosen to be draconian. This is a disturbing trend.

I strongly think that the CBN should look inwards and evolve an organic solution to the sectoral challenge because where the alleged infractions relate to historical advertisements already withdrawn by banks, and where there is no evidence of customer loss, financial instability, fraud or prudential misconduct, a collaborative remediation framework may achieve regulatory objectives more effectively than punitive sanctions of a magnitude capable of affecting industry liquidity and operational efficiency

Cardoso, I have laid out the cards. Please, deal wisely. Use your flaming sword of protection and justice fairly.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @Tunde_Odesola

Stop, CBN! The baby is in the bathwater

Opinion

Osun election: Àtàọ́ja should stop running joro-jara-joro

Published

1 week ago

July 24, 2026

Trends Admin

The Àtàọ́ja of Osogboland, Oba Jimoh Olanipekun

Osun election: Àtàọ́ja should stop running joro-jara-joro

Tunde Odesola

(Published in the PUNCH, on Friday, July 24, 2026)

It’s midmorning in Àtàọ́ja’s palace. The sun beamed a friendly smile, quite different from the furious furnace it was preparing for the afternoon. As gently as the breeze caressed the trees in the palace, two pigeons landed on silent feet in the courtyard. They were on a joint mission. To scavenge. Looking right and left, up and down, beaks at work, wings at the ready, the bouncy birds pecked food in the palace soil. For the male and female pigeons, danger lies not in flying; it lies in walking. Sycophancy walks naked on the palace grounds.

Even the king’s kààakí was caught unawares. It couldn’t herald what was about to happen because everything occurred at a dizzying speed. The Àtàọ́ja, Oba Jimoh Olanipekun, ran out from the inner recess of the palace, his agbada òfì billowing in the Osogbo wind; kira-kita, kira-kita, the king bolted like Usain Bolt. Where is the king running to?

In his breakneck flight, Àtàọ́ja Osogbo forgot to wear his neck beads! I-m-a-g-i-n-e! But he luckily remembered to wear his cap. I suspect it was ancestral forefathers known as ‘àwọn alálẹ̀’ who reminded him to wear his shoes. Otherwise, the king might have appeared out of sorts at the state government event he was fleeing to.

Thankfully, when Àtàọ́ja Olanipekun reached his destination, he still had some breath in his lungs. He sat down, resplendent in white and blue agbada, clenched the microphone and confessed in Yoruba, “Ẹ̀ ri pé ń ò kólẹ̀kẹ̀ ọ́rùn? Mo sáré dé hin ni. Tí a bà á wá, wọ́n á ní, ‘Háà, kò mọ̀ le bọ́ta mọ́!’ Gbogbo ohun tí wọ́n ń sọ là ń gbọ́.”

I’ll translate the king’s speech in English: “Can’t you see that I am not wearing my royal beads? (It is because) I ran to this event. Because if I did not come, they would say, ‘Ha! He cannot come out again!’ We hear everything that they (opposition) are saying. I will not stop eulogising Adeleke Jackson Nurudeen for his excellent performance in Osun State.”

Unfortunately, Olanipekun thinks that by singing himself hoarse on the praise of ebullient Governor Ademola Adeleke, he is giving the re-election bid of the Asiwaju of Ede a boost. No, he is not. If he was, the apex socio-cultural association of Osogbo sons and daughters, the Osogbo Progressive Union, would not openly criticise him for publicly canvassing support for Adeleke and attacking the opposition on many occasions.

The penis of the bird does not dangle outside; it is tucked inside the bird, says a Yoruba proverb. This proverb preaches decorum. If the king had been decorous like other Osun kings, who, though, have their favourites among the governorship candidates, but who have kept their support within the ambit of decency, the OPU wouldn’t have embarrassed him with a public disclaimer.

The Timi of Ede, Oba Muniru Adesola Lawal, had been an exemplar in his support for Adeleke, who hails from his domain. The Timi had been regal: zero aggression, zero hate words, zero campaign against other parties. Oba Timi has shown emotional intelligence while fully supporting Adeleke, his son. That is how to be a father to all subjects. Of course, if Timi was blindfolded at the polling booth on election day, his royal thumb would still locate Accord Party on the ballot, whereas some carricachop from another land is claiming to know Ọ̀ṣọ́ more than Ọ̀ṣọ́’s mother.

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It’s undignifying for the elderly to run helter-skelter, says a Yoruba proverb distilled in these words, “Gbàmí, gbàmí ò ye àgbà.” Another proverb that cautions against kùrùkẹrẹ movement says, “Ẹní wọ bàtà ẹsẹ̀ òsì méjì, ó níbití ó ń lọ.”

The importance of royal objects such as crown, beads and staff is interrogated in the seminal work, “Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought,” written by Henry J. Drewal et al, and published by The Centre for African Art, New York, in 1989. Similarly, the royal totems – crown, beads and staff – are also a subject of scholarship in Rowland Abiodun’s “Yoruba Art and Language: Seeking the African in African Art,” published by Cambridge University Press in 2014.

Drewal and Abiodun aver that in Yoruba thought, the crown, beads and staff are sacred totems that signify divine authority, spiritual protection, leadership, ancestral continuity, and the king’s covenant with the people and the gods.

In both books, the crown is regarded as a sacred emblem containing the spiritual essence that connects the present with the past. Royal beads signify dignity and prestige, abundance and prosperity, and spiritual energy. The staff is an instrument of authority, justice, fairness, and protection.

Joro-jara-joro is an onomatopoeic word that means helter-skelter. Onomatopoeic words are words that sound like their meanings. Examples: buzz, hiss, slap, sleep, twinkle, jab, splash, tear, bang, etc. Joro-jara-joro was amplified by Afrobeat creator Fela Anikulapo-Kuti in his 1976 song, “Zombie”, which mocks Nigerian soldiers’ blind allegiance to dictatorship.

In “Zombie”, Fela caricatures Nigerian soldiers as unthinking brutes whose sole skill is to chaotically rove joro-jara-joro against the masses, like zombies on the mission to “go and kill, go and quench, go and die”. Fela sings, “Zombie way na one way; joro-jara-joro/No break no jam, no sense; Na joro-jara-joro….”

There would have been no reason to write this article because I had made my intention clear enough in an earlier article entitled, “Governor Adeleke and a tale of three Àtàọ́jas,” published in The PUNCH on Friday, July 17, 2026. My preoccupation in the article was to call the attention of the monarch to some of his unkingly utterances. My intention wasn’t political. But an insinuation, especially from some irritating ‘e-rats’ and ‘data boys’, who attempted to paint my intervention in political colours, made this sequel inevitable.

In line with their zombie mentality, a particular ‘e-rat’ along with his fellow ‘data boys’ accused me of meddlesomeness and maintained that it lies within the rights of the Àtàọ́ja to express support for any candidate of his choice.

Clearly, the accusation of meddlesomeness was borne out of dripping ignorance. If not, an enlightened mind would see that the actions of the Àtàọ́ja diminish his traditional stool that represents the Yoruba worldview of unity, morality, justice, fairness and equity. The allegation that the Àtàọ́ja had the right to support any candidate of his choice is valid to the extent that such a right must not violate the principles of fair play, rule of law and decency.

By openly calling the opposition names in a viral video, did the Àtàọ́ja adhere to the principles of fairness and tolerance? By his vitriolic speeches, was he not stoking the embers of strife? If I could be provided with the evidence of one Osun traditional ruler who had been as politically intolerant as the Àtàọ́ja, against the ruling party, I shall tender an apology in my next article.

In one of the bad-taste videos, the Àtàọ́ja arrogantly disclosed how he rejected wise counsel by a concerned citizen, who told him the danger in his public support for Adeleke over other candidates. His words, “One of my people asked me why I am so audacious to the extent of overly supporting one candidate (Adeleke) over others; what if he doesn’t win?”

The king answered the worried citizen. Àtàọ́ja opened his mouth and played god, declaring with finality: “He will win.” Olanipekun’s divisive posture is most unbecoming of an ọba, whose palace should be an abode to seek conflict resolution by his subjects, including politicians. Àtàọ́ja should not be the epicentre of conflict.

In the recent past, I have ventilated my views on the actions of the Ooni of Ife, Oba of Lagos, Apetu of Ipetumodu, Alapomu of Apomu, Oluwo of Iwo, and Emir of Ilorin, among other traditional rulers. I strongly believe that it behoves the citizen to hold traditional rulers to the highest standards because the traditional institution embodies the ethos and pathos of a race.

For ‘e-rats’ and ‘data boys’, whose stock-in-trade is abuse, there is a lesson in the conduct of a member of the House of Representatives, Bamidele Salam. Salam is my friend of over 20 years. Though we have had moments of sharp disagreement, emotions never boiled over to name-calling.

One day, BS, that’s Salam’s nickname, saw my Facebook post on Governor Adeleke. In the post, I advised the governor against excessive dancing and to shear off some personalities who were following him about like houseflies following the wound on a dog’s ears. In the Facebook post about three years ago, I cautioned that the image of the governor dancing to the faintest of drumbeats amid a retinue of hangers-on was not good.

As soon as BS saw the post, he reached out to me on the phone and said, “Ọ̀rẹ́, ọ̀rọ̀ ò rí bẹ́yẹn o. Your post does not reflect the great work Adeleke is doing in Osun…” I smiled from the other end of the phone because Bamidele was pushing Adeleke’s narrative while ignoring the kernel of my Facebook post. When I insisted on the need for the governor to do better in regard to dancing, Bamidele said every man was a work in progress, including me. Bamidele’s example is how to engage intelligently; a lesson government and opposition ‘e-rats’ and ‘data boys’ should learn.

The demarcation between a ruling party and an opposition party is nebulous. Practically speaking, ideological philosophies among Nigeria’s political parties are nonexistent. This is why Àtàọ́ja should be careful in his untraditional support for Adeleke. The Adeleke he sees in the Accord Party today could be in the All Progressives Congress tomorrow. Olanipekun should not burn the bridge of friendship today because he might need to use the bridge tomorrow.

This is the lesson Àtàọ́ja Olanipekun should see in his recent visit to President Bola Tinubu in Abuja. When politicians do their thing, a respectable ọba should maintain a dignified distance. He should not be in the fray.

Are you shocked that Kabiyesi Olanipekun was in Aso Rock a few days ago? Yes, he was. As a guest of President Bola Tinubu. This is the story of how the monarch used one stone to kill two birds. Àtàọ́ja’s daughter was graduating from the Law School in Abuja. An influential Osun State indigene, worried by the king’s intolerant posture against the Osun All Progressives Congress, had arranged for the king to meet with the President. It took some time for the king to meet the President.

During their meeting, the President expressed worry over Àtàọ́ja’s political remarks against the APC in Osun, urging him to allow for a level playing field. I gathered that Àtàọ́ja told the President that he was sold on the Adeleke ticket. Personally, I do not fault Àtàọ́ja’s position – supporting a candidate of his choice; it’s his brickbat approach that is reproachable.

If Tinubu could open his doors to Olanipekun and sit down to dialogue with him, who says there cannot be a dialogue between Tinubu and Adeleke? And if a dialogue occurs between the two and an agreement is struck, would the king not feel uneasy relating with his ‘enemies’ in the APC? The king should always spare a thought for the flip side of things. That is what the wise do.

“Àgbàlagbà kìí ṣe lángbá, lángbá,” is a cautionary proverb for reckless elders. The pit of animosity must not be dug too deep because the digger might fall into it. A word is enough for the wise.

Kabiyesi Àtàọ́ja, kara o le o.

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Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

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